PRC 2016 06 28
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
JUNE 28, 2016
Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Brent Carron, Luke Thunberg, Jim
Boettcher, Rick Echternacht, and Jennifer Hougham
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Lauren Dale
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; Jill Sinclair, Environmental Resources Specialist; and Paul Oehme, City
Engineer/Public Works Director
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Linda Boerboom 8261 West Lake Court
CJ Woodrow 8115 Century Boulevard
Stephen Jones 8260 West Lake Court
Bill Thompson 7491 Tulip Court
Sandy Wagner 7490 Tulip Court
James Duffey 8241 West Lake Court
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Kelly: Any additions or deletions to the agenda tonight? And I’m adding, Todd and I were at a
meeting at West Lake Court tonight. We’re adding that as number 5 under reports so it will be
our meeting at West Lake Court and the issues they’re having with the archery range.
Hoffman: Chairman we’d also like to add under, well you can decide. Conversation about the
Lake Ann dugout project that was just added on Field number 6 at Lake Ann by the athletic
association and the Dugout Club. That can under Reports as well.
Kelly: Yeah let’s make that number 6.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hoffman: Just going to start the conversation about the park master plan appointments and so
there will be an advisory committee that will form with a variety of representatives, both from
the public and from appointed and elected officials so we’ll start that conversation tonight about
Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
when that would be coming up. And then we also have CJ Woodrow here tonight will be
making a visitor presentation.
Kelly: Okay. Any other public announcements Todd or is that it at the moment?
Hoffman: That’s it.
Kelly: Okay. We’ll move right into visitor presentations.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
Sinclair: Thank you. I’ll introduce. We have some Chanhassen residents here tonight. I’m Jill
Sinclair with the Environmental Resources Specialist for the City and I’m here with a couple of
Chanhassen residents to talk to you guys about a pollinator safety resolution for the City and
tonight they’re here to do a couple of things to educate you about the issue. To show you the
resolution that was included in your packet and to kind of get your support and opinion on the
resolution itself. They’ve been to the Environmental Commission. Talked to them about it.
Gotten their feedback. They’re here tonight to talk to you and then eventually they’ll bring it
before the City Council for passing a resolution for the City. So you know we’d also possibly
like to start a discussion about what the parks can do for pollinators in our community as well so
that will be part of the talk tonight as well so we have Sandy Wagner and Bill Thompson,
Chanhassen residents who will be giving the presentation tonight and I will let Sandy take it
away.
Sandy Wagner: As Jill introduced, I’m Sandy Wagner. Been a long time resident of Chanhassen
since the early 90’s. Bill’s my neighbor.
Kelly: Sandy, excuse me for interrupting you but whenever we have people come up and talk we
ask you to clearly state your name and your address please and then you can get into the subject.
Sandy Wagner: Sure my name is Sandy Wagner. I’m at 7490 Tulip Court in Chanhassen.
Kelly: Thank you Sandy.
Sandy Wagner: I’m here to speak tonight on the need for a pollinator safe resolution.
Bill Thompson: And I’m Bill Thompson, 7491 Tulip Court, Chanhassen, Minnesota speaking on
the same subject as Sandy.
Kelly: Thank you.
Sandy Wagner: So I’ve been a long time resident in Chanhassen and I’m becoming more aware
about the plight of pollinators and their importance in the environment. Part of that through my
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neighbor Bill who’s a bee keeper and part of it just general awareness that’s coming out in
publications. And I got in contact with Jill through the City and asked if the City had a
resolution in place that covered pollinator safe aspects and she said not at this time and she’s
been working with me to get through the Environmental Commission and now here tonight in
hopes to get something in front of the City Council. And Bill’s the expert. He’s been trained at
the University of Minnesota. He has bees down on his family farm in southern Minnesota so
with that I’ll get started. And just some quick background Jill had given you some prior
information about it but pollination is an essential ecosystem. The services that it provides is
food for pollinators and then also the actual pollination. Transfer of pollen from one plant to
another and that service ends up or results in 1 out of 3 mouthfuls of food or beverage that we
eat. Beverage that we drink is delivered to us through pollinators. Honey bees are reported to be
the major pollinator but there’s many other types of pollinators. Other types of bees, butterflies,
birds. We’ll get into some more of that as we get into the presentation. The issue is the
pollinator decline so for a long time pollinators have been declining just through the reduction in
their habitat, both rural and in urban areas and over the last half century pollinators have been
declining at about a 10 percent rate or so but in the last 10 years this pollination decline has
significantly increased. Almost double and so they’ve done some studies and understood what
they believe is a cause of some of this pollination decline and it’s called colony collapse disorder
(CCD) and along with that you’ll hear us talk about the 4 P’s but what this is, is there is a sudden
and unexpected rapid loss of bees in a hive. That brings us to an understanding that there is a
need for a pollinator safe resolution but before we get into that we’ll talk a little bit more about
what CCD is and the 4 P’s and then go back through the resolution. So with that I’ll turn it over
to Bill.
Bill Thompson: Okay, thank you. I just want to check out my controls here. So Sandy
mentioned, she called me an expert in bee keeping. I’ve done it for 2 years and every time I look
at the bees it’s a discovery so you know we had a queen that quit laying fertilized eggs 2 weeks
ago so that hive’s gone so it’s an interesting process. I’m going to talk about the colony collapse
disorder. It’s been in the news for the last decade or so and just one of the statistics associated
with that, that 44 percent of every beehive in the United States died last year and there’s 2.4
million some beehives so 44 percent died so that’s due to a number of, a variety of different
reasons and it’s really changed the dynamics so one is poor nutrition, both rural, urban from a
number of reasons. Pesticides, parasites and pathogens that they pick up in their daily activities.
And then so what we’re trying to get together here is an awareness for the public and public
entities to allow us to move forward and assist and just making the pollination better for the
insects and us as a group all together. So in 2006 there’s been insecticides. Neonicotinoids or
neonics as a I call them because I couldn’t stumble over that all night long and they are systemic
pesticides that are embedded in the plant through coatings or sprayed onto it and it starts in the
roots and goes through the stems and leaves and the flowers and after 10-15 years we start to
understand that they have an impact, negative impact on bees specifically but generally insects.
Pollination insects all together. They’re banned in certain countries in Europe. Certain aspects
of it are and they kind of come and go. They impact the bees from ingesting the pollen and then
it, they can get lost. It’s kind of like alcohol. If you’re to go to work in the morning, started
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
drinking beer at 7:00 a.m. you might get lost on your way home so not only bees but other
pollinators. Monarch butterflies are in decline and they’ve had some public awareness. It even
affects hummingbirds use of insecticides and such because hummingbirds, it isn’t what they eat.
It’s what they use to build their nest and they use spider webs so on the lawn in the morning dew
days your little spider webs from when spiders hatch. That’s what they build their nests of so
when the birds eggs hatch it can expand so it’s kind of interesting sideline there. So you know
we’re just trying to let people know that don’t leave, use neonics and I think that’s part of our
resolution. Just give that kind of direction. Parasites. The Boora destructor mite, little picture
there. It’s kind of a wood tick type, white that attaches to the bees and does the same thing a
wood tick does for people. It sucks their fluids out and make it weak and so that in combination
with the insecticides, poor nutrition, lack of foraging, let me go back one. It affects the ability of
the bees to, overall health of the bees and then it makes them susceptible to viruses similar to
people that have poor nutrition. You don’t eat well. You don’t sleep. You’ll be more
susceptible to colds, flu, et cetera so that’s kind of the overall impact to pollinators from a
combination of external factors. Man made factors that affect the bees so that’s just kind of an
overview on the pathogens and colony collapse disorder. Any questions from the group?
Scharfenberg: Bill do they attribute that 44 percent loss all to CCD or to CCD and other things?
Bill Thompson: It’s a combination of other things. One is our monoculture that you go out and
see the soybean and corn fields there and you know with the larger equipment you like to farm
an entire section at a time. It used to be quarters with a house on each quarter and so from fence
post for mile there’s nothing but corn, or nothing but soybeans. You know we cut the ditches.
We spray the ditches with weeds and insecticide killer so you can cut hay. You know whether
legally or not, it happens everyday but so it’s kind of interesting. And then in our urban
environments from a bee standpoint it’s actually becoming more, better foraging than you’re
seeing in the rural community but then you know you see the inner city, urban city and our
suburbs are kind of caught inbetween because we have our own monoculture. You know the
manicured lawns. Jim’s my neighbor and he looks at my clover growing out in the yard there
and I have a little rain garden but I still try to make it presentable for the group but, so we’re
looking for islands in the desert or oasis. You know home, communities, parks, strips along
those lines so that’s kind of the approach we’re trying to promote here. So this is just picture one
my bees on an early plum blossom in May this year so I just thought I’d add that in.
Kelly: So I’m curious where the wording came from for the resolution that you’re submitting to
us.
Sandy Wagner: Oh that was a combination of research from other local suburbs that have
created resolutions and passed them and then from information that we had read with regard to
things that locals can do. I’ve contacted the Arboretum. Peter Moe there, the pollinator area so
it was a collection of information but most of it was research from other city resolutions.
Kelly: And what are the costs to the City going to be for doing this type of activity Jill?
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Sinclair: You know as far as management and labor there’s really no changes. City doesn’t use
insecticides so we wouldn’t have to change that. It would be a matter if we wanted to do
pollinator friendly plantings. Add trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals to our landscape so it would
be a cost of our choice.
Kelly: Okay. Some of the wording I don’t like is where it says you do best management
practices. I might be able to live with something like reasonable. I don’t like best. That means
you’re supposed to do it and I couldn’t support that. I’m also having trouble with number 7
where we’re going to designate bee free areas in our parks where our kids are going to be playing
so I don’t know if you want to comment more on that but those are my issues with the wording.
Sandy Wagner: You know I can take, we can take that under advisement. I don’t have any
significant concerns with those changes.
Sinclair: So for best management practices most disciplines do have a set of practices that are in
the best interest of the issue at hand and the community doing it so whether it’s water quality,
forestry, parks, there’s just best management practices that are kind of accepted means to achieve
your goals. So I don’t see it as being kind of a requirement as these are recommended.
Kelly: Okay and reasonable make just as much sense if not more?
Sinclair: Yeah it’s just this is best management, bmp’s. I don’t know if you’ve heard that term.
It’s just a more common term so people recognize that rather than reasonable but we’ll take that
into consideration.
Kelly: Yeah because it’s, just the way I read it I read it differently with those two words in there
and I can’t support the way it’s written now personally. I don’t know about the rest of the
commission.
Echternacht: It’s a lot more inclusive. It’s just what the majority or a lot of the individuals
consider to be the best but not all inclusive…
Sinclair: Okay.
Kelly: Other comments, questions?
Boettcher: For the bee safe areas you had listed in the parks, would you have some way of
fencing it off or whatever? I mean I don’t think you want anybody tracking around in there if
you have. My uncle used to raise bees and I mean it was fun to watch him from a distance but
you didn’t want to be too close so is that a standard practice?
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Bill Wagner: The notification is more that this is an area that we felt a pollinator safe area or bee
safe area. It doesn’t matter butterflies, Monarchs, bees so you wouldn’t see a congregation of
bees naturally there. You know the thought that you would see them as you see bumble bees
flying around today. If you plant them like at Lake Ann Park you’re going to see bees there so
there’s no difference from that aspect so it’s not a danger to the city at all. It’s more awareness.
What we’re doing as a city to promote that type of activity.
Sinclair: Right and a community setting, a bee safe park means we’re not using insecticides that
are toxic to bees and perhaps we’re planting milkweed or roses or something that offers food for
bees. It doesn’t mean that we’re putting a hive in the park or anything like that. It just means
we’re practicing methods that don’t harm bees is what a bee safe park means.
Scharfenberg: Jill if a resolution like this is passed and kind of going forward can you kind of
give us kind of a vision of, in terms of for example the rain gardens that we have at Lake Ann,
would you kind of intersperse some plantings in there or is it something, this would deal more
with new plantings and stuff like that. Can you kind of talk to that issue?
Sinclair: Yeah I see it being more of new plantings. I mean we could certainly retrofit places
but even things like the plants already in those rain gardens. The grasses. Some of the
dogwoods. You know the grasses provide cover. The dogwoods are a pollinator friendly plant
you know so they exist already as good plants but I would think that maybe in the future it would
be when we design a new landscape we make sure there’s maybe 1 or 2 plants that are pollinator
food or cover and something like that, yeah.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Bill Thompson: And from our perspective there’s opportunity you know for the public you
know involved if you can make areas within the park for pollination friendly plants. Maybe it’s
the boy scouts or the 4H. I don’t know if we have 4H in this community but that’s part of the
aspect that bringing the awareness that here’s a section that has been planted for this purpose and
you know if we can facilitate that, that’s part of the hope for the resolution. An awareness
opportunity to make our parks, the city better for all residents so.
Sinclair: True, yeah when we say pollinators I know bees get all the press but it really is
butterflies and moths and things like that as well.
Hougham: Is there a pollinator day similar to Arbor Day?
Sinclair: Not that I know of. There’s National Pollinator Week which was last week.
Bill Thompson: Last week yeah.
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Sinclair: That was when a beekeeper in Minnesota drove 2.5 million dead bees to the EPA
offices in Washington D.C. to talk to them about limiting the use of pesticides so.
Bill Thompson: So just another side line. Almond growers 1.7 million hives are shipped to
California. 70 percent of every beehive in the United States goes to California to pollinate the
almond trees. So it’s just kind of.
Sandy Wagner: A monoculture. When the almond trees are done blooming the bees have to be
shipped to another place because there’s no food.
Bill Thompson: Two weeks but it’s just kind of staggering that that industry is so dependent on
it.
Kelly: So Bill I’m under the impression that you know bumble bees are good for you. Yellow
jackets aren’t good or do they pollinate too?
Bill Thompson: They pollinate. Your yellow jackets, hornets and such but you know my
experience with them has never been good. And you know obviously with the next up in the
rafters and so there isn’t anything to prevent destruction of nuisance insects at all but other than.
Sinclair: Yellow jackets and, those are wasps so they’re a different type of insect.
Bill Thompson: Yeah. Bumble bees are ground dwelling creatures and they die out every year
so are all the yellow jackets and such except for the queen and it buries itself in the bark of a tree
or siding of a home for the winter.
Kelly: Other questions or thoughts?
Scharfenberg: I think it’s a great idea so thank you for all the time and the effort that you guys
have put into this. I hope that this is something that the City Council will take up and pass.
Bill Thompson: Yep, thank you for allowing us the time to present.
Sandy Wagner: Thank you.
Kelly: Thank you Sandy. Thank you Bill.
Hoffman: We’re picking the raspberries in our yard that I watched the bees pollinate for a
couple of weeks so.
Bill Thompson: Yeah you know the Arboretum has beehives. Shorewood as well as beehives so
you’ll get them from other aspects.
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Hoffman: And for those of you who have fruit trees in your yard, if you’ve ever heard that eerie
buzzing sound and then you understand what that is. You just walk over to your fruit tree and
it’s full of literally probably hundreds or thousands of bees and they’re just up there doing their
work.
Kelly: Okay, any more visitor presentations tonight? I believe we have Pitch to Pitch.
CJ Woodrow: Good evening. CJ Woodrow, Pitch to Pitch, 8114 Century Boulevard. Thanks
guys for letting we just take a couple minutes of your time. Really what I was looking to do
tonight is just kind of start a conversation. This kind of came from having two conversations.
One with my wife who’s a teacher at East. Chaska Middle School East and with the dome
coming in soon and the fact that the 90 foot baseball field that’s there is going to be used to put
the dome over that and things like that and I started a conversation with Mayor Laufenburger at a
Storm game recently just talking about that and baseball in general because he’s a baseball guy.
I’m a baseball guy and he was asking about fields and number of fields and things like that and
we’re looking at some long range planning, much like you guys are starting to do that process as
well and he just asked me is like well do you know how many fields the community’s looking to
have. Full fields, 90 foot fields in the community. He’s like I don’t know. I’m like well I think
there’s roughly 2 or 3 and I started talking with Jerry and Todd and basically I started looking at
my business model as well and saying by adding the dome you’re losing a field and I know they
need 2 to 3 so that means the community over the next X amount of years is going to replace that
or add more which means cost and I started looking at our business model where we work with
the youth association. With CAA, with Chaska and other surrounding areas where we help the
youth and we have our building obviously in the community. We’re looking at that from a
business perspective of potentially owning a building or building a building in the city instead of
leasing so we have more control of our building space. In addition though with the field concern
Denny kind of brought the idea to me to say well you know, and in conjunction with them if we
had our own field then potentially the City could use that as well and you guys could use it and
how does that work and I just basically said to him like I would say to you guys and what I’m
looking to talk to you guys about is, it’s a partnership. It’s a sharing just we do inside with the
associations where we have space on Sundays. They have space during the week. We would do
a similar thing. I mean I’m running tryouts right now at Bandimere. I have one week of camp
which is 3 mornings and I have a practice, practices in the fall, I’m looking at 10 days. The rest
of the time would be for the City. It’d be for games. For practices. For storage. More storage
that I know that CAA has in our space that they’re looking for more space as well. And what it
also does by providing that asset it will do multiple things so with the drawing I did, and just so
you know I’m not an architect. It’s not what I do. This is a Google map, copy, paste. The next
step what I’m looking for from you guys tonight is just conversation, are you interested in
working together with me as I am with the association on an inside space to work with you guys
on an outside space. And the reason I say that is that the parcel of land on Stone Creek Drive
and Coulter like you see, I can buy for private and I can do that. Raise the money. Come to City
Council, ask for zoning. Make sure everything’s buttoned up, tied up and everything but then
much like other adjacent cities that have turf fields and other fields that are available for public
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
and private, you have to pay for a drink and it gets expensive because of recouping those costs
over long term. What I’m looking to do is that if the City is looking to develop these kind of
facilities for the community anyway, if I can be a part of that and I pay for the assets on the land
and manage it for you then I can provide those fields and times back to you guys for little to no
cost if not free because you’re providing me an asset. You get an asset and we can work together
on that. That’s what I do on the inside. That’s how we started our business in this area 5-7 years
ago with both associations that volleyball became a big issue because it’s a volleyball town. I
know that. I’m married to a volleyball family and they’re in the gym still in February so baseball
and softball don’t have space and the city was growing. You know more areas were developing
and so we said well if we get a building, you need space. I need space. We can work together
and it’s done very well. We help thousands of kids a year. It’s fun for me to be able to do this
now as a living and so we’re looking to do the same thing with a building but with fields. These
fields would be turfed. There’d be no watering. No cutting. No maintenance. We’re very
familiar with this as we do a lot of things obviously with turf inside. The outside use we’re very
familiar with Veterans in Minnetonka. The U of M Siebert, that’s where I went. I’m involved
with that as well. And the Northwest College. As far as turf fields in the metro, those are the
only 3 so looking at events, tournaments, showcases, things to bring people into the city of
Chanhassen, it’s very limited and those are already all sold out all the time so the demand is also
growing for those types of fields. As far as multi-use, you don’t want to just build an asset and
have it for one primary use. You’d like to see if you can use it for multiple things. With the
ability with the 90 foot field, much like they do next door in Minnetonka, they take down the
fence at the end of summer and they make it football, soccer and lacrosse fields. Similar thing
would happen here. You can put up temporary fencing. You can paint it much like you would a
multi-purpose sport court. This would be for mainly practice and training but those soccer and
football and other places that are the other 6 days a week that I’m not on it, they would have that
asset in the community in the fall so now you can help them as well without having to worry
about more soccer fields and more football fields. The reason why we’re looking at these, they’d
be lighted. Everything else in the area that we’re looking is because it is downtown. It’s not as,
not as many residents are affected. That’s a big issue with lighting. We need the lighting so that
we can practice at night as a lot of our families in the fall they have practice, you know they have
to have school. Then we go at night and the sun goes down the end of August so we need lights
so we’re looking at putting turf fields. Lit fields. Our building. Basically transposed and
rebuilding it and putting that more in the heart of the city so that when people do come it’s more
adjacent. They can go to the restaurants and other amenities but the long and short of it is, I’m
looking to do this as a long term plan. I’m just having discussions. This is not final but we’re
looking at it. We’ve contacted the owner of the land. We’ve got pricing. Understanding the
potential revenue and cost with it and our business model as well. At the end of the day what
I’m looking for from you guys is just an understanding if you want to work together in a capacity
that we do already inside, if you want to do that outside. The ability, the idea that I want to ask
you guys is if you’re going to be building fields in the future anyway, buying land, developing, if
we can do that together and then I’d pay for the turf. The lights. The building and maintain
them much like I do already inside, would that be something that the City of Chanhassen would
want to do. If it doesn’t, totally understandable. I’m looking to do it anyway. It just would cost
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
me more and in turn, then I’d have to rent the fields for more which would put more cost on the
people that would be using it so it’s kind of if you’re going to do it, can we work together.
Otherwise we can seek alternative means.
Kelly: Thank you TJ. Questions for TJ?
CJ Woodrow: CJ, sorry. CJ.
Kelly: CJ, I’m sorry.
CJ Woodrow: I say it really quick, I apologize.
Carron: What’s the cost of the land?
CJ Woodrow: Cost of the land, talking with the owner they said it’s a PUD so it can be a lot of
different things. They range anywhere from roughly three-quarter of a million to two million on
a high side if they were going to make it residential. They said more commercial they’d be
willing to come down more to that million dollar mark and that’s where also with that
partnership you guys have more assets and more expertise with engineering. With leveling.
With grading, all those things that maybe easier and keep the cost down long term so in turn I
don’t have to charge more for the use. Roughly a million dollars.
Carron: And how long has Pitch to Pitch been going on?
CJ Woodrow: We started in ’04. We’ve been in the community since ’09. We’re contracted
with all the associations for another 3 plus years and we’re in our second or third contract now.
We’re entering our third contract with them so plan to be here for a long time. You know we’ve
seen some of our classes you know kind of starting to graduate so it’s kind of nice to see them
when they’re 8 and now they’re 18 so it’s kind of different.
Carron: Okay and then one last question. What as far as the partnership goes, and the contract
between the City and Pitch to Pitch, how do you, how would you see that let’s just say worst
case scenario Pitch to Pitch is done. It’s either gone or you don’t want to do it anymore or if you
sell off, how would that relationship be in your eyes.
CJ Woodrow: Correct. So we create a different entity. So Pitch to Pitch Inc which is our
company would be the management company and renter of the building. We’d create a different
LLC which would be the investment part and also in partnership with you guys where if you
wanted to you guys have the land, we’d have the building and the fields but if they all went
under you would basically be able to take all that out and you’d have a building on hand which is
the demand is much, is exceeding the supply for commercial buildings so much like Lifetime
does. Our building’s built so that it can be re-configured into regular commercial storage
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
building so that would still be there. Then you’d have the excess land where you could add
either additional parking or more buildings to do whatever you need to do in that area.
Carron: Okay, thanks.
CJ Woodrow: And just for background, I mean this is just a preliminary thing. Just like I said I
just want to kind of do a conversation. In Minnetonka for instance at Veterans Field they are
sold out as soon as they open up their booking. You can’t even rent their field any time and so
they’re charging roughly $150 a game and they get it and so the demand for these types of fields
and everything else in talking with CAA baseball and Chaska baseball, you know the number of
fields is very small and they’re traveling around all the time. This would create more of a central
hub since all their storage is there and everything else and it’s in the middle of the city that
would help as well.
Kelly: Now who did the drawing and was there an environmental impact done at the same time?
CJ Woodrow: Haven’t got there yet, nope. This is, the best thing about baseball fields is that if
you don’t have enough space after the environmental, you need watershed areas and other things
that are impacted by that, we can make the field shorter. Put a wall and call it character much
like Fenway Park. So it fits, as long as you get the infield in you literally can make a baseball
field fit anywhere. And we’re mainly going to be using it for practice and training and then for
your local groups as well for their practices and training. We’re not looking to build a national
sports center or something that’s always game and competition ready. We just need additional
space much like you guys need additional space for training and youth development as well.
Kelly: So you make your money by.
CJ Woodrow: Training.
Kelly: I’m sorry.
CJ Woodrow: Training.
Kelly: Just training. Okay so when you have tournaments you don’t make any money from the
tournaments?
CJ Woodrow: No, in talking with Mayor Laufenburger. I don’t know if you guys want me to
call him Denny. He always insists I call him that but I can call him Mayor Laufenburger,
whatever you guys prefer. He makes me call him Denny and he’s like I don’t like that
sometimes but I’m like, he’s like Denny you can have concessions. That’s one business I don’t
want to be part of. You guys have practices or events or tournaments of your other place, it’s not
what we do. I’m happy to give all that back. What we want to do is just have an asset that we
can use. You guys can use and just work in concert just like we do currently. But our money is,
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
yeah we’d make a gate fee in a sense for having those events but our main thing is we just want
to be able to do more training and we are full at capacity right now and the outside space would
be able to provide us other avenues for outdoor space so we can fill our calendar better.
Kelly: So CJ my feeling at this time and people here can disagree with me is when the City buys
land we buy land for the purposes of all residents of Chanhassen that can be used as a park
system and we have a park almost right across the street from the area you’re proposing so, and
we’re always trying to come up with money to do things to enhance our parks in the city of
Chanhassen so for us to come up with a million or two million dollars I don’t see that happening
to get into partnership with somebody else. If we’re going to buy land the City is going to run
the land and be in charge of it is the way I see it and people can disagree with me if they’d like to
but that’s what I see going forward so I don’t really see a partnership opportunity for you here.
Any disagreements?
Scharfenberg: Well I, you know at least at this early juncture I would say CJ that I’m at least a
little uncomfortable getting in from a City’s perspective getting into business with a private
business and doing that for a private business. I understand the sharing aspect of it and how that
would benefit us as a city to have additional ballfield access. That part of it intrigues me but the
public/private part of it and I guess I was going to ask Todd, Todd are you aware of anything
with either park and rec in the past doing something like this or any other city doing this?
Hoffman: City of Chanhassen has been approached on a number of projects like this. Foss
Swim School originally had a concept where we would be involved with them. Lifetime Fitness,
that was their early concept where they had public dollars coming in and they built variety of
Lifetime Fitness clubs like that. Another way to look at it CJ is that the people are going to pay
one way or the other and so if the City buys the land they’re going to pay that way and it’s going
to be all the folks are going to pay whereas if you buy the land and then charge it’s going to be
the people that want to use the facility are going to pay that higher user fee and so there will be a
lot of people that would weigh in that would say that would be the better way to go so there’s a
variety of different ways to take a look at this. It’s probably not unprecedented across the
country. It’s not something that you know when you’re talking those kind of dollars, a million to
two million dollars for land. Sometimes we gain land by park dedication or we gain land by you
know it’s not suitable for other uses and so it’s suitable for athletic fields so it comes at a lower
cost. The City is not actively pursuing additional land currently for additional ballfields. In fact
you know it’s widely thought that the City, although we may need future ballfields in the future
for maybe baseball. That we might change one of other facilities that’s no longer being used at
that time. You know modify a facility to change it to another use so we’re not actively seeking
additional ballfield space at this time so but just wanted CJ to come in and make the presentation
so you know you as an appointed body who are familiar with these type of things can at least talk
to your neighbors. Take a look at it so we’ve not entered into that kind of agreement in the past
so it’s up to you to decide if you want to take a run at it. There’s going to be a lot of, CJ and I
talked on the phone, there’s going to be a lot of people that they’re going to say it’s a bad idea so
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
you know you get to decide if it’s a good idea and if it’s a good enough idea to defend and to
enter into an agreement.
CJ Woodrow: Yeah and I understand that and I understand, you know I was looking at it as an
opportunity to see if it’s possible because it’s what we do inside with the current space and I
understand taxing all for the use of few. I get that. I guess my question then also since I have
the people that have the most information about it, going private then just so I help for my
planning and use my time as efficiently as I can, if I did go through privately and everything else
and bought the land and went to the City for zoning and everything else like we do currently just
for leasing buildings for building and creating structures will also require city approval and I
understand that process. Is there potential need, like you say you’re not actively pursuing it but
is there a likelihood that there would be a well received use of that land for that versus the City
saying no we’d rather use that for X use versus this use. Just saying that if I do put a baseball
field in there and another building is that something that is potentially welcomed in the city? If I
pay for it and do everything I’m just trying to understand if I should continue this path.
Hoffman: This body wouldn’t weigh in on a land use.
CJ Woodrow: Okay.
Hoffman: It would be a Planning Commission and City Council.
CJ Woodrow: Okay, just wondering. Just trying to get information. Just trying not to spin my
wheels for the next year and then hey really bad idea. Shouldn’t do that so yeah it’s just
something that we’re looking at. I appreciate the time. You know it’s the same thing, it’s 6, on
half dozen of the other how you pay for it I agree with that. Just trying to do better business
situation for me and also if I can help the City that’s awesome.
Kelly: CJ thank you for taking the time and effort to present to us today.
CJ Woodrow: No thanks guy. I appreciate it.
th
Hoffman: Have a good 4.
Kelly: Next we have approval of minutes.
Hoffman: Should call for any other…
Kelly: Oh I’m sorry.
Hoffman: Any other visitor presentations?
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Kelly: Any other visitor presentations? I think they’re all here for West Lake Court. All 3 of
you correct? Yeah okay. So no other visitor presentation.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Kelly: Let’s move onto approval of the Minutes? Anybody have changes? I have one change
on page 13. When I started with Katie I just said Katie. I didn’t say thank you Katie. When she
was introducing the KleinBank Summer Concert Series at my first word so that needs to be
changed. Other than that I don’t have any other changes. Anybody else have some changes?
Somebody want to put it to the question?
Carron moved, Scharfenberg seconded to approve the verbatim minutes of the Park and
Recreation Commission meeting dated May 24, 2016 with a change on page 13 by
Chairman Kelly, and the summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission
meeting dated May 24, 2016 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0.
REVIEW WEST WATER TREATMENT PLANT AND MANCHESTER
NEIGHBORHOOD PARK CONCEPT PLANS.
Kelly: A lot of us were out there, when was that just last week?
Hoffman: Two weeks ago.
Kelly: Two weeks ago. Time goes. Todd.
Hoffman: Introduce Paul Oehme our City Engineer and Public Works Director. Paul is the
primary staff person responsible for the water treatment plant and the site development and then
the commission will be working in the future acquisition and installation of a playground or two
playgrounds and the shelter and Paul will show how that…but this is the commission’s
opportunity to weigh in on the site plan. We are a partner in the land. Well City owns the land.
Engineering and park and rec is a partner in the property so we’ll let Paul go through the site
plan and the presentation and then he’ll stand for questions from the commission.
Oehme: Thank you Todd, good evening Chairman Kelly, members of the Park and Rec
Commission. Glad to be here tonight. Just briefly wanted to bring you up to speed on where
we’re at with the proposed west water treatment plant. It’s actually a filtration plant. There is
purpose and need for the project. Basically in our wells we draw our well water on the west side
of town from the Jordan Aquifer and there is iron and manganese, specifically manganese in the
west well field that contributes to the rusty water in some areas of the city in this area so we do
have significant I would say amount of calls annually, about 20 to 30 complains annually so
what we do in those instances we go out and flush the lines. Hydrants. Try to get that material
out of the pipes as best as we can. We estimate there’s probably about 2.5 million gallons of
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
water we flush out of the system in this area on an annual basis and just for perspective that’s
almost about 4 Olympic size swimming pools so it’s a pretty significant amount of water. So but
over time you know the manganese iron builds up in the system again and we have to flush it so
we flush the west side of the town at least twice a year and then we hit some of the problem areas
where we get the complaints 20 to 30 times in some areas. We do have a plant in the east well
field and most of you probably know it’s over by the pedestrian bridge by, off of Highway 5 on
the north side. That’s been, that was built in 2005 and it’s been running very well ever since it’s
been put into use and that’s basically the similar type of plant that we’re looking out here on the
west side of town. So here’s just a little perspective of where our wells are in this community.
The area in green is basically our low zone water that is right now treated by the east water
treatment plant. We have numerous wells on the east side of town that’s treated. The wells on
the west side of town are not treated at this time and the area in red specifically that’s our high
zone area. That’s not treated at all at this time. When we do have, in the summer months when
we do have higher demand we do have to bleed off some of the water and use some of the other
wells in the west side of town in the low zone and that’s the area kind of shaded in or hatched
out. That’s where the treated water meets the non-treated water and we actually have a lot of the
iron manganese precipitate out causing the rusty water calls so it’s just not the untreated water
but it’s also the water that’s untreated meeting the treated water where it actually, the chemistry
is such that the water, or the iron manganese precipitates out and causes some of that rusty water
complaints. So that’s the need for the project. The plant itself we’ve gone through water
treatment studies and feasibility studies in our comp plan and updated based upon a lot of those
studies we are not going to be suggesting softening the water. The east plant does not soften the
water that takes kind of the hardness out of the system. That’s a process and that’s more of an
aesthetic and kind of a personal feeling or how soft you want the water in your household so we
leave that up to the property owners and the residents of the community. A plant would be sized
for ultimate needs for the city. Our 2040 comp plan basically so we’re, the plant is, would be
sized for 8.64 million gallons per day. That’s about 6,000 gallons per minute and it’s very
comparable to what the east plant can produce right now and basically again it’s, like I said it’s a
very similar process to the east plant. This plant however would be able to pump to the low
zone. That green area I showed you on the map before and to the high zone, that red area so it
would be kind of a dual purpose there so if we ever wanted to you know in low demand times
take down the east plant for maintenance we would have the opportunity to run the whole city
off of this plant and vice versa too so it’d get us a lot of flexibility in the future if this plant were
to be built. This is just basically the layout and I’ll just run through this real quick. It’s kind of a
schematic of the overhead looking down on the plant. We would have a detention tank basically
on the north side of the building which would flow into some filter cells. Detention tank is
basically we add chlorine and potentially some other chemicals to activate and actually help the
filtration process. Try to get and be more efficient. Get the iron manganese out of the filter cells
so these are the 6 filter cells here. Basically that filter cells would drop the water into a clear
well and be pumped out by 6 high service pumps here either to the low zone or the high zone or
wherever we need the water. The area on the south side of the building, that’s the kind of the
non-production area. That’s where all the chemicals would be stored. We would have a standby
generator here to run the plant and potentially one future well on site if need be. That generator
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
would also be needed for emergency purposes and then also for some peat shaving options as
well if Xcel wanted to kick us off the grid during high peak demands we could run the plant off
the generator and then like I said most of the other areas of the plant on this side are just for the
chemicals. Mainly you know chlorine and fluoride. Some permanganate for, to help the
filtration process, those type of things. So this is a schematic of kind of the view of the building
so north on the top view here is to the left so what we’re looking at is trying to facilitate the
building on the site as best as we can to screen it from some of the neighbors and to try to set it
in so it’s not impacting some of the view sheds in the area so again the detention tank would be
up here. That we’re proposing to be completely underground. The filter cells where the water
would drop in from the detention tank is in this area. The height of that area, that section would
probably be about 17 feet similar to a house in that area. This is a process or the pump area.
This is the clear water. This is a tank. This is all underground. The existing grades are shown
here. This dashed line and then the proposed grades are shown here so we’re looking at maybe
raising the grades up a little bit in this area to try to screen the building as much as we can. The
non-process area, the control room and some of the chemicals and generator room is shown
down here. That’s set down a little bit lower than the rest of the building. We want to take
advantage of some of the topography in the area and try to screen this area as best as we can so
this area we’re envisioning and I’ll show you on a different schematic, it would be some berms
out here and some plantings and try to screen this area from Lake Harrison as much as we can.
This view on the bottom here that’s basically looking at the, would be looking at the building
from the side. From the Galpin area. It’s basically the same building layout but it’s on the other
side of the building. Building exterior, we did meet with and the design of the landscape, we did
meet with property owners, Todd and I and some of the other design team members back on June
nd
2. We did have some great feedback from the neighborhoods on what their expectations for the
building would be. Did receive some great input as well. We are meeting with the neighbors on
some other, on this, on the design as well in the near future here to show them what we’ve come
up with and kind of see if it meets some of their expectations but our goal has always been to
design the building, to have it set back into the hillside as much as we can. As you know when
you walk the site it’s on a pretty steep hillside. We want to try to build that building into the
hillside as much as we can. Take advantage of that topography. Decrease your visual impacts.
The building exterior we would like to have that maintenance free similar to the east plant.
Maybe stone. Brick type of building and just maintenance free type of things. Colors we’re still
looking at some earth tone colors. Browns and grays or something like that. Earth tones to
compliment some of the other housing stock in the area. We’re looking at evergreens to kind of
screen some of the buildings and some planting beds to break up the view sheds of the building
as much as we can so the building doesn’t look as big as it is. There might be some retaining
walls out there too that we’re looking at to try to screen some of the areas as well. The
architectural concepts and designs we were looking at, we want to make it the style that we’ve
kind of picked out or kind of hit on is a prairie style architecture and that’s kind of hip roofs type
of feature. Kind of flatter, longer window exteriors. Try to make that building as low profile as
we can. The windows again would be the long and narrow and then just a lot of accents on the
building to try to blend it into the other neighborhoods as much as we can as well. So here’s an
architectural concept of what we’ve come up with to date. This again is the building as you look
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
from Lake Harrison to the east so it’d be again built in the hillside. The fenestrations of the
windows up on top kind of matches that prairie style architecture that we’re looking at. This
would be a fake door. Just kind of break up, we think break up the building as much as we can
with stone accents along the way too. This doesn’t show the landscaping but we would have
landscaping trees and what not in some of the corners of the building and just kind of a
compliment the lower half with the same kind of architecture as well. Any questions on that?
The plan site is shown here so as you know Lake Harrison is down here. Galpin’s to the east.
There’s a wetland complex just along Galpin we want to stay out of. We don’t anticipate any
wetland impacts associated with the construction of this building. There might be some, there’s,
the site is not very well, is not heavily treed at this time. There are some very mature pine trees
up in this area. We’re going to try to save as much of those as we can and for screening purposes
as well but we’re looking at the hillside. Trying to landscape that as much as we can. There is
an underground backwash tank up in this corner so basically after the filters are full of iron
manganese we would backwash that, backwash the filters with clear water that goes in the
backwash tank. That iron manganese and the filter cells would settle out and that iron
manganese would be, would flow into the sanitary sewer system. About 90 percent of the water
in the backwash tank we can re-use. Put it back in the filters and re-use for potable purposes so
that’s what we’re doing there. The site itself we’ve tried to maximize again setting the building
into the hillside and that’s the topography. That’s the way it, why the building is situated the
way it is, is to try to take advantage of those grades as much as we can. The driveway would be
off of Lake Harrison Drive. We’re not looking at a lot of lighting for the building. There are
street lights along Lake Harrison Drive. We’re looking for wall packs basically. LED wall
packs to light up the doorways. There might be some lights on the corners of the building just to
help out with our security cameras that we’re planning but we’re trying to keep the light usage
and the amount of light we have on the building as low as possible. There might even be some,
those wall packs might be even on motion detectors too so we’re looking at that option as well so
they’re not on all the time. Noise of the building, and like I said there’s a standby generator.
That would only be used once a month just for maintenance checks and then also for emergency
purposes and then is Xcel would ever need us to, ask us to for peak saving to get off the grid so
there’s, it’s a pretty large generator that would be installed with the plant. However there’s,
there would be a muffler system that would be installed as well and we can actually get the
generator down to about 75 decibels which is basically similar to a commercial air conditioning
unit so it’s pretty quiet and where the generator is located is on the east side of the building here
so it’s not against anybody’s house. Kind of away from the west side of the neighborhood here
so it should be a pretty quiet system. That’s the biggest noise generator for the plant.
Scharfenberg: And Paul just is the generator, it sounds like it’s within the building itself.
Oehme: It is, yes.
Scharfenberg: Not outside the building.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Oehme: Correct. It’s all enclosed. It’s all inside the building. You won’t see it, yep. And then
traffic too, just there would be one plant operator here on a daily basis. We’re not going to have
a plant operator running it 24/7. This plant would be run remotely off of laptops after hours if
necessary. So we’re going to have one plant operator there. Maintenance obviously we’re going
to have maybe a couple more trucks there but on a daily basis you’ll only see one truck there.
Deliveries of chemicals and other deliveries, we typically have enough storage in, on the site
here, chemicals for 30 day use so there’d be 1, maybe 2 delivery trucks per month out here
depending upon the season. During the summer months we’re going to be using more chemicals
so maybe 1 or 2 deliveries during the month so traffic wise it’s, won’t be very disruption to the
neighbors or to the park system. The concept for the park is shown here and I think Todd has
talked to the commission about this already. You know some of the things that we wanted to
include in this design was trail access from Manchester down to Lake Harrison Road. We have a
park shelter shown here as well that can be installed. There’s a area, the large area up here can
be used for playground equipment. Totlots or preschool or elementary. Depends on you know
what preference the neighbors or the park commission would like. There is a temporary cul-de-
sac right now in the right-of-way right at the end of Manchester Drive basically in the back of the
curb here. We’d like to remove that. Put a cul-de-sac in here. Maybe have 3 or 4 parking stalls
for the park and for any other pedestrians that want to take advantage of the trail system in this
area as well. So like I said earlier we are trying to berm and screen the south half of the plant as
much as we can so we, in this area it’s not shown but looking at trying to berm this area so the
views for the south end of the building wouldn’t be as, you won’t be looking directly at the
building and likewise from the kind of the southwest side of the building there might be a little
berm right here as well. And again this backwash tank would be underground so be mowed.
We’ll have the trail potentially go over it. Kind of wind around. We want to limit the grade to
that trail to about 5 percent. Try to make it an ADA accessible trail as much as we can.
Echternacht: I have a question on the generator…
Oehme: Sure.
Echternacht: Is it gas power or you have back up batteries or combination?
Oehme: Sure. It’s what we like to use out here is diesel. A diesel generator. We’ve looked at
natural gas. It’s more expensive we think to run over the long term. We have a diesel generator
in the east plant that’s been working great for us so we’d like to stick with that.
Carron: Let’s get to the nuts and bolts here.
Oehme: Yeah.
Carron: What’s going to happen when we have a red, yellow, blue and green playground next to
an earth tone prairie style water treatment plant? Is that going to cause a raucous? Are we going
to have to have an RFP for neutral tone because it’s, I mean if it’s anything like the picture here
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
which it’s going to be a beautiful building so. Yeah I think it, and you’re paying for the park
right?
Oehme: Well we’re we’re…so what we’d like to do is pay for the cul-de-sac and the trail system
in the area. We’re going to be doing all the grading work. Set up the park for future
improvements, whatever the park board decides to put in there.
Hoffman: …put some trees up there.
Oehme: Yep trees up here. We’ll do of the tree plantings. We’ll work with Todd on where he
wants those trees oriented and what size and species and those type of things so, The only thing
you know the equipment and some of the other infrastructure associated with a shelter maybe,
that’s something that should be handled by the park department. So that’s that. Real quickly to
there is a significant amount of watermain, raw watermain that we have to put in. We just drilled
a well as you know over by Pheasant Hill Park. We need to bring that water, that raw water over
to the plant which is situated here so we picked an alignment through White Tail Ridge Court.
Here we have right-of-way through there to bring it down off of Galpin and then into the park.
That pipe would, we’re looking at directional boring all that so to try to limit the amount of
disruption along Galpin and along the corridors there. We already have Well number 9, it’s not
shown on the drawing here but there’s also raw water from Well number 9 in, what’s the park?
Hoffman: Pheasant Hills?
Oehme: South on Galpin.
Hoffman: Sugarbush.
Oehme: Sugarbush yep so that well already has raw water to Well number 3 and then we’ll just
extend that raw water up to the plant there and then we have distribution mains going back out to
the system on Galpin up to Lake Lucy Road and then also down to Longacres Drive so pretty
extensive amount of pipe that we’re going to have to put in. And then the sanitary improvements
would be, from the plant would be discharged in the Met Council line which is just south of the
plant site so very convenient location. That’s kind of why we picked this site just because a lot
of infrastructure is already there to make this plant, you know make this plant operational and
cost effective so. With that we do have a tight schedule that we’re trying to achieve here. We do
have another neighborhood meeting in the middle of July. We’re going to be meeting with, visit
the council again in August and have another neighborhood meeting in September. Planning
Commission when we start the approval process would be in September. We’re trying to get an
October bid date and then potentially have a contractor under contract in November where you
know maybe the contractor can start moving some dirt around. There’s a lot of export material
that has to come off the site. Maybe put in some footings right away but then in the spring go
vertical out of the ground so that’s the objective. That’s the goal that we have right now and then
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
it’s a fairly extensive project. We’re anticipating a start up of April of 2018. So with that if
there’s any questions I’d be more than happy to try to answer them.
Kelly: Paul great presentation. I really like the way you’re making it look like a house. I mean I
would think the neighbors are a little happier because no one wants a water treatment plant in
their back yard but it’s got to go somewhere.
Oehme: Right.
Kelly: Questions. Any other questions for Paul?
Thunberg: I have one question. It does seem like a very well thought out plan and the look of it
is great. For the park shelter would it be possible, instead of building a separate shelter, is the
grade of the roof, kind of like Lake Susan how we extend out and just create a shelter
underneath, would that be something that off the back of this? The grade might make it difficult
but and cost I guess but if we built and just kind of extended the roof, you could have that almost
as a picnic shelter underneath.
Oehme: Yeah so this is a backwash or a detention tank that’s underneath. This is the north side
of the building that’s shown here so we have the detention tank here and so your question that
you have is can we put the park shelter on the north side of the building there? Is that?
Thunberg: Yeah almost like extending off the back.
Oehme: Extending.
Thunberg: Like Lake Susan right.
Oehme: Yeah.
Thunberg: There’s the building and the roof extends out and you’re able to have picnic tables
underneath.
Oehme: Sure. You know we’d have to take a look at it. When you’ve got finished water or
potable water I don’t know, I’d have to talk to the Department of Health and see if that’s even
feasible or not.
Hoffman: Commissioner Thunberg there’s a big difference in what we’ve got going at Lake
Ann as far as uses. This is going to be a very modest shelter for really more of a piece of
architecture for the park itself. We’re almost trying to draw people away from the plant and if
this was in a more community park setting where you could combine the public shelter with the
treatment plan that may be an option but in this setting probably going a bit separate actually
does a better job of highlighting the park itself.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Kelly: Thank you Paul.
Oehme: Sure, thank you.
DISCUSS THE NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING HELD AT WEST LAKE COURT
REGARDING THE ARCHERY RANGE.
Kelly: So at this time I’m going to move number 5 of reports up to number 3 under new
business because we’ve had some people waiting a little over an hour to have a chance to speak
at about what a meeting that was held in their neighborhood that Todd and I attended. It was at
West Lake Court and there are some issues with some bow and arrows going into the
neighborhood from the area you shoot bow and arrows at and I think Todd’s identified with the
neighbors with 3 or 4 alternatives at this time and we’ve got a few people who’d like to speak
but I’m going to let Todd talk about the meeting and what was discussed and let the commission
know about it.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, members of the commission. Lake Susan is one of our
community parks that has an archery range in it. It has 4 targets. Two at 20 yards, one at 30
yards and one at 40 yards. The archery range has been in place, approved obviously by a
previous Park and Recreation Commission and City Council as a part of that park plan
approximately 25 years ago. About the same time that the neighborhood, West Lake Court has
been developed and being just to the south. We share a property boundary at Lake Susan Park
with those neighbors. A gentleman emailed me and informed us that he had found, his daughter
had found an arrow in their wood pile which is in their back yard. Obviously most likely coming
from the archery range and so that’s of great concern to the neighborhood and to us as well. This
is the first at least notification. Some of the neighbors tonight in our meeting did identify that
they had found other arrows over the years in their back yards or on their property and just had
not reported them. So we sent out a notification. We wanted to start the conversation to say hey
you know this is not acceptable to the City of Chanhassen either and so let’s start a conversation
with the neighbors and staff is aware of it. Our law enforcement agency is aware of it. Our City
Council is aware of our conversation so really what’s going to occur is we’re going to take a look
at some options with the archery range at Lake Susan and you know what are viable options to
both preserve a facility such as an archery range in our community and in our park system but to
make it safe and you know put people at ease so they don’t have to be concerned. Immediate
action that has been taken since the City has been notified is that we scheduled a neighborhood
meeting. We held that conversation tonight. Chairman Kelly was there along with us. Probably
had about 20-25 neighbors over time that came out and stuff and so I would say that that’s a
good percentage of the cul-de-sac that was there this evening in that conversation. We will also
manufacture and post signage notifying the archery range users of this issue so they’re aware of
the issue. There’s you know obviously different opinions on how those arrows are ending up in
the neighbors yards. It can be either accidental discharge when people are drawing their bows or
you know somebody could intentionally be shooting those arrows in the neighborhood so those
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
are the two thoughts there. So we’ll manufacture and post those signs at the archery range
notifying people of what this particular issue is currently taking place. Options, we’ll present
some options at least in an initial phase at your July meeting and the options that we’ll take a
look at are modifying the current archery range to include some kind of an enclosure and so
when people would enter the range we would modify, there’s an ordinance modification. You
cannot discharge a weapon in the city of Chanhassen without a permit. The only place you can
discharge a weapon without a permit is Lake Susan Park at the archery range. That’s by city
ordinance and that’s only obviously a bow and arrow when utilizing it there at the archery range
and so if you create this enclosure where all arrows have to go down range. They cannot leave
the archery range area then you could just modify that ordinance to say that you cannot uncase
your bow unless you’re in that enclosure and that would allow for some really clean enforcement
if law enforcement does visit the site. People are outside of the archery range with their bow
uncased they would be in violation of that ordinance and they could be cited. The other options
are to take a look at relocating the range. The challenge there is as you know as a commission
when you work with, you know people come up with ideas of let’s add something new to our
park system. We really don’t have a lot of open space land for new facilities. The one that the
neighbors mentioned was Lake Ann. That they thought Lake Ann could accommodate an
archery range and you know from my viewpoint I don’t see a location. All of Lake Ann is
utilized for something. Even the woodland to the west is utilized for walking trails. There’s not
just a lot of open free space land there. Some people talked about moving it to the river valley.
If you move it to the river valley where there’s much more open space you would still have to
acquire property. Build a parking lot. Build other amenities to go along with that and if you get
down to that area, then you’re just a half a mile from the Shakopee archery range is right there so
it really doesn’t make sense to reinvest maybe a half a million dollars or more in an archery
range facility down in the river bottom when you have one just right next door. But nevertheless
we’ll take a look at potential options of relocating the range if there are some available. And
then the third option would just simply be to close the range and discontinue that use within our
city’s park system.
Kelly: Or fourth option would be to temporarily close it until we get things figured out.
Hoffman: Sure, yep. Well yep absolutely.
Kelly: Okay and we have some neighbors here. I’m not sure they all want to speak but I think
some of them would like to speak so please come up. Give us your name and your address and
then you can address the commission.
Stephen Jones: Hi. My name is Stephen Jones and I’m at 8260 West Lake Court so you’re
familiar with this. Anybody in here not familiar with that? Okay. One of the things I heard you
say Cole or Chairman Kelly, is that how it’s addressed? Was our neighbors have found that they
had bows and arrows in their yard or arrows in their yard. I watched every one of your faces and
everyone lit up like so my concern is huge because I don’t want this in my back yard anymore
and I don’t think anybody else in our neighborhood does. Nobody really said well these things
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
happen so the argument is okay well you can pull it and you can maybe discharge it by accident.
One accident is too many if it lands on my head. My children’s head or anybody else walking
through the neighborhood. So that I can’t accept an accidental pull because they forgot to shoot
down that way so if it’s only 20 yards an indoor range is really nothing. I practice at an indoor
range and we have a 20, 40 yard deal. It’s 10 bucks so that’s not very convenient I know
because our’s is free and that’s great but this is 1 of 2 arrows that I’ve found in my 2 years of
living at West Lake Court that is a huge concern for me so I don’t think it’s the people that are
down there trying to do the right thing but I know there’s people that are going to do the wrong
thing so let’s say they moved on and they’re now that hooligan is gone. Well there’s just another
person waiting behind them that’s just going to do the wrong thing. Now we’re talking about a
target going over the top of it. It’s still not like an area that you would walk into. Pay an
admission. You close the door. You’re inside an archery range where it’s patrolled because I
don’t know how often you can patrol that unless you have a 24 hour camera there that I see
somebody make a mistake and then I can say well do you know who this person is. Now we’re
trying to track them down and that’s just not going to happen so I just, I like archery because I do
archery but I just don’t like it landing in my back yard and I just don’t think it’s safe right there.
This new water treatment plant, there’s a whole lot of open space there. Maybe you can
integrate an indoor type of thing there or an outdoor range there where it’s just wetlands so that’s
what I wanted to say and I really want to thank you guys for letting us, thanks for stopping out
today and thanks a lot of answering my emails promptly. I really appreciate that. I hope my
neighbors have something else to say or do you have questions.
Kelly: Yeah you said Steve right?
Stephen Jones: Stephen Jones.
Kelly: Yeah Stephen I don’t believe you told them how far away your house is from the range.
Carron: Or can you give like a…
Stephen Jones: Yeah, okay sure. I’m probably the last target and then just a little bit beyond it
but from my house to the target, 100 yards.
Kelly: Are there a few trees in the way too?
Stephen Jones: Huh?
Kelly: Are there a few trees in the way?
Stephen Jones: There are a whole lot of trees in the way but my yard is, I’ve cleared out some
trees.
Kelly: They’ve got to go up and over the trees is what I’m getting at.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Stephen Jones: Well okay so here’s the thing. My arrow was landed like this. Okay there’s
been arrows that have landed like this but my wood pile in my back yard, the arrow was in like
this so for somebody to hey, let me just shoot through those trees because they might not know
you know. They probably don’t know but I don’t care. Now they know and I hope there’s some
really bright orange meaningful signs in big letters that say this is a problem and it needs.
Truthfully I don’t even think an archery range should be an open outdoor thing anyway. I don’t
even know what city, I mean unless it’s out in the country but Chanhassen isn’t out in the
country anymore. It used to be when I was a kid. We never came out here. This was out there
but I don’t know you can see it’s kind of got me fired up and it’s got a lot of my neighbors fired
up so we just want to get that over with and make this not be an issue anymore and make
something indoors so.
Kelly: So what are the busiest hours there would you say?
Stephen Jones: You see people there all the time. Morning, afternoon and night time. People go
there for lunch. They can go there on their breaks because there’s a lot of businesses around
there. It’s a really cool place to live but, and a really nice park but there’s also kids and there’s
also you know it’s just, well if you’ve all been there. If you’ve never seen it just drive down
Powers. You can see it driving down the road and frankly I’m surprised nothing’s ever landed in
Powers from there just by people getting crazy but I know that arrows can go that far so I’m
going to keep my eye open and I do want to every time, because I do that walk. I go down
through the path and I just kind of walk around just as an after dinner walk because I just like to
do that so whenever I see somebody down there I do address the issue. I say hey, there’s a
neighborhood right there. If you see anybody doing anything crazy please let them know that
this could potentially just take this whole thing out of here which that’s what I’m shaking for.
Kelly: Okay, thank you Steve.
Stephen Jones: Alright thanks.
James Duffey: James Duffey, 8241 West Lake Court. I live across the street and down a few
houses away from the range.
Kelly: I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.
James Duffey: James Duffey.
Kelly: Thank you.
James Duffey: And been a resident of Chanhassen almost 11 years now. I didn’t even realize
there was an archery range there until last Monday. But from talking to Todd at the meeting, or
Commissioner Kelly. Chairman Kelly, Todd had suggested that it was possible that the reason
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
why we were getting these errant arrows was that somebody’s drawing the bow up and
accidently letting or the trigger goes. If you look at the map the only way that that is possible
because that TV screen would be down range. I’m not a hunter. I’m not an archer but I know
you’re supposed to aim at the target. The arrows they would have to be aiming perpendicular. I
also know that you’re not supposed to, you’re supposed to keep the arrow pointed down than let
go. Not do like Robin Hood in the movie so obviously there is people not practicing the proper
techniques. That the first issue. The second issue is we have 2 other archery ranges, outdoor
archery ranges in close proximity. Eden Prairie at Starring Lake. There’s not houses for
hundreds of yards. The one down in Shakopee, if they miss an arrow it goes into the wetlands.
Granted this was developed or built 25 years ago right around the neighborhood is. There were
7,000 people in Chanhassen when our neighborhood was developed. We’re almost 23,000. The
city has changed. The park system needs to change too. This isn’t rural. This is a suburb. I
know people like to think of it as a city out in the country but it’s not. We’ve got at least a dozen
kids that are small that would not be looking up. They’re barely able to look forward. You
know a lot of toddlers. A lot of kids third grade and below. Heaven forbid on your watch one of
those arrows strikes one of those kids. I think you need to do, I think you know what you need
to do. I think it’s, we’re just as a neighborhood I think we’re expecting you to either temporarily
close this park, or this archery range until you can come up with a solution or close it
permanently or come up with a better alternative because the fact that you have a very busy
street with a lot of businesses that have moved in over the last few years just beyond the targets
and then you have a neighborhood that obviously has been getting hit. One neighbor today
mentioned that he’s lived there for 15 years and he’s picked up at least a dozen arrows over the
years so I mean this is not just an isolated incident. That’s all I have to say. Thank you for your
time.
Kelly: Thank you James.
Linda Boerboom: My name is Linda Boerboom and I live at 8261 West Lake Court. I live
across the street from Stephen. I didn’t bring my arrow. It’s in my garage but I could bring it. It
was in my front yard straight up and down and when I saw it there first I was like well who’s
doing that you know. I didn’t put it together with the archery range that’s on the other side of the
street, back behind trees that are so many years old. I’ve lived in the neighborhood since 1996 so
20 years. The neighborhood has changed. We have a lot of little children and we have a lot of
adults so what we’re looking at here right now is the safety preciousness of our lives because as
these guys have mentioned the neighborhood is, it was built back in, 25 years ago but technology
has changed with the bows and arrows. I’m not an archer person so the technology’s changed so
they’re a lot more powerful and for an arrow to come up over those trees and to come into my
yard how it did just tells me that there’s a lot of power behind it and if there’s that much power
what’s it going to do to a young child, a middle aged child, or an adult. And I do hope that that
range is closed just for the safety. Yes maybe some people will get upset over it but they would,
I would rather them be upset and know that no lives were lost or somebody be harmed in that
interim why you guys make decisions. I want to thank you Chairperson Kelly and Mr. Hoffman
for coming today. That was very thoughtful and very eye opening for me as to the City coming
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
to do what, to protect us as a neighborhood and I understand that a lot of people use that range
early in the morning and in the afternoon. That’s what you guys, when no action is taken put us
in that we don’t live safely. If that many people are using that archery place that our lives are at
risk when they’re down there using that so I want to thank you.
Kelly: Linda? You didn’t tell us how far your house was from the.
Linda Boerboom: Oh I’m not very good at distances so.
Kelly: But you’re further away than Stephen right?
Linda Boerboom: I’m farther away. I live across the street from him and it was way up into my
yard. Almost to, way up on the knoll. It wasn’t like just inside the yard. It was way up. And I
would be concerned that it could go through our windows. It could go through our cars. All the
different things.
Audience: The lots in our neighborhood, on our street are about roughly 275 to 290 feet deep so
then you also have the street and then it was probably about 20 feet on her property so I mean do
the math. That’s well over 100 yards just to the back of Stephen’s property line so, and I’m not
sure how much, where the property line falls on the woods before the archery range.
Kelly: Thank you.
Linda Boerboom: So thank you so much.
Kelly: So Todd, obviously it’s going to take some time to sort it out. In the meantime we need
to do something and the signs are one thing. Can we limit the hours and hire somebody to
monitor that place while we’re trying to figure this out?
Hoffman: The commission can make any recommendation and we’ll be happy to comply.
That’s up to you to make a recommendation.
Kelly: I look at it right now there’s 2 options because the long term solution isn’t going to
happen for at least a month or two and so for the short term I think we either temporarily close it
or if we keep it open we limit the hours and we hire somebody to monitor it so that people are
doing what they’re supposed to do. And then the signs have to go up and as Todd said they’ll go
up in the next few days but and there’s got to be big penalties for somebody going there during
non hours and we have to have, you know we’re going to have to ask the police just to keep an
eye on it when they drive through because as long it’s there people are going to try and get on it
regardless of the hours is my guess so. And even if we close it people are going to try and get on
it. That’s why I guess I’d prefer to have a monitor there and have it open because then at least
we know what’s going on and then people know they can go there but it’s going to be limited
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
until we get a solution. Those are my two thoughts. I don’t know what anybody else’s thoughts
are at this time.
Carron: I guess my thought is yeah, it’s a good topic and I’m looking forward to seeing what
staff puts together as far as recommendations here for the next meeting. Until then what would
be the effort to remove the targets for the time being?
Hoffman: Takes 2 hours.
Carron: Maybe that’s the better alternative Cole is rather than hiring somebody if we’re going to
close it, just remove the targets. Put up a sign for it closed for the time being and then next
month, I mean we’re not in any post archery season quite yet so we might inconvenience some
people but we’ve got some neighbors here too that it’s inconveniencing pretty well too so with
that said maybe that would be an alternative is just to close it down and remove the targets for
the month and put up a sign until the commission has time to talk about it and get some
recommendations from staff on what some alternatives might be.
Scharfenberg: Todd when, in terms of the signage and that, when would that be put up?
Hoffman: There’s two things going on here. If you close it there’s just going to be signage that
it’s closed. If you don’t close it and you just want to indicate that there’s an issue that can go up
tomorrow or the next day.
Thunberg: I wouldn’t be against closing it temporarily. Obviously one for safety and while it’s
closed, if it was closed for the month you would potentially start to hear the other side of the
story depending on if it’s a large group of people using it or if it’s a small group using it
frequently right. But if it was closed and you started hearing comments that would help
determine if we wanted to make an investment on an enclosed place or some sort of solution to
know, it’s kind of like when we talk about parks and tennis courts. People come and say I want
to use this or not and we try to gauge it by usage. If it was temporarily closed and nobody
complained then you start to learn something about what kind of investment the City would look
at for a longer term solution as well.
Scharfenberg: Well the other thing to you know consider is this park has been there, this archery
range has been there for a number of years and this is the first we’re hearing about this of any
incidents happening so something like that I understand the safety issues and that. You know
closing it temporarily would be okay. I’m okay with signage being put up just to notify the
people of the problem and monitor it for the next 30 to 60 days to see what happens and see if
this ends and there’s nothing to it and in the meantime the City studies you know some options
for us long term.
Hoffman: It’s always good to think forward and closing it and taking a look at the options, if the
public or the commission is not going to trust that people are going to do the right thing, then
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
you’re really just closing the facility. Because it’s an outdoor facility people enjoy having an
outdoor archery range and so if your conclusion is going to be that this is not an appropriate
place for an archery range we’re really looking at a long term closure. A complete closure for
good and then you know if the City wants to invest in an archery range, an outdoor archery range
it’s going to have to be in some other location. And so you know always want to be thinking
forward. Indoor archery ranges are easy to, we have an indoor gun range. Brand new indoor
gun range. You know you monitor it. It’s inside so the option here to make this a viable archery
range location and to mitigate the concerns that we have is to build that enclosure but if you’re
not going to trust, if this body’s not going to support that, if the public’s not going to support that
you know there’s a whole other side of, if we start down this discussion and all of the people that
utilize the facility are going to come and they’re going to join the conversation as well and so I
don’t mind closing that. Closing it temporarily and starting that conversation but we just have to
go into that knowing what are the viable options that we’re going to propose as a public body to
the users of the facility and to the neighbors.
Carron: Well saying that to get a little bit more specific, sorry. But then that’s what I’m looking
forward to is that I’d like to see a better place for it. For the residents. I’m an avid bow hunter
and I have a little bit of a heartache when, even though you’re, you know your bow isn’t
necessarily cased. You’re walking through a park with kids with ultimately it’s a weapon and
that could give an uneasy feeling too to our park system and make people look twice too so when
we bring up Shakopee where it’s secluded. By itself. Lakeville where I grew up it’s secluded
out in a park back in the trees where there’s no residents around. Maybe it is time that since this
has got brought up, that’s what I was thinking maybe if we just need to find a new place for it
and something on my mind was you know something with a backstop around the middle of
nowhere where like 212 with that noise wall up against there so you’re only shooting that way or
down in the Pioneer corridor or something like that which is something that popped up in my
head but in a park system maybe in this day and age where we’re at now with what’s going on
and I hate to pull all that in but it’s relevant. I think we need to find maybe a new spot for it.
Echternacht: Yeah I’d recommend that we at least close it for the time being temporarily and
come up with a solution as far as if we’re going to move it, where to would be my
recommendation.
Kelly: Does somebody want to float a motion or is there other comments or thoughts?
Hougham: I make a motion that we temporarily close the archery range due to the concerns of
the neighbors and discuss other possibilities and options for the archery range. Either a different
location or just further the conversation about the archery range at the current location.
Kelly: So we have a motion to temporarily close the archery range. Is there a second?
Thunberg: Second.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Kelly: And there’s a second.
Hougham moved, Thunberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
temporarily close the archery range at Lake Susan Park. All voted in favor except for
Commissioner Scharfenberg who abstained, and the motion carried with a vote of 6 to 0
with 1 abstention.
Kelly: Okay Todd moving onto park and trail maintenance report.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, members of the commission. So before we move on, so the
archery range will be closed tomorrow and we’ll post signs there. That it’s closed and we’ll
probably put up a fence to stop people from entering that area so they don’t set up targets of their
own and we’ll put it on our website that it’s closed. The study will change a little bit. We won’t
necessarily look at designs. We’ll just talk about that there could be a potential design to make a
tunnel type situation where you’re shooting down range and then we’ll publicize that discussion
for the July meeting so then both the neighbors and the people that utilize the facility will be here
and they will talk about what are the distances to the properties and then at that point you’ll
either be talking about a recommendation. Staff may present a recommendation. A
conversation continue on even after that. We may not have all the information that we’ll need at
that time in a month. It doesn’t really matter. The archery range will be closed so we can take
additional time after that. We’re probably not in the business of being in an indoor archery range
business. We currently don’t have the land I believe for an outdoor archery range other than
Lake Ann or Lake Susan. That piece of property is probably the most secluded piece of property
that we have in our current park system land holdings and so we’ll talk about that as options.
You’ll hear from the people that utilize it and then the conversation will continue on so
appreciate you taking up the issue tonight. I don’t think there’s any precedent tonight. If you
were going to close you know this type of thing, we’ll talk to the City Council. I’ll inform the
City Manager tomorrow. I don’t think we need a City Council action on this to close the archery
range and so I think everybody’s going to allow the Park and Recreation Commission to do that,
at least on a temporary basis for these safety concerns. Don’t know what the protocol is
completely for shutting down a public archery range but I know we’ll continue on the
conversation at future meetings and then the City Council would take action, final action if the
archery range was eliminated from the park master plan for Lake Susan. That would be the final
action.
Kelly: Todd when we bring it up again I’d also like to hear the City Attorney’s opinion on the
liability issues.
Hoffman: Yep.
Thunberg: Todd have we ever monitored that to see usage similar to when we have ice rinks and
warming houses and things like that? Do we have, we’ve never looked at that?
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Kelly: Thank you Todd.
Hoffman: Thank you.
REPORTS:
PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT.
Kelly: Okay since Adam’s not here tonight.
Hoffman: Yep we have a variety of staff members that are out tonight and really the only thing I
want to point out about park and trail maintenance is that if you take a look at the dates, and so
often times we get comments from the public that this facility isn’t up yet or that facility isn’t
enclosed and just so you know we have established dates for when things go out into our park
system and when things are taken down. That’s just to provide for the orderly operation and
maintenance of our facilities. It’s also a budgeting factor and so those are the dates that we have.
We don’t just pick these dates by random so I just wanted to make sure that you’re aware of that
and obviously this is peak season for park and trail maintenance and so they’re out doing daily
chores that are scheduled and then for example this weekend the Saturday night wind that came
through, we had about 6 large trees that went down. The largest being about a 36 inch oak down
in the Lake Susan trail. It came off of private property across the trail. It was elevated but that
takes most of a couple of days to get that down and removed so we were busy with tree removal
as a part of that storm and just takes away from other things that we’re traditionally needing to be
doing but you obviously have to respond to those issues with trees, damaged trees being down.
Kelly: Thank you Todd.
RECREATION CENTER UPDATE.
Kelly: The Recreation Center’s next. Should we have Jerry talk on that so we can give you a
break?
Hoffman: No it’s fine. Glad to just point out a couple things going on at the Rec Center. That
the roof replacement which is long awaited is underway and so we’re cost sharing that with the
school district. We’re 24 percent. They’re 76 percent and then the capital improvement or the
Rec Center revitalization plan is underway and Hiller Floors has been hired to install the new
carpeting that’s coming in July and then recreation programs are underway as they’re currently
scheduled and reported in Jodi’s report.
Kelly: Thank you Todd.
SENIOR CENTER ACTIVITIES UPDATE.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Kelly: And are you going to also do our senior center activities update?
Hoffman: I’d be glad to.
Kelly: Thank you.
Hoffman: Senior center is always a fun place to visit. I encourage you to do that as
commissioners. When you get these inputs from Sue take the opportunity to sign up or register.
Just give her a call or send her an email. Stop by. It’s the best way to get to know those folks.
They are very happy to have that service in our community. Many of them have lived here their
entire life and now they’re retired and taking advantage of the senior center programs is one
thing that they really enjoy. Sue Bill in her activities just does a tremendous job in maintaining
everything that they do there. We’re going on trips. We’re combining with Jerry and his group
on Twins baseball. We have our weekly activities which are always scheduled. Cribbage. The
card games that are taking place. Bridge and the wood carving so the senior center is an active
place and I’d just encourage you as commissioners to touch base when you have the opportunity
so you learn a little bit more. Thank you.
Kelly: Thank you Todd.
2016 FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION.
Ruegemer: I would love to take that one Chair Kelly.
Kelly: Okay.
Ruegemer: Just like Todd said we are really hit our peak here for business here within our
rd
department and the city. We are working feverishly to get ready for the 33 Annual Fourth of
July celebration so that’s coming up. We have a carnival coming into town again this year.
rd
We’ve been working a lot with CBO and their performance leading up on July 3 so just a lot of
you know kind of coordination going on. We have another meeting tomorrow morning with all
the key players through Carver County, public works, parks department, the Chanhassen Rotary
Club so we’re extremely busy. Looking at all the details. Tents are going up now it looks like
on Thursday morning of this week and we’re just trying to get a lot of that kind of stuff kind of
put into place. Public works has been crazy busy this week just sweeping streets and painting
lines and making downtown look really nice so we’ve been on overload with those types of
projects but it’s going to be really looking good this year. Just to work on just a lot of
promotional material. Been getting really good press coverage within the Villager with different
articles about the annual celebration. Working with that. I think a lot of you have seen the
magazine that came out again. That’s on your work stations I guess tonight along with the trifold
so we’ve been doing a lot of inserts in the paper with those. The magazine and also the trifold.
Newspaper ads. That type of thing. We also got the information on Explore Minnesota website
this year as well so that is out there currently with that. We’re just really trying to kind of
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
broaden our marketing a little bit with different signage around town. Our electronic
information. Facebook and just try to really get that information out so we’ve been very busy
just trying to work on the details of the event. We have 8 food vendors identified right now so
we’re working on layout and power requirements for those. We have seasonal staff scheduled to
make our celebration a success so we really have a lot of cooperation from a lot of different
entities and community groups to make this successful so everybody has a hand in it and
everybody’s pulling in the right direction on this so it’s a very highly thought of event in the city
and also the region. People really have developed traditions, family traditions that center around
our celebration so we put a lot of work into it. I think the community really is, it’s really well
received within the community so our goal is to always put on a first class event that people will
leave with a smile so we’re working hard.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry. I know you are. It’s a Herculean event and you guys always pull off a
th
fantastic 4 of July. Events that go on and on and on and thank you for doing that. Any other
questions or comments for Jerry? Okay now that we’ve been out of order, Todd it’s time to get
back in order and initiate a discussion regarding the CIP.
INITIATE DISCUSSION REGARDING RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL,
2017-2021 PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL
IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP).
Kelly: G-2. I kind of let that one fly.
Hoffman: Thank you Chairman Kelly, members of the commission. So really just want to focus
your attention on getting some initial thoughts. Staff will bring you a recommended CIP, 2017
through 2021 at your next meeting but it’s always good planning, check in with the commission
to say do you just want to work on 2021? Do you want to keep everything else the same? Are
there any new amenities that you want to take a look at including, we obviously have to include
some dollars in 2018 for some playground and shelter at Manchester Park, the water treatment
plant so that’s currently not programmed. There’ll be some other things that come up that may
not currently be programmed that you want to take a look at and so this is an opportunity as a
commission to have a conversation about what those are. Alert staff to anything that may be new
in your minds. It’s also a good time, you know in budgeting there’s always the question, you
know what do you want to cut out? What are you no longer interested in? To preserve those
dollars or to relocate those dollars are some other location. Sometimes like that come up as well
and so be happy to answer any questions but just wanted to give you the opportunity to check in
tonight before you get a more firm recommendation from staff coming in July of this month.
Kelly: Thank you Todd. Any questions or thoughts? I think we’re all waiting to see what
staff’s going to present next month and then dig into it. So then we’re moving right along. No
other thoughts, questions. Let’s see here.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
DUGOUT PROJECTS ON LAKE ANN PARK FIELD 6.
Kelly: Then we get to the administrative packet.
Scharfenberg: No we forgot the dugout.
Kelly: Oh dugouts, sorry. Dugouts, number 6.
Hoffman: Very happy that the athletic association and Dugout Club has been doing
improvements at primarily Lake Ann Park. We did 3 concrete, 3 fields where we put concrete in
2 dugouts on each field last year and now they came back this year and they were going to do
Fields 4, 5 and 6. They didn’t finish 6. When they came out with their crews, they have some
professional concrete crews that show up and so they did 4 and 5. They left 6 and then 6 was
done last weekend. Weekend before. Two weekends ago on a Saturday morning I believe it was
and the quality just wasn’t the same as the rest. I would say it’s about the finish is about half the
quality. Would not be a finish that we would accept from a commercial contractor or if we did it
ourselves. We would take that out. Staff’s primary concern is that it doesn’t reflect on the, you
know what we would maintain as a finish product but it’s a volunteer installation and so you
know I don’t believe they have an interest in taking it out. They believe it’s serviceable. It is
serviceable. It just doesn’t meet the standards that we would have an expectation of so I think
the concrete’s going to stay as is but just wanted to make sure the commission is aware of that.
You’ve received the email correspondence as well so.
Kelly: So, go ahead.
Scharfenberg: Well I was just going to say in terms of future projects that we potentially may
have with them, they brought up the idea that they’re going to build dugouts at Lake Susan. Do
we need to get some assurances from them in terms of that we’re going to monitor this and we
may reject what they’re going to build potentially in the future?
Hoffman: You know when you accept a donation often times one of the best securities is that
we’re there to monitor. I don’t know that, I think they probably didn’t have their professional
concrete people there this time. They just did it on their own and that was the difference but I
don’t know that for a fact. And so that’s what we’re asking. They wanted to be back tonight
asking about the Lake Susan dugouts and that construction but they didn’t have a contractor
name. They didn’t have sources for their materials. We didn’t have a complete plan set and so
we’re continuing to request that. There was some push back on that because they were just hey,
this is going to be free. We’re just donating it. Just let us run with it but we want some
assurances that we have a professional contractor you know under wraps working on the project
so we have some of those assurances. And then the best way for us is just to check in. Check in.
Check in. Sometimes that is difficult when they’re doing this work on weekends when staff is
traditionally not around.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Carron: I would agree with staff that you want structure we would need something done as far as
professionally and what not but yeah… If it’s not done the right way I’d let them know in a way
that you did. Just yeah that’s better for next time.
Kelly: I know we’re not going to make changes but let’s say we decided to, what would it cost
the City to redo that?
Hoffman: $1,500 bucks probably something like that.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: Maybe less but with labor.
Kelly: Okay. Any other questions on the dugouts?
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS.
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Kelly: Anything in the administrative packet you want to point out besides the love that
everybody always have for Jerry?
Carron: Jerry’s got a 6.
Hoffman: Six. Not even a 5.
Carron: First one I’ve seen. Congratulations.
Ruegemer: Me too.
Scharfenberg: You know having the conversation again with CAA, can you touch base on the
thnd
letter of June 15 and from Jerry to Shawn about what took place on the 2. What was that
about?
Ruegemer: I can comment on that Commissioner Scharfenberg. Working, this was prior to the
first weekend in June. CAA was doing the Chanhassen Challenge out at Lake Ann Park. Adult
softball is being played on Thursday nights out at Lake Ann Park on Fields 4, 5 and 6. In an
effort for the association to get ready for the installation of temporary fencing they needed to, we
mark in our form. They need to put the temporary fencing up to get ready for the tournament.
To have those conversations probably 2 or 3 different conversations about the timing of
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
installation of that fence. They asked if they could run the lights after the adult softball leagues
concluded at 10:00 on Thursday night and I said that I didn’t think that that was a good use of
resources to run the lights for another hour to 2 hours after the adult softball when again I mean
it’s the cost of the lights. It’s city ordinance says that the park closes at 10:00 p.m. so we’re
trying to really kind of stick with that timeframe. Knowing my thoughts prior to their actions,
and I communicated that at noon of that day that that wasn’t an acceptable situation for them to
do, they went ahead and did it anyway and the lights were on until you know probably at least
quarter to 11:00, 11:30 that night. They made the executive decision that they were going to get
it done that night and so that’s really kind of the I guess the basis or the foundation of the letter
saying that you know you saw all the things that the City provided for the CAA in kind for that.
You know we’re doing garbage and dragging ballfields and just to say that our staff spent a large
number of hours prior to that weekend getting ready for the tournament with mowing and
fertilizing applications and you know striping ballfields and we did garbage all weekend long so
there’s just a number of things that you know we’re kind of putting into the kitty too so they
have a successful tournament so between Foreman Schmieg, Superintendent Beers and myself
we had, all had conversations with Shawn on that so I think it’s very clear on the direction that
we need to go, and I had a very long conversation with Shawn again this afternoon. We’re
th
working for another tournament here the weekend after the 4 of July so that’s even bigger.
That’s a, I believe right now it’s a 52 team tournament between Lake Ann and the Chan Rec
Center so we’re good between Shawn and I and the City and we’re all moving forward with that
so that just was I guess a quick snapshot of the letter with that so.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry. Todd I’m sure you want to mention the Red Birds Appreciation Night.
Employee Appreciation Night.
Hoffman: Absolutely. Employees, elected officials, commissions and our fire department and
our sheriff’s department. I expect we’ll have over 50 people there tomorrow night to enjoy town
baseball. It was really a part of this body’s responsibility to bring back town baseball to the
community. The Red Birds started in 2010. They had been on hiatus for over 40 years and
through a contribution of park dedication funds, $600,000. You should take a lot of pride in that
ball park. Storm Red Bird Baseball Stadium. Just a good night to be together with your
colleagues, friends, other people that serve the community and let the Red Birds say thank you
for that contribution. 7:00. It’s gathering time. 7:30 game time. Dollar dogs and t-shirts given
away. Chan trivia and of course Mayor Laufenburger is the voice of the Red Birds. Steve will
be taking your tickets at the door. Hope to see you there. Bring your families.
Scharfenberg: And there’s beer.
Hoffman: You can drink beer at the high school legally.
Kelly: Alright, thank you. Anything else you want to point out in the administrative packet?
Hoffman: No, it’s a pretty good one. Just take a look.
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Park and Recreation Commission – June 28, 2016
Kelly: Okay, thank you Todd. Thank you Jerry. Somebody want to put it to the question?
Carron moved, Echternacht seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission
meeting was adjourned.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Recreation Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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