1j. Park and Recreation Commission Minutes dated May 23,19951
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
' RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
MAY 23, 1995
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Chairman Andrews called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Andrews, Jan Lash, Dave Huffman, Jim Manders, Fred Berg,
Jane Meger, and Ron Roeser
STAFF PRESENT: Dawn Lemme, Recreation Supervisor; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Supervisor; Dale Gregory, Park Superintendent; and Erik Donley, Recreation Intern
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None.
FEASIBILITY REPORT: POWER HILL PARK DRAINAGE.
Dale Gregory presented the staff report on this item.
Roeser: What do you think of the soil, even if it were dry?
Gregory: The word is, it's a lot of fill and it's basically a park that's basically a lot of fill in.
They took kind of a swampy area and they made a park out of it, is what they done.
Roeser: Right. It was the builder that put that down, right?
Gregory: You could use it for open space, green area and that. Put in volleyball courts and
stuff like that in. It's going to be real bad. Simply, it's going to be like Curry Farms. We
did the same thing over there. We put a volleyball court in ... down a foot and we have got
nothing but muck underneath there and they done the same thing over there. Just filled it.
It's a bad situation. If you want just an open green space, that would be fine.
Lash: So kids could play a ball game and stuff down there but nothing.
Gregory: Oh yeah. That would be fine.
Lash: The residents had asked us about the trail area. They said that that is very wet up
along the, which direction would that be?
Roeser: It must be south.
Gregory: South, where the trail runs from this park along.
Lash: Right. Would this take care of that too?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - May 22, 1995
Gregory: No. This has got nothing to do with that. We have already gone in there last year
and we have run drain tile across at all the points where people are running their sumps to
that part already. And we have quite a bit of that already here. We've already, we've run
quite a bit across there. I don't know that we've got all of them yet but if we haven't, we'll
have to put more ... and all you do there is just run drain tile straight across from where they
run their sump pumps so. I know that the trail was real wet because we couldn't even mow it
last year. But we did, I think we cut about 5 tiles last fall going across there.
Lash: So do you have a rough estimate how much more it would be if we wanted to correct
that?
Gregory: That would be minimal. I mean the cost of the tile, which is 59 cents a foot so
basically it'd be just our labor putting it in, which ... and I think we'd do that anyway just
simply to get the trail...
Lash: I would suggest that we, I'm not interested in taking any more money out of our
contingency fund this year for this particular site, given it's only May. My suggestion on this
would be to put this amount into our '96 budget so we could do it the next year.
Roeser: I'm not even sure we should do it next year but I certainly feel that we shouldn't do
it now. I don't think we should spend any money, any more contingency money on that. To
me they should let that be a nice wild little park down there where the kids can play when
they feel like it and let it go otherwise. That's just the kind of piece of land it looks like to
me. It doesn't look like you can make a decent ballpark out of it.
Lash: No, and I'm not even suggesting that that would happen but my understanding was that
a lot of times it's too wet to even just go down there and play a little pick -up.
Gregory: Along the east side of, along those houses, there's times we can't even mow down
there. I mean you can't even walk around there.
Roeser: If you drained it, would you have to shut off those sumps?
Gregory: No, actually what we're doing is, those sumps coming into it, what we're trying to
do is we're trying to catch the water that comes into the park at our boundary line and start
directing it down underground. The way it is right now, there's going to be times that we
can't even mow it. We're going to have just basically I drive down there. Along the lot
lines. I guess I'm not even saying we have to...
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I Park and Rec Commission Meeting - May 22, 1995
Andrews: I don't look at this as a contingency expense either. I think this is something we
build into our long term projects because it's not what I would call an emergency expense, in
my opinion and I think we'd be irresponsible, as Jan said, to spend all our money now and be
faced with nothing later and we could have a real emergency later that we would have no
money for so, I agree. I'd like to see this put into our budget considerations for the next time
we work on annual budgets, and if it passes the test then, we'll do it. If it doesn't, then we
don't. I kind of waiver back and forth as we're spending $5,000.00 to dry up a swamp.
' Swampy area versus what this $5,000.00 does for other places. So I think it would be better
to do this at our regular budget meeting where we could compare this money. See what it
could do somewhere else and maybe make a better choice too. I think we do need a motion
' though if we're going to take any action, or if anybody else has more comments to make.
Berg: I felt the opposite way for the same reasons. I'd like to see it get into operation as
' soon as possible. It's there. It's something that the kids could be using. If it takes 5 days,
it's ready to go by June.
Gregory: Well like I told Todd. The 5 days is 5 working days. Now if he wants it in a
hurry, we're going to have to put other things on the back burner, which is ... Pheasant Hills
' Park and these things that have been waiting for quite a while and Todd's reply was that, if it
goes, he said we're probably looking at more towards fall. After, we put it in line with
everything else. It would be done probably in the fall because right now we don't have the
' time to do it.
Berg: Well, okay now I take back everything I just said...
Lash: Okay. I also want to go on record that I have a little frustrations with us spending
$5,000.00 to dry out this property when all of the homes surrounding it are pumping their
' sump pumps into it. So they're contributing a good deal of the problem but we're expected to
pay the money to rectify the problem so I'm going to have some mixed feelings about it. I
probably will end up having to do it but I have some frustration with that and I don't know if
there's anything that can be done. There's another place for them to route their sumps?
Andrews: Into the storm sewers. They could do that.
' Lash: Okay.
Gregory: If it wasn't for the sump pumps, we could make that usable without any...
Lash: You know the residents are coming to us. They want us to clean it up, dry it up, but
they're the ones causing the problem so.
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