PRC 2009 02 24
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 24, 2009
Chairman Daniel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jeff Daniel, Glenn Stolar, Steve Scharfenberg, Thor Smith and Dan
Campion
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Tom Kelly and Scott Wendt
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; and Jerry Ruegemer, Park
Superintendent
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:Campion moved, Smith seconded to approve the agenda with
the addition of item 5.5 under New Business, Recommendation for new Park and
Recreation Commissioners. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 5 to 0.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hoffman: I just want to thank all of you for your support at February Festival. I think we had
100% attendance, if my recollection is correct so thank you so much. It was a great day and we
received some publicity on that slot limit. A lot of talk in the community. That’s a good thing.
Not the bad thing but we’re putting the pressure on Victoria to keep their contest legal so. There
were 2 fish that were too long and were ineligible and one of them happened to end up in the
paper because everybody likes a picture of a big fish so.
Daniel: Now is that slot limit instituted by the city or the DNR?
Hoffman: DNR.
Daniel: DNR? Okay.
Hoffman: 24 to 36 Northerns must be immediately released so.
Daniel: Gotch ya.
Hoffman: But thanks again for all your support. We appreciate it.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Daniel: I see that we have Todd, you’re here and is the time where we’re going to take care of
that? Todd?
Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Hoffman: You can either talk now or wait for the item which is probably item number 5. It all
depends on. You can say your piece and head home or you can wait. You’re certainly welcome
to do either.
Todd Neils: I think I’ll defer for now.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Scharfenberg moved, Campion seconded to approve the
verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
January 27, 2009 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 5 to 0.
OPPORTUNITY TO EXPAND BANDIMERE COMMUNITY PARK.
Daniel: We had a chance to talk with Todd this morning about that and certainly there’s some,
these are things that we’ve talked about before so, Todd is there anything you want to expand
with the rest of the commissioners on? On our meeting.
Hoffman: Absolutely. I’d like to go through again the brief history about Bandimere
Community Park and the story of how we arrived where we’re at and what the possibilities are
into the future. Bandimere Park started right here. I was at the council meeting when they were
approving referendum language and the language did not include, the ballot did not include a
question about acquisition of parkland and a council member at the time, Councilman Bill Boyt
suggested we add a question about the acquisition of parkland because it was in a citizen survey
that said we were short for parkland, especially in the southern part of our community so they
added a question, shall the City sell bonds not exceeding $300,000 I believe it was to purchase
parkland in the city. It passed by 4 votes and that history is in here and we also had some
failures by 2 or 3 votes so it’s an interesting read if you take a look at where we are today
because of these past and failed referendum votes that had been critical to the success of the
community and the build out of the community park system. Al Klingelhutz was instrumental in
the acquisition. The procurement of this property. Al was a realtor for much of his life and he,
the city looked at Mr. Klingelhutz from time to time to go out into the community and strike up
another deal for parkland acquisition. Mr. Klingelhutz was credited with the acquisition with the
original phase of Lake Ann Park back in 1969 and then here in the mid 80’s with the acquisition
of Bandimere Community Park from the Bandimere family, so we acquired the original 32 acres,
not knowing the date of when this property would be developed. So the price was right. The
acquisition was made. Do any of you remember the sign that was posted at the top of the hill
that said future site of Bandimere Community Park. It was a 4 by 8 wood sign and it stood there
for just about 10 years, so it was just at the top of the hill, about where the entrance is right now
and they just continued to plant corn and soybeans right around that sign as just one of those
place holders in time. Another referendum came to the forefront and the development, the 1997
parks open space and again included money for redeveloping City Center Park and the
development of Bandimere Community Park so approximately $1.2 million was invested in not
only the development of Bandimere but then the redevelopment of City Center Park. Inbetween
those two dates, so it was about a 10 year timeframe, Lundgren came in and developed the
Springfield neighborhood and the Springfield neighborhood had some very key pieces of land
that were acquired but just off to the side. If you can see the little lines, each time they platted a
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
phase of the Springfield development we acquired another chunk of ground. So that’s the first
phase, second phase, third phase and there was this little long strip of land that goes off the map
and it would not have been usable but for the acquisition from Springfield through that park
dedication so there were no fees collected from the Springfield homes. It was only land and just
like any one of these, any other of these land acquisitions, Lundgren had no interest in giving the
city land. Dedicating the city land. They were of the very strong opinion that they could use that
land for building homes and making money and not for dedicating to the city and so if not for a
park commission that made a recommendation to the City Council to say no, this is what we
believe strongly and that we should acquire this land, those two soccer fields would not have
been there. Bandimere was acquired to build baseball or baseball and softball and soccer fields
and athletic fields and if not for those two fields in that very important acquisition, this park
would have been much less than what it is today. So here we have what is really the final
opportunity to expand Bandimere Community Park with the Nettesheim properties. Mark and
Kari Nettesheim purchased these two homes approximately 10 years ago. They own both and
we’ve always talked. We’ve had a cordial relationship and that when the time comes they felt
that the land could be a portion of the park or could be fit into the park and they’d be interested
in talking to us. So they called approximately 30 days ago and said that they were leaving town
for a couple of weeks this winter but that they are interested now. Their family is growing.
Grown up. Moving out. They’ve making some life transition as they would be… So as a
commission staff wants to hear from you if you feel strongly on this. Is this something you’re
highly interested in? If it’s something you’re interested in if the price is right. The plan that we
have presented, this was drawn by the original architects of the park, Brauer and Associate.
Sometime last summer I contacted them and said you know the time, I had no idea that we would
be talking within a year, but the time is coming when we will be taking a look at that. Let’s do
some schematic design and what you end up with is primarily a new access point, which is the
most important feature. This access point is a challenge for our users and without the additional
addition of that concrete port shop we were seeing an accident a week there when we first
opened up this park and some of them pretty severe because people would not press the hill
going south before they took that left hand turn and they were getting head on by the cars coming
northbound. Port shop is the leading into that. It’s still not a great access. Moving it to the
north, it would be a much better situation. And then also the access going into the 2010 MUSA
area will branch right off straight across and those are great intersections when you can have an
intersection that T’s directly across. And this road would travel all the way through the Wilson
property. Through the Erhart property and then end up over at Powers Boulevard, so again
another access boulevard, frontage road types. It’s more of an access boulevard. So that’s
important. This plan starts to study either an underpass or an overpass. It adds 48 parking stalls,
a double tennis court. Hockey. Open skating. Trails and ponding. Most people, and I’m
included in that, would say well wouldn’t it be nice to have more ballfields with the addition of
4.2 acres? And you probably could add another ballfield but it wouldn’t be a full size, but what
happened with the original development of this property was there was a neighborhood park
master plan process, just like if we would build out a new park in town. People came in and said
you know, we need ballfields. We would like a tennis court. We would like playground. We
would like all these traditional neighborhood or community park improvements. When it got
right down to it, we just ran out of land. There wasn’t space for tennis. There wasn’t space for
hockey. You’ve heard from the residents. We’ve attempted to put hockey in the parking lot, but
the grade is too steep here. If you start flooding it, you end up with 3 ½ feet of ice on one side
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before you get an inch on the other side, and so you can’t work. It’s not flat. You don’t want to
put it out on the soccer fields. You’ll kill the grass for the following spring and summer. So
this, if we go ahead and if the acquisition takes place, it gives you an opportunity to create what
is finally that full service community park. A life cycle park. People who live next to this, once
their kids are grown and off to college and raising their own families, they might come back.
Play in the playground but they certainly, and they might go watch a baseball game but now if
they could play tennis or they could go skating, so it’s more of a full service type of a facility.
You add 48 stalls and the important part, this is the premium parking and this is the parking that
you have a lot of but less people want to park here so you add the stalls where they’re needed.
This is where the parking stalls are needed up in that north side. Be happy to answer any
questions. If the commission makes a recommendation this evening, what I foresee happening is
that staff at a variety of levels will meet with the Nettesheim’s to answer their questions. Hear
what their expectations are. Work through some initial conversations about a potential
acquisition and then at some point take your recommendation along with that additional
information and go to the City Council.
Daniel: Excellent. Thank you Todd. Questions to Todd as staff as far as the Bandimere Park
and expansion. Steve, why don’t we start with you.
Scharfenberg: So I’m assuming Todd that the money to purchase the rest of that property would
come out of our CIP?
Hoffman: It would come out, a majority would most likely come out of the park dedication but
there’s other potential funding sources.
Scharfenberg: Such as?
Hoffman: Some of the water quality financing mechanisms. So either the surface water
management fund or some of the other avenues where the watershed districts. There’s an
important water management feature on the north side of this property and it includes this pond
and includes these. This is the headwaters. Right here, of the Bluff Creek watershed. Right here
is the water splits so anything on this side goes to Bluff Creek. Anything on that side goes to
Riley. But those are the two most likely funding mechanisms. Park dedication and then some of
the water resources.
Scharfenberg: Do we have any idea what it would take to purchase something like that?
Hoffman: The best thing I can tell you is that the taxable market values on the properties
combined is $711,000. The one house is in the 400’s and the other is 250 so the taxable market
value today for both parcels is $711,000. We all know where properties are selling at. If this
was 5 years ago, we wouldn’t be the only one in the acquisition line up. There would be
developers and others but so, the acquisition would be on an appraisal process. We would have
the property appraised and make an offer.
Scharfenberg: And the, did you say that the plan that was drawn up here by Brauer is something
that they’ve done within the last year?
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Hoffman: Yeah, they drew this plan in June I believe.
Scharfenberg: Okay. So we’re not, I mean.
Hoffman: This is just a schematic. This is not a master plan. Just an idea of what you could do.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Hoffman: This could be completely changed, but that access point is.
Scharfenberg: I know we’ve talked about changing that. That’s going to happen, right.
Hoffman: Yeah.
Scharfenberg: You know the tennis court issue is, I know we’ve talked in the past about kind of
how that tennis has waned and so we necessarily wouldn’t have to put a tennis court there. It
could be something else and I’m assuming we would have a meeting with the Springfield people
to talk about the improvements of the park to see.
Hoffman: The entire neighborhood.
Scharfenberg: Okay. Because I’m assuming that there would be potential issues with lighting of
the hockey rink and of the tennis courts because I know there’s been issues about you know
potentially lighting the soccer fields or even baseball fields out there at some point so.
Interesting. I was just thinking, you talked about that size of land that we could maybe say
ballfield. You weren’t necessarily talking baseball or softball field. You were just talking even
soccer? Additional soccer fields or anything like that?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Hoffman: You could redevelop that and you could put some kind of a practice field there of
some sort. And again that’s part of the conversation that you would want to have with the
neighbors. What do they want to do with this property? Do they want to turn it into a full
service community park or do they just want to continue building ballfields?
Scharfenberg: And if we did something like this, if we decide to go forward with a project like
this, is there something we would do potentially right away or we would just act, get the land and
maybe just sit on it for a while or?
Hoffman: Both are options.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
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Hoffman: There may be some, we may know more about that when we get into the, you know if
they want to stay 3 years but they’re willing to sell today so we acquire the property and let them
live out there a period of time there.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Hoffman: So it’s unforeseen at this point. We know, we looked at some of the numbers this
morning. The potential range of acquisition, and a development for initial phase of what you see
there, if that was to be the plan, and then lighting on all of the facilities with then the existing
Bandimere Park, except the two soccer fields that are next to Springfield, is a million seven so
you add a million seven onto what you have in acquisition and that’s an estimate for expanding
this park out. And lighting hockey, tennis, soccer and three baseball fields.
Campion: A million seven covers all that?
Hoffman: Initial plan, yes. Covers those improvements. The roads. Tennis. Hockey. The
building. And then the thought would be, the city has always informed all the residents that
these fields will be lit. In fact I think in the Springfield deeds it states right there. We don’t have
a desire to push lights into those last two soccer fields. Soccer fields 2 and 3 if we don’t have to.
We would light 1 and we light all three baseball/softball fields. We’d light up hockey without
lights you can’t play hockey, and same with tennis, and you know that would be the post of it. If
that’s the way to go, once you start you want to pretty much to finish it off so we don’t end up
into the situation like Lake Ann. And there’s not just the Springfield neighborhood. You have
the whole Kiowa neighborhoods, and fortunately there you’re buffered by the pipeline. There
was a debate when this parkland was developed, people really thought we were wasting some
space because we didn’t push those ballfields straight up to the Kiowa neighborhood. Well you
have the pipeline there, so we really didn’t want to put the ballfields on top of the pipeline, so
they were a pretty good buffer there, and will they stand up and say we don’t want lights?
Absolutely. But is it reasonable? Yes. With that buffer it’s reasonable to put athletic lights
there. In a community park setting.
Daniel: So it’s my understanding Todd that we’re looking at 700 and some odd thousand
dollars, theoretically for the acquisition of the property.
Hoffman: Yeah.
Daniel: Plus the $1.7 million.
Hoffman: Correct.
Daniel: Okay. So we’re looking at around $2.4 to $2.5 million.
Hoffman: Complete project.
Daniel: For the complete project. Alright. Thor.
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Smith: I don’t really have any questions right now. Thank you.
Daniel: Okay. Dan.
Campion: Steve took most of the good questions but, I mean the tax assessed value at $700 and
some thousand, and I believe the homes are still going for above tax assessed, so isn’t it more
likely are we looking at a million?
Hoffman: I wouldn’t think it would be that high, yeah. And I’d hate to sit in a commission
meeting and try to appraise these properties.
Daniel: No.
Hoffman: But suffice it to say we’ll hire our appraisers. They’ll hire their’s and we’ll negotiate.
That’s the range. There are properties that are going under, or there are properties that people
paid you know so much for it 2 years ago and now they’re getting less so. Really nobody knows
where the market is at right now but we would want to treat the Nettesheim family fairly, just as
we would any other business partner in an acquisition deal so we would offer up our appraisal
and make an offer.
Daniel: Is there anything else Dan?
Campion: No.
Daniel: Great. Glenn.
Stolar: Just a couple things. One, I think you know thank you to the family for allowing this
discussion to happen because it’s a nice addition for the park if it works through that way. You
know we’ve talked quite a bit about wanting to get hockey rinks, skating rinks into Bandimere in
a nice way and this would give us some of the ability to do that without interfering with other
uses, so I think it’s a good idea to do this. I think when we talked about this before, at some
point we might have to look at bundling this improvement with some of these other things like
Lake Ann we talked about and say hey, you know the capital, or the CIP’s can’t cover it
anymore. Park dedication you know, but at least let’s get the first step in there of getting the
land out there. Getting the playing out there. Estimating it and figure out what it will take to do
what we want to do so I think this is good.
Daniel: Is that it Glenn?
Stolar: Yes, Steve stole all the questions.
Daniel: Absolutely. If we get to the point as far as moving the entrance point to the park, will
that be a controlled intersection? Because it’s going to go straight across.
Hoffman: No.
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Daniel: Okay. And will it be, in future plans for 101.
Hoffman: I don’t believe it will ever meet warrants but there’s a stop light to the north. There’ll
be one to the south. This probably will not meet warrants. It’s basically a 3 legged intersection
because you know a park doesn’t generate enough traffic on a constant basis, and so it will, there
won’t be a signal there in the future that I would foresee.
Stolar: Well even if they developed across the way though?
Hoffman: Yeah, with all that traffic I still don’t think. It may but I wouldn’t.
Daniel: And is it, have you seen the future plans for 101? Will that be a divided highway?
Hoffman: We’ve got it, we used to have it hanging upstairs. At that point it won’t be divided
because they need to get across. It’s divided north. Down south it won’t…
Smith: You can see in this photo where it starts to be divided but.
Daniel: Yeah. That’s, I mean my, if I were to have any devil’s advocate to play as far as the
expense of what we’re looking at for the acquisition, along with the development is what’s going
to be our trade off? And let’s say hypothetically $2.5 million dollars, what will we gain as a
community based off of that amount? There will be questions, and certainly I think the city will
need to be prepared about is, theoretically a hockey rink and additional 48 parking spots and a
tennis courts. That’s an expensive hockey rink and tennis courts and parking spots, but
obviously there’s more benefit because of the existing pressure right now for us to support a lot
of the community, or recreational events that are hosted in this park. So I guess that’s one thing I
guess we’ll be needing to prepare to answer with this type of investment, and you know can the
$2.4 million dollars get us more bang for our buck in other facilities. I guess the last thing I’d
like to certainly take in consideration that, you know it’s a point that you brought up Todd is if
we’re going to do this, let’s just get it done with. I mean if this is something that we’re going to
make an investment, that would include other projects that we’ve discussed previously with
regards to the park, such as a concession stand. Let’s get ‘er done and so it’s maintenance from
this point forward. Everything else around is sold. The park’s already been put in place. We’ll
have everything that we believe for the next, who knows how long. But I think that’s one thing
that I would recommend taken into consideration as we move forward is maybe taking a look at
the total, because I think if we’re going to do it in phases, which might be one way of it
becoming a little more palatable as far as a, you know given the economy right now, then those
are things we certainly should consider rolling into phases, or if we’re going to do it all in one
big fail swoop. Let’s do it right and get it done in the first spot so I don’t know if there’s any
comments you guys make sure about. I know we’ve had other discussions about concession
stands and other points of, or points of discussion about this particular park and I think that’s one
thing that I think we’ve had discussions on, or at least have talked about before so.
Hoffman: Yeah, there’s two building locations. Right here for a multi-purpose bathroom and
picnic shelter. And then for a ballfield building right between this spoke of the ballfield right
here. The two other buildings.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Daniel: And did we ever have a discussion on guesstimated? I mean would it be similar to what
we’re talking to Todd about in costs?
Hoffman: Yeah, well we start at that warming house. That warming house there I think is
valued at about a quarter of a million and then you go up from there and we were estimating
$400,000 to $500,000 for restroom buildings, either here or at Lake Ann. By the time you finish
with the construction. And you compare that, you know we built an open air shelter at Lake Ann
for $250,000 so. And you start, people immediately jump to well that’s a lot of money. Well
you look at a residential single family residential home and you know there’s differences.
There’s comparisons. It’s a different level of construction. And the costs are what they are.
Chair Daniel you were getting at something that again, and I want all, what is the value and
there’s that value today and then there’s value that as commissioners you’re responsible to think
about. The neighborhoods that are here right now on the east side of 101 are one part of the
future of our community. The neighborhood to the west will be even larger, and unless you want
to tear down the trees in the Fox Woods and build them a ballfield and some other active areas,
you’re going to be telling them that they’re going to walk to this park to meet their community
park needs, and to take their kid on probably, you know this is going to be their community park.
So you’re going to be telling them to walk over, and so when you think about that cost, we need
to think about what are you going to tell those people if we don’t do this for the next 10, 15, 20,
30 years when they ask for a tennis court. Where’s our tennis court? Well sorry, we made that
decision. We didn’t want to spend the money. We didn’t want to make the investment in the
community and you’re just not going to have one down in this area of the city. Is tennis down?
Absolutely but we have, we’ve always said, it’s going to be at our community parks. We’re not
going to deal with it at the neighborhood park level, and that was a decision again made in this
room by a park board some 15 to 20 years ago that was, at the time a little bit controversial.
Somewhat controversial but very intelligent in the long range. Every neighborhood park in this
city had a tennis court in the master plan and they said we’re just not going to be able to do that.
We’re going to have to light them. Put them in a regional. There our neighborhood, or our
community type of park setting. So think about that neighborhood to the west that’s coming in.
You’re going to have to get them to this park via an underpass and today it’s been, the
development of these parks, you know we thought that number was big but even back when we
paid $185,000 for the original park, some people thought that was a lot of money when we
passed a referendum for $4.7 million to develop this park and other things, people thought it was
a lot of money…
Daniel: Yeah, and I’m just you know, and I think as you stated earlier Todd that the opportunity
for us to take a look at maybe some other designs too. Maybe we might just to share some ideas
about what we could look at that, and as far as taking what we have and rearranging some things
that might help. I mean sticking within the plans that we have and on paper it all looks nice until
you get out there and we’ve always got grade, and you’ve got other issues. You’ve got the
pipeline for example. I never would have thunk that but indents on the parking lot represent the
fact that they don’t want anybody parking over the pipe, you know the pipeline. I don’t think
anybody ever realizes that but little things that we have to take into consideration so obviously
there’s some challenges that we do have, but again I’m sure as members of the council as well as
the public, if they do have questions about any decisions that we, as a commission as well as the
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council make, I think we need to be prepared about maybe the best term to use is justification for
this particular project, and why we’re making these investments and as I stated earlier I’d like to
see, if we’re going to do it, make it the signature park for that side of the city. That they can go
to with a picnic shelter as we have in our other community parks and all the amenities available
that make it something that will stand out and really for us as a commission, as well as the city,
not to worry about with the exception of maintenance for, like I said, for quite a long time.
Smith: Hey Todd, you mentioned the ballpark figure of, no pun intended but of the $1.7 million
for the, does that include the underpass or overpass?
Hoffman: No. Not in the estimate. And the hope would be that that would be constructed as a
part of the road improvements. It’d be wrapped into that.
Stolar: When they do the development on the other side? That that would be.
Hoffman: Well it’d be as part of the 101.
Smith: They’ll probably widen 101 before they do that.
Hoffman: And that study’s underway. Everyone believes that the phase, the segment of 101
between Lyman and Pioneer will be done before the one from Pioneer to the river valley so this
one will be the first one that’s upgraded.
Stolar: The only concern I have for the park as a whole is, you know are they going to think the
whole divided highway question. I mean when they finish the study and they say no, we need to
widen that thing and divide that, then what does that do for us when you’re sitting here with this?
Hoffman: Well.
Stolar: They would put a light there then right? They’d have to do something.
Hoffman: Yeah. We’re not going to shut off the access to the park.
Smith: It should be pretty close to the light there and…almost too close.
Daniel: Any other discussions or other questions at all? Excellent. Well you know as I stated
earlier Todd, I think it’s certainly something that’s going to be very exciting. The expansion.
Especially since it does border the park. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. It fits very cleanly into what
we’re looking for to expand our community parks and you know I guess part of it too might be
general direction on how we ought to approach things here from a CIP as well. I mean if we’re
going to start making an investment into our community parks versus some of the
neighborhoods, which we’ve already done I think the last few years with the playground
equipment upgrade so. Anyways if there’s nothing else we can move on to.
Scharfenberg: I think we’ve got to make a motion.
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Daniel: Oh, is there any motions Todd that we need to make at all?
Hoffman: If you would like. You have a proposed motion. You can make a motion now or you
can table the item or you don’t have to act. That’s up to you.
Daniel: We’re not under any time frame though? Currently within the next few commission
meetings.
Smith: I think the, correct me if I’m wrong but I think the timeframe would be that the sooner
this gets in front of the council, the sooner that they can make an offer to these homeowners and
start negotiating a purchase, if that would be.
Hoffman: Yeah. I prefaced my initial comments by saying if you make a positive
recommendation to the council that Todd Gerhardt, City Manager and I will meet with the
Nettesheim family and see if we’re hearing in the right direction. And if we are, then we’ll take
that information and your recommendation and go to the City Council. If you don’t make a
recommendation we’ll still call them. Have them into the office. If we think we’re going in the
right direction then we would have to come back here and then update you and then you could
choose to make a recommendation to the City Council. Obviously we don’t want to be
expanding the park and making decisions about spending park dedication without positive
recommendation from the commission.
Stolar: This is just to enter into a negotiations. I would assume you’re still going to be coming
back at some point talking about what the negotiations resulted in.
Hoffman: Absolutely.
Stolar: And then also we’re not talking necessarily about executing on the construction plan
towards this master plan. That’s a whole separate set of discussions. This is just to get a
direction from us that yes, we think this expansion of land is appropriate. Yes, we see a vision,
but no we aren’t actually executing on that other than the negotiation.
Hoffman: Correct. Absolutely.
Stolar: So in light of that I would like to propose the motion recommended here that we, that we
recommend the City Council direct staff to enter into negotiations regarding the land acquisition
for 9201 and 9151 Great Plains Boulevard for the purpose of expanding Bandimere Community
Park.
Scharfenberg: I would second that recommendation.
Daniel: That’s very prudent.
Stolar moved, Scharfenberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
recommends that the City Council direct staff to enter into negotiations to purchase
approximately 4.13 acres of real property located at 9201 and 9151 Great Plains Boulevard
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
for the purpose of expanding Bandimere Community Park. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Stolar: Except we have a bunch of questions that you mentioned that we’ll get to over the next.
Daniel: Well and that’s what I want to make sure. I don’t want to get to the point where we’re
now trying to make a decision on something without having all the facts and the things may
change in negotiations but I think to get to the point to negotiate with them. Absolutely. Let’s
have that discussion.
Stolar: And that’s what my motion…
Daniel: And I appreciate you clarifying that. Okay. Now can we move on to subject number 2.
2009/2010 LAKE ANN BEACH LIFEGUARD CONTRACT WITH MINNETONKA
PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMUNITY EDUCATION AND SERVICES.
Ruegemer: Thanks to Chair Daniels. We just completed our second year of our contract that we
had with Minnetonka School District Community Education Services. Our 2 year contract was
developed 2 years ago. The City and MCES did work together and develop that format of the
contract and it was recommended by the Park and Rec Commission to recommend to the City
Council that they adopt that concept. We did complete our second year of that contract which on
a staffing level has really worked out really, really good with that. And we’re proposing to do
that again here tonight. Staff did review our current contract. Looking at ways to improve
efficiency and lower costs. Staff did request that MCES present different options that included
adjusting our service dates as well as our service hours, and that traditionally lifeguards have
thth
been on duty 7 days a week, 10:30 to 8:00 p.m. Approximately June 6 through August 16,
and that really did kind of coincide with the ending of the school year with our, both districts.
Keep an eye on current service levels would require an increase over 2008, if we were, if the
staff was proposing to keep the same timeframe, 10:30 to 8:00 p.m., 7 days a week. That would
increase over 2008 that final contract. Staff is promoting Option E-1 which changes the service
hours to 12:00 noon. Or from 12:00 noon to 7:00 p.m. daily. The contract cost for this option is
$26,590 for 2009 and that would be a 6.7% decrease from the 2008 contract. I’m sure staff had a
chance, or the commission had a chance to look at the number of different options. We had two
different service date options. One starting a week later than what we have traditionally started
at, and finishing up at the same time. So essentially that was kind of one column of options. The
other would be starting at the same time and adjusting the hours of, daily hours essentially. So
keeping that in mind, it’s staff’s recommendation that the Park and Rec Commission recommend
that the City Council approve the MCES 2009/2010 contract for lifeguard services at Lake Ann
with the hours of 12:00 noon to 7:00 p.m. daily. The service dates would remain the same, from
thth
June 6 through August 16, and the contract amount is $26,590 for 2009 and $27,388 for 2010.
Funding for the beach contract is included within the Lake Ann Park operations budget. So
attached the commission will see the different options that were available for staff to make a
recommendation on. And then also attached is the two year agreement between the City and
Minnetonka Public Schools and the Minnetonka Community Education and Services.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Daniel: Great. Questions. Thor.
Smith: Do you track, is there any way to track when you know, I assume peak times are going to
be obviously in the afternoon. I guess my only question would be, is 12:00 noon too late to start
or is 7:00 too early to end the coverage time?
Ruegemer: Yeah, you know traditionally it’s, the peak days or the peak time of the day is the
heat of the day when people are down there. Come down you know a lot of times at lunchtime.
Kind of wrapping up before that you know 4:00 hour or dinner time when they do go back.
Certainly you know that last hour of the day, kind of that 7:00-8:00 has traditionally been a
quieter time so we certainly tried to look at kind of the hours of operation and where we get, you
know still provide that service to the public and provide you know the lifeguards at Lake Ann so
certainly that is something that we can take a look at.
Campion: Piggy backing off of Thor, I mean would 11:00 to 6:00 better cover those peak times?
I mean after 6:00 is there typically enough crowd to require a lifeguard?
Ruegemer: Well it certainly does decrease as the day goes on. Certainly during the peak times
there are a number of different lifeguards that are staffed and it kind of goes in shifts and then it
kind of tails off at the end of the day. You know at the end of the day, I’ve been down there at
8:00 where there’s a handful of people and it’s really my opinion that we certainly could, 7:00
would be a fine time to stop service for the day. People certainly could stay and swim if they’d
like to just at your own risk.
Hoffman: Commissioner Campion what it gives the people the opportunity to do is get home
from work. Still make it to the beach with their families before 7:00 closing. At 6:00 that would
be…
Daniel: As a matter of fact we did that probably a handful of times last year. Bring the kids, and
surprisingly though, 7:30 is when we usually leave. Kids are ready to go to bed but it’s, there’s
still quite a few people there. Still swimming.
Scharfenberg: Lake Riley Beach, the lifeguards go off duty at 7:00 for Eden Prairie so.
Hoffman: Seems consistent.
Campion: Yeah. And the Option D-1 where they it goes from 11:30 to 7:30 and it’s slightly
more expensive but you don’t think that extra hour is worth the cost difference?
Ruegemer: I don’t know that it would, really that be that dramatic of a change for the price
increase.
Stolar: Playing off the same thing but with a different twist. Is there any issue though with the
fact that the lifeguard’s starting at noon, we’d lose a lunch crowd at concessions that we might
have gotten had we had the lifeguards there earlier? So you know everybody can say oooh, we
can’t go swimming until there’s a lifeguard there. Well that’s 12:00. I might as well eat at home
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
whereas if we start them at 11:00 or 11:30. Go out. Swim for a little bit then go have lunch at
the concession so there’s that trade off of we spend, I think it’s $2,600 extra between Option D-1
versus E-1, and then we get some concession out of it. I don’t know that’d we make it all back
but we’d make some of it back. That’s the only concern I had with the timing of 12:00. I was
even looking if you did even 11:00 to 7:00 or something like that to get people there earlier. Still
get to the 7:00. It’s a $2,600 difference and you know by the way, commending both of you for
trying to maintain the costs and making hard decisions that we need to do these days. I was
looking if we did D-1 or a modified D-1, we still come in less than our previous, or less than two
years of our 2008 contract. So roughly about the same. It’s just slightly less. So to hold the line
…I think is our priority, we should not go up in cost. So I don’t know, just something to think
about. I don’t know if there is a factor there but that was my only concern with starting at noon.
Hoffman: To your point Commissioner Stolar, I think a good conversation piece is to have with,
do people, do you feel people make a decision to come to the beach based on when the lifeguard
is present or not?
Campion: I think so.
Scharfenberg: Do you? I don’t think so. In fact I like to go to Lake Riley at 7:00 when the
lifeguards leave because it’s a little less informal and I, you know not that I’m swimming out
past the buoys or anything like that but I enjoy going later at night when the lifeguards are off
duty at Lake Riley and I don’t think people, personally I don’t think people make that decision.
I’ve been to Lake Riley when, you know early in the morning and there’s a ton of people there
before the lifeguards get on duty and people stay on warm days later so. And to that point too,
I’m assuming we’re doing swimming lessons during the morning too so we’ve already got that
captive audience there already with swimming lessons, correct?
Ruegemer: That is correct, yeah. Minnetonka is taking a look at the swimming lesson program
right now to kind of see where we go with the option that is recommended tonight and then
they’ll adjust swimming lessons accordingly.
Scharfenberg: Because if we can push swimming lessons during those open hours, you know up
until noon. You know swimming lessons from 10:00 to noon, then you’ve got, kind of got that
captive audience of people there that would just stay. It would be nice if the shelter’s going to be
open already anyway so you already have kind of that captive audience of people there already I
would think.
Smith: I guess my thought is I agree with you on an adult level, but I think with kids, you know
if someone, I hate to say, mothers bringing their kids to the beach. You know if this is going to,
you know what we’re going to have published in the you know the Connection or whatever it is,
they’re going to look at that say well the beach doesn’t open til noon. We can’t go til noon. You
know I don’t know. Yes, they can still go and swim at their own risk but I think the implication
is that it’s closed until a lifeguard’s on duty.
Scharfenberg: Kind of getting to that point, I mean you could also switch over to Option D then
and go with a little, go with a week later start date. Do we know typically Jerry, or when is it
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
typically Jerry that we do lessons or start lessons and will that be contingent upon the date that
we pick?
Ruegemer: Yeah, that would be typically after the beach would start, and then there’s, it would
be in July as well, so there’d be two different options.
Stolar: School goes out through when? The middle of that week, right?
th
Scharfenberg: I think the last day of school is, well it says here for Minnetonka is the 9. And I
think Chanhassen’s a little later than that.
Smith: Oh it is later?
Scharfenberg: I think it goes at least through maybe Thursday of that week or something like
that.
Stolar: So to your point we could save the money, go with Option D at the same, virtually the
same cost. Actually a little bit of, $5.00 better. A little bit better than that.
Hoffman: We determined with this Option E-1 starts the Saturday after school’s out.
Ruegemer: Yeah, it was.
th
Campion: I thought the school’s out on the 5, wasn’t it?
Ruegemer: For Chaska.
Stolar: School’s out on?
thth
Hoffman: The 5. Friday the 5.
Ruegemer: It’s somewhere in that I believe.
Stolar: Oh okay. So it is earlier than Minnetonka.
Ruegemer: Yeah.
Hoffman: Now as you continue to go through your conversation, remember that the starting
point is always no lifeguards at all. I don’t know how many years ago it was, 10-12 years ago
the commission made a recommendation to not have lifeguards and that made it til the spring
when some segment of our community discovered and they got to some council members and it
was re-instated. The program was re-instated. But you know it’s our responsible to ask ourself
okay so what changes? You know the lake is still there. The beach is still there. You don’t have
lifeguards there. You go to a state park you don’t have lifeguards. You go to many beaches you
don’t have lifeguards. You go to the rest of the parks with beaches in our city and you don’t
have lifeguards. So that’s always a starting point, and then you go from there and then you have
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
these conversations about is there a perceived safety. Is the safety really any better? Well you
know that’s all a point of conversation about you know what do lifeguards, but I think there is a
perceived value for lifeguards. You costs continue to go up. It’s a $25,000, $28,000, $30,000
expense on an annual basis. What’s it return to our citizens? So you’ve got to wrap that all into
the conversation and the lunch hour thing is great. You know it would be nice to still be offering
lifeguards 10:00 to 8:00 but there are times when it’s pretty quiet down there and you have paid
staff on duty. It’s a good debate.
Daniel: Can I point out one thing that maybe seems a little crazy to me. Why, given the
economic conditions we’re in right now, is there a 7.6% increase over last year’s baseline? And
what’s the justification behind the cost increase.
Ruegemer: I’ll give you a little background on that. To kind of fill that in, the original contract
that was approved was $29,915 for 2008. Okay. So if you were to take that $29,000 number and
transpose that over to Option A-1, that was only a 2.5% increase. Okay. With the actual, the
actual cost of the 2008 contract was reduced from 2007 to 2008 because of some different
staffing levels and some different things that Minnetonka did to kind of make it less of an
expense for the city. So that was reduced from $29,915 to $28,490 is what we actually paid in
2008. So Tim’s original was a 2.5% increase from the original contract number that was
approved. The actual, I know I’m confusing everybody but the actual percent was 7.6% over
what we paid last year for an apples to apples comparison between the two options. So that’s,
it’s a little misleading because our actual contract cost was cheaper than what was actually
approved for the contract.
Stolar: Understood but even a 2.5% increase, when you’re in a deflationary time for a service
that we can easily vote right now to eliminate, doesn’t seem like he’s in a very good negotiating
position.
Daniel: Yeah. That was just, I’m looking at this going okay, something’s just not right here. I
can understand a 3% increase over those 9. There’s certain assumptions based on inflation that
you’re going to deal with. That’s understandable but that’s why I had asked the question about
the 7.6 Jerry so I hope you don’t mind.
Ruegemer: No, no. That’s alright.
Daniel: You know it’s just, it stands out very blatantly.
Hoffman: Do you have the numbers that they can jot down? Next to that $30,662 number, jot
down.
Ruegemer: For Option A-1.
Hoffman: Yeah, and then jot down, what was the contract in?
Ruegemer: The actual, the approved contract was $29,915.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Hoffman: And then the actual expended?
Ruegemer: Was $28,490.
Daniel: So we’re actually going off the expense, not the contract right?
Smith: Yeah.
Campion: So you said it was a 2.5% increase over the contract.
Ruegemer: The approved contract. Not the actual cost.
Hoffman: And if you agree with one of these, whichever one you do, again that’s a contract
price. We’re still going to be paying the billed price.
Daniel: That’s understandable. That makes sense. I guess the, you never really want to lose the
ability to service, especially what we’re used to. How long have we been running from 10:30 to
8:00 p.m.? At this contract. Or with Minnetonka right now. How many years.
Ruegemer: I think it’s longer than I’ve been here, and I’ve been here 19 years so I think it goes
back to the, 1970’s. 80’s.
Campion: So for, you could actually effectively a decrease in contract price. Go with Option A.
Lose a week or 6 days.
Daniel: Lose 6 days.
Campion: But keep the same operating hours.
Daniel: Yep. That’s one thing I, and again we don’t want to certainly lose, we don’t want to
lose service. The services that the city’s provide but again given some of the options here, I
mean there’s some nice savings and I mean to go from Option A down to Option E, we’re
looking at a savings of about $3,200. $3,220.
Smith: Jerry do you know when the, I assume the bulk of, I mean do you know where the beach
starts to get used the most? I mean is it.
Ruegemer: July.
Smith: I mean is there a lot of use before that even?
Ruegemer: There is, you know it rains some after school gets out. I mean there’s obviously a lot
of vacations taken on early on before a lot of stuff gets going for the summer, but you have June
has a tendency to kind of build. You know and go up and then it peaks about the third week in
July and then starts to kind of go down kind of from there so July is you know by far the busiest
month. If that answers your question.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Scharfenberg: And it all depends on how warm it is.
Ruegemer: Yeah we’ve had some Memorial weekends that have been phenomenal.
Scharfenberg: Global warming.
Hoffman: In the drought of ’87 it was an extremely busy that Memorial weekend.
Daniel: Oh yeah. I remember that vividly.
Stolar: …proposal on the table.
Daniel: Yeah, I was going to say why don’t we make some recommendations. I mean I think
each one of us have our opinion and I think then we can narrow down some times that will best
fit I think the community here so Thor, do you have an idea?
Smith: My personal recommend, I guess I’d personally like Option A. You know I don’t like to
lose 6 days but I think you’re getting more coverage throughout the entire summer.
Daniel: Dan.
Campion: I agree with Thor. A would be my first choice. I think losing those 6 days would be
not that big of a hit and keeping the same operating hours would just be nice because a lot of
people probably just assume you know that it’d be the same as always. It effectively always has
been.
Daniel: We know Steve’s position. No lifeguards so. Steve.
Scharfenberg: I’m fine with staff’s recommendation for E-1.
Daniel: For E-1?
Scharfenberg: Yep.
Daniel: Okay. Glenn.
Stolar: Of the options listed here, I like Option D. Which is the reduced time but number of
days and then a little bit of reduced time for some savings. Although I would ask staff to look at
whether 11:30 to 7:30 or 11:00 to 7:00 would be better. Same amount of hours, just a shift. But
then I want to add something. I think we ought to go in with a negotiation statement saying that
we don’t want a new price increase for 2009.
Daniel: I think that’s very fair. Personally I agree with both Thor and Dan. I like the option of
A. I mean there’s no increase over so there’s no additional cost that we would be incurred this
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
year. If there is, let me ask you this though. Has the staff been challenged by the city to reduce,
or by the council to reduce costs?
Hoffman: $200 and $500,000 by the end of the year.
Daniel: How much?
Hoffman: $200 and $500,000 by the end of the year.
Daniel: Okay. Well then we’re part of that solution so, I mean we are taking consideration of
some of those cost savings and help contribute. I mean I agree with Glenn. I mean if we, and if
that’s the case and we can take a look at some options here, then maybe we ought to, I would
probably be more in recommendation for staff’s selection for E-1 because it at least gives us that
th
wider date coverage, especially since Chaska is getting out on the 5. We go, well excuse me. I
apologize I’m going to get there a little early so I’m on D. Excuse me. I like D. 11:30 to 7:30
and possibly maybe shifting that a little earlier. 11:00 to 7:00, we can certainly take a look at
that but I also still like the recommendation of negotiating a flat fee, or no increase of fee for
2010. Steve, what do you think?
Stolar: I mean 10:00, they have to go, I don’t mind the 3% proposed from 9 to 10 because who
knows what prices are going to be then, but the fact that from 08 to 09 when right now as we
speak our President’s describing an economy that’s tanking. We really can’t see a reason for a
price increase. The 2.5% rate increase. We’re also going to decrease the total dollars though
because we’re going to decrease the amount of service.
Scharfenberg: Their response might be there’s going to be a lot more people at your beaches
because people aren’t going anywhere.
Stolar: That’s true. Well except if that really ends up being true, we can always go back and say
we need another lifeguard and here’s the extra dollars. Right? Which is why I think the rate is
an important thing because if volume does change we’re going to have to.
Daniel: Sure.
Hoffman: And to your point Commissioner Scharfenberg, we believe that will be the case.
Scharfenberg: Yeah.
Stolar: Are you seeing anything like that? A little off the topic as far as people signing up for
things now because it’s closer to home and a little bit, I mean it’s a value.
Ruegemer: Yeah, I wouldn’t say that necessarily for what we’re experiencing now but.
Stolar: You think for the summer.
Ruegemer: Yeah, I think this summer we’re going to see.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Daniel: Thor, Dan, what do you guys think about Option D?
Campion: I favor D over E-1 and I would favor D if we could ask for, adjusting the hours 11:00
to 7:00 I think would cover the peak better.
Daniel: Okay. Thor?
Smith: I mean I’m fine with D to be honest with you. I mean.
Daniel: I think we all ideally would love to have, you know to go with A if we could, but that’s
why I wanted to ask the question about what the City Council, or what the city staff has been
asked to reduce in costs to the taxpayers, or at least the city as far as operational expenses and if
we can contribute on something that, you know as they say everything counts.
Hoffman: This is part of it.
Daniel: This is part of it so let’s, it looks like we’re going to contribute just a little bit more so
why don’t we just go ahead with Option D.
Stolar: I’ll propose that as a motion that we recommend staff go with Option D with the
discussion about whether to move it from 11:30 - 7:30 to 11:00 - 7:00 as a potential
recommendation. And also with the recommendation that we ask the Minnetonka Community
Ed to hold the line on rates for 2009. That’s my proposal.
Hoffman: And one clarification. Jerry, do you think we’re going to effect, are there any school
groups that come right after school in that time slot?
Ruegemer: I know I have, there’s obviously with some groups. I know I have booked some for
the, I know I’ve booked some for like July and that sort of thing, and I know I have some in June
but I don’t know that it’s that early. I think it might be that week after.
Hoffman: We get a lot of school groups that come with big bus loads full of kids and I’m not
sure that the schools are going to want to show up at an unguarded beach.
th
Stolar: You’re saying the week of the 6.
Hoffman: I’m just asking the question, yep. First week after school.
Ruegemer: Yeah. I think it’d be later, later than that. I don’t have it in front of me but I think it
is later than that.
Hoffman: Okay. Thank you.
Campion: Can I ask, would that change anyone’s thought?
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Hoffman: We would change their date.
Stolar: No, I would assume you would do that anyway. We’re just giving you kind of a
guideline but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
Daniel: Okay. We’re set.
Campion: Second.
Stolar moved, Campion seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend
that the City Council approve the MCES 2009/10 contract for lifeguard services at Lake
Ann Beach using Option D, with discussion on times being either 11:30 to 7:30 or 11:00 to
7:00, service dates being June 12 to August 16, and asking Minnetonka Community
Education Services to hold the line on rates for 2009. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Daniel: Jerry good job though. And staff. This was a great, this is a wonderful tool to kind of
give us an idea and something to work with here so thank you. Moving on to number 4 here.
2009 REACH FOR RESOURCES ADAPTIVE RECREATION CONTRACT.
Ruegemer: The City has contracted our adaptive recreation services from REACH since the late
1990’s and staff has been satisfied with the service that REACH has provided. Last summer, as
in the past, REACH has trained our playground staff in how to address and accommodate
persons with disabilities, and certainly provided guidelines and some information for seasonal
staff as well as our full time staff on how to integrate all participants in our programs. They’ve
always done a great job and very responsive to anything that staff has needed and really it’s been
evident that our numbers have been growing for our contract amount this year. The 2009
contract amount reflects an increase over the 2008 contract and that is a direct result from our
participation from 12 to 48. The commission looks at the numbers that are provided on the back
of page, this is kind of a deception point. The contract is always so 2008 it’s always a year
behind in participation numbers so if you look at the numbers that we’re looking at, these are
actual participation numbers from 2007. So next year we’ll be taking a look at our 2008
numbers that we just completed here so we’re always kind of a year behind, and our 2000
numbers, we did do very well and we increased really with every season that we do from
participation within the programs to inclusions at special events so we really did have a great
year with that, and that’s, and that was really the reason for the increase in the contract amount
for 2009 that we’re looking at here tonight. And that is a consortium of the 5 cities as you saw
on the back side of that page, and that includes Chaska, Hopkins, Minnetonka, and St. Louis
Park so we’re certainly not the biggest percentage for the, kind of the numbers, but you know we
gained a little ground from previous years for that so. The contract, every city is kind of charged
that base dollar amount, the $2,500 and then the percentage then is based on the participation
numbers that we all have throughout the course of the year for our participation within the
programs and special events. So if you look at our contract did increase from 3% to 9% because
of that participation. So beyond the base price for those adaptive recreation services, plus our
9% share, the contract amount did increase by over $4,300 which does…to a new contract
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
amount of $6,882.27 for 2009. So it’s staff’s recommendation that the Park and Rec
Commission recommend to the City Council to approve the 2009 contract for adaptive recreation
services with REACH for Resources.
Daniel: Thank you Jerry. Any questions?
Stolar: I just had one. As you look through their guide you see a lot of things in other areas.
Have we talked about trying to make our rec center available or is it just not pragmatic given the
number of people from the Minnetonka-Hopkins area?
Ruegemer: That certainly is part of that. You know we’re certainly involved, we provide Lake
Susan for an annual picnic for the group that has great numbers. We have a great sports sampler
program that’s very popular in Chanhassen as special events. Good events at the rec center. The
Kid Fu program is at the rec center…as well so we certainly try to increase our visibility with
that and you know I attend these meetings once a quarter and we’re always offering up our
facility if there’s any type of programming ideas.
Stolar: You know just one of the things for example is even like the some of the stuff that’s
John’s doing related to even the karaoke night or some things like that where you can maybe
provide, and I just like the way our programming’s going and it seems like we can start working
with these guys to put a little bit more of our programming out there for them.
Daniel: Thank you Glenn. Steve, is there anything else you want to add? No? Okay. Why
don’t we make a motion. Recommendation. Thor.
Smith: I’d move that we would we’d go with staff’s recommendation to approve the contract for
2009.
Stolar: Second.
Smith moved, Stolar seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that
the City Council approve the 2009 contract for adaptive recreation services with REACH
for Resources. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Hoffman: Recommendation for any of you would be to reach out and make a phone call and
volunteer for one day of programs as a volunteer and you can assist in educating the rest of us
about what they’re doing on an annual basis. I think getting involved or being there would be
one of those things on a commission level, folks can do that, that’d be wonderful.
Daniel: Okay, thanks Todd.
MODIFICATION TO 2009-2013 PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND
DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Daniel, members of the commission. First thing I’m going to do is
hand out a colored copy of that graph that’s in your packet. It was not color. It was black and
white and there was no differentiation on lines.
Stolar: I think I can tell which one was the revenue line.
Hoffman: Yeah. You can track it by the dollar amounts, and that’s where I’m going to start our
conversation is taking a look at each of those trends individually and to say that this is not a
static or an even type of a cash flow, either in or out situation, would be an under statement.
Let’s take a look at the red line. That’s cash and it’s got this big sweeping downward curve up to
some peak cash fund balances in ’05, ’06, ’07, and that was driven by that opposite line where
we had some slow years in spending in ’04 and ’05. We came off of really what the big driver
was back for that spending peak in ’02 was the City Center Park project so the library came
along. We needed to do some park improvements. Council, park commission, staff was looking
at how can we make this happen and community turned the park dedication fund to build this
park up.
Stolar: And 101 trail right?
Hoffman: And yep. 101 trail at the same time. There was some grant money included there.
And so then spending leveled off at the same time to recoup some cash flow and then came the
big spike. The blue graph in revenue in ’06 with the all time high and it’s certainly, unless
something dramatically changes will probably be the historic high at 2.2 million. Almost 2.3
million dollars in cash. Staff continues to update this predicted history based off of revenues and
expenses and so the revenues have been downgraded from a million in ’09 through ‘013 to
$400,000 so I look back at the analysis when staff sat down as a group with our planning
division, our finance director. In ’07 we predicted with confidence that we would continue to be
at a level of a million dollars per year based on the economic development at that point. Today
we’re in a $400,000 range coming off of a 2007 at 741. In 2008 at 435 and I predicted ’09 at
400,000. That’s driving down the cash flow and the cash that will be available for projects. And
then we take a look at expenses, at that same time we were optimistic about our future. We
started to branch out and take a look at some other possibilities. All of the park buildings and
other things and so we increased our forecasted expenditures by a significant amount. This
graph is not, this graph was modified based off of my recommendation. If you don’t modify it,
the line that, that red line will actually, it will definitely go into the red. It will plunge into the
negative values there in ‘010, ‘011 which is something that the City Council and our finance
director is not going to allow the park department and the park commission to do. So just like
our general fund budget, just like the entire country really, we need to take a look at how are we
going to turn this thing around. As we downgrade our revenues, what are we going to do to our
forecasted expenditures and where are, it’s really a prioritization. So staff has some
recommendations. I’ll speak to those briefly and then I’ll let the commission take over. You
may or may not finish this tonight. You might want to talk about it some more. It’s not critical
with the exception of the one, 2009 recommended deletion which is the Lake Ann Park ballfield
safety fencing for Fields 4, 5 and 6. Basically a replication of what we did on 1, 2 and 3 and
some other improvements that we had talked about to prevent some balls from flying out of the
fields, but that’s $100,000 in fencing and we have, you know we can have the discussion about,
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
is that a true safety issue, which it is. How high does it rank in that area of safety? Beyond that
you have some time to make some, have some other discussions. Things like future parkland
acquisition. Obviously with the market the way it is, we’re not facing the pending acquisition of
parkland down in the ’05 MUSA or over in Lyman Boulevard. We think those will be pushed
out past that 5 year time period so you don’t need to have those in this current 5 year CIP. So
recommended deletions are $2,950,000 and what you keep in your current CIP is $3,894,000.
And I’m not going to go through those item by item. I’ll allow commission members to do that
throughout your conversation and, but again it’s staff’s recommendation that you come up with a
modification to the CIP for presentation to the City Council and that could be either prior to our
annual budget meetings, or if we could do that at the annual budget meeting. If we choose to
delay it, then at least you’re going to have to make the recommendation on the one item
published for ’09, the fencing.
Daniel: I think give everyone a minute to digest what we’re going through here.
Hoffman: Absolutely. And we need to hear from our citizens as well.
Stolar: I do have a question. Capital replacement fund. What is that versus the park dedication?
Are both funded from park dedication?
Hoffman: They are not. So there’s three items there I think out of capital. That’s general capital
fund. General capital replacement fund, and those item include tennis courts refurbishment and
repair at $125,000. The recreation center fitness equipment. The recreation center fixing
concrete and then the City Center electronic sign so there’s four items there. And that’s out of
the general capital replacement fund. That’s the same place we’re buying snowplow trucks and
sweepers and tractors and lawn mowers.
Stolar: So it doesn’t affect this graph at all?
Hoffman: It does not affect that graph, and that’s, this is based, this is a future trend that we’re
going to have to move towards as park dedication continues to wean off we’re going to have to
continue to go into the general operating capital budget for all these improvements, and that will
be a transition that will take place over the next 15-20 years.
Stolar: So the tennis courts at 2011 versus, that were in park dedication. All we’re saying is
we’re going to try to ask for it as part of the capital fund, or are those two different things?
Hoffman: Two separate items. Construction of tennis courts in park dedication at $125.
Stolar: Okay, got it.
Hoffman: Those were, yeah. The number just happens to be the same.
Stolar: Okay, but one was construction like for either.
Hoffman: Roundhouse.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Stolar: Roundhouse, yeah.
Hoffman: And the other is for overall refurbishment of our existing…
Stolar: Gotch ya. Gotch ya.
Hoffman: And that primarily is the tennis court at the recreation center which has the sink holes.
Stolar: Yep. Got it. Okay. The City Center Park electronic sign though is a new thing so that
capital fund can do new stuff also.
Hoffman: Correct.
Daniel: I guess the other question to ask is there anything else Todd that we see within the 2009
CIP that we might want to consider moving out as well. I mean that’s in the, at least approved, I
mean for example the stairway project. Is that something that we’re going to move, that we’re
already obligated to, contractually obligated to move forward with? I’m just using that as an
example. I don’t mean take it out, because I know for the high school, Lyman Boulevard I think
we’re, those are already dedicated funds.
Hoffman: Yeah, there’s very little flexibility in ’09 other than the fencing. The stairway project,
we have a significant erosion situation at Lake Ann we need to take care of. The South Lotus
Lake playground is just falling apart. We just waited til the final days and now it’s all just laying
out on the grass and so it’s time to refurbish that, and everything else there is committed by
contract. At the high school by contract with Lyman Boulevard and by contract with the
Preserve trail and bridge.
Stolar: Did we finish the negotiations with the high school on the operating agreement?
Hoffman: Yes.
Stolar: Okay. I don’t know if you mentioned it at the last meeting. When you look at Rice
Marsh Lake trail, is that also one that’s part of a commitment?
Hoffman: No it’s not tied to any development contract.
Stolar: Okay. And neither are the Bluff Creek and Pioneer Boulevard, correct?
Hoffman: Those are not. Those could be moved or those could be delayed.
Stolar: And I know we had talked about trying to do them together because there’s some cost
savings if we did the three of them together.
Hoffman: Yeah, there’s four being studied for 2010.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Stolar: Four, I’m sorry yeah. Highway 101 also, yep.
Daniel: I think we ought to have that Highway 101 discussion sometime in May.
Hoffman: You’ll be sitting out here with Mr. Neils.
Campion: Yeah I was just thinking, I see $175,000 we could save in 2010.
Smith: My concern with, I guess the only concern I have with the eliminated or proposed
eliminated items is the skate park replacement. Ramp replacement. I think that’s a, you know
it’s a very heavily used area of the city and I would hate to see the ramps become dilapidated or
you know worn to a point and I’m wondering if we can find something you know like the native,
or that native preserve trail, final phase in 2011 for approximately the same amount of money, if
we could, I don’t know if that’s tied with that development.
Hoffman: That nature preserve trail is, but please remember you don’t have to switch things.
You can subtract more. You can add move back in so if you feel very strongly about one, you
can just add it back in. You don’t have to find something else to.
Smith: Well I think if, I mean it makes sense to, I mean we’re going to have to cut either now or
later probably. I mean so if you look at that track you’re going to have to.
Hoffman: We’re ending up, we’re dipping down into a cash year end balance of a low of $1.1
million and then modest increases after that so you’re still not breaking the bank but you’re also
not tying an expansion to Bandimere Park yet. You’re not paying for the expansion of that so,
and then we don’t know when the market would turn around and see park dedication…
Stolar: Would skate ramp replacement fall under a capital replacement fund request?
Hoffman: It sure could. It could be changed. Switched out.
Stolar: Well I was just wondering because in 2010 we have $10,000 and do we take that
$100,000 and I don’t know, I think that’s for multiple pieces of equipment, correct?
Hoffman: Right.
Stolar: Do we just ask to spread it out over 4 years from 2010 to 2013, 25 grand a piece and start
replacing it in 2010 with one piece here and there.
Daniel: Are you going to find the most worn products and then if some seem to be, based off of
maintenance staff’s recommendations, we can...to push those funds out.
Stolar: And I don’t know how much equipment, you may say well no, what we need to do is
yep, this piece will be about $40,000 so we’ll ask for $40,000 in 2010 but that other piece in
2011 is $20,000 less. But to me I would think using some of these other things, fitness
equipment type concept it would seem that the skate park would belong there.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Hoffman: Yep, and to track, to follow that and piggy back on Commissioner Stolar’s first
question. Yes, capital replacement fund, the master capital replacement fund can buy new things
and it can replace worn out equipment. What our premise is, is that trucks wear out. You need
to replace them. Park dedication is a state mandate, or it’s allowed by the state law to build a
park and trail system. There’s a fine line there when you start, we could stop building today and
we could say we’re going to use our $10 million park dedication to repair what we have, but that
would be short changing all of those new citizens that are paying for that money that you’re
telling them you’re taking their money to meet their park needs. So we have a comprehensive
park plan so you know there’s good reason to say well we’ve got a skate park. We paid for it
with park dedication funds the first time around but now you have to go and replace it with
general operating cash so. It’s a good reason to do that.
Stolar: And that’s what I would recommend. I mean it goes, we had talked before with you
guys a while ago when I was on Eden Prairie park board. It was the same thing. They were
running out of park dedication. They actually bonded to have maintenance funds.
Hoffman: And that…
Stolar: Because you get to that point. You use park dedication is to build as you grow as a
community and then you’ve got to bond it or either through general or a specific bonding.
Hoffman: Some of you were here when the council approved the half a million dollars in
playgrounds.
Stolar: Yep, exactly for the same reason.
Hoffman: Same reason. We had that conversation.
Daniel: Okay. Steve, is there anything you’d like to add?
Scharfenberg: No other than I think we need to probably table this discussion when we’ve got a
full commission and discuss it at that point so.
Daniel: I think that’s a very good point. Although exactly, I just want to say Todd, I know you
may, Neils, you have some questions I’m sure and you’d like to make a statement with regards to
the concession stands at Lake Ann, is that correct?
Todd Neils: In general.
Daniel: Excellent. It could be a lot of things, absolutely. Great.
Todd Neils: Well hello again. My name is Todd Neils. I’m with the Chanhassen Baseball and
Softball Association. Changing our name over as we expand our programming. Mr. Hoffman
did alert me to the conversation tonight approximately a week ago and I would like to address a
couple of the things that have been outlined here for postponement. I would like to refer back,
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
and I don’t have any presentation materials although you have them in your notes, to our
th
conversation on October 28 when I addressed the commission and discussed both the
reconstruction of Lake Ann #3 to a little league complex as well as the ability to host a District 1
baseball tournament long term in Chanhassen. At that time Mr. Hoffman had presented some
information from I believe Kensington Hoisington or.
Hoffman: Hoisington-Koegler, yeah.
Todd Neils: Yes, who had done a schematic of what a new concession stand may look like at
Lake Ann Park. I have the numbers here. The expected cost based on their estimate was
$465,000. As Mr. Hoffman put a finer pencil to it, through the possibility of having materials or
labor donated, I suspect while that process hasn’t been completed, we probably could reduce that
number substantially. What I would ask the commission to take a look at is the true number that
we could get to for concession stand and then offer up the opportunity to partner with the city
and local community to help fund that concession stand. I’d like to be clear about one thing.
While I understand the economic situation, I listen to it all day long on the TV. It’s fantastically
uplifting. I also understand that Lake Ann Park, and I just ran across this today because I was
doing some work on a new web site we’re developing. Lake Ann Park is considered the
premiere park in Chanhassen. It seems to me that if we’re going to offer Lake Ann Park up as a
premiere park in Chanhassen, that we should have premiere facilities at our premiere park. I
would also suggest that while I’m here as the President of the Little League, or the President of
the Baseball/Softball Association, I’m also a taxpayer, citizen and user of the park. I think that a
new concession stand will not only be used by our Little League and baseball and softball
participants, but also the men and women that participate in softball activities through the city on
a nightly basis. Many times what you’ll find through Mr. Ruegemer’s programming softball,
men’s and women’s softball and coed softball is that those people come up and rarely have time
to have Taco Bell or McDonald’s, let alone a fantastic hotdog prepared by the little league. So I
would say, I would ask that the commission reconsider the postponement of some of these
things. I also note that the Bandimere Community Park netting, safety netting, and again this is
baseball driven but I would suggest that at that park there is no more dangerous park in the city
as it relates to foul balls. You have your oldest group of boys and women, and girls playing at
those parks on both Bandimere #2 and Bandimere #3. There are foul balls that are hit routinely.
There are small children that are running around. If there’s any way to move that up. I note on
here the items that will remain. While I understand the contractual obligation on the Lyman
Boulevard trail and also the Chanhassen High School, I note that there are $214,000 in non-trail
expenditures. $600,000 for the school for a total of $814,000 over the next two years, which is
approximately 25% of the total budget that is proposed to remain. I can’t help but wonder if we
don’t all put our heads together and put a finer point to both the cost of the concession stand and
some of the modifications that are suggested, possibly pushing up some gap trail or other trail
modifications, that we couldn’t readdress the possibility of having a concession stand at Lake
Ann Park.
Daniel: Todd, thank you very much. Dan, any questions you have for Todd? Anything that
you’d like to make a statement on?
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Campion: I appreciate his comments and agree with a lot of them. I think a concession stand
would really be beneficial at Lake Ann and without naming which ones, I mean I would be open
to tabling, you know maybe in 2010 it looks like we could, some of the bigger trail extensions or
connections that we don’t have contractual obligation to.
Daniel: Thor.
Smith: I think I, you know I think we all would love to have a concession stand at Lake Ann.
Yeah, for the ballfield I think it would, like you said, it would get used by a lot of the city’s
programs. A lot of, of course the little league as well. You know I’m not opposed to looking at
it more in depth. I don’t think that, we’re going to get that done of course tonight but I would, I
guess I would be open to looking at it a little bit more in depth. You know I guess pushing off
some of the trail programs is, you know we’ve pushed them off many times in the past and you
know how far do you push them off and when do you say you know look. People have been
wanting this trail for many years and it’s not getting done. You know it’s all things to consider I
guess and I don’t think we’ve had time to do that really.
Daniel: Excellent. Glenn.
Stolar: Specifically to the concession stand, again I think last time we spoke, I’m in favor of the
concession stand. I think it adds to the whole atmosphere there. I do think in these times we’re
going to expect the little league and others, volunteers, we’re going to have to really sharpen the
pencil because, to be honest, I don’t think I can see us putting more than 100 grand out there and
getting it past City Council. So anything outside of that I think would have to be raised from
external sources to get what we want, but I think doing a portion of it is still I think consistent
with, and Todd we’ve talked about this. Both Todd’s, we’ve talked about this. That you know
finishing Lake Ann. Finishing it. Getting it to where it’s this premiere park and getting it done.
I do have a feel for that so…about the trails, that we keep pushing several of these out. My
bigger concern is that in 2009-2010 we’re spending $3.1 million. I would like to push the trails
out period because I don’t, I think we need to wait and see what happens before we start
spending another $1 million dollars on trails in 2010. Just and we’ll have that at the following
discussion but that doesn’t, let’s jump in and fill the gap with a million of other things but at the
same time I do think you know if we can get the partnership and raise the money, one of the
priorities I said was, if we can have a low cost, high use or high return on an investment, we
ought to look at some of those things in the 2010 timeframe. This might be one depending on
how much other groups can bring forward.
Daniel: Great. Thanks Glenn.
Scharfenberg: Well to piggy back with Glenn. I think it’s got to be a partnership agreement that
somehow it’s going to get it built because it’s not going to be just the city building it to get it
done and Todd, I know you guys have had discussions with CAA and that and I think it’s going
to take a push like Minnetonka did to get their facility built. You’re going to have to go out and
just beat the drum with community involvement and stuff like that to get you know money raised
to try to do that and a partnership with the city and everybody else I think is the way that that’s
going to get done so.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Stolar: Including to the extent possible, you know if we put those playgrounds and we asked
neighborhoods, hey you can get a little bit more for your dollar if you build it yourself. I don’t
know here, we have a little bit of a difference but you know what, people volunteer. For
humanity or other aspects like that and maybe the CAA comes through and says we’ll put in a lot
of the labor. That saves you a cost. They work with you. Get materials donated. We can
partner and make it happen.
Daniel: Yeah, and I absolutely agree. And I made the same statement here. I think as we did
last time but I’m certainly in favor of having a concession stand at that location. I think it will
improve the amenities in that location. It’s going to, it’s a no lose situation for those who are
involved within the program, be it softball or whether it be for baseball, both adult and youth
recreation so. But given the situation we certainly need to get a better cost. You know the
previous design, is that the most, do we want to go economical? Do we want to go architectural?
Do we, you know are there other areas that we can take a look at really functionally, what are the
important criteria’s that we wanted to find in that concession stand. Is it just basically to
accommodate a number of people based off of the bathrooms and the few amenities behind there
that we can deal with, and what will that cost? I think last time we got 400 and some odd
thousand dollars for a very beautiful building but can we take a portion of that on, scale down, a
more simplistic design and are there things within that design that you had mentioned, that you’ll
be able to bring to the table such as labor or materials that people can work within. That we
partner with the city on. We can take certain aspects of it. I guess the bottom line, what it comes
down to is if there’s something realistic, let’s say if we do choose for, because I’d say for 2009
we’re pretty well, we’re done would you say for CIP Todd? For 2009?
Hoffman: You’re always open to any recommendation…
Daniel: Yes, well I know but we also have to speak on behalf of the council and we already
know that.
Hoffman: They’ve approved it for 2009 but you can make recommendations to increase or
decrease at any time.
Daniel: Yeah, so they know there’s, we can do that but I guess I would like to see because, if we
decide to put something off til 2010, things change. For better or maybe pricing could go down.
Pricing could go up substantially, we don’t know, but I think to talk in generalities, as far as what
the city can commit to, I think we’d have a better idea if you were to sit down with Jerry and
Todd and say here’s what we as the association, and I think I have a good idea as far as over the
next, let’s take a look at the next 2 months here. By mid-April, mid-May, I mean we won’t be
able to get anything done for this fiscal year. I just don’t think that will realistically happen but I
think for 2010, if we can get the planning done in place and we can have an idea from the
association, and also other softball, the adult league. Adult recreation leagues, if they’re willing
to contribute, there’s a fee that can be added to their entrance fee. Things like that that we can
take a look at to help offset the cost. To help raise money or funding for this, I’m all for it but I
think I’d feel more comfortable, a little more details as far as what the city’s total contribution
would be, and I agree with Steve and, that we, I just don’t think we can take on the full cost or
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
burden of the project. At this point right now. But I still, you know again would like to see,
here’s what we are coming with. Here’s what we’re going to recommend. We’re looking at, you
know out of this revised project…it’s going to be 380, of that 380 we’d like to ask the city to do
175 or 200 and we’re going to raise, we’re going to get the balance by the state. I’m just
throwing that for an example, but then I think that becomes more palatable because the
community’s bringing something to the city. I think it would be easy for the council to accept
because that’s a significant amount of money that’s being contributed and then if we’re able to
match something to that, and then I think we’ve got a positive project to move forward. I mean
that’s just my opinion.
Hoffman: I agree totally. There’s no better confidence builder for a council than if a group
stands up before them and says, we’ll match your dollar with our dollar and we’ll send people
out to build that. We haven’t seen that kind of effort in our community in a while and it’s, if a
group is willing to do that, they’re going to say yeah. Our $100,000 to your $100,000 and away
we go. They know it’s a value then because anybody who’s willing to, the Lion’s was really one
of the last groups that made an investment in Lake Ann Park. They said we’re going to match
this. They came initially to the council because they wanted ballfield lights and they had an
interest in using the concession building that was there for some of their tournaments they were
running at the time and don’t rule out the conversation we had, I think it was back the same
night, back in October about the group from, the building group out of Chaska. Out of the
school… It just takes momentum and enthusiasm to rally that and I can sense already we’re
going to get into a much larger conversation about values and there’s no doubt there’s
momentum in finishing the trail system in this community and you can just stop that by saying
you know we’re not going to build trails for the next few years, and then you’re going to have a
couple million dollars to look to do something else with, and so it’s going to be one of those
conversations about where do we want to take this community in the next 5 or so years in park
improvements. Are you going to finish the trails? You have an opportunity to take the trail to
the front of the Arboretum. Are you going to take that opportunity or are you going to pass on
it? You have an opportunity to connect the city to the LRT trail along the south and make these,
there’s some final connections there or you can invest in parks. Commissioner Stolar and others
have been very strong advocates of let’s finish off our premiere park. There’s no doubt that that
would be a great thing to do and people would really enjoy it, but it’s going to be one of those
things. Oh you did that but you didn’t build that trail down on Bluff Creek? Why did you do
that? Or you built that trail. Why didn’t you build that concession stand? What were you
thinking so that’s the conversation we’re going…
Stolar: It’s funny if you look at the referendum, and I know they’re old but the trail ones failed.
The park ones passed.
Daniel: I saw that as well.
Stolar: And I’m not saying, things have changed. We’re in a, and I love our trail system, don’t
get me wrong, but I think that you know we are investing a lot in trails and of course when we
have the opportunity with development to do it, we should take advantage of that opportunity.
Right, and we’re doing that. And I’m not saying we should remove the trails or replace them.
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I’m just saying, I’m just worried about spending it all up front unless there’s a compelling reason
from a development perspective to do it.
Daniel: And I think we can take the opportunity, because I agree. I mean there has to be a
balance between what we’re going to do as far as to now, well now the focus seems to be on the
community parks since we’ve moved away from the neighborhoods. I think those are the, that
we’ve already determined, have been addressed. But there has to be a continued I think focus
and direction on trail expansion. There has to be a necessity. Part of that necessity has to be
balance against demand though and I think we can then make a determination probably like…
table these discussions but it gives us you know 4 weeks here to think about some of these things
over the next two years because it’s things that we had talked about in 2007 and moved out to
2009 are here and those things that we were talking about being pushed out again. I mean it’s
just, you know it’s like a magnet. Just north and north. Everything keeps getting pushed out.
You never can connect them so I’d like to see, at least if we are going to consider moving
projects, that we still keep in mind that there has to be trail expansion. At least in certain key
areas and where are we going to get our best bang for the buck. Is connected to the LRT that
important? Or is you know connecting other portions of the trails important so. The Pioneer, the
Preserve, or not Pioneer but Rice Marsh Lake trail. You know that possibly could get pushed
out. Is there a high demand for that? That loop around Rice Marsh. Maybe not right now. 2, 3,
4 years from there, yes. Is there demand to connect to the LRT? Well we all know the LRT gets
used a lot and maybe that is a demand, so I mean let’s think about those type of things as we go
into our next session.
Hoffman: We’ll take some field trips and then the other thing that I’ll bring back is, we’re
working on establishing exactly how much cash is left in this community for park dedication,
and so that will give you a better estimation of where you’re going to end because now we’re
working off of, oh we’re down annually. We’ve come from a million four hundred thousand.
Well let’s, and that’s what park dedication is predicated off of. It says you should be able to
acquire enough cash to build out your system so we’ll, we’re close enough now to where we can
pretty accurately estimate how much industrial, how much commercial, how much housing we
have left. What’s already paid and what hasn’t and what the cash value of your bank account
will be when it’s all said and done.
Daniel: …I mean increasing of the…
Hoffman: Oh absolutely. Yeah. Our lead counsel has always said if you put the plan out there
that says it costs $15,000 per house, it’s perfectly defensible.
Todd Neils: Well we didn’t make any, or get any ’09 or 2010 improvements into the stimulus
plan?
Hoffman: Everybody’s in the stimulus plan. Parks have been in and out and back in so.
Todd Neils: I’m wearing my Wells Fargo shirt tonight. No but seriously one thing I wanted to
mention before we close on this was just that we brought up the idea of selling bricks as a fund
raising opportunity and I just wanted to mention that again to at least get it in the minute and
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keep thinking about that. That’s absolutely something that I would consider doing as a fund
raising opportunity. The two largest events that I can foresee (a), would be our opening day,
nd
which would be May 2 of this year. You’re invited. When we would potentially sell bricks
and possibly look at a new, hopefully a new plan for a concession stand out there. The other
rd
would be the 3 of July. We could have volunteers on behalf of the fund raising effort at a booth
selling bricks to the general community. I do have a mandatory parent meeting for all of our
rd
participants in the league on May 23, so I would like to start the conversation with our parent
groups about the possibility that we may need to raise money for this type of project. Thank you.
Scharfenberg: Before we move on, Todd you had mentioned the netting, or fencing at Lake Ann
that’s coming up. When would we need to make a decision on that? I think you said that that’s
the most important or pending one. When would we need to make a decision on that? Like
within, by next meeting or?
Hoffman: Well, no. Anytime throughout this. Anytime throughout the year. We just don’t
want to end up moving onto the year not completing the improvement and not modifying the
budget because then you know we’re at risk of our citizens coming in and saying you published a
CIP. You didn’t amend it. You didn’t finish this…
Scharfenberg: Sure.
Hoffman: So anytime throughout the year.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Daniel: We’ve gone at least 10 years now without having those safety nettings, correct. What
type of, fill me in as far as the…
Hoffman: Balls coming out of Fields 5 and heading into Field 6 for the most part is the biggest
one.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: And then the dugout area. And just in general fencing. We did some more elaborate,
or not elaborate or improved dug outs on Fields 1, 2 and 3 that we would repeat on 4, 5 and 6 and
we would just complete a plan so we would bring something in and say you know if you want to
approve these ballfields with additional fencing, additional dugout improvements. How would
we do that and go from there in the recommendation.
Daniel: Okay. Oh I was talking excuse me, Bandimere.
Hoffman: Bandimere is a difficult study. You would deal, either net the entire area like and then
the balls fall down on top of the net, or you try to put nets up. Straight up vertically to stop the
balls from coming out. So there’s two schools of thought there. It’s not an easy fix. We’ve
studied it for a half dozen years.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Daniel: And have we had any injuries?
Hoffman: Oh sure. Yeah, minor injuries. I’ve spent a lot of time there and you’d better be
yelling. You’d better be moving.
Daniel: Okay. That’s the same thing I assume the challenge at like a Bennett.
Stolar: They have netting.
Daniel: They do? I didn’t pay attention.
Stolar: But off the sides they don’t so you can have foul balls off the side that still land in the
open areas. Very rare it comes over the top but it has happened where it comes over the top.
Their netting needs to be replaced. There are several holes in the netting that I’ve seen a couple
balls go through.
Hoffman: Field 5 at Lake Ann, they hit a home run and they hit people in the back of the head
sitting at Field 6. It’s just a random.
Stolar: And our van had a window smashed at Bennett Park because of a foul ball that one of the
high schoolers hit that went very far and so yeah, I mean no matter what, unless you enclose it,
there’s always going to be risks. You know so if that hit a person but if it smashes a window that
far away, it would have smacked a person pretty hard and it was in the parking lot. Anyone
could have been walking and wouldn’t have even noticed.
Daniel: Thank you. Well and Todd like I said…I’m sure we will…discussion with the city and
we’re definitely excited about something. It’s just what can we do from a financial standpoint to
get to that point and as I said, I think that gap that you may see right now, it’s starting to close so
I think your efforts will be paying off and I think it’s just to give us a better idea and give council
a better idea and then we can get to that point so, I think if we set a target timeframe and if it’s
something that we can agree upon as far as a hard date, a 2010 date, then I think that can be
realistically we could all try to shoot for as far as both in our planning and as well as your’s and
the association.
Todd Neils: Thank you.
Daniel: So thank you. Is there, oh please go ahead. Is there anything else you’d like to close
with?
Todd Neils: Well I don’t, I don’t want to waste too much more of your time here. I appreciate
taking the time that you have. Mr. Ruegemer and myself sat through a ballfield allocation
meeting today and again harping back to 2008 in October, I did note that there are approximately
51 ballfields in the city of Chanhassen with 5 dedicated specifically to baseball. I made a request
at that time, which was approved, and I appreciate that on behalf of the Little League, or
Chanhassen Baseball and Softball that Field 3 would be upgraded. I come again to ask about
Field 1. As Mr. Ruegemer can attest, while the city lacks in overall baseball fields, the biggest
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
hole right now is at a what’s called a mid-tier field. We have plenty of fields that are 60 foot
base pads with 40 foot mound, which are, or 46 foot mound which are appropriate for our
younger youth, or our youth. We have a reasonable number of fields, at least in the current
environment, until the new school is finished, at 90 foot and a 60 foot mound. We only have one
field in Chanhassen that has 75 foot base pads and a 52 foot mound. And that’s at Lake Ann 3
where 3 different associations are vying for it. Excuse me, Bandimere 3. Bandimere 3. Where 3
different associations are vying for that. As a again the President of the Baseball and Softball
Association we have expanded our programming to include the age group that would utilize that
field. We have not had access to Bandimere 3 because we’ve deferred to the other associations
that do offer it. What I am requesting at this point is a modification to Field 1 at Lake Ann Park
with no fence movement, and a permanent peg at 75 foot base pads with either a buried full sized
mound or a clay mound that can accommodate that intermediate group of kids. At this point
both Chaska area youth baseball and Chanhassen baseball and softball will be utilizing that field
for it’s programming needs. Both will be using the exact same dimension so there will be no
need to change either the mound or the base pad configuration. So while I wouldn’t expect you
to make a decision tonight, and I’m happy to come back in a month and talk further about it
again so I don’t waste too much more of your time. I would like you to consider the possibility
of putting a permanent mound and a permanent peg structure on Field 1 to accommodate those
baseball needs.
Daniel: Thank you Todd. Jerry, what’s the impact or what’s your recommendation or thought
on that?
Ruegemer: You know there’s always discussion items on that. We certainly want to take a look
at the big picture as it relates to this. In past years CAA and other groups have used it for
different age groups for that. Now this is you know certainly I would whole heartedly agree with
Todd that kind of that intermediate or 75 foot fields are in much demand, not only in our city but
in Chaska, Victoria and really in Minnetonka school district. Eastern Carver County School
District. That is a big need right now. I guess what I want to do is just make sure that we’re
looking at all the user needs. Is there something that we may or may not use it for adult softball
tournaments into the future or presently. You know that doesn’t say that if there’s a permanent
situation that there can’t be steps taken to you know make that available for a weekend type of
thing, but we certainly wouldn’t get into a habit of you know putting in a mound. Ripping out a
mound. Putting in a mound. Ripping out a mound. Putting in a mound. Ripping out a mound.
You know I would think initially you know a portable pitching mound buried may be an option
that would be a permanent that we could try on that, the field already has 75 foot bases that are
pegged there currently so that isn’t any real big deal. They’re 65, 75 and 90 foot currently, so
it’s just a matter of really setting them at a certain distance and leaving them. And I mean Todd
has worked very well with the Chaska area youth baseball group and kind of thrown everybody’s
needs kind of in the middle and kind of coming up with very good solutions and discussion
items. I mean that certainly does help if it’s not going to be changing fields on a daily basis or 3
times a week that seasonal staff don’t have to go and change the pitching, or not pitching but the
base distances and that sort of thing so, I mean it’s certainly worthy of discussion at this point.
We just want to make sure that we’re going to make the right decision beyond this year.
Scharfenberg: What age group is it that uses 75 foot bases?
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Todd Neils: Well currently our metro traveling program at age 13 uses 75 foot bases. We have
2 teams this year at that age group. Additionally we have a 12 year old, we have two 12 year old
tournament teams that also utilize that base pad. So we’ve doubled our, their are teams to 4.
Excuse me, 4 teams. What I see as the numbers continue through the system is while this year
we only have 2 teams, I anticipate next year we’re going to have possibly 3 or 4 teams. So we’re
going to go from 4 teams this year to 5 or 6 teams next year, which exacerbates the problem even
further. Because you’ll still have the potential growth occurring if the economy does improve,
and the housing starts and so on and so forth, do expand as was anticipated when the new high
school was voted on and 312 is put in and that corridor was developed. So I can’t help but
wonder you know, the long term, not only the long term viability of the current ball fields in the
Chanhassen area are both you know, they’re both short term and long term needs and one of the
long term needs is we’re going to need even more park space than we have now and you know
I’ve been beating that drum for a couple years. Now is not the time to go spend millions of
dollars on additional park space.
Hoffman: Might be.
Todd Neils: Well yeah, good point. Good point.
Stolar: I guess Todd my question is, a couple things. One, we talked about this in October.
Now we’re talking about it again. Is there a way that you guys can come together as far as just
lay out the forecast for us and here’s what we think we’re going to need. Work it with Jerry first
and then if there are issues come back to this group because you know I think we need to, to your
point. You’ve got some demographics you’re talking about. Let’s figure it out because I don’t
think we want to every year have to re-visit this, right? We need to have a plan and then we just
need to live with it. Adjust accordingly if need be.
Hoffman: Yeah, it’s somewhat marketplace driven. I’m not going to support or diminish Mr.
Neils request tonight. We’ve talked about it but in general when you take a look at, this would
be more specific and so you take away from a general use feel to more specific and so you open
some doors but you also close some doors because now there’s people that can’t use that
particular facility. And generally when you have, when you’re afforded a lot of facilities you
can, you’re afforded to specialize. When you don’t, when you have fewer facilities you tend to
have to be a little bit more generic in how you manage your facilities and so we’ll study that.
We’ll take a look. We’ll see you know who gets the boot if we put the mound up there. You
know if you start with adult softball, I don’t know where you go from there. It diminishes our
ability to have tournaments into the future for adult softball but you can’t…
Stolar: Which goes against what we just talked about the concession stand is what you also want
to maybe use the concession stand for adult softball tournaments.
Hoffman: Yeah, unless you feel…what you can do for a three day tournament if you want, we
really don’t want to go there but we’ve had those conversations so yeah, we’ll sit down again and
go through all that. We welcome those participatory discussions by our users of our parks
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
because one thing you don’t want to do is become, you know outdated and not relevant so we
want to maintain relevancy in our park system.
Stolar: And what I’m looking at you know if we can look over the next 3 years and say here’s
what we think we’re doing. Here’s what CAA is planning on doing or whatever with Little
League and softball organizations, baseball and softball organization’s doing so we have a feel
for that. Right, and where we think from…perspective we want to go with the softball. I mean
part of the reason we put in the lights was so that we could give fields more available in the
daytime for the younger groups and then available for the adults later at night. Well if we can’t
use the field later at night, now we’ve just wasted the implementation of the lights. Because
we’ve now limited it that at this point the kids go to bed. Now we cut off use of that field and we
just put up lights there. So we’ve got to be creative about that.
Todd Neils: Well, there were already lights at Field 1 prior to the input to 3 and 6.
Hoffman: Yeah, they’ve been there.
Todd Neils: 1 has already had lights. To your point about softball, my anticipation about the
softball concessions is going to be on a Monday through Friday basis for the recreational
leagues that Mr. Ruegemer runs during the week.
Stolar: Right, but that field’s now taken out of that usage from what I’m hearing.
Todd Neils: That would be correct.
Daniel: Is that field used Jerry?
Ruegemer: No. It hasn’t been used for softball in many years because of the I guess youth need
and we’ve all kind of gotten by with what we have through this point. Certainly the lights have
helped other fields to increase capacity.
Stolar: Well and that’s what if you lay that all out and you may say hey, this is a no brainer. I
mean I don’t know. It may end up being a no brainer.
Ruegemer: That’s for youth, or adult leagues but we certainly use that field for regional and
state softball tournaments.
Hoffman: There’s been a big transition in 15 or 20 years away. You know numbers in adult
softball are just going down. Fields 1, 2 and 3 were there full with adult teams. That’s why 4, 5
and 6 were built is because the adult teams, we need more softball field space for our adult
leagues and then when they were built, just about the time they were all finished, things started
to slow down.
Todd Neils: You must have been playing with a pencil on 2.
Hoffman: On 2?
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Todd Neils: Yeah.
Ruegemer: The fence was longer.
Todd Neils: Oh the fence was longer?
Hoffman: Absolutely. That was part of the transition. One has transitioned. Two has
transitioned to Little League. Three was always the short field. Still is today until it gets
changed so. There’s been a general transition to youth play at Lake Ann in the past 15 years.
Todd Neils: Well again, thank you for your time.
Daniel: Thanks Todd.
Hoffman: Thanks for your time. For your whole life.
Daniel: Alright. Well I do believe we have a 5.5, is that right?
Stolar: May I make a recommendation? Can we go through 6 and then Chair Daniels can
excuse himself while we discuss the nominations.
Daniel: I think that’s fair.
Stolar: Need to have vice chair take over then.
Smith: Do we need a motion to table this?
Hoffman: Motion to table.
Smith: So moved.
Stolar: Second.
Smith moved, Stolar seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission table
modifications to the 2009-2013 Park and Trail Acquisition and Development Capital
Improvement Program. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote
of 5 to 0.
RECREATION REPORTS:
FEBRUARY FESTIVAL EVALUATION.
Ruegemer: Just again thanks for all the commission that were at the February Festival. It
seemed like it was a while ago here now but we had great participation and involvement from
not only the commission but other groups within our community. With the Rotary and library
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
and the boy scouts and the Key Club among others so thanks again for all your help. It turned
out to be a wonderful, beautiful day out. Some nice ticket sales on that so I won’t go through the
full report at this time but I just wanted to thank everybody for being there.
Stolar: Quick question. I saw that the sliding hill was used right by the new pavilion. Is there
any thought next year to maybe expand the things we do and make the pavilion kind of another
part and expansion of the Feb Fest like you know snow shoeing or anything like that where you
have the pavilion now be a, or not the pavilion. The parking shelter be a hosting place now for
some other activities that could be done as part of an expansion of the Feb Fest.
Hoffman: Certainly can look at it. Absolutely.
Stolar: It seemed like there were a lot of, when I came to you and there were still a lot of, there
were already a lot of kids there.
Daniel: Anything else Jerry on February Festival?
Ruegemer: No.
Daniel: Okay. If anybody has comments or questions. I take it the overall feedback on
February Festival, the people you’ve talked to, I mean the weather was I think very fair for,
given the mid-February date. So you couldn’t ask for more than that, and it, I mean was there
some complaints about the slot limit and how it affect? They know going into it.
Hoffman: Yeah, just talk.
Daniel: Just talk, okay. Alright. And oh by the way, as far as concessions, the Rotary Thor,
have you guys had feedback as far as how the concessions went?
Smith: I assume they went very well. I mean based on what was there. I know that they sold a
lot of hamburgers and a lot of hotdogs. I don’t have numbers but I know they did pretty well.
Hoffman: Just hope they make enough money to keep coming back.
Daniel: Yeah. Well at the end of the day when it costs.
Hoffman: Last year was about a break even so.
Daniel: When it costs the City $137, that’s a heck of a deal for a great event so consider it a
success.
DADDY/DAUGHTER DATE NIGHT EVALUATION.
th
Ruegemer: Again another long standing program within our organization. It was held the 13
th
and 14 of February out at the Rec Center. Had 79 couples attending both nights. We did move
it probably 2-3 years ago to a Friday-Saturday versus like a Wednesday-Thursday, Thursday-
39
Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Friday type of situation so just again a lot of fun activities with that. It continues to be a very
successful and popular event with that so again I’ll just take any questions that the commission
has tonight and go from there.
Daniel: Well I have two sons so I’m out of the question on this. Anybody else?
Campion: I attended and it was a great event and I applaud it.
Hoffman: Okay, thanks for coming.
Daniel: And it’s a revenue maker. Money maker for us. Excellent. No, good job and obviously
it’s very popular. I assume, is there a limit to the number of couples that can come per night?
That you have.
Ruegemer: Yep, 50. It is 50 and that’s kind of based on rec center capacity and layout of the
facility and we’re always looking for ways to expand that if that’s possible, but we’re kind of
locked within that parameter right now.
Daniel: Alright. And was it pretty evenly split between Friday and Saturday.
Ruegemer: Friday’s always the more popular. Yeah, I mean for the most part it was pretty
equal.
Daniel: Alright. Well thank you Jerry. Again another great success for our recreation program.
Ruegemer: Thank you.
Daniel: What can we say, like you said February Festival was a great success. Good weather for
February and obviously Daddy/Daughter night turned out really well. Is there anything else? I
think that’s about it. Is this now time when I can leave.
Scharfenberg: Before you leave Jeff I just wanted to notify the rest of the commission that, if
you recall in the January meeting there was the ability of the commission to nominate a person
for the Service Award for the Rotary Service and after the meeting I had mailed Jeff and wanted
to let him know that I had thought of somebody and I wanted to nominate my wife for her
service with the Girl Scouts and her involvement with Girl Scouts over the last 5 to 6 years.
And then also this benefit that she helped put on in 2008 for a Chanhassen family so Jeff
indicated that he was fine with that and I put together a nomination and submitted it on behalf of
the committee last week so I just wanted to let you guys know that we did submit somebody.
Daniel: Thank you Steve.
Scharfenberg: Yep.
Hoffman: Now you can excuse yourself Chair.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Daniel: Now I’ll excuse myself. By the way, am I done for the night then?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Daniel: Okay.
Stolar: Take a cookie.
Daniel: No. I’ve had enough of those today but thank you.
Hoffman: We started early this morning. 7:30.
Daniel: Gentlemen, have a good night and we’ll see you next March, right?
Hoffman: Yep. March.
Daniel: Thank you very much.
Hoffman: Thanks Jeff.
Vice Chair Smith took over the meeting.
RECOMMENDATION FOR NEW PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION
MEMBERS.
Smith: We interviewed the two. We did not, Ron Jenson and Elise Ryan. We did not interview
Chair Daniels. But all three of them will go before the council in a couple weeks I assume.
Stolar: Well just based on my feedback, I guess I’ll, so we can start the discussion I’ll put forth
that we recommend the council appoint, reappoint Chair Daniel and also appoint Elise Ryan is
my evaluation. I think Mr. Jenson was a very good candidate too as far as his interest and
eagerness and would certainly encourage the council to look for other opportunities. I did have
the chance to ask him you know if there were other ones of interest, he did have a concern as far
as the timing because this timing worked well for him but he wouldn’t rule it out if the timing
became available. We always like seeing the interest but as far as from the interviews and also
obviously the previous work of Chair Daniel, I propose we recommend Jeff Daniel and Elise
Ryan.
Scharfenberg: I would second that recommendation.
Smith: All in favor. Or any other discussion?
Campion: No, I completely agree as well. She seemed to have great experience and insight and
questions and thoughts about what the commission does and could do so.
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Park and Recreation Commission - February 24, 2009
Smith: Yeah, I strongly agree as well with that. We have a motion. We have a second. Any
further discussion?
Stolar moved, Scharfenberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
recommend that the City Council appoint Jeff Daniel and Elise Ryan to the Park and
Recreation Commission. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 4 to 0.
Stolar: Before we leave this topic I just want to thank Commissioner Campion for joining us for
these past couple years and wish you well.
Hoffman: He’ll be back in March.
Campion: It’s been a pleasure. I’ll be back in March and I don’t intend to leave for good. Just
until I can finish my MBA program here hopefully in a year and then if there’s an opening I’ll, I
hope to apply again.
Hoffman: Does your March ending date work as far as you know now?
Campion: Yes.
Hoffman: We should plan to take him out.
Stolar: Sounds good.
Hoffman: Plan on it in March.
Stolar: It’s not the last Tuesday in March right. It’s the fourth. March has five Tuesdays I
believe. Something like that.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS:
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Hoffman: Did you see the annual survey? That’s done by…park dedication. We’re still leading
but we’re not at the top so.
Scharfenberg moved, Campion seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The Park and Recreation
Commission meeting was adjourned.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim
42