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Shepard Center may get new management

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JAN 29, 2020


The Shepard Garden and Arts Center is used by nearly 30 clubs. (Photo: Courtesy SGAAC)

Friends of East Sacramento may soon oversee McKinley Park landmark

Shepard Garden and Arts Center, Sacramento’s longtime clubhouse, may soon be getting a change of management.

At 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 3, the center’s current board will consider shifting management of the 2,000-square-foot center to Friends of East Sacramento. Lisa Schmidt of Friends of East Sacramento will answer questions about the potential change.

The meeting will be held the Shepard Center, 3330 McKinley Blvd., in McKinley Park. Representatives of clubs that use the center are urged to attend.

If approved, the changeover would become fully effective July 1. But it’s expected that the Friends of East Sacramento will start handling event scheduling as soon as March 1.Under a lease arrangement with the City of Sacramento, Friends of East Sacramento already manages Clunie Community Center and the McKinley Park Memorial Rose Garden. Like the rose garden, the Shepard and Clunie centers are located in McKinley Park at H Street and Alhambra Boulevard.

For several years, Friends of East Sacramento has leased the Clunie Center from the city. In turn, the Friends have been in charge of upkeep and scheduling events at the popular venue.

In recent years, the non-profit Friends of the Shepard Garden and Arts Center has managed the facility, which is used regularly by nearly 30 local clubs and organizations. It’s also a popular venue for meetings and special occasions.

“This board took over management of the facility four years ago from the City of Sacramento,” the Shepard Center committee explained in a notice to the clubs that use the facility. “It is responsible for all the day-to-day activities, scheduling, hiring employees, billing, renting the facility to outside users, interior contents and structures, as well as the Japanese garden area and the perimeter gardens.”

With so much use, maintenance and staffing issues have been problematic.

“The board has received complaints from clubs including: Monitors not available to open facility as scheduled; room set-up not completed as specified by the club; lack of communication, emails and phone calls unanswered; billing and overtime charge errors; and many calendar scheduling mistakes,” according to a notice distributed by the Shepard Center leaders.

“The board explored many options to solve these problems,” the notice continued. “We have determined that the best solution is to change management of the SGAC.”

The advantages come in central management for McKinley Park’s major venues.

Said the center’s board, “There will be centralized scheduling and billing; direct management of staff including a facility manager, monitors and maintenance crew; the building will be fully operational and clean; there will be timely communications via email, text (and) phone and a weekly calendar of events emailed. … There is also an opportunity for increased outside rentals.”

Details: www.sgaac.org .

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Sacramento Shepard Garden & Arts Center garden clubs Friends of East Sacramento McKinley Park

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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