PRC 2009 08 25
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
AUGUST 25, 2009
Chairman Daniel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jeff Daniel, Tom Kelly, Glenn Stolar, Thor Smith and Elise Ryan
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Steve Scharfenberg, and Scott Wendt
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; and John Stutzman, Recreation Supervisor
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Smith moved, Kelly seconded to accept the agenda as published. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hoffman: On an evening where we’re going to talk about planning trails, I just found it very
heart warming driving down. I’m sure you experienced some of the same views. Our trails are
full of people on an evening such as tonight so I came down Powers and it was loaded from one
end to the other and John came down Kerber and the same thing so it’s great to have people out
using the trails. We’re going to talk about expanding our trail system tonight and what that all
entails. There’s also a safety reminder, on Sunday night we had a pedestrian accident on
Highway 5 at Galpin, or Great Plains. 101. A couple of young boys on bikes crossed at what
they thought was a safe point. No cars coming from the west. A car in the left hand turn lane,
like it was going to turn down towards the Legion so the boys crossed in front of that parked car
and an oncoming car hit them, or hit one of them so he’s in critical condition down at I believe
Children’s so we’re hoping that he’s going to recover. I think visiting. I think he’s from Carver
visiting some friends south of Highway 5 so it’s just a reminder to talk to your neighbors and
family and friends about pedestrian safety and being safe out there on the trail system and in the
community.
Daniel: Alright, thank you Todd.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Kelly moved, Stolar seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park
and Recreation Commission meeting dated July 28, 2009 as presented.
Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
SCHEMATIC DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION COST ESTIMATES FOR THE
FOLLOWING TRAIL SEGMENTS:
?
HIGHWAY 101 NORTH/PLEASANT VIEW ROAD TRAIL CONNECTIONS
CITY PROJECT #PK&T-029
?
BLUFF CREEK DRIVE GAP TRAIL CITY PROJECT #PK&T-083
?
PIONEER BOULEVARD GAP TRAIL CITY PROJECT #PK&T-084
?
HIGHWAY 5 PEDESTRIAN TRAIL TO ARBORETUM CITY PROJECT
#PK&T-098
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Daniels and members of the commission. These are four trail
alignments in our community that are yet to be developed. John you want to go to the city, pull
up the trail map and then we’ll go through that. For the last 20 to 25 years the community has
continued to expand it’s trail system, both through development, independent trail construction
projects. Primarily the 1997 referendum park and trail open space referendum added 7 miles in
one project. Six different trail segments in ’98-99 that were constructed. Much of our trail
system has been constructed with road projects and then a variety of trails have come through
development so let’s say the Ryland development, the Preserve down south of Lyman Boulevard
just recently, well last week that was completed so the trail now comes from the Preserve,
underneath Lyman Boulevard and up to the high school. Those kind of projects are constructed
by development contract where we talk to the developer and say this is going to benefit you. It’s
going to benefit the community. We would like you to build it concurrent with your project.
We’ll pay for the gravel. We’ll pay for the asphalt and you just incorporate the rest of the
construction into your project and it’s been very successful. These four that we’re going to talk
about tonight, the Arboretum trail, the newest of the group and it just recently kind of, the trail
on the south side that we’re talking about came to light because of the conversations with the
Arboretum about having access to the facility. Allowing pedestrians, both biking or walking free
access to the Arboretum. In the traditional park and trail plan the trail was going to be on the
north side of Highway 5 and constructed with the Highway 5 improvements from Highway 41
west to Victoria. So that’s the newest of the group. The remaining, the Pioneer Boulevard gap
trail is a remaining section of trail down on the south, between Powers Boulevard and 101.
Highway 101. Bluff Creek Drive gap trail is the last piece of trail on Bluff Creek Drive down
near Hesse Farm before we gain access to the LRT. The Minnesota River Valley LRT which is
now managed by Three Rivers to that point and then by the City of Chanhassen from that point
west to Chaska. And then the last one is 101 north section of trail. The 101 north trail was built
to Pleasant View but it didn’t finish out to Minnetonka and Eden Prairie up to that intersection
and this would complete that final section of trail. These are some significant sections of trail. If
these are completed there’s really no a great deal left in our community. Highway 41, which we
now are talking about with the County is another significant section. It would build 2 miles of
trail under one project. They’ll be 1 mile in the highway ditch line of Highway 41 on the east
side, and then 1 mile in the park. At Minnewashta Regional Park so that would build 2 miles of
trails and then these would be some other significant sections in our community. To effectively
plan we wanted to get ahead of you know a construction schedule. We brought in Brauer and
Associates. Jason and his group to take a look at some detailed schematic designs and detailed
cost estimates. I am here to report that the cost estimates are significantly higher in some cases
than what we had originally penciled into the CIP so we’ll talk about that later under item
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
number 4 but we’ll get into the cost estimates as Jason goes through his presentations. So I’ll
take any general questions and then we’re going to let Jason go through these project by project.
Show you the alignment and answer your questions about the specifics of each trail project. Any
general questions about trail development in the community or funding or?
Stolar: Just one. Highway 41 being the other big one. That’s not in this list is that correct?
Hoffman: Not on this list.
Stolar: Is that because we have to go with the County and do it?
Hoffman: The County is working on it and they hope to start construction in 2010 and we’ll talk
about our original CIP was 125 matching and when we’re asking you to raise that up to $400,000
to cover additional costs associated with the project. And then the construction engineering and
design and project inspection.
Stolar: But the engineering design, will that be done through the.
Hoffman: The County. They’ll be the lead and we will sign a joint agreement. Joint powers
agreement.
Daniel: Any other questions? Okay great. Thanks Todd. We’ll also continue.
Jason Amberg: We’ll start with Highway 101. Unless you want to go in a different order.
Daniel: No.
Jason Amberg: Starting up at the intersection of the northern portion of where 101 starts to
curve down south to Chanhassen. We’re connecting to an existing trail system in this area. We
would be replacing the ped ramp here and bringing the trail on the west side of 101 creating a
little bit of boulevard between the trail and 101 until we get down to this area here where it starts
to get pretty tight. Then we run into a little bit of grading issue where we will require some
retaining walls and also curb and gutter along this section of 101 here and that curb and gutter
will also require some street storm sewer. As we continue south there’s a, are some portions
here that will require some grading easement. Other than that there’s just some drainage issues
we’ll have to deal with in this area. There’s already a neighborhood storm water retention area
in this area that we are hoping we can use. If we can’t use that, there’s a little bit of area that
could be expanded here. And then we would connect with a crosswalk and ped ramps south to
go onto the existing trail along 101. As we go west on Pleasant View we’re basically building
this trail right along the adjacent street. Replacing existing bituminous curb and gutter with
concrete curb and gutter and building the trail right behind them in the curb. In getting this
section here we will require some more retaining walls. There’s also a culvert in this area that
needs to be extended and a fire hydrant I believe in this area that needs to be moved further into
the right-of-way and then we’re connecting up to an existing trail in this area and a crosswalk.
Here are a couple of sections depicting what that character might be. This top section or 3D
graphic would take place in this general area on Pleasant View with the private residences
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
behind this retaining wall. And this cross section here would be located up in this general area
on 101. As you can see there’s quite a bit of terrain change from the road to the adjacent
properties and the corridor begins to narrow and that’s why we need retaining walls. Are there
any questions about this particular trail?
Daniel: Thor.
Smith: Along Pleasant View there’s no need for land purchase or anything like that along, from
the residents there?
Hoffman: I don’t know Todd, would that be part of right-of-way?
Smith: Or is it all.
Hoffman: Excuse me?
Smith: Land purchase along Pleasant View.
Hoffman: We don’t, there may be some temporary easements. I’m not sure what Jason is going
to come up with.
Jason Amberg: We’re still checking here. No. It’s all easements. The only potential would be
in this corner area if we need to expand the pond for the purposes of trail construction there may
be some acquisition. We’re not anticipating that at this point.
Smith: Okay.
Daniel: Tom.
Kelly: I don’t have any questions.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: Just one. Where you’re moving that retaining wall in Section 1. How far are you away
from the street over there? Because that’s where that curb is and then people are merging.
What’s the setback off of the street?
Jason Amberg: Would that be on 101?
Stolar: On 101, yeah.
Jason Amberg: We’ve got sufficient distance from the drive lane. We’ve reviewed with our
engineers that the curb line is really the important factor and the setback from the drive lane,
we’ve got that covered. The retaining wall in this area would, we’ve got room to keep it say 15
feet from the back of the curb.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Stolar: Okay, so this trail would merely stop 4 feet, 3-4 feet off of the curb then at that point?
Because that’s a 10 foot trail.
Jason Amberg: In segments but in this particular area we’re abutting the trail right up against the
back of the curb here.
Stolar: Oh you are. Okay.
Hoffman: You’re including that clear zone in that, instead of leaving a strip of grass, dirt or
something in there, you’re paving that as part of your clear zone. Your trail reaction but you’re
still right at back of curb right there.
Stolar: Okay.
Daniel: Elise.
Ryan: Actually to follow up on that. That’s a, people are pretty aggressive around that curve
and when you put, if you put a trail even close without some sort of structure or barrier between
even the road and the trail.
Stolar: They’ll use it.
Ryan: They’ll use it and it’s very, I mean it can get very dangerous like in inclement weather or
anything, it would be you know something to think about for sure I think. I don’t know if it’s a
barrier or.
Hoffman: There’s some guardrail farther down on the trail.
Stolar: Yeah, I was thinking, so that’s something that you could add in over there potentially
where we have it where it goes right against the road.
Daniel: So you’re talking about…
Stolar: …so something like that I guess is what.
Ryan: Yeah, I would agree.
Daniel: Alright.
Jason Amberg: We’re straightening out pretty much in this area but we could certainly look at
adding guard rail. Another thing I’ll mention is this, these schematics are based on base mapping
that was generated off of air photos so it’s not highly accurate base mapping, so there’s going to
be a little bit of tweaking to happen in the ultimate design.
Daniel: Anything else Elise?
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Ryan: No thanks.
Daniel: Alright. With the, as part of the trail, is it required that we have to do curb and gutter,
and I assume that a lot of these other options are what are having to raise up the costs, correct?
Hoffman: Not required but as a part of the storm water plan and then also part of the barrier
separation. So it’s separating the trail from the.
Daniel: Let me ask you this. Is the storm water plan tied to the surface area? Obviously it’s tied
to the surface area and what’s for paving correct? Would a narrower trail going, are we at a 10
foot trail?
Jason Amberg: Yes.
Daniel: Okay, would a narrower trail of 6 foot or anything like that change?
Hoffman: I wouldn’t want to go any less than 8 and it’s not going to significantly alter the storm
water. You want to talk about the other…to the curb?
Jason Amberg: The curb. The curb is more of a standard trail requirement when the trail is so
close to the driveways, that curb is necessary and that’s really what’s prompting the need for the
storm water pipes.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: When you go south of Pleasant View at this location, there’s a curb right at that
intersection and everyone probably recognizes the curb just across the street here is just
constantly flat with cars are hitting that curb right there. That’s your section of curb.
Smith: Bituminous curb?
Hoffman: Yep. And then there’s sections of guard rail from this point south that are
incorporated into the trail design as you move further south.
Daniel: Now let me, with the investment that we’re going to put with regards to curb, rails,
potential rails, where’s the State, County and City’s at as far as, I mean is this a permanent, is
this going to be a permanent road for a while Todd? I mean the way it’s structured right now.
Looking ahead. I mean in essence are we going to invest $400, I mean an extra hundred and
some odd thousand dollars of curb and gutter. Two years from now it’s torn up because the
County is, or the City and the counties are still fighting over jurisdiction and there’s a potential
re-build of 101.
Hoffman: Can’t say. When they review this, if this is advanced and when they review it, they’ll
make comments to that regard.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: Yeah. I mean out of all the projects that we have, I mean obviously the Arboretum is,
there’s been 41 and 5 is still up in the air as far as where that’s going to finally turn out. This is
one where, you know if we’re going to make that type of investment, along with 101, Pleasant
View, you know that is what it is. But with 101 there’s certain aspects that are out of our control
and like you said if we’re going to do curb and gutter, what’s going to happen. And I guess it
leads to another question. I know there’s some convenience as well as, there’s some
convenience of continuing along 101. Have there been any options as far as going down Near
Mountain back line, was it Townline?
Hoffman: That’s what most the pedestrians are doing today. They’re avoiding this section.
They’re just going through the neighborhood.
Daniel: And then putting a trail along, is it Townline isn’t it? Or is it, is that Vine Hill? Where
it goes straight across and it goes, if you were to continue a straight line with Crosstown. Right
where it hits.
Stolar: That’s Vine Hill.
Daniel: It is Vine Hill?
Stolar: It goes.
Daniel: It goes…and then 98, that’s all Vine Hill there? What’s the east/west north part, that’s
Townline right?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Daniel: Has there been any consideration of putting a trail along Townline, if we have any
easements options, and then just, because I mean that’s a narrow, old stretch of road that really
hasn’t been updated and then just continue with what people are doing now as low cost. I say
we, you know one option is to continue it along up to Near Mountain along Pleasant View.
Continue that path and then as part of our trail map system when we update the map, zig zag it
up to Townline and from Townline they can take it over to the path. I’m just throwing it out
there as an option. If we’re seeing some increase in costs, especially with this project or any
other projects, as a cost alternative to help us fill that.
Hoffman: I don’t think we would lower the cost any by going internal, if we would build to the
same type of trail improvement. I would just leave it as is and let people find their way through
the neighborhood. This section of trail is also on the County’s comprehensive trail plan as a
regional trail and any time you designate it a regional trail and then you say oh, by the way
neighborhood we don’t think we want to build this on the highway. We would like to put it in
your neighborhood, we’d have an interesting neighborhood meeting to talk about building that.
Daniel: Oh I’m saying not even put the trail in. I mean we just use the, I mean as far as a map.
Hoffman: Use the road.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: Use the road itself because it’s a 30 mile hour road. I mean it’s made…just like we do,
it’s not uncommon for I think us to map out those type of roads as part of the trail system. To
get access point from one trail to another. As an option. I mean again if it’s, if at the end our
goal is to put a trail along, bordering, you know between Hennepin County and Carver County as
well as which town line divides, again it’d be much more cost, and the way I see it as far as just
going Pleasant View, that’s an option. Maybe it’s Option 2 if we have to make some hard
decisions and then go down Townline. And I know if any other commissioners want to
comment on that, or if this is truly as mentioned a comprehensive plan along 101, we stick to the
plan and move forward. I mean Tom, what do you guys think as far as some of the use of trails
like that? I don’t know if you use 101 as part of your running program.
Kelly: Yeah, it’s tricky, to say the least but it’s, it’s a lot of money for a very, very small strip of
trail. The one I’m questioning is the one that goes on Pleasant View. That’s really, if that’s
really needed because when you cost the street at Pleasant View, that existing path just goes
about a quarter mile until you get to North Lotus Park and then it stops. I’m just wondering how,
I’m just wondering you know is half the cost of this project coming from the trail that’s on
Pleasant View, because it sounds like there’s a lot of retaining wall that you’re going to be doing.
Jason Amberg: Not an extensive amount retaining wall. I think a significant portion of the cost
related to the curb and gutter and storm sewer system on 101, so it might be just off the top of
my head it might be a 30%-70% split between Pleasant View and the 101 segment.
Daniel: Yeah, I mean I think a lot of these questions will start coming up Todd as we look at
here’s what we’ve budgeted for the last well 5 years and here’s where we’re at with reality. And
then we go okay, well what are some options. Yeah, it’s like anything else that you’re buying or
purchasing. So you want to make sure that we have all the right decisions in place, but you
know obviously the idea of putting a path through Near Mountain and zig zagging all the way up
to Townline is not an option, but as far as utilizing the road as part of the path system.
Hoffman: Correct.
Daniel: For coordinating purposes. If it allows us to reduce costs and then we can put a path on
Townline because if I know Townline, that’s flat as it gets.
Stolar: Isn’t there a path there on the Minnetonka side I believe? Or does it stop right there? I
think it goes to Vine Hill curves around but then.
Jason Amberg: It doesn’t go all the way down.
Hoffman: A path or a sidewalk.
Stolar: There’s a sidewalk, that’s right.
Daniel: I mean what do you think, from the City what do you think the, I mean ideally we’re
making a proposal to the council. I mean what do you think the council’s going to look at? The
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
importance and what’s their opinion on, really it’s the 101 option that we’re looking at. I mean
we’re talking hundred and some odd yards. Sort of yards with regards to continuing the path
from Near Mountain to 101. So really it allow 101 that really I think is going to, is where does
the City stand and do we want to continue that? If costs are really starting to escalate beyond
control.
Stolar: But this didn’t go beyond. This one didn’t go beyond our budget.
Daniel: Oh it doesn’t? What’s it at?
Stolar: 400.
Daniel: Oh it is? Oh Glenn, thank you for pointing that out.
Stolar: I don’t know if that changed.
Hoffman: Well we move it to 2013 right now.
Stolar: Well we moved it but it was 400 originally. This is one that hasn’t gone up that much
right?
Daniel: Todd do we have the budget? Here. Oh there we go. So we did move it. So yeah,
we’re within budget then. So we’re $2,000 within budget. That’s reasonable.
Hoffman: No we increased it, we increased the allocation from 175 to 400.
Smith: $400,000…
Hoffman: And moved it from 2011 to 2013.
Kelly: Where did we do that?
Daniel: When did we do that?
Smith: It’s on page 2.
Stolar: Oh there you go, okay. Alright, gotch ya.
Smith: Well it’s a significant increase. It’s not just being on budget. These numbers I assume
are from, put together with the proposal.
Hoffman: Correct. This section of trail has been talked about since the day that the first section
of trail was completed from Pleasant View south.
Daniel: Sure.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: The original cost estimate at that time was $90,000. It’s gone up, but it did not
include Pleasant View at the time. The section of Pleasant View.
Stolar: Just 101.
Hoffman: So and that’s why we brought Brauer in is to take a detailed look at these things. For
those who were around when the section of trail south of here was built, the original budget was
around a half a million. By the time it was done it was nearly a million dollars to build that
single section of trail and those are in 1998 or 99 dollars. 2000.
Kelly: We also had a grant for a large portion of that trail.
Hoffman: Half a million. And prior to that project being moved forward was the hope that 101
would be upgraded but the project was not approved. There was a long, oh it was a year and a
half study at Eden Prairie, City of Chanhassen to upgrade 101 and include a trail. That project
was not approved and the trail moved ahead as an independent project on 101 from South Lotus
Lake to Pleasant View. But it did not continue on this section. So let’s focus on design and
questions and then we’ll get into our cost analysis as we move forward on item 4.
Daniel: Alright, anything with 101? Bluff Creek gap trail. I’m looking at your, let’s see Bluff
Creek. That’s for 2011. $390 and we’ve got $390. Did we increase or was that about right
Todd?
Stolar: It went from 350 to 390.
Daniel: Okay. That’s not nearly as bad as we thought. That was a close estimate. From a
design standpoint any questions? Tom, this is something that you personally know about more
than the rest of us.
Kelly: I still can’t see how you’re going to put a 10 foot trail there. I just that road is so, is so
narrow. I was just on that again on Saturday so that’s going to be an engineering marvel to get a
10 foot trail.
Jason Amberg: I’d say out of all of these sections this one is in need of a trail more than
anything. It was difficult even to pull over in a vehicle.
Kelly: Pull over and survey, yeah.
Jason Amberg: I was trying to walk on the shoulder. The area on the north side where we’re
tying into the trail that was constructed as a part of the 212 reconnections, we’re continuing with
that same kind of cross section with a, I think it’s like a 4 to 5 boulevard and then the paved trail.
There’s plenty of room in this whole stretch here even though the right-of-way is pretty narrow.
We have a couple of erosion issues adjacent to a farm field here that we’re going to have to deal
with in terms of storm water energy dissipaters and things like that. But once we get over to
about this point the right-of-way widens out. We have a little bit more flexibility and we can
separate even a little bit further from the curb so we have more flexibility in what we’re doing
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
grading wise. We are suggesting going with grading easements for a great deal of this stretch
here. This would be Hesse Road, is that?
Hoffman: Hesse Farm Road.
Jason Amberg: But you can see the grading boundaries extending into this piece of property a
little bit versus going with retaining walls. This will also require a lot of vegetation removal.
There’s a lot of kind of scrubby material growing right in that property line and that would be
graded out and removed. As we continue to move further south, we get to a really steep portion
of hill on the east side of the road in this area we are proposing a retaining wall section here. Just
before we get to the Three Rivers Park District trail and connect to the gravel parking lot in that
area.
Daniel: And steep, not necessarily this way but this way. Path going this way and the
embankments go higher.
Jason Amberg: Yes. The embankment of the property to the west, correct.
Kelly: My concern is how do you think that trail is going to hold up in the winter with thaw and
re-freeze? If you think it’s going to be a pretty icy, especially on that downhill part. I think it’s
going to be a pretty icy section of trail because it’s going to be, I mean the sun’s going to be
behind. I don’t know how much sun it’s going to get and with the incline if you think ice build-
up could be an issue on that.
Daniel: Oh, with runoff going down the trail?
Kelly: Yeah.
Jason Amberg: Yeah, that’s definitely an issue with almost all trails. This being tucked into the
side of the bank, it would be western facing slope so that would definitely help.
Hoffman: Unless you’re a morning runner.
Kelly: Yeah.
Daniel: Well I mean it’s the same issue as they’ll experience on Powers or Kerber.
Kelly: Yep.
Daniel: I mean you know significant.
Jason Amberg: It’s a Minnesota thing you have to deal with. This cross section of the road
right, that kind of depicts that area of the retaining wall in that southerly portion. Any other
questions about Bluff Creek?
Daniel: Thor?
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Smith: No I don’t.
Daniel: Elise?
Ryan: I do not.
Daniel: Okay, Glenn? No, is there I mean again I go back to 8 foot. I mean 10 foot just seems
awfully wide I mean from a trail standpoint but is there any marginal savings going to an 8 or
pretty much?
Hoffman: 10 foot is our standard trail for the past oh, half a dozen years so we’ve increased
from 8 to 10 because of the variety of uses that we see on our pedestrian systems across the
suburban area.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: Really no cost savings. Once you get in to build either an 8 or 10, it’s just the cost of
a little bit of rock and asphalt.
Daniel: Okay. Then I’ll stop asking.
Kelly: Wasn’t there an issue with the 8 because 101’s 8 foot isn’t it? 101.
Hoffman: Correct.
Kelly: Wasn’t there an issue with not being able to take a normal plow on the 8 foot trail
because the plow was too wide?
Hoffman: At a fence location.
Kelly: Okay, that’s why, okay.
Stolar: Because it was blocked both sides. You can have one side where you can overhang,
right.
Daniel: Are our plows standard 10 for the trails?
Hoffman: They’ll go on an 8 foot trail but they fit much better on a 10 foot because you don’t
get that drop off as much on the tires.
Daniel: Gotch ya. Okay, good call. Alright. No, actually I think the design looks good. I think
it’s something that’s anticipated and desperately needed, especially for that section so I think
2011 based off your recommendations, you know to move forward with that. We’re close. I
mean I think we’re horse shooting hand grenades of the budget so. And then what do we have
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
next is the, oh the Pioneer. And that has a significant cost compared to where we were
guesstimating, correct Todd?
Hoffman: Yes it does.
Daniel: And I personally think this is something that we should just hold out until some sort of
decision is made regarding Pioneer Trail, and there’s a partnership that can be done. Is this a
County? Or State?
Hoffman: County.
Daniel: It’s a County. Okay. I don’t know if we need to, based off the, I mean what was the
original budget at? At least guesstimate I’ll call it.
Hoffman: I don’t recall what the number was but there are probably around $400,000 and my
recommendation is just that we eliminate this from the 5 year CIP and wait for either a
partnership or a County project, but I’d still like Jason to go through and talk about the proposed
plans.
Daniel: Sure.
Hoffman: It’s likely to be built in some fashion of this design when it finally does happen.
Jason Amberg: Well this trail I’d like to start from the 101 section so I’m kind of working
backwards here…go in that direction. So we’re over here at 101 and Pioneer Trail. There’s an
existing ped ramp in this location. We need to ramp down and get to the base of the hill. Right
now out there you’ve got basically just a drop off from the edge of the shoulder on Pioneer Trail.
It just drops right off to a low area. We’re going to focus on keeping the trail as far away as we
can from the roadway. In this area staying in the bottom. The base of the hill until we get over
to this area. We’re also suggesting a guardrail section along this piece of Pioneer Trail segment
here. Then we get into some really tricky areas and that’s where these houses are built very
close to Pioneer. This first one in particular is, he’s right on the, he’s right on the road there and
you can even see one of his vehicles parked in front of his house here. We’re showing the trail
basically running right over the top of it so that gives you kind of an idea of how.
Stolar: Put a ramp on one side and one ramp on the other.
Jason Amberg: We’ve got, we do have a lot of challenges here. I think we can still make it
work. We’ve got some residential retaining walls we would need to re-build to provide accesses
to this individual’s property, both his main driveway and he’s got another access to basically the
rear of his property. We would be, we would require some acquisition in this segment here.
These 3 lots I believe. As we get over here, again there’s a ditch that just drops right off the
shoulder and this area would require a retaining wall to hold the trail up basically before getting
into that ditch. We’ll still need a little bit of acquisition for this segment. With the curb and
gutter we’re suggesting along this strip, we also have a need for storm sewer so that’s another
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
significant part of the project. The road, the highest point in the road is right around here and it
splits east to west so we’re picking up a little bit of drainage in the pipe here and bringing it to a
low spot and then we’ve got a series of catch basins here that would be drained off in this
locations. Quadrant adjacent to that intersection. Once we get past this, I believe it’s Homestead
Lane. I’m not sure. Homestead Lane, yes. We have a little bit more flexibility in terms of not
having to deal with built environments but this is, this is also property acquisition in this area.
We’ve got a small area of wetlands that we would need to mitigate for and as we head west we
get into more upland here so we’re high and dry. We don’t have any issues there but it is
acquisition. And the reason we’re suggesting acquiring property and keeping the trail over in
this area is being we’ve got a severe ditch and possible wetlands associated with that ditch along
Pioneer in this location. Then we’ll bring that trail back around, staying in the upland, the high
and dry ground and bring it back up to the curb just before we get to Powers Boulevard and
connect with the existing trails in this intersection.
Hoffman: The trail on the north side of Pioneer Trail at that location was built with the Highway
212 project from there west to Chaska. So we were fortunate as a community when Highway
212 was constructed that brought with it a considerable number of trails in our community.
Stolar: …there’s a Powers Boulevard connection there.
Hoffman: Yep. And then it goes north on Powers.
Stolar: So this would just bring that loop together between. Does 101 have a trail coming
down?
Hoffman: 101 does. As a part of the ’97…
Stolar: So that makes that big loop.
Hoffman: Yeah. And then the Powers trail goes from this intersection north to where our trail
stops at the city of Shorewood, just north of Powers.
Daniel: Would there be anything for us to prepare for Todd in the future here with the State? Is
the State responsible from Pioneer down to 212? Or re-routing that.
Hoffman: Pioneer to 212.
Daniel: Old 212. What’s it called now? Flying Cloud?
Hoffman: Which road?
Daniel: Heading south. From Pioneer heading south on 101. On 101 heading from Pioneer
south. Go past Bluff Creek. That’s the State’s responsibility?
Hoffman: Yeah.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: Would we consider at all, or should we be planning for any trails along that as well?
Hoffman: There are plans for that. There’s a, currently the State is overlaying Highway 101 in
that area but we are, with the City, the County and the State involved in a comprehensive
planning for the redevelopment of 101 from Highway 212 down to the Y and that would include
trails on both sides of 101.
Daniel: Okay. What’s the called now, the old 212? Is it Flying Cloud?
Hoffman: Flying Cloud Drive or, did they change the number too?
Jason Amberg: I’m not sure…
Daniel: What’s that?
Hoffman: Flying Cloud Drive and I think they assigned it a new number as well.
Daniel: Oh, like a new state number. Highway number. Okay.
Kelly: In terms of the 101 alignment, what are they doing right now on 101?
Hoffman: An overlay.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: And some other culverts and storm water improvements there.
Kelly: Okay. Is it prepped for a realignment of 101 or?
Hoffman: No.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: This is beautifying to make your ride a little smoother.
Daniel: Cutting a lot of trees.
Hoffman: There are a number of…who are aware of the study process going forward so there’s
been a lot of comments about why would the State be investing this money. Well, comments are
one thing. Planning’s another so it’s you know, you could say 5 to 15 years out before any type
of a project would happen.
Daniel: Alright. Anything else anybody wanted to add on with regards to Pioneer? So I mean I
think the recommendation makes sense Todd as far as what we do.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: It would be nice if the, it is a missing link for a long ways along Pioneer. On the
positive side there is a fairly wide shoulder. It’s not nearly the same as Bluff Creek Drive. Bluff
Creek Drive, if you’re a pedestrian in the traffic lane, the car has to go around you.
Kelly: Yes.
Hoffman: Here you can be a pedestrian on the shoulder and you’re still in pretty good shape.
Smith: Quick question on that. The problems with the homes being so close, what is the draw
back of putting the entire trail, other than having to cross the street at Powers again to pick up the
trail, putting it on the south side.
Hoffman: The trail on both the east and west terminus is on the north side and so you’d.
Smith: So you’d have to cross back.
Hoffman: Yeah.
Daniel: Plus you’d have, there would be a retaining wall the entire way.
Jason Amberg: Yeah, there’s more grading challenge I would say on the south side.
Daniel: Plus erosion. I mean that’s, I don’t think there’s a piece of grass that grows in there
besides the trees. I mean when you start going up those hills.
Jason Amberg: In terms of cost I think one of the significant pieces, the cost estimate had to do
with acquisition for the sight line.
Daniel: Okay.
Kelly: And so what you were saying too on Pioneer, it’s relatively flat so you can see the cars
coming. You can’t on Bluff Creek.
Smith: On Bluff Creek, no.
Kelly: Just because of the hill.
Hoffman: Well what we will do is forward this plan to the County and so we will inform the
County that we undertook this study and that this was our conclusion. That we want them to be
aware that this work was done and that we still are interested if any future work is completed on
Pioneer, that we would work with the County to construct a pedestrian piece.
Daniel: The Highway 5 pedestrian trail to the Arboretum. And I think on this one we had, as far
as a guesstimate, $500,000 and we’re looking at about $215,000 increase in cost.
Hoffman: We were actually lower than that.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: Really? 200?
Stolar: Second page. Third bullet.
Hoffman: I think clearly it shows you that this fall we’re taking a $50 lineal quick cost estimate
and applying it to… Many more variables that go along in it, into that and so these costs are
upwards of probably $100 a lineal foot in many of these cases.
Daniel: What’s the issue? Is it primarily tied with regards to, is it just change of cost in the
models now that changed within the industry or?
Hoffman: Yeah, I wasn’t too concerned about the original estimates and what these estimates
are and thinking that something has really significantly changed. That’s why we Brauer on to
provide some accurates so the cost estimates that you’re seeing was their best estimate on
actually taking a hard and fast look at what these projects all entail. We also extended the length
of this trail, taking it from the entrance to the Arboretum all the way up to their gate house and
that includes all the other variables, and now we are not prepared to present it to you as of yet but
we’re studying an underpass at 41 as a part of this trail project. Right at Lifetime Fitness and so
instead of crossing at grade there you would just, as you were heading west, just curve a little bit
to the south and then take an underpass underneath Highway 41.
Stolar: Come out by their gates there.
Daniel: Brilliant.
Hoffman: Then you’d come around the back side of the sign.
Daniel: I think that’s brilliant.
Kelly: Is that what you’re calling the Highway 41 pedestrian underpass grant match?
Hoffman: No.
Kelly: That’s different? That’s north? Okay.
Daniel: That’s right going to Minnewashta.
Kelly: Okay.
Daniel: Minnewashta Park.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: And that whole conversation about this underpass started with the mayor and our city
manager spent some time with business leaders in our community and when they were out
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
visiting with Lifetime Fitness, that was, they discussed this potential trail and Lifetime Fitness
responded by saying, that’s great. We want to be on board. They’re not going to charge us for
easement acquisition. They’re going to allow us to work on their property. But can we look at
an underpass and Mayor Furlong was in favor of that. Supported that concept and so working
with Brauer and some engineers, we’re taking a look at that and we’ll bring you that design.
This may be one of our stops on our transportation advisory board bike tour in September, and
that’s one of the recommendations is that we’ve got to take an additional year. Look at some
other funding partners for this project, whether it be the Arboretum, Lifetime, the State of
Minnesota or others.
Daniel: I have no objection to Lifetime Fitness Todd on Highway 41. I don’t think anybody
would complain about that. If they’re willing to sponsor the money for partial costs.
Stolar: What was their reason? Just safety? They felt it would be better.
Hoffman: Yeah, safety and usability. Anytime you put an underpass you know it.
Stolar: It flows better.
Hoffman: Well it flows better and then the types of users, family groups are much more apt to
use it. But it’s just, take a look at, for those that are on and utilize the Rice Marsh to Lake Susan
trail at grade at 101, was a challenging cross crossing Highway 101 at grade, and that was
unfortunately an uncontrolled intersection. Here you have a controlled intersection but still a
similar and now the underpass people just…
Stolar: I heard comments a couple weeks ago about that.
Daniel: But we have work still to do around it don’t we?
Hoffman: Ah yeah, it’s sinking a little bit.
Daniel: Is everything else around it sinking or is the actual underpass sinking?
Hoffman: No, no. The underpass is set on solid ground. It’s the settlement of the soils around
it. The State will be out to correct it.
Daniel: That’ll be a fun little ride in a couple years. 45 miles per hour.
Hoffman: Jason, you want to go through this one?
Jason Amberg: Yeah, starting at the Arboretum. This is the gate house here on the left side of
the plan. We’re basically paralleling the driveway into the Arboretum. The small section of the
retaining wall here to minimize impact to the adjacent wetland. This meandering trail towards
Highway 5, working up into the hillside a little bit. Keeping some separation between Highway
5 and the noise and the traffic. The speed at which cars are traveling here. I did some biking
around here when I initially looked at it and once you get back in this area, it makes a, it is a big
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
change from standing on the shoulder of Highway 5 so I think that will be a nice change in
alignment for this trail. In other words just kind of benching this in the hillside here. Again the
Arboretum is very open about negotiating the easement for this trail to happen. A view of a
couple of areas of retaining walls needed here as we continue to the east we get over to the
farmstead that is part of the Arboretum and then we’re into kind of a more open situation where
it’s more of a prairie situation. And meandering around the existing pond area. We have some
drainage ways flowing into that pond that will require some culverts and so forth, but pretty easy
construction in this area. As we continue to the east, you’re standing inside the Arboretum
property. If you’ve driven out that way you know there’s a chain link fence along Highway 5.
You’d be on the south side of that chain link fence until we get to the entrance to the test plots
for some of the plantings for the Arboretum and then we would bring that trail back into the
right-of-way on the south side of the ditch, so there’s still quite a barrier between Highway 5 and
the trail in this section. And then working up towards the intersection here we’re suggesting
paving these, I call them lamb chops. Pork chops if you will. New crossings added. This
integral concrete areas would also require curb and gutter which would require storm sewer pipe
to get the drainage out of these areas to the quadrants. The southern quadrants of Highway 5 and
41. Then we cross over, we’re getting into the Lifetime Fitness property in this area and
Lifetime’s also been very generous in agreeing to negotiate. The trail alignment property, kind
of carving this trail in the side of the big berm that’s on, that’s adjacent to Lifetime Fitness here.
We’ve got a couple of connections directly to the Lifetime parking lots, and then we meander
back down into the ditch area and connect to Century Boulevard intersection.
Daniel: Alright, thank you Jason. Thor. Any questions?
Smith: Nope.
Daniel: Tom?
Kelly: At the intersection of Century and 5, are there existing crosswalks between, that go across
Century and go across 5 on that side or are they just on the other side? I know there’s one on the
other side of Century, a crosswalk to get you across. Is there one on this side too?
Hoffman: There’s one on the south side. I don’t know about one across Highway 5. There’s
one going across Century. I don’t know about the one across 5.
Kelly: Okay.
Smith: That you mean? You mean here?
Kelly: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s a crosswalk or not.
Jason Amberg: This may not be accurate.
Ryan: I think it’s on the other side.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Kelly: I know there’s one on the other side.
Ryan: Yeah.
Stolar: I think because I’d notice that too. You have to go across. You’d have to go across
Century and then cross.
Kelly: Then across, okay.
Hoffman: That leg would go off and then it’d be a two legged crossing. North there’s also a
crosswalk so a three legged pedestrian crossing. And we could add that fourth.
Kelly: That’s my only question.
Daniel: Okay. Elise.
Ryan: Not a question but a comment that I think that the access from the parking lot is a great
idea to the trail.
Stolar: At Lifetime?
Ryan: Yes. Very helpful.
Daniel: Glenn?
Stolar: Just a quick question. On 41, would we have to do both the surface entrances as well as
the underpass because coming south on 41 you’d still have to go above ground, you know on the
surface so these lines you’ve drawn in here, we would still have those no matter what. It’s that
we would add an underpass.
Hoffman: You would have to do the east intersection. Not necessarily the west.
Stolar: Okay, because the path is, yeah. Okay. Gotch ya.
Hoffman: Yeah. The pass in on.
Stolar: Oh so then you would take it from the east you’d go down to the underpass? We’d keep
them around on the east side of 41. Okay.
Jason Amberg: This section here that I’m kind of circling.
Stolar: That would go away.
Jason Amberg: That could go away and then bring this trail around to the underpass and T in
here.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Stolar: Gotch ya. Okay.
Daniel: Well I think that’d be a nice little statement too. I mean that’s a real nice, what do you
call it? The sign or not a sign but the whole.
Hoffman: The monument.
Daniel: The monument for the Arboretum to have. I mean really it’d be kind of cool to see
people walking across on the back side of it showing that it’s used as well. I mean a good
statement. What, the only question I have, I mean there’s obviously intrigue and I’m glad to see
that the mayor as well as city manager’s interested in pursuing or at least further evaluating the
idea of an underpass there. Best guess Todd, in current dollars what would that add to the
project if we were to move something like that? Or would that most likely be separated in a
future project?
Hoffman: The underpass? Would be added and I think our initial estimates were $400,000.
Jason Amberg: Yes, but that’s a very early concept and we do have to look a little bit closer at
how that impacts the Arboretum. The curved sign they have here. I haven’t overlaid what we
received yesterday on topo air photo so we need to look at that yet.
Stolar: And is there an option to even go further south and cut across that way? You don’t want
to go too far?
Hoffman: You don’t want to, the closer you can stay on line with the trail, the more beneficial
so. You know ballpark number’s half a million dollars.
Stolar: That’s like the north 41 underpass. That’s about 400.
Hoffman: The north, that’s 2 miles of trail and an underpass for right now the County’s thinking
$1.8 million.
Daniel: And Jason you might have an idea. Again looking at the partnership for costs, I agree
with Elise. I love the idea of coming out of Lifetime as a recreational, especially the two access
points in the future. When they do a future build on the, with the other facility. The other
building I should say that they’ll construct someday, but if we were to do some partnership with
the Arboretum, what would the cost be from 5 up to the gatehouse? Rough guesstimate. And
would that be something that you think down the road the Arboretum might be willing to cover
as part of this partnership I mean for the city is basically a mile plus of path out to, or bike path.
Hoffman: That would certainly be one of our proposals back to the Arboretum.
Daniel: Okay.
Jason Amberg: You’d be approximately half, just a ballpark.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: Just from Highway 5 up to their.
Hoffman: Just their last piece.
Jason Amberg: Oh, I’m sorry. I was going from 41.
Daniel: No, no, no. No, no. We’d cover up to, but just again.
Stolar: If we deposit them at the front entrance, not the gate.
Jason Amberg: Yeah, that’s numbers, I’d say 15% of the project cost roughly.
Daniel: So roughly anywhere from $100,000-$150,000. If we include the underpass you’re
looking at $1.1-$1.2 million. Okay.
Jason Amberg: I could certainly take a closer look at that and get back to Todd.
Daniel: That requires a whole different thing with them to go back to the Board of Regents. I
mean that’s, you know we’re looking at partnerships, $100,000 is significant in any project so. I
guess I’d just, I agree with you Todd. I think that’d be something that we’d like to include with
the proposal and get their feedback on.
Stolar: I have a question. Why, it says 500 here with the bid of 715. What’s the 215 difference?
Hoffman: I’m proposing that we look to fund up to $500,000 and look for partnerships and other
funding sources to cover the rest of the project, including the additional costs associated with our
original, or this estimate of the trail and then the underpass in addition to that.
Daniel: Okay. No, I think the design looks real good. I mean out of the projects that we have
here, obviously I think the two that are very intriguing, one from a safety standpoint that I think
is a necessity with Bluff Creek. And this one obviously I think is just, this is something that is, is
I’d like to call it news worthy. Not only with the city but I think within the entire west side of
the whole metropolitan area. I mean that’s significant for us to have that type of trail system
directly accessing into the Arboretum. You know a top 5 major attraction to this, to the eastern
side of Carver County so. And it sounds like the mayor, obviously this was, I wouldn’t
necessarily call it a priority but first a project that is very interesting to the council and mayor so
hopefully we can find some ways in which we can move and hopefully sooner than later.
Hoffman: Just, staff would envision this would be quite a grand opening or ribbon cutting so the
Arboretum would host an event that we would partner with and probably start some sort of a
large bike ride from the recreation center and have the whole group bike out to the Arboretum
for some sort of a ground breaking or celebration.
Daniel: And then on the way back we can just go right past the Holiday Express and down… I
drive by that ever since you mentioned it last week at our last meeting and I was kind of thinking
every time… Alright, is that it Todd as far as covering with this?
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: Yeah I just, Jason any other comments before we let him go. About his impression
about doing the work. You know I think the community’s take note of the trails. As a person
that works on these kind of projects on a daily basis and for a career, I’d just like to hear his
thoughts about the project.
Jason Amberg: I’m very happy to be part of the project. I think they’re, all 4 are very valuable,
high value projects. I think you have some missing links in the trail systems and these would
definitely fill those. Those gaps. Very happy to work with you and Todd. Like to see these
built and ultimately use them.
Daniel: Thank you Jason. Thank you for your time as well.
Jason Amberg: Thank you.
PRESENTATION OF RECREATION DIVISION ANNUAL REPORT.
Hoffman: Jerry and John are going to present, with the help of a power point, the recreation
division update. Thanks Jason. And as you recall this is one in a series. We’re talking about
park maintenance, senior center, recreation programs and tonight we’re going to take a look at
the recreation division and see what they have to present to the commission.
Ruegemer: Okay, thanks Todd. Thank you commission for letting us be here tonight. We have
a presentation. We’re very excited about it. As kind of one of our department goals here for
2009 was to kind of break down each division and be in front of the commission and give kind of
a presentation as to what we do. We’ve already seen Dale Gregory and the park maintenance
division. We’ll be seeing the recreation center with Jodi Sarles and Sue Bill will be presenting
the senior center later on this year. So John and I are very excited. What we’re going to do
tonight is go through the presentation. We’re going to be kind of jumping back and forth
between John and myself and we have Becca Stenzel here from Reach for Resources. She’s our
contact person. Our liaison between the City and Reach for Resources so she manages a lot of
the adaptive recreation contract that we do with Reach as far as inclusions and other types of
programs and other type of things that we contract them with. So let’s get started. Here’s a
sample of what we do.
Stutzman: As you can see we do a little bit everything.
Ruegemer: You know you look at just a quick, just quick overview. There’s special events.
There’s Chan Jam. The concert series with Mitch in the panda suit. Easter Egg candy hunt. The
tree lighting ceremony. Skate park. Veterans monument so just kind of a combination of a lot of
things that we do throughout the course of the year. An overview of what we’re going to be
looking at tonight. We do a lot with obviously supervising staff from Lake Ann. Umpires, ice
rink attendants, playground people. With John’s programs, skate park attendants. Rec Center.
Sports leaders where John is going to be going through that with you tonight. A brand new
program that we’ll be unveiling. The recreation programming. We break that, we’re going to
break that down into categories tonight. Adaptive, preschool, youth, teen and family. We do a
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
th
ton of community events from our kind of annual marquee events which is the 4 of July, Feb
Fest. A lot of those. We do other types of special events. Veterans monument. Dave Huffman
Memorial 5K Run, etc. We also do a lot of adult sports links. Softball and also 3 on 3 basketball
leagues for fall, winter and spring out at the Chanhassen Recreation Center. We do a lot with
reservations on a daily basis from picnics to canoe rack rentals to watercraft rentals out at Lake
Ann. Deal a lot with youth associations on a daily basis and that relates to scheduling the
athletic fields and facilities. We talk to you about ice skating rinks, beaches and the skate park
which is one of our most highly used facilities that we have. Kind of a breakdown of our
organizational chart. From full time staff down to kind of our seasonal staff as it relates to kind
of the different components that we supervise from ice rink attendants to playground people,
softball players, Lake Ann concession, and a lot of different things and kind of how that breaks
down. We do a lot of programming throughout the course of the year. We have 190 plus total
programs that is offered through the recreation division in 2009. Kind of a breakdown of the, if
you look at the pie chart and kind of percentages of how it’s kind of broken down between those
192 programs. 37% is adaptive recreation. Preschool is 23%. Youth programming is 31% and
then family and teen was a new kind of category that we’re really trying to kind of focus on and
expand and that equals out to be 9% between the two.
Stutzman: The teen and family are things we’ve either always kind of done and just newly
categorized as far as breaking things down as well as expanding on things from the movie night
to all the new teen programs that we’re working on trying to accommodate that group.
Daniel: Where would our softball league fall under? Adaptive or youth?
Stutzman: …answer that one.
Ruegemer: Probably adaptive. No, that’s another category but that’s, it should also be fit into
the pie chart but we’ll put you under adaptive for tonight.
Daniel: Just want to make sure.
Ruegemer: We’re going to move and have Becca come on up right now. We’ve been
contracting with REACH for a number of years now. We’re extremely satisfied with the service
that Becca and REACH does provide for us and we’re going to go through and Becca can kind of
go through, kind of give an overview of kind of what we do and with our contract with REACH
and, Ms. Stenzel.
Becca Stenzel: Well I’m Becca. I’m the Director of Recreation and Inclusion at REACH for
Resources and we’re an independent non-profit that contracts with 13 different cities in the area
to provide adaptive and inclusive recreation. So I was going to tell you guys a little bit more
about our programs and then why it makes sense for you guys to contract with us instead of
trying to adaptive on your own. First of all as I said we offer lots of different programs for
youth, teen and adult. We have divided all our services into adaptive and inclusion. In the
adaptive programs would be our adaptive softball league, basketball league, social programs,
youth sports leagues, things along those lines that are specifically designed for the facility. We
staff all those and we offer about 13 programs for adults and anywhere between 8 and 10
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
programs for youth and teen each quarter. In addition to that we do a lot of special events for our
participants every quarter. We have at least one dance each month. We do the Chaska Fun Fest
every year. We do bowl-a-thon’s. Do all kinds of formal dances. I’d say one or two events a
month would be our special events that are offered to all of our residents. And then the other
thing that we provide a lot of is our inclusion service which is for kids who have disabilities who
want to sign up for any of your programs that you offer. So we kind of help you out with that in
several different ways. One thing that we do is we come out to Chanhassen every spring and do
a training for all of your playground staff just on general disability awareness and how to handle
a situation if you do have a child, or an adult, with a disability in any of your mainstream
programs. So we provide that initial training at the beginning of the year. Then we also provide
support throughout the year. When someone’s going to sign up for a program we either come
out and do a consultation with the family. Do a phone consultation with the family. Provide
extra training to the staff if that’s necessary up and to we sometimes provide from our own staff
to come along to the program and provide whatever is necessary. And this summer we decided
that two programs, one playground program all summer we had a staff member there and then
also had a basketball camp. And that is nice to kind of take the pressure off the regular
recreation staff. Give somebody who maybe has a little bit more training the opportunity to
work and make sure those kids are included. …what we do and some of the benefits to working
with the cooperative is, the first part, the biggest issue I would say is the critical mass. Each city
in the consortium doesn’t have enough people to operate an adaptive softball league. For
instance we have anywhere from 80 to 100 people in our softball league this year but obviously
your city doesn’t have enough residents to make that run. Kind of pooling those resources and
combining all the residents gives us a chance to offer more programs. Another thing is REACH,
our name is actually an acronym which stands for Recreation Education Advocacy Counseling
and Health so we’re able to offer a lot of other services along with just our adaptive recreation
programs. Recreation is often the door to our agency for most people where they find
independent living skill specialists as well they might counseling, social workers, case managers,
things like that. And we also are able to work with them…and have their support in providing
our recreation programs. And we’re also, the other benefit, we’re a small, non-profit and we’re
used to working in very tight budgets and stretching every penny and the reason we’re able to do
that a little bit, easier and more quickly than a city would be able to do it, to start new programs
and we’re able to be a little bit more innovative and flexible in our programming which is
especially important with the population that we work with. So that’s just kind of a nutshell of
REACH. Do you have any questions?
Daniel: Everybody for Becca at all? How long have we been partnered with REACH?
Ruegemer: Since the late 90’s.
Daniel: Oh geez. Okay.
Ruegemer: It’s been around 10 years right now and it’s been a great partnership with the city
and REACH and we’re very happy. We meet you know 3-4 times a year as kind of a consortium
of cities to kind of go through you know numbers and kind of what everybody else is doing for
that, for offerings and special events, that sort of thing so it’s beneficial certainly to have
REACH as our partner and like I say with staff training and different inclusive services.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Consultation that they do really throughout the course of the year. Our numbers are you know in
the 30’s and 40’s on an annual basis now which is higher than we used to be with that and we’re
very pleased with that.
Daniel: And the feedback I assume is very positive as far as having these types of programs
available through the city?
Ruegemer: Yes. And Becca probably didn’t mention, probably one of the most successful
programs is the sports sampler here in town. That’s a great program that’s held out at the
recreation center. Becca’s group does an annual picnic out at Lake Susan in June typically so it’s
just really a great, it’s a great facility for their group and playground’s right there and everything
else is right there. It’s very convenient and we’re pleased as punch to have them here in town.
Daniel: Excellent. Okay.
Stolar: How many other cities are in the, you called it a cooperative group?
Becca Stenzel: We actually have two separate consortium groups. We have the northwest
consortium and then the west and the west consortium, there’s 5 cities for our recreation
department. One of those is the Hopkins-Minnetonka Recreation Department, and then we have
a grand total of 13 cities. We stretch all the way up to Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove, Plymouth
area.
Daniel: Great. Thank you Becca. Appreciate all your help.
Becca Stenzel: Thanks for having me.
Daniel: Thank you.
Stutzman: And onto our next category. We get into the preschool programs. One of our more
popular areas of programming is something that we continue to look to expand on but one of our
most popular pieces is obviously the Summer Discovery Playground that we talk about in almost
every category that we do. This summer again we served over 400 kids in this program, serving
I believe it’s 10 parks throughout the city. That’s an 8 week program. Very, very popular
program. Also a branch of that is the Summer Sensations for the 3 year olds who aren’t quite
ready. That’s done out at the rec center. One of the projects that did give Katie Hanne, our
Playground Director, was something to continue expand on the Summer Sensations. It’s a good
program but it seems to be either lacking the popularity or lacking the draw so I asked her to
kind of re-evaluate that program. See how we can recreate that program as we have done with
Summer Discovery Playground the last couple years as we’ve gone to 3 hours instead of 2. You
know make sure there’s more locations. Make sure things, and I’ve kind of gone back and Katie
and I sat down and kind of looked for ways to re-vamp Summer Sensations as well to continue to
build that success. Other ones we contract with Nancy Gagne, the local art teacher around here
who does craft classes. Our father-daughter, or Daddy-Daughter Date Night is a very popular
program in the winter. We average about 100 couples for the two nights that we do that. A
newer program in this area, a couple years old, the Fall Mini Golf Classic. As you can see in that
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
picture up there. Kind of specialize for those 2 to 5 year olds. We do field trips. Lots of sports
camps from tennis to golf. Multi-sports as we talked about with REACH, and as Jerry
mentioned, and I know Jodi mentioned last month when we all came together, we had brought
the preschool sports in-house. That’s a collaboration between her and I and so we’re doing the
preschool sports and that actually starts up in 2 weeks so we’ve branched that under the rec
center sports to combine with the after school and everything like that. The collaboration that
Jodi and I have there and we’re both very, very excited to start and looking forward to continuing
to build that program. Next up we have, we’ve got the youth programs. We’ve got about 60
programs here that were offered this year. Again craft classes, field trips. Some of the field trips
that are again are things that I’ve been trying to revamp. Find not just to do things to do but offer
fun things this year. We went to a Twins game which is always very popular. We also went to
the Mall of America and did lunch at the Rain Forest Café. Got an educational tour and then
went to Underwater World. Went through the aquarium but also got a behind the scenes tour
there so I’m really looking in those field trips to find those things that are fun. Not just
something here you go. Send the kids on something to do but make it worth while. Again
Daddy-Daughter Date Night serves a wide variety of ages from that preschool to the youth. One
of our new programs that I started last year was the Dance Party on Ice and I’m actually just
going to show you guys a brief video that was put together on that. This is something the
Villager actually put together.
Daniel: Wow, fancy.
Ruegemer: Technical moment. Please stand by.
Stutzman: …looking forward to building on that next year. Some of our other programs, as I
mentioned, Summer Discovery Playground is a very successful program, as well as Lake Ann
Adventure Camp which just wrapped up. As I said playground services over about 400 kids ages
4 to 12. Lake Ann Adventure Camp is the older kids. That’s an all day day camp. 7 to 12 year
olds where we have 150 kids between the two weeks, and both programs parents are always
saying they want longer. We just run out of staff time because they’ve got to go back to school
unfortunately. I’m searching to finding ways to see if we can continue to expand on these
programs. It is difficult but they are extremely popular so that’s always a good thing. I’d also
just like to introduce Katie Hanne, our Playground Director who was with us this summer for the
second year and I’ll let her say a few things about these programs as well.
Katie Hanne: Hi, my name is Katie Hanne. I’m the Playground Director for the City. This is
my second summer. I supervise two of our more popular programs along with 9 or 10… First
program I supervise is the Summer Discovery Playground program which is a 8 week program at
neighborhood parks in the Chanhassen area, and each week kids come up to their park… We’re
got a game plan with different games and activities, crafts… The second program that I
supervise is Lake Ann Adventure Camp which is a week long day camp and we run two sessions
of that in August. Together the two weeks are about 150 kids ages 7 to 12 and…swimming,
fishing, boating, offering crafts. They take part in a lot of sport type games. A wide variety of
things that they get to do. A lot of positive feedback from both kids and parents on this camp.
It’s very popular. So thank you for your time and the support of our programs.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Stutzman: As Katie mentioned they are extremely fun and popular programs so two of the more
fun things and definitely utilized and I’d like to give a lot of credit to the leaders that we hire
each year because they make these programs what they are. They’re good structure but the
leaders and their energy they bring is what really makes them stand alone so. Other programs we
do in this category would be the sports camps. Some things that we contract out with Skyline
Sports Academy from you know tennis is one of the big ones. We do other sports camps with
Sports Unlimited, or Sports Unlimited does lacrosse, basketball, cheerleading. We have a wide
range that we contract out with and we get a percentage of their, they have the more expertise
and the staff to do this during the summer and get the kids in so it works very nicely for us but
we get to offer these programs. We also contract out some Adventure Golf Academy classes
over at Halla Greens with Brad Klute, the local pro over there does a lot of programming for us
throughout the year as well. Third Lair skateboarding camps which continue to do, be more
popular. We offer three of those throughout the year. And another piece of the rec center sports
would be the after the school sports that Jodi and I are working on from dodgeball to playground
games to basketball and volleyball, floor hockey, things like that. As with the youth sports we,
or the preschool sports we really think that that’s something that can really grow and really go,
the sky’s the limit for these programs as we continue to work with these and look forward to that
so. Next area is kind of the teen area. Again as I mentioned earlier this is a very growing and
kind of a new, newly categorized. This kind of got lumped in to the youth stuff in the past but
I’ve really started to try to make this into it’s own category. Jodi also does some teen
programming out at the rec center but these are kind of the classes that we’ve been offering. The
wood carving classes that we partnered with Sue on. That’s a picture from last spring’s class
with, it’s very popular among teens which is very cool to see. They really seem to enjoy that.
The job preparation courses that have begun last spring and looking to try that again this fall.
Again field trips. Golf and skateboarding camps and then the teenagers who join us for Dance
Party on Ice as well.
Stolar: John, along those lines. So what new programs do you think you’re going to be looking
at this year?
Stutzman: You know what I’m trying to do right now is I’m trying to just kind of, I get program
updates from all around the country. That’s kind of a group through MRPA that sends the ideas
that people have done so I’m trying to scour those as well as check out other cities. At this point
I’m not quite sure where I’m going to go. I’m just continuing to look for those new ideas. Like I
said, the job preparation classes is one of the newer ones that I think is fine. I think the biggest
thing with them is finding not only the programs but the timeframe that they want. You know
the Friday nights are the tougher programs for them. You know they’d rather do things on
another night. Sports camps, you know we’d like to go in with the rec center sports. Jodi and I
have talked about expanding into dodgeball leagues for those high schoolers, those intramural
sports. Trying to partner with the high school to do things like that and embrace that. You know
those kind of off the cuff sports or even the sports that there’s the varsity teams but not club level
sports that you know we can bring over to the rec center and say hey, come on and play here so.
You know any ideas that are always welcomed in this category. We continue to try and expand
this because…either offering those things for the teenagers as well as you know it is a fun area
program as well.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: Todd, and maybe this is covered by local clubs but I mean do we have any program with
regards to outdoor hunting or fishing on that level? Partnering with.
Hoffman: We do quite a bit in fishing in our camp areas but.
Daniel: You know with archery or anything I mean along that lines.
Hoffman: We’re not a large part of our program. That would tend to go towards some natural
resource places since Three Rivers does an archery program. That’s not to say we couldn’t
support it.
Daniel: Yeah and that’s exactly what I was thinking about. Lake Susan. Not only that but, what
do they call orientation and… Orientation, yeah. Then they can. One of the two. Orienteering
but that’s the one thing I noticed. It’s very popular. You look at what’s, you know they’re trying
to get more youth involved into hunting and fishing and outdoors and I realize that Three Rivers
has something. I don’t know if Minnewashta does.
Hoffman: They do.
Daniel: But certainly within Chanhassen, since we have the archery range. That’s maybe
something we might want to just consider.
Stutzman: It is definitely a great area to consider especially since we have the resource. One
thing you run into with those, that again we could also look into this as we expand rec center
sports but it’s just the specialization of the instructors and things like that. You know Jodi and I
are already looking at the skating classes and tennis classes and football camps and things like
that to do that, and those instructors command you know, just command a little bit higher salary
which is something to take into consideration as we, as we weigh those options and find those
new programs. So at the same time you know if we can continue a program…I think it is worth
it as well.
Daniel: Okay.
Ruegemer: As John kind of mentioned before we’re kind of focusing you know on kind of
capitalizing and looking to expand both teen and family programs. We’ve kind of started with
some different opportunities throughout the course of the year. John certainly does kind of
family craft classes.
Stutzman: One of the new ones this fall, again going back with Nancy Gagne, she and I have put
together a class trying to get the whole family to come out and create a board game based on
their family history. Bring in, asking them to bring in pictures and things like that. Kind of a
Monopoly style game or you know something to that extent where they can come and bring their
own memories in and make it a personalized family board game is one of the classes we’re
starting out with at this point in that category.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Ruegemer: Just most recently offered, we did partner with M&I Bank and also the Miracle Kids,
or Miracles for Mitch Foundation in providing outdoor movie night out at Lake Ann Park. It was
scheduled on a Friday night. We had a little rain that night. Our second night was re-scheduled
for the following Wednesday. I think just with the rain out and some confusion on the date, we
had about oh 40 people there so, but the concept is a very good concept. M&I Bank was still
satisfied and happy with kind of the turnout that was there and they’re really looking to build that
program for next year and they’d like to partner again with that. Last year it was, in 2008 it was
in the Chapel Hill parking lot so kind of the change of venue out to Lake Ann Park, the new
Hilltop shelter was, they were ecstatic to be out in the park setting. It was a very peaceful, calm,
serene kind of environment and that atmosphere was really a fun and beautiful night. The screen
was huge that was out there so M&I did a great job and we were very happy to partner with M&I
again in the future so.
Daniel: What movie was watched?
Ruegemer: What’s that?
Daniel: What was shown?
Ruegemer: ET.
Daniel: Oh that’s right. ET.
Ruegemer: Yep. ET was shown and boy I haven’t seen that since it came out. I was in high
school. …program is another one that’s kind of during the school year and they’re going to be
out offering that program again on Friday nights at the Chan Rec Center. Normally from 6:00 to
9:00 on a nightly basis. Weekly basis out at the rec center. Rita Messenbring was kind of the
one kind of behind that program, along with Dick Stanley. They’re both kind of Dinner Theater
employees. They kind of started this side line business as a way to kind of get families together
in kind of a fun atmosphere of singing so that’s kind of their background with that. That’s kind
of where that program started. We started that program last, actually in 2008 with that so we
kind of continue to slowly grow and kind of picked up momentum here towards the end of the
season last year they ended up the, kind of the last part of March. Kind of took a break from that
point forward and that will be starting that again here in the fall.
Stutzman: Then the last one kind of this program, and this one is a new program I am trying this
fall. The Park and Rec Challenge is encouraging people and families to take their families out
and see what parks we have. We spend an awful lot of money on these parks and trails and you
know there’s some, everyone knows about their neighborhood one. Everyone knows about the
big community parks but to explore those little ones. I’ve kind of invited people to say hey, sign
up for this program. Do it as a family. Go out take pictures of all the signs at the 26 parks we
have on our web site. Not necessarily all, what is it 33 Todd?
Hoffman: 32, 33.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Stutzman: Couldn’t tell but the 26, so they have that list readily available on the web site to go
through. Submit those photos via disc or you know a proof and then they get a prize pack. The
school too has sponsored this donating gift certificates to those that complete it as well as a
coupon for you know $10 off a program through the park and rec and things of that nature so just
something fun to encourage them to get together as a family as well as enjoy these parks that we
spend so much money on so they can see exactly what we have to offer here in Chanhassen. The
next set we do have significant amount of community events. I spend a lot of my time, as do
Jerry and Todd helping me with these community events. I kind of break them down by
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different categories. The annual marquee events are kind of our big four. The Feb Fest, 4 of
July, Easter Egg Candy Hunt, Halloween. Those happen every year. All of them have a huge,
huge history. I’ll go into a little more depth with each of those. One thing I would like to
mention too, the four marquee events would not be possible without the help of the local
business community who we usually, we roughly get $30,000 in donations from the community
each year to help with these events from prizes to monetary donations so that is a big help to
these events. Other things, we break them down into the other special events. Chan Jam, the
summer concert series. The Dave Huffman Memorial Race as well as the tree lighting. Smaller
events. They do happen on an annual basis. They’re just not quite as enormous as the
community events. Maybe have more directed audiences. Chan Jam’s more teenagers to high
school again kind of fits into that category of the family as well. The Huffman’s you know a
traditional race. That really kind of goes back to that family as well. And then new now with the
veterans monument that we have, the celebration for that. Working to partner with somebody on
that one. Probably the Legion to spearhead that. We’ve been working the last two years on both
the ground breaking as well as the dedication ceremonies. Kind of going briefly through each of
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the events that we do. Feb Fest, this was our 16 year at Feb Fest. The last 2 years we’ve had
much better weather. I’d like to keep it that way as there continues to be ice. But this
celebration continues. The big piece is obviously the ice fishing contest and that continues to be
popular but we have the raffles. Literary bingo from the library. The bonfire. New last year was
the hay ride out on the ice which seem to be very popular as you can see from the picture up
there. Medallion hunt done by the Friends of the Library. Concession served by the Rotary.
The sliding hill, the skating rinks. This continues to be a fun winter event for the last 16 years,
and again our partners on this one have historically been the Chanhassen Rotary, Southwest
Metro Chamber as well as the Friends of the Library. Our next extent in the marquee events is
the Easter Egg Candy Hunt. This will be, this year was 26 years we’ve been going on this one.
One of our smaller of the marquee but continues to be a very fun event in the spring. I’ve gotten
to experience very interesting days of this. This year was absolutely perfect and gorgeous. We
couldn’t have asked for a better day whereas last year there was still 4 feet of snow on the
ground so, but it continues to be very popular. We have the Easter bunnies out there. We have,
and musical entertainment for the kids and families to enjoy. Coloring contests that we work
through the schools with that have prizes as well as the candy hunt. You can kind of see pictures
from the candy hunt out there and the kids just enjoy it. It’s a nice, it’s a very fun event that gets
everybody out there and this event, a big contributor is, has been the Chaska High School Key
Club but now I’m looking to get both the new high school and Chaska involved with their
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volunteer help at this event. 4 of July celebration. I hope all, I’m pretty sure most of you guys
have experienced this in one way, shape or form by bar. Our premiere event of the year and
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celebrated another one this year with our 26. This is a packed 2 days of celebration.
Everything from carnival rides, which have continued to be a success, to concessions, kiddie
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
parade, street dance and a community parade. Lots of live music. Skateboard competitions.
Fireworks display. Lots of different activities that’s you know we like to think, I think I was
talking with Jerry on this, on the very low end I would say a minimum of about 15,000 people
take part and this year I would say it’s probably closer to 25 actually take place, but you know if
we had rain or something like that and people kind of bailed, at minimum I would say about
15,000 people enjoyed this a year, if not the entire community as a wonderful event and again we
have major sponsors for this and the Chanhassen Rotary and Southwest Metro Chamber of
Commerce so are very, very welcome partners that do an awful lot to help us in the celebration
that’s again as I said, the big one of the year and by far our premiere celebration.
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Daniel: You know what I’d love to see for the 4 of July? Grand picture from you know maybe
the aerial tower at about 8:15-8:30 when it’s packed.
Stolar: Get one of the fire trucks.
Daniel: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
Stutzman: We did get some pictures during set-up from the fire trucks 2 years ago I believe
Todd went up there.
Daniel: But when it’s packed.
Stutzman: It’d be really fun. It would be really cool to have that.
Daniel: I think that’d be a great way to showcase it and it’s something that you can put on, I
mean as far as advertising the site. And I think it would give you tremendous impact and if
we’re ever able to get somebody to cooperate, knows somebody, aerial photograph of the entire
route for the parade so you can see how it’s all lined up with people. And all the parade’s going
through. I mean I think that would be another again huge selling point. It would just give, really
those are grand statements when you have pictures like that and again if that’s something that
they can pull off John next year, if you can plan to work with the fire department.
Stutzman: Yeah, that’s definitely something we thought that would be really cool to use…
Daniel: Like I said, just when it’s at it’s max. Like it’s about 8:00-8:30. The sun’s just ready to
go down and gosh, I mean that’s about when it’s just about packed.
Stutzman: Maybe similar to that, the CBO picture up there with the crowd in the background.
Daniel: Yeah, exactly.
Stutzman: That’s one they actually now use as one of their promotional pictures that they
presented to the Mayor this year so. The next event would be the Halloween party. This will be
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our 25 so another long history in this event. Really fun for the whole family. I know a lot of
you guys have been out helping and those of you who haven’t, I look forward to hopefully
having you guys join us this year. It’s a great event. It’s really fun for the Chanhassen residents,
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
as well as just one that we can really advertise through the school districts as well so we get
people from the eastern Carver County school district as well as Minnetonka schools that join us
there and it’s really a fun event each year and offers a variety of activities from face paint to hay
rides outside to carnival games in the gym area. Again we have entertainment. Trick or treating
down the hallway. Charlie Eiler from our park maintenance department takes great pride in the
spooky rooms that he helps put together each year that are fantastic, as well as a photo
opportunity and you know the costumes you see there are extremely fun out there as well as
some that I know you guys have worn in the past so this is another great event that is really a
nice addition to the annual events that we do and with a great history. To go ahead with the
other ones that we’ve talked about just real briefly. Chan Jam is our newest one. It was started 2
years ago and continues to grow. Last year the annual year we had about 300 participants and 8
bands join. This year we had 9 bands and at about 500 people participate this year. It continues
to grow. It’s a really fun event. Something I’m extremely proud of that I continue to look
forward to grow. If you’ve, on that note if you guys do make it out to the State Fair, two of the
bands from there will be playing out at the State Fair this year. One or both will be from
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Minnetonka. I believe one plays on the 31 and one plays on Labor Day out of the Music
Mayhem stage up by the Third Lair Skate Park area there so that’d be really fun to go check out
if you guys get a chance. And if you guys haven’t experienced this event, I highly encourage
you guys to come out and take a look at that. Next one I’ll kind of let Jerry talk a little bit is the
Dave Huffman Race.
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Ruegemer: Dave Huffman Race is coming up Saturday, September 12. We’ve been meeting as
a committee now for a number of months now and looking forward to another great event.
Hopefully we can rebound from our cold and kind of wet weather we had last year, but we’re
certainly anticipating to have numbers in the 300 to 350 range again for that. We’ve been
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meeting every Wednesday at 1:30 to go through. This is our 10 anniversary this year so we’re
sort of trying to kind of add some special things to kind of make it more monumental here for
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our 10 anniversary. Just some special things going on. We’re looking at different components
of it to make it more a little bit more user friendly and nicer for the participants and we’ve got a
new logo design, t-shirt design this year which will be fun. Had some nice sponsorship
opportunities from the Minnesota Vikings with donation of tickets for the kind of the grand prize
drawings to go along with the mountain bike and we’ve got some dinner theater tickets we’re
going to give away this year so we’re really trying to kind of look at some new ways to kind of,
you know kind of grow the event and make it a little bit more appealing to our participants. As
long as I’m talking I’ll just talk real quick about the veterans celebration. Phenomenal event that
we had on Memorial Day this year. It couldn’t have turned out any better than it did and
numbers were around 1,000 for that day. You can see Mayor Furlong is up on stage presenting
to the crowd. We had a number of different guests for that. Just really was a nice partnership
with the Chanhassen Legion and other area contractors and they did a phenomenal job with Mark
Undestad kind of coordinating the project as kind of the general contractor/manager of that and it
really was kind of a roll up your sleeves event for the community. Not only from the
construction side but from the programming side of it and the event side, but the dedication
ceremony really was a combination of a lot of effort between a lot of different individuals and
groups who couldn’t have been any prouder as personally and Todd was extremely involved in it
as well but just in how it turned out. I think people were very moved with the celebration and
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
just the dedication and how the monuments turned out. The flags flying in the background. It
just was a great, great event. Something that we can be very proud of now and into the future.
Stutzman: The other two events I’ll talk real briefly about. The tree lighting ceremony we do
every December. It’s a fun little event. We get Santa Claus to come out as well as we’ve had
local business donate some reindeer to come out and then Mayor Furlong and his family usually
come and flip the switch for the entire City Center Park which the park maintenance guys do a
fantastic job decorating. We get again a lot of collaboration with sponsors donating treats and
refreshments and things like that. Just another fun family event that we take place in the winter.
And the concert series again which I’ll actually be talking about a little bit later this evening in
our evaluation but this is our fifth year doing that and that continues to be a fun event and
looking forward to continuing that in the future. With these special events too, again for any of
those that you guys haven’t experienced, even just to come out and watch any of them, I highly
recommend. They’re really, really fun events to be a part of and things that I know I’m very
proud to be working on as well so.
Ruegemer: We do a lot with certainly the adult population of our community. We offer adult
softball. We have over 60 teams. Over 900 individuals participate on an annual basis and we do
offer leagues in the summer and fall. I did stop out tonight and teams were playing and having
fun on a nice night. We have a nice league out there certainly in the fall as well. We do offer a
number of different leagues from corporate league/men’s open league. That’s kind of a
combination league on Monday nights. That’s a double header league. The women’s league on
Tuesday night. We coordinate and co-sponsor with the City of Eden Prairie. We’ve done that
for 10 plus years. Kind of both of our leagues were kind of faltering in numbers. Came together
and this year we had around 10 or 11 teams for that and the highest I think we’ve had is like 14
to 16 so we’re trying to kind of hold our own with that. It’s been a great partnership with the
City of Eden Prairie and we look forward to continuing that in the future. Men’s Over 40 is on
Wednesday nights and that team seems to, or that league seems to kind of hold on through the
course of time here but just a number of players that the average age, it should be 40 and over. It
should be about 55 or 60 and over with that league. A number of the individuals have been
playing in that league longer than I’ve been here. I’ve been here over 19 years and so a lot of
them date back to the 80’s and potentially even the 70’s so, a lot of the same individuals are out
there so that’s still a fun league. We over men’s leagues on Thursday nights that Chair Daniels
participated in this year, and so that’s always a fun, probably our most popular night for summer
softball. And then the Friday night co-rec leagues. We do a double header league every other
Friday night so people can still have a Friday night off if they want to go into town. That format
has been I think favorable within the teams that we’ve had out here on Friday nights. Certainly
for the fall leagues. We also do a 3 on 3 basketball. That is unofficiated out at the Chanhassen
Recreation Center. We play on Monday nights. We’ve had 24 teams throughout the course of
the year and 140 individuals that participate in that so we always look to expand that program.
We certainly have the capacity to expand that program and we’ll have another league starting up
here in about 2 to 3 weeks in the fall and then we will then go through Memorial Day of 2010
with those leagues. Reservations is a huge part of our kind of daily operation. We do offer a
number of picnic shelters, 3 to be exact at Lake Ann and that include the Hilltop and the
Lakeside pavilion. We also schedule reservations for the Lake Susan shelter. Shelter use is, it’s
kind of broken down in in-house reservations, which is kind of our programs that we do for Lake
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Ann Adventure Camp. Sue does her senior picnic out there which is kind of the picture down in
kind of the bottom. That’s in the new Hilltop picnic shelter. We also do in-kind reservations
which may be the Chamber of Commerce Annual Luncheon. The Chanhassen Storm had a kind
of a booster club function out there so we’ll kind of look to reservations like that. And then
general reservations which totals you know a high 90’s or low 100’s, in that area for family
reunions, weddings.
Stutzman: Grad parties.
Ruegemer: Grad parties. A number of different business functions and that sort of thing out
there. As of right now we’re at about the 130 range with all those types of shelter uses. It’s kind
of broken down the numbers right now. The Hilltop shelter, we picked up steam from last year
since we’ve had completion of that shelter with 30 reservations up to this point. Lakeside
pavilion is by far the most popular at Lake Ann with 62 and then rounding off would be the Lake
Susan shelter with 38 with that so they’ve been very popular. We seem to be picking up some
steam, our reservations during the week which I’m extremely happy about. Even if it’s a
business function or business meetings over that lunch hour like 11:00 to 2:00, which has been
kind of picking up steam from groups from Emerson, Rosemount, other types of business groups
that are coming out to have kind of a team building experience over the lunch hour so we’re
happy with that. Watercraft. We kind of broke that down into canoe racks. We do have 30
different canoe rack spaces that we do rent through 3 different locations at Lake Ann, Lake
Susan and Lotus Lake, or Carver Beach at Lotus Lake. Carver Beach and Lake Ann are full at
this point and we do have some capacity left at Lake Susan for that so I think this year is by far
probably the most that we’ve rented with 24 out of the 30 spots have been secured and rented for
2009 so we’re extremely pleased with that, and I think people are really starting to see the
benefits of having a spot to put their canoe. Put it on top of the car and drag it down there for
$50 for the season, people seem to be satisfied with that so. Paddle boat rentals, row boat
rentals, canoe rack rentals, or canoe rentals at Lake Ann is a popular. We did increase our
numbers of boat rentals from last year so we’re in the 441 range right now and the season has
concluded. Kind of break that down, we did 113 canoe rentals this summer. Paddle boat rentals
is by far the most popular with 267 and then row boat rentals with or without electric trolling
motors is at 61. Sports associations. I certainly, that’s kind of under my umbrella for
responsibility. I definitely work with the different associations that we have on a daily basis and
kind of work to build upon those relationships. We deal a lot with certainly with field
allocations, facility use. Different permits, tournaments, sports camps and a lot of counseling. I
feel like a psychologist many times. Come and lay down on my couch and we can talk so we do
counsel a lot of different sports associations and I pride myself in kind of making everything
work with a lot of different requests with that. An estimate, we kind of provide facilities and
fields for about 13,000 people annually for that so, that’s a lot of individuals that we’re supplying
and coordinating for on an annual basis in our community and we’re very happy to do so. 15
plus associations we kind of deal with, I deal with on an annual basis and that’s kind of broken
down kind of by different soccer groups, lacrosse groups, football, hockey, softball, baseball.
Different school groups. That sort of thing so, that takes a lot of coordination certainly on our
part. When I first started here 19 years ago it pretty much was you know 1 or 2 groups in town
and what do you want. We always had more than we ever needed and now we have to be a little
bit more creative when it comes to allocation and distribution of those facilities so we’re happy,
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
certainly welcoming the Chanhassen Storm that are going to be opening up the doors here in less
than 2 weeks so we’re very pleased that they’re in town as well. Look forward to partnering
with them as well into the future. Athletic fields. This is kind of a great breakdown. Total
soccer fields that we have and different size dimensions. All of our different locations certainly
for the soccer fields. Now we kind of change from ballfield mode in the summertime to kind of
more multi kind of use fields in the fall so a lot of fields that were playing baseball on, now
we’re playing fall soccer on and we kind of try to be creative in kind of scheduling those with
that, so we have certainly different, a lot of different facilities in our system with different tennis
courts with all the locations that are listed there. 27 total baseball fields and softball fields at the
number of different parks that we have. Certainly adding the ballfield lights at Lake Ann
certainly was a huge shot in the arm for us and really doubled our capacity out there and that was
really our saving grace at this point because you know CAA and other different area
organizations continue to grow really in double digit percentages on an annual basis so. You
keep hearing CAA is going to be looking at probably 1,000 plus participants next year which
will certainly put some additional pressures certainly on our fields.
Stutzman: Kind of along the same lines as the facilities, another facility that we do offer is the
skating rinks each winter. They are all outdoor sheets of ice that we do. We do up to 10 each
year throughout the city and various locations. We’ve got the four different hockey rinks that
again Jerry works with the hockey associations to work with as well as the pleasure rinks at those
different locations. It’s estimated while we staff the rinks, we’ve had about 8,500 people last
year use the rinks. Again that’s not including when they’re still be flooded as well as you know
after hours or before hours when they’re open, or even on the days that we do have to close.
People still come out and use those. They continue to be extremely popular. I believe next
month we’re going to go through a little bit more and kind of talk about where we want to
actually have the rinks again this year but they continue to be extremely popular, especially
North Lotus and the Chan Rec Center continue to be by far the more popular parks that we use as
they do have both the hockey rinks and the pleasure rinks but again, very nice facilities that we
continue to offer each year with that.
Ruegemer: We’re very pleased to offer a number of beaches throughout our park system that we
maintain and we have lifeguards certainly at Lake Ann and we have for a number of years, for a
contract that dates back to the 70’s with Minnetonka Community Education. They were invited
tonight but Tim Littfin was out of town, the Community Ed Director. He was very pleased to be
invited. Loved the concept of kind of the presentation tonight and would like to be included into
the future so he sends his condolences for…wishes that he could have been here tonight.
Beaches without lifeguards certainly as the Greenwood Shores Beach, which is located on Lake
Ann. Lake Susan Beach, Carver Beach and Lotus Lake and Roundhouse Park Beach that we
have within our system, and also we didn’t include Carver County Park but there’s also some
county run facilities at Lake Minnewashta.
Stutzman: One of the other facilities that we have, and as Jerry mentioned at the very beginning,
that this is probably one of our most popular parks throughout the city and most used facilities
that we do have is the skate park right out here. We do average about 100 participants on those
nice sunny days. At least a day and again we do have the 2 attendants out there this year. We’ve
kind of re-structured the hours for them. Originally we weren’t sure if they were going to be part
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
of the program anymore. City Council stepped in and said yes, we want it to be a part of them so
I’ve kind of been analyzing this year after I got them into the park and hired this year, what we
can do to be more cost effective to still staff it and keep a presence out there but as well as keep
it more efficient, so the general plan from here on out is staff it from the end of school through
Labor Day so we’re covering those busy times to provide as security that the parents feel
comfortable dropping their younger kids off, that we do have a presence there and we have a way
to kind of track how many people use it. As I said when we’ve had attendants out there this year,
the sheets that I’ve been seeing are averaging about 100 people a day on those nice days, and
even on days you know start out today, there’s still kids out in the cloudy weather out there
enjoying the park. It is 10 years actually next month. Todd brought to my attention it’s been 10
years this September that we’ve had the park out there and it continues to be one of the favorites.
In talking with Third Lair Skate Park, they continue to love our skate park and from kids who’ve
gone to other areas that I’ve talked to, they continue to say that this is one of the better lay out
parks. We have a lot of obstacles for both beginners and advanced skaters and they seem to
enjoy seeing some of these obstacles here as well as some of the camps that we offer and
continue to have great attendance out at the skate park and it’s a nice addition and very, very
well used throughout the city. At this time just like to thank you again for all your support for
everything that Jerry and I do. The special events that you guys get involved with. Everything
else that you guys and Elise, that you guys play with everything else. If you guys have supported
our programs with and to have your kids or families take part in, or yourselves take part in so
thank you very much for all your support and all your time this evening. At this time if any of
you guys have any questions, Jerry and I’d be happy to entertain any of those.
Daniel: Let’s start off. Elise.
Ryan: I don’t have any questions but congratulations to you guys. You run a fabulous program
and we’re hitting the 4 year old marks and now we’re going to start doing more sports so. We’re
really looking forward to that. I have all of them highlighted in the book so looking forward to it
so congratulations to you guys. Great job.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: Same thing. Congratulations. As you see it all laid out there, the immensity of it and the
two of you, and I know Jodi helps and others help, Todd and, but the immensity of what we offer
is pretty good. I did have one idea in the movie stuff. How about doing that on a night, a movie
at night in the winter? Seeing if we can like have a large crowd for a winter movie. Something,
and maybe.
Hoffman: A drive in?
Stolar: Well you have to hit the projector but when did you have to start that movie, late at night
right?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Stolar: In the winter, if you do it on the shortest day, start at 4:00.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: That would be a positive.
Stolar: I mean if you think about it. If you get a few hundred people out there, that’s news
worthy. That’s kind of different. Your Dance on Ice made me think about it. You know
another, because winter, you know people do, when you read that article in Money right, one of
the things we do is we bring people out in the winter because you have to so some things that are
just kind of crazy, off the wall winter things. The Dance on Ice was a great one.
Stutzman: And that might be something too that you know it was asked, are we going to do it
again in the winter. As that program continues to go, we might offer it multiple times throughout
the winter to continue to expand that program as well.
Stolar: But great job. Just the creativity you keep coming up with something new and
congratulations. It’s just always exciting to see what’s next on your list.
Stutzman: Thank you.
Daniel: Thor.
Smith: Couple things. First, the Adventure Camp. My daughter participated in it this year and
it was a very big hit. Very, very excited about it every day. Have we as a city done any
geocaching within the parks that we have?
Hoffman: No. We don’t place them. We don’t program for them but they’re there.
Smith: Yeah, I know they’re there. I just didn’t know if we had, yeah.
Stutzman: That’s one thing that I think is an area that our, that the recreation field in general is
starting to explore. I think again kind of one of those pieces with that comes down to expenses
to actually formalize programs like that. I know when I was in Lakeville briefly they had, they
actually partnered with a lot of neighboring cities to kind of pool their revenues so they could
purchase some units and kind of get some education classes to do something like that so it is
something that’s continued to talk about but again kind of coming back to finding the income
and the resources to have something to start something like that is kind of the hurdle that we’re
looking at and trying to weigh but it’s something that’s definitely talked about.
Hoffman: And there’s a lot of them in this area already.
Daniel: Tom.
Kelly: I thought it was a great presentation. Excellent. That was really, really comprehensive
and everything and in terms of geocaching, we just placed a three stager this weekend in City
Center. We may have to remove it because the geocaching person in charge said it’s too close to
existing Level B. I was going to send you the first one to see if you could find it but he came
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back and said, I think you’ve got to be about at least a tenth of a mile away from an existing one.
I think we were a little too close. But it was an excellent, excellent presentation.
Daniel: Yeah, I certainly liked just about everything that they, I agree with everything that all
have said with regards to Todd, Jerry and John. I mean you and your staff have done over the
last you know 4 years now that I’ve been a part of this commission and everything that you’ve
done is certainly greatly appreciated by not only the commission and City Council as well as the
community itself. I think that’s the most important thing. And the attendance that we get at each
one of the events that you guys plan, the attendance for all the recreation activities that you guys
plan as a testament to the hard work you guys are doing so I think like I said, that’s the bottom
line and so again we do appreciate it and continue the great work.
Ruegemer: Thank you very much.
Stutzman: Thank you. One other thing too just for you guys to, we have copies for you guys of
the presentation if you guys want to take it with you as well so you guys can kind of keep things
in mind. If you guys come up with ideas as well such as more family or teen programs, again
we’re always very open to discuss new ideas and hear your guy’s feedback as members of the
community as well.
Ruegemer: So thanks again for letting us be here tonight to present our division.
Daniel: Thank you guys. Alright and we can move on now.
APPROVE RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL, 2010-2014 PARK AND TRAIL
ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP).
Daniel: Just a critical point. To approve the recommendation to City Council for 2010 to 2014
park and trail acquisition and development capital improvement program. After I, and I don’t
know if all the commissioners had an opportunity to read either beforehand or during the
meeting today the recommendations. Todd if you want to briefly, quickly go over them. It looks
like we touched on at least four of those items during our meeting with Jason previously but is
there anything else that you want to add based off of our previous meetings and anything that
your department certainly recommends as well.
Hoffman: Quickly, this sets the stage for the rest of your meeting this evening. I think we’ll
spend a majority of the remaining time, we’d like to get you home around 10:00. We’ll take
questions on our reports and our administrative section if you have any at the close of our
conversation about the capital program but this is the most significant piece of work that you
produce on an annual basis and so we want to take the time that’s necessary with the commission
to make recommendation to the City Council. Tomorrow I will be forwarding your
recommendation to our finance department for inclusion in the 2010 budgeting process so thank
you again for reviewing what you have to date. My recommendations are, they include some
significant changes from the last time you saw this in July. If you recall the commission did
some significant investment of time back in I believe it was March. That’s when we really
started the 2010 process. Based on the budgetary number for Pioneer Boulevard gap, it’s
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
recommended that you delete it from the 5 year CIP and just to wait for future development. It’s
just something that at those costs that we cannot take on individually. Regarding the Highway
41 pedestrian stairway, per the commission’s direction we added that in at $100,000 and we’re
requesting that the county incorporate that as a change order and add alternate for the Highway
41 trail and underpass. The stairway will come just east of the underpass so you come out of the
underpass. You’ll be able to take a trail to the left or the right which would be north or south, or
you’ll go right up the stairway up to the top of Highover on the top side so that would be the
neighborhood connection to the Highover and what did we call the other part of it? Highcrest
Meadows. Do you know where that is where the?
Daniel: Yep.
Stolar: So this stairway would connect to another trail system.
Hoffman: Trail sidewalk system on top in the neighborhoods.
Stolar: And then you can take that and continue on various places.
Hoffman: Down to Longacres. Yeah.
Kelly: If I could ask why a stairway instead of just a steep path?
Hoffman: We considered both. It’s very steep and so we’ll take a look at a steep path but it’s
probably more apt to be a stairway in that location. There’s another stairway at the end of a trail
in that neighborhood and just, it’s similar to something that you would see in Curry Farms.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: So you could do a straight down path but it’s just one of those safety issues where you
don’t know who you have at the top of the hill and a stairway you’re less likely to point your
bike and say, here comes the underpass. You’d better hit the chute. If you hit the concrete
abutments, you’re going to be in trouble.
Daniel: Do we have room at all Todd or any consideration of switchback?
Hoffman: No, it’s in an easement. It’s inbetween two lots.
Daniel: Okay. So we’d have an easement issue than have any opportunity to do a switchback or
something like that.
Hoffman: It will be a future study but you can go around both ends at that location. In the
middle you’d probably.
Daniel: I’m just thinking from a bike standpoint you know, plus any handicap accessibility
obviously could going down to Lake Lucy and then coming back, but I mean I guess that would
be covered but again it’s.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: Let’s take a trip out there before the end of summer and we’ll take a look at it.
Daniel: Take a look at it. I think that’d be a great idea because I think that’s, you know if we’re
going to invest $100,000 I think at least the commission would have a good understanding of
exactly what we’re challenged with there.
Hoffman: The Highway 41 pedestrian underpass and trail grant project with Carver County.
Our original match was $125 to match the County’s $125 and that would be the $250,000 local
match for the million dollar grant. Now that the County, you recall that’s been around for about
2 1/2 to 3 years. Now that the County’s getting closer to constructing it, costs have gone up.
Asphalt has not come down like a lot of other construction areas and so when they’re taking a
closer look, I think this is going to cost closer to a million 8 and so we’re again proposing that
you partner with the County. Provide half of the match, the local match at about $400,000
amount to account for those additional costs and then engineering. And so our 2010
commitment would rise from $125 to $400,000 and for that $400,000 match we still gain that
million dollar grant with the federal funding. Increase the Bluff Creek Drive gap trail. You
already talked about that one. Second page. Move the Chan Nature Preserve, final phase from
2011 to 2012 and that’s a $90,000 last phase. I just don’t see that lot being developed in the near
future and so we can.
Daniel: So just no inquire, or no plans for that lot at all? So we’ll just keep moving it out until
something happens. I mean that’s really not in our control.
Hoffman: No. It’s built when that lot is developed and then we allocate the funds. The 101
North trail you’ve talked about. The pedestrian trail to the Arboretum you’ve talked about and
again to clarify, I’m proposing that you allocate $500,000 in 2011 for the, but that’s not going to
be the total cost for the project. It would be the City’s share of the project. In 2010, the addition
to the City Center Park bandshell pull on fabrics at a cost of $45,000 to finish out the bandshell
and then lastly increasing the allocation of trees from $10,000 to $25,000 annually and that’s a
strategy to manage the eventual of emerald ash borer, and that $25,000 that’s under general
capital and Commissioner Stolar contacted me today and we do have a correction on the park
dedication history cash flow. If you’ll notice what is occurring there is both the park fund and
the general capital fund expenditures are included so if you look at the spread sheet before the
graph you have $280,000 in general, proposed general capital and $2.8 million in park fund
expenditures so the eventual year end balance will be $280 higher in the park dedication fund so,
but there was some comingling of funds there and Commissioner Stolar brought that to my
attention. We’ll correct that in a future addition. But that’s the recommendation. We have
moved some things into 2011. Increased some things in 2010 and attempt to spread this out.
You know if you take a look at the grand totals we’re talking $590,000, $966,035, $735 and
$385. Those are, even though all those numbers exceed expected revenues, they’re still within
line of where the fund balance will be in 5 years. So look forward to your input as a commission
and any changes or recommendations before you forward this to the City Council.
Smith: I have a question Todd. On the Highway 41 pedestrian underpass, they’re requesting
that we split any additional construction costs above the one.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: $1.25.
Smith: $1.25 million. Is there a cap on that? I don’t think we foresee it getting it out of control
but in the event that.
Hoffman: It’s estimated at $1.8 million now. It could go higher. It may come underneath that.
You know again they don’t have an engineer hired. They don’t have a feasibility study
complete. They’re doing some estimating and so right now the cap would be $400,000 unless
we come back and adjust that number.
Kelly: And that trail will go from where? Where will that 2.2 miles go? From what to what?
Hoffman: There’s a mile in the highway ditch and then a mile within the park. So the mile in
the highway will go from Longacres Drive to Church, or Chaska Road. North of the Minnetonka
Intermediate School, and then there’ll be a mile of trail from the end of the underpass to the
beach.
Kelly: To the Minnewashta beach you mean?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Kelly: Okay.
Daniel: And the State’s covering the.
Hoffman: And then that includes the underpass.
Daniel: Underpass, okay.
Hoffman: And the State is covering the, the federal grant is a million dollars of the total project.
Daniel: Excellent.
Kelly: And that lot should be built in 10? 2010?
Hoffman: It’s whenever we initiate it. I’m not sure that it will be completed in 2010. Most
likely 2011.
Daniel: 2011 will be one exciting year. Between 41 and potentially Arboretum. Wow. Okay.
Anybody else? Elise.
Ryan: How, I know you said it in the last meeting but how do we come up with a $25,000 for
the emerald ash borer? I mean I know we started with 10 but did we just guess on the number
for $25,000 or?
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Hoffman: Well we could put a million in I think so it’s really just an advancement to try to
advance the, we don’t know when the emerald ash borer will get here. We don’t know when our
trees will start dying. We know we should do more. Just prepare for that and so it’s just a
stepping up the tree planting program. We won’t be cutting any ash trees down. We’ll be taking
and planting additional trees along side those.
Ryan: So that’s only for planting trees. It’s not for.
Hoffman: Correct.
Ryan: Okay.
Hoffman: Once it hits and starts killing trees, then that will be a whole another program but not
in a capital. It will be on the maintenance side to remove those trees from public property.
Ryan: Okay.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: So I guess one of my concerns, and I’d have to redo the math. Way long ago we talked
about how for emergency purposes we’d like to try and keep a year in balances towards a million
dollars. Just to have the money available and I guess I want to, I’m trying to do the math here
and didn’t have time this morning. I don’t, I want to push things out. I don’t like us getting
down. I know now it’s 709 and then the, somewhere around 690 or whatever. The 2012 through
2014 balances. I think those are a little bit out of reach of what we should have as a balance so
I’d rather push things out than move then, but I’d have to again look at the numbers and see how
we can do that because it just, I think it would be prudent of us to try and keep a very healthy
balance in this account. We don’t know what’s going to hit us. We don’t know what’s going to
hit us. We don’t know, you know if something comes up, we have to build a trail because some
development goes through, we have to do something and I just think it’s worth doing. I know
we can make the choices later too to do that but I’d like to at least present to the City Council
something closer to a million dollars…in the balance as the low point of any year.
Hoffman: And to your point Commissioner Stolar, we don’t know if the revenues at 200, 200,
400, 400, 400 will come in…
Stolar: Right, exactly. So we want to try and give ourselves some cushion and I was trying to do
some of the math here because if you moved the Arboretum, well that assumes $400,000. So at
the end of 2011 we’d be at about a million 29 and then with another $100,000 it’d be 929. I
guess it’s really the 101 north trail that’s the problem again.
Hoffman: You would have to drop that off the chart.
Stolar: Actually I think we, yeah we would have to move it out to 2014 at the minimum. That
would still get us down to, I mean if we do that we’re still at the 709 at the end of 2014. But I
think, yeah. If we do it every other year, plus I think the questions raised today about that trail in
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
general, I mean I’m still, I live in that area. I think I’m less concerned about the Pleasant View
part of the trail because I think people can ride on the road there. It’s not that hard. We can
follow Near Mountain. There are other ways to get around there. The one going north, it’s just
not one that I see as needed, whether we map it out or not, people are able to go through that
neighborhood which is a lightly traveled neighborhood. Get onto Town Line Road and connect
and yes, it would have been nice to just have put it in in the first place and connect there. And
I’m not saying I’m against it but if we can either scope that down so we can keep close to a
million or $900,000 or take it off. That’s my only suggestion.
Daniel: Well I mean.
Stolar: And Todd I would appreciate if you’d do some checking on my math. I quickly did it. It
looks like we can stay roughly over $900,000 every year without, except for that particular year.
Daniel: It’s a very good point Glenn and following to what you say, I certainly agree. I guess as
we have done in 2008 as well as what we’re doing with 2009, because we won’t know Todd
until the end of 2009, what our income is. This is, your $200,000 based on projections right
now? Correct?
Hoffman: Correct.
Daniel: So as things change and as hopefully the economy changes then, or at least the
development changes, if those monies significantly increase, a program like that.
Stolar: We can pull things forward.
Daniel: We can pull things forward and I think that’s something that we can certainly remain
flexible if there’s a sharp upturn in revenue of park dedication funds.
Stolar: Part of it is to keep it in 2014 so it’s still visible so that if things do change at least a
future commission can talk about it and decide what they want to do.
Daniel: Yeah. Okay. And I think really from the commission standpoint, we’ve done a lot of
discussion on this. Especially given the revenue challenges that we’ve been, that we’ve had to
deal with over the last 2 years. Or at least year and a half so, it’d be great if we could follow
2006 perpetually but that’ll never happen so, nor do we have the type of space. However it, you
know as I see it Todd we have really I think in our mind, three significant trail additions between
41.
Stolar: Bluff Creek.
Daniel: Bluff Creek as well as Arboretum coming up here. That’s going to take a significant
chunk of our revenue as well, let alone any other small items that come up as well as the, again
feedback. Things may change. Look where we were 2 years ago compared to where we are
now. Again we don’t know quite what direction we’re going into but I think it’s very exciting. I
think we’re, I think we’re in a position to still remain healthy and strong yet contribute
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
significantly to the community with these trail programs. And you know that’s what this whole
program is about so.
Kelly: If I can ask one quick question about the Bluff Creek. I know you say here your
justification for moving it to 2011 was cost savings with the Arboretum trail. Is that a greater
cost savings than the, it just seems to be, these trails seem to go up each and every year. Bluff
Creek seems to be shovel ready as opposed to the other projects. Is it more cost beneficial to
lump it in, in 2011 with the Arboretum or is it better just to get that done now at potentially
cheaper costs than it would be in 2011?
Hoffman: My gut tells me you’re going to get a better price if you put both of those together.
But costs continue to go up but I think that was, that’s leveled off. We’re just not seeing that
increase in, normally gas prices are pushing up and everything pushed up but for some reason
bituminous just hasn’t backed off. Down off of that but it’s leveled off in cost and there are
other factors included in that, but if you combine these projects, the larger you make it, the
bigger the company you get that’s going to bid on it, and it’s going to drive down the cost.
Kelly: Alright.
Daniel: Can we put that in conjunction with 41? Are you suggesting Tom that we, I mean over
the next 2 years from 2010 to 2011 we’re going to have, you know there is a, I think a
commitment from our perspective to move forward with Bluff Creek. Are you suggesting that
since we’re moving forward with 41 next year and it looks like that will happen, that we move
Bluff Creek in?
Smith: We couldn’t go to that, that’s not our control.
Daniel: That’s the County’s. And that was my next question so.
Stolar: But I think Tom’s point being, prices eventually are going to go up. What’s going to be
the delta of the savings of a combination versus getting the lower price in 2010. You’re seeing
probably a better, that there isn’t necessarily going to be these pressures and you know the
federal government just came out with saying social security’s not going to have a big CPI in
2010 either so a lot of different economies are breaking down…over the next couple years. But
it’s a risk.
Hoffman: Wages aren’t going up. Product costs fluctuate.
Stolar: Yeah.
Daniel: Okay.
Hoffman: Might I suggest that we go ahead and as a commission look at 2010. Any other
conversations about next year.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Daniel: I think given the economic situation, you know this is I think a good fall back plan.
Because you know go back 3 years ago. What did 2010 look like? A lot more aggressive than it
did now so.
Stolar: I’m sure one of those years we had 101 North in there.
Daniel: I think if you go back a long time ago we had 101 North, and there’s a few other
projects that I think have been added or removed. Sugarbush.
Stolar: Roundhouse playground.
Daniel: Why don’t we just take a motion so we can get out of here by 10:00. To approve the
recommendation to City Council.
Kelly: Can I ask one more question?
Daniel: Please.
Kelly: If that lady decides to sell Bandimere, her Bandimere house, where would that, if we
wanted to buy that, find that money, would that come out of park dedication? If you wanted to
buy those, that property to expand Bandimere.
Hoffman: We don’t know where it would come out of and they have talked to us and we’re not
interested at the cost that they’re seeking right now.
Kelly: Oh really? Okay.
Hoffman: The price they’re seeking now.
Daniel: Okay, good. Alright.
Hoffman: Elise, what are you hearing from your neighbors? I’m curious.
Ryan: Well this isn’t, well not definitely not for 2010 but one of the big attractions this summer
for people living in you know the Chanhassen/Minnetonka area has been this St. Louis Park
Splash Pad. Are you familiar with this place called the Splash Pad? In St. Louis Park they
basically filled an old swimming pool and have made it into like a fountain where kids can run
through it and it’s essentially a water park for children without having to have a lifeguard or a
swimming pool or what not. It’s been a hugely popular facility for really the western suburbs.
So popular that I believe Edina and the Linden Hills neighborhood is putting one in as well. So I
was mentioning or I had brought up to Todd that that would be something potentially in the years
to come for us to take a look at because I think that really would be an attraction for this
community as well as the Minnetonka community. Chaska as well but something out here you
know to have a facility like that for children of the really young to 3-4 but also you know it
attracts the 8, 9, 10, 11 year old kids so it’s just a, you know a great new kind of theme at parks
as opposed to the just playgrounds and then it doesn’t cause the liability of having swimming
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
pools and lifeguards but it’s a fun place for children and families during the week as well as on
the weekends so. Something that I thought you know to bring to your attention and see if there’s
any interest or familiar.
Stolar: Shady Oak has something similar to that.
Ryan: I think so yeah. Yeah.
Hoffman: Commission members have talked about it and it’s certainly in our industry it’s been
something that nationwide and across the world has been gaining in popularity. It’s a new form
of recreation. We have our mini splash pad right in front of city hall. It’s mini. It’s not
officially approved for that use but quite often it gets used and Commissioner Ryan and the rest
of the commission what I’m going to encourage you to do when you, those are great ideas.
Those are great topics of conversation. When those come up, think about it in terms of place.
Our community is blessed with a lot of, a number of parks but we don’t have places for
everything. Right now we currently do not have a place for a disc golf. We would love to put
disc golf in. We don’t have a real good location for a disc golf course. We wanted a dog park.
We didn’t have a good location within our park system. Do we have a location for a splash pad?
I’m not sure. One doesn’t jump, it needs to be community based. It can’t go in a neighborhood
park so where do you put it? Lake Susan? Lake Ann? Probably not Bandimere. Up town and
so those facilities, the place is just as important as the, what the function for the facility is and so
think about it in that realm. Where would you put a splash pad in our community? Where would
it be welcomed? Where would it be the investment, reap the biggest return on investment? A
good example of that is the skate park. The skate park is in a premium location in the
community and the return on investment has been tremendous. People enjoy it. The kids enjoy
it. Some people thought we were a little bit crazy putting the skate park in such a premium
location in our downtown but it has really turned out so.
Daniel: Well and I think it’s something like a splash pad like they have in St. Louis Park, I think
you have to take into consideration parking. Accessibility. Facilities. You’re talking you know
chlorination. Water. Pumping system. Access to all that stuff so there’s, I think the closer we
move to downtown and some of our water treatment facilities, the better off we are. At least
whether it be Lake Susan or downtown.
Stolar: Well what about, wouldn’t Lake Ann have the facilities? They have the concession
stand and the washrooms and all. Would that be an expandable addition there on the beach?
Hoffman: Touch location.
Smith: You need quite a bit of square footage there for that type of a.
Stolar: Depends how big you make it. The one at Shady Oak is not very big. It’s small. But if
you get a chance to go look out there and kids have a blast there but it’s by a lake so they’re
already wet. And it’s right by the concession stand so they buy things after they do it.
Hoffman: You could do an addition to Lake Ann Beach. You could do a small addition.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Stolar: Right, that’s what I’m.
Hoffman: Yeah, but it wouldn’t be the type of thing that, a destination.
Stolar: Not as big as St. Louis Park but again, scoping and discussions that we’ve had right you
know, whenever you look at these things, if we can offer something that attracts people to Lake
Ann as an example. That gives them some splash, and by the way you know, you want to go
swimming? It’s right there. You want to go rent the boat? It’s right there. That way it’s, and
when I was at Shady Oak, we started going there about 3 years ago. When I went I said wow,
because it’s pretty small. I don’t think it’s, it might not be even that much bigger than this room.
And they have, it has a whole bunch of different fountain things that kids can go through and it’s
just really easy to do there and then it’s just right there for when you want, when you’re done
swimming in the lake. That’s what made me think about Lake Ann is how they’ve positioned
their.
Daniel: And I think in addition to Lake Ann, the question also becomes do we want to promote
another park to help build up attendance at that park as well. I don’t know if Lake Susan is, I
don’t know how much attendance we get or how the cleanliness of the lake is. I mean based off
of certain, recent reports of blooming algae and stuff like that.
Hoffman: Yeah, you wouldn’t want to put it down at the lake.
Daniel: No. No, no, I know that but I’m just saying, you know I mean as Glenn said, kids come
out of the lake and.
Hoffman: You’d want to put it, you think globally, you think big picture and close your ears, if
you put a water park at Lake Ann, you have to take out fields 1 and 6 and you put a water park.
Kelly: And you’ve got Todd in here.
Hoffman: If you put a water park or splash pad at Lake Susan, you have to take out the baseball
field.
Stolar: Well but again, I don’t think they’re that big.
Hoffman: It can be.
Stolar: It can be but we’ve talked about that before. They’re losing money on those things.
They’re, that is a losing proposition to put in a water park.
Hoffman: Correct.
Stolar: And it’s going to be just like what was it a while ago, well golf courses now right?
When they built golf courses 4 years ago, they’re all going broke so that type of investment
would be really hard to get a really large one but something that kids could play in. You could
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
bring a 4 year old, 3 year old and just have them go run around, it doesn’t have to be big. I
would not want to take away ballfields.
Hoffman: We don’t have the real estate to do it. We don’t have the parking. We don’t have the
capacity.
Daniel: I think parking’s I think the critical.
Hoffman: Well the parking’s already overwhelmed at Lake Susan and we don’t have a piece of
turf to add a splash pad at Lake Susan. We don’t have the parking. We just don’t have a flat
area. Lake Ann, we could put something small down at the beach but if you walk down at Lake
Ann, especially when the water is high, then it feels very small. Not a lot of real estate. It’s
pretty small.
Daniel: Well it’s something to give consideration on. I think it’s a good point Elise and you
know the more ideas we have for programs like that…
Hoffman: A great place for, just replace the fountain with a splash pad. It would be very
popular.
Ryan: It would be.
Stolar: Downtown would like it. Maybe they’d build it.
Hoffman: If you take an urban park format, you go to Chicago. Their splash pad is right in
downtown. That’s where the community goes and so it all depends on what you, just take out
the pavers. Add the surfacing and put the toys in. It definitely be a different feel but it would be
popular.
Daniel: There’s a great spot over on city park isn’t there? You mentioned another ballfield. I
mean that’s big enough wouldn’t it? I’m joking. So is there anything else? Any other
discussions that we want to have before we move forward with a motion? If not, one of the
commissioners want to make a motion to approve the recommendation to City Council?
Hoffman: Are you moving 101 out?
Kelly: I don’t know. Does it hurt to have it in there because it’s so far out anyway?
Stolar: I would like to move it to 2014.
Kelly: Okay.
Daniel: I don’t have any objection to it to be honest with you. Nor would Dan Campion.
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Park and Rec Commission – August 25, 2009
Stolar: So I’d like to make a motion that we approve staff recommendation for the five year CIP,
2010 through 2014 with the one change of moving the Highway 101 North/Pleasant View trail
connections from 2013 to 2014.
Daniel: Second?
Smith: Second.
Stolar moved, Smith seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that
the City Council approve the five year CIP, 2010 through 2014 with the one change moving
the Highway 101 North/Pleasant View trail connections from 2013 to 2014. All voted in
favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Daniel: Alright Todd, does that sound good?
Hoffman: Sounds great. Appreciate it.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS.
A. KLEINBANK SUMMER CONCERT SERIES EVALUATION.
B. FALL SOFTBALL LEAGUE.
C. DAVE HUFFMAN 5K MEMORIAL RUN.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS.
A. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA CARP STUDY UPDATE.
Hoffman: On both 5 A, B, C and 6A, if there are no questions, that’s what we’re going to take
from the commission tonight.
Daniel: Just a quick, anything that came up with the carp study?
Hoffman: Carp study is expanding to Lake Ann and Lake Lucy so you’ll see it printed in the
paper. It’s conducted by the University of Minnesota and the Watershed District has now
jumped on board so the watershed district, Riley-Purgatory wants to expand it to the entire
watershed so they’re going to study the behavior of carp in Ann, Lucy as well.
Daniel: Okay.
Kelly moved, Stolar seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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