Oak Meyer Gardens, a Kansas City Homes Association

Thanks to the hard work of resident Jim Roddy, Oak Meyer Gardens is the beneficiary of a program that will provide nearly 50 new trees to our neighborhood. We are tentatively set to plant trees along streets and sidewalks in and around Oak Meyer Gardens on Saturday, April 7, from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

Call for Volunteers
We need volunteers to help plant trees the morning of April 7th. We may plant as many as 50 trees that morning. The trees are only 3 feet tall, so the holes won’t be deep. If you’re interested in volunteering that morning, please contact project manager, Jim Roddy at [email protected] or (816) 582-0885.

If you haven’t done so already, there is still time to claim a free tree. If you or a neighbor could use a tree along a sidewalk or side street, contact Jim as soon as possible. He will send you more information as we get closer to the date.

Oak Meyer Gardens is one of 4 neighborhood associations chosen to receive a total of 500 free trees to be planted near sidewalks on a Saturday in April.  You may have read about this program in a recent article in the Kansas City Star. The project, which is being managed by the Bridging the Gap’s Heartland Tree Alliance in cooperation with the City, is an effort to replace many of the trees we’ve lost near the sidewalks in our neighborhoods.

Who Qualifies for a Free Tree?
If you don’t have any trees within the city’s right of way between the curb and the sidewalk, or if you’re missing trees in that space, you can sign up to receive a free tree. To get a tree, you need to participate in the planting, and agree to water the tree until it is established. The Heartland Tree Alliance of KC will serve as a resource for any questions you have after the tree is planted.

How to Get Your Free Tree
Oak Meyer Gardens resident, Jim Roddy, has volunteered to coordinate the effort for our neighborhood by taking inventory of our missing trees. If you want a tree, please call or email Jim in the next several days ([email protected] / 816-582-0885 /816-333-4035). He will stop by to talk to you about the program for a minute, and get you signed up for your free tree.  At some point in March, the City will check your property  to confirm that you should get a tree, and to determine what type of tree would be appropriate (there won’t be any Sweet gum trees!). On a designated day in April, the trees will be made available for pickup and planting.

How to Get Involved
If you know anyone who lives within Oak Meyer Gardens (Oak to Holmes and 69^th to 63rd) who might be interested in getting a tree, or in volunteering to help plant, please share this link to them and/or have them contact Jim directly (contact info below). If you want to help plant a few trees in our neighborhood that day, please him know.  The trees won’t be big, so the digging won’t be difficult. If you know boy scouts, girls scouts, or school or church groups that might volunteer in our neighborhood on the planting day in April, please let Jim know.

Project Contact, Jim Roddy:
[email protected]
816-582-0885
816-333-4035

A groundbreaking ceremony for the Rockhill Greens development is scheduled for the morning of Wednesday, November 30th. Neighbors and community members are invited to attend. A representative from the development was scheduled to appear at the recent Oak Meyer Gardens annual meeting, but was not able to attend due to a family emergency.

Here’s some information taken from the groundbreaking event invitation:

Wednesday, November 30
6601 Rockhill Road (Parking Lot A – southeast corner)
Research Brookside Campus

Please join us as we unveil Rockhill Greens, a community that will include residential housing and commercial businesses seamlessly integrated into the existing Research Brookside Campus. The new development will promote a healthy living lifestyle and sustainable design with parks, gardens and walking trails throughout the residential and commercial campus.

• 8:30-9:30 a.m. – Light breakfast
• 9:15-9:45 a.m. – Speakers/Introductions
• 10 a.m. – Groundbreaking Ceremony

From the Rockhill Greens website:

“Rockhill Greens is an ambitious new development initiative committed to revitalizing the RMC Brookside campus, formerly the Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center, into a thriving mixed-use community including assisted living, apartments, commercial and retail uses focused on a healthy-living lifestyle.

One of the initial developments in the Rockhill Greens community will be an assisted living and memory care residential development that combines a quality list of amenities, extensive social programming, green-space and parks, and the existing RMC medical uses nearby. Our goal is to provide something close to home that also feels like home. ”

Poposed "Map 1"

Proposed "Map 5" that cuts through OMG at 66th Terrace

As you may know, Kansas City, Mo is in the process of redistricting the 6 council districts. You can read more about the process here, but basically, a committee has been appointed to draw new district boundaries based on U.S. Census figures. At this point, there are two new maps being presented, and a series of public meetings has been set up to get the public comments and feedback. In both maps, the 6th/4th district boundary, currently set at 79th street, has shifted north. One map, titled Rev Map 1, presents the new boundary at 59th street between State Line and Troost. The other map, titled Map 5, has set a more jagged boundary that cuts through 66th Terrace between State Line and Holmes. Both of these revisions would place Oak Meyer Gardens – currently in the 4th district – into the 6th district.

While I don’t have a strong opinion about which district we are placed, I do believe that Oak Meyer Gardens should be included as a whole in either one district or the other. The Map 5 proposal bisects our neighborhood down 66th Terrace, so the northern half of OMG would be placed in the 4th district, and southern half of OMG would be placed in the 6th district. I believe this could hurt our ability to organize and get the attention we deserve with the city council (although one could argue that we might get TWICE the attention since we would would be represented by twice as many council members ).

In response, I attended a public hearing at the Swope Park Community Center last night and voiced my opinion about the matter. In addition to my argument that cutting though our neighborhood would not be good, I also noted that in both new maps, most all boundaries are drawn on major thoroughfares. That approach generally seems to avoid the problem of cutting through neighborhoods. I proposed that this particular boundary be redrawn at either Gregory or 63rd street.

What do you think? How would the newly proposed boundaries effect Oak Meyer Gardens? Do you have a preference on placement of our neighborhood in the 4th vs 6th district? Voice your opinions in the comments of this post.