Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Public Transit

TO:	Diane Stoddard, Interim City Manager
CC:	Casey Toomay, Assistant City Manager
FROM:	Porter Arneill, Director of Arts and Culture
DATE:	July 13, 2015
RE:	Request for City Commission consideration from the Sister Cities Advisory Board to help support the Friendship Garden in Eutin, Germany

Eutin, Germany was selected to host the state garden show in 2016.  The Landesgartenschau will include a “Friendship Garden” that pays homage to the long-standing relationship with Lawrence (see sketch-plan attached). 

The Lawrence Sister Cities Advisory Board requests $2,500 from the City to support this endeavor.  The Friends of Eutin will raise a minimum of $1,500 in private funds for a total contribution of $4,000 for the Friendship Garden.  This amount represents roughly half of the cost of the garden which will be installed and become a permanent landmark in Eutin in honor of the Sister Cities relationship.

Background:

A Theme Garden for the Friends in the USA: At the annual meeting of the Friends of Lawrence the members looked back on the many events in the past year, especially the visits of delegations to the two Sister Cities. 

They also looked ahead to the coming year and its upcoming events.

"Among those (upcoming events) will be, as chairman M. Vollertsen announced, the design of a theme garden in the Seepark area for the Landesgartenschau (the state garden show – brochure below).  The planned design calls for a plot with grass typical of the Kansas prairie and including sunflowers, the state plant of Kansas. Metal silhouettes of animals native to the plains like bison and prairie dogs will be included as a decoration.

The theme garden, for which the sister city has offered financial support, is to be retained even after the end of the Landesgartenschau as a German-American garden of friendship, as Vollertsen stated. The German town of Pinneberg sports a similar garden and a German-American garden of friendship has been in existence in Washington D.C. since 1983."

Staff Recommendation

Staff recommends that the City Commission approve this one-time request.