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PRC 2003 07 22CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JULY 22, 2003 Vice Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Kelly, Amy O'Shea, Jack Spizale, Susan Robinson, and Glenn Stolar MEMBERS ABSENT: Rod Franks and Paula Atkins STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; APPROVAL OF AGENDA. As Presented. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS. None. VISITOR PRF~SENTATIONS. None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: O*Shea moved, Robinson seconded to approve the minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission dated June 24, 2003 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. UPDATE ON ROUNDHOUSE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, members of the commission. I distributed a photograph of a couple of images which show before and after images of the round house and it's just a remarkable transformation.' The painting was finished on Monday, yesterday. The roof is an 8 sided roof shingled with Timberline shingles. The soffit is aluminum fascia and soffit. Windows are Anderson Windows purchased and partially donated from Lyman Lumber by the neighborhood group, installed by the contractors as a courtesy to the neighborhood group. The contract signed by the City Council paid for the roofing, the roof reconstruction, the soffit fascia, the scraping of the building and the painting of the structure. The windows were purchased by the neighborhood group, installed by the contractor and now the neighborhood group is working simultaneously with the contractor in cleaning up the inside. You were there and saw that. They'll continue to take over from here. You can see the mailbox out in front of the structure. They have flyers and they're talking about their project and where to make donations and who to contact so very grass roots local effort that they're undertaking to complete the project. The neighborhood group would like to host a picnic there for the volunteers. The Park and Rec Commission with City Council and some staff members, probably in the month of September. And then they would hope to have it open for a warming house this winter to accommodate the skating public. That' s the update on the round house. It' s just a remarkable change... Stolar: Todd could you e-mail us, do you have the information about the, what they have on that flyer. Could we get that emailed to us? Hoffman: I have a print form. I don't have an e-mail form. Why don't we just get it upstairs and I'll give it to you tonight. Make a copy of it. Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 Kelly: Were they able to dry out the basement, or as best they could? Hoffman: Able to do what? Kelly: Dry out and reduce that... Hoffman: They haven't started that yet but they've got the basement fairly well dried out so. The structure looks very clean inside. They just need to get out, the fence will come down probably tomorrow. The orange fence that you see there, and then they're going to do some landscaping. Our crew will install the ped ramp-out to the asphalt trail and hand railing and then they'll come in and do some landscaping and yard work and continue to work on the inside. Spizale: Todd is this the color it's going to be or this the primer? Hoffman: That's the color. It's much different than the other color. It's called Naked Beige. Kelly: Are there any comments or questions on the round house? If not we can move to reports. 2003 FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION EVALUATION. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly, the rest of the commission. I trust that you all had a chance to take a look at that. I'm not going to go through item by item with the Fourth of July. If there's any highlights that you'd like to talk about, we certainly can do that tonight but I think overall we just got through the largest special event that we do in the city for the year and really it went off without a hitch. No major snafu's. Cory does a great job in coordinating all that and giving us direction as to what we need to do the day of the event and, or the two days of the event and everything really went by without a hitch. No issues on the street fair or the street dance night. The trade fair and all that. Power was great. The band was good. Hopefully a few less mosquitoes than what we've had in the past. We certainly seemed to have, had quite a few comments that the spraying that was done was very effective. Here and out at Lake Ann Park so it seemed like it did make a difference but on an annual basis this event just continues to grow and grow and grow and it was the same this year with adding a few new events and that sort of thing. I think that Titanic thing was a big hit, just judging by the lines of that. Water Wars is always popular. I know I stood in line for over 15 minutes with my daughter. But that was fun, and just a lot of fun events. Like I said, I hear a lot of comments that this is really a family kind of event. People feel good to bring their kids up here and feel safe and we certainly try to keep that in mind by hiring additional security staff and just having a good presence in the community so. I'm going to turn it back over to you Tom. If there's any questions I may answer or suggestions or comments to better the event, I'll certainly entertain those and jot those down at this point. Kelly: Just want to go down the row? Jack, you want to start out? Spizale: I thought everything was fantastic. We did a lot of the events and everything was great. One comment, when I was working in the tent I had two people come up that needed first aid and I didn't really, you know other than find a policeman, which is kind of hard, I wasn't quite sure where to send them or the people that needed first aid, they didn't seem to be able to find somewhere to go. Is there something for that that we were missing or? Ruegemer: Not specifically. I mean we do have EMT's walking around at the event and that sort of thing and help is just basically a phone call away but. Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 Spizale: Maybe one small thing is a spot that people would know there's first aid and maybe lost, another one with a lost kid too that ended up going to the band and the band called out. Maybe there could be a first aid station where people could get whatever they needed... Ruegemer: Providing first aid, a band-aid here or there. Spizale: Yeah, I kind of had to leave and find a policeman and get them kind of set up and they were minor things but I know the lost kid and stuff would be kind of, it helped people out that needed the help. But yeah, I thought everything was fantastic. Robinson: I would agree. Everything was great, and I really liked how everything was above this year. In past years we've had the space below, it was kind of split up. You know some of the kids stuff was up there and the food, so I really liked it how it was up, all in one location. I think it flowed really smoothly and enjoyed the fireworks from my back yard, like I always do. Had friends over and family from out of town and they asked, they're like wow, does Chan always have this good of fireworks? Yeah they do so I wanted to pass that on that even out of towners you know said that it was just a great fireworks display. But I had one question on that. Do you guys have music to the fireworks because we weren't that close so we weren't sure if it was to music. Ruegemer: We don't at this point. We've certainly had conversations about that. Robinson: You know a lot of cities are doing that now so I didn't know because we couldn't hear from that far away but. Hoffman: One of the challenges that we face is a local radio station, or the lack thereof. You need to have a partner with a radio station that's got somewhat of a local flair for them to break in. We're going to interrupt you know KDWB is not going to interrupt programming to put on the Chanhassen fireworks music. So as you're thinking about radio contacts, we're coming up on our 20th and our 25th celebration, and we would like to explore that for perhaps our 25th anniversary to put the fireworks to music. But then we have to start making some kind of relationship with a radio station to allow us. You've got to tune in your radio to get the simulcast. Robinson: Great job, thanks. O'Shea: Yeah I don't know, Dave Ryan you know lives in Chanhassen. Might be a contact. He's in our neighborhood. But again, same thing. It was a fabulous event and for as many people that take part, it really runs smoothly so. Great feedback from people that I talked to. I talked to people in lines and tried to get some feedback from neighbors and that kind of thing. Again, everybody positive feedback. Just a few things that came up. Kids fishing, fabulous event. People loved it. The grab bags, kids really enjoyed. Couldn't believe they got all gear. Tackle in their little bag. But some parents felt 45 minutes might be good so just something to look at. Instead of an hour, after a while it seemed like people were losing interest about 45 minutes into it. But again, everybody really had a good time. Water Wars. Because it's a slow moving, you know there's not a time limit, again this isn't anything new, but if there could be another Water Wars because it's so popular. Another feedback that the lines weren't bad except for the Water Wars. And that seemed pretty consistent, 15 minutes to an hour wait. And then I think those are the two things that I heard from people. And the fireworks, people just loved the fireworks too and the whole event so another good job. That's it. Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 Kelly: I thought it was great. In terms of Melrose, are they interested in coming baCk next year? Ruegemer: Oh for sure. Yeah we talked to Jamie throughout the day on the 4th of July. Jamie with Melrose and they would choose Chanhassen over a lot of the cities. Kelly: Okay, very good. People find out they're so good, I'm afraid all of a sudden they'll be going to other cities that pay. Ruegemer: Yeah. No, they turn down other cities to retain their time to come here so. Kelly: They were great. Something I was going to ask about was, I know this was just from our experience. The lot we parked in is the lot adjacent to those two co-ed Friday night softball fields. We got there late and the way the park filled in, I think the earlier you got there the more on the outside you parked. So we were on the inside so we knew we'd be waiting for half hour, 45 minutes to get out, which is fine, but it gets real dark there. Is it possible next year to keep a couple of the softball lights on just to provide some lighting? Ruegemer: Were they not on the whole time? Kelly: No. They went off probably I want to say 10 minutes after the fireworks stopped. Everyone got in their cars and was just waiting and they went off. Ruegemer: ...I don't know if it was because I know we do that every year. Turn the lights on until everybody's gone and somehow the timer I think did shut off on there and I don't know why. We went and looked at it that night. Kelly: Okay, I was wondering if that was, I thought maybe you shut them off to kind of keep people. Hoffman: Calm and in their cars. We always have them on. We heard that comment from a couple of people. The other kind of anomaly was that the street lights were turned off on the frontage road because of the budget issue with street lights and so that was one we didn't catch. Whereas West 78th Street was pitch black where normally it's lighted up like a very nice boulevard. So next year if the lights are continued to be turned off for budget savings, then we'll turn them on for that one particular evening. Kelly: Aside from that, it was a great event. Although cooler Friday afternoon for the kids parade next year might be nice but you've got to expect that. Stolar: Just a couple things. One, I did notice it seemed like it was great, and it seemed like there was more seating this year. Did we, we added the tent, right? Was that part of it? Hoffman: More seating, yep. Ruegemer: Well the trade fair had a little bit bigger tent this year. Stolar: Okay, that's what. Ruegemer: 20 more feet approximately but we did add, we did bulk up or beef up the chaffs. Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 Stolar: Because it was a lot nicer. It was easy to find a place to sit. That was great. I mean it really made a difference. I had visitors from out of town and everyone loved it. Thought, we did only the City Center Park stuff on Thursday night but everyone loved it. Do we know off hand what our estimated attendance was? Do we estimate it at all? Ruegemer: Boy it's hard to gauge. I mean are you talking about the street dance night? Stolar: Yeah. Hoffman: I heard someone say 3,000. Stolar: 3,000. And has it gone up? Are we noticing that it's gone up? Hoffman: In the last couple years I would say it's gone up by 300-400 each year. Stolar: I mean it was great. It seemed like it was, my wife had made a comment that she thought it was less crowded because we found a seat. I said no, I think they've added a lot of seats. I think there's a lot more people here than last year. Hoffman: We spaced it out. All of the...to the north really push people across that playground and that was quite full. Stolar: Yeah, it seemed like it. It seemed like it was a lot and it was great. The Water Wars was an issue. If we can't add a second line then I suggest you only give one bucket per team, because part of it was they were giving two buckets per team and that took a while to get through so if we can't add a second one then we should limit the number of buckets of water balloons and then they'll turn the line quicker. Yeah. I mean you'll still get the same revenue because people will still flow through it. It just will allow people to wait less and they would go in a second time, but a second line would be better because then you could just do more because I think you could fill a second. Hoffman: ...a second Water Wars out there. Ruegemer: That has been kind of the issue. They've gone through some ownership transition and the original guy, Tom Woog who invited it was the person that was here at the 4th and I think it has been a staffing issue. As far as getting a second one. I know we've had conversations with him. Hoffman: We'll talk to him. If we can get it here and he can't staff it, we'll staff it. Stolar: Sounds good. And again, everything was great. On the dollars, the budget. It's about the same as last year or what's the difference between last year as far as. Ruegemer: I think revenues are up slightly and expenditures are about the same. I think they were in kind of the low 40's last year for expenditures. Stolar: So we did better than last year. It seems with the attendance going up and if we can keep adding like the Titanic and those things, I think you're just going to see it keep growing. And of course Rod, speaking for Rod the Midway carnival rides next year, that will add too. But it was wonderful and Corey should be commended, and his staff, for everything they did. Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 Hoffman: Thanks for all your comments and for all your hard work. I think this is probably the fu-st year that we had 100 percent support in work from the commission members so thank you. You're an important part of that evening's festivities and of course it gives you a first hand perspective so you can continue to talk with the neighbors and residents in the state. It is a wonderful event. You talk, people talk about it all year and so we want to continue to tweak these little things. The food lines were a problem in the past and that has really I think been solved to a great degree .... to work out and we appreciate all your help. FALL ADULT SOFTBALL. Ruegemer: Getting a lot of phone calls. The Thursday night league is I think pretty well filled at this point. I'm looking at adding a Tuesday night league as well, and with all the phone calls I've had, about 80 percent confident I can get that pulled off here so more teams means a little bit more revenue for us so we're certainly always looking to increase our revenues and help our bottom line so. We're scheduled to start August 14th, that Thursday. It's kind of a quick season. About 6 weeks. Ends about the third week in September so to get a quick dozen games in and go off into the winter here so, it is a lot of fun. People do enjoy it. Little bit more low key than the summer season, but people certainly do enjoy it and more and more phone calls every day so hopefully we can get that going. With that we'll be playing out at Lake Ann as well and coordinating the softball schedule around football games and all the rest of the activities out at Lake Ann in the fall. Kelly: I just think the one softball league I'm in is, I think it's really well mn. The fields are always in great condition and the umpires for the most part are really, really good. Ruegemer: And you got a win. Kelly: And we got a win. We got a win from one of the best team. That was actually very courteous of Renville to let us know a couple days ahead of time that they weren't going to be able to field a softball team. Ruegemer: But it was fun? Kelly: That's our third win. Moving on to administrative reports. CITY CENTER PARK CONSTRUCTION UPDATE. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly, members of the commission. I think I'll go ahead and just give you a brief verbal update and then we'll, we can take a walk after the meeting. We'll actually go out on the site and talk about some of the things that are going on. Their work has been slowed due in most part because of underground utilities, some of which were located in the survey. When we start a construction process like this, you have a survey done. Completed, which is intended to identify all underground utilities, elevations and those type of things. There are always things that are not identified due to, there are things that aren't on plans. There's an abandoned storm sewer that we hit today and so there's been some complications and you probably saw, right down at the comer was the worst. It took about 3 weeks to get out of the ground just to take a storm water catch basin and about a 60 foot pipe down to the comer, wrapping around fiber optic, telephone, gas, storm sewer so everything in and amongst itself there is really intertwined. We moved the big box off of the comer. The big utility box. That was an Xcel box. That simple move of 50 or 60 feet is a $13,000 or better. About a month on the part of Xcel to get that moved. And so what you see right now, everything in ground needs to be Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 completed so utilities, storm sewer, irrigation, electrical, retaining walls, the fountain work, the fountain plumbing and then once that's up and out of the ground, then they'll start with the paving. I'm quite confident that they'll have this court yard paved, at least the front part for the library by the time the library opens on the 16th of August I believe the date is. And there will actually be some of the trees planted. The nursery's anxious to get those onto the site. But they are, you can go either way. You can plant the trees first and then put the pavers around them. In this case they're going to put all the paving in and then bring the plant material in afterwards. So there will be a good amount of progress once they get above ground and you'll see it change much more rapidly. So the building, the library itself will be it's general appearance much like it is today. It won't be all fixed up on the exterior until after the ground, the grand opening. Once you're inside the building, I guarantee you, you don't notice the exterior. It's just an absolutely gorgeous facility and the grand opening will be a great night for the city so. After this we'll take a walk out and check out some things in the park and I'll show you a little bit more about the dredging. Kelly: Okay, thanks. LAKE SUSAN PARK STORM WATER POND RECONSTRUCTION UPDATE. Hoffman: I want to bring this to your attention because it affects Lake Susan Park. Primarily the archery range and picnics. We're concerned that the picnicking groups would take somewhat offense of the disruption of the park. That hasn't turned out to be the case. The tennis courts, excuse me, the volleyball courts were taken out for a period of time to lower that general area approximately 5 to 6 feet. That high berm. That berm of soil that was right in the center of the park was left over remnants from the original construction of the park. At that time it was too expensive to haul the material off site so we took this opportunity to take that material out of the park. Create a much more level transition from the ballfield back to the picnic shelter and no cost to us other than the...taking the park down for a summer. That project development was paid for by the Water Resources project that created the pond. So archery and volleyball is coming back in the next 30 to 45 days. They'll seed the park and put it all back into condition. The storm water project, I'm not sure if we've explained it in the past. They dug a very deep basin on the left side. Separated by a shallow berm where the water flows up and over into a shallow part of the basin where there's need for filtration of the water and then back out to the lake, so that project is nearly complete following restoration as you drive by. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. Kelly: I apologize. I didn't make the Huffman meeting. I was working the same night. Ruegemer: It was a productive meeting Tom. We had 2 people there. Howard and myself. We just discussed shirts and bus transportation and some of that type of thing so. Kelly: Is Southwest Metro going to do it again? Ruegemer: They'll do it again for a nominal charge. But I've had multiple conversations with John Cragness with Southwest Metro and fill out the necessary paperwork and we're on the books so I think we should be fine. Kelly: I apologize, I was out of town. I couldn't get back in time. Ruegemer: No, that's okay. We knew about it going into it. Ken wasn't even there either so. Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 Kelly: Oh he wasn't, okay. Really just you and Howard. Cookies I guess. Ruegemer: We had some cookies... COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. O'Shea: Susan and I went to the work session with the City Council to hear about paint ball. Do you know when they're going to put that back on? Hoffman: I believe it's August 11th now, and the Sergeant Jim Olson has been working on it. I've been working on it. Our city attorney, Roger Knutson. Paint ball markers are not considered a weapon and so they're...they're not considered a firearm. They don't fall under firearm ordinances. There is not a city in the county that allows the discharge of paint ball markers within city limits currently so we're not alone. My recommendation that allowing these in public spaces is simply not going to be, it's very difficult to fathom that there's a public agency who would want to get in the business of hosting paint ball facility. So my recommendation is to stay clear of that. To again restrict these activities from public places. Sergeant Jim Olson's recommendation will be that, similar to a firearm, they could be used in what we have currently as a map area where firearms can be discharged in our city by a permit. Council would have to decide if they're going to want to allow this activity without a permit or with a permit. During the firearms season. Not during the firearms season. Sergeant Jim Olson is recommending obviously during the firearms season you have hunters in these locations. You don't want splat ball or paint ball activities going on. If they occur in the off season, in these areas, and the map he selected because it's 500 feet from any road and from trails and from public spaces and then this is all on private property where you would have to get a signed permission of the property owner in order to conduct this activity on those locations. So that's the current disposition if you will of the report that is going to be headed towards the City Council. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Kelly: Any questions from commission members on the Administrative Packet? Robinson: Really good comments. Really positive comments. Kelly: Even with construction at Lake Susan, everything was l's. O'Shea: And only one complaint about fees so that must be going well. Ruegemer: Yeah it really has. Actually they've been pretty receptive to the fees. We haven't had a ton of out of town kind of business, or non-resident business rates... Stolar: But we haven't seen any drop in usage have we with the fees? Ruegemer: I don't have the exact numbers...keeping track with every phone call we've been doing but I can't say that it's tailed off dramatically. In reflective to the fees. O'Shea: Jerry, did they fix the outlets at Lake Ann? That was the only comment. Ruegemer: Currently this week we have an electrician out there. One of our park maintenance staff is out there fight now and they've done, they actually started last week. They've had two Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 full days this week. We have to stop now because we have a Boy Scout day camp going tomorrow and Thursday. They have their picnics...so we'll get back at it again the first part of next week. We have a lift coming to get up at kind of the ceiling part of the pavilion. It's going to be a total re-work. Electrical system's going to be totally re-worked. There will be external conduit and he'll have to feed the wires through that way...a week, week and a half. O'Shea: Sounds good. You know I noticed the change too. It wasn't extensive in the last year's report but did you change garbage pick-up because there were no complaints about you know we came and it was still messy. Maybe one but it seemed to be improved. Did you change something? Ruegemer: We haven't but I think it really depends on the seasonal staff that you have working during the weekends. On that because we've always had Saturday and Sunday clean-up' s. They come in around 6:00-7:00 in the morning and then take care of the Lake Susan and Lake Ann shelters right away and hopefully with the conversations we've had, that certainly will continue to be good so. O'Shea: Great. Hoffman: The original wiring in the shelter was all in conduits. Inside the concrete and over time, the moisture in that concrete slab has deteriorated the conduit and the wiring so the entire structure is, the entire original wiring will be abandoned. New wire system will come up... Ruegemer: They're probably going to have clusters of outlets kind of like what we have at the Lake Susan shelter, versus having an outlet here and an outlet here. We're going to have kind of a grouping of outlets so if you have multiple crock pots or whatever, there will be outlets in kind of a large number of quantities in certain areas so it shouldn't, we should have plenty of power out there but it just needs to get done. Robinson: I just wanted to comment on the State park article in the Chanhassen Villager. Right on the front page. That was a real good article and sounds like the camp went real well last week and today I took my son up there and there were kids wearing the Third Layer t-shirts and it was real busy. Ruegemer: Yeah for the first time we've offered it we had 21 kids sign up at $160 a throw. I think by and large it's a pretty, I think Third Layer was extremely happy and I think that was one of the largest ones they've had. And for a first time event, certainly we can tweak a few things, but you know we take our percentage and certainly there was work involved with it but we walked away with say about $600 or $700 in revenue. For a pretty simple way of going about things, but it was a good thing for us. Good exposure. I talked to Mark again today from Third Layer and he wants to do something over MEA. Over that time or some other things certainly next summer. Stolar: Rod was mentioning, and I agree with him about trying to get maybe a demo or something the 4th of July. If they would come out and do one. They can promote their camp. Hoffman: Yeah, it's a good thought. The second, third addition to the skate park is coming August 4~? 4th or 5~. So they were postponed. They intended to be here yesterday but they've been backed up because of material deliveries and then weather and the other installations. So Truead will be here for 2 days. They'll be remodeling some of the existing equipment. Adding the new equipment. The park will be closed. Susan, thanks for mentioning the article. That is Park and Rec Commission - July 22, 2003 great publicity for the city and for the park, on the front page. But just to prove you can never make everyone happy, a person came in the door and said they were very displeased that they did not have access to the skate park for their child because there was some camp going on and they're a tax paying citizen and they demand access to that facility so. I wasn't around for that one... Jerry had to explain how it's a public facility but we often have reservations reserved for activities and this was just one of them. Robinson: And is that something that's posted in advance like... Ruegemer: We did post it and it was in laminated flyers, that there was going to be a skate camp going on from July 14th to July 18~ from 9:00 to noon. Thanks for your understanding. Robinson: There's always got to be one, right. Stolar: Wasn't that one of the comments on the picnic table too. Some people were just using the picnic area and didn't move...taxpaying citizens, they can use it. Hoffman: Probably one of those a year where we have a little conflict but not very often. Ruegemer: It seems to be working fine with the north gate closed up to this point and even during the school season, or when the school year's in session, there seemed to be minimal conflicts with the kids out on the playground and skate park kids hassling the group and that seemed to really improve. Thanks as well. Kelly: Has the vandalism died down that they were talking about when we were... Hoffman: I've taken no reports. Kelly: Any other comments, questions? Alright, I would like to move to adjourn. Stolar moved, Robinson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 8:10 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 10