Medians will get face lift

Medians are something drivers rarely notice unless the small strips of grass are overgrown and weedy or overflowing with flowers.

Right now, a group of San Anselmo residents hopes to turn the medians in town from one to the other. And they're hoping to do it without a lot of effort or money from the town staff.

"You look at the medians and you go this is disgusting," said Carla Overberger.

Overberger is heading up the volunteer effort, which brought together 47 people for its first meeting. The big group is dividing up into five subgroups to focus on different aspects; divide and conquer will make the work easier. The groups are focusing on the front of the library, raising funds and grants, a clean-up day, plants and flowers, and the bridge on Bridge Street.

Already the bridge group, headed by dentist Dan Freeman, has met and plans to power wash the bridge, clean it up, raise money to resurface bridge, spruce up the fence on one side of the street, work with the utilities to paint the utility boxes, and plant flowers this fall. In the long-term, they hope to get old-fashioned lights back on the bridge.

The key, though, is that this should be a grass-roots effort and not create more work for town staff or cost the town money.

"We're going to have to do it more or less by ourselves," said Overberger.

This means that different people will, hopefully, claim different areas or projects and take an initiative from an approved list of plants.

This fall, Overberger hopes to focus on a couple smaller medians that people can have a positive effect on, such as the area in front of the Post Office and the small plot by the Quick n' Easy. The group can't plant until the fall anyway, because of the weather. Then, over the next few years they can turn to the bigger medians – like those on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard – which are expensive and difficult to upgrade because of the traffic.

"Medians are a lot of money," said Overberger.

Overberger pointed out that the medians in Greenbrae to Highway 101 was paid for through a bond, cost a lot of money, and requires an extensive amount of water.

The one bigger project that is likely to happen this fall is that the medians in front of the library will be revamped. Overberger and Public Works Director Steve Myrter are talking to the Marin Municipal Water District, which is looking for places to try sample rain gardens with some rain barrels. The hope is that the area in front of the library could be perfect for a project like that and then volunteers could do the planting.

"There's a lot of work to be done," said Overberger.