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PRC 2007 07 24 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JULY 24, 2007 Chairman Stolar called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Glenn Stolar, Steve Scharfenberg, Tom Kelly, Thor Smith, Dan Campion, Paula Atkins and Jeff Daniel STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; and John Stutzman, Recreation Supervisor APPROVAL OF AGENDA:Scharfenberg moved, Daniel seconded to approve the agenda with the addition of a City Council update under Commission Member Presentations. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Hoffman: Public announcement this evening is that the City of Chanhassen as of yesterday has enacted a complete watering ban. That's for lawn sprinkling or irrigation only. You can still hand water your perennials or annuals or shrubs or trees, as long as you don't drop that hose because they're watching. The reason for this is one of the aquifers, the drift aquifer, it's the highest level that we take our water out of where we have 3 wells in, has gone dry so when that goes dry 3 wells go down and there's no more water in that aquifer currently so until that recharges and comes back, there'll be a watering ban until further notice. Campion: Do you have any idea of how the time to wait? Hoffman: Nobody knows as of yet. These aquifers are glacial drifts so they're gravel and they need to recharge from a ways away. There are other towns pulling water out of that aquifer as well and they're experiencing low water levels. It depends on where you're at in the aquifer. We're on the outer edge of this aquifer. It feeds all of Minneapolis so, or all of the suburbs towards that area so Minneapolis takes it out of the river. So that's the reason. You'll see plenty more news. Channel 5 was here today. Channel 4. Channel 11. So watch the 9:00 or 10:00 news tonight. You'll see more. It will be in the Villager this week and they are writing citations as of I believe tomorrow morning. 50 bucks plus an $82.00 service fee for the first time so you'll be facing a pretty stiff penalty. Second time it goes up even faster so. Kelly: Are we the only cities or are other cities having this also? Hoffman: We're the only city with a total watering ban. Most other cities are on odd/even, as we were on an odd/even. Some cities also have an odd/even plus restrictions during the day. You can't water from 9:00 to 7:00. Something like that. If you can imagine typically in the winter we pump about 2 million gallons a day. They've been pumping anywhere between 8 1/2 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 million, 9 million a day and during the hot summer here with the lawn irrigation so, and they can, at the new water treatment plant they can treat a half million gallons a day so. Daniel: Has this been an occurrence or has this happened before? Hoffman: Not in Chanhassen, no. Daniel: As far as the aquifer going dry though? Hoffman: Well, it fluctuates up and down. It hasn't gone dry that I've heard. Campion: How much worst could it get? Hoffman: How much worst could it get? Campion: I mean could it get worst? Hoffman: It could, yeah. Absolutely. If we have other problems with the other wells and so, and this includes the athletic fields so athletic fields are stopped irrigation as of Friday so in the next week and a half you'll see those brown out and obviously that will cause some concern from our users that it's not as pleasant to play on a brown field as it is a green field so. We hope to get that back up and running but when an aquifer goes dry, it's not like you can, it takes a long time to build new wells or do things, I think there's about 10 wells in the city so you're looking at a third we've got going. Kelly: And did they figure out the pump situation? Hoffman: Yeah, the cause when the aquifer goes dry you start sucking sand and air. That's when you have pump problems so. They can repair these pumps but once they're repaired, you can't turn them on. Stolar: It was actually very interesting yesterday. I was at the City Council meeting to hear Kelley. Hoffman: Kelley Janes. Stolar: Yeah, talk through what the situation was. It was really, definitely educational so, I don't know if they replay the City Council meetings but it'd be worthwhile to check that out and learn a little bit about this process. He was talking about how during the day when people are drawing water, he can't even refill the tanks because of the amount of draw that's going on. Or the water tower, excuse me. The water tower so. Hoffman: The irrigation draws it down from about midnight til 5:00 a.m. and then people start getting up and start using the water, so the whole city wakes up and starts taking showers and using water in the morning and then they just can't recharge it during the day. They don't have enough time to build it back up and then it starts going back out at night when people get home 2 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 and then you get a little break in there and then the irrigation systems turn on again so it's a constant battle. Waconia the other day had 4 feet of water in their tower at one point so they were in an emergency situation as well. You don't want to start putting air into your water pipes in your municipal well system so. Something we all take for granted and when it's gone, some interesting stories so you'll see us in the news and wanted to bring that to your attention. Stolar: It's amazing what, 2 years ago Curry Farms was under water. How it fluctuates so much. The other public announcement I saw that we have posted, you have a concert this Thursday too. This Thursday I believe. Ruegemer: Two of them. We have a Noon Time Concert. The Blues Drifters and they're kind of a bluegrass band and that is from noon til 1:00. Then we have a reggae kind of Caribbean style band from 7:00 to 8:00 and that is Cyril Paul. And that is what the sixth or seventh one and our eighth and final one will be next Thursday night at 7:00 to 8:00. And that's another community band. Stolar: You want to introduce John also. Ruegemer: Oh, okay. Yes, John did miss the last month, a day after he was hired so this is John th Stutzman. He's our new Recreation Supervisor. I think some of you have met John at the 4 of July activities. John took over for Nate Rosa who left us for St. Louis Park. John did work for us the last 2 summers in different capacities with our department. On a seasonal type of basis. He also helped with, oh just various opportunities that we had over the course of the year, whether it be school…adventures or special events. Sponsorship programs, that sort of thing so we've kept in touch. John went out to Vail again, Beaver Creek to teach ski lessons and he came back, he got a job with most recently with Lakeville in March. A part time position in their park th and rec department. Then he came to us June 26 so we're extremely happy to have John on th board. It's nice that he can kind of really hit the ground running. June 26, the day he started th we've got, the week and some change before the 4 of July. He already had been through 2 of th them previous to that so it was a great help to me as well as our department for the 4 to have him available for that. Also he worked on playground programs and stuff in the past. He's helped our playground director this year. Kind of gives another shoulder to lean on, to bounce ideas off so it's been great for us up to this point so John will be doing all the special events. Youth programs. Sponsorship programs. Working with all the kids in the community so we're th really happy to have John here so, I know John, most of you I guess were at the 4 of July so if you haven't had an opportunity to introduce yourself to John, please do so tonight. Stolar: Thank you. Welcome John. Just to formally welcome you. Stutzman: Thank you. Stolar: Appreciate it. Any other public announcements? Great. 3 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Stolar: I know we have a visitor here who's here to listen, as you said. Would you like to state anything? Now's the time you can talk to the Park and Rec Commission if you have any. Ray Gilgendach: I have a question. Stolar: Sure. Ray Gilgendach: Do you have a plan to hook up your trails with Chaska? You know like all the bike paths, walking paths. I live out in Arboretum Village and it's great. I mean you've got trails all around the place there. I mean I can come down here on a bike and never get into traffic and I'm just wondering if it's ever been, you hook up with the Chaska trails. Stolar: Do we have our future vision up there? Hoffman: We have existing. Stolar: I know existing's there… Hoffman: ... This will work. This is a plan of the city. You live in Arboretum Village, right at this intersection…We build two trails at two different times. Mostly with road construction projects or with independent CIP projects so let's say we have an existing trail and it's not going to be connected with a road. In a neighbor corridor. Some of these trails, Bluff Creek… There's a couple of connection points, viable connection points with Chaska. Highway 41 and we will not build a trail from Highway 5 south on 41 until that road is upgraded because this side of the road is going to be tore down and dropped down to about 20-25 feet at the top of that hill so that hill, plus the trail can run along there and then you can get right into the Chaska trail system… So that will be the most direct route. We're also building a trail… We've got some other connections down out of Lyman. One of the, the biggest sections of the…trail if you will is Lyman Boulevard to the south. Everything drops down. 101 is rebuilt. Powers is built. Audubon stops a little bit short. Galpin goes down to Lyman but Lyman isn't done yet and we hear from a lot of people that want to kind of loop around and come back… This road will be upgraded with the new high school so actually the trail will go from where it stops currently at Powers all the way out to 41 so that's another trail section that will be coming on line. But this one here is the big question mark. When will that happen? We don't know. In the interim it probably would be best to cross at the stop light here. At the...marsh. Go down Century nd Boulevard and back across 82. Cross at those stop lights right here and then get into… Ray Gilgendach: Okay, so you can't really have a trail up on that? Hoffman: Right here. There's a trail right here. This is a Chaska trail. There's a little parking lot that goes into Spring Peeper Meadows and that's where you access that trail. This is one of the nicest trails in Chaska. It's one of the nicest trails in the area. 4 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Ray Gilgendach: …you know getting down to the Home Depot and the Target store down there and also Rainbow… Hoffman: Yeah, we built from the core out and so you're on the outside. Ray Gilgendach: Yeah, I bike down to, like going down to Lake Ann and over to Lake Susan. No, it's great. It is but. Hoffman: Two options. You can take the frontage road and then you see… Ray Gilgendach: Are the people here involved in renting the boats on Lake Ann? Okay. What's the possibility to use volunteer help or what, to be able to rent a boat like from 9:00 until sundown? Ruegemer: I know we had extended hours when Lake Ann was first opened up and it really didn't prove to be very beneficial for us to be paying staff…volunteer type of thing. You know we were opened for quite a while…but we were opened quite a few additional hours than we are. It really didn't seem to… Ray Gilgendach: See the other thing, I'm in a position now that I've got a little 14 foot…ideal for boating at Lake Ann. To be honest with you, I'd like to be in a position to say here's a boat with a motor…open for a while and use my boat for a…because I just don't go out that much any more. And we've got the fishing pier, nothing wrong with it. Especially at Lake Ann, so again…you've got the boats in there, you need more boats… Some type of a set up would be fine. Even if it's 2 days a week. Something that just…hey if you want, there's a boat over there… Hoffman: The options we have right now include the rentals during open hours and…and a lot of people take advantage of that… It's difficult to coordinate that and through a volunteer group, the demand is just, who's going to be there to. We only have one boat, one person shows up and they're out on the lake and now you've got a volunteer sitting around trying to hold the couple three people that want it next and you're out rowing so pretty challenging. I don't think we could coordinate something like that. There might be something outside of that where in some communities, especially in our senior groups, they just kind of organize a group and they… amongst each other and it has nothing to do with a person sitting out at the park. You just coordinate amongst yourself in the community. Ray Gilgendach: See the thing is getting the boat down there. I mean right now this things sits in my son's garage, and the amount that I use it, I have another son that lives up north. I mean if I want to go I don't need anything up there. But just to have a boat and to be able to get on, put it in and I don't know what you need. It'd take some coordination, and also somebody that says fine. Here's 10 feet, you can do what you want with this and like you go to places now you get a card and you put it in a door to door… There's a lot of things that you can do and just say fine… Hoffman: Let's get your name. 5 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Ray Gilgendach: Ray Gilgendach. Hoffman: And a phone number Ray. Ray Gilgendach: 949-5979. Hoffman: Maybe somebody will go fishing with you when you talk about it. Ray Gilgendach: Oddly enough it's just, the older I get it seems the less fishing I do. …used to get out at least once or twice a day so. Stolar: I think I heard one other statement I just would like to clarify. You also mentioned maybe 1 or 2 days a week just having extended hours. Ray Gilgendach: Yeah. Stolar: Is that separate and distinct from this boat discussion but you also have a question about having extended hours? Ray Gilgendach: No, I was just throwing out ideas right now. I don't know what you want to do. For my own personal opinion, if I knew that you had Thursday and Friday that there would be, I could get a boat until 9:00 let's say, this would be fine. Stolar: One thing you know and we've talked about hours in length of time and we understand the model. I don't know if we've ever looked at, and I'm not saying what we should do but if we've ever looked at that just one night where we say this is your extended hour night and if you do want to get out there whether it's for boat rentals or sunset canoeing or whatever, just say this is the only night we offer it. Where we have an extended hour. Ray Gilgendach: Has anything ever come up as far as having a boat slip for a little say, like my boat's a 14 footer. That I could rent out a slip. I'm looking for something I don't need to trailer. Stolar: That would be a more difficult thing from a space perspective, but you know I don't think we have the space there to do that. Hoffman: The only conversation that has taken place for public boat slips has been at Carver Beach Park on Lotus Lake so. The city does not operate any public boat slips and we think, well I know there'd be resistance in the community. You have so many lakes. So many public accesses. There's not a tradition of having a public boat slip location and you know… There's enough room at Lake Ann where you could put 30-40 boat slips out there if you wanted to but there's no motors and I don't think it would be, most of the public would go for that. Daniel: That would be more in style what they have with the City of Minneapolis and the lake system they have there. But I think as you mention with public slips, I mean there's resistance on private, additional private slips. You know at Lake Lotus or even some of the other lakes so. Yeah, from a city perspective. 6 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Ray Gilgendach: I think the easiest way, my way of looking at it is like say a couple of extended nights. If we could get a volunteer group that would take care of it, that would you know, now you're not burdened with extra help. Hoffman: The one thing I forgot to mention is there's a fishing group also available so, many people take… Ray Gilgendach: I'm there a couple times a week at least. Stolar: Well you've taken his name down. One of us will get back to you but one regarding, it's several different ideas here. One regarding the boat. Again I don't think there's many options there but we'll get back. One regarding the extended night or two a week. Certainly this year it's past the time we can do it. It's something we can talk about, and maybe even talk with Susan about is this something we can get a volunteer group from the senior group. They're always looking for interesting things to do. Maybe couple it with some fishing lessons, I don't know. Something where kids, where people want to go down and then I think just in general you talked about the volunteers doing some additional things there. I mean we look at that all the time. We had volunteers plant the rain gardens over at Lake Ann so I do encourage you individually if you want to work, talk to the senior center. You know they do a lot of different things. The wood duck houses they repair for us over the winters. What other, there was one other thing that was done. I can't remember what it was. Hoffman: They make the blue bird houses. Stolar: The bird houses, yeah. So there's some things they do for us as volunteers that have helped and it's a great partnership so just a suggestion. Hoffman: Thanks Ray. Stolar: Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments? APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Scharfenberg moved, Kelly seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated June 26, 2007 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. 2008 PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP). Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar, members of the commission. Tonight we will start the official process of putting together the 2008 through 2012, 5 year CIP for the City Council to consider in the budget process for this year. A variety of things stayed the same. A variety of things have changed. Let's talk about revenue first of all right out of the gate. The economy has slowed. The housing market has slowed and if you take a look at actual revenues in 2006, they were up over $2 million dollars for the first time in our history. 2007 will not have the same type 7 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 of return on what we've got going on in the community. A couple of things changed. We started collecting all revenues right up front at the time of plat and so when these large plats came in as a part of the 2005 MUSA area, we bankrolled all that cash right up front so that filled up the 2006 number up. 2007, I don't suspect that we'll see any significant plats come through our door and so the checks are going to dwindle. The number of checks are going to dwindle and so we've set this at, for a 3 year stint at $500,000 per year and then hoping that things will come back as we bring in the 2010 MUSA area, back up to $750 for 2010, 2011 and 2012. So that's about, approximately half for all those years of where we were last year in our estimates. Then we take a look at some new projects that are being interjected into the grid and you start to take a look at things, like in 2008, new projects. The Arboretum Business Park trail is not new but the number, the cost estimate is new at $317,000. Stolar: Is that from the developer? Hoffman: That's from the master plan with Brauer. Kelly: That's going to be done this year even though it's under 2008. Hoffman: Correct, and I'm meeting with them, we'll pay for it in 2008. It will be started this year. I'm meeting with the applicant, the developer on Thursday to go over the plans with Schoell and Madsen, their engineer. They're excited about it. They've done this before. They built the Holiday Inn Express trail so that was the same developer. Same engineer. Then you take a look down, Preserve trail and bridge. That number actually came down a little bit. That bridge cost is in at just over $50,000. We anticipate the remainder of the trail will come in at around that $150,000 mark. We don't have hard costs on that yet. Once we do we'll adjust that number. And then you go to the bottom and we have the Lyman Boulevard trail improvements at $50,000. Excuse me, $500,000. That's the first installment. And that includes this trail that we were just talking about up here on the board from Powers all the way to Highway 41. We'll pay for it in segments. The initial segment will include the underpass and the underpass is going to be just east of Audubon as you go to Chaska. So the trail currently dead ends at the intersection of Lyman and Audubon. The underpass is going to go right about there where that dashed line is. So they're going to build this segment of road in phases. The first phase includes this underpass and this section of trail in here and our current cost estimate is $500,000 for that. This is a cooperative project between the cities of Chaska, Chanhassen and Carver County. School District's involved with the School District intersection. Daniel: That takes us essentially up to the Holasek property? Or the school property? Hoffman: Close, yep. Across the railroad tracks I think it will pass. They're still grinding out the details of this cooperative agreement. I don't have firm numbers for the future years but I'm anticipating it will be about, approximately another $500,000 probably in 2009 or split between 2009 and 2010. So this million dollars will be one of the largest investments in a trail project in the city of Chanhassen since Highway 101 north, which was $900,000 for that section of trail. A lot, many times when we're building roads, we are the gracious successors of a lot of cash that comes our way in trail money that's associated with the road. In this case this budget is so tight, you know again when I say grinding it out, I'm not, that's an accurate description between the 8 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 county and cities of Chaska and Chanhassen. There's very little cash available to do this project so they're looking to park dedication to pay for that trail so I anticipate that $4 million will be coming out of park dedication to make that trail happen. Daniel: Is there any way that we can partner with Carver County's Park and Rec Board? Hoffman: To? Daniel: Co-op on, or to defer some of the cost to the county itself through the park and rec department. Maybe not necessarily the transportation department. Hoffman: They're one in the same and I don't think so. Daniel: Okay. Hoffman: Carver County hasn't built a section of trail in the county yet, and I don't anticipate they'll start. Daniel: That answers every Carver County question I'll have from this point forward. Hoffman: And I don't believe it's on their master plan as a regional section of trail. When they do start building trails, they're only going to start building regional sections of trail and this is not included. So those are some of the changes. The Lakeside trail. To remind you, well let's just start from the top. You'll start to familiarize yourself as you go. $6,000 for picnic tables and benches. We just refresh them each year. $5,000 for tree. Typically we're planting trees in the fall. This fall we probably will not plant trees unless we come out of this drought because it's just not a good environment to put those in. The Arboretum Business Park trail you know about. The Minnetonka Middle School West tennis courts. That project never came about this year so we just transfer it forward. At least we have a partnership potential there if they do make something happen in 2008. Preserve. You know which trail that is. It's in the 2005 MUSA. This section of trail. The bridge right here for $60,000 in that location. That's a 100 foot bridge. It will be the longest bridge in our pedestrian trail section. And then they'll pick it up, the next developer will pick it up down here. $60,000 for the Lakeside trail. That's the one on the far east side of the city. Right next to Eden Prairie right here. This missing piece of white right there. That comes in front of that new development, and that trail, Eden Prairie will not have a trail. Their residents will not have a trail along Lake Riley Road. We will and that will go to a trail that shoots right up here and then goes underneath Highway 212. Now it won't have a paved place to get you to until the cities of Eden Prairie and Chan finish this section of trail on the bottom side of the lake. This is our segment. Eden Prairie's building this segment as a part of the, this development is putting that in. State of Minnesota is putting the underpass in. City of Chanhassen will have to build this section of trail, and Eden Prairie will build that section. Stolar: Do we have that on our plan for the next 5 years? Hoffman: We don't. 9 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Kelly: But we have the Rice Marsh Lake trail. Is that what you're talking about? Hoffman: $350,000 in 2010, yep. Stolar: Okay. Daniel: Well I thought at Lake Riley that they did have a trail that stops right at the, I guess where the road is. Hoffman: It stops short. Daniel: It stops short of that? Hoffman: Down at the park it stops. Daniel: Oh, okay. Hoffman: And then there's a section of their, of the old cottages that they won't upgrade the road. Daniel: Still? Hoffman: Still. Kelly: Well, it's moved now… Hoffman: …they build the road, I'm assuming they won't build the trail. Kelly: Right. Hoffman: They want to upgrade the trail. They don't want to upgrade the road. That plan didn't work on 101 north. We tried to upgrade the road and build the trail and finally they just built the trail. Kelly: So I think that road's going to get a lot busier once the bus station opens. It will be more of a thoroughfare than it is now. Hoffman: Yeah. Times will change out there. Campion: The dog park is under '07 right? Hoffman: Yep. Under '07. And then the top line which we missed there is the 101 north trail connection and that's the last piece that was left off, way up on the top of 101 north. That's from Pleasant View to Town Line Road. It's just, even the curb cuts are in just waiting for this trail to come up along the east side here of 101. And that $114,000, that's off of an old feasibility study that's probably 4 or 5 years old so we'll have to update that before we send that up to council. 10 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Campion: That's part of my back yard. Hoffman: Yeah? That's right. You're familiar with it. We look in 2009 and we have the Liberty at Creekside trail at 275. That may bump out. That's this section. That takes us from the east/west collector down underneath Highway 212. This plat right now is in limbo. Again due to the slow down in the housing market and it may not be built and if that's the case, that trail won't come with it. Stolar: Did we get the fees for that? Hoffman: No. Stolar: No we didn't, okay. Because it didn't get final platting done. Okay. Hoffman: Yeah. And that's 275. And then we start penciling in another $500,000 at the bottom there. You can pencil that in on the Lyman Boulevard trail improvements. So that will take that for now we'll just take that 286 up to 786. We look at 2010 and we pull in that Rice Marsh trail for 350 and again that number may go up and down with the difficulty of that trail and if there's many bridges included. We look farther out to 2011, we start phasing in some Phase II playgrounds. These playgrounds have been in for a number of years. The Phase II's or the little kid's playgrounds are not there. My fear is if we don't do them, at some point we're just going to have to hold off because the equipment will be so mismatched in terms of age that you won't want to put them together, and you might as well wait until you just do, redo them all at one time so we'll study those as we move forward. $300,000 for that Pioneer Trail gap and that's a significant section of trail when you're talking this southern section of the city. You'll see the gaps. Very plain to see. Right here between 101 and the new Powers. New Powers and the Highway 212 project, this area…a lot of trails that are just, most people won't anticipate that if you have any trails but they're coming in as a part of that development. Work with MnDot through that and they're building the Pioneer Trail. They're building the Bluff Creek trail. And both sides of Powers and so there's lot of what I would call regional significant trails down here that this is going to be a missing segment. People are going to be coming out of Eden Prairie, following along that trail. Continue in Chan and they're going to hit a section of road where there's no trail there, and Pioneer Trail, as you all heard, is a very busy section of road so… Daniel: Would that be on the north side as well? Hoffman: Most likely. Daniel: Okay. Hoffman: This is on the north side and this would be on the north side. You'd want to put it there. Stolar: I don't think you'd want to put it on the south side. 11 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Daniel: That was the only reason I mention it because it's the only area from that point where there's no posted along there. Campion: So that $300,000 is to fill that gap? Kelly: Is there a reason you have to wait until 2011? Hoffman: Nope. Stolar: So that's no dependent upon anything. That's really just, like some of these others, when the development occurs we're going to have to pay for it. This one whenever we choose to put it in. Hoffman: Yeah. We may want to check on any, I don't, I've not heard any discussion of upgrade to Pioneer in that section so we'll have to check that and that could be juggled around. The other one in 2011 is $250,000 for Pioneer Pass park acquisition and development, and again that's the development that has stumbled and is not coming through the development process right here. This is the Sever Peterson property. If you remember D.L. Horton picked it up and dropped it and then a local group of investors, developers picked it up and dropped it and so it's trickled back to the, if you remember reviewing that plat. It had a 4, close to a 5 acre park in it and so that's not coming through the development process currently. 2012 we add in some other items. There's a discussion about park entry signs. We do not have, if you noticed Eden Prairie recently went through a total reinstalling brand new signs. It was a $70,000 project. I think well worth it. They are very noticeable off the street and they have the address of the park and we've had some calls from citizens that cannot find parks because our signs are flat with the road and they don't include the address in our signs there. Basically made in our public works shop. Very serviceable but they're not a sign like you would see in some other municipal park systems. So take a look around. Open for discussion for the future. Daniel: Speaking of which is Sugarbush going to be. Hoffman: Yeah we're, well we're, we found. Daniel: Refurbishing the. Hoffman: Yeah we filed a police report today. The DNR city sign at the Lake Ann fishing pier was stolen so we've had 3 signs stolen. Round House Park. Sugarbush Park and now down at the fishing pier at Lake Ann so most likely somebody from the west side of Minnewashta. They started stealing that one first and they moved in to Sugarbush and now moved over to Lake Ann so the one was located and found in a yard somewhere up in the west side of Lake Minnewashta. These other two have not been found so. We'll wait til the case plays itself out. Daniel: Okay. Well that explains what happened to it then. Hoffman: Yeah. No reason to remake it until we complete the investigation. Back to 2012, $500,000 for the South Park Preserve development. Once we get down there we'll be naming it, 12 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 it's currently called Unnamed Park Preserve. It's the Fox acquisition. It will be extended to the north through some negotiations with MnDot, acquired a wetland and then most likely to the south through the Erhart development and when 2010 shows up and this development all starts happening down here, we want to be in a position to start the development of that park with trails and potentially nature preserve. Nature center type of location so we have to start setting aside some dollars at some point for that project. And then $150,000 for Pinehurst Park development. And the Pinehurst area is at Lake Harrison and it's the product, there's a water treatment plant down here. Second water treatment plant right at this location off of Galpin. And this is called Pinehurst. This is called Pinehurst at Lake Harrison and we have a little neighborhood park… developed once the city moves forward with the water treatment plant. So those are the items. I'm not sure if we, one we did…is Bluff Creek trail so when MnDot is done, the trail will be turned into here. We need to add that section down to the trailhead so that's not in there. Bluff Creek Drive trail. And then anything else that the commission would like to discussion tonight. It's a variety of items up for discussion. Park buildings. Lake Ann. Ballfield buildings for the ball fields. Lake Susan baseball field improvements. Bandimere buildings. We have 2 buildings slated for Bandimere. One in the ballfield semi-circle and one over at the soccer field area. So that's a lot of cash in buildings. Future park acquisition for ballfields. Lake Ann acquisition when that ever happens. So again you go back to the cash flow analysis and you start taking a look at the things we have in here now. Our cash flow is still relatively strong. In fact it doesn't change a lot from where we're at today at just $3 million 7. We make the investments that we noted. There are some additions. We probably just added a million bucks or so, so you would take that $3 million down to $2 million dollars. So although it's conservative, it still doesn't leave a whole lot of $2 million dollars with the kind of, type of projects that I just mentioned could be spent very quickly so. This is a discussion about values. About what you think the community values most. What you value most. What you want to invest your money in. These are the what I would refer to as the high times in park development in this city. We're in our final stages of development. The park dedication fund is healthy and we have reason to invest that money because we have demands that are placed upon it by our citizens, residents who want increased ballpark capacity. Increased recreation opportunities and so it's up to the commission to listen to that. Talk to your neighbors and decide where you want to recommend that the council invest these dollars. And we can talk tonight and then we have at least one other meeting, if you would like to continue this conversation til next month. Stolar: Okay. Why don't we start Thor, want to, any questions? Comments, additions, changes. Campion: I'm a little confused with how the, when the money comes in for the developments. You know for the parks. Hoffman: There's a fund 410, park acquisition and development. Park and trail acquisition and development and there's $3.7 million dollars in there. The cash comes in through park dedication ordinance. Anytime you subdivide a property we have the ability to go in and either take land or cash. Right now for our residential development it's $5,800. If you come in and you want to plat a piece of property and you want to put in 100 homes and you're going to final plat the whole thing at once, we're going to take your $580,000 right at the front of the development and we're going to take that $580,000. Put it in the 410 fund and then we're going to build future parks with it. If you're in an area where there's a park needed, we're probably going to take some 13 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 of your land and put that park in because we have a comprehensive plan that says there will be a neighborhood park a half a mile out of everyone's front door. Within a half mile of everyone's front door. If that 100 acre, or excuse me, 100 home development is in an area that's got a park over here, we're going to say okay. We're going to use that money to pay back debt that we've used to acquire and build this park, and we're going to take that money and pay back debt to pay off these trails that we built, or we're going to build new trails in your area. And park dedication is based off the premise of when you bring people to town, you're increasing the demand on your recreation system and they should have to help pay for that through their park dedication fees. Campion: Okay. Stolar: Good question. Campion: Not right now. Stolar: Okay, then we'll circle back. Jeff. Daniel: No. My only comment would be that given some of the external items that we'll have to deal with in terms of the facilities of buildings, future land acquisitions, trails, all those things, I think we've identified a lot of those already with the 30 year plan. As far as where we can see the city go to. I think as far as some of the details, and that's as much as we look at, some of the CIP items out here that we're listing, I don't know Todd if this is something that we'll have to have an external meeting on or a work session to talk about some of the more short term, 1, 2, 3. I mean we're looking out way, we just go done going through looking out 30 year plan. Now we've got a 5 year window. What are we going to do in the next 2 years as far as some of the other items? I guess that, you know you mentioned the two shelters at Bandimere and how will that affect, and what will we have to move and deal with and I think those are things we'll have to come to grips with as well as some of the other, again addressing the big picture. As far as some of those things we've earmarked for a 30 year plan, comprehensive plan. Stolar: Alright. Campion: I have no questions or comments. Stolar: I'm going to throw a couple things. One, it would be helpful if we do look at this next one. Which ones are committed funds, if you can just let us know. Either highlight them or whatever, so that we know. We've already said, we've done master planning. We understand that that's committed. Certainly I think the one item that I think I don’t see here, we had talked about lights at other parks. Other athletic fields. Yeah, we may have to push those out but those were ones that were on the CIP I believe more than just Lake Ann. Or was it just Lake Ann? Daniel: I think it was just Lake Ann. At least that's what I thought. Stolar: It was just called athletic field lighting. You know we didn't leave. 14 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Hoffman: We discussed Bandimere but it's never made it to the CIP as of yet. Or at least a Bandimere lighting project. Stolar: Okay, so then let's maybe save that for when we actually discuss the final but that will be something that, a thought. I thought we had just athletic field lighting. We always talked about it but we never actually put it on. Kelly: We always concentrated on Lake Ann. Daniel: I think there were some minor discussions on Bluff Creek. That's I think, we may have offset towards that as well I know. Stolar: And then the other thing I had was related to the, just go off about possibly putting up some money there. Again looking potentially a partnership with Carver County to say you know, if they can find the space in Minnewashta, you know we'll the stands type deal but that might be something to look at here. I don't think that would be very expensive to do. With regards to the playgrounds, the Phase II. I know we pushed those out. If it does turn out that the Liberty at Creekside gets moved, that might be something to consider moving into 2009. As well as maybe moving the north 101 trail connector to kind of balance things out a little bit. Kelly: We've moved that once already though. Stolar: I want to see Dan's back yard. Daniel: And I agree with Glen as far as the Phase II playgrounds. We've just come out of the playground development over the last, within the last year and I'd hate to see us lose any momentum for those. I mean because obviously I think it's been a tremendous asset to our city with the new playgrounds. Stolar: We pushed those out last year I believe or the year before. So yeah, I think it's the balance there of we've got a lot of trails we've got to put in because of the development that's going on in the 2007-2008-2009 if we can focus again and finalize those playgrounds, that might be something worth doing. As far as the 101 trail, I'm just wondering about capacity here more than anything, right. We've got a lot of trail stuff going in, although I know some of those the developer puts them in and we pay them but just a question. The other thought is, as you've said Todd and as was mentioned when we had that working session with the City Council, or I guess Todd, you and I were just there to talk to them about some things. Part of the City Manager's view is if we have this money we could put in trails, start using, we should do that so. So that's just something to consider if it becomes too many trails going on. I don't know how much the park is actually responsible for putting in. Because we would have to put in that 101 ourselves right? Except not any development. We'd have to do that on our own. Campion: Is that in conjunction with the County or the State? Stolar: No. 15 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Hoffman: The conjunction we would have is we would need permits from both the State and the County. Stolar: But you know, that was one of those long term things you know. Can the County, Eden Prairie and Chan agree to widen that road and put a trail in? That never came past the City Council I think basically said let's just put the trail in. Hoffman: There was a half million dollar grant that was obtained. Campion: I will tell you I see a lot of people crossing over from Eden Prairie to use it so I'm thinking maybe a toll or something. Stolar: It actually does serve Eden Prairie. They use it a lot and we have trails I'm sure of their's that we use a lot so I think it's a good partnership. That was all I had. Kelly: The only thing I had is, if Liberty at Creekside kind of fell through, I'd be in favor of moving the Pioneer Trail gap up a couple years. I just think that's a huge, I just think that's a very functional. A lot of these trails are nice to have. The Preserve is nice to have. Rice Marsh Lake is nice to have but I think the Pioneer gap trail, that's more of a functional trail. I think there should be, I'd like to see some priority on getting that thing done to make that a complete connection. Stolar: So if you see that, and that does go right into the, is that where it's a solid red line? I can't tell from here. That goes right into the Chaska trail system then? Hoffman: Yes, it would go right into Pioneer Trail. And the other thing about, you know when you do that, their goal. Kelly: You've got to go up 101 and you've got to go down Lyman. Stolar: That's some examples where I think that is probably more important than the 101 north because there are ways around. 101 north you kind of just go in. Kelly: In and out of Pleasant View. Daniel: You hit Vine Hill very short. Stolar: Yeah, there's a couple ways around that so that one does add a huge connector across multiple cities. Kelly: Yeah, where this one you're right. There's nothing else. Campion: Is there going to be more development though down along. Hoffman: Very little. Right on that stretch. 16 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Campion: On that stretch. Daniel: Well it would only give us not only continuous true route right to the trail from downtown too. I don't think we really have a clean path do we there? Down to the regional trail. Hoffman: No, that's going to be the Bluff Creek. Daniel: Yep, but as far as right now if that gets moved up in the CIP project, that would give us our only true trail system leaving, if you could continue it through to Eden Prairie. Isn't that correct? Hoffman: Well if you're coming down, right now you can… Daniel: Oh that's right. That's right. Hoffman: This is going to close the gap in. Kelly: The question I had too was, on here is the 41 pedestrian underpass. Is that north of 5? Hoffman: North of 5. And that's a grant match 125 and then the County is in on that grant and if you recall, that was 2 years ago we applied. Well we supported the application by Carver County and we were just out of the money. Now they've just re-applied. The council has approved the letter of support and the resolution of support so that grant application is back in for the next funding cycle. The cash would, if we're successful, the County's successful, the cash wouldn't be available I think til 2011 or 2010, or 12 but you can go ahead and advance that cash if we want to bank roll our section and Carver County wants to bank roll their's and get that done. And that I think would happen because there's just so much pent up demand to get underneath that road and into the regional park. Kelly: The last question was, has the Preserve trail bridge, has that been built yet or not? Hoffman: No. It will be built this summer. Kelly: Okay. I thought someone told me something was built over in that, has some trail been laid down in that area though? Hoffman: Just the trail on the east/west collector road. They're grading in the trail. In the Preserve and then the bridge is on order. Kelly: Okay. So nothing's been, okay. Hoffman: It will be built this summer or fall. Kelly: Okay, thanks. 17 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Atkins: I just, looking at it noticed there's a lot of things that we talked about a lot that we, that aren't on this and I think we need to talk about things like baseball parks and buildings. Or the trail connector to downtown across the street from my house to the little bridge over the railroad tracks. There's a lot of things that we need to make, prioritize I think. Stolar: Do we want to, the other thing was suggested doing, do we have a little working session. The question being, does it affect the 5 year CIP? I think yes because many of these things you know could be anywhere from 2 to 5 years. Some of them we know are way out but is that worth doing before we finalize this in August? Hoffman: Sure, why don't we, we could actually do it the night of the meeting. We could do a 5:30 or 6:00 or you could set a, your off night. Stolar: The night of the meeting? Kelly: I vote for the night of. Atkins: Yeah, me too. Scharfenberg: What night are we meeting in August? th Stolar: The 28 I think. thth Hoffman: 27, 28. The fourth Tuesday. thth Stolar: The 7 is a Tuesday so it would be the 28. Daniel: I mean to a certain extent we can take a look at our 30 year comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan and start to prioritize then. Stolar: That's what I'm thinking. If we take what we identified in the documents and start saying okay you know, for each one of these where do we see it fit? I think helpful to that would be knowing okay what expenses of these do we not really even have an option. It's a development. We've agreed to it. It's there. And then that gives us the, again we all know that the balance doesn't equal the demand. But as we prioritize them, then that leads us to determine what actions we might want to take. Daniel: Prioritize and categorize if anything. Hoffman: I can create a data sheet for each one of the projects and then you can start to shuffle them around and the data sheets would be much more refined on the items that we have when we start talking about you know bridges over railroad tracks. We would describe it. Putting a lump sum and then a lot of these other projects again, we just start to flush out what those would be. You get in a working session we can start to juggle those around and tape them on the walls and come up where you want to go with this. One thing that at least I'm always looking at is there would be, there's a lot of things that would be nice to have, but there's some opportunities that 18 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 come across your desk that you're just not going to have anymore. So land acquisition. Trail alignments and I think when you sit down you're going to start to recognize that there's some things that yeah, it'd be nice to have but we really have to save our cash for those opportunities when the Lake Ann acquisition comes along, we'd better hope we've got some money in the bank or we're not going to be in a very good position to have a discussion with the citizenry about taking now all this property for this future park, so there's things that you just have to kind of plan for in the future so. It's a great exercise I think we can do it in a working session for about a hour and a half before our next meeting. Daniel: And that's why I mentioned as far as being categorizing. I mean we have other funding mechanisms that we can take those lists and place them into, and then we can also take a look at what we have as far as in our CIP project. So we can start but again, start to mix and match and find out, really get, I guess if anything a picture of what we have to work with because right now it's an item list. Then as far as you start putting costs, prioritize those projects to what meets our current demand, then I think that would at least give me as a commissioner a better idea you know where we're going to be again 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now. I'd love looking at this list for you know 30 years. Or 20 years. Stolar: Starting with Dan, would you prefer a work session before our meeting? Campion: Yep. Stolar: Alright. We'll work that right now and Todd can get at those descriptions, that would help. Hoffman: I will. Stolar: And I think you know, we all recognize that, I think this is good because it shows that we took that 30 year planning exercise that we did and we're taking it seriously. We've got to incorporate it into what we do otherwise it just sits on hold. So that's good. Hoffman: Quickly you can start to make some asterisks. The items which are committed by development contracts in 2008 are the 317. $317,000. The $200,000 and the $60,000. Those were committed to by development contracts. The $500,000 we're going to be committed to by the fact that that project is going to roll forward and they're expecting us to pay for that trail. So that's a little different situation. 2009, the 275 and the Liberty at Creekside, again that was committed in writing by a development contract but it hasn't been you know enacted or final platted yet but it is in a development contract been on hold and then, if you go down and if you've written in another half a million dollars in 2009 for that Lyman Boulevard trail, again it's not committed by development contract but the city administration folks are expecting that that cash will be coming out of 410. Stolar: One question on Lyman Boulevard. So you're saying that's going to go near the high school but it's not necessarily going to go to the high school? Hoffman: The trail or the road? 19 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stolar: The trail. Hoffman: The trail will go right past the front of the high school. Stolar: Oh it will, okay. So kids can take, okay. Hoffman: Correct. Stolar: Paula, any additional questions? Atkins: No. None right now. Stolar: Steve. Scharfenberg: I think the only thing I would like to add is, now that we're going to do the lighting at Lake Ann and have kind of a first class facility out there in terms of ballfields and it's going to be you know more uses to update the building out there. Put in restrooms. Put in a nice concession area. That's all. Stolar: Okay. Any follow up comments then? Campion: I just would support the moving up of the Pioneer Trail gap. I think that would be very important to be moved up. Stolar: Okay. Scharfenberg: Do we have to, Todd when we put in a trail like that on Pioneer, do we have to acquire that land or is that just part of roadway or? Hoffman: The, a couple ways to answer it. Most likely it's going to be in county road right-of- way. That's where we put the trail when you're heading east to Eden Prairie. It's in county road right-of-way. We get an access, limited use agreement with the county. Back when we built those trails in '98, the county really wasn't that excited because you're coming into there, you know this is their area. They're managing this and now you've, you know you're kind of like well now you're building these trails but they knew they wanted to say no but there's no saying no to the citizenry of Chanhassen wants these trails. If they say no and you say oh folks, we can't build you trails because Carver County says we don't want these trails. That's not going to happen so they would prefer they not be there but they, we put them there through a limited use agreement. Now the exception to that is on Powers Boulevard, that road was taken through a different, kind of just the road happened and it was never recorded properly. The only thing that could happen there would be a road so when we said we're going to put this trail in there. The attorney said you can't put a trail there. That easement was for that road…ditch because it was not a part of the recorded easement so. In this case I think the right-of-way would be there. Sometimes you run into slopes and you run into problem areas where you have to go out for 20 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 encroachment agreements. Then you have to pay for those so. It all depends on the design and it all depends on how nice of a lawn that you have in the existing right-of-way. Daniel: When are they going to put homes, I mean we've doing the whole road correct from 101 through… On Pioneer. Hoffman: On Pioneer? That section of road doesn't get touched I don't think. Daniel: So it would basically would be. Hoffman: Tossed into the road. Daniel: We'd need an easement through the property… Okay. Hoffman: In some of those areas you might be tight and because the homes were there before, the easements for the road was widened and so then you have to go in and negotiate and acquire additional right-of-way there so. For example back during the 1990's trail project, 7 miles of trails. 6 trails. We acquired I think it was 102 individual easements. Negotiated with the individual property owners. Most of those were in the $2,000 to $4,000, $5,000 range per easement. To go ahead and acquire those easements. So a lot of Christmas checks that year. Daniel: Okay. Stolar: Any final questions? So we'll look for, we'll plan on a working session prior to our August meeting. Hoffman: And I may send that before the regular packet. As soon as we get it out, I'll send it out to you so you can start to digest it and. Stolar: Okay. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2007 FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION. Stolar: John, we get to your first item. The Fourth of July evaluation. th Stutzman: Thank you. Over the 4 of July, this was my third but all of them have been in different chairs. This year I felt that the attendance was significantly up, even despite rain on th both days. The tents were bigger. The primary tents out there on the 4 of July for the concert was bigger and when the rain hit that place was packed. Even bigger, it was packed. We also added several new additions this year. We had the carnival which was the most significant addition, which seemed to be extremely popular. Their lines were going until late into the evening. Had to go back there and just remind them, you know this is the agreement we had. It is time to close up. You could see people didn't want to go so that was a very, very nice addition to the festival overall. The tent dance once again. Casablanca Orchestra put on a phenomenal 21 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 show as always. They're becoming a benchmark I would say for this festival, from what I've seen and they enjoy playing here from what I've talked to them about so. The kiddie parade was down a little bit in participation this year but that was due to the rain that happened right up until the time of the parade itself. They were actually in the process of going well do we do this? Do we not do this and then the rain let up so we went ahead. The kids had a great time doing it as always. The Lake Ann concession staff as well as the playground staff did a wonderful job again with that event. Even despite the rain itself. The carnival games that the playground staff ran were a huge hit again this year. I believe that the leaders themselves are one of the largest reasons those games are as popular. They are due to the fact that a lot of the kids do know these leaders from other programs. They come back and look for these leaders specifically to hang out and see them. Play games and then the games themselves become just something they enjoy doing and is a nice little addition to the overall celebration as well. In that same area we had the two similar attractions. The face painting characters and air brush tattoos and the all about girls make-up. Both of them had good years again. We moved them slightly to kind of go with the flow a little bit more of the new set-up. Moving the food vendors to a little different line. A little bigger horseshoe that moved that artists and the make-up over towards the carnival games to keep that boundary between the overall carnival but keep them in an area where the kids are going to be going to, and actually the Maund Entertainment was just the face painting characters rd and air brush tattoo approached me the night of the 3 because they were getting requests to thth come back for the 4 so they actually came back and did face painting on the day of the 4 for a couple hours and she was very excited about that and has said if we do, or she would be very interested in coming back and pursuing that again next year with all 3 pieces of her set-up out there. The other contract services that we brought in, speedway racing was popular as always. Water Wars was still good again. The Medicine Show as very good to see again. And the food and beer garden, or the food vendors, I think the horseshoe worked very nicely. Gave people a little bit more room to kind of move through there as well as just give them a little bit more room to set up and have little larger tents this year. And then the beer garden, from what I saw, ran extremely smoothly with the signs posted more that they were going to be ID'ing everybody. Giving them wrist bands. Getting the officers out further. Having lines, if you already had a wrist band you could go through a little quicker. From what I saw that line ran very smoothly. As I mentioned earlier, the carnival was a very popular attraction. Another nice addition this rd year was the Summer Skateboard Series. 3 Lair came out and ran that and from what I was told they, we had the highest amount of participants than any of the other competitions they've held as part of the series to that point in the summer so they were extremely pleased about that and I would highly recommend bringing this back next year as the skateboard park in general seems to be growing and any programs we can do out there are very beneficial I believe. And then as mentioned as well earlier, the street dance was a huge success again. Huge, huge props to Casablanca Orchestra for the show that they're able to put on for crowds of all ages from teenagers and young kids to older families and people who have been coming to this festival since it first began so they seem to find a way to connect the entire audience and keep them all rdth entertained. That's for the 3. For the 4, a staple at least that I've noticed in my 3 years of working this festival is the adult fishing contest. We actually had 51 participants this year, which is above our limit. We had a late registration before we did close it but we made it work and it seems to be a wonderful crowd. People always have great stories to tell after it and tell for years to come. The winners from previous years like to talk about it. Talk about their time in past years, as well as tell new stories each year and somehow we always manage to get nice letters for 22 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 that competition which makes it even better. The kids fishing contest is another nice piece as well. The kids really enjoy it. They all get a prize. They all get a grab bag so they get something, and then the, I've never seen so many kids so excited to catch the smallest fish. Is mine small enough? Is mine small enough? But they seem to really get into the fishing contest in general and it gives them a chance to come out, right off the pier and be there in a place where they have control. The playground staff once again does a really excellent job helping out with that. They keep kids safe. They keep them in the know so they know where to go. Charlie Eiler from our maintenance staff comes out with his son. Does a fantastic job as well. They are two very vital pieces of that contest as well. Other highlights from that, the parade looked like a very good success again this year. 89 entries once again this year and the addition to that that went extremely well was the garbage truck at the end of the parade. The public seemed to help out significantly picking up trash and from what I've heard from the maintenance department, this was one of the fastest times they've gotten the streets cleaned up and ready to go after the parade that they've seen in a while so that was a very, very nice addition to the parade. And then the fireworks were outstanding once again this year. Melrose does a great job. They're easy to work with and really, I think put together a very nice show. I would recommend continuing to use them in the future. As far as recommendations for the future. I would continue looking to expand and find new ideas out there so that we can keep getting the festival bigger and better to accommodate everybody that keeps coming out. I see, I talk to families that I know from the community, they'll come out for the first time and go I can't believe we've never come and they tell me that they're going to continue to come and I see them from year to year from there. The th traffic flow out of Lake Ann after the 4 of July works very well and Audubon continues to be closed down for at least another option so if we can keep shuffling them over to Galpin or encourage them to go over there, I would recommend that as well. The mosquito spray that we put down at City Center and at Lake Ann or have sprayed seems to work well. I didn't notice people having to swat at mosquitoes either night. My staff when they were doing it, the playground staff when they were directing staff weren't calling over the radio saying I need bug spray so it seemed to be a very large help out there for both days. The Taste of Chanhassen I would recommend, if it's possible, to keep up in City Center. The top part of City Center Park rather than moving it down to the plaza because the carnival was down a little bit in attendance th on the 4 so if we could keep the, everything a little bit more up there. More events up there, I think that would be a significant portion to kind of keep things general, or to keep things flowing through the days as well. Stolar: Where was the…area? rd Stutzman: It moved down, out here to the plaza. Yep, on the 3. It's up there when everything th is but we move it down here on the 4 to the plaza. I would recommend selling the t-shirts next thth year for the 4 of July on the 4 of July wherever we have the beer garden and the food and things that are on there. See if we can find a way to get some, incorporate some t-shirt sales from that area as well just to continue to move t-shirts. Get them out there. Get them advertised and bring in a little bit more revenue for us. Daniel: Any consideration John on during the parade or before the parade when the crowd starts setting up, having some of the young staff or the staff pick a few hot spots around there and just set up for an hour. 23 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stutzman: That's not something that's been considered. That's something definitely to look into, especially across from downtown. I mean it's huge to see if we can get somehow throughout downtown. I know if we did this, I could keep things down at the plaza, setting up an area in there would be a possibility as well. Daniel: Yep. Stutzman: Kind of centralizing the middle of the parade so. One thing that we did have a small issue with the carnival company was their time table seemed to be different than our's. Their time table was, they did have some slight ride miscues on their way from the prior venue. They had some trouble with their trucks. Their trucks broke down on the side of the road and weren't ready to go the day of when we needed them too and so I would just make sure that we have an understanding, you know if things do go wrong with that, you know we still need to honor our agreement and make sure that we have what we need, when we need it or something similar to there. And just kind of little kinks the first year of bringing a company like this in. Nothing severe but just kind of keep working with them so that we, now that we have had a year under our belts we can kind of tweak things and go from there. And then adding a map to the Lake Ann Park that we hand out at the entrance. We hand out the rules to the park. About adding a map so that people have an idea and one thing that was brought up actually by some of the seasonal staff was maybe labeling the parking lots out in Lake Ann so that not only people know which parking lot's which, but the staff knows so you can just say parking lot A is that one. We've got X number of spaces left and we can tell people to go to parking lot A, and if we were to do that, that could help to make a smoother transition in the parking, although I did feel parking went pretty well this year getting in and out of Lake Ann. Overall with the revenue and the expenditure report, the revenue was down some but that was due to some restructuring of the way we did things. Food vendors, the Rotary handled the Taste of Chanhassen so we did not receive that revenue this year. And another large portion is that, the prize board went to the Dave Huffman Foundation and so that money did not go towards our revenue this year. Other than that it's pretty comparable. Most things were either right around where they were last year. The carnival games were, that we run with the playground staff, were up from last year and we also have not received, I actually called up today to ask them once again for the carnival rides, the games from, for our commission from them but that's an estimate of about $800 based on what I thought their business was, as well as what the inflatable's that we've had out there in the past, what they made last year. I figured that that would be up based on the attendance of the carnival. Kelly: What was the agreement with them? Was it 20%? Stutzman: 20%, yep. Most of our vendors, actually I believe all of the vendors that we had an agreements like that was 20%. Stolar: Is that standard across other communities? Stutzman: I would have to look into that. I'm not sure. 24 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stolar: I would. See if, you know are we charging less or are we charging more? Daniel: If we're charging more I'm not too concerned but if we're charging less. Hoffman: A flat fee. You'd have to dig into the end of the earth to make me believe that 20% is $800 of what they took in that night so. Kelly: Yeah because it's I mean, it's 50 bucks a wrist band and that was the economical way to go… Hoffman: Yeah. We're going to be researching what other communities charge for a flat fee. If that's $4,000. If they want to come in for $4,000 and offer a flat fee, then that's what we'll do. If they don't want to do, we'll find somebody else that will do it. Stolar: Yeah, and that's just for the carnival. All the others we'd still do the 20%, correct? Or would we do a flat fee for everybody? Hoffman: Hard to say. You know it's the same scenario in all these other things as well. They take their $2,000, $4,000 worth of cash home and then you have to trust that they're going to report back what they took in is what they're giving you. Their 10% or 20%. A flat fee makes it a little bit more sound on our side. Stolar: So across the board food vendors also same thing. Stutzman: Food vendors are right now, the food vendors that we go through are a flat fee based on their needs. Stolar: Okay. Stutzman: It's just for. Stolar: The games. Stutzman: The games. The entertainment of the hair and make-up and the characters, face painting and air brush tattoos, that stuff. As well as water wars and I believe those are, and the night lights are also a flat fee as well. That actually we do on a bid basis so. Campion: Do we not charge for the business fair? Hoffman: Business fair, the chamber event? Stolar: I mean some of the things we didn't charge this year. To have the Taste was, because our food revenue, as I told Todd, that we knew was, that's the lowest it's been. I went back 5 years and stopped looking there. Hoffman: Yeah. 25 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stolar: It's about, it's less than 50% of what it was last year. Hoffman: Yeah. Nothing about the Taste change other than it's getting larger. Stolar: Right. Hoffman: So the Taste of Chanhassen is a Rotary event and the philosophy is that if there are local food vendors that want to serve food on the street dance night, go ahead and let us serve food and then we don't have to bring in the other outside vendors. The folks that have the stands on the parking lot. Those vendors were coordinated by us and we had the income coming in. The other Taste of Chanhassen is coordinated by the Rotary so they're having whatever income they're making off of that according to their efforts. Stolar: But what was the drastic reduction then? Was it the number of food, if we charge a flat rate, was it the number of vendors? Hoffman: Fewer vendors. Stutzman: Yeah, it was we had fewer vendors because the Rotary did take over. Over the Taste of Chanhassen. Stolar: Was it reduced by more than 50% of the food vendors than we had this year versus last? Stutzman: I think it was 2 I believe. Ruegemer: The money was just kind of reality and then there was bits, as there was basically rd what we charge in the past for Houlihan's or whoever to come in on July 3. The Rotary th charged on July 4 for the Taste of Chanhassen. We kind of came to agreement for kind of what was the betterment of the festival to kind of throw everything into a hat so to speak and then kind of reduce the fees and really make it an incentive based for local vendors to come on both days, it reduced the price of the, you know the fee I guess to be here to entice people from our local restaurant areas and to commit to both days. So really for the betterment of the celebration, really we wanted to encourage people to be here and that's, we kind of gave up some of that revenue to really help out the Rotary and help out ourselves with additional food vendors. Local food vendors. Stolar: And then, and again I talked a little bit with Todd about this. I've looked into it. This is, I mean this is a noticeable, I won't say significant. A noticeable turn in how we're promoting and approaching this event and I'm not saying right or wrong. I'm just saying we as a commission should be aware of this and look at, it does change. It becomes more of a sponsored event by us and the revenue offsets are less, although I know with the carnival games that helped promote it, but as it grows we aren't necessarily going to see an equivalent growth in our revenue as we would in our expenses for it. Something we should be aware of. I think it's a good idea, personal opinion. I'm not saying for the commission but I think that's a good idea. I mean it's a community event. We have community and civic organizations like you said, let's even increase 26 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 the number that we have involved. I think we can look for some ways to try to offset that approach like you've described, maybe a flat fee for some of the other external vendors might help offset some of it. Just encourage, I know we have a couple Rotary members around here, maybe Rotary is picking up one of the expense items as part of their contribution. I would say pick up the parade. Hoffman: Yeah the Rotary doesn't make money on this thing either. They invested, what was the total invested? $30,000 bucks this year. Stolar: The only thing, separate from the beer garden which raises money for the scholarships. Hoffman: Well yeah, the parade cost $20,000. Beer garden takes in 10 so. Stolar: A loss. Hoffman: Yeah, there's a loss. Stolar: So it's an offset for their investment in the celebration also. The Taste of Chan doing that is helping offset some of their investment. Hoffman: Not a great deal. To a certain degree. Ruegemer: Yeah, I mean we are still, the Rotary's still picking up the tab on the tents that they used. A portion of the bathrooms for that event so we're kind of, we kind of have a master bill so to speak and then we've been kind of dividing all that up. You know here's for the kind of fixed costs. The Rotary, Taste of Chanhassen so they had 10 bathrooms on the parade route. They had 2 at Chapel Hill. They had bathrooms up here. We had whatever, 15 bathrooms. Here's the cost. Here's your bill for that and here's your bill for the garbage. Here's your bill for the tents. So all that is you know, so expenses that we have. Stolar: Are pro-rated across the participation. Ruegemer: Correct. Stolar: Okay, great. Thank you. That does clarify. And of course as we know next year it's th going to be a much greater investment just in our planning because of the 25. Okay, so I'm assuming the fireworks is going to be prettier and a lot better. Hoffman: If the budget's approved. Stutzman: Mr. Chair, actually one other thing with the revenue too that will help increase is if we do a format where we do allow things to stay in a more centralized area rather than having things on the plaza and up on the fields up there, we can invite vendors such as Maund Entertainment, All About Girls back for second days and help them increase their profits which we could do that flat rate more. The carnival would have better success which would give us leverage to increase the flat fee or the percentage, however we decide to do it which will increase 27 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 the revenues as well. So that's if, depending on how we do that second day next year, that will increase the revenues as well. th Stolar: And next year I think the 4's like on a Friday. Ruegemer: Friday. th Hoffman: Thursday night street dance. Thursday night street dance, Friday night 4. Stolar: Yep. That will be fun…was fantastic. Other comments? Kelly: The only comment I had is, if I'm reading the t-shirts right, is that about $2,500 loss? On the t-shirts. It costs about $3,000 under promotional sales and it brought in about 465? Stutzman: Yes. Kelly: And have you thought about doing away with doing, away with t-shirts or on the other th extreme having, since it's the 25 anniversary, having some really nice t-shirts similar to this type of material but a lot less. If you sell out, you sell out. Great. But maybe something a little more subtle as opposed to, because the t-shirts year in and year out have always been white and it's always been a very loud logo on it. Even though the logo changes year in and year out, it's still essentially the same t-shirt which is maybe why sales aren't all that great. So I would either recommend doing away with the t-shirts as they are now or maybe having some type of a special th t-shirt for the 25 anniversary and maybe just a lot less of them. Campion: What about sponsored t-shirts? Sponsored t-shirts for the food vendors or something like that to get the names on or. Hoffman: We considered sponsored. The biggest use of the promotional t-shirts are to give back to the people that give us cash for our… Stolar: The sponsors that donate, we give them packages so they can come up and represent you know that they were sponsors. They have the t-shirts. Kind of one of the few gifts that we give to them. Ruegemer: We ordered 700 t-shirts and we probably gave, you know, I guess I don't know how. Stolar: We probably gave at least 300 away. Hoffman: So you're giving 50% of that so of the 3,000, 1,500 of that is an investment to entice people to give you cash, which they gave us $30,000. Then as far as the remaining $1,500, you earn half of that back, and I agree. We've always talked about t-shirts because it's always been the biggest loser but when you take that element of that, you're giving those shirts out to your sponsors as freebies, and then we hear back from them when we drop these off at their front door, they're excited to get that t-shirt and there's only so many t-shirts we give and there's only so many people in the office that they hand out so it's a big deal when they get shipped out. 28 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stolar: Then in relation to what Tom's saying you know, if we could make a special t-shirt, because I know you're planning it already so I would make them even more special. Atkins: I think a special logo but I don't think higher price would do very well. Is it possible to th have t-shirts for sale at some of our sponsored locations preceding the 4 of July, like Byerly's and physical places. I think people would buy them leading into it because there's times, a lot of rd people see them is on the 3 at the street dance and they have to make a decision right then. They're spending loads of cash that night anyway so I think if they were available at a lot of places preceding, people would buy them. And they're the right price and people love them. I know they'll be… Stutzman: One thing I'd like to add to is the giving them to the sponsors because our sponsorship numbers over the last 2 years have gone up in general. Pardon? Kelly: I said okay. Stutzman: Oh, I thought…I'm sorry, but yeah over the last 2 years, at least during my stay I've helped out with the sponsorship as far as initial contacts and so I have seen some of the results when they have gone higher each year over the past 2 years so I would say that is, with them getting those packages, something that's beneficial and has been looked upon as pretty favorable. Stolar: One other thing I would suggest, and I mentioned this I think at Feb Fest. Where we can get our supplies from our sponsors. You know it's worth that extra money that it might take because I do notice that we don't...actually get things, we don't buy things there like we should. Atkins: Can I ask how many, how many people were at that benefit concert… Stutzman: When I went up there I believe, it was just beginning because I was out there to talk with Ann about the weather that was potentially coming. I believe it was about 40 people at that point. And I think it got bigger in speaking with the band. I think that music up there would be another great addition. Giving something else. Maybe not to the extent that the Casablanca Orchestra but something like this benefit concert to give them something else to just kind of relax with and enjoy. Atkins: It's a great idea. It's a great idea and I think if you keep the food vendors up there and the beer truck up there, I think you'd get a lot of people after the parade that would hang around. Stolar: I mean this whole concept of having a 2 day festival now, carnival rides, fun activities, we're going to see a lot of growth. Campion: Has there been any talk of a 5K run or anything like that incorporated or would it just be too hot to do something like that? th Kelly: I think that's tough because Excelsior has a 10 mile, has a 10K and a 2 mile on the 4 and that probably draws on those 600 people. I think you might have too much, on the same day. 29 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 th Campion: And maybe not the 4. Maybe Easter or something like that where we could do a 5K run to kind of highlight the trail system, all that where you use the trails for either a 5K run or bike ride or something like that. Ruegemer: Well you can't really do the 5K run, Dave Huffman Run in September. Campion: In September, okay. I wasn't aware of that. Stolar: The point of the Dave Huffman is, you know once we get some of these bigger loops going…I don't know how wide the trail would be. As we start figuring out and start closing some of these loops, we have some nice runs there. Kelly: Oh yeah. We do. Very nice loops in the city. Daniel: Jerry how much, how much did we raise for the Dave Huffman Memorial? Stolar: It was just over $1,200. Daniel: Really? Excellent. Stolar: Which was actually I believe up from last year's numbers for the prize board. Daniel: Oh it was very busy the first couple hours and I couldn't imagine what. Scharfenberg: …we didn't have much sales after, from 8:30 to when we closed it down. Daniel: But you sure were popular after 8:30. Hoffman: That money comes right back through to the community through the Huffman Run so. Stolar: No, it's a great idea. And I like you put a little note here too with regard to the t-shirts. I mean we, they weren't selling them by the prize board off of a couple of tickets, along with… Hoffman: Expanding our sales window is the best way to go. Atkins: I used to try to get the band to make announcements about the t-shirts. For a couple years they just wouldn't do it. I would have had to go up there and do it myself. Stolar: …but they're very much a staple of this. People come back and say are they coming back next year. Any other questions? Thor? Steve? Kelly: The thing with that is the amount of people they have in that band, I'm surprised that they do it for the price that they're doing it at because I can't see each of those guys taking more than a couple hundred dollars for the event. That just, that amazes me. 30 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stutzman: Melanie has actually already contacted me about bringing more members up next th year and saying that she overheard that it will be our 25 next year and she said she's got some ideas to help them out and help their performance out to get it bigger and better with the festival as well. Daniel: Obviously cost is one thing but, when I saw the cost on there, I agree with Tom. I'm shocked. Kelly: Yeah. Stolar: They were, they just raised it a couple years ago. It was lower than that for a while. Daniel: So much for negotiating right. Stutzman: Thank you. Stolar: We'll look forward to Halloween. The next major event. FALL SOFTBALL LEAGUE REPORT. Ruegemer: Yeah briefly. Just to kind of give an update to the commission. Actually fall softball league information is out right now. Everything is due for the next 2 or 3 days here. I'm already half full on both nights on the softball, both the Tuesday and Thursday nights. So we're, I'll have no problem filling up those leagues. I'll be probably doing schedules next week. And th we'll be starting the week of August 13 and it will go 6 weeks and go until about the end of September with rain out's if we need to have those at all so we kind of abbreviate the fall season a little bit. Go double header format for that and it always fills up pretty quickly. We certainly hope to expand the leagues, both the summer and fall next year with the new lights out at Lake Ann so we're looking forward to that so it's kind of short and simple and…so we'll fill out I'm sure by the end of the week. Stolar: Any questions? Okay. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS: BIKE TOUR. Hoffman: Got a couple of dates I'd like to throw out there for the commission to consider and thth then we'll take those to the other groups. Thursday, September 13 or Thursday, September 20 at 6:00 p.m.. Meeting at Lake Susan Park. Is September better than August I would assume but I don't want to make that assumption. Scharfenberg: Yes it is. Campion: How big would this be? How many participants? Hoffman: Planning Commission, Park Commission and City Council, staff. So we're probably talking 20 to 25 people. 31 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Kelly: That's a bike tour. We'd just be biking on trails? Hoffman: With dinner. Scharfenberg: Do you have a route picked out for that? Hoffman: Yeah. Kelly: I'm designing your route in my head right now and how many miles. 5 miles? 10 miles? 15 miles? Hoffman: Yeah, probably right around 10. Because we're going to have multiple skill levels and abilities. 10 miles should be, it might be less depending on how many stops we make but kind of sites we're looking at. We're trying to take a trail ride but we're trying also to see projects. 2005 MUSA. New high school site. You know some of those projects that are currently underway. Best way to see these is on the ground and walking's one thing but you can't get too far. Biking you can get a long ways and look at a lot of different projects. Campion: So what time where you targeting then? Hoffman: About 6:00 p.m.. We could bike for about an hour and a half and then have a dinner. Campion: Tuesdays are out of the question? Hoffman: No. The Tuesdays that month would be Tuesday. Campion: I was just starting classes in the fall on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I kept Tuesdays free. thth Hoffman: Tuesdays would be fine too. I can throw those out. Either the 11 or the 18. Stolar: Do you want us to get back to you with when our. thth Hoffman: Not really unless like Dan knows that the 11 or the 18 would work better. Anybody else? th Kelly: I have the 20 for me will not work but the 3 dates are just fine. thth Hoffman: So the 11 and 18. ththth Stolar: I also think the 11 and 13 won't work for me but I don't know for sure about the 11. I'll get back to you. Hoffman: Okay, great. 32 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 th Stolar: 13 definitely won't work. th Hoffman: So right now it looks like Tuesday the 18 is probably the best date. Okay, get back to you on that. Stolar: Okay. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS: Stolar: The City Council meeting yesterday, aside from the water ban discussion, they did approve on consent agenda without any discussion whatsoever the Lake Ann picnic shelter and ballfield lighting projects. Did everybody get a copy of this? Hoffman: I don't believe so. Stolar: Oh I'm sorry. Both of the projects came in a little bit higher under bid than what the engineers, or no, I'm sorry. The shelter came in higher than what the engineer's estimated and the lights came in under what the engineer's estimated. Hoffman: Opposite. Stolar: Opposite, sorry. So, but they both came in higher than our CIP so, by about. Hoffman: $70,000. Stolar: $70,000 so. Now is that already included in your balance going into 2008 from what we saw? Hoffman: No. Stolar: Okay, so that will be there so we'll update that. But they were approved and so any target dates then for. Hoffman: We have a pre-con meeting starting this Thursday and then they'll start construction in 2 or 3 weeks and both projects will be done this fall. And so again the low bid on the lights, Hondo Electric, $410,000. Our budget was 400. The engineer's estimate was $403 so the bid came in about $7,000 over the engineer's estimate. The Sunramp Construction was the low bidder on the shelter at 235. The engineer's estimate was 236 and basically what that says is that we tried to get a shelter for $175,000 bucks. We thought that would do it. We sit down with HTPO who is a planner and we say this is what we want. We want a shelter for this many people. Concrete. This, that and the other thing. They put up a design and they say Mr. Hoffman, your shelter is not going to come in at $175,000. What do you want to do? And do you want to bring it down, make it smaller? We say no. We want to go ahead and build the shelter that we wanted. But let's put some add alternates in so we identified a couple of deducts and some rock and a trail section. Didn't really change, $3,700 bucks on the trail and this particular contractor said he wasn't going to save us any money on the deduct for the gravel. He 33 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 was going to charge us more for taking it out so our engineer's estimate was about, on the deduct was $9,000. Or excuse me, $13,000 on the deduct. The lowest, or the highest amount that anybody said they would credit us was $9,000 and the…said no, I'm going to charge you an extra $3,000 for taking that gravel out so we were scratching our heads for a while there during the bid opening process. At least one council member was concerned about this and what this comes down to is, the CIP process we're into right now, we talk about a lot of items and if we really want to get refined and we do a feasibility study, we could pay somebody $5,000 bucks before the project goes out there to do a feasibility study, but then we start conducting all these feasibility studies, and sometimes they're just going to get put on the shelf and that cash is going to go away. So staff, commission, we make our best estimates. You went back. We went back as a group to the council and asked for these projects to get raised from $150,000, if you remember on ballfield lighting, to $400,000. And the shelter to go up from 95 to 175 and so then we even went above that. Council was very supportive. They're convinced that these lights, we need them. The shelter, the one council person that we were talking to in City Manager Gerhardt's office, you know that's a 50 to 75 year investment. Yeah, the council member didn't want it. You said 135. It's not 135 and she understood that that was not a mistake by HTPO or anybody else but just that our estimate was off and so we're spending more money but we're getting what we want. What it really comes down to is the competitive bid process, the open market. Once you put out plans and specs, you know that's the cost of what you're building and so she understood that and the council approved it on a consent agenda so, as I told Glenn last night, this is the largest single investment in CIP work for the park commission in 9 years so congratulations. Took your leadership to sit in that work session if you remember with the council and suggest that these items be increased and moved forward and it was successful so. Stolar: Yep, and I think yeah, the realization I think it's important also that as we raise these numbers, we don't know what they're going to come in. We just don't know so we just adjust in the future CIP accordingly but these are you know, as we talked about when we said about accelerating the lighting and putting the shelter in, there are a couple of features and then we have I think the ballfield facility, building right there. Yeah, those are the things that we said we wanted to do to finalize Lake Ann and get it to where we want it to go so, 2 of the 3 are approved and in the works so that's great. Hoffman: And then something I noted for the council in that $71,000 additional cash that needed to be invested, the other 2 projects we did this year were the Power Hill Park trail, which is being built this week, and the tennis court resurfacing. Both of those projects combined came in under budget $45,000 so came in under budget by 45. So we're in pretty good shape. Stolar: Yep. Any questions on that? Hoffman: A lot of activity in Lake Ann again. th Stolar: Was there anything at the July 9 City Council meeting? I know you weren't able to make it to that one. Was it you or? I saw an email when I was on vacation that we had a City Council meeting. Hoffman: I don't recall. 34 Park and Rec Commission - July 24, 2007 Stolar: Okay, great. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET: Stolar: Any questions on the administrative package? Just one comment that I saw in the park, or in the shelter reservation was a question about putting availability on line. Something to think about in the future. Hoffman: I hope you all noticed that in the comprehensive plan open house, transportation had 1 comment. Historical preservation 2, land use 2, miscellaneous 1 and parks 15. So either you were more successful at soliciting comments or just more interested in parks and open space. Golf was not noted. Lots of things about trails. Many items about park capacity. Then some other unique items for the commission. Three comments, we need more parks and open space. Stolar: And including one person who's willing to pay for it. Hoffman: Offering up cash. With a name. Stolar: Yep. Well, seeing nothing, do we have a motion to adjourn? Daniel moved, Campion seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 35