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PRC 2016 01 26 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 26, 2016 Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Luke Thunberg, Jim Boettcher, Rick Echternacht, Jennifer Hougham, and Lauren Dale MEMBERS ABSENT: Brent Carron STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Katie Favro, Recreation Supervisor; and Adam Beers, Park Superintendent APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Chairman Kelly approved the agenda as published. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Kelly: Public announcements, I don’t see anything going on here for that. Hoffman: Just a, commission members I’ll give you a little update on what you’ll be seeing coming forward. So in February we’ll be taking a look at Roundhouse Park, at the sport court plan and a recommendation to advance that project from 2017 until 2016 so we’ll provide you the financial data. The plan that’s been developed for that sport court. Some background on some testimony we saw. Some public input we saw at the final budget meeting of the year in 2015 at the council level. And then coming up in March or perhaps April will be a couple of different things. Both a master plan at a concept level for the Fox Woods Nature Preserve or the Fox Woods Preserve property so some trail access points. Some parking. Potential trail heads. And then also concurrent with that will be, we don’t know the name yet but it’s a Gagne Land Company development of the Wilson Nursery, tree nursery property so that has been acquired by Gagne Land Company. They’re developing somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 lots. What that will allow for is a connection to the 101 underpass and so that comes through Bandimere Park into that neighborhood and then some trail connections into the Fox Woods Preserve property so we’ll be sending you out some maps so you can familiarize yourself with that property if you haven’t been there or seen it. And then be thinking about how we want to connect those future neighborhoods with both the Bandimere Community Park and then this Fox Woods Preserve so some exciting things coming up and I just wanted to let you know that those are on your radar. Kelly: Thank you Todd. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None. Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Boettcher moved, Thunberg seconded to approve the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated December 8, 2015 as presented. NEIGHBORHOOD PARK SHELTER INITIATIVE: RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL TO AWARD QUOTE FOR CARVER BEACH PARK AND GREENWOOD SHORES PARK PICNIC SHELTERS. Beers: Thank you Chair, Planning Commissioners. I’m here tonight to kind of give you guys a brief update and background of kind of where we’re at with the park shelter. Excuse me, park shelter initiative. 2016 brings us into our third year of adding shelters to our city park infrastructure. This year we have $80,000 allocated for the purchase and installation of 2 shelters. Carver Beach Park and Greenwood Shores Park are the 2 sites this year that have been chosen to have some updates. These structures serve as gathering locations for organized activities, events. Provides shelter from poor weather and they kind of just give a little bit of a spruce up I guess you could say to some of our older parks. So I put out 3 bids to Northland Recreation, Midwest Playscapes and Minnesota Wisconsin Playground. All companies we have done work with in the past and Northland Recreation came back the most competitive bid of just over $37,000 so it’s staff’s recommendation to have the commission put a recommendation to the City Council and approve the contract to Northland Recreation. We’ll keep moving along with the park shelter initiative. Kelly: Questions for Adam. Beers: As you can see on the few pages on the back here the quotes and some concept drawings of both sites. If you guys have any questions I’d love to talk you through any of those. Hoffman: Can you touch on…expenses come in so we have $37,000 and then we’ll have expenses to meet ADA. Beers: So the other expenses are going to be obviously the purchase of the shelters. The installation of the shelters. Concrete and any site restoration that should take place which would be done in-house. Hoffman: So tonight you’re dealing just the purchase and installation of the shelters themselves. Not the earthwork and the concrete which is on a separate project. Kelly: So has Northland done some of our shelters in the last year or 2 that we’ve? Beers: Northland did the last project they worked with us was at Pioneer Pass actually so under, and forgive me I can’t remember the old name. They’ve switched companies but it’s the same management. Same products so. 2 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Kelly: And we’re happy with what they did for us before? Okay. Other questions? Somebody want to put it to the motion? Scharfenberg: Make a motion to adopt staff’s recommendation to award the quote for picnic shelters at Carver Beach Park and Greenwood Shores Park in the amount of $37,242. Kelly: Is there a second? Thunberg: Second. Kelly: The proposed motion was read by Steve as proposed and seconded. Scharfenberg moved, Thunberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends the City Council award the quote for the picnic shelters at Carver Beach Park and Greenwood Shores Park to Northland Recreation in the amount of $37,242. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Hoffman: It’s good to have that kind of competition. The top 2 are always, they’re either one’s just slightly ahead of the other or one’s just slightly behind the other one so that’s both Northland Recreation and Midwest Playscapes have received all of the contracts for the shelter initiative. LONG RANGE PARK AND RECREATION PLAN: RECOMMENDATION TO THE CITY COUNCIL OF PROPOSED LONG RANGE PARK AND RECREATION PROJECTS. Kelly: Moving along Todd you’ve got a long range proposal for us to talk about to possibly send to the City Council with a lot of projects listed. You want to talk a little bit about that? Hoffman: I’d be glad to. Thank you Chair Kelly. Kelly and members of the commission. So the first thing you’ll notice is there’s been a modification or just a change in the naming and so the City Council and our City Manager, Mr. Todd Gerhardt, they’re not convinced that we would need to do a referendum. These projects could be improved through general obligation bonding over a series of years and so before they start talking should it be a referendum or should it be some other form of financing package, they just want to understand what the priorities are and then establish some kind of a plan beyond that. So tonight we’ll talk about, if you remember back in work session I believe it was probably in November you met in work session. Kelly: I believe that’s right. Hoffman: In the senior center and the commission identified a variety of projects. Then staff had, we worked with a consultant to put prices to. All of those are included in this spreadsheet you have before you tonight. And then when you met with the City Council to discuss, it was 3 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 the ballfield proposal at the ballfield plan. They asked you to send back a document with perhaps $6 or $7 million dollars of your top priority and so you have before you staff’s recommendation about what we see as a priority but obviously as a commission you’re responsible to decide if that’s an appropriate recommendation and then make your recommendation to the City Council. I’ll provide that to the City Manager and he will advance that to the City Council at some point in 2016 and then we’ll decide what are the next steps after that once we get direction from the City Council. So in brief most of these projects are new but they’re not necessarily new parks. We’re investing, or the proposal invests a good deal of money in really 3 parks. City Center Park, well 4 parks. City Center, Lake Ann, Lake Susan and Bandimere. That’s where the bulk of these dollars are being scheduled for. There’s also some new dollars for ballfields and then a variety of really what I would call renovation or replacement programs for playgrounds and those type of things. And I think when at least the City Manager started seeing those kind of dollars in replacement or renovations his opinion was that’s not really a referendum type of an item. If we were expanding the community center, the recreation center, building an outdoor pool or building a splash pad, something like that, something that’s significant that might be a referendum type item but if we’re talking about general housekeeping, taking care of what we have he just doesn’t feel that that should be, he should be recommending to the City Council that they put that kind of a product out to the voters for a referendum so I think that’s also part of why we’re at least at this point stopping the conversation about a potential referendum and deciding just how these projects or improvements would be financed. I’ll speak to these in really in sets. So Bandimere Community Park. Lots of things happening there. A total of $1.6 million or just under $1.7 million and it really finishes everything that we talked about on that master plan. It builds a warming house, athletic field lighting on softball 1, baseball 2, baseball 3, and soccer 1. Builds the tennis court or a combination tennis/pickleball court. It builds that nice picnic shelter with restroom building. It renovates our disc golf and it builds a batting cage at baseball number 2. And so it takes the existing park, the new land that has been acquired and we construct just about every improvement that is left for Bandimere Park for about $1.7 million. Carver Beach Park, that’s a couple of items. Well Carver Beach Park and then Carver Beach Playground so just some swimming improvements. Swimming beach improvements at Carver Beach Park. At the playground we would replace the existing children’s playground and so there’s about 10 of those that are in here. Our playgrounds are getting into that 20 to 25 year age class and however we move forward one of the key financial strategies for our City Council this year is to develop a playground, long term playground replacement program so whether or not these projects advance we will be working with the City Council and the park commission on a replacement plan just like we have for our tennis court refurbishment and so now that our playgrounds are aging we need to find. Kelly: Bless you. Hoffman: Bless you. A process to move that forward. Chanhassen Hills Park we would replace an existing basketball half court with a basketball and pickleball court for $100,000. City Center Community Park, there’s just 2 items there. Build a permanent warming house and then add that season shade architecture structure to the summer concert series. That’s a half a million dollars. 4 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Second page, Curry Farms Park, update an existing basketball court and really what we’re seeing there is we just have, you know you’ll see many of those in here. We just have a blank piece of asphalt right now. We want to go out there and resurface that and then color code it and then put a nicer basketball hoop. We get a lot of comments that the basketball hoops we have out there, people just don’t even want to play on them because they’re just so stiff and don’t have a lot of feel to them so that’s the thought on that. We’re using resident input that we received over the years to propose new improvements to improve things in our park. Herman Field Park, we have a children’s playground, half court basketball for $200,000. Kerber Pond Park is mostly some natural resource improvements for $70,000. Scharfenberg: Can I just interrupt you there for a minute Todd? Hoffman: Yep. Scharfenberg: I thought we put a basketball court out at Herman. Hoffman: We did and then this would do the same thing. So it would resurface it. Scharfenberg: Okay. Hoffman: Color code it. Put in a 3 point line so there’s a piece of asphalt out there right now. Just regular asphalt with a hoop and they’re getting used but they could be improved to improve that experience. Scharfenberg: Okay, thank you. Hoffman: Yep it’s in place. Lake Ann Community Park there’s a, not quite a half a dozen items for a million. Just over a million dollars and so we put modern restrooms at the Klingelhutz picnic shelter. We put modern restrooms at the ballfields. Soccer field parking lot expansion which is needed and there’s room and then replace the existing children’s playground at the beach location which is starting to show it’s age. We move over to Lake Susan Park and complete a project which has been talked about for quite some time. $600,000 to renovate the ballfield. $250K for lights. $100K for parking. $50K for dugouts and $200K for covered bleachers. Lake Susan Park also update the existing full court basketball for $100,000. Meadow Green Park we have one item. The existing basketball would be up, basketball would be updated. Minnewashta Heights, 2 items. The playground and the basketball for $200,000. The same at Pheasant Hill Park. Power Hill Park, just about the same thing but we improve how the parking facility operates. Currently it’s a dual situation. In the summer the parking lot is a basketball court and in the winter it’s a parking lot so we could modify and improve that. Prairie Knoll Park, same type of treatment. You replace the existing children’s play structure and you update the half court basketball for $200,000. And then the final page we’re really again focused on neighborhood parks. Rice Marsh Lake, a half court basketball. Roundhouse, replace the existing playground structure and remodel the round house. Even though the round house was 5 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 remodeled the first time it’s not all what it could be and when people use it we do hear comments that it could use some TLC. South Lotus Lake Park, we need to replace a children’s playground. Stone Creek has 3 items for $365,000. If you’ve ever been to Stone Creek and taken the wooden bridge we need to replace that pedestrian bridge and then work on the playground. And Sugarbush Park, just some landscaping and then a children’s playground renovation. And Sugarbush Park, same thing. Basketball and playground and then the last item Sunset Ridge. That’s the oldest playground we have and it’s really in need of replacement. Some way or another I’d like to bulldoze that yet this fall. If you have a chance take a look at it and then replace existing half court basketball with a basketball and pickleball court so expand that. So it’s a lot of items that add up to $6, what’s the total on the front page? $6.8. $6,872,500 and so I just think it’s really the commission’s opportunity to take a look at are these things that you like. Are there things that were not colored up in yellow and not recommended. Do you want to delete a variety of those and say add in the splash pad project that’s shown in here? I think the recreation center projects are out of the league of this kind of dollar amount. Are there other things that you want to take a look at and improve? The one thing that didn’t make the list that we talked about at length in the ballfield was the addition of these 2 athletic fields. The project at Holasek’s is probably not going to move forward because of just too many poor soils in too many areas and so I don’t think that opportunity’s going to move forward. I have made a call to the Instant Webb Companies, if you’re familiar with that lacrosse field. We’re going to approach them about purchasing that. We have an opportunity now that they’re doing a street project there, there’ll be an assessment against those 2 lots and the City would like to be in the opportunity to offer to pay those assessments in response to their, Instant Webb Companies allowing us to use that field and then also to approach them at the same time and say we’re going to pay assessments and will you offer, or will you sell this property to the City. That would guarantee we have that one lacrosse field you know for the remaining future. If not some day they’re going to come and tell us they’re doing something with that property and that lacrosse field’s going to get kicked off and then we’ll be short again so that’s an opportunity that’s here today. There’s, as you know as a commission there’s not very many opportunities that are going to come before you for additional athletic field space just because simply there’s not much, that much flat land left in Chanhassen that is reasonably considered as a good location for additional athletic fields so there’s limited opportunities so when we have one before us we want to make sure that we at least take a stab at it. Be happy to answer any questions about these projects or any others. You’ll notice all the projects you identified are in here and priced and then there are a few that staff added basically from what we hear from our customers and from our citizens over the years. One of those that people have been asking for for quite some time are those way finding locations so when they get out in the trail system they really don’t know where they’re at. Smart phones can help you with that but people are looking for some signage. Some kiosks. A variety of park districts and cities are doing that. We currently have very little signage in our community so that was one that at least we put on there. You know it gets to be a significant investment if you put them throughout your entire community and your trail system but it gives you an idea of what those would cost and then there’s a variety of other improvements. The Rec Center. Those are all nice thoughts but you know the prices that we’re talking there it takes some commitment by everybody. The community. The council. Park board. Citizens. Staff to 6 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 make those kind of things happen and so appreciate you taking a look and be more than welcome to take your recommendation back to the City Council as we move forward with this conversation in 2016. Boettcher: Todd what was the timeframe the City Manager was talking about to come up with the money? Hoffman: It could be, depending on how the council reacts to this, the timeframe you could start immediately and then it could be extended over so I think what they’re taking a look at is they’re going to be bonding for this water treatment plant which is in excess of $20 million dollars and so to, if this, if these kind of investments would be completed with general obligation bonds you would just extend those out. Add that $6 or $7 million in there. Extend that out to $26 or $27 million and pay for that over a series of time so you know if there was consensus around the projects and consensus around the work list and the long range plan. I think also the City Council would like to see some citizen, additional citizen input so they feel comfortable that the citizens are interested in these kind of projects as well or are there other things they’d want to do so once you get your list and it goes back to them they may come back and say alright we like that list but we would like you to take that back out and hold some community meetings and we would bring a consultant in to help facilitate that and you would hold a series of community meetings. Talk about these projects. Say this is what we’re taking a look at as a commission. Are there other things that you like? Do you like these projects? To build some consensus around that before they would go ahead and finance it. Echternacht: Todd has there been any other discussions about possible soccer field then out at Westwood? Hoffman: Not since the last go around, no. Echternacht: Okay. Kelly: So Todd let’s say we move forward and say it’s the $6,872,500 is what we want. Are they looking to put 100 percent of that under general obligation bonds or will our, or will our thank you. Hoffman: Park dedication fund. Kelly: Park dedication, thank you. Fund be affected. Hoffman: We don’t know. Kelly: Second question is, and I know the Bluff Creek trail doesn’t go in until the road gets redone so is that the main reason why it was left out at this point? 7 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Hoffman: All of those were left out because yeah there are some timing issues with them but also they’re significantly large projects and so they were just left out of the budget but that, the Bluff Creek one is scheduled for 2017. So in 2017 Bluff Creek Drive is scheduled to be rebuilt and the trail would go in as a part of that project. Kelly: Okay. Hoffman: That’s next year. The other one, the other trail projects, if we take a look at those would be the Highway 7 trail and for half a million. We just need a project you know with the City of Victoria to make that happen and then the real expensive one is along Pioneer Trail and there’s some current talk about sewer line extension there so when you travel south on Powers, the preliminary plan or the original plan was to extend sewer services up through the golf course and then take a left. Go back east to the Highway 101. People are contemplating now that the golf course may never develop. You know it may always be a golf course or it may be a golf course for the next 20 years and so the Halla properties would like to develop so to make that happen there’s an alternative route for sewer being taken a look at which would come straight down to Pioneer and straight back east towards 101. The challenge there is that there’s very poor soils, if you’re familiar with that area you recognize that that wetland is on the north side. Well that wetland extends underneath the road and into the ditch lines of Pioneer Trail at that location and so that sewer line would either have to be kind of supported through some kind of a hanging system or there would have to be extensive soil corrections there. At that time when they’re doing that much work to put in a sewer line, it’s not that hard to put a piece of pavement on top and call it a trail so that’s I think when we should be waiting for that one as well. Kelly: Other questions, thoughts? Scharfenberg: Todd can you, just for the sake of the commission can you kind of give us the thought process that went through staff in putting this together in terms of leaving stuff out and making the recommendations for this stuff. Hoffman: Sure can. Any time you have a list of this magnitude you kind of need to start with some type of a, you know where do we want to go to? Where have we been? Where do we want to go and I’m a big believer in if you don’t take care of what you currently have you really shouldn’t be out there building a variety of new things and so I can’t with good conscience leave a playground like is out at Sunset Ridge in place and then go off and build something new and go out and meet with those neighbors and say you know we just left you behind here and so pretty much this takes care of anything that’s old and outdated. Needs to be renovated. We respond to that and then beyond that really finishing out our community parks and expanding where we’ve known for 10, 15, 20 years that people would like modern restrooms at some of these larger park facilities. That they would like to finish out, we’d like to finish out Bandimere Park because we have that opportunity so that’s, there’s not a lot of, we don’t have a, nothing’s ranked. You know these systems, everybody would like to see a plan that says these are the next things that everybody wants in our park system but that’s really subjective and so you know we’re just 8 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 taking a look at finishing out what we currently have in place. Taking care of what we have and then moving on and expanding on what we currently have and so Lake Ann Park is a great experience. It can be a better experience. Do people want bathrooms at Klingelhutz? Ruegemer: I think so. Hoffman: Yes they do and so. Kelly: I don’t ever remember reading anything about that. Hoffman: Huh? Kelly: I said I don’t ever remember reading anything about that. Hoffman: Yeah they would like that so, and you know Bandimere Park has really come a long ways I think since the initial development. I think as a community and as park users we were in a great position when the State came along and the City provided that road system and all that investment we had in that park. With the new access road and the underpass and so now to be able to leverage that and to take that additional parkland that we purchased and you know that was never a done deal for certain. You know if you recall we bought those 2 lots for $660,000 and the previous time we approached the property owners they wanted $1.2 million and so they were really in a tough spot there. We worked with the pipeline. I think we have a great plan that you’re going to see moving forward on the hockey rink and the parking lot expansion so we left all the parking stalls that are there. We added 38 additional stalls and added in an ice hockey rink so you’ll see that plan coming forward as well and it’s going out to bid probably within the next 45 days. Scharfenberg: I think one of the things that I had asked for Todd, and I should have emailed you before this. Is it possible just if you know right off hand, of these projects that we have here which one of them are in, which of these are in the CIP for the next 5 years? I know the shelter at Bandimere is one of those. What else in here is part of CIP? Hoffman: I don’t think a lot of them. I don’t think there’s. Scharfenberg: I knew the shelter was at Bandimere but I was trying to think if. Oh okay. Hoffman: There might be one or two others but that’s going to be about it. You’ll notice. Scharfenberg: Oh the tennis court is. We had pushed that back out. Hoffman: And then Roundhouse Park has got, it’s not highlighted, construct a tennis/pickleball/basketball because you’ll be talking about that next month. 9 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Scharfenberg: Right. Hoffman: None of the playgrounds are. Scharfenberg: Right so it’s the, it’s the Bandimere Park tennis court. Hoffman: And shelter. Scharfenberg: And the shelter are the 2 things that are in the CIP that are included in this plan. Hoffman: Sounds correct. Scharfenberg: Okay. Thank you Jennifer. Hougham: I have a question. So everything we have here, so if it didn’t go to a referendum and there are some of those different kind of things we talked about. Larger things that didn’t quite fit into this plan. If we went forward with this what would the appetite be in the future for a referendum? For some of those larger things. Are they going to say no, we just put $6-$7 million dollars into parks. We’re not going to do a referendum. Scharfenberg: Are you referencing to what the City Council would say? Is that what you’re asking? Hougham: Yeah, yeah. Scharfenberg: I’m thinking they’re going to say you just put $6 to $7 million dollars into parks. We’re not going to be going forward with a referendum. Yeah I don’t, I think if you want to see it I think this is your chance to do it now. Or forever hold your peace. That’s my opinion. Hoffman: At least probably for 5 years. Scharfenberg: At least for 5 years. Hoffman: Or the next, yeah city councils change over and. Kelly: I would tend to agree with what Steve said. That’s my opinion also. So this is our shot if we really want to push a referendum do we go back to them and say we need more and we heard the mayor say to us, you know when we were in our meeting with the City Council the mayor goes why don’t you come back with something $6 to $7 million, which is where Todd so I know Brent and I were thinking about $10 some discussions we had so that got shot down and again if they put in general obligation bonds for $6 million. Of course if it goes with something else that’s what a 10 year general obligation bond probably. 10 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Hoffman: Yep, 10 or a little longer. Could be 15. Kelly: So it’s going to be this way for 5 or 10 years or a little longer if we go with this. Thunberg: The other thing that if it was a general obligation bond, you kind of asked us about our park dedication fund or our budget right, as those couple Bandimere examples. Like if I end up going through that I think the other opportunity we have is, I would agree it’s not going to be an appetite for a referendum type dollars but are they things then that you can think of over the next 5 years of the CIP that we have, you would just be okay now we know if it’s something we want to continue to push for outside of this. Can it work through the CIP process? So if it is another project that maybe is $300,000 or $400,000 we’ve had a couple of those on our CIP. Can it fit within that process but I would agree I think we would have to stick within that. Hougham: I guess that’s the hardest part for me is like the bigger things, we would never be able to do with our CIP. That $3 million, $5 million if we didn’t do it as part of this. Whereas the ongoing things at like $200,000 per neighborhood park we would be able to do, at least one a year. What’s the timing on the neighborhood parks Todd on when they need to be updated? Hoffman: Um. Hougham: Like what’s the necessity for all the playground updates? Hoffman: Yep so, and then I also want to clarify before I move on, the dollars that you typically have in park dedication should not be allocated for renovation or refurbishment and so park dedication dollars are collected to add new capacity to our park and trail system so your park dedication dollars are to build new parks. New playgrounds. When we start talking renovation, that’s a different proposal and so whenever the City Council talks about it or the park commission talks about it, those are new dollars. We have 24 playgrounds. About 10 of them are reaching that 20 years of age and older. We think at age 25 all of them have to be coming out so we have about 10 that need to come out in the next 5 years and be replaced. Hougham: But that wouldn’t be coming out of our CIP. Or our park dedication. Hoffman: It should be but we don’t know where it would be coming from. Hougham: Where it would come from, okay. Hoffman: Yeah. Hougham: When I tell you that…was looking at just totals and things earlier the improvements/ replacements on here total $2.8 so just for the board to think about. Roughly, give or take a few. Kelly: So Todd when are you looking for a motion from us? By which month? 11 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Hoffman: That’s up to the commission. Kelly: Okay, because I think this is something we need to talk about a little more on where do we want to go with and you know maybe even have a committee set up to talk about this if somebody’s interested in heading up a committee. To have a group to talk about it to report back to the commission. Thunberg: Can I ask a couple clarifying questions? Kelly: Sure. Thunberg: For the warming houses there’s a few on here for the, building permanent warming house and I know we’ve covered this before in meetings but can you remind me what’s the average cost per year of, when we bring in the temporary ones? Ruegemer: It’s about $3,500 per unit. Hoffman: Hard costs. Ruegemer: Just rent. Hoffman: Yep. Ruegemer: It has to have infrastructure… Thunberg: And then my second, my second comment is more of a comment than a question and just kind of leads into the next steps but I can’t say that I disagree with replacing, keeping up with our current structure that we do have some playgrounds out there that I think deserve soon to be replaced and upgraded. But then also too to your points on what happens to the new things that we’ve talking about for the last few months, the one on here that I think, and you’re not going to be surprised at all, I’ll just bring up the splash pad. The one part that I guess I’ve been a little bit confused on, our discussions over the last few months is for a while there it was just, it didn’t look like it had any appetite and then we went from it, we went from zero to an appetite of spending $2 ½ million dollars to acquire new land to make a city attraction and I think where my head’s always been at is more in the small mid-ground of somewhere on there that, you know there’s been a lot of cities it seems like in the last few years that have done something for $200,000-$300,000-$400,000 and I’d like us to at least consider that within the next steps if that’s something that could be on here or if not here then I’ll just keep pushing from the CIP process but I just, it feels like we’ve always, there was zero right and then again we now on here it’s, we’re saying no because it’s a big ticket item. I understand that but it’s a $2 ½ million dollar item where I think there’s a middle ground where we could, we have a lot of great park space and you know having something that’s just kind of a more middle ground expense. Splash 12 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 pad to add to one of our parks would be a really cool feature that Chanhassen could say we have something new but doesn’t need to go to the extent of $2 ½ million. Scharfenberg: In speaking to Luke’s issue in terms of thoughts that I had when I was looking through this and I agree wholeheartedly with Luke and with staff that we should replace our park and our park equipment because Sunset Ridge is, is a mess. It needs to be replaced so I whole heartedly agree with that but I don’t think as Luke has pointed out that we should give up on those big ticket items and maybe it is a good idea that we sit down as a, have a committee and look at that because I think as we talked on this we all talked about the Rec Center and we all thought that a Rec Center needed to be updated and thought that that was a good idea and as I was putting together, you know in the back of my head as I was thinking through what Jerry McDonald said that if you were going to do a referendum that you wanted to have something that would satisfy a lot of stakeholders to get them involved in this so you know looking at, when I was looking at the numbers, you know I had the $5 million for the Rec Center renovation. I don’t, I’m going to push for that as Luke’s going to push for a splash pad. I think that’s something that we should do. I think it would add significant value to the city and with the parks, and then the other one, the other big one that I had was just the lighting of the 3 fields out at Bandimere and you hit a lot of different people with that particular, you know if you use just those 3 items it’s a little bit over what staff has recommended in terms of money but it’s clearly in that ballpark so those were my thoughts as I was looking at the recommendations. Kelly: So who’s interested in heading up a committee? Scharfenberg: I would be. Kelly: Okay. I nominate Steve to head up a committee to further look into what should be included or not included or should we be going for a, push the City Council for a referendum on the $6,872,500 that’s been recommended by the City and see where we take it. Who would like to be on the committee with Steve? Boettcher: Will there be cookies? Scharfenberg: Yes. Boettcher: Okay I’ll be on it. Scharfenberg: Maybe even homemade. Kelly: So Rick, Jennifer, Jim and myself are interested in being on your committee. Scharfenberg: Okay. 13 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Thunberg: I would be as well. I just look at it, we’re talking about a commission versus a committee. I guess my, the one question for me when you say a committee, what does that necessarily entail outside… Hoffman: Sounds like a commission work session. Kelly: Yeah and it could be a work session. Hougham: Do we invite outside people? Kelly: Absolutely. Boettcher: It means if you’re not on the committee you’ll get volunteered for something. Thunberg: I’ll bring the cookies. Kelly: Okay. Hoffman: Dates, let’s pick it. Kelly: Next on the agenda. Hoffman: Should we pick a date Chair Kelly? Kelly: Yeah. Steve, when would you like your first committee meeting? Scharfenberg: Yeah I’m looking. th Hoffman: February 9. It’s the second Tuesday of February. Scharfenberg: Yeah that would work. Boettcher: What time and where? Kelly: What do we have available to use in the city offices here? Hoffman: Let’s meet at City Hall and we’ll find a location. Pick a time. Scharfenberg: 7:00. Hoffman: 7:00, okay. We’ll send an agenda. Kelly: Thank you Todd. 14 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Hoffman: Thank you. Kelly: Everyone’s invited whether you’re on or not. Scharfenberg: Absolutely. 2016 FEBRUARY FESTIVAL PREVIEW. Kelly: Katie, I think something’s happening real fast here that you’re going to talk about. Favro: You are correct. Thank you Chair Kelly and commission. We’ve been working on th February Festival. It’s coming up on Saturday, February 6. So it’s not this Saturday. It is the following Saturday so it is rapidly approaching. This is what the schedule of events will look like. We have door prizes available. There’s going to be a medallion hunt. The medallion hunt will start the Monday of February Festival. There’ll be bait for sale. Bonfires. Sledding hill. Horse drawn sleigh rides and those after talking with Ken they might do those as wagon rides on a path. There’s going to be concessions brought to you by the Chanhassen Rotary Club. A s’mores cookout and of course the ice fishing contest. So the ticket sales, the ticket sales are going on right now. We have had a few people stop in and pick up their tickets early. We can do that at city hall or you can do it day of event. Each person can get up, a maximum of 2 tickets. They’re $10 per ticket and then you get a door prize drawing when you come to the event. The hole drilling with the Rotary will be drilling all the holes again. I think they do around 1,000 holes. That way when contestants get there the holes are all ready for them and they just go to go set their bucket down and start fishing once the contest starts. The Rotary also helps out with the concessions. Culver’s will be there again this year. They’re always a huge hit along with other snacks and beverages and adult beverages. The boy scout troop will be bringing and selling live bait and they will also be having s’mores kits and they go out and they get the twigs morning of so it’s a real campfire experience. Here we just have the bonfires. S’mores are always a hit for people of all ages. We will have our sliding hill available so meanwhile kids come, they can go and sled on the hills or do the ice skating rinks while their parents fish. This is Ken of Marr Farms. They will be providing rides again this year and this year will probably be similar to last year where they do it on the path in a wagon. There’ll be ice skating. You can bring your ice skates. We encourage it but if you just have your boots that works just as well, or if you want to have a snowball fight. The park maintenance crew, they go out on the ice and they plow a nice big rink for everybody so it’s ready day of. Tip Outdoors will be coming again this year. What they do is they come and provide just a little bit more information for people who are, have never ice fished before or are curious about that or they kind of show them the tricks of the trade. So the medallion hunt like I said. This is a partner program with the Friends of the Chanhassen Library. We team up and we try to write clues that are really hard so nobody finds it right away so we hope that happens again this year. These are last year’s winners. So we’ve got 6,000, over $6,000 in fish prizes. We’ve got over $3,000 in door prizes. Last year there were 702 tickets sold on ticket sales. Tickets sold. Again the door 15 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 prizes they go up as we start drawing the names they’ll go up on a board. We’ll have an announcer announcing them and that way people can kind of go out throughout the event and check the board to see if their name is up on there. These are just some highlights. DJ Bob will be back again this year so we’re excited to have him. These are our sponsors for this year’s event. I believe we have had a few more. Sponsors have still been coming in so as sponsors send in their donations and their contributions we do update the list too because I know that Culver’s is, should be on here so and we always, people can, they can send in their contributions and their donations whenever. Here are some of you guys in your bright and shining moments volunteering. We also have a lot of help for this. A lot of different organizations and groups come out to help. The Chanhassen Fire Department will be there along with the Sheriff’s department. The Chanhassen Rotary’s always a huge help with doing concessions and drilling the holes and then we do have a lot of volunteers that help with our ticket sales day of so we get a lot of those people from you know the Chanhassen High School, Chaska High School and the Interact Club. Anybody have any questions? Boettcher: You do have new ones with the 6? Favro: Okay, good. Yeah like I say we do try to keep them updated. This one I think was the first round that went out so we do try to keep those updated just because we are so appreciative of all our sponsors that we want to make sure they are recognized as soon as they are confirmed. Hoffman: What was your question? Was the date? thth Boettcher: The 6, 7 from last year. thth Favro: Wait the 7. Wait the dates of the 7? Boettcher: Yeah. Scharfenberg: On this brochure. th Boettcher: Last year it was the 7. nd Favro: I wonder if I, oh maybe this is last year’s one. The 22 year. Scharfenberg: You printed the wrong one today. Favro: I gave you last year’s…oh my gosh. I had a heart attack there. Hoffman: She’s too young for a heart attack. Favro: So that was last year’s flyer. If you look in the paper it will be this year’s flyer. Oh my goodness. Don’t scare me like that. 16 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Boettcher: You already have the volunteers? Hoffman: Yeah Todd passed your email onto me. I have what people have done in the past if they’re interested in doing that again this year and want to confirm that. Any takers? Scharfenberg: I’ll be there. Favro: Okay, I’ll put you down. Lauren you going to be there? Dale: Yeah. Favro: Yeah, that will be fun. Awesome. Well what the commissioners have done in the past is they help out with like the weigh station so people come in and they bring their fish in and then they get weighed right there. We also enter them into a database that sorts them all by their weight because that’s how we judge who has the biggest fish so it’s kind of updating that board as we get fish kind of coming in. Hoffman: Prize distribution. Scharfenberg: Yeah, writing it up on the board and handing out prizes. That’s what we need help with mainly. Hoffman: We’re going to get a little snow this weekend and then we’re going to, it looks like we’re headed for a cold stretch right before Feb Fest so it looks to be maybe in that 10-15 degree range. Echternacht: Are some of our new restaurants on the new list? Favro: The list. We’ve been in contact with Noodles and Davanni’s and they have not chosen to participate in the sponsorship program this year. Or at this moment. They could choose later on in the year. Sometimes being new they don’t always necessarily know everything that the City does so once they kind of get out in the community and see all the events we have they may change. You know choose to change their mind or decide to contribute. Hougham: What’s the plan in case the weather doesn’t permit? Scharfenberg: Don’t talk like that. Hoffman: If it’s 30 below or colder wind chill it goes to the next day. And beyond that I don’t know. 30 below. Kelly: Including the wind chill. 17 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Hoffman: Yes. Boettcher: The weigh master does not show up at 30 below. Hoffman: Currently the ice depths are 14 inches in the outlaying areas and about 12 on the inner boundaries. Kelly: That’s plenty deep. Hoffman: That’s plenty. Kelly: The fishing contest is on. Scharfenberg: The show must go on. Thunberg: Who’s going to catch the biggest minnow? Boettcher: And hopefully this year there’ll be more than 30. Was it 35 last year? .35 won it was it? Third of a pound. Kelly: There’s a reason why we have Commissioner Boettcher working at it so he doesn’t win it every year. Hoffman: That’s right. The contest area was moved an additional 20 feet towards show and so that’s one of the favorite fishing areas in those shallower water areas so that accounts for 2 holes so they’re every 10 feet and then so it will slide closer to shore so you’ll see, you’ll notice it. It’s just a little bit tighter to show but that’s where the weed beds are and that’s where a lot of the fish are caught so you’ll see some confused folks when they start doing their depth check because they’re going to wonder there’s a lot more room in the shallow water areas this year so maybe more fish will be caught. Kelly: Thank you Katie and we’re all looking forward to it. Favro: Yeah, thank you. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Kelly: Todd, anything specific you want to point out in the administrative packet? Hoffman: I would. As a part of the watercraft inspections we had the full report from Carver County which is in depth. If you review it and have any questions you want to email me or give me a call I’d be happy to answer those questions. Also we’re excited to announce that there’s 18 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Drew Knicker has been hired by Carver County as their AIS Coordinator and so Drew will be coordinating all the programs. So far we don’t hear that there’s going to be any changes. We’ll be doing the same thing. Full inspections 7 days a week at Lotus and then Friday, Saturday, Sundays at Susan and Ann. I believe the partners will be the same as far as the dollars. $25,000 coming from the watershed district. Somewhere over $10,000 from the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance and 12 ½ from the City of Chanhassen. Last year we raised that to 14 ½ and so those will be the dollar amounts that will be going into that inspection program. And all of that is made possible, that’s our contribution for our city but all that’s made possible by that $10 million dollars that’s coming from the State Legislature and is being distributed to counties and Carver County gets a big chunk of that money and so really zebra mussels have not spread like people thought they might spread but we’ll just see where, you know once these lakes other than Christmas. Christmas is now infested so once the other lakes, if Lotus Lake or Lake Ann or Lake Susan would ever be infested with zebra mussels then we don’t know what the future of the inspection program will be at that time. Will it continue? At some point you know the City Council may decide they just want to turn this whole program over to the County so the County’s doing a program for county lakes which includes the 3 lakes that are in Chanhassen. We add to that program. If we said County we’re not going to send you dollars down to Carver County they would still come up and do a program here. It just may not be what people would want in the city but there’d certainly be a program on our county lakes so program in flux. We’re still learning but lots of interesting data. They did find one zebra mussel last year and that was on a week at Lotus Lake, out of 5,200 inspections. Thank you. Kelly: Somebody want to call the question? Boettcher: I’ve got one thing for the. Kelly: Oh I’m sorry. Boettcher: Trying to get out of here early. Carver County Parks, we’re having a candle lit ski th event at Minnewashta Park February 13. The week after Feb Fest. 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. It includes star gazing, luminaries, dog sledding, hayrides, s’mores, cider and more. If you want to rd rent skis $5 an adult for ski rental. They just had it this last weekend, the 23 at Baylor Park out at Norwood-Young America but it’s always a pretty neat event. If it’s temperatures like we’re having tonight it’s not bad to be out there. To get there you go into the park. You turn to the right like you’re going to go to the dog park and there’s a maintenance shed on the left side. That’s kind of the center. The old caretakers house. They have ski rentals in the basement there so if you wanted to rent skis. The dog sledding and the hayride both are supposed to start at the maintenance building and go to the boat launch area so anybody’s interested it’s not, it doesn’t close a lot. It’s really a lot of fun getting out there. Especially if you have kids. You know the hayride and dog sledding thing. You’ll have to fight my wife for the dog sleds. Kelly: I was going to say that sounds like fun. 19 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2016 Boettcher: But if you want a flyer. Kelly: Have you got flyers for us? Boettcher: I’ve got some extra here if anybody’s interested. Hoffman: Last years? Favro: Yeah are they last year’s flyers? Boettcher: They are this years. Kelly: I’d like to do this. Thank you Jim. Thunberg moved, Scharfenberg seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 20