Case Studies for Friends Groups

Dane Park: An Advocacy Primer
By Abby Coffin

For years people have driven by the 17.23 acres that comprise Dane Park without realizing that the land behind that broken fence on the corner of Woodland Road and Hammond Street is a park with a very rich history.

2000: There seemed to be little information available about Dane Park. Brookline Town Hall did not have the deed on file. A deed from 1953 was located at the Dedham Courthouse, copied and supplied to Town Hall, and thus began an effort to restore Dane Park, and make it open and accessible to everyone.

Late October 2000: Abby Coffin, Cissy Hutton, and Margie Greville went to the Park and Recreation Commission with a memo outlining the concerns and goals of the newly formed Friends of Dane Park. The Friends proposed the following initial steps to make the Park accessible:

• Determine the boundaries of the land.

• Clearly mark access to the Park at two existing gates—on Hammond Street near the corner of Woodland Road (used as an entrance route to Putterham Golf Course during the Ryder Cup), and a gate in a new fence installed near the entrance to the new town garage on Hammond Street.

• Clean the Park. Areas of the Park have been used in the past for dumping; old metal drums in various states of decay and broken glass need to be removed.

• Evaluate possible alternatives to the current drainage system of the adjacent town garage. A storm drain from the garage property empties into the southeast section of the Park. Father James W. Skehan, professor emeritus from the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Boston College (who has published several books about the area—The Geology of Newton and Puddingstone, Drumlins, and Ancient Volcanoes ), spent the morning with members of the Friends group and Erin Chute, Director of Parks and Open Space. Father Skehan pointed out the unique geological attributes of the Park—lava blocks, pillow lava, lava flows, volcanic ash rock, and the volcano dome. The visit also afforded Erin Chute the opportunity to view years of neglect—the old dump site and the storm drain from the Town Garage.

August 2001: A Dane Park sign at the Woodland Road and Hammond Street entrance is installed.

October 2001: The Friends of Dane Park joined the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance as an organizational member.

Late October 2001: Members of the Friends of Dane Park, Erin Chute, and members of the Park and Recreation Commission met at the Park. It was almost dusk by the time the group set out with maps and a brief history of the Park. They saw debris, significant impediments to passage, and evidence of the polluting storm drain from the town garage, and they considered the location of entrances to the Park.

October 2001: Roberta Schnoor, of the Conservation Commission, was contacted about the possibility of delineating Dane Park as a wetland area. Within a few days Tom Brady, Conservation Administrator for the Town, agreed to contact a botanist to look at Dane Park.

November 2001: Abby Coffin met with the Board of Selectmen at the invitation of Donna Kalikow.

November 27, 2001: At the Selectmen's Hearing on the park the Friends

November 29, 2001: After many phone calls and inquiries, the obsolete telephone poles and wires that ran across the Park were removed at the instigation of the Town. This was the first visible sign of improvement for Dane Park.

November 30, 2001: a group from BSC conducted a field investigation to delineate the wetlands in Dane Park. One ILSF (Isolated Land Subject to Flooding) and one isolated wetland were flagged that day. The group recommended returning to the site in early spring for verification of a vernal pool. A second wetland site was, unfortunately, no longer in a clean state. With the building of the Town Garage, shrubs had been removed, wood chips had been dumped, and two culverts drain to this site. This section of the Park continues to be used by the Town Garage for drainage. The vernal pool has not yet been formally verified.

February 6, 2002: Stressing the critical nature of the environmental clean up, the Friends send a letter to the Captial Sub-Committee of the Advisory Board, requesting that Dane Park be placed on the CIP.

February 19, 2002: A park clean up scheduled for Earth Day, April 20, 2002, was cancelled. Questions about the nature of the pollution, made it impossible to plan a safe cleanup with wide community involvement. The cancellation was a serious setback for the Park, as the Civic Improvement Committee of the Chestnut Hill Garden Club had committed volunteers and support for the clean up; the students of Beaver Country Day School also hoped to participate.

Spring 2002: Erin Chute and members of the Friends of Dane Park met and agreed to apply to the Massachusetts Historic Landscape Preservation Grant Program for a $15,000 matching grant to undertake a thorough topographical and horticultural/ botanical survey of the Park, an important step in preparation for 2005 and 2006 when Dane Park is scheduled for unspecified capital improvements.

Late March 2002: The Friends began fundraising to raise matching funds for the grant. A letter was sent to members of Friends of Dane Park and to area residents. The fundraising effort yielded approximately $6,250 and the Town committed $10,000 to the cause. The stated purpose of the grant application was to complete a Natural Resources Inventory.

June 2002: The grant application was accepted for funding.

September 23, 2002: The Director of the Bureau of Project Planning, Patrice Kish of the Department of Environmental Management (DEM), wrote Erin Chute “due to the constraints of DEM’s FY2003 budget, decisions regarding grant awards have been deferred.” Currently the matching funds raised by the Friends of Dane Park are being held by the Brookline GreenSpace Alliance (a 501c3 organization); there have been no further notifications from the Historic Landscape Preservation Grant Program.

October 22, 2002: Erin Chute wrote (in a letter to the Friends) “Wetlands delineation is supposed to be surveyed by Engineering once the leaves fall (the site visit already occurred).” It is the continued hope of the Friends of Dane Park that the survey and vernal pool certification will be completed in the year 2003.

Over the past year, The Friends of Dane Park, in conjunction with Father James Skehan, the Park and Recreation Commission and the Chestnut Hill Garden Club, have created geological signs for the Park. Erin Chute has agreed to have the Town install the signs, creating a special geological walk.

The Friends have not reached its goals as set out when we met with the Park and Recreation Commission. The survey has not been completed; the storm drains have not been removed; the debris has only been partially cleaned up; signage has yet to be installed. It is still not a safe area in which to plan a volunteer cleanup day. What has been accomplished?

• One sign has been installed

• A partial clean up has occurred

• Obsolete telephone poles and wires have been removed

• The wetlands have been delineated

• A partial survey has been completed

• Geological markers have been made but not yet installed

The Friends of Dane Park believe we have achieved major steps forward with the assistance of the Town. We now patiently await the completion of these projects in the hope that we can move forward to achieve our mission of making Dane Park an accessible open space for everyone.