Parks and Rec. Meeting: July 9, 2025
The Lambertville Parks and Recreation Committee met at 7pm on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.
Mary Anne Borge, the board chair, called the meeting to order.
Jim, Missy, Jenn, Mary Anne, Mike, Carol, and Barry were in attendance.
They approved the minutes from last month with two small corrections.
Public Comments
Peter was interested to find out about the Closson Farm property. The board said they’d get to that topic soon.
Updates
Mary Anne said prices have gone up on benches and memorial plaques. Missy was still interested in donating a bench.
They did the weeding at the Cherry Street fence lot, and the board said it looked good.
Mary E. Sheridan Park
Mary Anne submitted the final report for the grant for Mary Sheridan Park. She is looking to do other stuff there in the fall.
Music Mountain
The Music Mountain storm water work is essentially complete. Mary Anne was surprised that the workers just seeded, so she wants to plant some trees in the impacted area. She said she should know more about it by next month.
Holcombe Park
The Holcombe Park restoration project has additional work to be done. Construction is not scheduled to begin until fall of next year. They were able to weed the beds around the house, and they will get plants next week. Planting happens on July 14th. They will be at Holcombe Park at about 10:15am to move 100 plants that day, and they will do the planting at around 9:30am the following day. They expect six or seven people to participate.
Peter asked if they considered putting picnic benches up at the top of the park, but the board said they will wait until the storm water mitigation work is done.
Cavallo Park
Cavallo Park’s soil remediation is undergoing additional testing. Composition of the soil determines how they will do the remediation. The project won’t go out for bid until (probably) August, so the park will likely be out of commission for the rest of the year.
Park Stewards
The Park Stewards continue to do weekend clean ups around town, and there has been trash in public places overall.
Ely Field Signage
A board member took photos of signs at Cavallo Park so the board can better figure out how they want to post a sign at Ely Field. They kept the verbiage of the sign simple: no alcohol, no glass bottles, adult supervision required, no dogs, and park hours.
Mary Anne said that, to get signs approved, they have to come up with verbiage, and she will check with Cindy Ege for more information. The county could make the signs, so they will compare prices with private and county sign makers to see which is cheaper. Any verbiage has to be approved by the insurance company. They want the signs to be concise and not too wordy.
Mary Anne said the entire process is that they try to find out what they need to include, then they run it by the insurance company, and then it also goes before the HPC (Historic Preservation Committee) as a courtesy.
Mike said that in Mexico they use pictures in their signs to make them more universal. Another board member pointed out that Lambertville has a multilingual community. The board thought that using images was an interesting idea. They also considered having the sign be written in English and Spanish. They will look for universal symbols to see what’s possible.
Website
The website has not been updated. People have been emailing wildlife sightings to the city. They got an email about a flock, and about a muskrat. Many of the sightings were on the towpath in Lambertville. There was some discussion about posting the information on the website.
“We are not positioned to display them anywhere to say these are what people are seeing,” said Mary Anne.
Nature Programs
They made significant progress with the Hunterdon County Park nature programs and wondered how many programs they wanted to run.
Missy suggested they start small and scale up. The board discussed holding two events for older kids and four for younger kids. They discussed which programs would best suit which age groups and they talked about trying to list at least one program that has a full age range.
They deliberated about dates and topics. The insect program was not available. Simple Basket with Beads or the Birdhouse? Each program costs $70. Some have an additional fee of $4.50 for supplies.
“A lot of hammers will be whacking with second graders,” Mike warned.
They talked about dates, topics, and logistics. Missy suggested they just do stuff for the little kids since the little kids don’t have a playground.
They decided to focus on the younger kids with two summer dates for younger kids and they’d hold the two later dates for older kids in case they want to do that. Missy said she would get back to Mary Anne the next day about dates.
Jim asked about charging money for the workshops. Missy suggested putting out a “passive basket” for donations. Mary Anne said she’d rather offer the events for free.
Holcombe House might be able to host the programs, but if not they planned to use City Hall as a backup. Mary Anne said Andrew was checking with City Council about the location.
Ultimately they chose ‘Insects and Birds’ for preschool, and tentatively ‘Leaves and Seeds’ for preschool. Mike said all of the programs look awesome.
Mary Anne said there will be preregistration since there is limited room, and they discussed how to handle that. She said she would know by Monday if it’s at Holcombe House or City Hall.
The four programs will cost $280. Carol said that’s a significant portion of the budget, but Mary Anne said it’s okay.
The board approved the first two workshops and tentatively approved the latter workshops for the fall.
Downed Trees
Mary Anne said there were downed trees on the Chestnut Oak Trail. There were even more than there is now, but DPW removed a few. The Park Stewards might take on some of it, because DPW is limited on what they can do outside due to OSHA requirements.
“If the Park Stewards do it, it’ll be a while before it gets done,” said Mary Anne.
Lambertstock
Lambertstock was getting a lot of likes on Facebook, but it might rain that day. A promotion for the event will go in Lambertville Matters. If it rains, the event will get canceled. If it gets canceled, Barry said he would call it by 3pm and a notice will go out on Facebook.
Butterfly Festival
A Butterfly Festival is planned for September 13, 2025. It was a native plant sale, but they are turning into a Butterfly Festival.
The event will have face painting, story time with Miss Danielle, a scavenger hunt, and it will likely be held at Ely Field. They also expect chalk art zones on the pavement, crafts, a caterpillar crawl obstacle course, and a snack station for the kids. There might be a face board with a butterfly on it and hole to put your face and take photos. They don’t need funds for it.
Mary Anne suggested a Butterfly Festival photo contest for adults where the entry photos could be posted on Lambertville Goes Wild. Missy asked who will sponsor it. Mary Anne said she was open, and suggested a gift certificate as a prize. The board wasn’t too excited about the photo contest.
Barry thought it was weird to have a Butterfly Festival without any butterflies. He said they can purchase Monarchs and caterpillars—he used to raise and release them in his classroom.
Mary Anne said “you can spread disease that way” and she pointed out that the North American Butterfly Association doesn’t encourage doing that.
Missy suggested that they could teach how to make a habitat for butterflies. Barry said if you plant milkweed, you will get eggs laid in them.
Mary Anne questioned whether they could get it in place by September. They discussed how to make space for butterflies, and what they could teach in a day. They wondered where in Ely Park could they do these things.
Mary Anne said, “do as much as you can,” and they’ll look into creating a butterfly garden.
The board hoped that since the plant vendors knew it’s a butterfly festival, that they will bring butterfly-centric plants. Mary Anne said they have pussy toes, which attracts butterflies.
They further discussed, and then nixed, the photo contest. Missy doesn’t feel it would generate a return for the time and output.
Mary Sheridan Bench
The Mary Sheridan bench should ship around July 14th.
Cherry Street Plantings
There are three dead trees at Cherry Street that Mary Anne wants to replace. The board hoped the sewer authority will replace the trees they yanked out. It could cost as much as $2,500. Mary Anne made a motion to approve spending $2,500 if they can’t get donations. They would do it in the fall. They approved the motion.
Mary Anne said they might also do some supplemental gardening, and the board approved $250 for plant replacements. They can take it from the budget for this year. They want to mulch the beds to minimize the need for weeding. The board passed a motion to approve $375 to deliver and spread mulch.
Junior Stewards
Jenn talked about a Junior Park Stewards program where they would get kids to help with clean ups and the Butterfly Festival, and give them some voice in the decision making. Everyone thought it was a terrific idea.
Barry criticized the copy on Jenn’s proposal. Jenn said anyone who wants to look it over and give feedback can. She suggested that they can all lead a station.
Jim asked who sponsors it and how does insurance play into it. The board worried that they might not be able get this kind of program up and running by August. They discussed having to check it out as far as insurance, and also pointed out that it’s almost back-to-school time.
Mary Anne said they need insurance and parent approval with every event. The board loved the idea and wanted to move forward with it, but they recognized that it will take time.
Missy said looking at next year’s budget as a whole is beneficial, and they discussed introducing it in the spring around Earth Month next year, and they will talk more about it to find out about insurance.
Fans in Ely Park Pavilion
Missy suggested installing fans in the pavilion at Ely Park, because it’s so “ungodly hot.” Barry said they are bringing fans for the band for the concert. Missy said Cavallo was shady and parents are missing that park.
Mary Anne said Cavallo being out of commission is just temporary.
Missy asked if anyone is open to the fans. Board members pointed out that there is only one outlet out there, and they wondered how it would work.
“Who turns it on and off, and when?” a board member asked.
Jenn imagined kids hanging on it. Jim said the fan will not last. It was suggested that they plant more shade trees.
Mary Anne said she gets emails from equipment companies all the time, and they sell shade tarps, but it was pointed out that it could cause trouble in storms. They said they stopped doing camps there, because they don’t have an indoor space and it’s too hot outside.
Mary Anne didn’t think a fan was a viable idea. Missy said she will do some investigating to see what other places do.
“How can we put something there that won’t be destroyed?” Jim asked.
Missy said she will work on trying to figure things out. She said the heat in Ely park is a really big problem.
Jim said it’s a tough park to put something nice into. “Ely draws all ages,” he said. It was mentioned that Cavallo draws a younger crowd.
Pine Tree Thinning
The Pine Tree at Mary E. Sheridan Park has to be thinned out a bit, because it’s still dropping branches. Mary Anne will look for more information for next meeting about the landscape plan.
Mary Anne suggested that she and Jim should walk the Ely Field canal and see if there might be funding sources to do work there.
Facility Requests
A temporary bicycle station that requested to use Ely Field moved their request to Mary E. Sheridan Park after learning there was already an event booked at Ely Field. The board approve all of the park use requests.
The meeting adjourned at 8:20 p.m.
Corrected on August 13, 2025: a previous version of this story had attributed Barry’s comments to Mike and vice versa.
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