The much-talked-about, campus-based Grow Beach! University Garden was approved for its ground lease through Associated Students, Inc. during the ASI Senate meeting on Wednesday.
The approval for this action was supposed to be read at three separate senate meetings, prior to approval, but ASI Executive Director Richard Haller explained during the meeting that the approval process for the garden was being streamlined, and Wednesday’s reading would suffice.
The approval of the ground lease sets the ball rolling for the university to begin clearing the area designated for the garden. Haller said this will happen almost immediately following Wednesday’s senate approval for the grounds lease.
After the university completes this phase of the project, Grow Beach! University Garden will fall in the hands of students. The garden is not a university-run garden; rather, it will be run entirely on a “volunteer basis,” Haller said.
Haller said this program was completely student initiated and that ASI did not begin the effort. ASI was approached by students to help with the university ground lease, which makes ASI’s role with this project that of a “landlord, more than anything else,” Haller said.
During the senate meeting, Haller said that this action would not set a precedent for future student groups to assume that ASI will serve as “landlord” for university grounds. He said every student group seeking a university grounds lease would need a contract that requires a specific action through the university.
Libby Gustin, a professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Cal State Long Beach, will serve as the faculty adviser for the garden, Haller said.
Last February, former ASI Vice President Jonathon Bolin said Gustin was one of the first people approached about the garden.
Bolin said that Gustin “teaches a course [where] the class plants vegetables.” He said he asked if her class could use the garden, and Gustin said, “Hell yeah.”
Haller said Gustin may be taking some sort of leave from teaching so that she can focus on the garden.
A tentative building day for the garden was originally set for April 26, but on April 17, the Grow Beach! University Garden blog site posted that the date had been postponed.