A little more than a week before the official start of spring, the Springfield Township Board will revisit the idea of a memorial garden.
Sally Elminger of Carlisle/Wortman Associates, the township’s planning firm, has put together a revised plan for the garden, to be located at the township’s Civic Center, for the board’s review at its March 14 meeting.
According to Jeannine Rawe, public relations chairperson for the Springfield Township Friends of the Library, the township board will not be selling pavers’ bricks as part of the memorial garden project.
“The Friends appreciate the fact the township board decided not to do that,” she said.
As requested by the Springfield Township Board in November, Elminger provided a proposal for a township memorial garden for the board’s review at its Jan. 9 meeting.
The original proposal had a water feature located a few feet toward the building in order to provide a backdrop and context for the mill stone fountain.
Also, with regard to opportunities for memorials, the proposal listed deciduous shade trees, flowering trees and benches as being available for donation to the garden.
However, at that meeting, the township board decided they weren’t happy with the design, and they moved to bring the issue back to Elminger for further review.
According to Supervisor Collin Walls, the revised proposal to be brought before the board Thursday will be easier to follow. “It will contain a much simpler version of the ideas from the consultant,” he said.
However, members of the Springfield Township Friends of the Library still have concerns about the project.
At the Jan. 9 meeting, they told the board they thought the garden would be in conflict with the memorial bricks outside the Civic Center, also known as the Community Cornerstone patio.
The Friends of the Library manage the Community Cornerstone project and the funds generated from the sale of the bricks, according to Rawe.
“It would be redundant to spend money to duplicate a service that residents already have access to,” Rawe said at the Jan. 9 meeting. “The Friends are also concerned about the confusion residents will experience having two projects of such similar nature on the same site.”
In a telephone interview Monday, Rawe said a representative of the Friends will be at Thursday’s meeting.
“We can only voice our concerns — ultimately, it is the township’s decision,” she said.
At the January meeting, Walls asserted the proposed memorial garden and the Community Cornerstone project would not be in conflict with one another. In a telephone interview Jan. 7, he talked about how the idea for the garden first started.
“It originated with the early planning for the Civic Center two or three years ago,” he said. “The thought was it would be nice to have an area where people could make living memorials. It never really got off the ground, unfortunately, until (former treasurer) Lois (Stiles) passed away (in October). It originated from some residents who thought it would be a nice setting to honor their relatives or friends.”