Tomorrow at 6pm we’re hosting National Night Out at the Rosemary Gardens Park with free ice cream. Join us to meet your neighbors and local San Jose Police Department representatives. We look forward to seeing you there!
Read on for more details and neighborhood updates.
—Reid Burke, Board Member
[email protected]
National Night Out
Continuing a neighborhood tradition, Rosemary Gardens Neighborhood Association will again host our National Night Out Ice Cream Social tomorrow, Tuesday, August 2, at 6pm.
National Night Out is designed to strengthen neighborhood spirit and police/community partnerships, heighten crime prevention awareness and help build connections within our community.
This is a great opportunity to meet your Rosemary Gardens neighbors as well as local government and San Jose Police Department representatives.
There will be lots of fun and games … and free ice cream! Who doesn’t like ice cream on a warm August evening? Best of all, this is free to all residents of Rosemary Gardens! Please join us.
Event details
Tuesday, August 2
6pm — 8pm
Rosemary Gardens Park
Fall Yard Sale on October 22
Our twice annual community yard sale is happening on May 21. We support neighborhood yard sales with advertising and signs. Details are coming soon to our email newsletter and website closer to the event date.
Coming Soon: Summer Movie Night
We’re excited to host a summer movie night this year! Details are coming soon to our email newsletter and website closer to the event date.
Annual Membership Drive
This month kicks off our annual membership drive. We hope you have enjoyed some of our events like Spring Cheer, Chalk Art Week, the Spring Yard Sale, and our newsletters. These events all come at a cost for rental fees, permit fees, insurance, food, supplies, or publicity. We would appreciate your support of only $20 in annual dues to help us cover these costs.
Neighborhood Association Annual Meeting
On May 25th, our Rosemary Gardens Neighborhood Association held its first annual meeting since the start of the pandemic.
Sergeant Scherry, a police officer for our district, talked about our neighborhood safety. Generally our neighborhood is quiet, with the main calls being for suspicious individuals or disturbances. He reminded us to report any crimes, even minor theft, as reporting statistics determine how services are allocated.
Dev Davis, our San Jose City Councilperson, also came and spoke to the neighbors for the first time since we were redistricted from District 3 to District 6. She spent some time talking about the number 1 issue for most district residents: homelessness. She supports building affordable housing and is also working with faith partners on developing safe parking sites for RVs.
Our final speaker was our County Supervisor Cindy Chavez. Our neighborhood changed County districts from the northern District 3 to a more downtown District 2. While our neighborhood is new to District 2, Cindy Chavez was previously our city council representative from 1998-2006. At the meeting, she shared about county services, including lesser known ones like senior nutrition and digital literacy.
Finally, we held the Neighborhood Association board elections. The current board members are:
- President: Corry Addison
- Secretary: Melinda Hoppe
- Treasurer: Paula Harbor
- Directors: Kacey Armstrong, Reid Burke, Kenny DiRubio Jr., Alee Freitas, Victoria Varvel
We recognized Pam Alford for her 10 years of service on the RGNA board as she is stepping down this year.
Chalk Art Week
Rosemary Gardens celebrated our 3rd annual Chalk Art Week June 20 – 26 distributing free chalk at the Little Free Library. Neighbors stepped up again with creative artwork drawn on sidewalks throughout the neighborhood. The Neighborhood Association gave prizes to 3 lucky entries: Kat Parra, Isabel Angel, Jessica Garcia.
Free Trees? Save the Bees? Yes Please!
Residents of Rosemary Gardens qualify for an unlimited number of non- fruiting trees from Our City Forest Community Nursery just a few miles away on 1000 Spring Street.
This effort is funded by the City of San Jose to encourage residents to plant new trees. You may have as many as you’d like and come as often as you please.
Open Thursday to Saturday from 9am to noon, bring identification with your home address on it and a large vehicle as there is no delivery available.
The nursery has affordable drought tolerant, pollinator friendly plants if you’re interested in doing a remodel of that useless front lawn.
Before beginning landscaping (that part is important) submit an application for Landscape Rebates at valleywater.org to get up to $3,000 from the City of San Jose for a variety of water conservation improvements such as exchanging grass for California native species and/or in-line drip irrigation.
More information is also available at www.sjwater.org and ourcityforest.org/nursery.