PRC 2009 10 27
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
OCTOBER 27, 2009
Chairman Daniel called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jeff Daniel, Glenn Stolar, Steve Scharfenberg, Scott Wendt and Elise
Ryan
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Tom Kelly and Thor Smith
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; Greg Sticha, Finance Director; John Stutzman, Recreation Supervisor; and Dale
Gregory, Park Superintendent
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Michelle & Grace Laurent 8115 Erie Circle
Kelly Dunn 7001 Mill Creek Lane
Laura Hemken
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Daniel: Is there anything that needs to be added or deleted at this time, either from the staff or
the commissioners?
Ryan: I have two things, brief things to add. One I’d like to just quickly talk about the youth
summit that I attended. You can put that at the end.
Daniel: Okay.
Ryan: And then also would like to bring up Todd’s email about the town ball. The email that he
had sent out. I’d like to discuss that as well.
Daniel: Okay. Alright.
Scharfenberg moved, Wendt seconded to approve the agenda which was amended to
include an update from Commissioner Ryan on the Youth Summit and discussion
regarding town baseball under Commission Member Presentations. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Stolar moved, Scharfenberg seconded to approve the
verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
September 22, 2009 as presented.
PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL
IMPROVEMENT FINANCING, GREG STICHA, FINANCE DIRECTOR.
Sticha: Thanks for having me here this evening commissioners. I’m happy to be here to just
kind of go over some of the financing issues and concerns with the City’s finances and the park
commission’s finances. What I’m going to do this evening quickly before I get into some of the
park documents is just briefly overview a couple of the long term financial planning documents
that the City has. It’ll kind of put into context some things later on to see how all of the
documents kind of flow together into one big general financial plan that the City has so I’m
going to quickly spend just a few minutes going over a few of the City’s long term financial
planning documents before we get onto some documents that will look more familiar to you in a
little bit. This first document that you’re looking at shows all of the City’s tax levies for fiscal
year 2010 and what was 2009. You can see at the very bottom the total levy for 2009 for the
City was 10 million dollars. Just over 10 million dollars. The preliminary levy which was set in
September is 10.2 million dollars. You can see by line item which levies are intended for what
purpose in each of the years. A couple items of note with this document, you’ll notice that the
park referendum, which was passed in what year Todd?
Hoffman: 1997.
Sticha: ’97. The last year of those bonds was paid off, or is going to be paid off here in 2009
leaving that levy at zero for 2010. Essentially we try to keep our debt levies flat at the City and
we’ll get into our debt levy schedule here in just a little bit and go over some of that in a little
more detail here in just a second quickly but you notice two new levies for 2010. One for the
new public works building, as I’m sure you may be aware that’s being built right now, and
another for Audubon which is a street reconstruction planned for next year. What our City
Council’s theory and the realm of property taxes has been, is to basically attempt to capture what
new growth the city has. From 2009 to 2010 the city saw new growth of roughly 1.39%. So
what that ultimately means is they would like to keep the new growth at the same percentage for
the next year which would mean being able to increase the levy $138,000 which is 1.38% of
$10,074,000. So their goal has been over the last 4 or 5 years to keep any new taxes to that new
growth. What that does is, by doing that it essentially, and property taxes is very complicated
but what it means is if your home increased or decreased in value by the average home within
Chanhassen, and you have the average home in Chanhassen, essentially your property tax
increase for the next year would be zero. By limiting any new property taxes just to the new
growth. So let’s say in this past particular year the average home in Chanhassen actually fell just
a little bit in terms of value by right around 1%. If your home fell in value roughly 1%, you
would probably see no increase in property taxes from your city portion of your property taxes.
Again you know the County and the School District we can’t account for but that’s essentially
what the City Council tries to achieve as a goal every year when they set the levy. And when
they set the preliminary levy this year that’s exactly what they had intended or have in mind, and
of course they still have to set the final levy in December and so there’s time from between now
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
and then that they could lower that number. They can’t go up from that number once you set the
preliminary levy so there is a possibility between now and December that they could lower that
number a little more. Now it gets a little further complicated by the fact that some homes are
valued more than others, and it’s a little more difficult if your home’s higher valued than a lower
valued home in Chanhassen but typically if your home’s of an average value and it remained
within the same average of the overall value of all homes in Chanhassen, your property, you will
not see an increase in your property taxes for 2010. This is one of their long term financial
planning documents. I talked to you about their bond tax levies that we discussed. As a part of
that goal they’ve attempted to keep any levies related to debt flat from year to year and what this
document does is it tries to project that and plan that for the City. This column right here lists
the total levies needed to pay for the City’s debt in years 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and beyond.
As you can see the number is consistently right around $1.8 million. That’s the bogey or the
target that the City Council has set to try to limit any levies for paying off debt at this point in
time. Now you can take a look at all the various levies that equal this $1.8 million right now.
You’ll see the 972 for the park bonds is now off the books. We still have library bonds that
we’re paying for the library. We have an EDA debt that’s still on the books. This is a refunded
debt for some assessments and street reconstruction in the new 212 MUSA area. You can see the
public works building. The possibility of adding a third satellite fire station is in here, or planned
in this document, and then Audubon which we talked about earlier. So with this document, what
they’re trying to do is keep their debt levies flat and you’ll notice all these numbers then tie in to
the numbers on this document. The third long term financial planning document I want to go
over with you is a fund we have. It’s called the revolving assessment construction fund, and this
fund is used to finance all the City’s reconstruction projects on an annual basis. The money
that’s spent out of this fund is for street reconstructions and overlays. Now your maintenance
dollars, such as sealcoating and pot holes, that’s money spent out of a different fund. It has
different funding source dollars for it. This fund was created about 4 years ago and it’s intent
was to pay for the City’s share of the street reconstruction projects. Here in Chanhassen we
assess for 40% of a street reconstruction project and the City pays 60%. So you’ll notice some
repayment schedules at the bottom. What those are are the repayments for the assessments in
every particular year where the neighborhoods that are affected would be repaying their
assessments. You’ll notice the fund has approximately going into 2009 about 4.3 million dollars
and you’ll notice the in’s and out’s for the cost of the project. The item I want to just kind of
highlight here is this line. What we’ve done here is tie this document with our bond tax levy
document and it’s kind of a goal of staff and of the City Council to any time we have additional
levy dollars available in the next few years their attempt is to try to keep that street
reconstruction fund afloat so you’ll notice the numbers here which are the numbers above and
beyond $1.8 million or below in some cases, are calculated through here. You’ll notice in 2020
for example we’re only going to have debt of $1.3 million and we’ll, our bogey is $1.8 million
again so the difference is the $450,000 so once you go to the revolving assessment construction
fund you’ll see in 2020 that number of $454,000 coming into this fund in order to support the
street reconstruction dollars. You’ll notice that, and it was pointed out this week in the
Chanhassen Villager, the fund does have a deficit in 2015 and I would like to point out to the
commission and to everybody that all of our documents, all of our long term financial planning
documents are very fluid and they change every single year, and as a matter of fact they change
almost every month with staff changes and as City Council makes decisions so to look at these
documents and say you know that’s exactly what’s going to happen is not the truth. Things will
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
change from year to year and these numbers will get a little better at times and seem a little worst
at times but the hope is that you at least are planning for the future and that you’re dedicating
resources, very similar to your park dedication fund. What you guys do with your funds.
Planning for the future and knowing you know what resources you have available and using
them wisely. So these are kind of the City’s financial planning documents. I just kind of wanted
to give you them as kind of an overview so you kind of understand what documents the City has
to plan for their financial future. A couple of documents that you guys are probably more
familiar with. The first document, I’m sure that you have seen this before. This is the park
dedication fund CIP and this is the capital improvement projects that your commission, along
with the City Council, has set up in a schedule for the next 5 years. Todd I believe that they’ve
had the most current document of this at this point so everything that they’ve seen up here
they’re aware of.
Hoffman: The $80,000 in 2011 would be something that the commission would not have seen
before. The second from the last item and this is for a matching application, grant application for
the new underpass at Minnewashta Parkway.
Daniel: Over to the Arboretum?
Hoffman: Ah yes. Other than that all of these items are.
Stolar: And the Lyman Boulevard improvements, I don’t think that was on our last one. The last
item. In 2013.
Hoffman: Lyman Boulevard, correct. That’s a second installment for the Lyman phase between
Audubon and Powers.
Daniel: Assuming that there’s going to be development there at that time.
Hoffman: Or road improvements.
Daniel: Is any of that going to be absorbed by the County?
Hoffman: Oh yes.
Daniel: Okay, I mean a certain portion of that. This would be our portion?
Hoffman: Yep, this is just our portion for trail improvements.
Daniel: Okay.
Sticha: Yeah, Phase II and III of the Lyman improvements are significant dollar amounts.
Stolar: And you said this is Phase II so there’ll be another one later on.
Sticha: Yeah, there’s a Phase III that’s after that that’s large as well.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Hoffman: West of Galpin Boulevard to Highway 41.
Sticha: So this essentially, or your planned capital improvement projects for the next 5 years and
your board has done a great job of mapping those out and every year Todd you know lets me
know what you guys are thinking for the future so what we then try to do, and I think you’ve
seen this additional document is we try to project you know where your fund is sitting on an
annual basis and we’ve updated the numbers a little bit to reflect some of the actual occurrences
that are happening right now. The first I guess I want to point out is on the revenue side.
Obviously all of us have been affected by the downturn in the economy. Development in
general, in not just our community. All communities is down. When the development’s down, it
affects the park dedication fees obviously. So we’ve had to adjust the revenues in this fund. I
believe they were, I can’t remember.
Hoffman: 200.
Sticha: $200,000 and then in years beyond they were.
Hoffman: 400.
Sticha: 400. We’ve had to bring those numbers down more in line with what we’re actually
seeing right now. I think for 2009 for us to get to the $100,000 which includes interest income,
we’re going to be very, very fortunate. I don’t think we probably will get there. I’m hoping that
we get there. I think we only have seen 40. $40,000 or $50,000 in park dedication fees so far
this year.
Hoffman: 40.
Sticha: So, and then the fund will make some interest so, and that will get us close to the
$100,000 between now and year end. The expenses tie directly to your CIP so every year total
should tie to the CIP so $1,595,000 should be.
Hoffman: It’s 09. It’s no listed there.
Sticha: So in 2010 your projecting $580,000 which ties directly to the CIP. Then obviously the
increase or decrease in your fund balance and then the available fund balance in your fund
projected from now through years 2014. In a graphic format, or graph format you can kind of
see the revenue line is here and you can see the dip and the downturn in the revenues that we’re
seeing. The expenses for this fund I guess you know kind of been a little bit all over the board.
And then the year end balance you can see at one point in time you know we were well over $3
1/2 million, probably approach close to $4 million. And you can see the current schedule has
projected out through years 2014, the fund balance would be at or near zero in 2014 and
probably into 2015. So obviously that’s probably your biggest cause of concern right now. I
think the best plan to have is to, like I said earlier in the evening, whenever you’re dealing with
long term financial planning documents you always want to be careful with the resources you
have and the money that you have in this fund obviously is very valuable to you and you want to
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
make sure that whatever resources you tap out of this fund that we make sure that it meets the
long term goals of the park commission and of the city as well and yet still afford you
opportunities when they present themselves. You’d hate to have this fund eventually get to zero
if some type of opportunity then presented itself in the future, the ability to go ahead and take
advantage of that would be very, very difficult. So just kind of wanted to give you a kind of
some of the trends and the future projected fund balance in this fund and let you kind of take a
look at those documents and tell me what you think. In general I don’t think our park dedication
fund is seeing anything different than a lot of cities. I think actually this city is very fortunate to
have such a large fund balance in this fund. There are a number of other cities our size and
bigger that don’t have this resource and so we’re very fortunate to have this. So I think you
know we should all be very happy that we have this but again like I said you know long term
financial planning is key in making good decisions with our resources is key. So at this time I
guess I don’t have anything else to add about the City’s documents or your documents but I
certainly want to answer any questions that you would have about either the City’s documents or
your documents or the CIP or anything else that I can help you with. Tax levy or anything like
that at all.
Daniel: Start off Elise. Or Todd.
Hoffman: Just before we move into questions. Long range total estimated capacity to earn
revenue in park dedication is somewhere between $20 and $40 million dollars before we are
fully built out and so that gives you, you know as you’re looking at a $3 million dollar fund
balance today heading down to $125,000. Long term through our growth we’re going to earn
another $20 to $40 million. The difference is based on densities and then also how much land
we take in lieu of cash dedication but it’s not like.
Daniel: This is it.
Hoffman: The train’s over. There’s more to come.
Daniel: And we look at park and rec referendums in the past and obviously there are other
options depending upon opportunities we’ve discussed before in the past and, so I guess you
know I’m glad you explained that Todd because I’m sure that’s a question on everyone’s mind.
You know we all have a very good vision as far as where Chanhassen’s at, as far as size and you
know that’s not necessarily bursting at the seams but it’s…filling up in the bottle quickly so it’s
just a matter of what is our potential within that park dedication fund under the existing program
in place for that funding, so that’s good to know. As far as any questions for Greg. Elise.
Ryan: I do not. Thank you for your presentation.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: I have a few. First of all for the change in the revenue side. What was that based on as
far as, I mean like are there other things that are also based on some assumption that’s driving
this that would also drive other aspects of the city budget?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Sticha: Well I mean our building permits are down by over 50%. Obviously anytime there’s a
new home built you know we get a park dedication fee. Those fees like I said for 2009, you’re at
about $40,000. The fund will earn interest and so that will make up some of the difference in
2009. In the years 2010 and beyond, if you stay with the projected expenses, the amount of
interest you’re going to earn is going to dwindle. We’re predicting some upturn in the economy
at some point and that you know development will reoccur, or recur and the revenues from the
park dedication fees will hopefully supplant some of the losses that we’ve seen in the last few
years in revenues.
Stolar: Well I guess what I’m going by is there also going to be, so what you’re basically saying
is park, or building permits are going to be flat from 2011 through 2014. Is that the same
assumption that’s used for all of the other divisions of the city?
Hoffman: Well it’s not just building permit. We’re capturing dollars at the time of plat.
Formerly building permit and so now we capture it at the time of plat so we think future
development, subdivision process will be very low for at least the immediate 2 years and then
after that we’re just slowly you know building back in that we think there’ll be a good reason for
some of that development to come back. It may be higher than the $300,000. It may be lower
but it’s difficult to forecast how fast development’s going to come back to the community. One
of the reasons you see the big upturn in 2006 is because of that change. We no longer collect
these park dedication fees at the time of the building permit. We collect them at the time of the
plat so if they platted 120 acres, we collected the full amount in park dedication fees. $5,800 per
home at the time of the plat.
Stolar: But in the City’s forecast then if you look at 2008, what you’re basically saying is we’ll
probably have about half the activity, or not quite half. A little bit more than half because we
have great interest gains in 2008 also just because of the balances we were having at that time.
So I guess part of it is a lot of this just we think the 2008 level is probably what we’re going to
forecast for 2011 on and then the difference really is interest lost off of having 3 million.
Sticha: Yeah. I would say it’s a shared combination of the two projections. Again you know
we’ll be adjusting these numbers every year. These numbers are fluid from year to year. If we
see an upturn in development we certainly would be adjusting these revenue projections. Right
now you know, and I’m not an economist so I don’t know the answer to that. We’re taking a
very I guess pessimistic look at development at this point because it was conservative and
prudent to do so. We typically don’t like to count on something that you know we don’t know
for sure is going to happen. We predict all our future revenues currently in our 5 year
projections for our general fund increasing about 3 to 4 percent so very minimum and we’ve cut
our revenues in half in terms of development revenues so.
Stolar: And that’s what I was wondering if it’s just across the board.
Sticha: No, this is at the city level too. We’ve kind of set a new norm for our building revenues
and our development revenues going forward into the future here. If we get pleasantly surprised
in 2 or 3 years and development occurs in the areas that are undeveloped in the city, we certainly
will be adjusting all of our documents accordingly, including the city documents and your
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
documents to reflect any upturn. I would say the next 2 to 3 years are going to be very close to
what we predicted here. The years beyond that it’s a crap shoot.
Stolar: Okay.
Sticha: It’s hard to say what’s going to happen for sure.
Stolar: Then my other question is related to, you know this group has not really talked about it
directly but hinted at it. There’s a lot of things right now that lend itself both for and against a
referendum or bonding. The for it is the interest rates, right. Where you can get much better
rates right now on the bonds. Also the AAA rating that the City, you know this is like if we’re
going to do it, this is one of the opportune times from that perspective only obviously there’s the
tax levy issue. What are your thoughts just in general from the City, how they’re looking at like,
it’s really the best time interest rate wise to be looking at long term investment.
Sticha: Well I think you know from a perspective of if you could predict what the future would
hold I think that you know investing in infrastructure like this would probably be a reasonably
good idea. The problem is we don’t know what’s going to happen when the markets start to turn
around and are we going to get back to the level that we saw 3-4 years ago? We have no clue.
With that said I think the City Council has taken a very conservative approach and with the
economic times as they are they’re very reluctant to pass on any additional tax increase to the
taxpayer so I guess the environment right now being that the economy is so bad, even though we
would achieve substantial savings in borrowing right now, I think because of the way the
economy is, even though that we would achieve those savings, I still think it would be very
difficult in general to convince taxpayers that you know a tax increase is appropriate at this time
just because everything that we’re hearing is that you know they’re stretched to the limits and
even though you know maybe long term that this might be the best idea I think a more
conservative approach to kind of wait and see the next couple years and see what’s going to
happen is probably the approach staff at the City’s going to take and probably City Council. I
think you would be, there would be some gamble involved with you know going out for a
referendum right now and a property tax increase not knowing what the next 2 to 3 years are
going to bring to the city. If things continue to stay the same or worsen we would be in difficult
times to try to pay back all our debt levies. Not just a referendum for parks. All our other levies
as well and then we would have to look at our taxpayers for additional tax increases on top of
any referendums that we would pass so you know I, I totally understand the theory of right now’s
a good time to borrow. Right now’s a good time to construct because costs are low but there’s a
reason those costs are low. It’s because everybody’s right now down on the economy and I think
our taxpayers probably would, it would be difficult to convince them in these times that you
know a tax increase would be the right way to go. You know I think the more stable approach
might be to give it a couple years. Let’s see what happens with development in the city and you
know look at it at that time. I think a tax increase at that time would be much more palatable.
Whereas right now it would be, it’d be a tough sell I think so.
Stolar: Well the idea of a referendum was to provide the citizens a chance to say whether or not
they want to pay that tax or not.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Sticha: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Stolar: They, historically they’ve leaned towards no.
Hoffman: 50/50.
Daniel: …history here. It hasn’t been good.
Stolar: 50/50, that’s right. Except the winds are a lot smaller… Thank you.
Sticha: Yep.
Daniel: Steve.
Scharfenberg: Greg, maybe you’ve spoken to this in answering Glenn’s question, you probably
did but in the memorandum that you put together, that last paragraph you said you do have the
option of bonding or issuing debt. I mean is that kind of what you were covering with Glenn or
were there additional things that you wanted to talk about?
Sticha: No, I pretty much covered that with Glenn. Any time you issue debt you have to have a
dedicated revenue source to pay that debt back so if for example you were not able to get a
referendum, you really couldn’t do out and issue debt and go ahead and do projects because you
don’t have a dedicated revenue source. A firm dedicated revenue source to make those bond
payments. Park dedication fund dollars are not considered by any debt agency a firm revenue
source to go back and pay that debt. You need a general obligation tax levy essentially to pay
back that debt so you know you can always issue debt. You just need to find a revenue stream to
pay back that debt and in this case the only likely candidate would be a referendum.
Daniel: Scott.
Wendt: To get another opinion from the finance director, what are your thoughts on our CIP as
it looks right now?
Sticha: Well, I mean I think you guys have done a great job putting the document together and
the problem is some of the assumptions have changed. You know the revenue assumptions have
changed and you know that’s hurt us too. I mean we’ve had to every year of the last 2 years
we’ve had to push back a number of our capital projects and capital equipment purchases just to
make sure that we didn’t dip into our reserves too much. So I guess you know, it’s certainly the
park commission’s recommendation that goes to City Council and they certainly have you know
a say in this too but what I would maybe suggest is you know attempting to at least in the next 2
or 3 years try to keep any big years like 2011 you’ll see, you see the million dollars in planned
projects that you guys have. If there’s any way to maybe put it back a year or two just to kind of
take a wait and see approach to see how quickly things rebound. Now that doesn’t mean that
you’ve permanently decided that you’re going to push it back to 2011 or you’re going to push it
back to 2012. That means in that year’s document you’ve decided that this is what makes the
most sense. Now in 2010 or 11 the economy returns, park dedication fees start to roll in here
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
again, you can bring those back up. Just because they get moved out a year doesn’t mean you
can’t move them back a year the next year. And your other option is you can leave it as is and
get closer to you know a smaller fund balance. Again the problem with doing that is the closer
you get to that smaller fund balance, if a great opportunity presents itself, a piece of land that you
absolutely have wanted for decades and the price tag on it’s a million dollars but you only have a
half a million dollars in the fund. Then what do you do? You know you’d like to at least have
some money in the fund for those great opportunities and you never know when those are going
to present itself so I would say you know setting a minimum fund balance is a good idea too. An
amount or a reserve that you really don’t want to dip below too often. You know on a rare
occasion maybe going below that but for the most part you know try to keep a minimum reserve
in the fund.
Stolar: Yeah, I mean…we historically say a million dollars.
Sticha: And that’s a good target. That’s a good move.
Stolar: And next year will be the first year we’ll, or 2011 will be the first year we’ll dip below.
Yeah, 2011.
Hoffman: Can I, you’ll be working back towards that. You were close to that until all these
changes occurred so now, and we’ll be talking to the City Council about that. Basically our,
staff’s recommendation in 2010 will be to use your park dedication dollars to leverage against
other funding sources. Re-prioritize your projects. Some of these things that you know you’ve
eliminated the concession stands and park buildings and those type of things and we’re going to
be back in that same type of a situation in 2010 so. Things that can be, you know that are
independent projects and can be postponed. They can be built next year. 10 years from now. 20
years from now we’ll be, staff will be recommending we postpone those and move them out but
things like trail projects that are leveraged against federal or county funding, we’re going to be
recommending that you use those dollars to gain those other.
Wendt: You don’t want to miss out on that.
Daniel: And that’s exactly what I was just going to mention. Greg, I certainly appreciate the
information and going over the finance, state of the finance for the city and how it’s going to
apply to the park and rec commission.
Sticha: Feel free to email me at any time if you have any questions. Or if you want to call me
too you know about any of the documents, not just the park dedication fund. How any of the
other city finances relate to any of the commission’s goals or future goals, feel free to either
email me or call me and I can certainly answer any questions that you might have.
Daniel: And then certainly if you look back a few years ago at the CIP projects that we had in
place at this timeframe and now that we’re here it’s night and day different. I mean it’s a shell of
what our previous plans were so certainly we’ve taken the axe out and cut a number of those
programs or pushed them out and reprioritized them. And again the other thing it comes down to
is you know we’re nothing more than a recommendation agency for the City Council and
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
certainly if the council, you know the city itself has certain plans you know we’re a sounding
board for those so.
Sticha: I’ve seen the changes that your board has made and you know you are just like the rest
of us. You’re making good decisions with the current trends that you’re faced and it’s really the
only thing you can do in these times and you guys you did the right thing there and you know a
wait and see approach on this fund, you know the next couple years and we’ll kind of see what
happens and like we’re hoping the same thing. In the next 2 years the market turns around.
Development occurs and you know we can replace some of the things that we’ve had to cut too
so that’s kind of our hope.
Ryan: I have a quick question either for Greg or Todd. Is the only way to fund the park
dedication fund through new development? Is that the only way?
Hoffman: Currently.
Ryan: I mean has there ever been thought to, thought given to you know construction. Not
necessarily new but I mean for instance a recent project in our back yard when the City got
involved with, I mean is there any?
Hoffman: The park dedication funds are derived with new development which puts additional
demand on your park and trail system and so only through new development or subdivision of
existing vacant property can you capture those park dedication dollars and that’s a one time, one
time capture.
Ryan: Okay.
Hoffman: In the future if you , when you look forward 20-30 years, once development is
complete, the City, like other cities that are completely developed will have to find another
funding source for future replacements of their playgrounds, parks, ballfields.
Sticha: And at that time things like levies for a park maintenance fund or referendums you know
those are things that you know the community and City Council are seriously going to have to
take into consideration. Once you have all your infrastructure built out, the last thing you want is
to let them go by the wayside so at some point you know as a community we’re going to have to
address how do we maintain these resources long term, so.
Ryan: Okay. I’m just trying to think instead of waiting 20 to 30 years, if I’m still on the
commission in 20 to 30 years, you know a creative way to start funding or thinking of funding
this park dedication fund outside of just new development or growth because who knows you
know when it does pick back up, if there’s another opportunity to do something like that.
Daniel: Excellent, thank you Elise. Greg, thank you very much for your time today. To have
that discussion with us. Our finances and certainly those commissioners if you have any
questions I guess feel free to email or contact Greg.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Sticha: Absolutely.
Daniel: Okay, thank you.
RECOMMENDATION CONCERNING 2009/10 ICE SKATING RINK PROGRAM.
Daniel: Alright we move on now to, which our guests are here finally waiting. We can talk
about the recommendations concerning the 2009/10 ice skating rink program and it looks like we
have Jerry and John, you’re going to have some discussions about that as well? Actually you’ve
got some support. Dale’s here so. Alright, thanks John.
Stutzman: Thank you Chair Daniels. In preparing for this winter we have begun, or staff has
begun reviewing the outdoor ice rinks. Last year we did have 10 flooded with the 4 hockey rinks
as well as 6 pleasure rinks. As Greg was mentioning the economical times have forced us to
kind of take a look at some different things and see where we can go, and I re-examined kind of
costs as well as numbers for these rinks in the past. I’ve provided you with the numbers for the
past, last year as well as the past 5 years to kind of give you a comparison of what these numbers
do look like. These numbers I would like to remind the commission are based on when we have
them staffed, which is most days. The hours do vary a little bit but they are staffed most days but
these are the numbers only gathered by our staff when they are out there so there is some
flexibility in these numbers as well. But upon going through this the rinks, it was or it is
proposed by staff that we re-examine a few rinks and based again on those costs as well as the
user totals. The rinks. The pleasure rinks that do not have warming houses at Chanhassen Hills
Park as well as Rice Marsh Lake Park, they have not been overly utilized as observed by
maintenance staff when they have been out cleaning them up and preparing the maintenance for
them so that has been one piece that has been looked at, as well as Roundhouse, which does have
a staffed warming house and our numbers out there have been down over the last 5 years
significantly. About 700 users less than any other rink last year. Overall we’re about 6,500
users less over the last 5 years than any of our other rinks. There are a number of different
things. They don’t have hockey rinks out there. There are a number of competing rinks out
there as well but that rink does seem to be one that is not utilized very well, as well as the
warming house. It is with these considerations that staff is recommending that we don’t flood
these this year. The savings with this is an estimated about $3,000 to $5,000 per rink depending
on the amount of maintenance, the length of the season that these rinks do have. I would like to
point out with that too the numbers have been fluctuating over the last couple years but the last 2
years we have had the longest rink seasons in many, many years so that does reflect in all of the
numbers as well.
Daniel: Based on the weather we might continue that trend.
Stutzman: Yeah, exactly. We could have rinks next week if we really wanted to at some point is
kind of the way it’s looking. But other costs involved again with $3,000 to $5,000 per rink. We
do have the staffing cost at Roundhouse which is approximately $4,000 for the attendant per year
out there and again it’s something that isn’t overly utilized out there based on the staff notes out
there and when I have personally been out there to check in on the staff as well. It’s something
that, it’s something I think this commission should take a look at and is why staff is
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
recommending that you guys take a look at this and discontinuing the Roundhouse, Chan Hills
and Rice Lake Marsh Park for this winter.
Daniel: Okay.
Stutzman: I also have, I’d like to add too that the residents have been invited to share their
comments. I’ve been receiving phone calls as well as emails the last couple weeks. I see we
have a couple residents here tonight to share their thoughts with you guys as well. I have
attached to that as well to the numbers the emails and phone calls that I have gotten at this point.
Daniel: Yeah, I had a chance to read those before our meeting tonight.
Stutzman: There were a couple additions from the email that was sent out. I wanted to make
sure that you guys as commissioners got the ones that I got a little bit later in the afternoon as
well.
Daniel: Great and it looks like we have some, yes Todd.
Hoffman: Just to clarify the expenditures or the costs before we move into audience comments.
The $3,000 to $5,000 is a cost which fluctuates and that includes staff time so if we are not
flooding these rinks, those staff, individuals will still be on the job but they’ll be doing other
tasks within the community. There will be savings in fuel costs and then savings in depreciation
on vehicles which then aren’t making these trips out to flood these rinks. The other cost then,
administration slightly goes down but then the rink attendant at Roundhouse is the other most
significant cost. So just for both the audience members and the commission to bear in mind
when we’re talking about what is the actual investment in cash and time made in these rinks.
Scharfenberg: Just one point of clarification please on Roundhouse. Is there a rink attendant
there every night and on weekends?
Stutzman: It is scheduled as all the other rinks are, yes.
Scharfenberg: Okay. Alright.
Hoffman: Currently. Last year.
Wendt: What are those hours?
Stutzman: On regular week nights it’s 4:00 to 9:00 for the rinks. On Saturdays it’s 9:00 to, or
pardon me, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sundays it’s 1:00 to 7:00. Non school days we do the same
as Saturdays which would be 10:00 to 9:00 and then we do take holidays and winter break into
account as well.
Daniel: Are you open on holidays?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Stutzman: Some of them we are. New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve we are. We have
modified hours. Christmas Day we are not. Christmas Eve we are.
Daniel: Okay. Alright. Great job, thank you. Todd should we open, get a chance to open it up
to our guests here and if you certainly have any comments or like to discuss, feel free to step up
to the podium. And when you get up there just announce your name and your address.
Michelle Laurent: Okay. My name’s Michelle Laurent. I live at 8115 Erie Circle. I live by
Rice Marsh and I’m just, we’ve been here before because this is not new and I know that, it
seems like there’s no attendant at that park but I do, I live near the park and I see it used all the
time so I just think for kids, especially my daughter’s here, the kids that can use it on their own.
They don’t have to drive. They can’t drive so I just think it’s a nice opportunity for them to kind
of be independent but supervised by the neighborhood. We have a really close neighborhood
and I think it’s nice that the kids can get out and be kind of watched by the neighbors but they’re
not anonymous and I just think it would be a shame. I think people keep track of each other
during the winter. It keeps the neighborhood safe. We have had some problems at our
neighborhood with people using the park for unsavory reasons. I think people using the park and
keeping it vibrant keeps it safe and I think it would, I mean I know it’s expensive but I think it’s
a good use of our money and a good use, a good investment in the future so.
Daniel: Thank you.
Kelly Dunn: Hello. My name is Kelly Dunn and I’m the President of the neighborhood
association for Cimarron and it was fun to hear the presentation a little earlier because as you
saw when all the park dedication funds were and our neighborhood came on board roughly in the
mid 2000’s so part of that 2.28 in 2006 could have been from our neighborhood because actually
in the, about 18 homes that we have, we brought in about $10 million dollars of residential tax
base to the community here. It’s a little bit of a history. If you kind of look at the map, again
we’re close to Roundhouse Park and when I first moved here about 50 years ago I was in the east
side of Lake Minnewashta which is now, it was called Ches Mar Farms and now that’s part of
the regional park. And then my family moved to the west side and so I grew up off of what was
then County Road 15 which became Minnewashta Parkway and Minnewashta Parkway is highly
utilized and a great resource to our community. The difference between when I grew up and
then I moved back to the neighborhood about 3 years ago when the new development came on
board and it was fun to move back to town to see all the great developments that Chanhassen has
to offer. From my own perspective you look at, when I was growing up on again the northwest
corner of Chanhassen, we had to go to Shorewood when we wanted to play hockey. We had to
go up to Cathcart Field and I don’t think most parents would allow their kids to cross Highway 7
in today’s world and so but you know that’s where we did. There were people lived there.
People actually lived in Roundhouse Park or in the house when I was growing up there. I’ve got
some additional emails that I’d like to share just in terms of from our neighborhood, we really
value this as a resource. The same point you know some of our residents, as I surveyed them, if
we had to still give up something, you know we’d still like to have the flooded rink and if we had
to give up the warming house and the attendants you know to kind of make things you know, we
would understand that but we still think that there is a value of having a rink there. Again the
park is getting more and more utilized with the beach and the fishing pier and all the
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
improvements that you have. Just briefly what I want to do is just mention one of my other
volunteer activities, I’m familiar with the Herb Brooks Foundation and I’ve got an email that I
want to just briefly read a couple sentences there. The fact that we’re changing or looking at
closing some outdoor rinks is disturbing news to the Herb Brooks Foundation. This is from Skip
Peltier, their Executive Director. As many Minnesotans will remember Herb Brooks worked
very hard to increase the number of outdoor rinks in Minnesota. According to Herb this is where
the neighborhood friends played together, learned many of the lessons of life that contribute to
an individual’s work ethic, success in life and sense of community. Up at the Blaine Super Rink
in addition to the 8 indoor rinks they have, the Herb Brooks Foundation is trying to now raise
money to do more of the pond hockey and so outdoor rinks, all those things so from that
perspective you know from a just pure hockey, and I’m not a hockey guy. I’m a soccer guy so I
play in the park with kids when we’re training in the summer. One of our new neighbors is
actually Ben Klimmer. He moved into our neighborhood. You may remember his name. He
was the Gopher captain, Bloomington Jefferson guy. He now lives across the street from me.
Now he’s playing pro hockey over in Europe. I got a message from him this morning. I sent
him an email because he’s over in Germany. He said that’s too bad they’re thinking about
eliminating the rink. I grew up near a rink that I could walk to with my friends and grew to love
the game there. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. So you’ve got Stanley Cup
player Ben Klimmer supports this. And again Clark Grant says many families in the
neighborhoods that do use it and I think it’d be a big loss if it’s not there but if we did not have
the warming house and staff, how about just the ice. Matt Herman. To have an outdoor rink so
accessible and steps away provide many families an economical opportunity to participate
together. Isn’t outdoor rinks and outdoor winter activities what this great state of hockey is
about. Actually I’m sorry, that’s from Jesse Davis. From Rhett Herman. Losing a rink will
affect many. It’s the only park that Chanhassen has out this far west. For us to skate in the
winter it must mean to drive our kids out of the Chanhassen instead of walking down the hill.
Brad Yeager. We also oppose the removal of the rink. It would be a disappointment for the
community if we lose the rink. Another family, our family used the rink for the past 5 1/2 years.
Both our kids learned to skate on that rink. Mackey had her birthday party there last year and
was planning on doing the same this year. Michael Sandberg. Your’s is in the packet there.
And so those are some that I can kind of add to the list. If you look there is a lot of them that…
so I think again on the web site of Chanhassen you know promotes being you know the second
best city to live in in the whole country and part of it comes back to, you know if you were to
survey residents, people do value their parks. Maybe the room isn’t filled here tonight because
they’re at Chinese emersion class or scouting programs or whatever, whatever, whatever so they
sent me to kind of represent our neighborhood. There’s a number of homes to the north of us
and even my mother who’s 85, she’s saying oh no. We’ve got, she walks her dog and walks it
there and do all those sort of things so again whatever you can do to try and help save it. The
numbers again it is a weather sensitive thing. Not everybody goes into the warming house.
Some people just go onto the rink directly so I’m, you know I don’t question the numbers that
you have because they’re reported and they’re there but sometimes people just go directly and
they’re not necessarily putting on their skates there so we would, and I think you know from an
overall quality of life perspective it’s, you know as you look at the investment in an outdoor rink
relative to other recreational opportunities, it is dollars. I recognize that but it’s, I think you get a
pretty good bang for the buck and you know the hard part is, yeah if it’s 20 below nobody’s
going to be out skating but if it’s 15 above and it’s a nice weekend, those places are very busy so
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
that’s all I have to say. Thank and also I would just thank you for all your service. I volunteer
for other organizations and it takes a lot of your time to be there and I also want to thank the staff
for taking the step to send out a letter to let us know and make that aware versus operating in
more dark so we appreciate that. Respect your decision. Whatever you do we understand but we
didn’t want this opportunity to go by without letting you know that we, as our neighborhoods
really value our ones, and I’ll forward these to somebody at the city so you’ve got proof of them
separately too. Thank you.
Daniel: Great, thank you Kelly. Appreciate it.
Hoffman: Kelly?
Kelly Dunn: Yes.
Hoffman: Can you show them where Cimarron is? If you want to focus in Jerry.
Kelly Dunn: So we’re about a half block north if you go up Kings Road we’re right there.
Hoffman: Right up on this street I believe right about there.
Kelly Dunn: No.
Ryan: It’s straight back from…
Kelly Dunn: Yeah, it’s right there. See that one little line, that’s where I live so. So we’re right
there and everybody is basically here and there. This guy he has an annual event that he holds
there. He cooks scrambled eggs and invites the whole neighborhood there. There was at least I
don’t know 100 people that day it seems like so.
Hoffman: Thanks.
Daniel: Great, thank you Kelly.
Kelly Dunn: Thank you.
Daniel: Well let’s get some, oh go ahead. Please, I’m sorry.
Grace Laurent: My name is Grace Laurent and I live at 8115 Erie Circle in Chanhassen and the
park is Rice Marsh Lake Park. I think that we should keep it because it’s a positive outlet for
people and we have a lot of hockey players in our neighborhood and they would be here today
but they had hockey practice. Kids need to be outside instead of like inside playing video games
the whole time and that’s, it’s like hard to do if you don’t have a lot of snow and stuff so ice
skating makes sure that we have something to do. And it’s hard to get a ride to like an
elementary school so it’s really easy to walk there. My friends and I use it all the time so yeah I
think it’s good.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Daniel: Thank you Grace. I think that’s about it. Okay, why don’t we get some discussions
based off of the input from the residents talking about it. Elise, why don’t we start with you.
Ryan: A quick question. Does the City assume any risk if there are no attendants at these parks?
Or is that not a consideration? Any liability or, if you flood it?
Hoffman: We have in the past had numerous rinks that are unattended and then also the current
rinks that we do flood there are many times when there is not a rink attendant there so that’s.
Ryan: And if they’re not attended.
Hoffman: It’s not a worry for us.
Ryan: It’s not a worry for us. Well this is new this open discussion when I’ve been, since I’ve
been. I don’t really know how we begin these open discussions but.
Daniel: Well just basically your input. I mean any ideas or thoughts.
Ryan: Okay. My thought is, I’m a big believer in outdoor facilities and outdoor rinks and
having a safe haven so to speak for kids to go and you know be, enjoy the outdoors and when
Kelly was speaking I actually saw the documentary on Herb Brooks and the quote that you said
about life lessons learned on the rinks I think is very valued and so if you know looking at today,
I think that it would be wise if we could cut back on you know attendants or warming houses
before we just eliminate the rink altogether. That would be my initial thought and then we could
re-evaluate it in a year and see usage or attendance and go from there but instead of just
eliminating all of these, the rinks I think we could maybe take it step by step before just you
know having them altogether. That would be my thoughts.
Daniel: Okay, thanks Elise. Glenn.
Stolar: Several questions. One I thought last year, did we have Rice Marsh last year?
Stutzman: Rice Marsh, that was the first year of last year bringing it back again, yes.
Stolar: Last year we brought it back, or we had a rink 2 years ago was it that we went around
and?
Stutzman: I think it was, it was before my time. I want to say it was.
Stolar: Yeah because I went around, I didn’t go around last year. I went around at 2 or 3 years.
Stutzman: I want to say it might have been 4 years ago. I know it was before my time.
Stolar: We didn’t, that was what we recommended last year was not.
Stutzman: No, we did flood it last year. Last year was the first year.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Stolar: So was it 2 years ago that we? Then it, so it was like 3 or 4 years ago we did it. We
went around and we saw no usage and then we cut it back that next year.
Stutzman: Correct.
Stolar: And then we decided because it was a good winter 2 years ago we said let’s go ahead and
flood it last year because we thought it might be better usage, okay. Alright. So and Chanhassen
Hills I know we kept going because of the lights, right?
Stutzman: Yes, that’s correct.
Michelle Laurent: When we came last time it was going to be an every other year but just
alternated.
Stolar: Okay, that’s right. That’s what it was.
Michelle Laurent: That’s why it was off and then on and then I just wanted to say too with
regards to safety and I don’t know anything about ice safety but I know that they dug some
holding ponds on either side of Rice Marsh and when the rink isn’t flooded, those are shoveled
and skated on and I worry about the safety because there’s a culvert you know filling water in so
I don’t know if that’s the safest place for kids to be skating but kids are skating there when
there’s not a rink.
Daniel: Unfortunately I think that’s about every holding pond around here. Any of the holes
seem to be shoveled and turned into a rink.
Michelle Laurent: I don’t know but I know that…actively got runoff coming in so it’s not all
hard. It’s not like a contained pond.
Daniel: Is that the ones that are going between.
Hoffman: It’s the brand new ones that they dug two winters ago in Rice Marsh.
Michelle Laurent: Yeah.
Daniel: Just on that west side, or east side of Rice Marsh down the trail?
Hoffman: Yep.
Michelle Laurent: Yeah so I don’t know if they’re particularly the same as like a small self
contained holding pond.
Hoffman: Well I want to go back to something Ms. Laurent stated and what the commission is
going to continue to struggle with as you work through this. We have been here before. We’ve
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
been in this same position for the last 15 or 20 years and I’m not sure what the total, the highest
number of rinks flooded in Chanhassen, Dale do you recall? Maybe 18-19.
Gregory: Yeah I was going to say about 18.
Hoffman: 18 rinks and so simply due to the use, and every time we’re here talking about this we
talk about what, how nice they are and what they used to mean and why we should have them
and you know outdoor recreation is a great thing and that’s all true. Neighborhood hockey rinks
were a big deal in the 70’s and 80’s. A big, big deal and we’re still kind of living off of that
romance of what they meant at those, during those times and kids went outside, we always hear
it. They skated from after school until dark and might maybe come up from supper, maybe not,
and then they were back on the rink. But our usage numbers on some of these rinks, and we’ve
slowly through attrition taken them and removed them from the neighborhoods and then they
always seem, some neighborhoods come back and go away. Minnewashta Heights is a rink that
is no longer around. Pheasant Hills is a rink that is no longer around. Carver Beach Park is a
rink that’s no longer around. Meadow Green Park is a rink that’s no longer around. There may
be 1 or 2 others. There’s no doubt at this stage of ice in our city on municipal rinks that there are
at least 2 or 3, maybe 4, maybe 5 times more rinks that are manufactured and maintained by
private residences both on ponds, lakes and in their back yards so is hockey and ice skating still a
desirable activity? Absolutely. We provide one resource for that. The private residences and
neighborhoods are doing that on a scale larger than we are as a municipality, as a city. So I’m
not surprised that they’re doing it there and they’re doing it on Chanhassen Pond. They’re doing
it on Lotus Lake, Lake Minnewashta and all, just about all the ponds that are near a
neighborhood within our community and so we’re not the only ones in this business. Ms.
Laurent is right. We’ve been here before. I know it’s a difficult decision but it’s one that the
park commission needs to make a recommendation to council on where you feel we should go
with these. The warming house versus not having a warming house, it’s a lot nicer having a
skating rink if you have a warming house. The round house has a history onto itself and the fact
that it’s there as a warming house it would be nice to be able to utilize it. I’m not sure that we
could leave it open for general neighborhood drop in use. That may lead to more problems than
we’re hoping for. We could certainly, if you decide to close it tonight, we certainly could make
it available for reservation for birthday parties or community events where they could check out
a key like they do for our picnic pavilions in the summer so there are some options here but just
wanted to go back and talk about that history. We’ve been here before. It happens not quite
every year but almost every other year that we talk about the potential elimination of some rinks.
And as much as we want to keep kids outside skating, it’s just one of those realities that it’s not
as popular as it used to be.
Daniel: Okay. Let’s continue on at least some thoughts…
Stolar: It’s really the opportunity costs because…but the budget’s being cut so if we don’t cut
this we cut something else. What are some of the things that we have to cut to maintain these
rinks? What we wouldn’t do? Any thoughts?
Hoffman: Maintenance wise or for your attendant?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Stolar: I’m not as worried about the attendant. That to me is a separate discussion. We need to
say yes or no on Roundhouse Park if that’s $4,000. But for maintenance of the rinks that’s time
of Dale’s people doing something that they aren’t doing something else so for example is it that
the trails, we might not clear as many trails in the mornings. You know what are the things so
that everybody has a perspective of what gets given up if we do these rinks.
Hoffman: Dale Gregory is our Park Superintendent and is in charge of maintaining our rinks and
parks and trails.
Gregory: I haven’t really given it a lot of thought as far as what we would have to cut. Right
now and that related to snow and everything else, our rinks are usually put on the back burner.
Trails come first. All the plowing at the rec center. Schools. All trails around any of the schools
are first. We work on our 80 miles of trail and try to plow those. In the meantime we have a
couple of guys that will be starting the work on rinks so we can have them basically done by the
time school is out. We run between doing all of our rinks and everything else we’ll run probably
about a 14 hour day when we get a hard snow. We start at 4:00 in the morning and go until 4:00
to 6:00 in the evening. If I have to pick something, you know I don’t know what to really say at
this point. I’d have to look at it a little bit more and that. I mean I really can’t pick an item out
that says we would cut this because we have to keep the rinks or we can do this now that we
don’t have to work on them and that.
Stolar: So mostly it’s an overtime basis. It’s just you get it all done and…
Gregory: The overtime basically comes in the initial set up of the rinks. The first 3 weeks when
we start flooding and what we do then is all rinks are treated the same. We get 2 trucks. We go
out and we flood 24 hours a day. We hit every rink. Each truck’s got a route. They hit every
rink and they keep going around. Family rinks. Hockey rinks. Skating rinks. Everything and
that. They just continue going around. All rinks, after we get them up and running and we’re
just working on a daily basis, all rinks get swept and cleaned off and they’ll get touched up with
flooding. We try to keep flooding them every day until probably close to February where we’ll
actually start slowing down then on the neighborhood parks. Then we’ll start looking at those as
Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. Just simply because we’re starting to, the season is starting
to wane away. Starting to end up a little bit and that so we start putting less effort on those. We
still continue on a daily basis on all the hockey rinks, skating and those areas. But we, in my
maintenance guys that are out sweeping every day, they, and I hear it a lot from them. I check
rinks out occasionally and that and we see very little use on the Chanhassen Hills and the Rice
Marsh. The Roundhouse, that does get you know more use and you do have the statistics for all
of those and that. You know I can’t really decide what, you know you’ll have to decide the
statistics and that, if it’s enough to keep it open or not. The other two, and like I say, we really
don’t see a lot of use on them. Very skate marks.
Hoffman: The, again sorry, everyone understand what we’re talking about. We have a park
superintendent, a park foreman and 5 laborers that are out on a daily basis. At present for
overtime we are on a no overtime unless prior approval by a department director and so this year
was the first year we’ll be fully affected so for those overnight flooding hours and those type of
things we’ll be limited on what we can get done due to our restrictions of overtime.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Daniel: Okay. Scott, you have something?
Wendt: Yeah. I don’t know I’m just geographically looking at them. We’ve got kind of a nice
mix. I’m kind of hesitant to do anything with Roundhouse Park. Just it serves a need out in that
area. I don’t know, that one kind of stood out to me when I saw the list was we like going out
there. We’re not skaters but summertime, fall we’re out at that one quite a bit. And just kind of
strictly geographically looking at Rice Marsh Lake and Chanhassen Hills, fairly close together.
Maybe take out 1 of those 2. It seems like having, at the height we had 18-19 rinks that we
maintained. Having this many seems reasonable for a city of our size. That’s my thoughts.
Daniel: Okay. That’s good. Steve.
Scharfenberg: Again having, living in kind of the southern part of the city I always speak on
behalf of some of those residents that we really have nothing down in that area. I’ve kind of
talked in the past about doing something at Bandimere so that you kind of cover all points of the
city between North Lotus and Roundhouse, the Rec Center, City Center and then you’ve got
something in the southern part of the city. I think ultimately we should, I don’t think we can do
it this year but I would like to see again something done out in that southern part of the city so
that you’ve got that part of the city served too. You know the neighborhood parks, you know I
appreciate the comments from the residents that are here tonight with Rice Marsh Park and
having that availability but you know the use for those parks is just down so it’s hard to justify
flooding and continued maintenance at those facilities. I’m all into the idea of shared pain and
you know one, there’s a number of different options I think that we have to think about and
consider tonight and maybe kind of work through those. One would be, I’m all for keeping
Roundhouse at some level. If it’s just flooding it and keeping the facility closed, I think it
sounds like a lot of people are for that but I think that we need to keep something there at
Roundhouse just because of the geographical nature of the park. The other potential is you know
in terms of savings as just eliminating the family rinks at the different parks, or at least at Lotus
and potentially at the rec center. I know that’s hard because you’ve got people playing hockey
on the other 2 rinks at the rec center but maybe you say you know one of those rinks is just
dedicated towards family and the other one is hockey and just, you have to have the attendants
enforce that. That way you’re kind of saving on that little area. I know Dale’s team probably
doesn’t put in a whole lot of time on the family rinks because it’s just clearing off the softball
fields and flooding those and kind of keeping them cleared but obviously that’s some time they
have to do that and if you eliminate that, I mean you’re saving on some hours and water so. I
think we’ve got a number of different options to kind of talk through tonight but those are my
thoughts.
Daniel: And thoughts some that I share as well. You know as a former rink rat around this city
as well, doing exactly as you described Todd. Coming, literally leaving straight from school and
going right over to City Center here. I spent a great deal of time but the thing that I have noticed
in, and certainly Mrs. Laurent had brought that up as well is the holding ponds and any piece of
available water has been turned into, not necessarily the community rinks that are sanctioned or
happen to be on one of the parks but they are available and the fact that they are, where I
currently live as well, there’s one right off of Lake Lucy that everyone in the neighborhood just
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
congregates to and one of the neighbors creates a nice little skating parkway and you know some
people really get involved in that. A lot of people skate on Lotus and Kerber Pond and just about
any other pond throughout here. The difference being obviously is that those are, you know the
maintenance is really determined by the individual who wants to versus a consistent city
employee doing that on a regular basis. And as far as you know with the location of parks like
Rice Marsh, you know that is true. There is a separation based off of Highway 5 and really the
only park south of Highway 5 that would be available is Lake Susan and the rec center. You
know but really if you look at the statistics here, and going over it, if there’s a hockey rink, they
put the boards. Fix boards, they will come. By definition looking at where North Lotus is at,
there shouldn’t be 2,500 people going there. 2,500 skaters last season that we were able to
count. Let alone the after hours that we consistently see as well. But you know again people do
drive there and I think theoretically that serves just a very small portion of Chanhassen
geographically, but again people come over from Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. That’s where it
starts to get it’s use and that’s the same thing that they do. They don’t have the luxury of
walking, unfortunately with the exception of those in, was it Fox Hollow there? And Glenn,
your neighborhood so. You know with really the emphasis being placed more so on obviously
keeping those hockey rinks going, or at least parts with hockey rinks. Roundhouse has a
sufficient need because it is on an island of itself. I mean it’s so far west. Been cut off from the
rest of the city and Cathcart really is the only other option which is close. I mean it’s, you know
again if they want to play hockey with boards they can go up there for that but I do think it
certainly does serve a purpose since we have a warming house there. One of the
recommendations I would suggest we evaluate as well that if having a, not having an attendant
will help offset any costs for Roundhouse. One of the other options that we may want to
consider is maybe just putting attendants on the weekends because I would suggest, I would
suspect I should say that the larger amount of the 700 or so skaters last season, probably a large
percentage of them were on Saturdays and Sundays so you know maybe that might be a nice
little compromise that the City may want to take into consideration for Roundhouse. You know
with regards to again some of the smaller just family rinks. Unfortunately you know if costs
certainly in the city are trying to achieve and Todd is this something that was part of our
budgeting process earlier this year where we looked at cost savings and identifying these rinks,
or is this something that’s new?
Hoffman: We’re still not done with the budget process so.
Daniel: Okay. I just wanted to get an understanding. This is something that we, I know when
we went through our CIP and some other things.
Hoffman: Well, yeah we’re telling the council that at every step we’re taking a look at
maximizing the investment of our resources because they’re very interested in doing that and
they don’t want to be investing dollars that aren’t being used wisely. As you move forward,
whatever your decision is and your recommendation, you can include changing hours, but out at
Roundhouse we’ve alluded to it tonight. Roundhouse is a little bit different. It’s somewhat
similar to North Lotus Lake Park and it’s similar size and it’s been developed with a similar park
master plan in that it does serve a community onto itself. North Lotus serves the north Lotus
neighborhood and Roundhouse serves the west Lake Minnewashta neighborhood. But if you
want to continue this ice conversation I think you should bring it in next summer to a
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
neighborhood conversation about the park master plan. Is there a desire to put hockey boards on
that corner? It’s the best location if you want to put hockey in Roundhouse but it’s also on a
very visible corner on Lake Minnewashta. Or on Minnewashta Parkway in Roundhouse Park so,
but Commissioner, Chair Daniels is correct. If you put hockey boards there, your numbers are
going to go up because people like hockey boards, especially kids and the youth and the adult
players that want to play some hockey. And so it is in the park master plan to have hockey
boards there. The Roundhouse was preserved in, one reason was for a warming house during the
winter. That was a long term investment in that park as well so if you want to continue ice at
Roundhouse I would suggest that the commission should call another neighborhood meeting to
talk about the long term master plan of that park and what is the interest of the neighborhood.
Do you want to keep the tennis courts? Do you want to keep the hockey? Do you want to do
something else with your park? The community, this commission, a past commission worked
very hard to acquire. That’s a beautiful piece of property on Lake Minnewashta and the Parkway
so what does the neighborhood visualize it in the future?
Daniel: As far as a commission, what should we do for a recommendation? How do we want to
propose it?
Stolar: Well I have a couple of other questions here.
Daniel: Okay. Please.
Stolar: One of the questions I brought up in at least 2 or 3 previous discussions like this,
flooding frequencies. Can we save money by reducing that without too much risk? So for
example family rinks don’t get flooded as, you know maintained as well. And then these
disparate rinks outside don’t get maintained, does that save us money?
Gregory: We do cut down on the flooding of the family rinks after we have them established.
We do our initial flooding and that, we get them open but we flood them all on a daily basis to
fill it up. So when we do get warm days and that we don’t lose everything.
Stolar: Right, I understand that part.
Gregory: And once we’re to that point where we feel we don’t need to build any more then we
do cut back on family rinks and a lot of the neighborhood rinks.
Stolar: How often do we do it then?
Gregory: Then we’ve been doing like Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Stolar: Right, so if we cut it down to once a week, what would be the impact?
Gregory: I don’t think it would be too much. I mean like I say for the amount of use that I see
on that, I don’t think it would be a big issue.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Stolar: And that would save us some money. Not the levels that we’re talking about but it
would save us some.
Daniel: I think your costs are in the initial set up more so than the maintenance.
Stolar: Okay, so the maintenance isn’t that much but it’s something.
Gregory: It would be, I mean it’s a matter of, we have somebody running around with a tractor
to sweep them off and we’ve got somebody that runs around with a truck to flood them so, and
sweeping at that time it’ll take one guy at least oh about 6 hours, 7 hours to run around to all the
rinks and sweep them.
Stolar: Okay.
Gregory: You know if we cut it out, yeah we could save an hour.
Daniel: Dale, a rink the size, that would be down for example at Rice Marsh. How many
gallons of water does it take?
Gregory: Depending on what time you’re flooding it. When you’re initially setting up, like the
truck goes down there. We’ve got 2 different trucks. One’s the 2,500 and one’s a 1,000 gallon
truck and if you take the 1,000 gallon truck you could put out initially when you’re starting to set
it up you can put about half a load on there so, in that flooding. You can put about 1,000 gallons
on it. When it’s set up and all ready to go, you’re probably going to put about 500 gallons in it.
That’d be it for the day. I mean really you’re covering up any skating marks. Trying to get rid
of ripples, any of those sort of stuff.
Daniel: Okay. So you’re probably looking at each rink over 25,000 gallons or so? 20,000
gallons?
Gregory: In a year?
Hoffman: Oh much more than that.
Daniel: Much more, okay.
Wendt: One thing about Rice Marsh too, last year was the trail under 101 there? Last winter?
Gregory: Yes.
Wendt: Okay. So I thought that would make a difference.
Daniel: Well certainly it’s a tough decision. We certainly appreciate the comments from Grace
and her mom and Kelly Dunn as well. Like I said I think from my perspective Roundhouse
should be probably reinstated and kept for this year. Rice Marsh, we can certainly, Rice Marsh
and Lake Susan Hills, or Chanhassen Hills. Could cancel those. We could have a, if there’s any
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
more discussion on that. Steve’s what your thoughts on the two small, Roundhouse as well as
Chanhassen Hills and Rice Marsh.
Scharfenberg: What are my thoughts? My recommendation would be, if we’re looking to
amend staff’s proposal would be keeping Roundhouse Park with a rink attendant only on the
weekends and some modification of hours there at Roundhouse. That would be my
recommendation and elimination of the two other rinks.
Daniel: Okay. Scott.
Wendt: Yeah, I recommend keeping Roundhouse open. It’s a unique facility with the warming
house. Have that open on the weekends and maybe even in the evenings. Just modification of
the hours. I’d like to see one, either one of the two or both of the other two stay there too.
Daniel: Okay, Elise.
Ryan: Roundhouse, keep Roundhouse weekend only hours. Fairly indifferent in terms of the
warming house. And I also agree that we should keep one of the two, either Rice Marsh or
Chanhassen Hills for that part of the city. And maybe we could just flood only or have limited
maintenance. That would be my recommendation.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: I think I agree with keeping Roundhouse. I think that’s always been a belief that that
corner of the city needs something and I agree with the recommendation that we only have an
attendant on the weekend. Or no attendant. I’m not sure, I’m indifferent but I would not have a
full attendants there. And the difference there is we aren’t renting a trailer or anything so you
know if we only do it weekends we don’t lose the overhead of that versus some of these others
where we have to rent the trailer. You don’t have anyone sitting there. You have a trailer not
being used. Is that correct?
Stutzman: That is correct.
Stolar: Okay.
Stutzman: One thing I was going to say, since many commissioners have brought it up is the
weekend hours. It would be something to consider is maybe just Saturdays because again
Sundays, I would see the majority of the use is on Saturdays versus Sundays is almost treated as
another school evening.
Stolar: Okay. So maybe Friday evening and Saturday. Something like that.
Stutzman: Potentially Friday. If you were looking for the big use I would recommend Saturday
and that would be, that would be probably, and again based on the numbers I’ve seen, that would
be my recommendation.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Scharfenberg: I would say with the exception of John’s comment, with the exception of the rec
center because the rec center is always busy Saturdays and Sundays so.
Stutzman: Yes.
Stolar: I think you were just referring.
Stutzman: I was just referring to Roundhouse, yes. I’m sorry.
Scharfenberg: Oh, okay. I’m sorry.
Stutzman: Yeah. No, the rec center is always busy.
Stolar: The rec center is always busy and I think some of the others, isn’t City Center busy in the
evenings too?
Stutzman: All three of our locations are pretty.
Stolar: As far as Rice Marsh or Chanhassen Hills. Not to, the main reason we kept doing
Chanhassen Hills was because it had lights and it served the southern part of the city being the
southern most park but it’s always consistently, if I remember correctly, been the least used. Is
that correct John? Jerry? So you know to me I think we should do Chanhassen Hills. It just
doesn’t seem to work out even though we’ve tried. Rice Marsh, I’m caught here. We’ve done it
a few times I’ve been on here and I think I voted both ways. I think I voted to close it and…so,
but I will say that I think we’ve got to be realistic about the cost here and unless there’s a way to
really reduce our costs I would be in favor of closing it.
Daniel: …when someone says well, with regards to both Roundhouse and having the hours
reduced to just either Saturday, Friday night or Saturday, Sunday, whatever it may be. That
certainly would show I think some good faith on our end to the council that the park and rec
department is, as well as the commission are trying to show some cost savings here given the
economic conditions. And then as well as with the, I definitely like to save Chanhassen Hills
Park. If that is the case that it is getting limited use, I mean it’s a great location but certainly I
understand if it’s not being used. And the irony is, you know the Rice Marsh is at the very tip
and end of one neighborhood with Chan Estates there and you know it comes down to you know
a cost savings measure based off of what kind of bang are we going to get for the buck that we’re
investing to it. And if the initial costs are $3,000 to $5,000 realistically for each just you know,
obviously there’s more cost associated with flooding the 3 major rinks or locations compared to
this. You know if we’re talking just a couple thousand dollars that it takes us to flood and then
maintain just for one small rink like that, I don’t know if size has anything to do with it as well
but then maybe I might, you know I think it might be worth just having it down there. I also
believe that the squeaky wheel, you know if it does get greased and somebody complains, which
I would like to see it certainly instituted. We appreciate those. It shows that, you know those
people in the neighborhood care so it’s always good to hear because obviously if it goes, if it
were to went silent I think the debate would have been a lot easier as far as which direction so we
do appreciate you coming. It does make a difference so thank you. I guess as far as what we
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
would recommend, we’re all on board as far as the commission’s concerned, the
recommendation to both the city staff and the council that Roundhouse be reinstated and
considered for reduction in hours. Could use Friday night, Saturday or Saturday-Sunday at the
event. Recommendation that we, I think we…
Stolar: Let me make a motion.
Daniel: There we go.
Stolar: I propose we accept the staff’s recommendations with the following amendments. And
I’m just going to say the ones I think we agreed to and then if someone wants to add to it.
Daniel: Please.
Stolar: That with the amendment that we keep the Roundhouse rink with the recommendation
that the warming house be attended only on a limited basis to be determined by staff. Weekends,
Saturday only, Friday, whatever it might be. Okay so because I want to be careful of the hours
that the rinks are, whatever the, someone wants to go on the ice, it’s the ice of the warming house
and the staffing of the warming house. So again recommendation, staff recommendation plus
cutting back Roundhouse rink with limited warming house attendant. That’s the motion for now.
And we can amend it if someone seconds it.
Daniel: With no discussion so we’re continuing with the discussion, okay.
Stolar: Discussion.
Daniel: Right. Second?
Ryan: Second.
Stolar: So now if someone wants to amend it they can.
Daniel: Amend it Steve or Scott?
Wendt: Yeah, I’d like to leave Rice Marsh open maybe with limited maintenance.
Daniel: Okay. Any objection? Steve? Alright.
Stolar: So then I’d accept that amendment so we’ll Rice Marsh with the recommendation that
we do limited maintenance. If that’s possible.
Ryan: Do we need to clarify, no?
Stolar: And just for clarification for the audience, that means if it’s bumpy, we accept that and
you accept that. But I mean it does mean that we get a warm spell we may not repair it. I mean
that’s kind of the big issue is we get a warm spell, we don’t have to re-flood the whole thing.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
We’ll start the year and if it is a good year, great. Congratulations. If it’s not a good year, we’re
not going to spend another 20 hours or whatever, 3 days of 24 hours.
Daniel: Okay.
Stolar: Is that fair Scott?
Wendt: That’s what I think.
Stolar: Steve? Okay.
Wendt: I just hate to see one of those disappear in that area of the city.
Daniel: Okay, well now that we have both amendments to the City’s recommendation, all in
favor.
Stolar moved, Ryan seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that
the City Council approve the following ice skating rink locations for the 2009/10 season:
Chanhassen Rec Center – Warming House North Lotus Park – Warming House
1 – Family Rink 1 – Family Rink
2 – Hockey Rinks 1 – Hockey Rink
City Center Park – Warming House Roundhouse Park – Warming House
With Limited Attendant Hours
1 – Family Rink
1 – Hockey Rink 1 – Family Rink
Rice Marsh Lake Park with
Limited Maintenance
1 – Family Rink
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS:
2009 RESERVATION PICNIC SITE EVALUATION.
Ruegemer: Thanks Chair Daniels. 2009 was a busy year for our department, certainly with
reserving our outdoor picnic facilities. We did have a total number of reservations and revenue
increase in 2009. Really the most significant increase really was due to the new Hilltop shelter at
Lake Ann. If you look at kind of the numbers on the back we did double our numbers from last
year but that wasn’t much with our old facility that we’ve had but we did open up you know kind
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
of partially throughout the course of the year here so we’re very happy that we do have a, that
new additional shelter out there. That was really a party to many graduation parties, weddings,
the senior center picnic was out there this year so great facility for us. You know as we kind of
went through our presentation before with our recreation division, we did have different
categories. You know the general reservations, which is the graduation parties, the weddings,
family reunions, that sort of thing. In kind which is Miracles of Mitch Triathlon, the chamber
picnics, those type of things, and in house which is our programming like Adventure Camp. Our
karate classes, that sort of thing are having a picnic. The senior center picnics. Other types of
city functions that would be included with that in house type of a category. Certainly our most
popular site was the Lakeside Pavilion. That goes without saying. It’s our nicest facility. Lake
Susan is second and then Hilltop was a close third with that which I really see to be that will
increase into the future. We did increase our paid reservations this year up to 105 and that’s up
from 95 from last year and then revenues did top $13,000 this year which is up from last year as
well. And then just keeping you know these are kind of rough estimates but looking at that, we
did host over 11,000 park users and picnickers at our 3 different reservation sites that we had that
were reservations. Again it’s the same type of thing that, you know people are still using the
parks when we don’t have reservations. I know I go through the park all the time and there’s
groups that are down there using the Lake Susan shelter from Rosemount or from other types of
agencies and areas that we do, so that number is actually higher as well than just what we have
kind of accounted for. Attached is kind of the breakdown on the back of the page. I think it’s
kind of helpful to kind of look at each individual facility. Kind of days of the week that are
getting reserved. The numbers. That sort of thing for 2009 and 2008. You kind of look at the
past 2 years if you’re looking at kind of getting trends of kind of when the facilities are being
used. And that certainly is helpful for staff as well to kind of look at you know what days of the
week are used more and that’s why we instituted the kind of the weekly rate, which is the
Monday through Thursday and then the weekend rate, Friday through Sunday when the facilities
are really being used the most. So that certainly helps us with that and we’ll be coming into the
near future and talking about picnic reservation fees again in the near future for the next meeting
or two coming up. You know still have a lot of customers looking on our city web site to look at
information prior to you know kind of contacting the city so a lot of times, probably 9 out of 10
they already know the price. Amenities within a facility. And we have a lot of repeat customers
as well so that really helps us speed up the process on the phone and everybody’s really familiar
with everything at that point. You know we, I think I am looking at kind of having that stuff
available on line to look to see if the facilities are available. I’m really hesitant to have you
know kind of an open reservation going on the sites itself, just so people can make, I like to have
control of that as well and that’s helpful for me just as the person who is doing the reservations.
Just to have, you know there’s a lot of things that go into scheduling and kind of floating things
so to speak that okay, we had this coming down the line here and it’s not as obvious as looking at
just a blank screen that it is open at certain facilities so that’s easy for us to do on our software
system that we have. It’s just a matter of you know clicking a couple settings and having that go
live on our site so we certainly can take a look at that and I’ll be looking at kind of the valid
reasons of doing that and I’m kind of leaning on going that way into the future. With that as well
so that’d be another step for our customers to kind of take a look at availability and that sort of
thing to help speed up the process for them as well during the reservation process. Changing the
names. You know we had talked about that at previous commission meetings and you know it
really was very well received. There wasn’t really a lot of confusion with the name changes
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
where I thought there would be because you know those picnic sites have been named for many,
many years with the Lake Ann shelter and a lot of those type of things but people really seem to
pick up on it and embrace it through publications that we’ve done and signage and that sort of
thing and no problems. People were very well informed so you know geographically the names
are here to stay. They make sense and staff applauds the commission for taking a look at that
and making that recommendation to change so. You know all in all it was another successful
season. We really do have a wonderful park system that people do enjoy and we’ve had you
know people coming back for about as long as I’ve been here. Going on 20 years with people
coming back on an annual basis to have picnics. Whether it’s a company picnic or church
function, really starting to get a lot of graduation parties down there now. Multiple you know
4-5 family graduation parties at the site. You know the Hilltop shelter that sort of thing there.
It’s big enough where people can host those type of things and it really is kind of transforming
into really a nice option for people out there and a lot of companies, you know some companies
coming from certainly outside, you know Bloomington’s. Eden Prairie’s. Edina’s. A lot of
people are coming out because we do have that new capacity at the Hilltop shelter of having you
know 300 to 400 people. I get annual phone calls, if we could host more than 500 we’d have
probably 2, 3, 4, 5 more reservations on an annual basis but you know it’s really, you know Lake
Ann’s a popular place. It’s got great facilities. Not only picnics but swimming, boat rentals,
fishing piers, trails, ballfields. It’s a total package and Lake Susan is extremely popular as well
so with a lot of amenities as well so, great season again. Customers always seem to have a great
time out there. We always get pretty positive responses on evaluations. Certainly there are times
that people are, you know have some concerns and we certainly try to take a look at that and a lot
of it you know kind of goes around the cleanliness of the facility and you know we’re out there 7
days a week cleaning and sometimes things fall through the crack and we certainly understand
that and we really try to rectify that with our customers so, great season.
Daniel: Great. Thanks Jerry and that’s certainly, you know I was thinking when I first saw the
Lake Ann Pavilion, my first thought is, the very first facility you see, which is the one on the
hilltop and I know we changed the names but I mean I think over time that will be recognized as
I think probably one of the more popular shelters just because of it’s location. Access. Just
fantastic and the views. I mean we were out there for John Gerhardt’s graduation and it was just
beautiful. I mean the views were spectacular and I think you get much more out of it than you
can even with the pavilion or Lake Susan so I think over time that will really start to establish
itself as a popular venue so. Steve, have any comments or questions?
Scharfenberg: I was just surprised to hear you say that we changed the names. I was thinking
well when did that happen?
Stolar: You made the motion Steve.
Scharfenberg: …senior moment. I just had a question Jerry in terms of, do we do a kind of
regular review of our shelters and any updates or stuff that we need to do out there? And is there
anything kind of looming on the horizon in terms of what we need to do or at least consider?
Ruegemer: Yeah really a lot of the conversations I think are really based on cosmetics. You
know lighting and you know painting and really cleanliness and functionality of the bathrooms is
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
really kind of where a lot of the information is sent around, but you know certainly there aren’t,
overall the picnic sites are in pretty good shape. Obviously the Hilltop’s in great shape but you
know Lake Ann, we really haven’t had any vandalism out there. Certainly we have to you know
sand some tables and power wash some graffiti and that sort of thing but you know the facilities
are actually in pretty good shape right now. We certainly replenish you know picnic tables on an
annual basis and add a little bit to that so there’s some exchanging out of tables and that sort of
thing here too but we’re in pretty good shape.
Daniel: Do we have any more of those old wire mesh ones that we used to have. Plastic coated.
Hoffman: Sure do. They’re still at the Lake Ann beach.
Daniel: They are? Okay. Excellent. Scott.
Wendt: Great job. I have a question on the, and I don’t know maybe you’re going to talk about
this at the meeting down the road. Do you know how many people did the park and rec
challenge?
Ruegemer: I think one to date.
Wendt: Okay, the one…
Ruegemer: Yeah, I know other people are trying but.
Wendt: Okay. Yeah, it was a good idea.
Daniel: Elise.
Ryan: No questions but a suggestion because I think control is a good thing. If you do do that,
the online reservations, just to be wary of that. I know technology, everybody wants to see and
have answers right away but you know my philosophy also is if you can get people to call you
and then you can either encourage them to look at another date or even encourage them to you
know look at the other facilities and a lot of times if people go online and just see that it’s
booked, you know they’ll go to another park or you know to another city so it’s, on one hand I
think it’s great but I would almost discourage doing that and just encourage a phone call because
you could probably, I think the art of persuasion you could probably talk them into something
else.
Hoffman: Good suggestion.
Ryan: But that’s all I have to say. Thanks.
Ruegemer: Good suggestion. Well you know Elise is right on because you know a lot of times
you know if I could have 35 weekends at Lakeside pavilion we’d book them all and a lot of
times I will look at other facilities and if we can’t help them then I’ll recommend Lake
Minnewashta or you know somewhere else. Eden Prairie. But we certainly try to sell our, fill
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
our house first so to speak and there is a lot of information that gets shared on you know what’s,
a lot of people ask me what’s my opinion and I’ll tell them you know. You know what are you
looking for? Are you looking to swim? Are you looking to rent boats? Are you looking to, you
know I try to feel people out as to what is going to be the best fit for them and you’re right, they
may or may not get that looking on line but I appreciate your comments.
Daniel: Glenn.
Stolar: Nothing to add. Just good job.
Daniel: …added capacity with Hilltop shelter has brought and you know the startling thing that
stood out this year with Lakeside pavilion is the number of people have used it on weekends has
gone up dramatically. Essentially if you’re looking at what I call quality available weekends.
Since you’re an outdoor shelter that are available to us. I think the number’s typically 20. Or
weeks. 20 weeks you know where we have good quality weather. Essentially every weekend at
the Lakeside pavilion’s booked for the most part and you look at you know half the weekends,
both Lake Susan and Hilltop shelter booked so I mean it tells you that just a matter of time
before there are going to be, people are going to be turned away and that’s, it’s a good position to
be in. Fortunately I think they might take a look at other opportunities or go somewhere else but
it shows that we’re promoting and sustaining our investment so, great job. Thank you and I
think that’s about it. Thank you Jerry.
Ruegemer: Yeah, no problem.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS:
ACCESSIBLE SIDEWALKS/TRAILS FOR PEDESTRIANS WITH DISABILITIES, U.S.
ACCESS BOARD.
1. PEDESTRIANS THAT USE WHEELCHAIRS.
2. PEDESTRIANS WITH AMBULATORY IMPAIRMENTS.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Daniels, members of the commission. As a part of our 2009 work
plan we had in October to study and remind ourselves a refresher about ADA. In 1990 and
subsequent years ADA was passed and it provides rights to individuals with disabilities that are
similar to those individuals provided for a variety of other issues in our country. It guarantees
equal opportunity for public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local
government services. You’re all familiar with it, right? Tonight we’re going to watch one short
video clip. We’re going to watch the one on pedestrians that use wheelchairs and the reason that
this is just so valuable is that it really brings to light exactly what we have going on in our
community on a daily basis. Because if you want to provide these facilities by the letter of the
law, you have to get out there and pay attention and each time you’re improving something and
updating something, you need to bring it into compliance because we often say you know it
doesn’t happen every day. It doesn’t happen all the time but if you’re individual that it’s
happening to, it’s an important situation so let’s roll the one Jerry. We’re just going to watch the
one pedestrians that use wheelchairs. It’s just 10 minutes.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
A short video on pedestrians who use wheelchairs was shown at this point in the meeting.
Hoffman: As commissioners if you see or hear of issues regarding accessibility, please let staff
know and we’ll address them as they come up.
Scharfenberg: I see Todd, commenting on that, I see that over the last 30 days or so they made
significant changes along Powers, putting in new curbs and the.
Hoffman: Truncated domes.
Scharfenberg: What was that?
Hoffman: Truncated domes.
Scharfenberg: Yep. So I guess is that kind of all part of this and is that going on in other parts of
the city as well?
Hoffman: It’s going on in that particular project because of the stimulus money that’s going to
be put into the road surface so to be able to eligible, the County to be eligible for the grant
money to resurface Powers between Highway 5 and Lyman they had to bring all of their
improvements up to ADA code. So curb cuts at pedestrian ramps were not ADA code, that was
a County expense to bring them into compliance prior to getting the stimulus money to resurface
the road. Truncated domes provide both visual and tactile guidance to where you’re at in the
pedestrian zone.
Daniel: Excellent. Any other comments?
Stolar: Just a quick question. We had that inspection report and so we’re addressing all of those
items?
Hoffman: This report goes back to 1990, ’93 and as time and money allows we make those
improvements. The majority of them were completed in the first couple of years.
Stolar: I meant there’s the one on July 14, 2009 from the Department of Natural Resources.
Hoffman: Oh yes. That’s in the Admin.
Stolar: There were some references to ADA.
Hoffman: Admin packet?
Stolar: Yes.
Hoffman: Correct.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Stolar: And so those are ones where looking at like the Lake Susan tennis court with, so those
are just going to go into the queue, similar to this other?
Hoffman: Absolutely. We do those annually. We actually complied with the Lake Susan tennis
court but now there’s a new interpretation. We put in a gate and we have to talk to them about if
that gate’s still going to comply.
Stolar: Okay. Alright, good. And that’s like the South Lotus Lake Park, we’re reviewing the
playground there or redid it and then also one of the, that was one of the things we talked about
was by not putting in the pea gravel it would not be wheelchair accessible, right?
Hoffman: Correct. The challenge there is parking. Available parking and then down at the boat
access we’ll be putting a paved trail to the dock to provide accessibility to that.
Stolar: Okay, great. Thank you.
Daniel: Excellent. Okay thank you Todd.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
Daniel: Elise. We’ll move onto commissioner member committee reports or presentations.
Talk about the youth summit.
Ryan: Yes. Yes. I just wanted to let you, the commission know a little bit about the 2009
th
Youth Summit that I attended on October 10. Aside from the very, very cold day, sitting
outside in a tent, it was a really fabulous event. There were probably, I would say about you
know 25 to 30 kids or youth and probably about a dozen to two dozen adults there and basically
the whole idea was, it was called LIVE IT which stood for Leadership, Inspiration, Voice,
Empowerment, Innovation and Teamwork. And in the beginning the morning session was really
an open forum and the kids got up and shared their stories about, the majority of them were from
Carver County and there were a few from North Minneapolis and talked about their, shared some
stories about their involvement in the community and the impacts some of the leaders in the
community have made in their lives and some of the life changes that they have made as a result
of this leadership in the community involvement, so that was pretty neat. And then at the end it
was just some small groups where they got together and came up with some action plans. You
got to pick what group you got to go with and what you wanted to talk about but just about how
to get involved in you know really the, these kids biggest concern or comment was having the
adults in the community listen to them and value their opinion and realize, I suppose every kid
wants to be heard but really you know understand that they do have valued opinions and want to
share and make a difference in the community in which that they live so it was great. And then
at the very end there was a dinner and dance and the kids just kind of, you know it was as a
group from all different high schools and just talked about their experiences and how they can be
you know kind of one strong community, even though they come from a very diverse
background, which you may or may not think coming from Carver County but they’re you know
a pretty diverse group of kids. And kind of in short it was just a group of motivated young adults
recognizing that you know leadership within your community is an asset to not only you know
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
your peers but also your adults. The adults so I really appreciated you sending out the notice and
I had a great, you know a great time being around and representing the commission. I just
wanted to share that with you guys.
Daniel: Thank you. Are there any questions for Elise at all? Thank you Elise.
Ryan: Sure.
Daniel: Appreciate you attending on behalf of the commission as well as. Obviously it was a
very rewarding for yourself too. It was good.
Hoffman: Elise as a commission they talked about youth empowerment and one of the ideas is
to do some sort of a round table discussion with different youth, you know the high school kids
through the commission so something we can work in the following year.
Ryan: Absolutely. That’d be great.
Daniel: And then also you wanted to have some discussion on town baseball.
Ryan: Yeah I just wanted to bring it back up. I know Todd had sent out an email about having
somebody represent the commission in bringing town ball and I didn’t know what the feedback
or what anybody else had said or thought about it and had asked Todd if he had gotten any
feedback and he said he got a couple emails but thought we should throw it out to open the
discussion and see if anyone is interested.
Hoffman: Sure.
Ryan: I mean do they want somebody as a member of the commission?
Hoffman: They would appreciate that, yeah.
Ryan: Appreciate.
Scharfenberg: Todd, I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Daniel: No, speak please.
Scharfenberg: Well is there kind of a ground swell at this point? Are there, you know Mr.
Mingo has been in front of us on several occasions.
Hoffman: He’s on the board.
Scharfenberg: So is there some sort of ground swell in light of the new facility at the high school
that you know I haven’t heard of and apparently you, they’ve come to you or at least talked to
you about it. Can you maybe update the commission a little bit about that.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Hoffman: It’s a very small ground swell so that’s why you haven’t heard of it.
Daniel: It’d be Dick and.
Hoffman: Yeah, Terry Kimball and the folks at the high school are discussing the facilities here.
The community has invested $600,000. Somebody has to take the lead to get a town baseball
team out to that facility. The Legion is going to put a Legion baseball team at that facility so
Terry Kimball as the Storm booster coordinator said we’ll, Chan Storm Boosters will take the
lead here. Get the Board up and running and so they’re out soliciting somewhere between 9 and
11 board of director members. Initial board of director members to put this team on the field.
Raise money. Select team names. Hire a manager. Go through all those steps and so this is a
one meeting agenda. I met with Terry and we went from there and it seems appropriate that a
park board member would be on that commission, or that group but it doesn’t have to be so.
Daniel: Well I think it’d be a good idea. I mean we’ve had a lot of discussions on this group
without that specific issue and as well as discussions on.
Hoffman: Yeah, and the groups they’re tapping into are the old baseball group, the new baseball
group, town business people, the elected leaders, appointed leaders, so those are the folks that are
going to be represented because you want that broad spectrum so when you go back to your
community and you’re looking for time, talent, money, you know ability to get things approved,
you have all districts of our community, all sections of our community represented.
Daniel: Well if there’s anybody who’s had an opportunity to see that facility, I mean they’ll be
in awe so I mean it’s much better than anything I think we ever anticipated or thought of with
regard to a conversion to an existing park so. You know there’s other issues obviously to
address but let alone fielding a team, and I know we had a time what was it, 3 years ago? The
Vic’s, Victoria Vic’s and who was that? Which Puppets?
Hoffman: One of the Puppets came over. That’s no longer on the table with this group. The
Vic’s are going to stay where they’re at.
Daniel: And I’m sure as strongly as Dick may want to feel about it, he probably is looking to
reinstate the Redbirds so you know if there’s an opportunity for someone from the commission
Todd certainly send out. You want to reiterate or we can have discussions about it from the park
board members here.
Hoffman: One of you should get on it tonight.
Scharfenberg: Well have they scheduled a meeting into the future or not?
Hoffman: They’re trying to confirm members and then they’re going to schedule a meeting, yep.
Scharfenberg: Well I, you know I don’t know if anybody wants to commit to it tonight. I would
say once they, I think it’s really good to have somebody to go. I think once they’ve got a date
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
and they could let us know when that is and we can, I think part of it is probably availability but
if anybody wants to do it.
Daniel: I’d be willing to certainly do it Todd.
Hoffman: Okay. Elise was interested so Jeff’s interested. If you both want to serve. Want to
fight over it?
Daniel: Well we both can go. I mean right now if you’re looking for members and then
obviously Elise you brought up, you’ve got the strong interest…
Ryan: Yeah and my thought was initially just to go and get some more information and have
representation and then we’ll go from there.
Hoffman: Great. Super.
Daniel: Why don’t we just put us both down for now and.
Hoffman: Sounds great. Let’s go to town baseball.
Daniel: Absolutely.
Hoffman: I’m ready. They think they’re going to do it this spring. They do.
Daniel: I mean if you can get the players.
Hoffman: Well they’ve contacted the leagues so we’ll see. It’s either this or 2011. You know
either one.
Daniel: Which league are they at? Same league with Chaska and Shakopee?
Hoffman: Yeah, Minnesota Valley. Probably Division C to start with.
Daniel: Excellent. They want to compete against the Millers I take it right off the bat huh.
Hoffman: Thank you. Thank you.
Daniel: Thank you very much. Anything that you want to cover Todd in the administrative
packet?
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Hoffman: Not that you haven’t already mentioned. Take a look in there. Once in a while you
find a surprise or interesting document and.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Scharfenberg: How the one to the last item. The volunteer service awards. I noticed that
nominations are due through Sunday and I’m assuming that you were looking for potentially
anybody. People can nominate just about anybody but, is that correct?
Hoffman: Correct.
Scharfenberg: And is staff nominating anybody in terms of park and rec? Or have they, or has
there been talk among staff about doing anything?
Hoffman: No. Staff would not be a recommending or nominating body. The community.
Daniel: One quick question. How’d the Halloween thing go on Saturday?
Hoffman: Oh great.
Ruegemer: Fun, yeah. Had probably around, I think 200 to 225.
Hoffman: Paid.
Ruegemer: Paid. Just a lot of.
Daniel: And we’ll go over that next meeting obviously.
Hoffman: Glenn. Sponge Bob right there. I love it. I want to see that photo. No tights?
Stolar: No tights, yeah.
Daniel: I looked at the schedule Saturday and went oh no.
Hoffman: And the Joker right there.
Stolar: That was a good one. He had the suit and everything.
Ruegemer: Girl Scouts was out there so.
Stolar: Steve’s wife was there and his daughter was working.
Ruegemer: I think a little bit younger crowd, or younger crowd than we’ve had in the past so
we’ll go over that.
Hoffman: No school fliers. They’ve gone electronic and that’s hurting.
Ruegemer: We’ve been a casualty of the green movement.
Hoffman: The flu issue may have affected a little bit as well.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Stolar: The flu issue plus the first nice day in a long time. People probably were just out. How
was the pre-registration? Was that early?
Ruegemer: I think we had about 150-160.
Stolar: Which is about normal? Or is that a little low?
Ruegemer: It was about in that range.
Daniel: Okay. I thought I’d just bring it up. I mean I saw the.
Ruegemer: We had about 65 walk-in’s.
Stolar: Did we finish on the service award or was there more you?
Scharfenberg: Well I said kind of getting back to that. I mean we should think about maybe as a
commission maybe recognizing people in the community that do certain things that maybe touch
our programs that don’t get recognized. For example the one thing that I’m thinking of is that
guy who does the houses. The bird houses every year. I mean he does that on his own, right?
And really no recognition you know whatsoever by how many, he’s done it for a number of
years and I think that’s kind of what they’re looking at you know in terms of recognizing those
people in our community that kind of do that little work. Stuff that we don’t see so I would like
to see us do something like that if we can. I mean we’ve got a couple of days yet to do
something.
Daniel: If there are certainly any ideas or thoughts, send them out, email them to me. We can
exchange emails rather quickly and get something resolved in the next couple days.
Wendt: I nominate him right now. So should we just.
Daniel: I mean if you have someone in mind, please.
Scharfenberg: I’m just thinking about that guy…someone else in mind? I know it probably
wasn’t on everybody’s radar. This is something new that the City just instituted, right?
Hoffman: Year ago, yep.
Scharfenberg: Year ago, yeah.
Ruegemer: It’s important for the commission to remember too, it’s not only our programs but
it’s also the community as a whole. You know there’s a lot of deserving businesses out there,
individuals doing a lot of service for not only city events, or sponsored events but also you know
Girl Scout programs and church programs and you know service groups. It’s really kind of
meant to be more of kind of a broader scope than just our department.
Scharfenberg: Sure.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Hoffman: Dale was in the other day. I sent him his thank you note today. He’s a great guy. He
often bikes to city hall and he’s in his 80’s for sure.
Daniel: Why don’t we just do that. Steve?
Scharfenberg: What’s that?
Daniel: Want to make a nomination. I think it’s a great idea.
Stolar: Do you have to fill out the app on line or something?
Ruegemer: It’s on the city’s web site.
Daniel: Is this something that we should fill out or is that something that we’ll be responsible?
Hoffman: The Chairman.
Daniel: It’d be more than happy to do that.
Hoffman: You’ve got all the information there. Right in the back. Unless he designates. His
prerogative.
Daniel: Oh there it is.
Hoffman: We have a baby sitter time table on the end.
Daniel: Alright. Let’s do this. I think we should just go ahead and make a nomination for Dale
Rusch.
Scharfenberg: Sure. So moved.
Commissioner Scharfenberg moved, Chair Daniel seconded to nominate Dale Rusch for the
Volunteer and Service Awards. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 5 to 0.
Daniel: Adjournment?
Scharfenberg: Just one more thing before we do that. Just going back to CIP. In light of where
we talked about today, and in terms of the whole revenue thing, are we, in terms of 2010, are we
going to be talking about that? Are we visiting that again here in the near future or are we kind
of set on 2010? Or are we going to be making changes in 2010?
Hoffman: We can take a look at it in November. Depending on the Council’s agenda. There’s a
couple items in there that are still, the canopy would still be something that you could eliminate
but I think most other things are pretty well set. Does somebody have it?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting – October 27, 2009
Daniel: Yep. The $400,000. The big one. For the Highway 41 project.
Stolar: And so is the stairway. That’s how you get to that.
Daniel: And that’s tied to grant money anyways so that’s a half million dollars.
Stolar: It’s $45,000…
Hoffman: So yeah, we could do that.
Daniel: Alright. Adjournment?
Scharfenberg moved, Wendt seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission
meeting was adjourned at 9:45 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
41