Two bills have been introduced in the New York State Legislature for a vote – calling for community gardens to be designated as Critical Environmental Areas. Both bills have the same wording and purpose which read in part as follows:
Requires the community gardens task force [of the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets] to conduct an assessment of all community gardens located on publicly owned land in the state to facilitate each garden’s designation as a critical environmental area.
A Critical Environmental Area (CEA) is a geographic area with exceptional or unique character with respect to one or more of the following:
a benefit or threat to human health;
a natural setting such as fish and wildlife habitat, forest and vegetation, open space, and areas of important aesthetic or scenic quality;
agricultural, social, cultural, historic, archeological, recreational, or educational values; or
an inherent ecological, geological, or hydrological sensitivity that may be adversely affected by any change.
On Monday, the State Senate passed CEA Bill S629A.
Now Assembly Bill A4139A is before the members of the State Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee.
Assembly Bill A4139A calls for a regulatory Process by which community gardens can be officially designated as CEAs.
When passed this will raise the “environmental impact review process” bar in order to help preserve & protect community gardens as CEAs.
Both bills have the same wording and purpose which read in part as follows:
Requires the community gardens task force [of the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets] to conduct an assessment of all community gardens located on publicly owned land in the state to facilitate each garden’s designation as a critical environmental area.
The State Senate bill was sponsored by State Senator Leroy Comrie. He represents the 14th Senatorial District of Queens
The State Assembly bill (A4139A) is sponsored by State Assemblymember Donna A. Lupardo and co-sponsored by State Assemblymember Steven B. Raga.
Assemblymember Lupardo is the Chair of the Agriculture Committee She represents the 123rd Assembly District, which includes Binghamton, Vestal, and Union, the villages of Johnson City, and Endicott
Please visit by email, phone or in person, the members of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, including the Committee Chair, Helene E. Weinstein, in order to communicate yoursupport for the Critical Environmental Areas Designation of community gardens along
Albany Office:
Legislative Office Building, Room 612, Albany, NY 12247,
PROTECT COMMUNITY GARDENS
Contact members of the Ways and Means Committee and tell them why you support this effort to protect the gardens and why the New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee should vote in favor of the bill. The members of the Ways and Means Committee can be found HERE
SPRING AWAKENING kicks off with our parade led by BATALA, through the Streets beginning at 11am at El Sol Brillante, 522 E. 12th St between Aves A & B, walking east to Avenue C, south on Avenue C to E. 7th St, west on 7th to Tompkins Square Park, meandering through the Park and ending at Avenue B and 9th St.
Avenue B & 8TH ST
1 PM FREE Pony rides, WITH CHARLIE AND NUGGET
PLEASE sign the pony ride waiver to saddle up
Toy Makers workshop
BRING Your old and broken toys and make them into new. Sonny & Sara reinvent timeless characters and cherished heroes into new, one-of-a-kind friends and legends. You are invited to get creative and build your own creations out of up-cycled toys!
2pm Hawk Nest Tour with NYC Park Rangers Rob and Grant, meet at 8th St & Ave B
In the GARDENS
DeColores, 313 E.8th St btwn Aves B & C
2pm Poetry
with Eileen DOSTER and friends
Music
3pm Victor & Carmine and friends
4pm “FAITH” with Felice Rosser
5pm Kid Java
6B GARDEN, the corner of Avenue B & 6th St
1 pm Let’s make Art!!
Outside on garden fence Art around the Garden, we provide canvas
La Plaza Cultural, the corner of Avenue C & 9th St
4:30 pm Kids & Family Socially distant Tango Tangles class. Dance tango connected via a rope, host DD Maucher.
De Colores Community Yard & Cultural Center, 8th St (Aves B &
6pm Standup Comedy: Joan Reinmuth and Nature Boi Comedy
Green Oasis, 8th St (Aves C & D)
6:30p Music.Family PLAN: Immaculately conceived in 2018 in Brooklyn, Family Plan is an aesthetically diverse three-person extraction. The contemporary jazz trio consists of the Canadian pianist Andrew Boudreau and two Chileans, Vicente Hansen and Simón Willson, on drums and bass, respectively. Family Plan has performed at venues such as Scholes Street Studio (NYC), Dièse Onze (Montreal), and the LilyPad (Cambridge), among others. Descendants in equal parts to the sensibilities of high- and low-brow music, Family Plan is performing this concert to celebrate the release of its eponymously-titled debut album comprised entirely of original compositions on Endectomorph
Outside of Grace Exhibition Space: 182 Avenue C, Between 11/12th streets
4:30 pm Kids: Run the Obstacle Course Challenge: painted decorated boxes become an obstacle for a children’s race course. Lead by runner & passionate health advocate Harry B. Lichtenstein.
6:00pm Wellness: Herbal Class with Noreen Kelly, ND Free Medicinal Herbal Class. We will learn how to identify medicinally viable plants, determine what is a “weed”, examine the traditional uses of these plants, look at some of the current science, and then make a tea. All are welcome. https://www.naturopathnyc.com/
:30pmSocial Protecting Wilderness: Ancient Forests and Our Future Breaths Learn about an ancient wild forest in the Yaak Valley, Montana – “the lungs of this continent” – that is under threat of being cut and sold for profit. – Write your own imaginings of what the forest has to teach us in our current age of fires – Create a silk wildflower that is native to the Yaak Valley that will be part of the body and organs of a 10-foot puppet installed in this forest. – Integrate embodied artistic practice, political advocacy and community action.
Also Friday, Oct 1 at 182 Ave C & Saturday, Oct 2 at El Jardin Del Paraiso at 4th /5th between C&D
De Colores Community Yard & Cultural Center, 8th St (Aves B & C)
6:30 pm PERFORMANCE: Tim Cusack’s “I Ping the Body Electric” reimagines Walt Whitman’s iconic ode to the human anatomy from the perspective of a 50-something, HIV-positive gay man. This solo dance-theatre piece, co-created with director Patrice Miller, foregrounds Cusack’s queer, aging, “diseased” bodily presence as the focus of the performance, in the process disrupting and challenging normative valuations concerning “masculinity,” “youth,” and “health.”
La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez (Ave C & 9th St)
FILMS 6pm “GARBAGIA” RT: 10 minutes, Or how the trash was one.
6:30 pm Film: Demeter’s Daughter, Site Work version (1997) With intro by Tamar Rogoff RT: 58 minutes https://tamarrogoff.com/
LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) is inviting all artists to paint your masterpiece in public on the fences of community gardens in the East village and Lower East Side.
Join us in “Art Around the Hood,” Saturday, June 5, Noon to 5pm.
as part of GreenThumb’s Open Gardens Day. We supply the canvas, you supply the paint and the talent. Make your statement, show your true colors Sign up at info@lungsnyc.org
20 CommunityGardens are participating in Art around the Hood
Please use with PayPal for the LUNGS CSA, $10 a week. Also send us your name, email address, mobile numbers and the date you would like to pick up your bag. Send to: CSA@lungsnyc.org
We are starting the CSA this Sunday if you are interested. It’s still $10 a bag, is open to anyone and the fresh produce comes from the Acevedos Family Farm of Orange county.
Pickup is at DeColores Community Garden, 313 E.8th St between B & C between 1-3pm If you’d like you can prepay with Paypal: csa@lungsnyc.org
Please let us know if you would like to sign up. thanks
