City Council, without officially voting, gave its consent to City Manager Andrea Roy at its regular Tuesday meeting last night to proceed with planning for the beautification program of adding entry monuments and landscape improvements to the City’s gateways, intersections and medians after a progress report from Westwood Professional Services.  Westwood has been contracted by the City to create conceptual designs for this program, according to the meeting’s agenda.

The plans for the program from Westwood, the agenda states, have been developed in cooperation with members of the City Staff and the Beautification Advisory Board for the construction of “monuments and median plantings,” including trees, shrubs and groundcover to “mitigate the effects of air pollution.”

The presentation, given by Dorothy Witmeyer, a landscape architect at Westwood, described her firm as a “multi-disciplinary consulting firm” specializing in “civil engineering, traffic engineering and planning all across the board.”

The goals of this project, she explained are “placemaking,” reinforcing city branding, “enhancing safety” and creating a project that is “flexible, that can evolve over time, be implemented in phases with long-term maintenance and sustainability in mind.”

Witmeyer stated that there were two recommendations made to the City Staff and Beautification Advisory Board “to unify the city plantings” and to have “a little more diversity” and “seasonal interest.”  She said the Staff and Board were presented with “three preliminary concepts,” as shown from the top of the right column of this article, focusing on the “plant material being used” to have it “pop and stand out and be unique to Bedford.”  The Board and Staff, she said, settled on “some final concepts,” which are also illustrated in the right column, below.

Council Member Nichelle Dawkins, who is also the Council’s liaison to the Beautification Advisory Board, voiced a concern of the Board that the City be able to properly maintain the beautification islands, once complete.

Mayor Dan Cogan echoed Dawkin’s concern and added his concern to ensure irrigation and drought tolerance, which Witmeyer confirmed was being addressed.

City Manager Andrea Roy said the plan will likely by prioritized based on how much, if any, landscaping each of the 13 gateways and intersections already have and on “available funding.”

Council Member Steve Farco suggested partnering with local businesses to assist with the funding and the addition of lighting to increase visibility and traffic safety.

“Taking a look at these intersections,” Mayor Cogan summarized, “has been Council’s goal for a while now” by “taking pride in our city.”  He said the objective should be to “chip away” at each of the intersections “over the next few years.“

“I am excited about this!” stated Council Member Joy Donovan Brandon.  “I think it will leave a really good impression for people visiting Bedford and will give our citizens a sense of pride.”  She suggested getting city groups involved, such as “the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and garden clubs” and “maybe have a beautification day in Bedford.”  Council Member Nichelle Dawkins responded that the Board already has days like that, so perhaps the Board can be “more public” about it.

The first of these projects within the beautification program, according to the March 26 Council meeting agenda, will be the Harwood intersection at Highway 121, which has been awarded the Texas Department of Transportation Green Ribbon Grant for “landscaping” as announced at the May 24 City Council meeting by then-Interim City Manager Andrea Roy.  The $375,000 grant, the agenda stated, will be supplemented with $119,769 in matching funds from the City to cover the total cost of $494,686 for the Harwood intersection.