Next Meeting - In Person, July 24th, 4:15-5:30pm
Hello to all who have been following the work of the Pollinator Action Plan Advisory Committee!
July 24th will be the last meeting of Phase 01 and we will hold it IN PERSON at the Somerville Community Growing Center from 4:15-5:30pm. Some of us have never met except through Zoom, so this will be a great chance to have more casual conversations and to celebrate the work done up to this point. If you would like to join us there, please do! We'll spend some time going over next steps for the committee members, how the consultant hiring process will go, learning about the Growing Center, and getting to know each other. If you can't attend, don't worry! You can always share a thought or a question with us in the "Questions/Comments" tab here on this SomerVoice page.
In Phase 01, the committee met twice a month and spent their time:
- Learning about existing pollinator action plans;
- Learning about City policies and processes for hiring consultants;
- Learning about City processes and challenges for planting and maintaining habitat;
- Discussing the overarching goals of the Somerville Pollinator Action Plan;
- Developing the job description ("scope of work") for the consultant team who will write the Plan.
There were some great conversations, some good points raised, and a culture of collaboration fostered among the committee members.
Phase 02 will begin at the end of September (exact dates TBD) and the committee will shift to meeting once a month. They will make a recommendation to Mayor Katjana Ballantyne about which consultant team to hire and then will support them in developing the plan itself. Our committee members include scientists who conduct research on pollinators, community advocates with networks of passionate gardeners, City staff, among others. Together, they will help the consultant team gather the data they need, reach Somerville community members, and they will provide comments and feedback to the team as they develop proposals.
There is a lot to look forward to! We hope you will stay in touch and keep checking back for more information about opportunities to get involved during Phase 02. If you subscribe to "Stay Informed" on this SomerVoice page, we will email you when we pin down dates for committee meetings and public engagement events. Or when in doubt, you can contact us directly at spap@somervillema.gov.
Hope to see you soon!
