PRC 2009 07 28
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
JULY 28, 2009
Chairman Daniel called the meeting to order at 7:50 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jeff Daniel, Tom Kelly, Glenn Stolar, Steve Scharfenberg, and Elise
Ryan
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Thor Smith and Scott Wendt
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; John Stutzman, Recreation Supervisor; Jodi Sarles, Rec Center Manager; Susan
Bill, Senior Center Coordinator; and Mitch Aldrich, Intern
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Daniel: Is there anything that we’d like to add or delete Todd?
Hoffman: Just to, I’ll let you make the official apology for our tardiness.
Daniel: Absolutely. We’d like to certainly apologize for our tardiness. We were going through
a tour of the community and get an opportunity to see the new high school and the investment
that the city has made into the new ballfields, which is incredible so that’s going to be a
wonderful dedication. I mean we were in awe to say so, and as well as a lot of the other trails
and touring the Arboretum. So we apologize for running about 20 minutes late here so hopefully
it won’t cause any problems for our guests. As far as any other items commissioners at all?
Hoffman: Want to have a conversation about the Money Magazine designation.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: You can add that wherever you’d like to put it.
Daniel: We could probably put that down at public announcements. That’s coming up next.
Alright, why don’t we just move onto that Todd. The Money Magazine.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hoffman: I think it was two weeks ago Monday that Money Magazine announced on the Today
Show that Chanhassen was, well they ranked the top 5 that day and so we were aware that
Chanhassen was going to be somewhere in probably in the top 10 but we had no idea as a
community, the council was not aware, the City Manager was not aware, where they were going
to be ranked. They sent a photographer and a Money Magazine editor here for some time. We
toured the photographer around from New York for 3 days and he took a variety of the images
Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
you see in the publication or in the magazine are on the web page or from that tour when he was
here so obviously pleasantly surprised. The country as grand and great as the United States, to
be named the second place to live in the United States is quite an honor so. The mayor and
council are proud. The staffers are proud and I know the commission is pleased as well so the
components that you deal with on a yearly basis, parks, trails, community buildings play a big
part in that so I just want to make sure that we acknowledge your contributions to that
designation and put you back to work to make it even better.
Daniel: Well certainly thank you and as well as the acknowledgement to the city and the council
as well. I mean the vision that the city has. The priorities they put in the park and recreation
side of things. Obviously that’s where we’re coming from and I think that was certainly an
important component for us to be rated so high and that’s why, one of the many reasons why
families relocate here to Chanhassen and hopefully we’ll continue and we’ll try to figure out
what it takes to get to number one. So can’t be satisfied. Always got to work harder. But
certainly it’s a great testament to the work that the city has done that the community has
recognized as well as the rest of the country so, out of the thousands of cities, tends of thousands
of cities to be ranked that high, as far as the best place to live in, I mean that’s the critical point.
I mean it’s not just the best city but the best city to live in so thanks again and I appreciate Todd
for the acknowledge and the announcement. As far as visitor presentations, Todd looks like we
have a guest here and is there anything that you would like to further discuss or is it, let’s see
here. I know you’re here about the 5, correct me if I’m wrong, about the concession stands at the
ballfield? Am I missing that somewhere here? When do you want to get a chance to talk about
that Todd?
Hoffman: We’ll discuss that during the CIP conversation.
Daniel: Okay, good.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Scharfenberg moved, Smith seconded to approve the
verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
May 27, 2009 as presented.
RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL, 2010 THROUGH 2014 PARK AND TRAIL
ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP).
Hoffman: Chair Daniels I didn’t bring it up during our approval to the agenda but my
recommendation is that you take items 3 through 6 prior to number 2, if staff will agree to
present an abbreviated version of their report in order to get out of here prior to our CIP
conversations. Also to buy back some of the time we spent out in the field.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: If they agree. I think they agree.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: I think we will.
Hoffman: I would ask that you pick up item 3 if you approve.
Daniel: Let’s move onto the reports, recreation program.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS:
2009 FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION.
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Stutzman: Yes, thank you Chair Daniels. We did have another successful year for the 4 of July
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celebration. Not quite as grand as the 25 but it wasn’t supposed to be. The 25 was the big
anniversary but we definitely built on the success of last year and enjoyed another wonderful
celebration. Before we get started with that too I just wanted to see if everybody who worked
that evening was able to receive a t-shirt. If not I do have t-shirts down here for everybody else
so if you did not receive one or were not around that weekend, I do have t-shirts for you guys
before you take off tonight so. To those of you who were there that evening, thank you very
much for your help. I know the Historical Society appreciated it as well. They did have a very
successful evening overall and definitely we’re open to feedback for next year but we’re very
pleased with things as well so. And Commissioner Kelly, I did pass along your…
Kelly: Thank you. Yep.
Stutzman: …as well and we’ll continue to work with them on that next year.
Kelly: Thank you.
Stutzman: But overall it seemed like we did expand and have higher attendance this year at the
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July 3 and 4 celebrations. The parade was incredible. Mr. Neils and I were actually just
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commenting on a number of people there on the 4, for the parade as well as he mentioned the
comment that I heard pretty much as the number one comment for the celebration was the tables
and alcohol allowed into the food area this year, which was by far the largest comment. I do
need to thank the Chanhassen Rotary for working with the City, or pardon me, the School Board
on getting that approval and continuing to work with that for years to come hopefully so, as it
was a nice addition and the tables and chairs obviously will not go away regardless of whether
that does so. Lots of good things, events continued this year. Some of the changes I guess I will
go through, abbreviate just a little bit here. The pony rides this year were a new thing. Very
successful. It was quite interesting to watch the dynamic of people on that. It was anywhere
from the young children to at 8:00-9:00 at night I saw teenagers, you know 10-15 people waiting
to get on the pony or on the camel rides which was rather entertaining. They were thrilled. I
heard a couple of them saying they’d done it 3,4, 5 times already so it was a very fun piece of the
celebration to add and I know the company was very pleased with the celebration. This year we
did charge for the pony rides and the camel rides. Something we hadn’t done but just something
small that we could do to help contribute with the budget as well to kind of offset the cost that
they had done, or that we had paid them in the past. I think overall it was well received. There
was a little resistance but I think we kept it a fairly minimal price that it was not too inconvenient
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
of people so. The other thing I’d like to highlight is we did have a first aid tent this year. It was
not utilized very much, which is a good thing, but always a nice thing to have. Bright Star came
in offered that as a free service to us and has said they would like to come back in the future and
so that was a really nice partnership working with them. They were great to work with. Said
they just like the exposure and working with us and they said they’d be happy to do that.
They’re based out of Chaska and approached me through the Chamber of Commerce so that was
a very nice piece and again it was very nice to know that it was not utilized all that much. Other
pieces again, the Historical Society working with them. They took over the raffle. I believe their
profits were higher, very high. They sold things longer but again…Commissioner Kelly and I
chatted about that evening, we’ll recommend next year that they kind of stagger their prize give
away at least at the end a little bit as we have done at our similar Feb Fest. At least cut it off
maybe around that 9:00 mark and do it you know, 10 prizes every 10 minutes or something like
that to at least accommodate everybody a little bit easier so it’s not so, such mass chaos back
there. Once again the Rotary spearheaded the Taste of Chanhassen, the beer garden. Another
partnership that we’re very proud to have and very thankful to have as they continue to add a lot
to the celebration. The Taste was very successful this year. A little different layout than we had
in the past. Keeping all the tents in a row and then also adding the tables and chairs both seemed
to go very, very well and I was very happy with that as I believe most of the people were with
that but we had the 11 vendors this year. A nice dynamic. A nice choice of food and for the
most part I think we kept lines fairly well down so I think this is a pretty appropriate number to
continue to go with so. And then of course the evening was capped off with a street dance and
the carnival rides again were once again very large successes. And with the street dance, one
thing to mention, I don’t know if anybody, any of you guys were there when Mayor Furlong was
presented with an autograph poster from the band. They took a picture last year when they were
presented with the key to the city and turned that into one of their promotional posters and they
presented Mayor Furlong with an autographed copy of that so that was kind of fun to see as well.
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On the 4, a lot of popular activities once again. The parade was a huge hit. Blankets and things
were going up very, very early once again this year. You know it’s estimated, I think we had
about 12,000 people out there watching the parade again and really enjoyed seeing that. Even
though we had a little scare at the end with the weather, we managed to get the whole thing in
and the Rotary who spearheaded that again, helped with a great job and you know do need to
thank Dale and his crew and everybody who helped out with that as they did a great job cleaning
up downtown. Making sure downtown was ready for that as well. And then finally capped the
evening off with the fireworks. This was year 2 of our 3 year agreement with Melrose. I thought
they did a nice job again this year with very good fireworks and look forward to working with
them in the future on that so, at this time if the commission has anything to add or any feedback
for me on any of these events I’d be happy to entertain those and make notes of those as well.
Daniel: We’ll start off Elise, do you have any comments?
Ryan: Real quick, to move it along. I want to apologize for not being able to make it but I will
say that I received a lot of fabulous feedback from the parade to the fireworks to just the way the
whole thing, just that and hearing the feeling was fabulous so congratulations to you and your
team of everybody working so hard so thank you.
Daniel: Glenn.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Stolar: Echo Elise’s comments. It was fantastic seeing a wonderful time. Just a couple quick
thoughts as I was reading through this. I mean I think all the new stuff is great. …no doubt for
my kids at least. On the t-shirt question about the sales. One question, one thing I was thinking
about given the large role the Rotary is playing now in this, that maybe we ask them to help us
sell it and co-brand it with them. You know and that way it becomes, so you say about starting
in June, but also start it with them helping us move it forward might be a great partnership, you
know because we’re building a great partnership and they can sell them in the parade and all that.
Something to think about. I don’t know if that would be something they’d be interested in. And
then the tables was great having it by there, but I think I mentioned this to you that night. If you
could spread them out a little bit because if sat in the middle you couldn’t actually get to your
seats that were out there so I know it decreases the amount of tables we have but it was really
hard to get into the middle seat but having them out there was fantastic.
Stutzman: Some new layout ideas have been kind of worked so we can spread that out a lot and
move a couple things around to get them more visibility to accommodate just that.
Stolar: Made a huge difference having that out there. It was fantastic. So thanks.
Daniel: Steve.
Scharfenberg: Wonderful job John and staff and everyone that was involved in it. It was a
wonderful community activity and really brings everyone together, from Chanhassen and all the
surrounding communities, both with the activities the night before and the parade so just another
wonderful event.
Daniel: Tom, anything else you’d like to comment?
Kelly: I thought it was great. Besides, talk a little bit about and I was a little adamant I guess
about the prize board that night because I was caught in the typhoon people coming up at 10:00.
Besides the face of staggering out the prizes which I thought, which I think works better than
having, drawing everything at once and putting the numbers up. I don’t know what they thought
about writing the names on the tickets. The changing of the rules to you don’t have to be present
to win. That seemed to be a hassle for people to actually write down their phone numbers on 10
tickets and I know if you bought 20 tickets you kind of wrote on a sheet of paper your first ticket
and last ticket. I don’t know if that was a bookkeeping nightmare and a nightmare for the
Historical Society trying to count up those people but just the people in line alone, it just took a
lot of time. I don’t know if you really need to, you don’t need to be present to win anymore. I
didn’t mind the re-draw in previous years at the end of the night. That’s kind of fun and it keeps
people around as opposed to.
Stutzman: That’s actually a gambling regulation that you don’t need to be present to win.
Kelly: It is? Is this new from last year?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: No. The gambling regulations are not. The fact that we’re actually following them is.
So, and John can explain it. He’s done a lot of research but you know as the organization, as the
community grows and we asked all the churches and all these organizations in our community to
follow the gambling permits and the liquor license and all those type of things. It’s an obligation
that we have as well to follow them so we’ve been taking a look at all of our contests. Our
fishing contest and…but I think, John if you want to explain your ideas about, you know we
could stop it a little bit earlier and spread the drawing out. The rules are you have to, you can’t,
may not be present to win. Everybody has to have equal chance so you have to sell all the tickets
before you start drawing so everybody has an equal chance. And if you’re not present to win,
you need to have some way to contact the person, thus the name and the phone number. So you
have to, everybody’s got to buy in and you start drawing from there. There are no re-draws.
Kelly: Okay. So for Feb Fest we’ll be doing the same thing. Won’t be drawing prizes at Feb
Fest until, you’ll have to cut off the sales of the fishing tickets at a certain time so we can draw
prizes.
Stutzman: That was actually something we did this year and we’re continuing, I’m continuing to
look at the gambling regulations and figuring out how exactly we want to do that and if it’s a
way we want to go. If it’s even a gambling permit or if it’s just you know door prizes and we
charge, raise the prices for the fishing contest or something to that extent. There’s a lot of
different ways and I am looking at, or if we continue to find another organization to come in and
do that.
Kelly: Okay.
Stutzman: So there’s a lot of different. As I’ve dug through the gambling regulations, as Todd
has said, there’s a lot of fine print in there and there’s a lot of gray area which I’m trying to avoid
that gray area. As Todd said, you know as a city organization, government organization we
should be following these regulations as everybody else is expected to so trying to sort through
that gray and make sure that we are you know on the same page as everybody else.
Kelly: Okay. And then a couple of nit picky things. The white board isn’t that big. To write
the prizes on and when you, what they had them is they had on the borders of the white board
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they had fancy 4 of July decorations which made the actual box small. I have very tiny
handwriting as it is and it was difficult for me to you know write in the 6 numbers. Something I
did, and I want to mark this down so I don’t do it again is like, I used the same color of marker
that was written for the prize so it was hard for people to distinguish between what the prize was
and the number. That was all on me. And the last thing, and maybe it’s just me being ultra
paranoid but the money aprons. I don’t know if that, if having people walking around with
money aprons is just inviting, it’s just easier for theft and I know I was ultra careful. I believe I
gave my money apron to Jodi when I went to use the bathroom because I didn’t want to give off
the appearance that I was leaving the area with a money apron on. And I’m probably taking
things to extremes but I don’t know if just having the money apron just makes it easier for people
to take money out. I know these are all trust worthy people but you’re just making the barrier for
theft a lot easier when people are walking around with 50 bucks around their waist.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Stutzman: I think too, you know with the Historical Society, their first year running it, they
obviously had some ideas and Commissioner Kelly I will gladly pass these along to them as
well. I think that will help them and now that they understand kind of what’s expected and then
working with them I think we can you know help keep a better eye on and help these and make it
a little bit better for everybody throughout the whole time. Now that everybody’s got a year
under their belt…
Kelly: Yep, great. Besides that it was a great time, so.
Daniel: Excellent. Thanks Tom. No, and I couldn’t agree with what all the commissioners have
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said as well. I mean the, I didn’t get a chance to be here on the 4, as far as with the parade, the
rest of the family went and they said it was fantastic. The fireworks they said were the best
they’ve ever seen for Chanhassen. I don’t know what our vendor had done different but they
said it was just fantastic.
Hoffman: The fireworks, the fact that it was nice and calm doesn’t hurt.
Daniel: Oh I’m sure that does help. Oh yeah. I was just absolutely blown away at the amount
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of people there on the 3. At the street dance. Again second year now where we’ve had the
winner of the Chan Jam play. Another fantastic band. I mean just enjoyable to watch and I
mean it just goes to show the talent that’s out there right now at that age is encouraging. The
tables were a great idea. It just expanded the overall area. I think to a certain extent instead of
huddling all the adults into one congregated area as far as with the expansion of the alcohol on
the school premises, people are just kind of lingering out and the vendors were great. I mean the
food vendors, the Rotary did a good job as far as the way they ID’d. I think is that the second
year in a row in which they’ve done that? Where they’ve done the wrist band. Again, it’s very
smart so again everything worked out perfect and for all the time and effort that the city has put
into it and working with the Rotary as well as with all the other organizations, we thank you
because it’s a testament to what you’ve been able to pull off in essence and all the hard work
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coming to a fruition. By the 5 I know you’re tired so hopefully you know next year, it’s hard
to, we seem to be stepping it up each year and I think to a certain extent you know you just want
to, you almost want to just plateau and make it just something that’s a tradition you know. I
don’t think you’re reaching, you’re almost reaching, I don’t know maybe I might be wrong
where we’re… Yeah, if they bring in elephants, now we’re talking. And given the community
here, we probably should. But so I mean it worked out extremely well and again my hats off to
the city so thank you very much for all the effort. For everyone in the park and recreation
commission had done. Again Dale’s staff and Jerry and your staff and everyone were I know
very busy so thanks again and we look forward to next year. But first we don’t want to look too
far ahead because now we’ve got the Huffman race. We’ve got all sorts of events coming up
here so, as well as the Klein Summer Bank Series that I’m sure you’re going to get a chance to
talk to us about.
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Stutzman: Actually if I may I’d like to touch on one more thing for the 4. Just one more
acknowledgement I wanted to pass onto the commission is the partnership with the Chanhassen
Villager. I forgot to mention that, with the color brochure that they had helped us produce again
this year. I didn’t mention that and they have been a phenomenal partner in this for the second
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
year. I did speak with them afterwards and they, this is a partnership that they value as well and
look forward to continuing to work in the future so it’s something that I’d like to work with and
enjoy working with them. They’ve done a great job with that and they acknowledge everything
that they’ve done. I think it really adds a lot to the celebration to get something you know
almost, that’s memorable that you can hang onto and really keep and it’s more than just a tri-fold
brochure but they have been wonderful and as I said, I spoke with them and they look forward to
doing that again next year so obviously they were very pleased to continue so big thank you to
them as well.
Daniel: Okay. Alright, thanks again John.
2009 KLEINBANK SUMMER CONCERT SERIES.
Stutzman: Thank you again. The summer concert series, this was meant more as a preview but I
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can go through a little bit. More current estimates. We are now into the 5 deep with the 6
coming this week into this year’s show out of a total of 9. It’s been a good series. The weather
has definitely been cooler this year so the crowds haven’t been enormous but they’ve been very
steady. Averaging about 200 to 225 a night and so it has been a lot of fun. We’ve had some
wonderful, wonderful bands out this year. Some new bands and things like that. We’ve gotten
some great, great press through the Villager as well. BoJoNo, I don’t know if anybody, any of
you guys made it out, are a fantastic band. This is the second year we’ve invited them. They
were wonderful. The Teddy Bear Band was fun again. Redpath is a wonderful group as well.
They’re actually based out of the Twin Cities here again too. You know Calhoun Brass didn’t
quite have the attendance that we hoped for last week during lunch but that’s Eric Sanger’s band.
One of the middle school teachers over at Chaska and he’s got a great, great brass group and
looking forward to the next coming bands that we have coming up. Mitch Aldrich, our summer
intern who is here this evening has been kind of spearheading this this summer and done a real
nice job with it so, just handling the day to day logistics of getting everything ready for the
concerts. Being there the night of. Coordinating with the food vendor that we were able to
secure this year. Last year’s food vendor was unable to staff it and make it worthwhile for them
so we didn’t, weren’t able to bring them back but the School II actually contacted me and said
they were very interested in helping out and they’ve done a nice job and had fun. Her whole
goal again is, it’s not necessarily profit like the other, like the other vendor was. She just wants
the exposure and has been pleased to this point as well. I know one day for the Teddy Bear Band
they brought out snow cones which every kid there had a snow cone in their hand which was
really cool to see so they’ve done a wonderful, wonderful job and have been very easy to work
with as well. Once again we partnered with KleinBank on this one again as the title sponsor and
they have been very fun to work with again this year. Their enthusiasm is still there. They’re
doing it in a different ways. Advertising but they’re not quite the presence there as much as they
were but again they’ve done little things from handing out balloons to face painting and been
around very much so they’ve been a great partner to work with and we appreciate their donations
so. But looking forward to wrapping up this summer’s concerts and working again into the
future. This is a great program.
Daniel: Are there any other comments from commissioners?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Ryan: If I could make a suggestion for next year, if this happens again. To encourage more of
the kids, the kids band over the noon hour and if you could even move it up to 11:30 type hour.
I’m a stay at home mom that does a lot of community activities with other mothers and stay at
home dads. They’re looking for a lot of summer time music concerts. Do a park, you know park
in the morning. Go listen to music in the afternoon. You know I think it would be something
that would be very well received.
Hoffman: Get them there at an earlier time?
Ryan: Yeah, well there was only that one and then even start it at 11:30ish because I know that
kind of the draw that you’re looking for, a lot of the kids on their eating, nap time. You know
the logistics of mothers and dads trying to get their kids down. You know they’re always kind of
backing out hours in the day to figure out to squeeze things in and really in the summertime
that’s what kids like to do is come and dance and listen to music.
Daniel: Thank you Elise. John, any consideration of having the runner-up or somebody else
from Chan Jam, third place finisher, or somebody that, doing a concert series? Or is it different?
Does it depend upon the band? I suppose that they.
Stutzman: It definitely does depend on the band. I mean we did invite the basically the second
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and third bands from this year to play on the 4 of July as well. But as far as the concert series, I
think the biggest hindrance with that is that we do ask that the bands bring their own sound
system and for kids that age to have the entire equipment that they need is more difficult so what
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we do at Chan Jam, the 4 of July, things like that, we provide them mics and PA systems and
stuff like that whereas I don’t think they have that as readily available and we don’t provide that
for the musicians. That is something that has been weighed but the logistics haven’t been
figured out at this point.
Daniel: Alright. I think there’s need to acknowledge again, thanking KleinBank and the School
II for their participation in this so thanks again. We appreciate it John and all the efforts and
making another well received community event.
PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT.
Daniel: Alright, we can move onto our park and trail maintenance, and obviously Dale’s still
stuck up in Longville on his vacation.
Hoffman: Absolutely.
Daniel: so is there anybody else here that’s going to? We can move on?
Hoffman: Yep. Well, do you have any questions on the park maintenance report?
Daniel: No. Alright, then we can go onto the senior center.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
SENIOR CENTER REPORT.
Bill: Hi. How’s everyone?
Daniel: Good.
Bill: I’ll keep it quick and then I won’t get the sign from Jerry. As always activities, attendance
in the senior center continues to be good. Steady. What you mentioned with Chanhassen Todd
being a city that people enjoy living in. I hear quite often with seniors who have moved in, that
are new in the community usually move in because their children are here and the senior center
is one place for them to meet and interact with people their own age and I see that quite a bit and
they comment on how fortunate they are to have a place to do activities and not be entirely
dependent on their family so the city is to be commended for their devotion to the senior center.
I’ll be quick in highlighting a few things. May is traditionally Older Americans Month and I
load it with activities. Couple things I want to highlight. Every year we have Breakfast with the
Mayor. This year we made pancakes and some of the staff helped flip pancakes and it’s one of
the favorite presentations of the year and Mayor Furlong does a great job. I also want to talk
about, I did something this year called Health, Wealth and Wise. We did it at the recreation
center. We had a fitness sampler of enhanced fitness. Showed people the use of the different
equipment and we had a couple other demonstrations and then Todd Hoffman gave a
presentation on our park system and some of the nature preserves and was available to answer
questions and there was really pretty good interaction so we’ve never really had Todd talk about
our parks and that was really well received so May is the month that people look forward to
because there’s a variety of activities. I’ve talked about in 2009 I started this Passport to the
World program and we’ve had a couple of pretty exciting ones. In June we had a Swedish
midsummer night celebration and I found a Swedish musical group and, that brought their
midsummer night pole and they danced around the pole and played a bunch of music. People
enjoyed that. We had Swedish food and then one of our wood carvers, who has been here for
quite a long time made homemade lefse and that was a big hit so that was really well received.
I’ve been really fortunate with the programs to find local talent and people who have traveled.
Like the group I had for the, do the music, there’s a Carver County, or Nordic Historic Society so
I was able to tap into them for entertainment and some of the food. So I’ve been really lucky
with that and then in July we had, we called it African Adventure and I had a couple who had
been on a safari and they did an excellent job in presentations. They were there for 3 weeks and
showed just a variety of stuff. I had a man from a church who was a missionary who had been to
Africa for 3 years so that was great. I had an African drumming group that was somewhat
interesting. They made their own drums, and then probably the highlight was I found an African
restaurant up by the University called TumTums and picked up African food and it was different
but everybody really enjoyed it. Probably the best part of that, I had ordered the food. Picked it
up the day before and it wasn’t ready so I had to wait an hour in this African restaurant and I
kind of stood out where I wasn’t quite as tan, but I met some of the most interesting people in the
restaurant and I was able to bring some of the stories back. I met the Pastor of a local African
church in South Minneapolis. I met the editor of an African newspaper so anyway people have
enjoyed those series immensely so I think we’ll even continue them in 2011. Next we moved,
kind of broke tradition. Our senior center annual picnic has always been held in May and once
again the Lions generously, not only donated the food but they come and cook it and set it up and
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
provide the beverages. Well we moved it from May to June this year and the real thing we did,
we moved it from the Lake Ann shelter. They’ve been there for 17 years. We moved it to the
Hilltop shelter. The day was gorgeous and I’ve got, I can’t tell you how many compliments I’ve
gotten on that shelter. People thought it was great to have more room. It just was wonderful and
we had a ton of compliments that I was to express to the city about what a great shelter so people
really enjoyed it. Had 135 people. Lions asked that we kind of cut it off at 150 because that’s a
lot of burgers and brats to grill, but they sponsor it every year and I think they have as much fun
doing it as we do. So it was wonderful. Tomorrow night every year we have had a dinner before
a concert in the park. This year I decided to do something a little different. We’re going to have
an Ice Cream Social and incorporate the Senior Commission open house and the Senior Advisory
Board. Meet the Senior Advisory Board for an hour before the concert and you’re all welcome
to come if you want to. So that will be at 6:00 before the Thursday evening concert. And then
the last thing I want to talk about is tomorrow I’ve arranged a tour of the high school. Principal
McMann is going to do a tour and I had, I have so many people we have to break it up in two
groups. So people are real excited about that but I’m a little leery because I went over there last,
I mean it’s a big place and you know every day they’re doing a different part of the parking lot
and you know, so I did speak with his secretary and I said you know, I think we can do an
abbreviated version. I don’t think we have to walk the whole high school. So anyway I’ve got
50 people coming. 25 at 1:00 and then another tour at 2:00 and I’ve had a lot of people from the
community call to ask if they could bring their families and I’ve been telling them about the open
nd
house on September 2. We just couldn’t accommodate any more people. And lastly my goal
in 2009 with the economy, I’ve been trying to mingle, I’ve been very conscientious of cost of
programs and I’ve been trying to offer some free events like the high school. There’s no cost for
that. We’ve not providing transportation. They’re meeting there. Tomorrow night the ice cream
social, once again the Lions have donated money to buy the ice cream and root beer. In
September we’re going to do a tour of the National Weather Service. I’m trying to utilize more
local things where we don’t have to rent buses and have cost and all in all our programs have
been going great so it’s been a good summer and look forward to the fall.
Daniel: Excellent. Well thank you Sue. Again we appreciate all the effort and help and is there
anything that any of the commissioners would like to ask Sue or talk to her?
Stolar: Just one thought is we’re tearing the trail that we’re going to be putting in next year
potentially to the Arboretum. Might be an opportunity to do a combination with bike ride with
the seniors into the Arboretum. Something for the fall. I assume we’ll put it in in the summer is
the target. Something to think about for the fall. They can get on their bikes. I guess they can’t,
can they get all the way from the rec center over there? Yeah, so they can meet at the rec center
then. Bike all the way through the nature trail there and then cross and then into the Arboretum.
Maybe set up something with the Arboretum.
Bill: Alright. Thank you. Good idea.
Stolar: That’s going to be a great option…
Hoffman: We hope. Once that trail’s connected we hope to do an inaugural ride where we have
you know over 500 riders meet at the rec center and head out to the west to ride that trail.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Stolar: That’d be wonderful.
Daniel: Excellent. Thank you Sue.
Hoffman: I think for Principal McMann, the best recommendation for the senior group is just to
ask him to utilize that commons area. You can see everything if you just go in a big circle in the
commons. You can go see the auditorium. The gym. All the classrooms because otherwise if
you take the extended tour you’re going to walk for a mile.
Bill: I’ve recruited my daughter to come and help.
Daniel: Alright, thank you.
RECREATION CENTER REPORT.
Daniel: Jodi. Get a chance to talk to us about the recreation center.
Sarles: It’s been a fun summer so far at the rec center. We’ve got a number of activities going
on out there. Camps. The fields are full. It’s been a good time up there. Couple basic facility
things. All the sprinkler heads were replaced on warranty repair or recall so that happened this
summer so we had 700 replaced. We’re now on the summer schedule so we sit on that until
st
August 21 and we’ll shut down there until Labor Day. The day after Labor Day, I’m sorry.
And do deep cleaning, floor resurfacing and get ourselves good and ready for the fall. New
program information here. The aerobics classes are running. We’re down to 2 now instead of
the 3 we first had for the first round. It’s a little slower in the summer for that program but
hopefully in the fall we’ll be able to maintain 3. The dance program had a great year again. 200
kids participated in our recital. We had 3 different performances. It’s a Friday-Saturday thing
where Friday they all come out and rehearse. We have ton of parent volunteers that get in there
and help out. We graduated another 2 seniors so we lost a couple of our old timers there but
good to see the kids keep on going but it’s sad to see the seniors leave that have been so involved
for so many years. We’re doing plenty of camps and clinics this summer and a lot of
promotional things with the dance program right now. We took on the enhanced fitness
programs. Sue kind of brought that over to us but we got plenty, 17 seniors right now taking that
exercise class twice a week and they just love it and it’s such a fun time because they’re coming
in and we’ve had princess camps and things and so they’re getting in there at the same time the
kids are and their costumes and they’re laughing and having a great time so it’s fun to see kind of
that intermingling of people and all the different people who use the rec center. Preschool sports
is going on. You’ll see later here that John Stutzman and I are going to take on this program in
the fall so we’re going to move that from the YMCA and take that as an in-house program.
Going to do the preschool sports and then we’re going to start some more after school sports out
at the rec center so keep it moving and active and trying to make it very profitable and good
program for the city here.
Daniel: Okay. Will the Y still be involved or is it basically going to be a Chanhassen thing
now?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Sarles: It’s going to be a Chanhassen thing now so we will staff it. Run it.
Daniel: Okay, was there any problem or is it just?
Sarles: There’s been, since I’ve been here I think we’ve had 6 different people from the Y come
and go that were managing that program and it became kind of, I don’t want to say an after
thought but kind of not a primary goal for many of the people. It bounced from different
branches and things so I think their commitment to it waned a little bit. Their responsiveness and
their communication kind of fell behind and so our, unfortunately our residents suffered so now
we want to make sure that we can mend the bridges and put out a quality program and the kids
are having a great time and learning sports so, and just learning about the community and being
with the neighbors so we think we can absolutely do it and do a better job. One thing is we get a
call, oh okay. Let me call them and then we’re waiting for them to call back the parent and in
the meantime we still have some frustrated residents so at this way we can nip it in the bud and
take care of business ourselves.
Stolar: Is this something for which we’ll be bringing in a new position then to run it or just
temporary staff?
Sarles: Yeah.
Hoffman: Coordinator position for the program but it’ll be covered in the…
Stolar: Right that’s what I’m, but we will bring in a full time coordinator.
Sarles: We’ll have a lead staff not full time though.
Stolar: Okay.
Sarles: They’ll run both the after school and the preschool sports. Hopefully we can cross over
the other leaders that we’ll have for programs.
Daniel: Okay.
Kelly: What after school sports do you offer or do you plan to offer? That isn’t preschool.
Sarles: Well, yeah we’ve done dodge ball last year so we’re going to continue that one. We’re
going to roll it into, we’re going to do some volleyball, basketball type things. Soccer. We also
are going to do some after school skating. Learn to skate programs so it’ll be both at City Center
and the Rec Center Park. And just kind of a variety of activities. Playground games. Just fun
things to keep the kids going.
Daniel: And then t-ball as well in the summer you’ll be taking over?
Sarles: Yeah, t-ball in the summer.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: And soccer programs.
Sarles: Yep, we do preschool soccer. They have an indoor and outdoor program. They have a
floor hockey so we’re going to do that for both the preschoolers and the older kids too. I don’t
know if you call them older when they’re…
Daniel: First or second grade. Okay, well great. That’s actually, and I think that actually is
going to be a good idea. You know I think it’ll probably provide a little more flexibility on some
of the things that you’ll be able to do as well so.
Sarles: Right.
Daniel: Great.
Sarles: Art galleries switched over this past week so we’ve got a local artist from Eden Prairie
that has some photography out there. Laura Kasmerrick is her name. The birthday party
packages, they slow down in the summer but we’re still booking for fall right now. We’ve done
plenty of marketing. John actually hooked us up with the Villager so we were able to have a
th
little quarter page ad spread in the 4 of July publication so that was very nice. People can see
all the activities that go on there. We put together a rental evaluation form so now when you rent
the rec center quarterly we send out evaluations and it’s an online survey that you can take and
so we can get some good feedback and opinions and things that we can do better and what we’re
doing well already so it’s kind of exciting to see. That’s about it.
Daniel: Alright. Any questions for Jodi?
th
Ryan: I have one thing. For the birthday party package. In the publication, the 4 of July
publication it, the ad got a little bit, or it got a little bit lost in the, with the rest of the activities
that were going on and you know if you’re slow in the summer and you are really picking up
people to do it in the fall and the winter, maybe the next round to do it again, because that’s
when people are starting to look, you know to plan for birthday parties and especially with the
economy the way that it is, $55 to rent a space and you know have the gym, the toys and
everything, I mean that’s a great opportunity for you know all the families that are in Chanhassen
so I don’t know, maybe put another ad in come this fall.
Sarles: Okay, great.
Daniel: Alright, anything else? Thank you Jodi and again appreciate the help as well as the
work. Alright I think now we can move on. Todd do you want to get a chance to talk about.
Hoffman: Back to 2.
Daniel: Oh we’re going to go back to 2 now. Oh okay. Excellent. Alright, thank you very much.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL, 2010 THROUGH 2014 PARK AND TRAIL
ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP).
Daniel: Alright, now I suppose we get a chance to talk about CIP.
Hoffman: Chair Daniels and members of the commission. Annually it is a charge of the Park
and Recreation Commission to make a recommendation to the City Council on both a single year
CIP for the coming year, for the 2010 budget cycle and then also to update the 5 year CIP goes
out for 5 years. 2010 to 2014. In your packet you have the amended first page inside cover
amended at $3,944,000 for years 2009 to 2013. That was as the commission amended the CIP
back in March. Did quite a bit of work at that time. You also have an initial recommendation to
get your discussion going on the next page. It’s listed at the top at 2010 through 2014.
Recommended CIP totaling $2.5 million. $2,525,000. And then you have a, the next page is the
park dedication history. Obviously one of the more important parts of your packet charts the
performance of park dedication fund. As we were out on our tour this evening we discussed, at
least antidotally the development, where things are at, you can see in park dedication the blue
line at the top. I think we had some high years. Our revenues. The triangular boxes in line. In
the year 2006 just over $2 million and now we’re projecting in 2010 somewhere closer down to
$200,000 in 2009 and 2010 so 10% of what the revenues were just a few short years ago.
Obviously when those kind of downturns happen in your revenue forecast you have to take a
look at you know where you’re spending your dollars to make sure that you’re tackling first
things first and doing the priority projects in the community and then you have to make sure that
you…out for the CIP per your current reflected revenues and then hope for an upturn in
budget…in the future as well. But again it’s safe to say that that $2 million mark will probably
not be attained again in the future of our community. We had some very strong development
years in the past 7 years or so. So we have a dedication, revenue dedication history that we have
to keep in mind as well. Chair I would defer to you on how you would like to handle the
conversation. We have up and running the park master plan so if you want to go through it by
park by park, I’d like to hear from members of our audience if they would like to talk about what
they see the priorities…and then also perhaps just start with a general conversation from
commission members to get some of their thoughts prior to getting into the details of that
conversation.
Daniel: Thank you Todd and certainly you know as we made our changes back in March, and
having an opportunity to review the capital improvement program over here for 2010.
Obviously 2009 we’re already committed those funding. Those funds have already been spent. I
don’t know if this would be the opportunity. I think one of the questions I’m sure all of us are
going to have, and you had mentioned during our tour today, is the impact of our best guess with
regards to the Arboretum trail and what the anticipated cost will be and what type of impact it
may have. And then obviously we also need to take into consideration any other of these that
may come up such as you know restoration or the stand at Lake Ann and stuff like that so. I
guess what we could do, and I don’t know if you want to go through park by park as far as what
we need to work on or focus on. Is that one of the things you want to have discussion on Todd?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: We can approach it that way. Initially I’d like to hear some general comments from
commissioners on their thoughts on either what we have here or ideas that they have so before
we get fine tuning…
Daniel: Well any other thoughts, what direction you want to go as well? Tom, Steve, Glenn,
Elise?
Stolar: I guess I would just say, we worked pretty hard on this the other month so I’m not sure, I
would just open it up to any changes.
Daniel: I think it should be out there something that we’ve been aware of that the public has
made. Aware to the commission. Certainly it’s important to have those discussed now if
possible. If not we can certainly move on. I, from my perspective don’t really have anything
specific that I want to talk about with regards to the major projects that we’ve listed on the CIP
right now.
Ryan: Was the only, and you had mentioned this today at the park Todd about the ash borer and
the trees.
Stolar: We need to up that.
Ryan: Yeah.
Kelly: To $30,000 I thought you said instead of $10,000.
Hoffman: Probably somewhere, right now we’re at 10 annually which gets us so far. Is we go
20 or 25 annually I think we can make some big improvements.
Stolar: Well I think the concept to try and mitigate the impact by planning ahead and it’s worth
while so I’d be up for at least for the next 4 years, which I don’t know why this doesn’t go to
2014. We should probably go to 2014 with each of those trees and the park benches.
Hoffman: Okay. Alright. Just at typo.
Stolar: Okay. But I would say 25 grand a year for the next 4 or 5 years is probably not a bad
thing for the trees, to make sure we get the variety so that one infestation doesn’t impact us.
Daniel: Yep. I think that might be good. Any thoughts on that? More? Less? Does that seem
about right?
Stolar: Plus we’ll revisit it next year. If we find that 25 grand is not enough…
Daniel: Yeah, I mean again obviously we, you know and it’s a very good point Elise that you
brought up. As we get to that point there certainly should be some discussions on the type of
trees that we’re going to replace them with. I think we need to give a little more thought to that.
And as well as, and I realize there’s other type of trees that we planted but you can only look so
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
far in the future and as far as it’s impact as well as what’s represented within the city. Those are
discussions that we should have, but again the funding itself which is what we’re focused on
today, I think that’s a good idea Glenn and maybe that’s something we can change for next year.
I’m sure the city as well as the council would agree, based off the sheer number of ash trees that
are in our city parks, as well as if I can get one just replace one in my back yard that’d be great.
But no, in all seriousness though that’s a very good point. I’m glad you could bring that up Elise
so thank you. Any other discussions or anything that may stick out?
Kelly: The only question I had was you had said on the tour that the cost of the Arboretum trail
will probably be more expensive than $200,000. Do you know roughly what that increase would
be?
Hoffman: We’ll know in a week or so and when I’m looking at Bluff Creek, just from past
experience, the 350 and the 200 combine to 550. We’re going to be, it might switch from one to
the other but it’d be in that range.
Kelly: Okay.
Daniel: Based off the economies of scale and having possibly packaging both those together
with a particular vendor.
Hoffman: And the planning stage of the Arboretum trail has gotten more complex over time.
The Bluff Creek trail has gotten less complex over time. We thought there was going to be more
walls and other substantial structural improvements down in Bluff Creek and so I think the
projects are almost switched.
Daniel: Okay. Well again if it’s, you know if we’re close as far as our estimates based off of
that large of a project, I mean we started out with Lyman at 500 and we’re now up to 700 so. I
don’t think we anticipate any of those.
Hoffman: …into it so. Before this goes to the council we will bring back those estimates, cost
estimates to you. That’s the reason we started that planning process almost a year ago.
Daniel: Todd, I guess one of the questions that is most important in this, any impact, are there
any changes that we’ve seen with regards to revenues?
Hoffman: Park dedication revenues?
Daniel: Park dedication revenues. It’s flat lined still so nothing’s changed on that end. For
better or for worst?
Hoffman: All for worst.
Daniel: Obviously but I mean since the last time we’ve talked.
Hoffman: No.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: Still it’s just a trickle compared to what it was when development was really going…
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: You know we’ve backed these off. Two years ago you would have seen $500,000 in
those lines. Now you’re down to $200,000.
Daniel: Okay. Excellent. Well I think if, maybe what we could do is some general thoughts or
thoughts or comments just as a whole. Again Elise you brought up a good point about the trees.
As far as for the next 5 years if there’s anything that you’ve heard from the community at all, on
any projects. If not then if we want to specifically go over any, the parks as well that stand out
that either you toured or noticed if there’s any improvements that need to be done as well, we
can go down that path if we’d like so let’s just open it, open it up as far as general discussion. As
far as anything else that needs to be changed or not especially changed but it can be talked about
with regards to CIP. I think the only thing that stands out right now is probably the trees.
Stolar: Well there are two more things… One, the $45,000 for the City Center band shell is new
and is that an estimate then?
Hoffman: That’s the guesstimate. The estimate’s coming.
Stolar: Okay. So that’s another one that might change once we get the final, but you know I
don’t know if we need to formally suggest, since it wasn’t on the 2009 to 2013, we probably
need to just acknowledge that, if we agree with it being added. That’s the one thing. And then
the second thing for the Lake Ann concession, we had the discussion about the buildout we’re
planning on doing. Does that need to go into this?
Hoffman: We don’t think so. We’re hoping that it will be a community based project with some
involvement from the city and we don’t believe it will reach the level of a CIP item.
Daniel: What was that again Glenn that you mentioned?
Stolar: That’s to do the buildout of the two more sections at the Lake Ann concession.
Daniel: Oh, gotch ya.
Kelly: The existing Lake Ann concession.
Stolar: The existing one. Not to build a new one but to build capacity in the current footprint to
allow a concession stand to be put in there.
Daniel: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: And we hope to complete that this fall and Todd and I are meeting with Steve Hansen
of Hansen Hometech Builders tomorrow to take a look at, he has a design or drawing it up and
it’s basically taking it to 5, we always get nervous when you stand up and draw 5 design
structures…so the 5 sided structure.
Daniel: The pentagon.
Hoffman: Is that going to be 5? Yeah. 2, 3, 4, 5. I’ll go back and try it again. Right now one
section of this pie is dedicated to primarily electrical service at this point because of all the lights
that are in the, on the field so you enter the door right here and you’ve got this as a concession
window and it was cut in half because there’s a big electrical box here and there’s a big electrical
box here and there’s a lot of components along this wall so that space is just not large enough.
So the concept is to bring it over to connect it to here and take this out and connect it to here and
take this out. And you’ll build a little shelf around these electrical components and you’ll have a
window, concession window here and concession window here and potentially a window here
and here. And then you’ll have basically room for 2 picnic tables underneath the remaining
portion of this.
Daniel: And I think that’s a fantastic idea. I mean it’s a great compromise and I really like the
idea of the window facing, was it Field #3?
Hoffman: Yep.
Daniel: That’s the other two. Then 4’s just on the other side so. Yep. You saw the view I think
from 4 from the other one, as well as 5.
Hoffman: 1, 2.
Daniel: 3.
Hoffman: 3, 4, 5.
Stolar: Where’s the, and the playground’s over off.
Hoffman: Playground’s right here. The water…
Stolar: So the people in the picnic area would still have visibility to the playground under this
drawing so they can watch their kids and sit in the shade.
Daniel: Yep.
Hoffman: That’s why we hire a designer.
Stolar: To think of those things.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: Todd do you want to take this moment to really talk about this a little bit more since
Todd’s here as well. And get the.
Hoffman: Sure. Well Todd’s going to be a partner in the project and so you know, I don’t know
where did it come from Glenn? Any idea?
Stolar: Todd and I were just sitting there, my son was playing baseball against a Chan team.
Saw Todd. We walked over. He showed me it and so I had always wondered how small it
really, and you walk in there and you’re butting heads with an electrical box so you know that
it’s real small. And I was just looking at it, man all these footings are here. Why couldn’t we
just build another one of these and put that in the concession. That’s how we started…
Hoffman: So wonderful suggestion. You know great contribution. Todd is there almost nightly
during the summer and working with the teams so.
Todd Neils: I am there nightly.
Hoffman: And so you know this is the kind of thing that as a community based project, if we
were building a brand new building we’d have to be into a public review process and CIP
process but again this type of remodel is going to make great sense for tournaments and those
type of things. It’s not just the youth that are going to benefit. It depends on how they wrap it
and who’s going to operate this thing but you know the athletic association can operate it during
adult activities as well so the concession can make some money that way so. Great compromise.
A lot less money than a $300,000 or $400,000 structure with all the improvements that we were
looking at in the master planning process…
Daniel: Excellent. No, I like the idea and actually Todd I’ve got a few questions if you don’t
mind suppose formally stepping to the podium. Just for the record. But I do have a couple
questions because the more I’ve had a chance to see playing softball on Thursday nights, the
more enthusiastic I am because you can see the potential in there. One is, with the concession
stand, is there anything else? Are you going to have the cold storage as well as a grill back there
that’s a plan of putting or is it going to be the exterior grill like they have right now?
Todd Neils: Well first my name is Todd Neils. I’m the President of the Chanhassen Athletic
Baseball and Softball. I think the intent is to continue to utilize an exterior grill like most
associations do rather than go through code and so on and so forth necessary to have interior.
Daniel: Interior, okay.
Hoffman: Two different licensing and the licensing with the exterior grill is much different.
Department of Ag versus Department of Health. If you cook inside you need to have all the fire,
all the codes, all the wash things so this is the right way to go.
Todd Neils: Secondarily, assuming that we can get the appropriate outlets and such and we
don’t blow any more fuses, we would like to probably partner with one of the major soft drink
companies to have cold storage of some type that we would stock on a daily basis.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: Excellent. My only recommendation, which is again knowing Freeman Field and
having, I don’t know how they do it over at Bennett with your time there Glenn but at Freeman
for South Tonka Little League, the number one item that they’ve sold is anything ice cream, so if
you do get a freezer opportunity, take advantage of it because they couldn’t keep them fast
enough so whether it be with a Dairy Queen or Culvers or something to that effect, that you can
partner with, boy if there’s one recommendation that’d be it because that was amazing. Adele’s
helps sponsor some, they did some cookie-ice cream thing. They were gone within hours.
Todd Neils: John over at Chanhassen Culvers has been a great partner of our’s and so we may in
the future you know utilize that suggestion.
Daniel: Yeah, it’s a great money maker for them.
Stolar: Because Culvers was over at the Tonka Blast, over at Middle School West also and the
line was just constant over there. So they do get out there a lot and they have a little grill for the
hamburgers and a big freezer for the ice cream and it just works well.
Daniel: And also the other thing too, if you guys get to the point, I don’t know if this is going to
be more of a, sounds like it’s going to be a community build or is it going to be a contractor
build?
Hoffman: Combination. Contractor led.
Daniel: Well certainly if there’s anything that you need help from the commission, both physical
as well as anything, I mean like I said, this is a great opportunity and I think to solve what I think
has been considered a problem. For tracking, this is one of the main things you want to do Todd
I assume is to track Little League events as well.
Todd Neils: In the future. Not only Little League events but also other tournaments that we are
hoping to hold next year.
Stolar: And you know part of this to me is that by being able to host those we have the lights.
We can really put the whole thing to use that we’ve been building up there and be able to get
better leverage out of the work we’ve already done too.
Daniel: Yeah.
Scharfenberg: Todd, what’s your time table on this overall project?
Todd Neils: Any time prior to next season’s start. But I think that if we are able to finish
sometime this fall, what we can do is, since many of the participants in CCFA football also play
at that park, they’ll be able to see the improvements being made, whether it’s the grass fields
going in at Lake Ann 3. The buildout of the concession stand. Some of the conversations Mr.
Hoffman and I have had about batting cage or Lake Ann 2 and so as they see those
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
improvements occurring, they become more enthusiastic and actually don’t wait til the last
second to register for baseball for next year. So but hopefully, hopefully this fall on a timeline.
Hoffman: Want to talk about your season. I was out for 2 nights. You had a great season.
Todd Neils: We did. You know over the last several years, 2 to be specific, we’ve grown in
participation by 33%. We had 850 kids that participated in both baseball and softball this year.
Our intent, or we expect probably to approach 1,000 kids for next year. Write that down. I
would say that in the past years we’ve talked extensively about you know field use and so on and
so forth. This was probably one of the most challenging years we’ve had to date in terms of field
use with the number of kids we’ve added to the program over the course of time. We are
expanding our programming and we’ll be having a town hall meeting in the end of August to
expand our programming. We’re also going to have Lindsey Hoyer who’s the new high school
varsity coach at the new Chanhassen High School come and speak to our membership and talk
about the expansion of programming beyond the age of 13. Beyond Little League and so we’re
excited to have that for next year.
Daniel: Excellent.
Hoffman: Again to update you on facility improvements. Field 3, the fence was moved in this
year. The mound and the grass infield was not put in for the summer but will be put in this fall.
Todd Neils: The mound is in. The mound is currently.
Hoffman: The mound… And then Field 2 we’ve also agreed, it was built at a different
dimension. There was 35 feet between home plate and the backstop and we’re going to pick that
infield up and move it back to 25 to make it consistent with the other 3. And you can explain the
challenges with the 35 foot.
Stolar: Oh yeah. My son was catching. There are challenges.
Todd Neils: You know it’s a free run every time. Part of the benefit, or the greatest benefit of
moving that field is not only the consistency that it adds to the parks or to the two, what we
would consider Little League fields or smaller kid fields is the fact that it gives us that
opportunity to in the future host, and it is again our intent to host an all star tournament in the
second week of July. So we’ll have 7 nights of play available on those two fields and
concessions going every single night and it’s paramount to host those type of tournaments to
have an appropriate concession stand that can feed you know both kids and families that may be
starting a game at 5:00 at night and won’t have an opportunity to have dinner beforehand so.
Hoffman: And this is the conversations. Steve Hansen is a major player in our local Chamber of
Commerce. When you have this conversation about these type of improvements and what the
athletic association, a non-profit’s going to bring to town, that means $50,000 for our local
businesses that weekend. Hotel rooms. You know Chamber of Commerce type of activities so
they start to see, when they get this community connection, that’s why a community built
project, people start to see the value. Steve can, you know he can’t do it alone. Without them
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
putting on the tournament the improvements to the concession stand don’t mean anything to the
community so it’s really about that whole synergy of doing all those things and connecting all
those things together so it’ll be a great project.
Daniel: And last but not least, and as many times it becomes an after thought. Is there anything
that you’ll need from us such as postage signs for tournament brackets, anything like that? You
know because many times those are just like oh well where do we hang it? Staple it to the side
of the wall and we were at one tournament this weekend, or a couple weekends ago and they had
a really nice, just that’s all it was. You know either post, you know announcements.
Hoffman: Remember the old one that was up there?
Todd Neils: I think that over the course of time I think there’s a lot of things about Lake Ann
Park that I think are fantastic. Obviously as you’re going to go over every park, there are always
improvements that can be made. Our’s are more specific. At any time if we need help from park
and rec or staff we’re happy to ask.
Daniel: Okay, I know that’s not a problem Todd. But we certainly thank you and I appreciate
you taking the time to stop up and go over that but again let us know if there’s anything you need
help on.
Todd Neils: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Daniel: Alright, thank you Todd.
Todd Neils: Have a good night.
Daniel: One of the things that I’d like to bring up, and it’s more pie in the sky and something
that we could consider down the road. I was out at a baseball tournament in Mound. I can’t
remember the name of the field, right off of 15 there. Right by the SuperAmerica and I don’t
know if any of the commissioners or Todd if you’ve been out there to see the skate park.
Hoffman: Okay. Huge?
Daniel: No. It’s one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see. It was, I got pictures of it. I’m
going to send an email out to the commission and as a park and rec, especially in the recreation
side, it was amazing to see. It was an all cement pool with different shapes and turns in it and
then jump areas. Then they had a half pipe in there. I think a 4 foot or 5 foot half pipe. Tall that
was off to the side. And the amount of, I know we have some kids up here, but the amount of
kids that were there was at least triple and it could easily accommodate it. I’ll send out, like I
said, if you do get an opportunity. It’s just right off 15 before you get into Mound. By the old
Toro plant. Take a left and you’ll see the two ball fields. Two baseball fields there. Little
League fields. It’s just on the south side of the field and it is absolutely extraordinary and I will
send out some pictures this week. I’ve got them on the camera because I was out there and I saw
the kids kind of going out there. Quick went out there with the camera while we were inbetween
games and took some pictures and like I said it was amazing.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: Do you know, could you identify who built it?
Daniel: No. I didn’t find any markings on there. It’s just there and it’s a full blown cement, like
I said but I don’t know what they call it. Bowl or, and it’s got to be 100 feet long. I mean I
couldn’t imagine the cost on what it took to put that together, but again as we’re starting to look
for future replacement for that skate park, which is one of the most, probably the most heavily
used park besides Lake Ann. A community park, but as far as the local parks are concerned, the
park that we have, you know it may be something that we certainly could consider because I
don’t think there’s anything like it in Minneapolis, or in the Twin Cities like this skate park. So I
mean although we certainly overlook that age group sometimes, like I said it was something that
stood out and I mean it’s a quick, 15, not even 10 minute drive from here and so if you get a
chance Todd I would really recommend going checking it out because you’ll be blown away.
So that’s I think really my only comment for us to consider. Not for this year. Maybe not even
for 2011, but I know that we’ve had some discussions about replacing the skate park.
Hoffman: We have $25,000 in 2011 and $25,000 in 2013.
Daniel: Yep.
Hoffman: And those would be to replace ramps.
Daniel: Exactly, and you know this is a whole different kind. I mean this is scales of economy
much larger than that. For what they were doing.
Hoffman: $300,000 I would think.
Daniel: Oh, I think more than even that. Yeah. Based off of what I saw. So alright, and I think
that’s about it. Is there anything else Steve or Tom that you’d like to add? Just open it up for
discussions or thoughts. Okay. Moving on. You know we got a lot of parks here. We probably
should start with, I mean for sure hit the larger community parks. More so than the
neighborhoods.
Stolar: Is there anything we need to see on them?
Daniel: Well I do know like with Bandimere we’ve had discussions. If anything’s changed with
regards to the two properties and the expansion on that, and maybe we might want to go and take
a look at Bandimere right now.
Hoffman: The property to the north, Mr. Nettesheim has been thinking about what he would like
to ask for the property. That’s been our approach and so we’ll talk in the next couple of days to
set a time line the end of July. So we’ll work through that and Elise are you familiar with that?
We talked about that property, that 5 acres and it would add parking and a road and ice and those
type of things so that’s still ongoing.
Kelly: Okay, if you’re talking within a week or so, is he ready to sell?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: No. We talked a couple of months ago and he said yes, we’re interested. How do you
want to handle it? We said let’s take some time over the summer. Determine what you would be
looking for for the property and give us a call the end of July. And if it’s $2 million, you know
there’s a value that we would be willing to pay. If it’s 2 or 3 times the appraised value it’s not
going to be you know. I would not have been surprised to hear that kind of an offer 4-5 years
ago. In today’s market we hope it’s a reasonable offer that we can work with and go ahead and
move forward.
Ryan: May I ask just a general question? When we’re looking at parks and expansion of parks
generally speaking, is it to build out like fields or what is typically the number one use for,
baseball or?
Hoffman: This is, I would look at this as an opportunity, a one time opportunity. So we’re
generally we’re not looking to expand our existing park base for our existing park so Lake Ann,
we don’t have an expansion plan. Bandimere we really didn’t have an expansion plan but we’re
looking at this, it’s kind of that corner out of the corner of the park and there was some specifics
about the development of Bandimere that made sense. We maximized the field to the detriment
of tennis, hockey, ice skating and I think that’s about the other things that they wanted. So this
would be an opportunity to get those back to that neighborhood. That community. That area
south of Highway 212 so it’s their neighborhood park more or less but they don’t have access to
tennis or skating right now. This would be a way to offer that but we would not be able to add
ballfield with that acquisition.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: And then the high school helped out with fields in the community. We could still use
additional fields but the cost of land, the availability of land, it really put us in a location or a
position where it’s going to be tough to add additional 2010, 2030 ballfield type questions. The
high school, as a commission, as a community we invested $600,000 to help pay for those
facilities there because of the benefit that we would…
Ryan: Okay.
Hoffman: If you were to build that again you’d better have 3 or 4 or 5 million in your pocket.
Not $600,000.
Daniel: And as we move along here I’d certainly encourage any of the commissioners to, you
know if there’s an issue at a park or any of the projects that we’ve discussed over the last year or
so, even going further back, that we certainly should bring up on how we want to address. Going
through our list.
Hoffman: Yeah basically if you get into that it’s going to be, you have to subtract something to
add something.
Daniel: That’s right.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: But nothing you’re real passionate about. Nothing that jumps out, you don’t have to
spend your whole night going through all of these parks.
Daniel: And City Center with the addition of the bandstand, the band shelter. This sweet model.
And really that, Todd was that something that was approached or was that something that the
council has had or been approached and certainly are on board and understand that’s part of the
master plan down the road here.
Hoffman: If you’re on board with this, we’ll present it as part of the this year’s budget. It is a
part of the, the amphitheater was a part of the master plan so we wanted to take it piece by piece
to see how successful either it was going to be for the performing art thing, very successful so we
want to continue and this has really 3 key elements. Provides some shade. Some cover. I think
most importantly, or the most, the largest benefit to the larger community is that it provides a
focal point. People now understand what that is. It’s an amphitheater space and that provides
very good sound for the audience and the performers.
Daniel: One question I do have. Walking by I’ve noticed a few times. There’s a path, I wish I
had a laser pointer. Just east of the tennis courts in Chanhassen. That path that goes from east to
west and also hits the north/south. Okay go a little bit to your west. You’ll see the ballfield.
Move it, next one down. Next one to your left. That one, that path to the west. Does that get
heavily used because I’m thinking if there’s a ballfield opportunity in there, where possibly the
path could be taken out or centered.
Hoffman: Right in here?
Daniel: Yep. I don’t know if that’s used for soccer or it’s just green space right now.
Hoffman: It’s owned by the school and it’s, it’s just been left as green space.
Ruegemer: We do have a soccer field in there in the fall.
Daniel: Okay, so there is. Okay.
Stolar: What do you have there in the spring, anything?
Ruegemer: No.
Stolar: Is that a size enough to have a lacrosse?
Ruegemer: Probably not.
Daniel: No. No.
Kelly: No.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: That’s what I’m saying if we consider moving or moving the path parallel to the west
side of the tennis courts. If that’s a necessary, but you know if we were going to consider
additional ballfield expansion, I know for example we squeezed 1 and 2 into the rec center. That
there might be another opportunity there for t-ball. Smaller aged Little League or you know
peewee ball, whatever they may call it. Just again to consider. I don’t think the, I mean it’s, you
can center it as such that the road won’t have quite the impact based off those smaller age groups
and again I don’t know if the city is being challenged Jerry, with capacity at that age group.
Because that’d be more of a t-ball, first kindergarten, first, second grade at most. So certainly
something to consider. That was one thing that came to mind as I was walking I believe actually
rd
from the July 3 party.
Hoffman: We’ve thought of that before. It’s a push from our perspective because it’s the last
piece of undeveloped land that the district has so we would have to have good reason and full
funding to move forward that request. You’re really taking the last, and the ballfield wouldn’t be
ideal. It wouldn’t be a full size you know, I don’t know what you’d reach by the time you build
it in there. It’d be tight in the middle
Daniel: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Scharfenberg: Can we go back to the band shelter issue for a minute?
Daniel: Oh sure.
Scharfenberg: Just kind of walking through there tonight and looking through it, I don’t know if
any of the other commission members have any feeling about this but just the, by adding that
shelter, does it detract away from that park and the openness of that park by having it there? And
then you know I understand that you’re getting shade and things like that for events but you
know in the summer, I mean you don’t, if you’re going to have a rain out, no one’s going to
show anyway for that so, and I just kind of look at that and think you know that that whole park,
the openness of it and with the monument and that, does it somehow detract away from what we
have now, so I just kind of throw that out there.
Stolar: Quick question Todd. The canvas is only going to be up when there’s a concert or is it
going to be up permanently?
Hoffman: For the summer season.
Stolar: For the summer but it will be taken down after the summer.
Hoffman: The poles, most likely it’d be black and they would…kind of fade into the
background most likely when…LED lights in the winter. And the fabric may not even be rain
proof because you’re right. During a rain out, but it’s a fair question. I looked at it again tonight
and it lowers down and so the height, you know when you’re at the top of the berm the height is
about half of what the total height of the structure will be but it’s a good question.
Daniel: How tall is it at the highest point? That’s planned right now.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: 40 feet.
Daniel: Oh it’s going to be that tall?
Hoffman: I believe so, yeah.
Daniel: Okay. Are you thinking Steve, minimizing the impact or?
Scharfenberg: No, I just throw it out there that whole open space and as a musician I appreciate
having you know a shelter like that for playing and if you’ve got windy conditions and stuff like
that it would help with that. But I just kind of think of what that space is like and now knowing
that it’s, would only be up for portions of the summer, it sounds something that would be more
agreeable.
Daniel: I guess the other thought then is, as far as all these were negative. It’s right at the corner
of where, right at the corner when you approach the park. I mean it’s at a major intersection. I
think if it were up, tucked back. Obviously we’re not going to go re-grade the whole thing but I
mean that would probably be again another, I want to say concern but again sight lines. If we
talk about sight lines within the park and the sight lines looking in as you’re driving by.
Hoffman: The setback. We’ll bring you a program down where we can put it up there in a 3D
drawing and we can spin you around it. It’s really offset from West 78th Street. It sits in there
real nicely but Matt Wilkins is fine tuning, you can look at it in a, I think it’s called, an
application called Sketch Up so you can get taken around and look at it from all different angles
in the park. A tool you didn’t have… You can go underneath it if you want and look up.
Daniel: And that’s why I brought it up as far as.
Stolar: When it’s raining we’ll see how much it protects.
Hoffman: Well we can’t simulate rain but we can simulate the sun so it’s pretty interesting.
That’s how you design these sides. In the evening this is not doing any sun protection. It’s a
side…sun protection so the sheet that you have here is during a performance time, 7:00-8:00 at
night and the shade is coming off of that side. A noon performance this protects the performers
very well. And Commissioner Scharfenberg’s correct. We want all of our improvements to be a
positive, positive, positive. We don’t want it to be a positive, positive but it doesn’t look right.
It doesn’t fit in.
Daniel: Well that’s why you know, paying attention to the color. I mean especially in the
summer with the trees and as green as they are. I think that’s some consistency. You know
that’s one of the reasons like for example with Curry Farms when we chose getting away from
the bright colors at all the playgrounds set because that was tucked in a bowl with the trees all
the way around it. Both the natural colors, the greens and the browns to really minimize the look
of the playground set and you know your eyes naturally just flow so I mean if you’re looking at
the tarps.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: It’s not going to be bright orange. Or blue.
Daniel: Or blue, okay good. But again you know as we talk about sight lines I think we want to
minimize the sight line impact when you’re coming in and seeing the city.
Hoffman: We want it to be attractive.
Daniel: Yep. And I think, but when you’re there obviously it does it’s function so. Is that about
right Steve? I think your concerns as well?
Scharfenberg: Yep.
Daniel: Alright. One that I have a question on, has there been any further discussion with
regards to Herman? The field, the park to nowhere.
Hoffman: Yeah. The one thing that’s really going to continue to stand out about Herman. Do
you want to show the trail access Jerry as it runs south of the playground. Yep, the Lyman trail
right there. So that trail dead ends as a cut in the fence and right now Carver County is.
Daniel: Still?
Hoffman: Yeah, and if we get the trail around, this is going to be the way people are going to go.
They’re going to go through the regional park. Up through this connection into the
neighborhood. Up to Highway 7. All the way around. They’re going to use this because we’re
not going to have a trail that goes all the way to the corner of 7 and 41. They’re going to cut this
corner on the northeast side. So you’re going to access through the park and so we have to
continue to work with the county and so if you ever bump into a county commissioner or a
county park commissioner, you know strike a conversation about that trail connection off of
Herman Field. It’s going to be even more, right now it’s a neighborhood connector. It’s going
to be a regional or at least a minor regional connector at some point in the future. And beyond
that the park cannot be sold. It can not be deved out. If we wash our hands of it it goes to Carver
County and it becomes part of the park. Then you might lose your trails altogether so. It’s you
know, the last time the park commission did not add the second playground structure. There are
families up there who use it. It’s not used as much as, it’s just too well hidden to be used like a
typical neighborhood park.
Stolar: And we don’t use that for any programming at all correct?
Hoffman: Too far. Too isolated. Too hard to get to.
Stolar: But if push came to shove, I guess my question and I don’t know if Jerry your experience
but the thing I hear is lacrosse space was just not there. And this actually would be the right size
but again it’s.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Kelly: It’s too close to Minnetonka because you’ll be hearing, I mean it would be problematic. I
mean yes we would love additional space but you’re talking people coming from Chaska,
Victoria and Chanhassen. Our lacrosse association of this would just be.
Stolar: This could be the Minnetonka Lacrosse Association if they’re looking for space because
we provide them space don’t we? …that’s just the one thing. I know it’s difficult to get to but
when push comes to shove and you offer somebody, you can have this space. You tell your
people how to get there or you can have no space, they might say I’ll take it. We’ll figure out a
way to get people there.
Hoffman: The other thing is, it would be a new experience for the neighborhood to have 25 cars.
Stolar: No, we would have to talk to them. Right, that would be part of it and I thought we were
going to try and maybe have an open house with them just to get some of their comments. I
don’t know if that’s something worth. I know you did it a few years ago and there was nothing.
Hoffman: You know that’s the whole deal. If you, it’s just a challenging, challenging situation
and I always like to go into those neighborhood meetings at least with one ace in the hole and we
just don’t have it.
Daniel: There’s nothing.
Hoffman: If you go in there, you know saying you’re going to put ball, lacrosse games in there.
That’s not an ace in the hole. We just don’t have something that we know will pacify the
neighborhood or make them, give them an improved situation.
Stolar: So what’s the negative of do nothing and just leave it there?
Hoffman: Nothing. It’s not a negative. I think what happened is over time the neighborhood
comes to understand and accept what they have and the neighborhood uses it the way it is but it’s
kind of a tenuous situation. If you make any changes then you upset that apple cart, you upset
that balance.
Stolar: They haven’t asked for anything though or.
Hoffman: We’ve been 5 years of trouble free.
Stolar: Because the other thing I was thinking that we’ve been able to do in some fields, we did
it at Curry Farms I think was just those half court basketball things. That’s another thing that’s
pretty easy to put in that a neighborhood would use.
Daniel: Low cost too.
Stolar: Low cost.
Daniel: A basketball hoop.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Stolar: That’d be the only thing that if the, that’d be again if the neighborhood is saying is there
more we can do, that’s the ace in the hole that we can put in, if they’re interested or not.
Scharfenberg: Picnic slab.
Hoffman: We could go picnic…you won’t get the same deal that we got last time.
Stolar: We talked about what the archery was the other thing like Lake Susan has would be the
other. Less of a crowd issue but.
Hoffman: Again they’d throw us out of here.
Daniel: Moving on, one I’d like to certainly comment on. Kerber Pond. Where are we at with
the trail? Is there anything from a capital improvement standpoint that we need to work on or
that we need to…
Hoffman: Kerber trail? The project is not, the project on the east end is not totally finished but
it will be, the restoration will be completed and the trail connections made and. There’s nothing
else as far as the turf trail.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: It’s a very popular walking spot. People really like it.
Daniel: Oh yeah.
Hoffman: We talked, or Commissioner Ryan asked about if we have any, what’s the
designation. That’s one if we change it to asphalt they’d set up a lynching post. They lose their
grass down there.
Daniel: Oh yeah. The only disappointment was my parents were hoping they’d clear one more
lot over and stop right at their property.
Hoffman: They cleared for the pond and that was it.
Daniel: Yep.
Hoffman: And we are taking a look at a management plan to take the rest of that but again as we
talked in the car, it’s this whole how much money can you, does it take to manage woodland and
forested property and buckthorn and those type of things.
Daniel: Yep.
Hoffman: But we’re, fortunately on the partnerships we have the water resource people to help
us out so.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: Lake Ann Park. We’ve talked about an amphitheater there. Again looking at the capital
from a CIP standpoint. I don’t think there was any other improvements to that with the
exception of the concession stand.
Hoffman: Yeah the concession stand but you want to focus in where the amphitheater proposal
is Jerry, you know that square. Right there. Basically I think what will happen there is we’ll just
do some landscaping modifications over time. Take trees out where we, that would not be,
would block sight lines and plant trees where they’d be beneficial and just leave it for a future
planning session. You’ve got the amphitheater go down to the bottom you can sit 3,000 to 5,000
people on the hillside up toward the top parking lot and you would have an outdoor amphitheater
so we would just plan with our natural resource planning that that be a compliment to that type of
a project in the future. Not a detriment. But it’s not going to happen.
Daniel: Is there things that we can do in phases or stages? I mean we have a Cat. We have you
know, it doesn’t take a whole lot to move. I mean it takes a lot but I mean to just move dirt and
over time slowly but surely, because again as you move something you have to re-seed and grass
and then is there any thoughts from that just so we can, within the.
Hoffman: The bowl is there. The only place that’s going to be graded is right where the stage
goes. And if we grade it we don’t have a plan with what we’re going to build it to build it to so
we wouldn’t know what we were going to be grading but nothing else is going to change as far
as the grade. It’s already hill.
Daniel: I mean what would it take for cost to bring, I mean kind of like we can’t tap in the
power over to Lake Ann but I mean to bring in power and a slab. I mean something just to again
do in stages as we, instead of one fell swoop but as we look at, from a capital standpoint,
building it up. Much like we’ve done with the park right now.
Hoffman: I think you could do that but in that kind of a project you’d better make that thing,
kind of like the feel you got when you walk onto the baseball field tonight. Because that’s the
type of feel you’re going to need. You’re going to need a amphitheater that’s impressive. That
is nice enough to draw people to that location. A big concrete slab out there and a plug in and
say hey let’s bring a band out there. They’re going to go, you just repeated when you had
downtown. So I’m not sure that the phasing approach would work. You’d have to put up the
structure. A structure that can hold orchestras and those type of things so you can have a totally
different type of an atmosphere than you’ve got on this little performance…
Daniel: Okay.
Stolar: One other question. I noticed we didn’t have the steps in yet from the hilltop.
Hoffman: Yep, this fall they’re going in.
Stolar: This fall.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: Yeah. We ran.
Stolar: Are we going to do two sets then? I thought there were two main pathways.
Hoffman: There’s, ah no. One set of steps from right behind the playground going up, as Jerry
can show us. And then one going up to the building. Right there by that big tree up there and
then one over by the building. Right there. Want to go straight down. And then the other one is
just an extension of what comes up along the building.
Stolar: Okay.
Daniel: And you’re not going to do anything with the one that.
Hoffman: Over here?
Daniel: Yeah that one.
Hoffman: That’s staying as is.
Daniel: Okay. Original 4 year old railroad ties.
Hoffman: ….40. We can leave them there for a while longer.
Ruegemer: Another 40.
Daniel: Actually not railroad. They’re the round ones. Telephone poles.
Stolar: I mean obviously this year we didn’t have any rain so there was no additional erosion for
that but.
Hoffman: And we’re happy about that and the plan includes restoration of all that.
Stolar: It does? Okay.
Scharfenberg: And that’s not a capital project?
Hoffman: It is. It’s listed under 2009.
Stolar: Oh 2009, I’m sorry. I’m looking at 2010. Never mind. I was still only looking at the
2010 report.
Daniel: $90,000 stairway project.
Stolar: Got it. Okay.
Hoffman: Covers both project and the restoration.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Ryan: And could I get a clarification on something, since I wasn’t here for when you guys were
putting this together. In the packet it talks about the Lake Ann Park. Lake Lucy, Galpin trail as
part of this but then it’s not on the park dedication fund. Was that a decision to not move
forward with that or?
Hoffman: It talks about it in here?
Ryan: Uh huh. T-1A.
Hoffman: Yeah, this is a master planning proposal so this doesn’t reflect item for item what’s in
the, what’s in the comp plan so which page is that Elise? 6?
Ryan: 15.
Hoffman: Okay, 6-15. And then item T.
Ryan: 1A.
Hoffman: Yep. So that’s the loop trail around Lake Ann is going to necessitate Prince’s
property be sold and developed and then that trail would go around.
Daniel: Prince’s and who’s the other?
Hoffman: Gorra.
Daniel: Gorra. So it would require those two to sell their property plus somebody to, yeah once
that happens then they’ll complete the loop around Lake Lucy. Or at least connect the trail head
at Lake Lucy Road there.
Ryan, Right, okay.
Daniel: So I mean those are again as we look into the future and pie in the sky type of ideas
what we want to do, again a master plan as Todd had said. So when those things come to
fruition, those are things that will happen. That’s a priority from the city.
Hoffman: Development driven.
Daniel: Yeah.
Ryan: Okay, thank you.
Daniel: Yeah, there will be no lake frontage on Lake Ann. With the exception of.
Hoffman: We hope.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: Yeah, we hope. I think that’s something that we’ll all negotiate very hard on and I hope
the Planning Commission’s on board with at that point because it’s just too important property. I
mean it’s, for the most part most of Prince’s property is already used today as a walking paths
between Lake Ann and Lake Lucy. Even when I was a kid that was the case so. Yeah, I mean
that will, that will be fantastic. It will be much like what Starring Lake is in Eden Prairie. If
you’ve ever been out there.
Ryan: Okay, thank you.
Hoffman: 20 second information on that is we’ve looked into the future for the development, the
park staff has with consultants and what it’s going to take to accomplish that is going to,
everybody’s going to have to be on board to up zone the interior of his property to obtain all the
lakeshore and so instead of spreading out 600 houses over the entire property. We’re going to
have to put 600 houses up near the road in the development property and then save all the park
land and the shore land and so it, if people aren’t on board with that kind of a development
process, then it’s not going to happen at that time. That’s financially the only way it can happen.
We’re taking, the parkland takes a very extensive chunk of Prince’s property. To make that
happen you’re going to have to allow all that density transfer to move up out of that remaining
parcel.
Ryan: Okay.
Daniel: Well I think we just take, give us 50 feet around, not even that. 25 feet around the
shoreline and he can have everything else. The city would be happy enough.
Hoffman: Yeah, I don’t know, you probably can’t see it. It goes over to the wetland complex so
it’s a natural resource plan based on, you take the woodland between the lake and the big
wetland because it really doesn’t make sense to bring development across that wetland that lies
in there. The development look would be very similar to what we saw tonight at the Preserve.
Those are 60 by 100 foot lots and the Preserve was developed in that fashion because the land
costs were so high and that the City took all the Bluff Creek property, so that was an 80 acre
parcel to start with and they had 40 acres developable when they were left and so you have to up
zone it. You have to put them on, and there’s a market for that because there are a lot of people
that are tired of taking care of their big lawn and just want a very nice home on a smaller lot so.
And the community at the time that this comes in will probably be at a stage where that type of a
product will be desirable. There will be a lot of people that have lived here. Their family’s
grown and they still want to remain in town so, but again it’s a long range plan. We look at that
just because of the fact that this could walk in tomorrow or it could walk in, the opportunity
could walk in 20 or 30 years from now. We just don’t know.
Daniel: Okay. Moving on. I don’t see anything with regards to Lake Susan. I think that’s
pretty well settled. Roundhouse. If we move down, unless we skip something alphabetically. I
know there’s been some discussion about tennis courts.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: Tennis courts and a hockey rink. The hockey rink is more challenging because it
would take up that entire corner and put a structure right in the main intersection but tennis
courts, we probably have them scheduled.
Scharfenberg: 2014.
Hoffman: Okay.
Daniel: And we’re still on the path, or still.
Stolar: We keep moving it.
Daniel: Oh, they’d kill us.
Stolar: We move it every year. Just allowing the second phase of the playground. We keep
pushing the tennis court. I’m pretty sure when…no I think it was like 2008 or something
originally. Something like that.
Hoffman: It’s great property. Great park, but could benefit from a couple more improvements.
Daniel: Are there any scheduled events on the open field there Jerry? Or is it just something
assumed like maybe some local soccer…
Ruegemer: Yep. Nothing that we actively schedule.
Daniel: Okay. I think that’s about it.
Hoffman: The fishing pier at Roundhouse.
Daniel: Yep.
Hoffman: We’re working with the DNR to acquire that extra section. On a grant.
Daniel: Oh really? Okay.
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Hoffman: It doesn’t reach enough open water to be fishable past about June. June 15.
Daniel: Too much milfoil?
Hoffman: Too much weeds and milfoil so one more section would get you out to some clear
water.
Daniel: Boy did Minnewashta get hit hard this year.
Hoffman: Low water.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: We didn’t even fish it. Not worth it.
Scharfenberg: Clarification again. What’s the Manchester Park Phase I development? Is that
the, by the water treatment?
Hoffman: The west…site. Yeah, so we’re trying to piggy back that with when the water
treatment plan goes in. Then we would put our piece of puzzle in.
Stolar: That’s that one that’s on the knoll.
Scharfenberg: The knoll off of Galpin?
Hoffman: Have you seen the sign for the future water treatment plant?
Daniel: I know one that we’ve discussed and we talked about last year and that was Chan
Estates and the idea of putting four stall.
Hoffman: We hope that’s still going to happen and it’s going to happen underneath the water
management folks. They want to do a surface water management department. They want to do.
Stolar: A pervious.
Hoffman: Yep, pervious pavement project there as a demonstration project.
Stolar: Okay. So that may happen next year or.
Hoffman: They’re tight on their money. All these, if you’ve noticed all these water projects
around there, their budget is strapped but yeah, when they get a chance to put that in, they want
to build it there. That’s a handshake agreement on us allowing them to put a well in our park.
They owe us for it.
Daniel: Okay.
Stolar: I have a question on this pervious pavement. This that a viable option for trails?
Hoffman: It may be. The trails aren’t as big a concern as, they just shed water so quickly. They
don’t collect it and channelize it so have not heard talk about it a great deal. Parking lot…
Stolar: I was just wondering if the Arboretum, that would make a difference and maybe as an
experiment there too.
Daniel: Typically with pervious pavements don’t they use pavers?
Stolar: No.
Stutzman: …aggregate.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Stolar: And it’s supposed to help with the filtration. The water into the ground. I was thinking
at the Arboretum might not be a bad idea there. If it makes sense.
Daniel: Maybe they want to do, much like they do up in, just south of Monticello and do a test
track. You know do a small section where they might want to consider that and partner. Show
ecological experiment on that.
Hoffman: They’d love that. They’ve got many displays like that.
Stolar: Yeah, get the water department also involved in the environment. Then it becomes a
community wide activity.
Hoffman: Absolutely. Good idea.
Daniel: Okay. I think that’s about it as far as anything Todd, is there anything that we’re
missing as far as, I mean again hitting.
Hoffman: Not from my perspective. I have it on your list.
Daniel: I know. I just want to make sure if there’s anything that we haven’t commented on.
That’s all.
Stolar: It was in the master plan, or did they.
Hoffman: It used to be underneath the building.
Ruegemer: Picnic shelter.
Stolar: …I thought at one time we had one out in the field there off the tennis courts right
towards the lake there. Like in the middle there.
Hoffman: Call me for lunch. We’ll go out there.
Stolar: Fantastic.
Scharfenberg: Todd, are we still planning to do the 41 underpass in 2011?
Hoffman: Yes we are. The County is.
Scharfenberg: Okay. Will we need any, I mean I think all the trail connections are there for that,
right? Is there anything we need to do with respect to that?
Hoffman: Your contribution may go up. Recently they dropped a little bit of a surprise on us
that the $1.25 million does not include engineering or planning and they may be seeking up to
another $125,000 contribution and so we’re not sure we’re going to recommend that…
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Stolar: But from the standpoint that when the underpass goes in all the trails that we would want
to connect to that are in our plan or not?
Hoffman: They’re there.
Stolar: The ones that exist.
Hoffman: Right. Well, there is one, we’ll need to build that trail connection and stairway down
from the top of the hill, just above where the underpass is.
Stolar: Okay. Is that a part of this cross?
Hoffman: No. It would need to happen.
Stolar: Would it be worthwhile to put that in then maybe as a part of the CIP just so…
Hoffman: I would put 2011 and it’s called, that’s not Highover. That’s called.
Scharfenberg: Oh yeah, Grand Meadows or something.
Hoffman: Yep, close.
Ruegemer: The new one?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Kelly: Ashwood Meadows.
Scharfenberg: No, no, no. That’s on the other site. It’s a meadows something isn’t it? I just
saw the sign driving by there the other day.
Ruegemer: On the east side?
Hoffman: Where the two cul-de-sacs come up.
Scharfenberg: From Highover. From Highover and Longacres. I’ll see it tomorrow when I
drive out to camp.
Daniel: So actually are we doing stairs then down there?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Daniel: There’s nothing we can do about the embankment?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Hoffman: No.
Kelly: Can you click on that or is that not part of parks so you probably can’t?
Daniel: It’d be on a map. The city map. But I do want to, I think they have the easement Todd I
think you mentioned.
Hoffman: We have it, yep.
Daniel: Already between the lots so that’s already done. I think you pointed that out maybe 2
years ago when we were doing our tours.
Scharfenberg: So just to clarify with respect to that trail and that, will there be a trail then that
runs on the east side from Lake Lucy all the way up to that underpass?
Hoffman: Yep. It will go from Lake Lucy south to the underpass and the underpass south of
Longacres. Then it will go to the middle school and we’re not quite sure, it’ll probably go to
Chaska Road or maybe all the way up to Highway 7.
Daniel: Have there been any discussions about trying to extend it over towards Westwood
Church, Camp Tanadoona? As far as the trails at all. I mean has there been any request.
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Hoffman: Well there’s a trail to Westwood Church on West 78 right now.
Daniel: Oh yeah, you’re right.
Kelly: On the east side.
Daniel: But to get across 41. Okay. Put your life in your hands. Okay. That’s right. That gets
you to the Tanadoona area.
Hoffman: On page 6-14 in your packet it shows T-2D. Planned underpass. And that’s coming
right down from where the stairway will go off of. You can see the red line north of the
underpass is showing the sidewalk in Highover and then it just, it’s 1 or 2 lots in on the next
development. Highcrest Meadows.
Scharfenberg: There you go.
Hoffman: So we’re at Highcrest Meadows stairway trail connection.
Scharfenberg: And has there been any comments or feedback that staff has heard from people
that are using the dog park out at Lake Minnewashta that they really need this or anything like
that?
Hoffman: The dog park?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Scharfenberg: Yeah.
Hoffman: Oh, they’d love it.
Scharfenberg: I know but is there, is there anything that they’ve said we need this? We need a
shelter or we need something done up? You haven’t?
Hoffman: Not that I’ve heard. I’ll ask the County if they’ve been asking.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Hoffman: On additional requests. I know the use there, you know they’re concerned about the
vegetation. It’s really, pretty soon the whole park might be dirt. From all the use so that might
be a manage, long term management issue. They’re fortunate that that’s 18 acres. The challenge
of managing it is how do you enforce it and so you have very little or limited vegetation to start
with. It’s not like a turf dog park and so it is a different than say the regional one out at Carver
County Preserve. That’s one concern that they’re having.
Daniel: Alright. Oh I know one that we had talked about before Todd that got brought up to me
and I actually brought it up a couple years ago was the trail extension along the railroad tracks.
Any more, has there been any more suggestions on that? I actually just saw two groups of
people walking along that about a month ago. Just was driving home so I don’t know if anybody
else has brought that to the city’s attention. I know at one time we do that in the budget for
2013. It’s not in there anymore but have you had any more thoughts on that?
Hoffman: I have not.
Daniel: Basically shortening the connection between Lake Susan and downtown. And right at
Market Boulevard, kind of where Walgreen’s is. Following the railroad track. Go underneath
Highway 5 and then you skirt across and then go between Roberts and now what is it, MTS?
And that will take you right into Lake Susan. Versus having to go all the way down Market to
cross Highway 5. So this way you prevent from crossing Highway 5. You go underneath it
through the railroad tracks.
Hoffman: Why don’t I make an initial contact to the railroad. That’s going to be the biggest
hurdle there. Put pedestrian next to that railroad.
Scharfenberg: They don’t seem to like that.
Daniel: Well they do. Don’t they right now over at Cedar. I mean going to downtown. Isn’t
that relatively close? As you come off Cedar Lake? It’s a good distance?
Kelly: I know what you’re talking about. It is yeah.
Daniel: It’s still a good distance away?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Kelly: Yeah.
Daniel: Okay.
Kelly: The path, that two lane path that goes right downtown. Off Cedar Lake.
Daniel: Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah, it’s pretty, there’s pretty good.
Daniel: There’s some separation?
Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: I walk it a half a dozen times a year and each time it doesn’t strike me as something
that we are, we ought to really pursue. It’s a nice short cut but I’m not sure that it’s ready for a
public trail connection. That’s one challenge. The other challenge is getting down off of grade
at Roberts and then acquiring the property to get between Roberts and MTS at that location to
make some kind of a connection. And then you would have a fence between, you know so you
have a 10 foot fence running the whole way around the trail so, it’d almost kind of be like a
viaduct kind of a feel and I’m not sure parents would like, you know you provided my kids a
great access to hang out underneath the Highway 5 bridge so all those kind of things would start
to…
Daniel: That was a popular place even when we were growing up.
Hoffman: Still is. I encourage you to take a walk as commissioners, take a walk. See what you
think.
Daniel: Yep. And I don’t know Tom, you run throughout the city so it’s one to certainly take a
look at.
Kelly: Yeah, it’d be nice as a shortcut but yeah. Yeah.
Daniel: I mean just take a look at it and give me your thoughts. That way this is what I, the
feedback I’ve gotten from what I’ve seen so. I don’t know if there’s anything else that we want
to cover. I think 2010 still seems to be pretty much in line. I’d say the only major change
obviously is going to be the cost for Arboretum next year. I mean there’s a few things…
Hoffman: You’ll see it again in August or September.
Daniel: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Kelly: So we don’t need a motion to include the new pavilion in there or anything? Okay.
Hoffman: We’ll keep it added and then you’ll make an official recommendation most likely in
August.
Daniel: So it’s just more, this was just review right now. Is there any motion that we need to
make Todd at this point? Okay. Alright, well why don’t we get a chance then. Thanks again for
putting this comprehensive plan together.
Hoffman: You’re welcome.
Daniel: It’s easy to follow and it gives us a good understanding, and especially get an
opportunity to talk about with all the parks.
TRANSPORTATION ADVISORY BOARD (TAB), CHANHASSEN BIKE TOUR.
Hoffman: Nothing to add. Just mark that date and if you can make it we’ll send you some
updates. It’s really more of a funding opportunity, meet and greet than a bike ride but that’s the
means by which they want to do it. They take annually a bike ride, the TAB board,
Transportation Advisory Board. They’re an arm of Met Council and they want to come out to
Carver County because they have not financed any projects in Carver County. Tom Workman is
a county commissioner. Chan resident. Former council member. He says well let’s bring them
into Chanhassen and see if we can’t find a project to do. He contacted the city manager. The
city manager asked that I arrange this bike ride with the people over at the TAB board and we’ll
be doing that so hopefully some of you can make it. The challenge is it’s during the day so
you’ll have to take some time if you can make it.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS:
Kelly: Two questions. Are we going to reschedule the bike ride that we had scheduled in June
with the other commissions and the City Council for this fall?
Hoffman: I don’t know.
Kelly: Alright.
Hoffman: I think we should probably shoot for trying to make one successful this year and then
we’ll bring back the community one next year.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: That’s the feeling I’m getting right now is that we should focus our energy into this
one bike ride. The TAB board is coming out. Get your some additional information on that. I
know…I’m sure there’ll be council members at this one as well.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
th
Kelly: Okay. And then same question I had was at the 4 of July you had mentioned a desire to
host a half marathon next year. Anymore thought on that or is that still?
Hoffman: There is, yeah. We’re working on the schematics around that half marathon or a 10
mile at the recreation center and so Jodi’s been working on the background on that. She’ll be
bringing a report forward to you probably sometime this fall I think.
Kelly: Alright.
Scharfenberg: And my question was, are we doing Miracles for Mitch this year? Are they doing
that marathon here?
Hoffman: The community is yep.
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Ruegemer: Yep, it’s coming up August 15. I have a meeting with Lieutenant Olson and Tony
Schiller tomorrow. We’ll be going over all the kind of logistics and the layout of the event and
just make sure everybody’s you know kind of, everybody’s on the same page. I talked to Tony
yesterday. It’s on for record numbers right now. Right about 700 right now and that is 3 weeks
out and that is the highest they have been at this point since they started so brace yourself for
record numbers. It certainly looks like it’s going to be a big event.
Hoffman: The Miracle Kids Triathlon.
Stolar: Are they still going to close out the park so you can’t leave until the whole event’s done?
Ruegemer: Well no. It looks like the plan right now is to have a divided road on the main Lake
Ann Road and Tony really feels that the trail option for the bikes leaving the park is not a safe
option so he’s proposing, at this point it looks like probably what’s going to happen is have a,
have a kind of co-duct section on the road. Having a bicyclist and potentially now…the running
portion of that divided into kind of what I’ll call it thirds but a third from main transportation exit
for cars that are wanting to leave at a safe point in the race. A bike lane and a running lane.
Hoffman: A lot going.
Daniel: I was just thinking the same thing.
Ruegemer: So I think that will be fun…tomorrow.
Daniel: Okay. And as far as events that are coming up, we’ve got Miracles Triathlon. We have
the Huffman Memorial Race.
th
Ruegemer: That race is coming up September 12. We have a meeting on that as well. With
that so we’re kind of trying to tweak some things on that. Make some improvements in some
areas and try to get more kind of community based type of organizations as it relates to kids and
other type of things that may be of interest to have some type of both to kind of promote their
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
th
business and that sort of thing here too so kind of special things for the 10 anniversary this year.
We’re a little short on funding right now with some sponsorships but we’re trying to make
everything work at this point so.
Daniel: And that will also then take us then to Halloween is the next major city sponsored
recreation event.
thth
Ruegemer: That’s October, I believe the 24 or 25 this year.
Daniel: Okay. And I think that’s it for the calendar year for the major events, correct Jerry.
Besides the.
Ruegemer: Well, I was just going to tell everybody just real quick we have an outdoor movie
th
night scheduled next month. August 7 at Lake Ann Park so it’s going to be at the new Hilltop
shelter and that is in cooperative and conjunction with M&I Bank and the Miracles Kids
Foundation and the City. We’re all partners on that so we are providing the facility and the
advertising. M&I is going to pick up the tab on the whole event. They’re renting the big,
ginormous movie screen for that with renting that from a company…unless we get 800 people so
they, the numbers are anywhere from 200 to 800 so with that so it should be a fun event. We’ll
have concessions and family games for that.
Daniel: What movie?
Hoffman: ET.
Daniel: Oh is it really? And what date? What date is that?
th
Ruegemer: That is Friday the 7. That’s a week from this coming Friday and the movie will
start at around dusk and we’re thinking that’s probably going to be around 8:45. ET is the
number one requested movie for these type of events. That’s why they went that direction. They
thought it might be like a…
Scharfenberg: Just I throw it out there, I know everyone wants to get home but just as we, we
talk about Miracles for Mitch and traffic and stuff like that. Was there ever a master plan with
respect to Lake Ann to have a double entrance?
Stolar: I was thinking the same thing. Second entrance.
Scharfenberg: To come up through the park, especially on that east far parking lot to come down
so you could, was that ever looked at?
Daniel: Right along Eckankar’s property on the east side?
Scharfenberg: Yeah.
Hoffman: Never been a part of the master plan.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Daniel: Is that something that we could consider?
Stolar: With the current situation of things where we’re facing on Lake Ann and the usage of it.
Hoffman: Yeah, there’s a road right-of-way that’s in there. It’d be a, it may be possible. It’s
just one of those things that to accomplish it for you know a special event is going to be
something that.
th
Scharfenberg: Especially 4 of July. All the softball. I mean I think having to travel all the way
up through and then park at that far parking lot, where you could come in through a different
exit. It would just, it would access the flow to the park a whole lot better.
Hoffman: Yeah, there’s a water way in here. The tightest point would be right here between the
soccer field and.
Daniel: Would you make it a single lane? Say directional exit only. Gate it off.
Hoffman: Yeah could take a look at a variety of options.
Daniel: Because you could go from that circle and then you know put gates for exit only for
major events. And make it just a single lane. Again I don’t know if there’s codes and things that
you need but I mean it could be actually used as a partial walking path too and just open it up. I
mean it could be a trail.
Scharfenberg: It’d be something for staff to study maybe over the next year and get some
numbers and proposals. That would I would think, I mean putting that out somewhere in the
next 5 to 6 years would really, with that, you know that park is only going to grow I think in
terms of access and we’re talking about all star games and things would you know, the triathlon
and all that stuff I think would just add to the access to that park.
th
Stolar: The 4 of July right, people who park up here for the fireworks can come out this way
and go that way only. Right. I think you block this off here until they get all the way to Galpin,
th
right? We block off the Audubon exit here on the 4 of July.
th
Kelly: That’s a tough spot to get out of on the 4 of July.
Stolar: And this way you’ve got two flows going from, basically from the parking lot down low
and going up through there.
Hoffman: It’s improved greatly.
Ruegemer: Absolutely.
Hoffman: That park’s empty in 20 minutes where it was an hour and a half. Yeah, with
Highway 5. We used to have direct access to Highway 5.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
th
Ruegemer: You can shoot them right out onto the frontage road and West 78 Street and here
the right lane exiting you’re going west. If you’re in the left lane you’re going east. No
questions asked. You go. But you know it does take a while to get out of the park, no question
but it is vastly improved than what it used to be.
Hoffman: You know part of that’s the reason that, for 10 years traffic complaints at Lake Ann
just ramped up to the point to when it was just like unbearable because they were having to go
right out onto Highway 5. So then the frontage road came and so we have not had a conversation
about access to Lake Ann since, because it’s been so much improved since the Highway 5
situation so, that’s a good point.
Daniel: It’s just something you know where we don’t necessarily need to I think put a full blown
road but we could put another access trail and just utilize the trail as an exit. Entrance and/or exit
but primarily exit during major events. And then you can just you know use the swing gates and
lock them up for 99% of the time of the year. But again if that helps for major events, Miracles
for Mitch and where’s Huffman now based out of? Is that the rec center? Or is it Lake Ann?
Hoffman: Huffman?
Daniel: Yeah.
Hoffman: At the.
Ruegemer: City Center.
Daniel: City Center, okay. So again you know, with a lot of these major events, having only a
couple 2 or 3 a year, something to consider.
Hoffman: You know I hate to kick ideas…but if you’ve been there at that soccer field there’s a
major drainage way between that soccer field and our building. That’s going to be the bugaboo.
Daniel: Alright.
Hoffman: All that water from the north coming down through that soccer field. But we’ll look
at it.
Daniel: Alright. Thanks again guys and we’re running late. Probably one of the latest we’ve
gone, almost.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Hoffman: In the admin packet, just please take a look at the, when you have time, the annual
report. This is a document which we’re bringing forward to the commission. City Manager’s
picked up on it. He’s going to make it a universal document across the entire community so
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
you’ll see all our, across all our divisions so this document will be back before you and we’ll be
presenting it to the City Council at some point. Either this year or next year.
Scharfenberg: Looking through it, it looks really nice.
Stolar: I did too. Is this, this was submitted to Todd, the City Manager?
Hoffman: The concept? The concept was. This report he hasn’t seen yet. Jerry’s created this
report on behalf of the department. Organized it all and so he’s just seen the concept but…
Ruegemer: No he hasn’t. We’re in really the infant stages of that as well. We’re going to really
kind of be taking a look at that.
Hoffman: As you’ve seen it now.
Ruegemer: Yep.
Stolar: That’s what I was wondering. The question I was having was, can you have this
electronically emailed to us?
Ruegemer: I do.
Stolar: If you could because I thought it was great. I read through it. It was.
Daniel: Yep.
Stolar: Yeah, I starting reading some of these things and you look at and you’re like wow. Oh
yeah. Oh yeah I remember when we did that. This was well done.
Ruegemer: Yeah, your input certainly is welcomed…have comments about certain things,
please let me know.
Stolar: I think it was great.
Daniel: No S at the end of Daniels.
Ruegemer: No what?
Daniel: No S.
Ruegemer: No S?
Daniel: No, I’m just reading it right here. On my last name.
Hoffman: Oh. Daniels.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2009
Kelly: Picky, picky.
Daniel: Picky… No, this is actually a great format. It’s the same thing I had a chance to go
over it this afternoon and it’s a wonderful way to summarize everything that goes on and I don’t
know, is there something also that you’ll end up putting online with, that the community can get
access to and see where their money’s being spent.
Hoffman: I can’t speak directly for it because Todd’s adopted it and it will be his document here
at some place…
Daniel: That’s true. Alright, well thank you. I suppose we should take the opportunity here to
adjourn the meeting.
Scharfenberg moved, Kelly seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission
meeting was adjourned.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
49