Loading...
PRC 2010 01 26 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 26, 2010 Acting Chair Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Kelly, Glenn Stolar, Steve Scharfenberg, and Elise Ryan MEMBERS ABSENT: Jeff Daniel, Thor Smith and Scott Wendt ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: J.R. Relich, Beverly Foster and Rose Kircher STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; and John Stutzman, Recreation Supervisor APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Stolar moved, Scharfenberg seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSION INVITATION TO JOIN IN ARBOR DAY CELEBRATION PLANNING. Beverly Foster: Well that’s us. I’m Beverly Foster. This is Rose Kircher and J.R. Relich and we’re very, very excited to be here to talk about co-worker opportunities with the parks and rec commission as far as Arbor Day is concerned particularly, but other planting opportunities because we’ve taken on as one of our primary mission is the furthering of planting and more trees in Chanhassen and to continue our status as a Tree City so Arbor Day’s really important to that status so we’ve very excited to be here and to look for opportunities to work together. Kelly: Any comments from the commission? Start with Steve. Scharfenberg: No. I think this is a great opportunity to work together as a commission. As commissions to support our areas and support our city and make our city more beautiful so good ideas. Hoffman: Do you want to explain the change for this year? Do you all understand, did you read the packet, talk about what’s changing so they understand where we’re headed. Beverly Foster: Well I’ll talk about what we’re doing and then you can see, because I know that you talk to Jill a lot so you know you can fill in. Hoffman: Well just that the festival out here is really stopping. Beverly Foster: Right. We’ve done it for years and it’s been real successful. It has I think though gotten smaller each year and there’s no reason to put our energies into something that has Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 worked before but doesn’t work so well now when we could be doing something new and a little more exciting and also again work with other areas. So we were looking at an Arbor Day focusing on planting and education, because that’s basically our commission is basically an education committee. So we thought, if we do some kind of event where we’re planting trees, we would also look at all the ways we can let people know about the benefits of planting trees themselves so tree selection. Work with the schools. Get things in the newspaper so whatever we do, I mean we tend to really talk about it a lot so, so what else? Rose Kircher: Well and as you are probably all aware, the Arbor Day poster is still a big part of what goes on here. We have solicited the schools for their usual posters and hopefully we’re going to get some really good feedback with that part of it. From what I understand from what Jill just said, this year she did speak to I believe one of the schools and they have a group of children that are very, very interested in helping to plant trees. So our primary focus is going to be trying to find a suitable location and realizing that I know that there are some people who don’t want a tree planted in their view of the park, I mean you know understanding that. We’re still hoping that you know within the park system we can find a location that will be suitable to plant some trees so that these children can be engaged in what we’re trying to do. It will be an educational event as well as you know kind of a neighborly you know come in and help kind of thing so we’re primarily focused on trying to get that going. We also are hoping that you guys can help us pointing us in the right direction of a specific park that you think, or that your group things could be benefitted by this. Sounds like Jill’s already got a group of kids lined up so it will be very interesting to see how it works out this year. Beverly Foster: And to add to that, we’re looking for parks but we’re also looking for groups to work with and I know Jill suggested the Boy Scouts and there may be other groups too that have environmental focus and would like to help out and benefit from what we have learned so if you guys have suggestions for that in the community we would love to hear from you. Scharfenberg: Well I would interject along those lines that, I’ll mention it to my wife who works with girl scouts and to pass that onto her leaders. They have a leaders meeting coming up so I will you know let her know that this is a new focus and if those girl scout groups, different troops and that want to get involved, that I’ll let her know about that and she’ll promote it for you guys. Beverly Foster: That’d be great. Scharfenberg: The other thing I’m thinking is, at least the church that I belong to, Family of Christ has, you know a lot of them have as part of going to confirmation and that, some sort of service part of being in confirmation and we always do in the spring, we’ll have some sort of Make a Difference Day and so different groups of kids will go out and do something and so I will let at least our confirmation person know about this and if people are interested in doing. It may be worthwhile you know contacting other churches and stuff to see if they have anything similar. Rose Kircher: That will be wonderful. Just, if anybody gets a group or if you talk to you know your kids at school, your teachers, your congregations, whatever the case may be, if you hear of 2 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 a group that’s interested on this please have them contact Jill here at City Hall and she can help get them set up and get them lined up to participate. That will be wonderful. Beverly Foster: Yeah, she’ll coordinate and then we’re still coming up with ideas for projects but we welcome any. J.R. Relich: Yeah I think another issue is always money. How do you pay for the trees? Well we made the decision that the amount of money that we normally spend on the Arbor Day thing, we get trees. We get kits. We have outside guys coming in and talk about bugs. We would like very much to take all that pot, what I think is about $7,000 bucks in there. Between 7 and 8. Use that for the trees so you know it’s not going to be any strain on anybody’s budget. We’ve got that. We’re not going to give out one free sandwich this year…we’ve got the money to do it. We can get the trees at a reasonable price and I think a big, our driving force is, you know we understand the kids are all, I mean they’ve got to go to soccer, baseball, I mean but if we drive it towards a school thing and get the school to cooperate rather than try to do it maybe on a Saturday or whatever, it’ll be more effective and the teachers can use it, if you will, as a teaching program too so that’s why our interest is pretty high here. And I think the other issue would be, that I think about, I mean you folks really need to tell us if there’s an area that maybe needs trees. Maybe there isn’t. I don’t know but it seems to me even if we did a boulevard, you know up along, whatever and we haven’t decided how many trees we can put together. We’ll do that after we get the idea further down the road, but even planting along the boulevard’s a great idea. You know if people don’t want them in the park, I don’t care. I just like to plant trees. I like to be Johnny Appleseed of Chanhassen. Beverly Foster: So we just wondered if you had any questions or ideas too and thanks Steve for sharing that idea. Scharfenberg: Do you have a day picked yet? Beverly Foster: Arbor Day. Scharfenberg: Which is? Rose Kircher: I think it’s like the first weekend in April. I believe. They’re sometime in early April timeframe. Beverly Foster: I thought it was the second but, I would say no. We haven’t got that one down yet. Good question. Rose Kircher: I believe Jill has it on her calendar but I’m quite honestly I didn’t bring my notes so I’m not a lot of help with that part of it. But I do know that it’s going to be in the April timeframe because I know it’s after I come back from vacation. That much I do know. Early part. J.R. Relich: I guess the question is, do you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea? Are you interested or? 3 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Rose Kircher: You guys are, I mean we’re looking for feedback from you guys as a commission as to whether you feel it’s a worthwhile project to become engaged with us on. Beverly Foster: Before you speak let me just say one of the three things we talked about. We talked about a specific Arbor Day planting. We’ve talked about group projects and we also wonder if there’s room in the parks so. Stolar: Well I think we’ve done things before in the park. We did the rain gardens at Lake Ann and we participated in that. I was out there digging and a couple others were involved and the discussion similar so I think we’ve had precedent to do this. I think it’s a good idea. You know I think our gardens look pretty good. Having been by there and they seem to be thriving there so those type of things I think work well. I do think if we do something we should probably do it as a joint planning activity and maybe get one or two commissioners to join in on the planning. I know I’ll volunteer to help out because I like the idea. I think it’s a good idea. We might want to look at multiple parks though, not just one per se. Not a lot but you know. Rose Kircher: And that’s great too. Stolar: Yeah, I mean but I’ll leave it to you guys. You know we have a tree planting program already where we identify where there needs to be replaced. We also for the Emerald Ash Borer we’ve identified where we think there’s less diversity of species so I assume that we’re going to, I think you said we were going to try and do that so I think you have some parks that we identified. The one we went to visit where we said we’ve got. Hoffman: Lake Ann and Bandimere for sure. Beverly Foster: Just add some more diverse species. Hoffman: Yeah, Bandimere is almost exclusively ash in the newly developed area and Lake Ann has a lot of ash so we need to go off to the side of those plantings and plant some other species so we don’t lose them all at once. Rose Kircher: Especially with what’s going on with the Emerald Ash Borer. That’s definitely a good idea to diversify that park. Stolar: And so that’s what I guess I would look at this as that being the objective of our participation is that it would help further that intent we have already. Hoffman: Absolutely. Beverly Foster: So we could amplify our efforts then if we worked together. That’s great. Stolar: Yeah. I don’t know, if at all we have any portion of the increased funding we put for putting diversification of trees in there. Right? We upped the. 4 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Hoffman: Absolutely. Stolar: So some of that I would hope maybe could go to this if there are enough groups who sign up, we can help out there. Hoffman: Yep and, so we have up to $25,000 for trees in 2011. We’re not going to spend quite all of it but these programs always get, if you can get 100 people in a park and invest in that park, you have 100 supporter of parks and trees in your community that go back and talk about the value of what their parks and open spaces bring to them and their community and so we would rather have residents plant the trees than to hire a contractor to plant the trees, because you’re accomplishing the same thing but you get more participation and much more pride in your community if you have residents so as big as your group gets, we can increase the budget and plant trees appropriately. Easily in Lake Ann or Bandimere you could plant as many trees, you could plant 100 trees so. You’re not going to run out of room at one of those two parks starting, if you start there. Rose Kircher: I agree with you 100% on…both parks. My granddaughters play soccer at Bandimere a lot so. Hoffman: There’s plenty of room. Rose Kircher: Oh yeah. There’s plenty of room out there. Stolar: I’d be in favor of working together to figure out and you know maybe focusing on those two parks in the first year. I think if you get more than 2 it’d be hard logistically in the first year. Kelly: And those are two showcase parks in the city. Stolar: Yep. Exactly. Hoffman: And as the program builds and if it, and people find out about it, they can volunteer their park the following year. Dorothy Foster: Oh that’s a good idea. And I like the idea to focus and keep it, you know keep it focused in the beginning. Be more successful I think. Rose Kircher: And we think…even if it turns out that we have groups approach you know later on in the spring that say well listen you guys did such and such, if they want to expand it to a different park, I’m sure we can talk to you guys and find out you know if the park they’re looking at is an appropriate resource for that additional funding. We can certainly move forward with that as well. Doesn’t mean we have to stop with just one day. Dorothy Foster: Is that something that you put out there to people to solicit help for their local park or do you get that kind of feedback from the community at all? Hoffman: Sure. They come right up to this podium and ask for things in their parks. 5 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Dorothy Foster: Oh that’s nice. Hoffman: Sometimes doing a joint effort and sometimes that’s just something that the commission budgets for and completes in the following year. Rose Kircher: Wonderful. Ryan: And to add to that if, to get people more interested and just saying we’re going to plant certain trees, you know possibly doing some sort of a contest. Like if you initiate 5 species of trees that you’d prefer to have in the park or you know fit well with the park, you know leave it up to some of the residents to pick or rank their’s and then when you know their favorites and then when they get involved then they feel like they had part of this election process which would you know add to having a little vested interest in participating. Dorothy Foster: And so this is a new project for us. We’ve been very, very focused on water. Resources in the community and so we’re shifting into this that’s why we’re a little bit uncertain about some of the things but we certainly are excited about it already. Hoffman: All the trees in our park system have a story. They were either planted as a part of the original development or planted through one of these efforts. There’s been a variety of groups that have planted trees in the community throughout the years. Staff has planted a good number of trees. So they all have a story and what I would encourage you to do is search other people’s Arbor Day festivals and find out what’s successful there and pick up some successful ideas. Things that seem to work. It’s coordination. You know keep it simple. Easy to understand for people. We’ve got a lot of groups that are identified. Anytime you get groups involved you get instant numbers and as long as there’s labor for them to do, what groups really don’t appreciate is when they show up and not everyone can get involved and so if you can get them involved and get them working and moving around and it’s not just planting but it’s mulching and watering and clean up and those type of things. As long as that’s orchestrated well I think, and then there could be some, you know some record keeping of what groups and we could give a plaque. What groups participated what year and those type of things. One of my favorite bumper sticks, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. Second best time to plant a tree is today so, just love that bumper sticker and so anytime you plant a tree you’re really doing your community a favor. If you look back at aerial photos of Chanhassen, it was virtually barren back in the 30’s and 40’s and the 50’s. Dorothy Foster: Not too long ago. Hoffman: In the 60’s it just kept getting worst as they plowed more fields so there are more trees here now than pre-residential development but you always need more. It’s one of the most proven methods of you know, you adjust carbon in a tree and you lock it in and, until it’s taken out again so it’s a great thing to do for a community and people, it’s physical labor. People really like to get their hands dirty out on Arbor Day and, as long as you get some reasonable weather people will really have a lot of fun. 6 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Dorothy Foster: So for next steps we’ll be working Jill and we’ll be meeting again next month and we probably would like to have a contact point with your commission so if you’d like to let us know who it would be. J.R. Relich: Well we would put together a plan very much you know 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. What we expect to do. You guys look at it. Does it make sense? Remember we’re not foresters but we know a little bit about trees. What kind do we want to plant? Where do you want to go? We’ll do the coordination of getting the kit, I mean you know we’re going to lead the project but we need you guys to help us. Hoffman: Yeah, if you pick up a couple commissioners, they’ll jump right down and the rest will trust those 2 or 3 to work with you and just keep it moving along so. J.R. Relich: Yeah, right. Hoffman: Glenn says he’s interested. Stolar: So if you’ll send my name to Jill. Hoffman: You bet. Dorothy Foster: Oh great. Okay, great. Rose Kircher: Yes, our next meeting is the second Wednesday of next month so if 1 or 2 of you would like to attend, I’m sure that would be wonderful. We start at 6:00 or 6:30. It usually runs at 6:00-6:30 but you know we can certainly look forward to having 1 or 2 or all of you join us if you’d like. Stolar: Is that the Environmental Commission meeting? So you don’t have a separate planting, this is your commission’s activity? Okay…if you could have Jill send me an email. Hoffman: Yep. We’ll ship it right out to you and then I’ll secure the other volunteers out of the remaining 4 members. 3. Dorothy Foster: And basically we’ll check the, we’d better check the agenda and make sure what we’re going to do and then figure out where we’ll put you and let you know exactly what time. thth Kelly: Just for the record that would be the 10. February 10. Dorothy Foster: Anything else from us? We really thank you for your time. Hoffman: Planting trees makes for a great photo opportunity too. Look on our web page. Rose Kircher: I know some great people with cameras. 7 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Hoffman: Look on the City’s web page, on our whatever you call it, the thing on the top. Rose Kircher: The banner? Hoffman: The banner. There’s a picture of a boy scout planting a tree and that was in Bandimere Park quite some time ago. Thank you all for coming. Dorothy Foster: We appreciate you letting us have some of your time. Hoffman: Absolutely. Looking forward to Arbor Day. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Scharfenberg moved, Stolar seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated December 8, 2009 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. 2010 PARK AND TRAIL CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP). Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, members of the commission. Each January we run through the year’s CIP to put in front of you what you can expect to see happen in the area of park and trail capital improvements. 2010 it’s very straight forward. Recreation center fitness equipment. Three new pieces of equipment are expected to arrive within the next week or two at the recreation center. This is the third installment and people are very happy with the capital investment that is being made at the recreation center. When this started 3 years ago most of the equipment was original to the building’s start in 1995 so Jodi and her staff are excited, as are the patrons of the recreation center. So if you ever have any comments or hear patrons that are using the facility and have some input, just let Jodi or myself know. Then we move forward into picnic tables and benches. We have $10,000 again. It’s a placeholder. A variety of things are purchased from this. The memorial bench program so if we do 3 or 2 or 1 memorial bench a year, those are purchased out of here and then this fund is reimbursed through the donations that we receive for those benches. The $1,000. We also, last year we purchased two more of the black wrought iron tables in front of City Hall. The year before that we purchased the tables for the new park shelter out at Lake Ann so, when things come up we use those funds to make those purchases. Trees as we’ve talked about, that’s been increased to $25,000 from 10 to allow for increased plantings to mitigate the future loss of our ash tree inventory. If you look around the ballfields at Lake Ann, the ballfields, the soccer fields at Bandimere Park, there are many ash trees and if you visualize those being gone it’s, those parks don’t look like they’ve been around for 30 or 40 years and so we need to get a start on planting some new trees. And when we go in we’ll be planting, like Elise said, 3 or 4 or 5 different kinds of species because there is going to be some other problem that arises. Arrives back on down the line. In the event you hear of anything, any places or neighborhoods or parks that want trees, let us know. We’re scheduling both a spring and a fall planting this year. Highway 41 is moving ahead. The pedestrian underpass and trail grant match. You’ve seen the press in the Villager. It’s also coming out in the Chanhassen Connection. People are starting to call and email. They’re interested. They’re looking forward to it. Planning is initiated in engineering in 2010 and then construction in 2011. 8 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Stolar: I just spoke to someone in that neighborhood and she is very interested. Was wondering if it could be in 2010. Sorry, they can’t, I mean the idea of being able to get under the, she has younger kids and you know putting on the back of her bike. Being able to go under the park. Hoffman: Very attractive, yeah. Kelly: Is that grant guaranteed or can something happen to that grant over the course of? Hoffman: Guaranteed million dollars. So that’s a great partnership with the County. The County is leading the project. We are the partner. We will be scheduling and holding the public meetings here. The neighborhood meetings at City Hall allowing the County to lead those but you know inviting residents to City Hall for the meetings. Or the rec center. Stolar: Would we also be able to hold them let’s say over at the. Hoffman: Middle school? Stolar: Middle School West so that people in the neighborhood could jump over there. Hoffman: Absolutely. Also included is the stairway project so Highway 41 pedestrian stairway and that will take you from the, really the west entrance to the underpass and then straight up the hill into the Highover neighborhood. There’s an outlot between two still vacant lots and that trail then will come from the top of the hill to the front of the lots. Kelly: Just, I’m not too familiar, is there a reason why it’s a stairway and not just a steep climb. Hoffman: It could be a steep climb. We’ll take a look at the grades at that location. Often times in that type of situation you want to prevent bikes from taking that direct, it’s that steep. And then what they’re going to run into is an underpass so there’s not a real run out. We have some steep trails but if somebody gets in trouble they either go off the bottom or they go off the side and this might not have those kind of safety buffers. But we’ll take a look. And then a single project held over, our Lake Ann stairway project. We got late in the season with the contractor. They wanted to open up the project in November but we did not want that to happen so we said we’re going to hold it over til this spring, and that’s the stairway from the new pavilion, new shelter down to the beach to allow for that transportation. So that’s what’s going on in 2010. Some very exciting projects and you’ll be looking at the 5 year CIP starting in probably May or June. Scharfenberg: Todd I take it the, that sewer lime out at Lake Ann for the new food area, that doesn’t have to come out of our CIP. Hoffman: Planning on doing the construction. I’m not sure what the funding source will be as of yet. It may come out of sewer and water. Scharfenberg: Okay. 9 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Hoffman: It’s about a $20,000. They’re holding off for some better weather to start the underground. You know over at Lake Susan they’re going to take a water line from Lake Susan out to the water treatment plant and that’s the contractor will go over to Lake Ann and so once we get the contract, then Paul and I will start the barter process then. Who’s going to finance the $20,000. And then Mr. Gerhardt will decide. Scharfenberg: So it’s still a possibility it could come out of our’s but we don’t. Hoffman: Yeah. It could. It could. And that’s the sewer line from the shelter down to the lift station at Lake Ann turnaround and then that takes the sewage from there over to Greenwood Shores to another lift station. And that would allow for concessions. Stolar: And eventually if we decide to put a bathroom there, that’s the same pipes you would put in? Hoffman: Yeah. Thank you. 2010 REACH FOR RESOURCES ADAPTIVE RECREATION CONTRACT. Ruegemer: Thanks again Chair Kelly. Annually the Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission takes a look at the Reach for Resources contract. They have provided adaptive recreation services to the city since 1999 so they’ve done a great job for us. They provide an excellent service to our community and our clients. The Reach for Resources does schedule a training session with the park and recreation summer staff. The playground leaders. Playground director and that sort of thing to go through just certain characteristics on kind of what to look for. Techniques and tips that we can educate our summer staff to help out kids with disabilities. Situations that we can have a quality experience for everybody in our programs, especially with the Summer Discovery Playground and field trips and other types of situations that we may pop up during the course of the summer. Looking at the 2010 contract, the contract is exactly the same as last year’s contract. The contract is based on participation. This year’s contract is reflective on 43 participants. Last year we had 48 so we seem to be kind of staying consistent with our numbers on an annual basis with that. There are 5 cities in the consortium that the contracts are based on. St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Chanhassen, Chaska, and Minnetonka with that so, with that being in the consortium, all the cities are charged a base price of $2,500 and then a percentage that the cities are charged is based on participation. So with our participation numbers our percentage is 9% of that and our share of the 9% plus the base totals out to be $6,882.27 for our contract. That amount has been budgeted in the 2010 budget. It’s staff’s recommendation that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council approve the 2010 contract for adaptive recreation services with Reach for Resources. Kelly: Any questions for Jerry from the commission? Is there a motion to approve? Scharfenberg: Move to approve the contract with Reach Resources. Reach for Resources. Stolar: Second. 10 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Scharfenberg moved, Stolar seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council approve the 2010 contract for adaptive recreation services with Reach for Resources. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2010 FEBRUARY FESTIVAL. th Stutzman: Thank you Chair Kelly. First up we have February Festival. This will be the 17 annual February Festival coming up this year. It’s getting a few changes this year and I’d like to answer any questions that the commission may have as well as talk to you guys about some of these changes. For a long time the way it has been set up, it’s been run as a fishing contest with a raffle associated in partnership with the Chanhassen and Southwest Metro Chambers of Commerce. Depending on which years it were. This year the way we’re looking at doing is, due to the growth of the Chamber as well as kind of the desire to look at more family activities for the celebration as well as the desire to kind of separate the ties from the gambling licenses that have been associated with some of our events, we’ve proposed a couple or we’ve made some changes this year. The first of which would be to continue to make this attraction with prizes for people. The fishing contest has been beefed up this year. Instead of the 20 prizes that we’ve done for the largest 20 fish, we will actually be going to 50 largest fish this year and we will have prizes valued over at $20 per prize in that area. The $20 was derived from the fact that tickets this year will be $10 instead of $5 and it is assumed that the majority of people will probably buy 2 tickets because by DNR regulations you’re allowed to buy, or fish 2 lines. One line per ticket so if they are buying 2 tickets we want to make sure that they were getting their money worth if they get a fish prize so we do have over $6,000 worth of fish prizes this year in that top 50 so I’m very pleased with what we got and almost all of the 50 were donated this year as well so. From our local business community. In the past with this the fishing ticket was also considered a door prize ticket. That’s when it became a raffle. This year that will not be the case. The ticket will only be a fishing ticket but what we will do to continue to offer this service and this event, or this activity at the event, participants, whether they’re fishing or not will be allowed to pick up one door prize ticket the day of the event. We will have that on the ice located near the ticket sales that each person can come pick one up. It will be entered into a drawing the way we’ve done, or the way we’ve done the drawings in the past. It will be sporadic throughout the contest. Displayed not like last year. We’ll be able to spread it out a little bit more too so it’s not grabbing you know 20 prizes, 25 at a time and having them all come up at the end. It will be more 10 to 15 throughout the contest, starting at about 12:30-1:00. Somewhere in that area. Probably the 1:00 when the bulk of the people get there. But pushing that through the contest. We will have 90 prizes for that this year. Again those were donated again by generous businesses throughout the city so, but this will be free to everybody. Whether they’re fishing or not. It’s not associated with the contest. It’s more of another activity for the overall event and going through that. The other piece is that they do need to be present to win. It’s not a raffle so it is, it is just a door prize but they need to be in attendance to pick up the ticket and be in attendance to pick up the prize. If the prize is left over we will just continue to raffle off at the end, or draw again until all the prizes are claimed at the end. Those are the two majority changes of this year. Other pieces, once again we will have the larger separated tent to 11 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 include the Friends of the Library and the bingo inside the tent. It was considered not to do this again this year but through a financial contribution from the Friends of the Library they have made this possible again because they did enjoy having that shelter so they have pitched in to help us cover the differences of the cost from the larger tent to the smaller tent. It is quite a nice tent for those of you who were here last year. I know the library and the Friends really appreciated it so it was nice to give them the option to continue to do that this year. Scheduled events was created again in-house by our Office Manager Karen. She and her staff did a wonderful, wonderful job helping put things together. We’ve gotten a brochure, or two fliers in the Villager out to everybody and we have ads in the Herald and the Villager here coming up as well so, as well as signs around the city so we’re getting things out there. Tickets are currently on sale as well. At this time if anybody does have any questions I’d be happy to entertain any questions for the changes or any activities for the event. Kelly: So just, I’m just hung up on the board. So I see the board. Scharfenberg: Be the board. Kelly: Be the board and the board has two sides. 20 slots. I’m just wondering, so you’re going to have 20 slots for the fishing. The next 30 are going to somewhere but you also have to put the names of the prizes up so how logistically are you going to fit 30 more names on that board? Stutzman: The way I envision it at this time is, obviously the door prizes will remain on that one side because it is a double sided board for anybody who hasn’t seen it so the door prizes will remain on that side. The fish side, the way I envision it is we’ve always had a little bit of room to go further down the board so the 20 we would probably condense width wise and use the entire board for that to get both the prizes and the names and then have more kind of on that outer half use, or however quarter, use a long sheet. Probably condense it a little bit but just listing the prizes. At this point I don’t plan on putting 21 through, or posting 21 through 30 throughout the contest. The plan at the end of that is to get 3 separate papers that we can take up there. Grab 3 volunteers. One, and just scribble them down and post them as the mayor is up there announcing 1 through 20 and have them just say okay 21 through 50, take a look. See if your name’s up there. Go report. Your prizes are over there otherwise people or the staff will contact you after the event. So it won’t be up there the entire contest so we’re not shuffling all of those through. It will still be the top 20 because those will be the most fluid and the ones that people are going to be the most excited about, but we will post them at the end on that part of the board but we’ll have, what the prizes are for those positions posted throughout the entire contest. Kelly: Do you need to be present to claim your fishing prize? Stutzman: No. Fish prizes you do not need to be present for. Just the door prizes. Kelly: So we’re going to be giving out more information than we have in the past? On the, probably of a phone number. Stutzman: We’ll still have the ticket stubs. 12 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Hoffman: Yeah. They’ll have a record of who they are. As long as we have a name. Stutzman: We will still have the ticket stubs for us to get in touch with them so. Ruegemer: And if there’s not enough room on the board for say traditionally kind of what we’ve done, we can also get some more event signs with the tubular frames that we had that we post the th 4 of July signs. There’s other types of things. We can have an auxiliary board as well if we need additional space or room from that. You know kind of big board on the trailer so we’ll figure out the logistics of that just to make sure it’s kind of a good flowing piece of the event so. Hoffman: Be more fish prizes to keep track of and we’ll have a weigher and a recorder and then somebody’s going to need to be assembling the sheets because that’s going to be a lot of fish to weigh in. Kelly: Keep track because you’re going to have, yep. Hoffman: Lot of movement. Stolar: Depending on the weather, is it possible to bring a computer? Hoffman: Yeah, absolutely. I’m wondering, we still need a good idea from commissioners and maybe we could use a computer on how we’re going to make sure that people get one door prize ticket. Stutzman: Currently at this point the thought is the honor system and we’ll have the same people distributing them so they can at least recognize. Hoffman: But that’s a lot of people to keep track of. Stutzman: There will be a lot of people coming through. It has been discussed possibly giving out wrist bands but again that’s an awful lot of wrist bands and that gets. Hoffman: Well they could take it off. Ruegemer: Could we just do it you know, as simple as going into a bar. Here’s a black X on your hand. Stolar: Yeah I was thinking that too. Just a little stamp on the hand. Hoffman: Could do that. Stolar: I mean if they want to go scrub it off, let them get another door prize. Stutzman: With it being a winter event though you’re going to see a lot of gloves. Hoffman: Yeah, they can just pull it off. 13 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Ruegemer: Yeah. That was my thought. Kelly: You don’t need a fishing, you don’t need to purchase a fishing pass so you can’t just stamp their fishing pass. Hoffman: Good thing you’re still hitting the bar scene. Ruegemer: I’m glad to share my experiences. Yeah I’m a clubber. Hoffman: That might work. Simple. Kelly: In the past did we get a lot of people that bought more than 2 tickets at $5? Hoffman: Yes. Kelly: So do you think we’re going to be generating more money or less money by raising it to $10 but only limiting it to 2? Stutzman: Our goal is to break even at this point. Keep it about the same, which was the purpose for doubling the amount or doubling the price and beefing up the prizes was to try and, so we don’t have a downfall in revenue. Ultimately once we re-generate and get people used to this theme, I believe yes. Our revenues will go up. I think this year my goal is to keep it right around that $6,000 mark that we’ve had in the past so but yeah we will, I think it will like I said limit it a little bit this year but again if we have, with 50 prizes. We have 300 fishermen buying 2 tickets each, I mean we hit our goal right there so, and with $6,000 in prizes I would say that’s a pretty fair chance. Hoffman: More importantly Tom, it’s clean money. You know the other way was kind of not by the rules. Kelly: Yep. th Hoffman: Tom doesn’t like that. The 4 of July, those darn rules. Kelly: Don’t feel bad. I don’t let my wife change the furniture in the house either so it’s, I like things, I not open to change unfortunately. That’s an opportunity I have I guess. Stolar: Did you get your emcee? Stutzman: I have not Commissioner Stolar. If you would like to that would be great. Stolar: I didn’t say I would like to… Stutzman: Fred Berg has said this is a one year hiatus so it is not a permanent gig. 14 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Stolar: That’s what he said last time…what was it, 3 years ago? 4 years ago I did it. Something like that. Hoffman: I remember. You did a great job. Stutzman: It wasn’t with my tenure I know that so, but he accidentally scheduled a vacation. Stolar: …out of town or something that he wasn’t able to make it. Kelly: Do we need a motion? For Glenn to be the emcee. Hoffman: He’s still hoping. Stolar: I’m going to filibuster. Stutzman: …just bring a fact sheet just so you have it ahead of time if you were willing and able. …As I said a lot of generous contributions this year. A lot of very generous contributions from a lot of people making this event very smooth so far. Kelly: Is the grand prize, which in the past has been the trip to Las Vegas, is that a fishing prize or is that a door prize? Stutzman: We have transferred that over to the top fishing prize. Kelly: Okay. Stutzman: Yeah, we felt that was necessary to keep that size of a prize as the grand prize of the event so. Kelly: And that’s a travel voucher. Stutzman: Yeah. Due to the travel industry it has switched to a $500 travel voucher from. Kelly: It had been a Vegas trip right? Stutzman: It had, yeah. That switched last year for the first time just based on kind of the industry and their, it was something that he wasn’t sure if he could continue to do it but we kind of worked with him and this is what we worked out rather than a full trip so. Kelly: Great. Stolar: Are we going to separate out the largest fish prize to different species or are we still going to just do straight. Hoffman: Weight. 15 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Stutzman: Yeah, based on solely on weight. Hoffman: And I know we’re talking about changes. There may be a future change as well. We’re in conversation with the DNR now. Not for this year but next year and they may allow permit that you can keep and weight all the fish, even the protected bass and the slot northerns for up to 3 minutes and so if you brought them up, weighed them and released them, and if they’ll allow that and if we get a certain guarantee that that won’t just stop, we would want to start that and so into the future years because it’s really a bummer when the 25, 6 inch northerns come up and. Kelly: Yeah. The whole ice goes crazy when someone comes up with that fish. Hoffman: So, and that would be more exciting and obviously would not disappoint the, it’s a, well some years it’s 2 or 3 or 4 and some years it’s none but it’s kind of a disappointment. Stutzman: I think the last 2 years we’ve had at least one. Hoffman: Yeah. And that’s come up to the weigh station. We don’t know how many people actually have caught a bass and just tossed it down. Ryan: So outside of Glenn doing the announcing, what other volunteers do you need and for what time are you? Stutzman: Thank you for bringing that up. What we are looking for, the Chanhassen Rotary has generously agreed to help out significantly again but where traditionally we’ve had the commission help and it’s been a wonderful help. Is kind of help with the prize distribution. Drawing of the door prizes. If somebody would like to help with, help assist Todd with keeping track of the fish leaders, the commission’s always helped with that so those sort of things. Under the warmth of the tent have always been appreciated so. Hoffman: On the carpet. Stutzman: I know I’ve heard, I believe I’ve actually talked with most people here this evening as well as some of the others and I think the more we can have the better but I understand that it does fill up and schedules do get filled so any and all help is welcome so. Ryan: Is there a particular time you want us? Stutzman: Yeah, about oh let’s see I’m trying to think. I think it was 12:30. 12:00-12:30 til about 3:00 would be fantastic. Kelly: It’s a fun event and the time seriously, the time just flies by. It really does. Ryan: And I’m hardcore outdoors so you don’t have to worry about me. Stutzman: Once that first line hits the water, that fish comes up, it seems like it’s 3:00 already. 16 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Scharfenberg: Maybe Elise wants to drill holes. Stutzman: The Rotary has generously agreed to come out again this year and volunteered to drill homes again. That’s just what some… Kelly: It’s easily the second best event, in my opinion that the City puts on…warmer but it’s a lot of fun. Scharfenberg: I was going to say the Easter Egg Hunt. Hoffman: Yeah, there’s just a lot of excitement. People are excited to see the activity. Sleigh rides are great. Stolar: Are you going to try to do the skating rink again? Stutzman: Yep. We’ll have the skating rink and the loop again. We will also have the sleigh rides back again this year. That will be offered for free again so the City’s picking up the tab on that, which was a great addition last year and I think it will continue to be a fun event this year as well. Kelly: Will there be alcohol this year? Stutzman: Yep. The Rotary will be doing beverages and actually one other change this year is Culver’s will be working with the Rotary to do the food this year. There’ll be Culver’s working with the Rotary and the Rotary will be handling the beverages and Culver’s will be handling the food. It won’t be cold food. It will all be warm food. Hoffman: My sister and her husband are bringing friends from Texas who have never ice fished and never ice skated and they couldn’t be more excited. Kelly: Any other questions for John? Stolar: Yeah, something we talked about before. I don’t know if the Rotary might want to do this but having like one whole set up for people who want to learn how to ice fish. Maybe get a couple holes and just put up a sign, learn how to ice fish. Hoffman: Absolutely. Stolar: I know a lot of people transplanted here that have never done it. Kelly: Someone showing how to put the bait on. Yeah, that would be. Stolar: Are the boy scouts selling the bait again? 17 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Stutzman: Yep. Bait and s’mores. Pretty much all the traditional activities that have been going on will be continued. Ruegemer: Do all the commissioners have a copy of the schedule of events and that sort of thing? Anybody have that? Stolar: You could email it. Ruegemer: We could pdf it. We could email it to you guys tomorrow so you have a copy of that and you can distribute it however you’d like to. To your friends. Stolar: That’d be great. My boss’s wife wants to do ice fishing. She’s never done it so I was thinking about her. Hoffman: People love it. Stutzman: Well this year all the fish are going to count. Hoffman: A lot more of them are. Stutzman: We’ve been talking those little ones people have been afraid to bring up, those are going to be on the board at some point. Kelly: And there’s no special smallest or lightest fish? It’s just straight 1 to. Hoffman: 1 to 50. Stutzman: No. We explored that possibility of doing smallest or doing something different and we kind of discussed and said 1 to 50’s probably the best way to go. th Hoffman: With 50 fish that’d get confusing. Is it 49 or? Stutzman: Well realistically too this is going to be 50 people winning prizes because the rules have always stated that it’s one person per, or once on the board it will just be whatever your highest is so that’s 50 out of potentially 300 or, that’s pretty good odds. Kelly: Great. Thank you very much. 2009 TREE LIGHTING EVALUATION REPORT. Stutzman: Thank you Chair Kelly. This seems like forever ago but since we didn’t want to be pre-emptive this year with our evaluation it’s been postponed a little bit but it was, we talked about it a little bit at the last meeting. It was another good celebration this year. In my tenure it was by far the biggest that I’ve seen. It was actually quite enormous this year which was really cool. Ton of families and younger children out there this year with about 200 people I would say at least out there. Once again we had help from the Chanhassen Business Council and their 18 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 involvement with the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce led up by Nancy Lipinski from her accounting service. Nancy does a wonderful, wonderful job. It can’t be said enough how much she helps with this event. Once again we had donations from many local businesses but most particularly I’d like to acknowledge the coordination that the Mustard Seed provided with getting Santa and one his elves and reindeer to the event as well so. The bonfire once again was a wonderful hit, as it was another chilly night and we got our snow we got again just in time for the event so the park looked great. Park maintenance guys helped set up the bonfire as well as the park and hope you guys all got a chance to take a look at the park because it really did look good this winter once again so. As I mentioned Santa Claus was coordinated through the Mustard Seed and Mark Halla. Once again we had carolers this year and they continue to be volunteers from Living Christ Lutheran Church. They’ve done this for 2 years now and really have fun with it. Do a great job and each year they look forward to coming back so I think look forward to continuing to work with them in the future. And the new piece as we discussed a little bit at the last meeting was the gingerbread house display. Seemed to be a big success again and look forward to building on that in the future with 5 entries this year and hoping to continue to get that to grow with winners being awarded in both most creative and most difficult so. If you guys have any questions I’d be happy to talk about that but I know we did talk about that a little bit in the December meeting. Kelly: Thanks. Thanks John. SELF-SUPPORTING PROGRAMS: 3-ON-3 ADULT BASKETBALL LEAGUE. Ruegemer: Just an informational piece for the commission tonight. We just finished our third week of the winter basketball league here last night. I guess it’s only Tuesday. Playing out at the Chan Rec Center. We have one division with 7 teams out there. They will play a 8 week season. With that we’ll start the league playoffs here the first couple weeks in March and then the tournament champion and consolation champion will receive a trophy and a league, division league winners that will get t-shirts for that so. Just a fun way to get some exercise and have some fun out at the rec center. Haven’t had any major injuries up to this point that I’ve heard of so everything must be going well. We have a recreation center staff member that you know turns the clock on and off for 20 minute halves out there and Steve enjoys, continues to enjoy that work. We’re extremely lucky to have him out there and he does a great job for us out there so we appreciate all his efforts as well so the season is going fast so I’d better get the playoff schedule here. I think I already have that done in fact so we should be all set to go here. Kelly: Thank you. Any questions for Jerry on the league? ADMINISTRATIVE: 2010 MONTHLY “HANDS-ON” COMMISSION ACTIVITIES. Hoffman: Optional is right and this sign up sheet is not a contract so. What we would like to see though is, I like to use the word behind the scenes but in government behind the scenes is not a good term but that’s kind of what this is. Hands-on or behind the scenes so I’ll pass it out tonight if you have a chance to take a look at it. Also send it out and if we get one commissioner on each one of the items as a start, that would be great. There’s also opportunities for multiple commissioners to be involved in these different activities. Throughout all four seasons and there 19 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 are a variety of things. The way I would portray this is, you might know something about a lot of these but it’s just like anything else. Once you get involved there’s much more to the particular activity than you might have expected and I think you’ll learn a great deal so we’ll start handing that out and then you can take a look. We’ll do it again by email and how this is going to work is, once you sign up again it’s, there’ll be a staff member assigned and they’ll contact you when it gets closer to the time. If you’re available, great. If it works fine. If it doesn’t work, that’s fine as well so. We just want to give you the opportunity to get involved in some of these activities. And so you can look at that while we move into the admin section. Scharfenberg: Todd, in that sign up sheet does it say in October what that National Park and Recreation Association Congress in Minneapolis, do you know what the time period is on that? rdthth Hoffman: Dates are 23, 4 and 5. Stolar: That sounds right. Hoffman: That’s a National Congress. So as commissioners we can register you. You can attend a day or an evening event or a day and evening event. Whatever you choose. Ryan: And can many people do this or is it only 3? Like if a bunch of us want to do one of them. Hoffman: That’s fine. Ryan: Is that, okay. Kelly: So the trail system snowplowing. We just sit in the passenger sit? Hoffman: Oh it’s a blast, yep. It’s really cool. Stolar: We’ll have to get multiple plows out. Hoffman: Sign up. Kelly: Have we talked to, I see the Huffman Race Committee is on here. Have you talked to about a potential half marathon in Chan. Is that still going to be something that’s going to be. Hoffman: Still talking about it but it wouldn’t happen this year. Kelly: Wouldn’t happen this year, okay. Hoffman: What year is it for the Minneapolis Marathon? First or second. Kelly: This coming year I believe will be the second year in the Minneapolis Marathon. th Hoffman: June 6. Did you run it? 20 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Ryan: No. th Kelly: And Twin Cities Marathon is having their first annual half marathon on the 4 of July this year. I’m guessing that will, I know you were thinking July for half marathon date but if this half marathon by the Twin Cities Marathon takes off, that could be a competing run. Hoffman: It would be, absolutely. Kelly: So something to keep in mind if you’re thinking of maybe different times. Hoffman: Admin section we have your attendance record for 2009. We have a couple of commissioners that need to make a decision for re-appointments. Re-application or re- appointment potential by April and then we’ll elect Chair and Vice Chair in April. In April we’re also going to take a commission photo so I’ll remind you of that. Once we get our new commissioners appointed we’ll have a commission photo in April. Then also in this packet is a letter to Victoria about a trail project they’re working on and then tonight if we could, it’d be great if the commission could nominate a distinguished service award nominee for the Chan Rotary Distinguished Service Award program. That’s awarded at the Annual Tulip Gala on May st 1 at Oak Ridge Conference Center. Kelly: Who have we nominated in the past? First year we nominated Dale for last year? Scharfenberg: No. Last year you nominated my wife. Stolar: Two years ago it was Dale. Scharfenberg: Two years ago was Dale. Kelly: Sorry about that. Scharfenberg: That’s alright. And she actually was chosen as one of the three finalist. Hoffman: Absolutely. Scharfenberg: You know along those lines with respect to the Chanhassen Rotary Club, I was just kind of thinking about that. Given what’s happened in this past year, the city with kind of… to park and rec but somebody to consider would be Terry Kimball who has done a lot of work with respect to the Booster Club and now in organizing the town ball activities and stuff like that so she would be one to potentially consider for that, given all the work that she’s done with the school and getting that you know up and running. Hoffman: Half of my list. Top of the list right there. Scharfenberg: Is it? 21 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Hoffman: Yeah. Scharfenberg: It’s just I had been thinking about that so. Stolar: What else, what other? Hoffman: Steve and Becky Chepokas. The Miracles for Mitch folks. Kelly: Any thoughts from the commission on those two or any other potential candidates? My personal view is I think town ball is, Terry does a lot, you see her around. I mean she does a lot with all the CAA sports but being instrumental in town ball I think is a pretty remarkable accomplishment. Bringing a team back here and there was a timing I think, this would be the right time to nominate her for it. Not to say, nothing Miracles. Hoffman: They’ll be around. Kelly: They will be around but this could be the… Ryan: I would, I mean beyond instrumental. I mean she is the reason why town ball will be coming to Chanhassen. The amount of work that she does daily on top of the other things that she has going on is like I’ve never seen. She’s amazing so I would wholeheartedly support that nomination for sure. Kelly: Any discussion or I will call for a motion then from the commission to nominate Terry Kimball for this award. The 2010 Distinguished Service Award. Scharfenberg: So moved. Ryan: Second. Scharfenberg moved, Ryan seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission nominate Terry Kimball for the Chanhassen Rotary Club’s 2010 Distinguished Service Award. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Scharfenberg: I’ll even draft the nomination. Stolar: Thank you. Would you then email it to the rest of us? Scharfenberg: Yeah. Stolar: Thank you. Scharfenberg: Yeah, I’ll talk to, is Bill is her husband right? Yeah. I’ll talk to him a little bit and get some information. Hoffman: And Dick Unger. 22 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Scharfenberg: And Dick. Okay. Yeah, I’ll email Dick. Hoffman: It’s not going to be a short list. Scharfenberg: No. No, I know. Stolar: What other things does she do? Hoffman: Booster Club. Chan Boosters. Scharfenberg: CAA. She does all the CAA stuff. Stolar: A lot of really a lot of recreation volunteer. Scharfenberg: On top of her full time job which is at the Arboretum. Hoffman: And she’s not just an expert volunteer but she’s an expert at recruiting. She has her boss doing volunteer work. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. Ryan: Yeah, I’ll give a quick update on town ball. First I’d like to thank Todd for all of your help with everything to do with town ball. Hoffman: You’re welcome. Ryan: You’ve been a huge help and I know Terry’s leaned on you with a lot of things. So have I so I appreciate your quick response to all the questions that we have so thank you very much. Three things kind of going on right now. We finalized what the uniform’s going to be. Without going into too much detail because we were going back and forth on what we wanted, you know Red Birds versus Chanhassen and we all agreed that we have to have Chanhassen on the uniforms to identify who we are because people won’t really know who just the Red Birds are. They’re all white uniforms. Red piping. Chanhassen across the chest and then blue caps with the letter C either in red or blue with either white or red piping on the outside. So went with sleeveless jerseys and then they’ll do like a t-shirt underneath so depending on home away games you would do either a blue shirt underneath or a red shirt underneath, so that’s what we finally got the logo. It’s just a little red bird. It looks like a little cardinal. Got that finalized and so that’s the uniform. That was a big hurdle to jump over but we’re really happy that we got that done. Second thing, we’re struggling to find a manager so if you know anybody that is interested. We aren’t looking for a specific age. Somebody that wants to volunteer. Loves baseball. We’re just, we’re really struggling getting you know people think that they want to get involved and then, and then some conflicts come up, either family or timing is not just working for them so you know please, all they have to do is get in touch with Terry. We’re setting up interviews. Now we really need to get somebody on board because we’re going to start, you know we need to get the team going. We need obviously to have try-outs and that’s what we 23 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 want to start doing in March so really looking and working hard on trying to find some managers so if you know of anyone please pass their name along to myself or of course Terry. We did, we’re getting an article in the Connection again. Thank you Todd for moving that along for us, and then I’ve been in touch with two people from the Star Tribune and hopefully we’re going to get something in the West Metro section this Thursday in sports and then there’s another gentleman who’s looking to do an article just in the West Metro section just about town ball coming back to Chanhassen so I’ve been in communication with them trying to get that to be, you know to move forward. Hopefully that will actually draw a little attention and possibly get some manager’s names past our way as well so that’s kind of the next thing. And then the final thing is we’ve developed a sponsorship package. We’re you know finalizing the print but it’s going to just be you know like a fold over brochure that has different levels of sponsorship. Something as basic as you know having a banner hanging in the outfield, just a 4 by 8 banner hanging in the outfield with the company’s name on it. All the way up to sponsoring a game so where their name is going to be announced over the loud speaker. They would be able to hand out literature or you know little baseballs with their, you know little cache stuff that they can hand out at the game so we have a variety of sponsorship opportunities and as soon as we get that printed up I’ll bring it to our meeting and give you guys some that you can hand out to friends and business partners that you know and let them know that there’s opportunities to sponsor. So moving full speed ahead. We meet once a week and if you guys have any questions let me know but made some big progress in the last couple weeks and I’m looking forward to it so, any questions? Hoffman: Web site’s out there? Ryan: Web site. Scharfenberg: What’s the. Ryan: I knew you were going to ask me that. Ballcharts.com\Chanhassen so, but you can just go to ballcharts.com and then do Chanhassen. th Hoffman: Press conference on Friday, February 19 at 3:30 and please bring family and friends. Let’s fill the high school conference area. What do they call that area? Commons, yeah. Fill the commons for the press conference. They’ll be doing some jersey, giving to the mayor and the school board chair and there’ll be some old players there that will have their jerseys from the original Red Birds so that will be exciting. And then working on club liquor for a club liquor license which will be 3.2 for the club and right now with the, I know Terry and Dick Unger and others are talking about is trying to get that building constructed so you’d have a location on the property for the alcohol storage, and then you could serve beer during the town ball games. Scharfenberg: What time again on the press conference? thth Hoffman: Friday, February 19 at 3:30. It’s a Friday. Friday, Feb 19 at 3:30. At the Chanhassen High School commons. 24 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Kelly: When is the proposed first pitch? For the first game. Are there dates yet for the first game? Hoffman: Yeah, first game is in April. Ryan: Well that’s a practice. The real game is May but they just are, they switched it around again so they haven’t finalized when our first game is. I was working on it. Stolar: What are they going to do if they don’t have a manager by then? Ryan: We aren’t thinking about that. Stolar: Well what I’m saying do you have a bunch of assistant coaches. There’ll be people who want to coach but don’t want to be manager that can still lead through the stuff. You get that sometimes being in Little League, right. No one’s the head coach so you just have a bunch of assistants. Ryan: We’re just trying to get anybody to get involved somehow. Scharfenberg: Elise have you approached some other communities that have town ball teams and talked to some of their people about do you know of people who might have some interest in doing this? Ryan: Yeah. Another gentleman on the board has been contacting other town ball leagues and has connections. I emailed all of the local college coaches so the St. Thomas’s and St. Cloud State, all those universities, I sent out a personal email as well as a press release to let them know that we’re looking so we’ve been you know getting the word out as much as possible. Stolar: What about like the various baseball clinic leaders around here? Ryan: Haven’t thought about that. That’s a good idea. Stolar: Yeah because like Jay Mikenas does Pine Tar Academy and actually he just retired from the Millers. But he’s a Hopkins coach so I think timing would be, he couldn’t do that but he might know other people and the Mike Berset, he has some clinic but he also, he still plays for the Millers after I don’t know 60 years he’s been on the team. He’s been on it forever but he, you know those are guys that, and then who’s the other. Kelly: There’s some guy…his first name would probably be Tom and he was a minor league. Stutzman: Tommy Nevers? Kelly: Yes. Stolar: Yes, Tommy Nevers, that’s the other one. Isn’t his clinic over in. 25 Park and Recreation Commission – January 26, 2010 Scharfenberg: Edina. Stolar: Edina, yeah. Stutzman: He does a lot of… Stolar: Those are guys that know the baseball scene. They might have trained someone 10 years ago and say oh yeah, the guy’s back working in town. Why don’t I give them a call. Ryan: Good idea, thank you. Stolar: The other thing I was thinking is, even sending to the leagues, the various Little Leagues, like East Tonka Little League, South Tonka Little League which have heavy Chanhassen participation. Send the directors there a note saying hey, if you know of any of your coaches. I was thinking Kevin Tapani was a coach for one of those Little League teams last year. Stutzman: He’s coaching one of the… Stolar: Doesn’t Paul Molitor live in Chan? Thought he did. Ruegemer: Yeah, I think he did. Stolar: He does. He lives over, I think off of Pleasant View. So those are major leaguers. I mean if you contact the leagues they, they could say yeah here are some people. Stutzman: You could talk to the Diamond Club in Minnetonka too. Hoffman: It’s an important first step. Spread the word. Kelly: Any other committee member reports or comments on the administrative packet? Scharfenberg: Move to adjourn. Kelly: Is there a second? Ryan: Second. Stolar: Second. Scharfenberg moved, Ryan seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 26