QUARTERLY MEETING

August 17, 2010 | Heritage Center at Maysonnave House, Sonoma

Mark your calendar for the next meeting: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley. We are excited to announce that Nick Weeks (retired from the National Parks Service) will join us as a guest lecturer. We will also be discussing new projects at that time, so bring your ideas.

We were excited at the meeting to have Patricia Cullinan of the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation (www.sonomaleague.org) join us, and some of our members very much enjoyed the lecture given by Marlea Graham of the California Garden and Landscape Historical Society (www.cglhs.org) who is also one of our members. The group agreed that more collaboration and coordination between these groups and HALS NCC could be very beneficial.

1. Chalet Recreation Field:

   Ed Yarbrough will be meeting with volunteer photographer Steven Quiñones-Colón to photograph the site. Cate Bainton and Mary Nelson produced the short format history. We hope to have the site plan completed by the end of the year.

2. Berkeley Women's City Club:

   Chris Pattillo showed the group the progress on the drawings and plant list (with over 100 identified plants!) that have been started and she explained what needed to be done to finish the project. Cate asked about the copyright issues that may come up if the drawings keep the original Julia Morgan drawings as a base. It appears that as long as we have a signed form from the Berkeley City Club that we can use the drawings (they gave us the copies), then there shouldn't be a problem as the drawings are the property of the club. Gretchen Hilyard reported on the progress made by the team working on the historic narrative including a timeline of known events that clearly illustrates where there are voids n the information we currently have.

3. Theme Park Challenge:

   Chris Pattillo announced that the challenge was closed July 31st and there were 9 submissions.

   Paul Dolinsky will announce the winners at the reception after his tour at the ASLA conference and the submissions will be on display at the ASLA conference expo in September. The competition inspired him to make it an annual event, with a different theme each year. In 2011 the theme will about cultural/ethnic landscapes, so keep your eyes peeled for that announcement.

4. National Park Service:

   Janet Gracyk brought up the professional qualification standards for landscape architects and noted that there is no category for Historical Landscape Architects. Janet brought a 1977 document from the Department of the Interior containing draft language; this language was not adopted by the secretary for the interior. Ramifications for this lack of standing include the inability of qualified Landscape Architects to place their names on the consultant list for the California Historical Resources Information System. Members present agreed that we should approach NPS about adopting this language; Janet and Cathy will coordinate this effort.

5. Membership Tasks:

   The group reviewed the ongoing tasks being performed by everyone and discussed how much time each task takes, whether that person is willing to continue to do that work:

   • Cate Bainton averages an hour or two per week keeping the website up to date, including the Google map of documented sites and the excel project list (available online). She is willing to continue for another year.
   • Fredrica Drotos spends about 30 minutes a week keeping up on the e-mail that comes through the website. She is happy to do this for another year.
   • Melissa Mourkas has done a great job of trouble shooting the membership list; she is willing to continue for another year, too.
   • PGA and Mary Nelson have done some work to find the members whose e-mails were not working. Chris Pattillo noted that of the 90 people Melissa began with, approximately 1/3 each were confirmed, updated, and lost. Once those who couldn't be found by phone or e-mail were deleted, and the list was checked again before our meeting. The membership list as back up to 89 members due to new registrants.
   • Chris Pattillo was encouraged by Ellen Johnck to continue adding sites to the potential projects list.

6. Announcements:

   Forty-nine sites' documentation was shipped by Paul Dolinsky, Director of HALS, to the Library of Congress in June. Chris Pattillo noted that of those (49) sites, three were medium/long forms, and (46) were short forms. Four additional sites have been completed since that submission. Paul will likely submit to the Library once a year (around June) unless we accumulate enough projects for him to do it more often. Paul's process is to gather information during the year, review it and ask questions until it is as complete as possible, then submit to the Library. If any members have sent a form to Paul for review, please contact Cate Bainton so that she can update the list.

   Western Hills Nursery has been purchased by people who will preserve it! If you haven't heard, this fabulous news is available in more detail in this article: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100815/articles/100819670?tc=ar

   Pier 70 in San Francisco is an old shipyard on 66 acres with 13 historic buildings. Ellen Johnck brought this site to the group's attention because an RFP for development has been issued for "modernization and remediation."

   Doyle Drive was featured in the Heritage News Quarterly in an article by Chris Pattillo. Cathy Garrett circulated a copy.

After the meeting six members enjoyed a wonderful dinner at The Girl and the Fig on Sonoma Square. Dinner after the meetings is a fun tradition that we usually observe, it is a great way to get to know each other better.