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PRC 2002 09 24CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 24, 2002 Chairman Franks called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Rod Franks, Amy O'Shea, Glenn Stolar, Paula Atkins, and Jack Spizale MEMBERS ABSENT: Tom Kelly and David Happe STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Dale Gregory, Park Maintenance Director; Susan Marek, Recreation Center Manager APPROVAL OF AGENDA: As presented. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Franks: Are there any commissioners with any changes to the minutes? Amy? O'Shea: I have one on page 9. It should be O'Shea instead of Atkins. Franks: Alright. Are there any other changes to the minutes? Is there a motion to approve the minutes as amended? Spizale moved, Stolar seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission approve the Minutes of the meeting dated August 27, 2002 amended on page 9 to change the statement made by Atkins to O'Shea. All voted in favor and the motion carried. REVIEW PROPOSED 2003 PARK AND RECREATION CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Franks, members of the commission. The next two items are placed on your agenda simply for refresher prior to next Monday night's joint meeting with the City Council. Item number 2 is placed on your agenda for a second reason and that is to provide you with the clarification on the funding source for all of the items which are labeled Capital Replacement Fund. In conversation with Bruce DeJong, City's Finance Director, this is the proper location or proposed funding source for these improvements. We have placed them in the general fund but there was a differentiation between the general fund and the capital replacement fund. So the CIP as presented here totals $893,000 that the Park Commission is forwarding to the City Council. I'm not sure if they've received this yet. Probably later on in the capital budget discussions with Mr. Gerhardt, the City Manager and Mr. DeJong. So the items there are listed and for park dedication fund and capital replacement fund are self explanatory. There may be one deletion and that's the carpet at the Rec Center. During that review we discovered that there Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 was still money in this year for carpet at the Rec Center. It was listed as a cut last year but was never cut, and so Susan's securing quotes for carpet at the Rec Center and we may put that in. And she's looking at the squares similar to the carpet that's going in the library so you get the bad stain in one square, you rip it out and put it back down, so that might happen this year. The remaining items, the other one we looked at this evening, the Lake Ann Park resurfacing. 1972 right Dale, we talked about that installation probably happened? Gregory: Correct. Hoffman: Yeah, so you're looking at 30 year old pavement out there. The 240 is for an overlay so they would patch the worst of what you see there. Put down a petrol mat and then pave over the top of that again, so you will see some fracturing or the cracks coming back through that. The worst cracks but some of that alligatoring that you saw, the alligatoring checks, that would hold through that new application. And then the other items here totally $510,000 in park dedication fund allocations and $383 in capital replacement fund allocations. Any questions on item 2? Stolar: One quick question. The cover on the previous memo, it talked about the, in the second paragraph that the 510 equals $38,000 more than the average of 582. Should that be 482 or, because we have 510 for park fees? Hoffman: I think that's 482 plus the. Stolar: Plus 38 would be... I don't know if this is going to the City Council that we need to correct it or if this is just for our reminder. Hoffman: That's a typo. I think what it's supposed to be is, proposed 2003 CIP investment of park dedication fund which is 510 is $38,000 more than what should be 548. That looks right is there. Stolar: Are the numbers on here? Hoffman: I'll double check that number but I think that number should be $548. The average income the past 4 years should be 548, not 582. Stolar: So we're asking for this year would be lower than the average out of the park dedication? Hoffman: I'll go upstairs during this meeting and I'll find out that answer for you. Find it on file. Stolar: Or at the next meeting. Hoffman: Well we want to clarify it now because... Franks: Any other questions for staff'? Okay, seeing none then we'll move onto item number 3 under old business. REVIEW DISCUSSION TOPICS, JOINT MEETING WITH THE CITY COUNCIL. Hoffman: Thanks Chair Franks, members of the commission. These were developed probably back in June or July, and the packet will go out to the City Council tomorrow so if there's any modifications or deletions or additions that you would like to see, you're certainly welcome to make those. Otherwise you will go into next Monday's meeting, which is at 6:45. The times are Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 changed. When this original memo was made back in June, the time was going to be 8:00 p.m., but it's 6:45. So 6:45 on Monday you'll have an hour with the City Council. Franks: Okay. Are there any comments regarding the four discussion points that we have laid out? Has anyone come up with any kind of an addition in the intervening period? Do any of the commissioners require any clarification on any of the four items? Great. Okay. My personal experience in the joint meetings with the City Council is they go best when there's lively participation from all the commissioners so I would encourage all of you to take some time to think about these four points so we can come prepared to quickly and succinctly enter those opinions into the conversation so, great. Alright, thank you Todd. Let's move onto reports. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: DAVE HUFFMAN 5K MEMORIAL RUN. Franks: First report that we're considering tonight is recreation programs. Jerry. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Franks and members of the commission. We're talking about the Dave Huff`man 5K Memorial 5K Race. That did happen Saturday, September 14th. I thank all of the commissioners that helped out with that event. Again it was a success in our eyes and it started out with a little rain that morning, but it certainly stopped by race time. Again we registered, I think our final numbers were roughly around 300 people. We did very close to 200 runners, walk-up's that morning, which was probably about 50 more walk-up's than last year so we certainly needed those numbers to kind of make it around that 300 mark again so. You know again we did have a lot of involvement from the Minnesota Vikings this year with Ragnar being out there. With the Vikings Cheerleaders. They did donate a few things for the goody bags. Leo Lewis who works for the Vikings actually ran the race this year and helped out kind of with the emceeing at the end. We had really kind of a major sponsor with KFAN who did some on air promotion for us. Mike Morris was out there. If many of you listen to KFAN in the morning, the superstar was out there helping out and he emceed kind of at the last minute since Joe Schmitt, the sportscaster from Channel 5 was supposed to do that again this year, was called out of town late in the week right before the event because the Twins were clinching the conference title in Cleveland that weekend. So he was called out of town kind of last minute and Mike graciously accepted the emceeing duties with that so it was actually a lot of fun. He I think brings a sense of excitement to the event and I hope to have him back next year, along with Joe Schmitt so. Joe Schmitt was really fun last year too. He ran the race and that kind of gave some personal testimony to the crowd afterwards and I think a lot of the crowd liked listening kind of the Viking's stories from player to player type of thing they kind of shared. I think we as a race committee I think need to educate people a little bit more as to who Dave was. I think we're so consumed with this whole idea, concept, special event that I think we're losing focus... A lot of people came up to us at the race and asked who was Dave Huffman so maybe we need to educate people a little bit more on that so. The kids race was brand new this year. I gave away 43 medals for the first year. I think we could do a lot better job on that as well as far as getting the information out sooner and pulling that together and it was a, kind of a fun event. It was really kind of fun seeing the kids come down the finish line and Ragnar, the Viking's mascot did kind of place the medals over the kids necks so it's kind of fun and he was there along to cheer on the people as they came across the finish line so. We did meet again tonight and go over kind of many aspects of the race and we're going to put it to bed now for a while and pick it up sometime early, late winter. Probably next year. We've already been working on updating information and securing people for next year. We've done that already. As far as the Race Director and a lot of our intemet obligations that we have so we're moving forward. So if you just look on the second Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 page, it's just kind of the race results per age group. Male and female. How they finished. Their home town and times. And then this is, I'm not sure if any of you have gone on Raceberryjam.com, but this is the kind of the official race results from the race from first to last and everybody inbetween and how they finished per age category and all that. So does anybody have any questions? I'm dazzling you with paperwork. Franks: So as far as the bank balance. Ruegemer: 51 in the bank right now. Franks: Okay, so that's looking. Ruegemer: That's exactly where we want it to be. We did increase our donations this year from 1,000 per group to 1,500 this year so we always want, as kind of seeing that 1,000 and 1,500 range per group so we're bank rolling about the amount that we wanted to again so we have some seed money for next year just in case something may fall through, but a lot of the major components, the shirts, a lot of those type of things were paid for through sponsorships. Franks: Any other questions anyone? Seeing no questions, are there comments from commissioners? Stolar: Just commending Chairperson Franks for his run. Franks: Well thank you. I will comment though that both of my children ran in the kids race and were very proud finishers so they thought that was just the best. Jerry, Ihope that we see that again next year. My only other comment is about the date that we choose for the race. Because it's exactly the same day as the Nickel Dickel Race in Waconia. So I'm wondering if there's every thought about the weekend before or, I don't know what if that conflicts with something. I remember when I was on the committee there was, we kept trying to find a weekend to see what it conflicts with so. Ruegemer: Yeah we certainly had talked about that initially and then kind of over the course of time, since the race's inception but at this point I think the race committee really feels that we have something established and I don't know that we're going to be changing the weekends. I know we go head to head with Nickel Dickel and. Hoffman: There's one person from Waconia I think. Franks: Traitor. Ruegemer: So you know it's very hard to kind of come up with weekends, especially in the fall time with other races and that going on but. Franks: Well I guess what I'm seeing is that this is really turning into a pretty close to home, regional kind of event, which is perfect but we might just be able to draw more from our area and then if we necessarily weren't conflicting with a race that's you know right next door. Hoffman: How many people run Nickel Dickel, do we know? Ruegemer: I don't know. Susan, do you know? Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Marek: No I don't know the numbers but I do know that all the talk at the rec center is about the Nickel Dickel race, so just... Hoffman: Among staff or the public? Marek: No, the public. Because we talk up the race in our fitness classes, and people are going oh no, we're doing the Nickel Dickel race. Hoffman: Been around for longer. Franks: And it's got the big event that surrounds it as well so obviously they're not going to consider changing. If any changing's going to be done, it's going to have to be done on our end SO. Ruegemer: And I don't know that that will happen. Franks: Okay. Just want to bring it to your attention. Ruegemer: Thank you Rod. Franks: Okay, seeing no other questions regarding the Dave Huffman 5K, good work to all. And Jerry, if you would pass that onto the whole race committee, that'd be great too. And Todd, have we sent a memo to the members of the race committee from the commission? Hoffman: Not that I'm aware of. Ruegemer: Shall I draft one? Franks: If the commission approves, I'd recommend to staff that they forward a memo to the race committee members and to select sponsors that, with what you decide, thanking them from the commission for all their hard work in this great event. 2002 LAKE ANN PARK CONCESSION OPERATIONS. Ruegemer: Moving onto the Lake Ann concession evaluation. As I was paging through the item I noticed that there was a, the second page was not printed on there so I did pass that out tonight to you. The one that I passed out. If you look on the back side it's kind of the nuts and bolts of the financial statement so I'll kind of go through that with you real quick. This year, as you know, we had quite a bit of rain this summer so that certainly did hamper sales out at the concession stand. When it wasn't raining it was cold at times, and we just didn't seem to have the traffic as we have in the past down there. And it sure did appear that the swimming raft did, getting rid of that, it did slow down some of the activity as well but on the flip side, as I mentioned, it seems to be kind of going back to kind of a family atmosphere which is I think nice. With that. It seems like people are bringing their kids back down again and having fun so hopefully they can open up the pocket books a little bit more and grab some sodas or something and that's certainly what we look to for the future. Looking at just some general comments. The slush puppies are always a good thing. The meal deal I think we're going to raise the price on that next year a little bit. I'm going to do probably a boat rental increase across the board on that. I think we're slightly low on that so we're just hopefully going to add some components where we can obtain some additional revenue with that. Looking on the back side of that part of the new report I sent out, as we look at boat rentals we did increase from last year in that what we're Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 trying to do too is with the picnics coming in, we do a lot of company picnics. I certainly try to sell, you know if we want to set aside some paddleboats, that sort of thing, it's kind of guaranteed money for us so we've been really trying to help ourselves with that as well and coordinate that between the companies and the concession staff`down there to have those available so that certainly helps. With the amount of days that we were closed, it did certainly increase the boat rentals. As we look at the expenditures, concession hours and wages, roughly about the same bottom line as last year. What I really tried to do even more this year as I have in the past, since we were a little bit of money in the hole from the lifeguard contract, I really tried to kind of put the squeeze on our manager out there and myself to kind of watch the bottom dollar on the supplies and we did cut some money on that, or save some money for the Lake Ann budget operations so we're in pretty good shape with that. So if we look at our total supplies and wages, we're at roughly around $12,000 with revenues of about 13.5 so net profit we did make a little bit more money than last year, just even with the slower year so. And that certainly is our goal from year to year is to turn a profit, whether it be large or small, it certainly is our goal to do that so. And if you just look through the rest of the report, we have a memo from our manager, Erin who's been with us 4 to 5 years. Does a great job. This I think is her last year. She's going to graduate school. Started this fall so we were very fortunate to have a very excellent worker and manager down there so. She kind of goes through a lot of the things that we certainly address from year to year. If you look at, in the next couple of pages, when we have the daily food and boat sales, starting from May all the way to the last day in August, that certainly includes rain days and those sort of things. We have kind of our vendor expenses, whether it be Coca Cola or Watson who supplies the chips and candy and ice cream to Bessel Foods where we get buns and ketchup sort of thing. You see Target on there. We did something a little different this year. We went to Target to kind of get our, for the meal deals we had the bag of chips and that. We could get the chips a little bit cheaper if we go to Target with that so, we're always looking for new ways to save some money and that seemed to do pretty good for us this year. And then the last page is just the workers that we had down there. Their hourly wage, total hours and total wages for the summer and then that all kind of goes back into the report. Does anybody have any questions? Spizale: I've got one. Is the raft gone for good? Ruegemer: Yes. O'Shea: Jerry, out of curiosity, how do you handle inventory here, or shifts? Do you cash out every time a shift or? Ruegemer: We don't cash out during the shift changes since we do have overlap on that, but we do Z reports at the end of each day, and then we have inventory sheets on a daily basis. O'Shea: Do you deal with much theft? Ruegemer: Not really. We had I guess some external or non-employee theft early on when the building opened, but now that we have our security system that works out there, we started with a, was it a Barga System from Carver County and that was okay. But since we added our current security system, we haven't had any break-in's for quite a while. Franks: Good work on keeping costs down this year. Watching the bottom line. I just want to make sure that every year this report comes that there's some mention of a slush puppy machine. Ruegemer: The Bahama Mama was the new one down there this year, which was very popular. Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Franks: Alright. Well if there's no more comments or questions from commissioners regarding the park concessions at Lake Ann, then we'll move onto the 2002 Halloween Party coming up next month. 2002 HALLOWEEN PARTY. Ruegemer: That is coming up next month. Saturday, October 26th out at the Recreation Center. Never too early to start asking about volunteers so I'm going to pass a sheet around if there's anybody interested in that. I'll start that and pass it around. With that, a lot of the same types of activities as last year. You know games, hay rides, refreshments. Corey has been working with the, some of the local organizations to obtain volunteers already as well, so I know the Bluff Creek gym is also arranged this year for the event, so a lot of the games and that sort of thing in the gym again. A lot of the same types of rooms and set up's as we have in the past so. The flyers have been done for about 3 weeks now. Sitting in our office. They're raring to go. Corey will distribute those here by the next week or two to get them to the schools, to get the word out on those so. Other than that, does anybody have any questions? Hoffman: There's a devil, a bat...political correctness questions quite often so, it's been in the news. Devil going to bother the people or is the devil okay? Spizale: I know witches bother people. I'm not sure about the devil. Franks: You hate to take things too far but if you can do it another way and it's not a big deal, why not I guess is my thinking. Hoffman: Well let's reprint the flyers. Franks: Oh they've all been printed. Ruegemer: If you would like that to happen, we certainly can do that. Hoffman: ...nobody's, these have not gone out. Franks: Any opinions? Marek: I think you'll get some comments. Negative comments. I have a feeling. Hoffman: This is why we have a park commission. Spizale: Might be safe to choose something else. Stolar: What's the cost to reprint? Ruegemer: Yeah, what's a ream of color papers? 60? 80 bucks? Not a ream, I'm sorry. A case. Franks: I was going to say, where do you buy paper? Ruegemer: So probably roughly 100 bucks in paper plus labor. Franks: And that's all done in-house, you do these? Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Marek: I can use the paper that's already printed if you decide to trash those. I'll take them. Ruegemer: Recycle them or use? Marek: No, I run them into time cards. Franks: Well since we have an offer for an adaptive re-use of the paper, I think there's some at least consensus here that we should maybe choose a different thing here. What are you, what would you consider? Hoffman: There's a thousand of them in artwork, no problem. Franks: Yes, I'm sure this was one of them in there but that's why you know. Hoffman: We'll pick a safe. Franks: Safe and benign. Stolar: Have you heard stuff`before or is this just a concem you're thinking ahead, in advance that this may cause issues? Hoffman: No. I haven't heard any concems. It's not the public but this kind of stuff is the stuff that is becoming increasingly sensitive in the public eye. Some people don't like the association of the devil. Some people don't like Halloween altogether. Stolar: Yeah, I was going to say well yeah. Hoffman: It's just their level of comfort, and we try to err on the safe side where we can. Franks: Why not? It would be our recommendation then to go ahead. Hoffman: Or you can do a test case. You guys can send it out, and test the sensitivity of our public. Stolar: I mean are we going to have decorations watched too? I mean I don't want to get, I mean it's Halloween. Franks: Yeah but the difference is that the people who come... Stolar: ...over here on the poster is different than how we decorate in the. Franks: Correct. Stolar: Okay, yes. I think that that's best. Franks: Yeah, and that's my only thing for bringing this up is that this is going to go home with everybody. Stolar: It's intrusive in those who may not wish to partake versus if someone goes to the center, they're there for Halloween. Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Hoffman: Good description. Stolar: Okay, thank you. Franks: Great. Will you still be able to make the, yes. You'll have plenty of time to make timelines. The only other comment that I have is Oscar and Half Pint. Make sure that their sound system is adequate and that if there's something that we can do to more distinctly define their stage area. Like cones with tape, you know that, because it just was not looking safe to me last year. They had little children running around behind them and the cords were there and you know the kids were encroaching, encroaching, encroaching, closer and closer and closer, and if they could back farther up so there's more room for people to sit. Anything else regarding the Halloween Party? Okay, great. Hoffman: Decorations are ready. Marek: Yeah, the entrance to the Rec Center. I just commented to Todd earlier that there's a bit of a risk we take in having that many pumpkins right out front. We'll see how that goes. RECREATION CENTER. Franks: Okay, there are no self supporting programs to report on and Susan, that brings you up next with the Recreation Center. We appreciate you hanging in there with us this evening. Marek: Well thank you. Commissioners, thanks for visiting the Rec Center tonight. A bit unexpected on my part, but glad you could stop out. Things happening at the Rec Center this fall. Certainly our traffic cycles with the school year and so we've seen an increase in our traffic. Tonight when you were there, we did have 3 meetings rooms that were occupied while you were there. The fourth one, that meeting didn't start until 8:00. So we did have 4 meeting rooms filled tonight. We also had dance class and then follow that up with an aerobic class tonight as well so. The only traffic we're missing at this point is the open basketball traffic and with another week of cold weather I'm sure that will pick up as well. When you walked into the Rec Center, hopefully you noticed the wonderful decorations that we had at our entrance. As well as the somewhat meager garden with the park bench installed. Next year it's going to look much better so we look forward to having a more beautiful entrance in the spring. This fall we're starting a new fitness class. I believe it's going to be called Balls and Bands, and that is a fitness class. And we're going to be holding that class in a meeting room, not in the dance studio so it will be our first adventure in offering fitness classes outside of that traditional setting. We will also offer that class for free for the week. Or excuse me, for the month of October and then we'll start charging after that. Every year in December for the last two years, and again coming up this December, we will have our punch cards on sale. This is when we sell the most punch cards. We'll be selling a 40 punch card and throwing in a 10 punch card for free. So try to boost the sales here right before the end of the calendar year for us. Dance season has begun. We have 3 very young instructors working at the Rec Center this year so we look forward to some big changes there, and a more youthful appearance to our dances. All of our instructors are under the age of 24. So it's been a great start this year with these young instructors and so we look forward to big things from them. When I put item number 5 into our notes here about carpet replacement is in our future, I wondered if maybe that was looking into the crystal ball and seeing what I wanted to see, but it appears that's becoming more firm as time goes on. I do have two quotes that are being prepared right now by local carpet dealers and installers. It's possible that we'll split that installation over the Christmas/New Year break and possibly be able to write those expenses oft~ Half in one year, half in the next year to make that work out better financially for us. And our child care program Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 has resumed. Some of the veteran commissioners remember that this is a program that I struggle with continually. This year we're offering child care only 3 days a week, and only for 2 hours on each of those days. I can say that the first 3 weeks of child care have been not impressive. I think we probably only had 6 different children come and use our facility so it seems we hit a high point about 2 years ago where we had to make a go of it and we could at least break even and we've really been struggling with that for the last year and a half. Part of the reason we only offer it 3 days a week is to minimize our risk. Our financial risk because we just don't seem to have captured and held that market. So we'll see how that all falls out. I'll have an update with actual numbers here at the next time you see me which will be in 3 months or so. And then we'll probably have to take a serious look and decide if it's something we're going to continue or not. Hoffman: Very specific market. Marek: You know it's a hard thing. Everybody wants child care at their own convenience. Unfortunately a convenience based child care doesn't necessarily lead to profitability for us so right now we're pretty much just trying to hit stay at home moms who want to come to an aerobic class, which is where the bulk of our market has been in the past but you know those kids grew up and now they're in school so, Mrs. O'Shea knows that. Any customers that you can sort of drum up for us, we appreciate. In the last 2 weeks I did allocate about 200 hours of free gym space to local sports associations, with the primary winners in the game being the Chanhassen Athletic Association, and the Chaska Youth Basketball Association. Every year the Rec Center does contribute about that many hours of free gym space for them to allocate amongst their teams for practices and games. We did have about 7 different parties involved in vying for that space. Some were basketball associations. We have lacrosse, soccer, volleyball, I think that's about it. Obviously we give priority to the in season sports and as well we also give priority to those associations that have the most participants. So that process went through as usual and we were able to satisfy most parties involved. Hoffman: But not hours. Marek: But not hours, correct. It's a hard one with such limited resources from the city. Only having one gymnasium. Certainly these associations are getting the bulk of their needs satisfied through the local school districts. And on a bright note, last Friday night was the fourth annual bamyard boogie. We had 320 people at the Rec Center for the party. Once again the highlight of the evening is certainly the barnyard animals that can be found, both inside and outside the building. This year's star animal was a Scottish Highland Calf, that had bright red bushy hair that covered his eyes. The kids just went nuts for him. It's a great party and one of the most successful things we do out there. That's it from the Rec Center. Franks: Bamyard boogie. Okay. Any questions for Susan regarding the Rec Center? Spizale: No questions. I'm just impressed on how often these community rooms are rented. I didn't realize it was that busy. Marek: During the school year it is. Quite often in the mornings we'll have a mothers group or bible studies. Usually the aftemoons slow down. They're pretty empty. And then we'll have an after school activity like...Explorer program. That will clear out and then we'll get into the evening activities which involve some of our own recreation offerings like Tae Kwan Do or tonight I had Yoga going on. Or private organizations renting, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and also for profit businesses. Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Spizale: That's a question too. What do the rooms rent out for? Marek: The rooms that have the kitchenette rent for $12.50 an hour. The rooms that don't have kitchenettes rent for $10.00 an hour. Generally it's important to keep in mind that the most of the rentals at the Recreation Center are free rentals and that's through non-profit, city based organizations. City based organizations. And so we do the majority of the room use is at no charge. Spizale: Okay, thanks. I love the bench out there too. It looks great. O'Shea: Susan, I've got a couple questions because I do remember the days where it was really packed in the child care. Have you seen, I'm assuming, I haven't looked at the schedule lately. I'm assuming you've coordinated the fitness classes. Marek: Right. O'Shea: Start a little bit after 9:00 so people can get in. Marek: Yeah, they start at 9:00. O'Shea: Have you seen a drop in attendance in those at the times that you have child care? Marek: No, we generally haven't. Other than the drop that we've seen across the board in our whole fitness class offering. And that drop started of course with the downturn in the economy as well as the closure of Highway 5. So across the board we have. Specific to that time slot, nothing unusual. O'Shea: It'd be interesting to survey those people for a 2 week timeframe of finding out what ages their children are. You know are they finding altemative options like a neighbor, well I'll watch them while you go this day and you know swapping that way or if it is kids that are growing up and now are in school. You know what you're attracting in those fitness classes and their ages of their children. Marek: You know in our fitness classes, particularly those that we run at 9:30 a.m., our market segment is a stay at home person, you know who can come to a class at that time. So that is our market segment. We used to pull a lot of stay at home parents from the Longacres neighborhood and then from Stone Creek. O'Shea: That's why it'd be neat to see where they're coming from now. Marek: Both of them are groups of people, and they're all repeat customers. We don't have you know the strangers coming in and coming out of those aerobic classes. It's a core group of people that continue to come and make up those classes and for those, for that core group, their children have gotten older. But you know there's got to be people out there. O'Shea: That'sjustit, is that you're not having new participants. You know you're not building your base. Marek: At this point, no. It seems to be a lot of repeat. Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 O'Shea: So you know, so you don't have to survey. You know that the people coming are, their kids are older now? Marek: Yes. And it is kind of, it's kind of a catch-22 because we would like to increase participation but then do we need to increase child care or are they not coming because we don't have a lot of child care conveniently available, or are they not coming for another reason? It's been a rough year for the Rec Center in that we've been more level. It hasn't been a real growth year for us. Franks: I think next year will be a more telling year with Highway 5 open. Marek: I hope so. Also, by the way. Just another thing that happened a year ago in September. The school start times changed drastically from the previous year. Swung more than an hour difference in school start times in District 112, so that also affected people's ability to participate because maybe they had older children who's schools ended up starting later. That also affected it. O'Shea: Yeah, Bluff`Creek didn't change more than 5 minutes but maybe. Marek: From this year to last year, but the previous year they moved an hour. They used to start at 9:20. Now they start at 8:20. O'Shea: Interesting though because you want to pull in new people somehow. Hoffman: Programming isn't that large so it doesn't take a very drastic change to show, if you're down at all you have problems. If you go up, you're going to feel a little bit more comfortable. That's where...been for the last 6 years. Marek: I have to have 10 children show up for an hour each day we're open to pay for it. Franks: Not happening? Marek: No. Franks: Well let's take a look at your report next quarter. You'll have some hard numbers for us then so we can really see what's going on. But I like to hear that the building's being used and being used by the community so. We always put you last Mr. Gregory. Gregory: It's okay, I can wait. Franks: You have to wait around until we're all done. PARK & TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT. Gregory: That's okay. Good evening commissioners. Summer activities in the park have all come to an end. The only thing we've got going now is fall soccer and some football yet, so all of our kids are back in school so we don't have any of the high school kids and that so all of our grass cutting and everything and that now has fallen onto what I call a senior seasonals, and the retired people that are here and that. We do have 4 of those that work for us and they do an extraordinary job. I mean they come early in spring and help us out, and through summer, and they can stay until we don't need them anymore so without them we'd really be up a creek with Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 cutting grass so they do a lot for us. On a sad note, we did have one, I don't know if you guys remember Bob Bish. He would work downtown. This was his third year. Always go around, he had a big straw hat on, pushing a lawnmower. He did have a heart attack this year, and he ended up with a triple by-pass but 10 days after his operation and that he was out walking on the streets already so he's, he walks continually. He walks 5 miles a day and so he's really, when he'd come to work for us and that, we talked about putting him on a lawnmower and that and he said he wants to push one. He doesn't want to ride. And I think he's 78. Hoffman: Retired postman. Gregory: Retired postman and that. Now whether he's coming back next year I don't know and that. I mean he's really doing good. He's in, you know the doctor says he's doing good shape and that so we'll see what happens. He really enjoys working for us and that so. Hoffman: Over the years he might be our oldest employee. Gregory: Probably is. He's probably our oldest employee. Well he's really a good guy. Also Jerry helped out this year with our soccer fields. We were able to take two of them out of the rotation. One at Bandimere and one at Lake Ann so we were able to get in and re-seed those and get them, try to get them in a lot better shape for next year. And we've been talking about that, trying to get one or two out, or whatever we can in the fall to actually re-seed and get them going again. So if that holds true each year and that, maybe we can do that with one or two and that, I mean it would be great. It will help us with our soccer fields. The restoration at Lake Ann, going in by the building. Our plans were really to have that all done by the 4th of July for everything and that. Weather didn't help us out at all. We weren't able to get in there. So we decided to wait until fall and do the seeding and that in September. So we've got everything, it's all graded out. We've got all the seeding done that we need to do. We've got a little bit of sod that's got to be laid right in front of the building and on the other side by one of our catch basins and that down there, and that should be done probably next week so that project will be completed all by next week. We were able to get the STS again in. They came in. We have for 2 days we had 10 people each day and we did all the wood chipping at Bluff Creek, the elementary, the rec center, all the way down Coulter Drive and then we also went into some of our parks and re-did that so I mean those people are a big help for us and they did do a lot of work on our picnic tables, painting and different things and that so we call on them as much as we can and we've gotten to know the guy in charge of them so whenever he's got some time and that, he gives us a call right away and sees if I've got work which, we kind of always try to keep something on the back so we can bring them in. It works good. He's got a good crew there. Hoffman: Sentenced to Service. Gregory: Sentenced to Serve, right. We also, these are the older people in that they bring them out during the week. Occasionally they have the juveniles, but they can only come on Saturdays. It's real tough for us to have anything for them to do unless it's like, like I say, unless it's painting soccer goals or stuff`like that where they can do it outside and not. We don't have to have somebody there all the time with them, so it's tougher with those, but again we try to accommodate them if we possibly can. We are in the process of overlaying some of our trails. We should be starting on those in probably a week. We've got about a half of mile of trails that will be overlayed and also the South Lotus Lake boat access and the parking lots. It's going to be completely redone this year. So we're down there right now. We've had a water problem on the one side of that parking lot. We cured that problem with drain tile and found out where the water's coming from so we've addressed that and like I say, I'm meeting Thursday moming with Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 the blacktopping guy to go through them and we should be going in about a week. Week to 10 days and it will be done. One other note I have on there is about elm. Dutch elm disease. For some reason and that, it's really popping up again this year all over in that we've got several in some of our parks that have died. Bandimere has got some down there and we've definitely got to take care of them. There's different areas that I've got an ongoing list right now and those will be addressed this fall. When we do our trails we go through all the trails and do all the brushing and that so we can get through with the trucks for plowing and anything in the way for people walking through, we try to address that and get it all done so. That's pretty much everything that we're in the process of doing right now. Just trying to keep up with ongoing maintenance problems. We've got one other project that we will be starting probably next week, is Carver Beach. We've got a real erosion problem around the swimming beach area. We're losing beach area and we've got the okay to go in there, that we're going to be rocking the whole area except for right where the beach is. That will be, in fact the guys are going to be going down there, are going to get rocks and everything tomorrow so that's, we will be working on that probably Thursday and Friday this week already. Try and eliminate some of the erosion down there. Any questions? Franks: I have to tell you, great summer. Everything looked good as far as I could see all summer long so could tell you guys are out there working. Gregory: We had a year with a lot of rain and I don't think we've cut as much grass as we ever had. It is starting to slow down now and thin out and that, but I mean we're still cutting, well especially ballfields and that, we're still cutting those things and that 2 times a week. And then during the summer, like I say, it's really tough the way it was growing, to keep up with. We did have to vacuum several of them every once in a while because by the time you got back the second time, they were too high already. And some of the problems, we do mow in the rain. I mean we can't afford to not mow if it's drizzling out or raining a little bit. The guys are real good. I mean they keep mowing unless it's really bad, but if we give up a day of mowing, that puts us way back. Hoffman: Then they can't sleep at night. Gregory: Well we're mowing, on an average we're mowing over 400 acres a week, and actually more than that because the soccer fields and ballfields all get done twice a week. Franks: Well good job staying on top of it. Well if there's no more questions regarding park or trail maintenance, we'll move onto committee reports. I don't believe there's any commissioners present tonight that are serving on a committee. So we'll open it up for any commission member presentations. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS: Franks: Are there any commissioners wishing to make a presentation? Stolar: Just a comment. During the tour today, Todd had mentioned that we might want to ask staff`to start looking at the master plan around Pulte and that area, so that we can get ahead of the game as to how we want to look at that area behind the Pulte development. Franks: As far as development? Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Stolar: Well the park area, yeah. The master plan. What we want to do with that open space. So I don't know if that's a motion or if that's, this is the appropriate place. Hoffman: Make a motion. Franks: Be more than willing to entertain a motion regarding that, if someone wants to put one together. Stolar: On the fly. Franks: On the fly. Stolar: Motion that we ask staff to begin work on developing a master plan for the open space around the Pulte development. Franks: Is there a second to the motion? Spizale: Second. Stolar moved, Spizale seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission direct staffto begin work on developing a master plan for the open space around the Pulte development. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously. Franks: Todd, you'll pick an agenda. Hoffman: We'll formalize that into an agenda item and bring it back. Franks: Okay, when it's appropriate. Thanks. If there's no other presentations, then we can take a look at the administrative packet. Are there any comments regarding the administrative packet? Jerry just one that I have again is, you know it's every month just the comments for the park shelters and the park rentals are just tops so great. I just love seeing that again and again. People being pleased with using our facilities here. Spizale: I do want to note the question that was asked of Director Hoffman's kid. What's the answer? Are they amateurs or pros... It's on, which one. Hoffman: Oh the Rotary one. Spizale: Yeah... Stolar: It's fun reading these things when you get little comments like that in there. Hoffman: That was Mr. Slagle. Franks: Any other comments regarding the administrative packet? I guess I did have one comment. It's popped up in our administrative packet before, but Eden Prairie's move to go completely non-smoking on any city owned properties. And I know that we've kind of kicked that discussion topic around, but now with them making such a move like that, I'm wondering if you've received any kinds of calls along those lines too, or comments from. Park and Rec Commission September 24, 2002 Hoffman: Nothing recently. Jerry is working, smoke free policy for youth facilities. At that time we could talk about whether that.., broaden or not. Franks: Well, we'll wait for that. Okay, well if there's nothing more. Hoffman: I have the math on CIP. Franks: Great. Hoffman: And it wasn't even close so it was a matter of old math, mixing old math with new math, which tumed into something that we didn't catch and perhaps it would have changed Mr. Happe's motion, or vote last time around so I apologize for that. But if you go to that second paragraph, the proposed 2003 CIP. Investment in park dedication dollars is, the correct number is $72,000 less than the funds annual average income for the past 4 years of $582,000. So it's $72,000 less. Our average income for the past 4 years, in '98 it was $561,000. In '99 it was $699,000, which I believe may be the record year in park dedication in this town. For the city. 2000, $631,000. And then continuing on the downward trend which will continue again this year. It may level off is 2001, $435,000 so that's an average of $582. Then there's, so knowing this, a little farther down the paragraph, it's apparent that the proposed 2003 CIP investment level of over 500,000, being 510, is fairly aggressive. So I apologize for those errors in those are the corrected numbers. I will change this report as it goes to City Manager and before it goes to the City Council. Franks: Thank you. That clears that up? Stolar: Yes. Atkinsmoved, Stolarseconded that the Park and Recreation Commission adjourn. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim