The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is taking issue with accusations that the sign in front of the new jail cost $750,000.

Dan Christner threw the number out there at a public hearing on the county’s proposed millage rate increase of nearly 30 percent as evidence of the waste that goes on in local government.

Christner said he got the figure from Commissioner Ann Jones Guider before the public hearing. Guider said she was just estimating.

Either way, Chief Deputy Stan Copeland isn’t happy about being dragged through the mud.

“I’ve heard this $750,000 crap,” Copeland said.

Copeland said money from the 1-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) was used to purchase the lot where the sign sits and erect the sign. Jennifer Hallman, the county’s finance director, said the sign sitting along Fairburn Road cost $54,720.

The land where the sign now sits was once the site of a Captain D’s restaurant. The Georgia Department of Transportation purchased it as part of the Fairburn Road widening project. Douglas County had to bid for the land and got it for $160,001, Hallman said. That’s $214,721 for the land and the sign.

Then there’s the landscaping around the sign. The BOC signed off on spending another $273,586 out of the general fund last week for sidewalks, brickwork, flowers and shrubs to make the entrance look nice.

That gets the total price of the sign and entrance up to $488,307, a tad bit less than the number Christner used in his speech last week and again in a letter to the editor in Friday’s Sentinel.

“Well, I stand corrected. Don’t I feel like a fool,” said Christner after hearing the actual cost. “It was a bargain.”

Copeland said he isn’t “trying to throw anybody under the bus” but that the first time he saw plans for the landscaping was at last week’s BOC meeting.

“The sheriff’s office and the sheriff have nothing to do with the landscaping up there,” Copeland said. “We didn’t request it. We didn’t have anything to do with the design.”

Mark Teal, the county engineer and director of development services, said a committee composed of landscape architects, commissioners and staff members looked at different ideas for the entrance over a 6-12 month period.

He said the area around the sign will be have flag poles, places to sit, about 700 feet of sidewalk, irrigation and a storm sewer.

The county’s long-term plan includes putting more government buildings adjacent to the jail site.

“It’s like a park and it has signage for the jail, 911 and possible future buildings,” said Teal.

I AM a fan of uncomplicated, make-a-plan biotech-type ideas. They suit my “simple solutions are super” approach to life. I like the notion of solving problems and creating opportunities by putting things that don’t need batteries, Eskom or petrol to work. We’ve done it for centuries by, for example, burning wood for fire, and using animals for transport, microscopic unicellular fungus (that is, yeast) to make bread and beer, and bacteria to turn milk into yoghurt.

More recent biotech finds include the use of dung beetles to reduce methane emissions, worms to turn waste into compost, and larvae to feed on excrement so it can be harvested and processed for animal or fish food, or biodiesel. There’s also the use of Pseudomonas bacterium to break down crude oil when treating oil spills and zebrafish to decode the genetic mutation responsible for a hereditary muscle disease found in people native to North Carolina in the US.

In North Carolina, entrepreneur Matt Richmond took biotechnology back to grassroots level in 2010, when he established a small business called Rent-A-Goat to — yes, you guessed it — rent out goats to clear properties of unwanted grass, bush and weeds.

By 2011, the company, which Richmond promotes as an eco-friendly alternative to machinery or chemicals, had become so successful, he decided he’d help ensure others didn’t “miss the goat” and added to it “a worldwide listing for all goat-based brush-clearing service providers”.

Rent-A-Goat was recently included in Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Brilliant Companies. It has more than 82,000 Twitter followers and almost 16,000 Facebook “likes”.

Goats are not only useful for maintaining lawns and landscaped areas. They’re also considered the ideal weed-control and bush-clearing solution for sites undergoing new construction, and for removing invasive species and restoring indigenous plant and animal habitats. They’re also widely used to keep firebreaks clear of vegetation and to reduce undergrowth in forests.

The animals are excellent climbers, and can tackle steep and rocky terrain that’s difficult to clear with machinery. Land cleared by goats can safely be used for farming and gardening, and even children’s playgrounds. They eat about 3.5kg of vegetation a day and produce 13% of the methane emitted by cattle, and goat droppings are considered an easy-to-use and effective garden fertiliser.

Herds signed up by Rent-A-Goat work from nine-to-five with no downtime and are supervised by authorised goat managers. The animals are transported to and from work in “roomy trailers”. The company guarantees they’re up-to-date in terms of vaccinations and deworming. Prices are “competitive with commercial landscaping services”.

And, if you think hi-tech organisations don’t appreciate capric solutions, you’re wrong. Goat-using clients include Amazon in Japan and Google in California, which employ herds to mow lawns around their premises each week.

San Francisco International Airport, scene of the Asiana Airlines crash, recently hired about 250 goats to take on landscaping work. They were not, however, at the airport at the time, so the landscaping livestock didn’t become scapegoats.

Makes you parched just to look at it

TUCSON AZ – New techniques and revival of old skills can make a little water go a long way, even here in the Catalina foothills.

1. The secret to urban water harvesting is using the many impermeable surfaces that surround us: roofs, streets, sidewalks and driveways. The runoff from those surfaces amounts to a huge amount, if properly collected and used for irrigation. In rural situations, create as many hard surfaces as you can.
2. Good collection techniques can triple the amount of water that falls, so for example, the patch of garden that now needs irrigation would get about 12 inches a year. That’s still pretty dry, but it does just lift that patch out of a “desert” definition. Diverting rainfall from your rooftop and driveways can provide quite a bit of water for irrigation.

Recommended book on Rainwater harvesting

We suggest sealed, light-proof collection barrels to thwart mosquitoes and evaporation. The water in the collectors – and they have to be pretty big, because even a small area of rooftop collects a lot of water very quickly – can be used for hand-watering or hooked up to a hose.
3. Another part of good rainwater use is designing the landscaping so that water flows into rather than off of it. Most landscaping is planted in mounds – the reverse of what we should be doing. Instead of a mound, make a bowl-like topography that will hold the water runoff and organic matter. Leaves and grass cuttings, instead of going to the dump, will go into the depressions, improving the soil and increasing water infiltration. About 12-14 percent of the solid-waste stream is yard trimmings. Instead of going to the dump, it should be used on-site to enhance soil fertility.
4. City officials are learning to love these once-revolutionary ideas. In Tucson, the average residential street drains 1.25 million gallons a year, per mile. That’s enough water to irrigate 400 native trees per mile, one tree to every 25 feet. This converts a water-draining street to a water-harvesting street. In Nevada, you would get a third of water we have, but that’s still a significant amount of water. Here in Tucson an ordinance was just passed by the City Council that all new city roads must harvest at a minimum all the water from a half-inch rainstorm. That’s a great beginning.
They don’t have to worry about leaks, they don’t have a water bill. They’re reducing costs and they have a much more livable, beautiful community. So we get these multiple benefits.
5. Harvesting rainwater also would take some pressure off of the Colorado River by avoiding the significant evaporative losses that happen in Lake Mead. Also, rate-payers won’t have to pay for the energy used to pump the water up from the lake.
6. The Southern Nevada Water Authority is not a fan of “gray water” or used-water collection, Lancaster notes. (SNWA officials cite a study in Western Australia that showed an uptick in water consumption after homeowners installed gray-water reuse systems.) So the local water authority is not promoting gray water.

For more information on the Las Vegas discussion, go to www.harvestingrainwater.com

Exponent File Photo

10/13/12 Wisconsin vs. Purdue

Fans sit in the south end zone of Ross-Ade when Purdue faced Wisconsin Oct. 13, 2012.

Posted: Monday, July 15, 2013 10:00 am
|


Updated: 2:31 pm, Mon Jul 15, 2013.

Changes coming to the Ross-Ade south end zone

By ANDY FLORES
Summer Reporter

Purdue Exponent

The Purdue Athletic Department is looking into giving Ross-Ade a bit of a face-lift.

Several concepts have been presented by HNTB construction company to remodel the south end zone. HNTB has done construction on other projects like the renovation of Mackey arena. The last time construction was done at Ross-Ade was 2003 and it did not involve the south end zone. The construction done on Ross-Ade was to fix the concrete around the stadium. Now the athletic department is floating three ideas to redesign the bleachers that have been a staple in the south end zone for 50 years. The plans, however, would decrease seating from 62,500 to 57,500 in the stadium.

One concept calls for simply removing the bleachers from the stadium and landscaping the grassy area where the bleachers used to be in a decorative fashion. Another plan that was presented entailed putting in different seating and moving the student section to the south end zone. Athletic director Morgan Burke was not fond of the idea of displacing the students.

“I think it has some merit to it, but I really don’t think the students would be into it,” Burke said. “They might like the south end zone, the way it’s going to be reworked, but it just seemed like a pretty steep hill to climb.”

The third idea would be terrace level seating with a club underneath. Burke liked the idea of an open-space club where people could walk around and socialize with one another. This idea is in part to appeal to the younger graduates who want to come back with several friends and enjoy a game.

“To me when somebody leaves school they have quite got to the point where they’re married, (have) kids and all that stuff, they’re coming back to see their buddies and friends,” Burke said. “We don’t really have a good young peoples mingling space. “

All three ideas include adding a new video scoreboard in the south end zone and a smaller video board above the north end zone. Also the plans include landscaping the area around the south end zone.

Since the story has surfaced, Burke said the feedback he has gotten is about how space should be decorated. There have been several blogs that have drawn up renderings with decorative ideas they would like to see in the south end zone.

“We’re trying to figure out what the house scope looks like and they want to put the paintings on the wall,” Burke said. “They’re afraid we’ll forget the locomotive or we won’t put themes into it … that’s the easiest part.”

The south end zone has the most affordable seating in Ross-Ade, which has caused concern for some who think they may not be able to afford coming to see the football team. However, Burke insists a plan for affordable seating in the north end zone will be put in place.

“You can make the price points so you don’t take people out of the stadium,” Burke said. “That’s why I keep saying we’ll have an option, we can do family friendly pricing in the north (end zone). I don’t think people have to worry about that.”

Josh Helmholdt, a recruiting analyst for Rivals.com, said stadiums play a large role in a recruits decision to attend a school.

“The game day atmosphere, the stadium (and) playing in front of x amount of fans, all of that is factored in and considered, and part of that vibe that they get from their experience on campus,” Helmholdt said.

There is no timetable for the new design as it is still in its infancy and Burke still has to meet with Purdue president Mitch Daniels and the Board of Trustees. Also, the ideas have to be surveyed by the public to see how they receive the different concepts.

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Monday, July 15, 2013 10:00 am.

Updated: 2:31 pm.

Once you travel beyond the deep fried fair food and hundreds
of vendors, hidden behind the exhibition halls, you will find a huge,
three-acre, tribute to California’s vast agricultural heritage, at an exhibit called,
The Farm.

California gardeners got two green thumbs up for their above
average participation in home gardening efforts last year, in a market study
done by the Scarborough firm. Sacramento tied 4th in US cities in Top Local Market
for Home Gardening, reporting 58% of Sacramento home owners had gardened within
the previous 12-months. The national average was 49%.

The State Fair took note, recognizing a strong, community-wide desire
to grow their own food, while acknowledging space can be limited, adding an
exhibit called Urban Farming to The Farm this year.

As you walk beneath the trellised squash, you are surrounded
by displays of square-foot gardening, vertical vegetables, meal specific
groupings such as salsa or spaghetti, edible landscaping, companion planting
and more. Each with detailed instructions, volunteers happy to explain, and a
smartphone scanner for easy recall access when you get home.

You can learn tips on drought tolerant herbs from the water-wise-guys in the Save Our Water tent and get hands on cooking lessons in the
daily, Dirt to Dish demonstration on the Bring the Farm Home
patio.

Click here for water-wise irrigation tips. 

Click here for demonstration schedules.

For more garden tips from The Farm click here. 

Benwood officials hope to lead by example as they take steps to improve the external appearance of the city building on Main Street.

Police Chief Frank Longwell said the city building may be difficult to recognize after municipal workers and contractors give the structure a major face-lift. Longwell said he hopes the city’s actions inspire residents to take an interest in the appearance of their personal properties.

“We’re just trying to prove to our residents that we’ll all do our part, and we hope they’ll do the same,” Longwell said.

Article Photos

Photo by Daniel Dorsch
Contractors with Beckett’s Landscaping and Irrigation work on planters around the Benwood City Building.

Part of the effort to beautify city property is the installation of nine new upstairs windows at the municipal building, Longwell said. He said the old windows were more than 100 years old. Allied Plate Glass of Wheeling is the contractor for the project, which cost $15,000.

The municipal building is also scheduled to receive a new entrance sign featuring time and date information. And planters around the city building/fire department complex are being cleaned and improved by Beckett’s Landscaping and Irrigation of Wheeling for $5,000. Longwell said the city is using Beech Bottom’s city building as a model for the improvements and remodeling.

Shortly after visiting with Gary Beckett, Mayor Ed Kuca said he is pleased with the progress the company has made so far.

“What they’re doing down there is very beautiful,” Kuca said. “It’s going to really clean up that area and make it look better.”

He said the idea of fixing up the municipal building area has been in the works for two years. Whenever he or Longwell traveled, he said they made sure to hunt for ideas from other municipal buildings around the area.

After gathering inspiration, Kuca said he and Longwell brought the ideas before City Council so members could brainstorm and figure out exactly what they wanted done. Once that was decided, he said, the city included the project in this year’s municipal budget.

“We allocated $100,000 this year for beautification,” Longwell said.

Longwell and Kuca said the city hopes to have the majority of the work finished by autumn, though Kuca said renovations to the city building are likely to continue into the fall.

Other upcoming projects in Benwood include repaving three major streets and tearing down two dilapidated houses, according to Longwell.

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Photo: Better Home Gardens

If you think landscaping design requires heavy machinery and an even heftier checkbook, think again. Enlivening shade gardens, transforming boring lawn, and creating a sense of sanctuary mostly comes down to smart choices and creative ideas. So regardless of your yard’s challenges, here are five ways to spruce it up without breaking your back—or the bank.

1. Create a Stone Path
Avoid the expense and work of a structured walkway by laying a more casual stone path that requires no thick base installation or laborious fitting. “Many different sizes of natural stone will work, but I like twenty-four by eighteen-inch pieces so that it feels more like a walkway than small stepping stones,” says landscape designer Susan Schlenger, author of Landscape Design Advice. “As long as the soil underneath is firm, you don’t have to get too involved in how you install. Simply cut out the soil and set them in. If you think you need extra support, put a two-inch layer of crushed stone underneath.”

Determining a pattern depends on personal preference and space. You can place geometric stones one in front of the other, stagger them creatively, or add in curves. As for spacing, you can butt pieces, allow a few inches for grass or mulch between, or leave enough room to intersperse drought-tolerant plants like thyme that will create softness, interest, and charm.

For twelve easy-to-imitate stone garden paths, click here.

2. Add Strokes of Color
Few things can enliven a yard as quickly as well-planned color. Here’s how to ensure the effect is harmonious, not chaotic:

Please Repeat That. A beautiful yard doesn’t need lots of different plants, but it does require a sense of rhythm and continuity. Visually unify your outdoor space by using multiples of the same plant, color, shape, or texture as a recurring theme that takes your eye gently across the landscape.  

Create Mass Appeal. Plant annuals and perennials in groupings of at least three of a kind. One lily is pretty, three make a statement, and an entire swath gives dramatic reason to pause. 

Choose Looks that Last. That bloom that catches your eye in the garden center today might sadly be gone tomorrow. Overall, Susan suggests planting long bloomers like Sedum “Autumn Joy,” Fountain Grass, Yarrow, Catmint “Walker’s Low,” Coneflower, and the repeat-blooming Knock Out™ rose series. And for shade? “Forever and Ever® Blue Heaven hydrangeas are amazing,” she says. “You will see masses of gorgeous blue flowers from early summer into the early fall.”

Pick a Pocket. Plant flowers in front of evergreen foundation plantings where their color will pop against the vibrant green backdrop.

Add sculpture, furniture, and art. Introduce year-round color with pieces that express your personality. Possibilities range from a painted yellow bench nestled in the shade to a mosaic birdbath to attract feathered friends.

3. Sprinkle in a Garden Fountain
An outdoor fountain presents a win-win feature for your yard. In addition to creating an attractive focal point on your patio or lawn, a fountain also adds a soothing dimension and the mesmerizing movement of water. Numerous styles are readily available, but you can also create a one-of-a-kind fountain by transforming found objects with a reservoir and a pump. Consider just about any weatherproof item a possibility, including a large urn, a birdbath, or a set of bowls. Choose a waterproof basin to hold the pump then select from scores of different fountain sprays and nozzles to get the water pattern you desire. (If you get an adjustable recirculating pump, you can alter the flow to drown out nearby traffic noise or to slow to a gentle trickle.) And if you don’t want to go to the work of burying an electric line, consider a solar pump instead.

To see a slide show of 10 beautiful garden fountains, click here.

4. Use Drought-Tolerant Plantings
There’s good reason gardeners love drought-tolerant plants. These low-maintenance picks can tame a tough slope, create water-wise containers, and bloom in the face of withering heat. That’s terrific news for those gardening in areas with water restrictions, and equally attractive to anyone who doesn’t want to spend hours holding a hose. Your best option is to buy native plants that thrived in your area long before gardeners arrived, then plant them in groupings so they can take hold and thrive. Favorites that suit most regions include Agave, Lavender, Yarrow, Agastache, Russian Sage, Salvia, Lamb’s Ears, Blanket Flower, Amsonia, and Sedums.

5. Personalize with an Arbor
Few things can lend instant character quite as dramatically as the addition of an arbor. Vinyl, wood, and aluminum options abound, but the most striking arbors are altered to reflect the garden’s personality. Wood structures can be painted or stained, and all arbors can be embellished with finials or the addition of a gate. You might choose an arbor as thin as a single metal pipe or deep enough to tuck a small bench between the two ends. Or, arrange a series of inexpensive arbors to create an inviting alle´e.

To see a selection of arbors available at retail now, click here.

 

Waterloo Region Record

If you’ve had bad luck with your regular garden, have limited time or space, or are just new to gardening, container gardening may be right for you. All you need is a container, good potting soil, water and seeds or plants. You’ll be sporting a green thumb before you know it.

You can use almost anything for a container, as long as it has drainage holes in the bottom and will last one growing season. Search your house, basement, neighbourhood garage sale or plant centre for an old wood bucket, vintage watering can or traditional clay pot. Be as creative as you like. Remember that size matters when selecting a vessel. Larger containers hold more soil and water and will not dry out as quickly as smaller planters. To improve water retention in your soil, consider using vermiculite or other water-absorbing polymers.

Use a high quality potting soil to ensure your plants growth. These professionally blended soils contain starter nutrients, are pH balanced, and provide excellent drainage and aeration. As for the plants to use, the possibilities are endless. For example, try mixing tall grasses with colourful flowers and trailing vines. A successful container gardener is always willing to experiment. Remember to choose plants that are compatible in terms of water and sunlight requirements. For design ideas, search through magazines, go online or visit a garden centre.

Container gardening suits any personality. It can be as simple as a few pansies in a pot or as elaborate as landscaping an entire area in your backyard. Even sections limited by space, like balconies, patios and front stoops or areas limited by sun can be enhanced by these beautiful creations.

In Kitchener, Pioneer Park Home Hardware’s seasonal garden centre offers a wide selection of plants, supplies and expert advice to best prepare you for the growing season. For more information, visit www.homehardware.ca