Garden Insurance in California

**A*@aol.com**

Bill, 

The first thing you should do is to go the American Community Gardening 
Website links section and check out the California Community Gardening links. 
 <A HREF="http://www.communitygarden.org">American Community Gardening 
Association</A>

2) Here's a list of California Contacts. Most of these folks should be able 
to give you some California based solutions to your insurance quandary:

Community Gardening around California

The following individuals and organizations are useful contacts for 
information about gardening, community gardening, school gardening and 
horticultural therapy projects in their respective regions. 

Central California
Donna Zick
Community Environmental Council
909 12th Street, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-447-7063
E-mail: dzick@aol.com

Listings for the SF Bay Area 

Southern Coast
Oscar Carmona
Community Environmental Council
930 Miramonte Dr., Santa Barbara, CA 93109
Phone: 805-963-0583, ext. 114
E-mail: garden@rain.org

Northern California
John Jeavons
Ecology Action
5798 Ridgewood Road, Willits, CA 95490
Phone: Mail inquiries only

Los Angeles/Southern California

Chris Braswell
L.A. Grows 
4240 E. Hammel St., Los Angeles, CA 90063 
Phone: 213-526-1460
E-mail: growingla@aol.com

Yvonne Savio
Common Ground/U.C. Cooperative Extension 
2 Coral Circle, Monterey Park, CA 91755 
Phone: 213-838-4532
E-mail: ydsavio@ucdavis.edu

Farmer Net
A Web listing of farmers markets and community gardens in the LA area.

San Diego/Southern California
Vince Lazaneo 
U.C. Cooperative Extension
5555 Overland Ave., Bldg. 4, San Diego, CA 92123
Phone: 619-694-2845
E-mail: vflazaneo@ucdavis.edu

California Community Gardening Network
Mark Westwind, The Praxis Group
2131 Tacoma Ave., Martinez, CA 94553
Phone: 925-372-8486
E-mail: westwind@ccnet.com

3) The archives from this listserve should be helpful. Keep going back in the 
archives <A HREF="http://www.mallorn.com/lists/community_garden/">
community_garden archives</A> 

4) I'd talk to a lawyer. Look at the community gardening organizing recipes 
on the main website and figure with your friends how you want to organize 
your group. I like the democratically elected steering committee model 
organized under a not-for-profit corporation - the 501(c) (3). See what you 
feel comfortable with.

5) Being a paranoid New Yorker type, I am the kind of nut that would look a 
gift horse/loan  of a 3-4 acre space in the mouth. It would make sense to 
make local inquiries about the use of the land, to see if the nice utility 
company or any other occupant of the area used it as a dumping ground for 
chemicals, etc. The nice California contacts above could point you towards 
your local Agricultural Extension for the kind of pre-gardening soil testing 
you would want to do. If there are high concentrations of  heavy metals, 
chemicals or whatever in the soil, you may want to pass - The idea, however 
of 3 acres blows me away, we garden on a 150x100 ft area in Midtown Manhattan 
at the Clinton Community Garden:  <A 
HREF="http://www.clintoncommunitygarden.org/">Clinton Community Garden</A> .

We buy insurance through the NYC based Neighhorhood Open Space Coallition 
which provides the garden, a 501(c) (3) corporation with liability insurance 
against accidents. This is part of our lease agreement with NYC. 

 I don't know why your friendly neighborhood utility wants to be the 
beneficiary of your garden's insurance: it doesn't compute. Maybe you got the 
message wrong? Anyway, I suggest strongly that you discuss this with 
California based community gardening people before you proceed. 

There's no reason to re-invent the wheel. Please let us all know how this 
turns out for you.

Happy gardening.
Adam Honigman

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insurance
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we want to start a community garden.  we are just neighbors and not an
organization or non-profit.  We have found a parcel of land owned by a
utility company which requires 1 million dollar policy listing them as
the benefactor.  Where do we get this insurance and how much should it
cost us?  3-4 acres in sacramento, california.  H-E-L-P

thank you

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community_garden maillist  -  community_garden@mallorn.com
https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden

_______________________________________________
community_garden maillist  -  community_garden@mallorn.com
https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden