PRC 2012 09 25
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 25, 2012
Chairman Cole Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Elise Ryan, Tom Kelly, Brent Carron, Jim
Boettcher, and Peter Aldritt
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent;
Mitch Johnson, Recreation Supervisor; Sue Bill, Senior Center Coordinator; Dale Gregory, Park
Superintendent; and Jodi Sarles, Rec Center Manager
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Cole Kelly: It looks like we have an addition tonight of Patrick Furlong which we’ll put under visitor
presentations. Any other changes?
Scharfenberg: Can we add an update on the two, status of the two parks? Riley Ridge and Pioneer Pass.
Cole Kelly: Okay.
Tom Kelly: I was wondering too if we can add an item under new business to discuss a bike rack at
Bandimere Park and I will share an email that I received from a resident.
Cole Kelly: Okay. Any other additions or changes? Okay. We’ll move, I don’t think, are there any
public announcements tonight Todd?
Hoffman: Nothing.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
Cole Kelly: I believe Patrick Furlong, you’re on stage.
Patrick Furlong: Good evening Mr. Chair and members of the Park and Recreation Commission. My
name is Patrick Furlong and I live at 1405 Knob Hill Lane in Chanhassen. I’m a junior out at Holy
Family and a member of Boy Scout Troop 409 in Excelsior. I’m here tonight to propose my Eagle Scout
project and to ask for your approval. Lake Ann’s monument sign was taken out when Highway 5 was
upgraded. A new monument sign is in the process of being installed currently and my project is to plan
and lead the installation of landscaping around the new sign. I got my idea for this project after meeting
with Todd Hoffman and discussing various ideas for this Eagle Scout project. Lake Ann Park is
Chanhassen’s largest park. The monument sign will be the nicest sign of any park in the city of
Chanhassen and will help identify the main park entrance. A nicely landscaped sign will let everybody
know that we are proud of our city and it’s parks. I met with Jill Sinclair and we discussed the types of
plants and the design of the project. The garden is a semi circle with a 15 foot radius with steel edging
surrounding it. In the back of the garden we have borrow forested grass. On the sides we are putting in
purple daylilies. In the center we have chosen autumn joy sedum and in the front we have walkers low
catnip. Also behind the garden we are putting in three river birch clumps and yeah. So the project costs, I
have met with three landscape supply companies and we have estimated the cost of the project between
$3,000 and $4,000. By the end of the project I hope that it looks better than it does today. It’s in the
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
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process of being installed right now. The sign. I plan on beginning this project on October 15. I am
excited to see this project completed and to be working in the city of Chanhassen. Thanks for your time
this evening and I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Cole Kelly: Thank you for the presentation Patrick. Any questions for Patrick on the sign?
Boettcher: What is the completion date?
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Patrick Furlong: I’m planning on completing the project on Saturday, the 15 of October.
Boettcher: Okay, thank you.
Scharfenberg: So Patrick, besides the plantings and that, what else are you going to have to do in terms of
prep work for the site? You going to have to haul in dirt or is that part of your?
Patrick Furlong: I’m going to have the companies that I purchased the soil and mulch from deliver it to
the site so they’re going to dump it behind the site and we’ll move it.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Tom Kelly: I have a quick question. I do not have a green thumb so I apologize if this is a silly question
but how does irrigation work? Do you have to have some irrigation plan with these new plantings?
Patrick Furlong: I think the City is putting in an irrigation system.
Hoffman: We’ll install an irrigation with our own crew and we’re taking a look at two different options.
Either bringing a line from the soccer field or digging just about directly down, a little bit to the west at
this location into the main line and then doing a wet tap. It’s probably more efficient to do that so I
believe that will be our option. And then we’ll be irrigating just the planting, main planting area itself so
it can stay in an attractive fashion and healthy fashion. The sign itself will be backlit and so you’ll see it
in the evening, Lake Ann Park and then this model the sign will be one that will incorporate with the new
Bandimere Park entrance and the road project coming up next year. And then in the future we’ll
incorporate one at Lake Susan Community Park as well so we can have some resemblance at each one of
those community park entrances that people will identify and focus on.
Cole Kelly: Thank you. I’m looking forward to seeing the new beautiful sign and I’m assuming you’re
going to continue to work with Jill Sinclair as the project moves forward.
Patrick Furlong: Yep.
Cole Kelly: And it looks like you’ve done your research on it. Very nice presentation Patrick.
Patrick Furlong: Thank you.
Hoffman: Can you tell us a little bit about your volunteers and if you need any more or if you think you
have enough?
Patrick Furlong: Well I’m going to get volunteers from my boy scout troop and I haven’t gotten them yet
but I’m pretty sure, pretty sure I’ll have some good turnout.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Carron: Patrick is this, the excavating, there’s going to be additional excavation around the area? That
soil is coming out. Is the City going to do that or are you planning on doing that?
Hoffman: It’s going to just about go at.
Carron: At grade?
Hoffman: Yep. On grade so it’ll be a raised bed so it will have a slightly mounding effect to it and so the
planting soil will be placed, by the time we leave the site it’ll be ready for that soil to be mounded up
around the sign in a slight raised bed fashion.
Carron: Sounds good. Good project.
Patrick Furlong: Thank you.
Carron: Have you already had your sit down with your Eagle Scout Committee? Do they have to
approve it still?
Patrick Furlong: District.
Carron: Yeah.
Patrick Furlong: I actually just got it approved today.
Carron: You did?
Patrick Furlong: And I met with her out at Lake Ann Park. Talked over it so it’s approved by the
District.
Carron: Okay, great.
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Cole Kelly: Any other questions? I’m going to be out of town on the 15 but I’m looking forward to
seeing the sign when I return. Thank you.
Hoffman: Thanks Patrick.
Cole Kelly: Any other visitor presentations?
Laurie Susla: Hi, my name is Laurie Susla. I’m with the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance.
Cole Kelly: Laurie?
Laurie Susla: Yes.
Cole Kelly: Could you do me a favor? Could you speak up?
Laurie Susla: I’ll try. Is this on or no? I mean am I speaking to you or am I speaking into this?
Cole Kelly: You should speak into the microphone. Your name and your address and then you can.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Laurie Susla: My name is Laurie Susla. My address is 7008 Dakota Avenue in Chanhassen. I am with
the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance and we are a group that speaks for the lakeshore owners on Lotus
as well as, which is about 150 homes, plus another 250 that are around Lotus. We came, several members
of our group came before your commission back in August of last year just to express the concerns that
we’re having with AIS and just trying to protect Chanhassen’s lakes. Since that time we have expanded
and we’re not just speaking for Lotus because it’s important that when you talk about what’s going to
happen to the lakes in Chanhassen that we talk about all of the city lakes and so Ann as you all I’m sure
know has no residents and that affects Lucy and Susan only has 19 homes so we’re really the only lake
that has the ability to have a group like this. And I know that Todd kindly forwarded to you all a review
and proposal that we put together of the program that went on in 2012. I just wanted to come tonight to
say hi. See you know if you all had any questions about anything in there? I know that if one of the
Chanhassen lakes were to get infested in, I’m telling you what you already know. That it doesn’t just
affect, well it affects the beaches. You know Carver Beach and Lake Ann beach would be highly affected
but it also swimming and boating and everything gets affected so I know that this impacts what you guys
do and I just thought I would come and see if you all had any questions or anything about what we sent
you.
Cole Kelly: Thank you Laurie. Any questions from the board? I did get a chance to read through what
Todd sent to us, and I think it was, I forget it was a number of pages.
Laurie Susla: Yes, it was long.
Cole Kelly: It was a long one and I should have correlated that you would have been here tonight with
that so I did have a few questions but I can’t remember specifically what they are and I apologize…
Laurie Susla: That’s fine and I’m happy to come back at any time. I just thought I would, since that just
came out I thought I would come and see and just touch base with you guys.
Cole Kelly: Okay, thank you for coming out tonight.
Laurie Susla: Okay, thank you.
Scharfenberg: Laurie, I just have one follow up question in terms of what is the association and that
doing in terms of next year? I know that you had people out looking at boats and that this year. Are you
kind of proposing the same program that you had last year?
Laurie Susla: Well this year the, my group spent $12,000 on, through Todd who did a great job working
with VOLT. That was the VOTL Work For Solutions was the group that did the actual inspections. Todd
coordinated, administered all that. We paid the City $7,050 to hire VOLT inspectors to supplement what
the City and watershed together were doing at the ramps. The City and Watershed together were at all
three lakes inspecting from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Then additionally at Lotus
from 4:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. on Monday through Thursday because we just get a lot more traffic than
the other lakes and that’s a big fishing time. So what the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance did is we
supplemented the weekday hours, Monday through Thursday we caught from 6:00 in the morning til the
VOLT people started at 4:00 and then we also extended from the fishing opener, which we thought was
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important. That started May 12 I believe through Memorial Day when the City started, the City and
Watershed backed programs started and then we also supplemented through the entire month of
September, just because any time the water’s above 54 degrees that’s when the zebra mussels can be
transferred so what we’re hoping to do next year, because at Lake Ann and at Lake Susan they were only
seeing a launch every 2 hours on average and I know that it’s a difficult thing to justify. Paying someone
to sit there for 2 hours to see one boat come through so it’s not really our place to tell the City what it
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
should do. We think that if you could combine the inspections at somewhere like Lake Ann Park and
have it, which is just, it’s less than 2 miles to Lotus from Ann. Less than 2 miles to Susan from Ann and
have an inspector that would be for all the Chanhassen lakes, that it would be a lot more fiscally doable
than having somebody at each lake so you know we’re just hoping the City will take a look at a variety of
options. Start a discussion around how do we really effectively protect the lakes because if we’re going
to have these overnight hours when anybody can launch, if we’re going to have boats going in
uninspected it’s really, it’s just going to be a matter of time.
Cole Kelly: Any other questions?
Aldritt: I have one question. Are you, is your group working with any other groups that are in the metro
area…ideas together or.
Laurie Susla: Yes. There’s a very active group going in the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District. They
have a whole plan that they’ve put together for their, what they’d like to see going on their lakes. We’re
working extensively with the Riley-Bluff Creek-Purgatory Watershed District and so we’re reaching out
wherever we can. We have a couple lakes like Riley that’s partly in Chan and partly in Eden Prairie.
Been working with them. Working with the folks on Red Rock. Folks on Mitchell so definitely.
Aldritt: That’s great.
Laurie Susla: Okay, well thank you. I’m happy to come back.
Cole Kelly: Thank you Laurie. No other visitor presentations, we’ll move onto the approval of minutes.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Cole Kelly: Do we have any changes to be made? The only change I noted Todd was page 21, fourth
Cole Kelly down. Second sentence started with No, should be Now. And with that.
Carron: I make a motion to approve the Minutes.
Aldritt: Second.
Carron moved, Aldritt seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and
Recreation Commission meeting dated August 28, 2012 as amended by Cole Kelly on page 21. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0.
BANDIMERE PARK BIKE RACK.
Cole Kelly: I think what we’ll do is we’ll start with the bike rack at Bandimere Park that Tom Kelly
brought up earlier.
Tom Kelly: Sure, I want to pass out an email that I received from a neighbor regarding a few incidents
that happened at the, and it’s not, I mean we have a bunch of kids going to an unsupervised area of
Chanhassen. Stuff is going to happen. I mean that’s life but I don’t know if you guys wants to see that
but essentially what has been happening at the park is kids have come back saying that there’s been
smoke that isn’t smelling like tobacco. Not a surprise. There was a, there was it looks like at being a
secluded area, high school kids. There may have been some flirtatious activity going on. Actually it’s a
little more than that because this is recorded. I don’t want to exactly tell what the kid told his mom was
going on but there was stuff going on but the big thing is that this kid’s bike got thrown into the pond by
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
some high school kids and a lot of it is because since there isn’t a bike rack there, some of the kids feel
like they have to hide their bike in the woods and that just leads to, I mean this could be an isolated
incident but I think given how the course is set up, you know you, kids, most kids will ride their bike and
they’ll park it right by the play structures and then they are out of visible contact of their bike for several
holes so I think it might be, I would recommend that we get a bike rack there. At least we have an option
for the kids to put their bikes somewhere and they can lock it up but I know there are trees there but if the
City supplied a bike rack it might just facilitate kids securing their bikes. So I know we’ve talked about
this before but since this incident came up I just wanted to bring it up to the commission’s attention.
Cole Kelly: Questions for Tom. Todd, have we looked into getting bike racks in the past anywhere in the
city?
Hoffman: We have. We have a limited number of them at some community park sites. I think this
would be appropriate for staff to go take a look at alternatives. You need a location that they can secure
or fasten down so I would suggest that we take a look at a temporary situation or solution for this fall and
then more permanent installation for the future so staff will bring that back to you and if we have a
temporary solution before the next meeting we’ll install that…
Tom Kelly: That’d be great, thank you. Other question too, and I know these are probably, the marijuana
smoking is probably an isolated incident but are there, are there law enforcement patrols that, I’ve never
seen it but are there law enforcement patrols that would walk around the course at different times of the
day?
Hoffman: We would have to ask them to do that.
Tom Kelly: It’s not part of their current routine but they are at the skate park. They do show up at the
skate park.
Hoffman: From time to time but again not very often unless there’s been some report of some concerns
and then the officer…
Tom Kelly: Okay. Just something to think about for the future. These could be isolated incidents but I
did want to bring this up to the commission’s attention.
Hoffman: Thank you and we also will review this with Jeff Enevold, our lieutenant and ask him to go
ahead and they can just park and take a walk through the park. Park in the parking lot. Take a walk
through the park and trail system. They don’t have to do it very often and the kids know that hey the cops
were here once.
Tom Kelly: Right, and if they want to grab a couple discs they can get a couple holes in while they’re
doing their patrol so.
Hoffman: There you go.
Tom Kelly: Thank you very much.
Hoffman: Thank you.
ESTABLISH 2012/13 ICE SKATING RINK LOCATIONS.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Johnson: Thank you Chair Kelly and good evening commissioners. I’ve put together a memo here
outlining the staff recommendations for the ice rink locations for this winter of 2012/2013. Our
recommendations are to flood 8 ice rinks total and maintain 4 warming houses. This recommendation is
the same as we had in place last year and I believe as the year before as well so I’ve outlined the different
locations showing the hockey rinks and the pleasure rinks and then the hours as well for the Rec Center,
North Lotus and City Center Park, it’s the same hours. A couple years ago they implemented limited
hours at Roundhouse Park which seemed to work good last year. Staff hasn’t received any comments
from the public via email or telephone, phone calls or voicemail in the last year, since last season you
know showing interest in other locations or additional rinks so that’s staff’s recommendation. On the
bottom there we put the skater counts from last year during supervised hours. Obviously if you remember
we had a very tough winter last year but I included the last couple of years as well so you can kind of see
where the averages are so. But yeah, that’s staff’s recommendation. Be happy to answer any questions if
anybody has any.
Cole Kelly: Questions?
Aldritt: I have a question. I know Roundhouse Park was originally, they were open during the week is
that right? And then recently, was it recently I think this moved to just the weekends?
Johnson: Yeah I believe, maybe Todd or Jerry can, I think it was 2 years ago they implemented the
limited hours so, and that was just you know because of participation numbers and things so.
Aldritt: Sure. I see this last year they had the second highest numbers as far as participation. Is there any
thought or any, I guess we can call it comments…but any sense in opening that back up to weekdays or is
it just not…?
Johnson: You know going back to the last couple years and kind of looking, you know kind of set that
benchmark. Last year was kind of a weird year. You know just how everything worked. We shut down
the hockey rinks early so I think that really hurt the numbers at City Center and the Rec Center and North
Lotus so, I mean it think it just kind of diluted them a little bit but.
Cole Kelly: When did we stop flooding last year? Was that in January?
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Johnson: I wrote it down here. We officially closed them February 16.
Cole Kelly: Okay.
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Johnson: So and opened Christmas Eve, December 24. We’re hoping to open this year, you know
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weather dependent Friday, December 14 is our goal date to have staff trained by and warming houses in
place.
Ryan: And what is the cut off Todd? What was the date that’s the cut off for flooding or does it vary?
There was something in the.
Hoffman: It’s in the second week of January. If we’re not open by that point then we just don’t open at
all.
Ryan: And could that be something, just with the predictions and you never know of course but with the
prediction that it’s going to be another warmer than typical winter, is that something that could be posted
on the website or somewhere that people could be made aware of that that’s our policy.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Hoffman: Sure.
Ryan: Okay, thank you.
Cole Kelly: Any other questions for Mitch? Thank you Mitch.
Johnson: Thank you.
Cole Kelly: Let’s see old business, now would be the time for the updates on Riley Ridge and Pioneer
Pass.
Ruegemer: Do they need to vote on?
Hoffman: Yeah, we should.
Cole Kelly: Oh, do we need to vote on that? Okay. Motion please.
Scharfenberg: Motion to adopt staff’s recommendation for the ice rink schedule for 2012/2013.
Tom Kelly: Second.
Scharfenberg moved, Tom Kelly seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends
that the following ice skating rink locations and hours be maintained for the 2012-2013 season:
Rec Center North Lotus Park City Center Park Roundhouse Park
1 – Pleasure Rink 1 – Pleasure Rink 1 – Pleasure Rink 1 – Pleasure Rink
2 – Hockey Rinks 1 – Hockey Rink 1 – Hockey Rink
Rec Center, North Lotus Park, City Center Park *Roundhouse Park
(limited hours)
Weekdays 4 pm – 9 pm Weekdays Closed
Saturdays 10 am – 9 pm Saturdays 12 pm – 6 pm
Sundays 1 pm – 7 pm Sundays 1 pm – 7 pm
December 24 10 am – 3 pm December 24 10 am – 3 pm
December 25 Closed December 25 Closed
December 26-30 10 am – 9 pm December 26-30 12 pm – 6 pm
December 31 10 am – 4 pm December 31 10 am – 4 pm
January 1 10 am – 9 pm January 1 12 pm – 6 pm
No School Days 10 am – 9 pm
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0.
Cole Kelly: Okay, now we’ll move on to the update on Riley Ridge and Pioneer Pass.
UPDATE ON THE STATUS OF RILEY RIDGE PARK AND PIONEER PASS PARK.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly and members of the commission. We’ll start with the one that we’re
currently working on and that’s Riley Ridge Park located in the Reflections at Lake Riley neighborhood.
It’s just off of Lyman Boulevard. The housing development has progressed very nicely. They’re selling
their second phase in quick fashion and the park is being currently finished grading. We had hoped to
seed it probably in the past, from this day, 2 weeks prior but without any moisture we really can’t seed the
park and hope for germination so we’re going to dormant seed Riley Ridge Park. Prior to dormant
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
seeding that will take place in about the first week of November, we will place the gravel aggregate on the
trails and pave the trails. Gravel the basketball, half court basketball and pave that. And then we have the
play area grubbed out and cleared for the installation of a play structure in the spring so by the time the
snow flies we should have the asphalt on the trail, the basketball. The site seeded and mulched, fertilized
and then ready for spring warm up and water to germinate that dormant seeding. Any other questions on
Riley Ridge before we talk about the other one?
Tom Kelly: When should we start discussions with the neighborhood about the play structure? Would
that be in December, are you thinking before spring?
Hoffman: Yep. First of the year I think so we’ll let the folks get through the holidays and then we’ll start
some initial meetings probably in February. The timing of that is going to be probably mid summer to
late summer. We want to let that grass establish itself so with the germination being pushed off til spring,
if we install a playground there before that turf is established we’re going to have challenges keeping
small feet and large feet out of the turf areas that aren’t established getting to that brand new playground
so, you hate to build a playground and then fence it off for a month so we would just as soon try to
postpone that til mid summer and wait for some turf establishment so we have a little bit more time on
that one. Anything else on Riley Ridge? Moving now to Pioneer Pass Park. There’s been quite a bit of
work since really the stalling out of the progression of the project between the City of Chanhassen and
Ryland. In order to get that process back on track we did have to threaten to draw down on their letter of
credit. I believe about a million and a half. 1.2 or 1.5 million letter of credit they had posted with the
City. When we did that, that gets the attention of their bank which does not want to see that letter of
credit cashed out and paid. Used to pay for these remedies that needed to take place in the park.
Removing the excess clay soils and then placing topsoil. Establishing turf. Temporary turf so Ryland
took that to note. I believe they had a conversation or two with their bank and they moved along very
quickly. For about a 3 week time period last August they completely removed all the excess clay soils off
the site. We had a number of conversations about the slope of the hillside on the south side. That did not
meet the maximum 3.1, 3 to 1 slope so they graded that on two different, they tried once and it still did
not meet our grading plans so they came back a third time and re-graded that. And they also re-seeded,
and put down new restoration blanket on that to restore that hillside so that’s ready to go. There’s black
soil or topsoil on the site from about 3 or 4 different topsoil locations across the southwest metro area so
we do have a 6 inch depth of imported topsoil. It’s not uniform. It’s been brought from a variety of sites.
We did test that and we found one area that was deficient. Less than 6 inches. We notified Ryland and
they did go ahead and correct that site. The parking lot is sub cut. The basketball, half court basketball is
sub cut. Since meeting with the neighborhood during National Night Out we’ve been getting lots of calls
about their enthusiasm over seeing their park developed as well. We wanted to try to seed it this fall so
we could again get that turf established but without having any history with those imported topsoils we
just left the site with Ryland Homes to establish a temporary seed cover so what we want to see is a full
growth of temporary seed cover. A dense, tall growth before we’ll accept it so if those soils won’t grow
grass then they’ll have to do some additional corrective measures in that site so we’ll take a look at it
again in the spring. See if it’s all growing grass in a temporary fashion and then we’ll take over the
permit, the grading permit from Ryland. The City currently owns the property but we’ve not accepted it
because they’ve not delivered it to us in a fashion that was agreed upon in our development contract so
right now it’s growing grass and we can also meet with that group but again we probably won’t be
installing that playground until late summer, early fall next year. The other improvements will be going
in periodically. Parking lot. Half court basketball. We got our first ever request. Jodi and Sue are really
rallying pickleball in our community. Now they want pickleball lines on the basketball court so. The
conversation stalled with the need for a temporary net in a public park setting. I’m not sure that that
temporary net would stay around a basketball court all that long so we said we would, we agreed we
would brainstorm and then I sent him up to the Rec Center which you did go take a look at and he’s very
excited about playing pickleball up there at the Rec Center so. I can’t say there wasn’t some frustration
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
on the Pioneer Pass site. There was. On both parts I think. Ryland and the City of Chanhassen but
through the processes put in place to guarantee that the City did receive a quality product I think that was
arrived at and come next spring I’m quite confident we’ll have a nice green park site that can be
developed into a future neighborhood park and probably one of the nicest sites in the community I
believe. As far as a neighborhood site.
Cole Kelly: Any questions for Todd? Thank you for the update Todd.
Hoffman: You’re welcome.
Cole Kelly: Moving on I think we’ve got the recreation programs.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS.
EVALUATION OF 2012 LAKE ANN PARK CONCESSIONS/BOAT RENTALS.
Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly. Lake Ann was very popular this year with lack of rain. That really
helped out our operation out at Lake Ann Park this year. Revenues were up by 25% from 2011 so we had
a record year on revenues. Boat rentals. Kind of all of the above so we had a fantastic year out there.
Good staff out there. Lots of picnics. That really helped out with the rentals as well. Just some general
comments down there, just again we’ve had two summers now of Slush Puppy problems so the machine
is out of there. We’re going to look for alternative drink opportunities out there to look for that so. We’re
going to look at just some simple things. We’re going to look to purchase a paddleboard out there.
We’ve had lots of requests out there and it seems to be kind of the one new crazes out there for fitness so
we’re going to take a look at that and kind of put that into the watercraft inventory out there. The kayaks
have been popular out there as well. Certainly the paddleboats were the most popular but I think people
like the option of having different you know opportunities out there to use different watercraft. We did
add some healthy snacks this year and we’re going to look to add additional ones for the future for that
out there. We had a brand new hotdog machine that, the first original machine was purchased when the
concession stand opened up in 1993 so that certainly outlived it’s usefulness so we doubled our capacity
with that so now we’re at 36 hotdogs at one time. And I can tell you that was pure heaven out there so,
that’s been great. We’re going to purchase 3 new trolling motor batteries next year. You know we were
kind of at the end of the season we were starting to lose some of the volts in the batteries so we’re going
to turn those over and get brand new ones out there so our customers will experience a good opportunity
out there and have fun on the boats. I looked at potentially investigate using credit cards out there for
boat rentals and that sort of thing so we’re in the process of investigating the I guess the option of that at
this point so I’ve talked to finance a little bit about that. Our IT department a little bit about that so we’re
kind of in the process of kind of figuring out if it’s going to work. If we can have secure situations for
credit cards and that sort of thing. Procedurally out there so, and by far the Gummy Worms were the
most popular candy if anybody’s wondering. So just kind of a breakdown of kind of how everything was
on the back page. The boat rentals, record year for that this year which was great. With the revenue and
the expenditures, the supplies for the different vendors that we purchased you know candy and
refreshments from, that sort of thing. And then just all like kind of the boat rentals kind of day by day.
The food rental prices and then the kind of revenues kind of day by day so it’s kind of all included in the
packet if anybody has any questions.
Cole Kelly: Any questions?
Boettcher: I have just one. On the, you said the display, putting a paddleboard up and stuff to show
people. Where is signage now if someone wants to rent a boat or something? I mean I take my boat out
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Park and Recreation Commission — September 25, 2012
there. I launch it. I see the kayaks and canoes and the paddleboats and stuff but I don't remember ever
seeing, is it on the stand there?
Ruegemer: We do have a sign that's mounted on the rental canoe rack down by the rental dock.
Boettcher: It is down there. Okay.
Ruegemer: We also have it in the kind of the picnic sign enclosure for the hours. We have the hours
down there on that one and then we have boat rentals on the main sign by the canoe racks.
Tom Kelly: I know for the Slush Puppies as an alternative, what we've done with lacrosse tournaments is
used Berry Blends. I know they use that at the middle schools too and those things, they deliver them in a
cooler. They last all day long and they, at least for our tournaments they only charge us for the ones that
we sold and on hot days the kids are sucking these things down so.
Carron: Are they like smoothies?
Tom Kelly. They are. They are in Eden Prairie right by the Eden Prairie Mall but not, they're pretty
close to where McDonald's is by the Eden Prairie Mall but they will deliver in the morning with their
coolers and they will pick up in the evening so I don't know if it's an every day thing but if you see a lot
of traffic on the Weekends and you want some type of a smoothie type of a drink to replace the Slush
Puppies, Berry Blends might be an alternative.
Ruegemer: Okay, great idea. Thank you.
Ryan: In terms of the paddleboards, my suggestion would be to look at purchasing 2 versus 1. I know
it's an expenditure but most people like to paddleboard with somebody as opposed to by themselves so.
Ruegemer: Okay.
Cole Kelly: Jerry, how much of each boat do we have like canoe, kayak, paddleboat?
Ruegemer: We have 6 paddleboats, 3 canoes, 2 fishing boats with electric trolling motors, 2 kayaks, and
then 1 or 2 paddleboard potentially for next year.
Cole Kelly: So do we think by purchasing more trolling motors that we're going to rent out the rowboats
with trolling motors more than we are now?
Ruegemer: Well we're just going to get new batteries.
Cole Kelly: Oh okay.
Ruegemer: Batteries for next year. Yeah, we have 2 to 3 motors that we have that are in kind of
circulation for that so we're good on that.
Cole Kelly: Now as far as the paddleboats, I mean I just looked through some quick numbers and it looks
like the paddleboat we made over $4,000 as opposed to the rowboat $190 and rowboat with motor 500
bucks. Have we thought about adding paddleboats or is it not worth the expenditure?
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Ruegemer: You know it’s, you know new paddleboat’s probably going to be in that, about $3,500 to
$4,000 range for that and you know that certainly is a, would be an investment for the future. Haven’t
really considered that. I just kind of have been kind of keeping what we have at this point.
Hoffman: I would think going above 6 would be almost reaching our.
Ruegemer: More dock space.
Hoffman: Yeah, limited returns.
Cole Kelly: Now I noticed from looking at the website that we quit renting out what, after the third week
of August and I think you put in your notes you’re looking to expand throughout the summer. That
would be til Labor Day? Or I thought I saw somewhere in here where you were thinking of expanding.
Maybe I didn’t see it.
Ruegemer: I think that was the time.
Cole Kelly: Oh okay.
st
Ruegemer: You know August 1 we were, we were in the past switching back to 6:00 for a close time
versus you know for the confusion of the, to save the extra hour versus stay open til 7:00 all the time now
so 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Cole Kelly: Okay.
Ruegemer: You know in the past Chair Kelly we’ve kind of tailed off you know after the second-third
week in August. We used to be open til Labor Day but sales were really slow and a lot of days you’d
hardly make enough money to pay for staff so.
Cole Kelly: Okay, then it makes sense to continue that.
Ruegemer: So we kind of, you know kind of ride the coat tails of the lifeguard contract so when the
lifeguards are done we’ve just been closing down the operation for the year.
Hoffman: As individual families, if you experience the same thing. Beach excitement is really high in
June and peaks in July and then it just drops and as people are heading towards school, that August
timeframe and it really tails off in the second half.
Cole Kelly: We’re not looking for a motion here are we? I didn’t think so. Okay, thank you Jerry.
Ruegemer: Thank you.
2012 HALLOWEEN PARTY REPORT.
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Johnson: Alright, thanks Chair Kelly. Coming up on Saturday, October 27 from 5:30 to 7:30 is the
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fourth of our four community events we offer each year. This is the 28 annual Halloween Party out at
the Chanhassen Rec Center. Similar format to past years. We’re going to offer the carnival games,
hayrides, refreshments, some trick or treating indoors, live entertainment and other things for all ages.
We kind of gear it for ages 2 to 10 but obviously families are welcome and adults, chaperones for their
children. Volunteers are a big part of our success. We’re looking for 30 to 40 volunteers. We’ll start
soliciting local high school groups and athletic teams to kind of get some of those numbers up. Certainly
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
invite the commission if anybody’s available to volunteer, that’d be great. Looking to draw
approximately 500 to 600 attendees. We’ll advertise in the Villager. We’ll start getting on Facebook in
the next week or so and then obviously on the City’s website and Facebook, or City’s website as well.
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It’s been a great event. You know it’s 28 annual event and like I said it’s one of the four cornerstone
community events you offer through the year so looking forward to it. Happy to answer any questions
anybody has. The fee is $5 per child and adults are free so there will be a little bit of revenue to help
offset the costs but the community events sponsors, sponsorship picks up the remainder.
Cole Kelly: Any questions for Mitch? Now Mitch last year my wife and I volunteered and it was a great
time and a great event and so I’m looking forward to it again. Put me down on the volunteer list so my
wife will be on a mission trip so she won’t be able to join me this time.
Johnson: Okay. Mr. Incredible costume?
Cole Kelly: There you go. That’s who I was.
Johnson: I believe I saw photos so I’ll make sure I reserve that one.
Hoffman: We could look that up right now.
Cole Kelly: Thank you Mitch.
Johnson: Yeah, thank you.
SENIOR CENTER REPORT.
Bill: Thank you Commissioner Kelly. As always everything is going wonderful at the Senior Center.
We’ve had many new participants. People that have moved into the area. We had 2 or 3 people tell me
one of the reasons they moved to Chanhassen was because of the activities at the Senior Center and a way
to meet people. Also had another lady who wanted me to express my thanks to the City Council. She is,
she went on and on about how happy she is about the variety of activities. Way to meet people. The
educational opportunities that are available for her. And it was funny, I had someone, one of my friends
ask me what’s the best part of your job. I said the pay of course. No. Maybe Gummy Bears you know
but no, and you know it’s pretty funny because I sit in my office. I always have an eye on all the
activities that are going on and the trips we go on and like I said, within the last month the new people
that have come in and watching the friendships that have developed. It’s just really, really encouraging
and fun to see and people coming back and what they get out of the experience is really, really
worthwhile to me. A couple things I want to touch on. Our technology classes, I continue to do those. I
do about 8 of them a year and the premise of those classes is it’s a one hour just to expose people to all
the technological things that are going on. I had 2 people from the Carver County libraries system come
over and talk about their eBooks and overdrive which is their system for downloading books and I think
we had 20 people really, really interesting. They showed formats for iPads or Tablets or iPhones so that
was really a fun class. I had Rick Rice who is our IT person do one on Tablets. We all know about iPads
but Rick has a lot of gadgets up in his office. I think we probably had 8 or 9 different type of Tables with
different formats and people were really intrigued and answered, Rick answered a lot of questions so that
was really, really a great class so people continue to like that. Got a Pinterest class coming up in the
future so just kind of a dabble of different things and people really enjoy them. Jodi and I, fitness. We’ve
been focusing on fitness. All the fitness activities for older adults are offered at the Rec Center but we’ve
had some wonderful opportunities to kind of expand the senior fitness at the Rec Center. We, line
dancing is back. Line dancing was here about 4-5 years ago. We had a problem with an instructor or the
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
instructor left. We couldn’t find another one. We had an instructor approach us so line dancing will start
next.
Sarles: Friday.
Bill: This Friday. So you can boot and scoot and boogie on over to the Rec Center if you want to, so
that’s been a really nice addition. I did also have a senior instructional tennis clinic this summer. Not the
best turnout and I’ll need to advertise earlier. City Center Park, a local Chanhassen resident got, I forgot
what his title was. Someone from the Minnesota Tennis Association. They love to promote their
program. Held it on the courts at City Center Park and fairly well received. We’ll start earlier to offer
that again next year. We’re also going to have a Hula Hooping for Fun class next week at the Rec Center.
Apparently it’s quite a workout with what, 4 or 5 pound Hula Hoop for an hour and a half so, anyway.
These classes draw different people which is.
Cole Kelly: Steve and I want to show up for that class.
Bill: Which is really good just to kind of diversify our program. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about
the open swim program we have with the AmericInn. Probably for the past 10 years we’ve had a
relationship, working with the AmericInn where they offer us discount punch cards where seniors can buy
them for, I think it’s $2.00 a punch and basically the pool is open anytime the pool at AmericInn is open
so we don’t really have a pool here in Chanhassen but there are a lot of seniors, a lot of them that are
coming out of rehab that want to see that pool so it’s been a really, really nice program and they’ve been
wonderful to work with. While we’re on the subject of fitness, pickleball. Pickleball is a pretty hot topic.
Jodi and I had to give a presentation at the State MRPA conference. Jodi had written a grant and we
educated people on pickleball for all ages. That was really well received so the programs are really
growing. We do have some plans to expand pickleball. We’ve got a, we’re going to do some youth
pickleball. We’re going to try to do an inner-generational pickleball so it’s really a sport that is adaptable
to people of all ages. And that’s about it. Busy, busy times at the Senior Center. All of our
programming is full. I’ve got an Oktoberfest party next week. I’ve got a waiting list of 28 people. That’s
even without, we’re having rootbeer and brats so, anyway so I’m just really happy how well received the
programs are so a lot of good things happening downstairs here at the senior center.
Cole Kelly: Questions for Sue.
Hoffman: Her full newsletter is included and this is produced in-house. Right upstairs.
Cole Kelly: Sue, I read through the Senior Connection. It looks like you’ve got a lot of wonderful
programs so I’m wondering how old do I have to be to participate in some of those.
Bill: You maybe qualify, I don’t know. I don’t think we want that public do we? Our age is 55 and
better but for some programs you know we have taken people that are 50.
Hoffman: Under 50 we’ll take, yeah.
Bill: Yeah.
Cole Kelly: Well under 50, thank you for saying that. I’ll go from there. Thank you very much.
Bill: Yeah, the nice thing, excuse me one minute. The nice thing about a lot of the new people that are
participating is they’re younger older adults. They’re in that later 60’s age range and that will really help
sustain us you know future years so.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Cole Kelly: Thank you very much Sue.
Tom Kelly: Can I ask one quick question about pickleball? Is there any talk about converting of the
existing tennis courts other than the ones at the Rec Center into pickleball courts if the demand for
pickleball is increasing and the demand for tennis is stagnant?
Sarles: Didn’t find out the information, we were at our meeting last week. There was another
presentation by the Minnesota Pickleball Group but they said that you can use the youth tennis lines so
we could go to any other park and bring our portable set there if we had some interest somewhere else or
if they wanted to run say a day camp or something like that.
Tom Kelly: Okay. Thanks.
Hoffman: Commissioner Kelly, to permanently take out tennis courts and make them pickleball would be
one of those controversial recommendations that a commissioner as yourself would start and make a
recommendation and then we would take it from there.
Tom Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: Do they play sideways then on those or over the net? On a youth.
Sarles You can lower the net I think or you can use it the other way. Depends on what you’ve got but I
think you just lower the net and basically just take a bungee cord…
Hoffman: On the tennis net?
Sarles: I think it’s got to be about 2, 2 or 2 1/2 inches lower so.
Hoffman: It’s not the same length. It is catching on. Pickleball is gaining in popularity. We have so few
tennis courts currently that we have good demand on all of our sites. We don’t really have a location that
is not being well utilized as either a tennis court or some of them have basketball courts on them as well
so it would be a challenge to find a court that we would take out. The Rec Center was a perfect situation
where 2 tennis courts that really were not being utilized because of maintenance issues but they could be
downsized and played, set up as pickleball so.
Cole Kelly: Thank you. Moving on, the next is Dale for the park and trail maintenance report.
PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT.
Gregory: Thank you. Well this year proved to be a really busy year for my park maintenance staff. We
had a lot of projects going on. We got involved in the disc golf course. We went out and rented a Brush
Hog that we could put onto one of our Bobcats and that and proceeded to cut all of our trails through, or
fairways through the woods and it really made our life a lot easier and instead of going in there and trying
to trim all, it worked really good. We chewed the trees up. We, it all came out in woodchips and it just
worked great so. Tennis courts, we did 4 tennis courts this year. Traditionally what we would do is we’d
patch cracks in them and that and either overlay them or have them come in and just do the surfacing on
them. Seems like we always ended up with a couple of years we’d have cracks back again and kind of the
same old thing so this year we’re trying something new. Two of the tennis courts we completely overlaid
and that but we put a fabric underneath that before we overlaid it. It’s called Petromat. They completely
oil the whole court and then they lay this. It’s just like a fabric that goes underneath your woodchips and
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
stuff and that and they put that down and then they blacktop over the top of that. And then we did 2
courts that way and we did 2 courts where we just milled out all of the cracks and then they’ve got
another product that’s call Petrotech and that. That’s a little thicker product and that but it’s about a foot,
18 inches wide and they just put it in the crack or where they mill out the cracks and that and then they
just blacktop over that and they said they’ve been having real good luck with eliminating cracking on
tennis courts and so we wanted to do 2 courts each direction and that so it will give us a chance to see
what actually happens with this and we’re hoping and that that it will work out and that and.
Scharfenberg: Do they have a guarantee Dale in terms of you know what they say they’ve seen?
Gregory: No, they don’t have a guarantee. They did have places we could look at and from other people
that I’ve talked to they said they’ve had really luck with it so far and like I say I think the best option is
the Petromat where you’re overlaying the whole thing. It just seems like you’ve got that fabric in there
and your cracks from below do not transfer up to the new blacktop so hopefully it will work out and we’ll
see once and that. It will give us something to go by anyway. Todd kind of covered the Riley Ridge
Park. The guys have been working down there quite a bit. My heavy equipment operator’s been down
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there since August 4 kind of moving dirt around. Really surprised when we started moving dirt down
there, we found more black dirt than I’ve ever seen on a park. I mean it just unbelievable. I mean we got
a lot of black dirt so we should have no problem growing grass or anything down there. Jim, my heavy
equipment operator, he’s sick the last 2 days and that so we’re, he was going to be in, we’ve got the trail
all cut in and that but we just have to pack it and start adding the limestone. We’re all ready for that so
hopefully, hopefully he’s here tomorrow and that and by the weekend we should have the limestone in
and we should be getting ready for blacktopping. I’ve been in contact with the Flehaul Brothers that’s
going to be doing our blacktopping there so I’ve been in contact with them. They were actually putting
much put us on our schedule maybe for a week into next week sometime and so hopefully that should be
done before too long. Herman Field basketball court is ready for blacktopping. I talked to them today
about that so they put it on the schedule. They should be out there the beginning of next week and
blacktop that one. We do not have the basketball pole yet. I was told that it should be here by the middle
of October at the latest so as soon as it does get here and that we will be installing that and have that
finished for this year yet. The other big project we kind of worked with was the skate park. Getting that
blacktopped and everything there. We, the maintenance crew worked at getting a couple of the big ramps
out of there which was kind of interesting and getting them back in without leaving any marks in the
blacktop out there. Surprisingly, I mean well it opened up and everything now and I stopped up there
tonight before I came and watched for about 10-15 minutes and there was about 30 kids out there and
they are all ages from little kids with scooters to older kids with skateboards, I mean you name it and
everybody just seems to work or play and not get in anybody else’s way and they just really, I’m
surprised. It really goes nice out there. I watched for quite a while on the grinding rails around the
outside, the new ones put in and that and I haven’t seen a person yet that’s kind of mastered that. Have
seen quite a few falls tonight but they haven’t mastered the grinding rails around the outside yet so.
We’ve been working on trails. We did one of our mowing in August and that and I just had started again
this Monday and we’re going around now, we’re actually doing two passes on all of our trails with the
flail mower so we’re pushing it back for wintertime and getting everything ready to keep the snow, so the
snow doesn’t build up on it and that so, that will probably, he’ll probably be out there for about 7 mowing
days and then we’ll have all the trails mowed. And I think we pretty much got all of our blacktopping
done. We might have one spot yet to do, patching. The street department has been patching all of our
trails when we find issues with them and that so they’ve been working with us and helping us take care of
that. And like I say I think we’ve got one more patch to do yet and then all of those should be done for
the year. Seasonals. We’re pretty much done with all of them except for my senior seasonals and that.
The retired fellows. They’ll be around for 2 to 3 more weeks. They’re only coming in now mowing
whenever we need them to do ballfields. Soccer fields. Anything we’ve got irrigated. The rest of the
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
stuff is pretty much all shut down right now with mowing so they’re only in a day or two a week. That’s
everything I’ve pretty much got.
Cole Kelly: Questions for Dale. Dale, I get out and ride the trail system quite a bit and I report into Todd
every time I see a place that needs some patching or we get a sink hole and you guys have been out there
taking care of it very nicely. I’m very impressed how it’s getting done, and also I love the new little
ramps you put on the bridge over on the marsh by the high school. It makes a huge difference.
Gregory: We’ve got to do that down at Lake Susan.
Cole Kelly: I’ve been waiting for that.
Gregory: That’s on, that’s one of the things on the schedule and they did not get to it and that so they are
still going to be doing that yet.
Cole Kelly: Thanks for everything that you do Dale.
Gregory: Thank you.
Hoffman: Chair Kelly, just to follow up. Dale has really taken on a role and more and more each year of
project management and it’s something that we share that responsibility but when development picks up
then I have to, I’ll ask Dale to do more project management so that leaves him with a park foreman, heavy
equipment operator and then 4 laborers to get all this work done so one day I can guarantee you as they
go to bed tired and they wake up hungry for breakfast and when they get to work there’s plenty of work to
be done so just keep the list coming and we’ll try to keep them on task and they do a great job for the
community.
Cole Kelly: Thank you Todd. Jodi, I think we’re up for the Recreation Center report.
RECREATION CENTER REPORT.
Sarles: Thank you Chair Kelly. Well greetings from the Rec Center. We had a busy night. One of the
commissioners was out earlier with her soccer team, the Cheetahs so you can see pictures on Facebook of
them learning their skills and running around the fields out there. Since I’ve seen you last facility
updates. We were under a little bit of a shutdown, about 2 1/2 weeks end of August into September. At
that time the school comes through. They deep clean the facility. They take down the floor and they
resurface it. They took out my pickleball lines but then they do the studio as well. They replaced a whole
bunch of tiles in there so they ended up having to special order tiles because they had run out of the, the
initial tile they were using from, what is it ’95 so they don’t quite match but they tried to design them a
little bit there but they did all the deep cleaning. It looks great. We’re back up and running and it’s great
to see all the folks back in and the kids back into the school so it’s nice there. Today though Chuck and I
did get, one of my facility supervisors, completed our second indoor pickleball court so they can play
inside now again if they need, if the weathers not nice enough so. The next update I, you know this one is
still very hard for me but it’s with sadness that we did lose one of our facility supervisors, Steve
Simmons. He passed away in a boating accident, or after a boating accident in Rhode Island so our
sympathies go out to his wife and family. He’s been at the Rec Center close to 15 years I think so he’s a
great man. He works with Jerry who would help him with all his leagues. He ran the, you know he was
the hands on guy out there running the basketball leagues. He played senior softball and that was his
primary job so a great man and he is well missed and I can’t, you know so many people have come up
and asked me where’s Steve? Where’s Steve so it’s kind of a reminder every day that we are missing him
so. Onto better things. Some program information. We had our Barnyard Boogie. That’s a co-
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
sponsored project with Chaska and Chanhassen. We do a petting zoo out there. A bouncer. A dance.
We’ve got snacks and crafts. We had about 250 residents between the area here. We had lamas, bunnies,
furry footed chickens, goats, mini horses, ducks. Anything. You name it we had it out there and the kids
were having a ball. Those bunnies were about this big and the kids were just trying to chase these big fat
bunnies around their pen and the bunnies weren’t sitting still for too long so. Another big program of
our’s, Dance for Fun kicked off the 2012/2013 season. We’ve got 26 classes running. All sorts of
different styles. Everything from 3 to adult. We have 195 dancers participating. We hired 2 new
instructors and we have 2 returning instructors and then all sorts of assistants that help out with the
program so we’re very excited. Our dance coordinator, she wanted to downsize some of her class load
and so we did hire on the additional staff and they are great. Both of them have, I think a minimum of 3
years of teaching but more choreography. Some have done some choreographies for some major shows
downtown, or in Minneapolis so it’s nice to have those resources on staff now too. Onto Rec Center
Sports. Mitch and I are happy with the fall and the way everything’s going out there. We run the Small
Fry Sports program. We’re on the second week of football for 3 and 4 year olds so those little guys and
girls are running around tackling, this week was tackling so they tackle some of these Tae Kwon Do bags
that we have at the Rec Center and parents just go nuts. The dads out there today were all standing, or
sitting in the bleachers watching this and you know they saw the instructors go out and get these tackling
dummies and you know quick, grab their phones and taking video. You know that’s my boy so it’s great.
It’s a fun program. We’ve got, so we added the Monday night session which has been a huge hit so
we’ve got 14 kids on Monday nights. Tuesday mornings we still have 8 in that one so that’s one of those
things as we go forward we’re trying to find ways to add more evening times. It’s just, if I could just
expand my gym for 2 hours a day, every day we’d be fine so. Preschool Sports or the Little Stars. The
soccer’s in session. We have 2 nights that they play and there’s 127 kids between the 2 nights. I think we
have about a minimum of 2 coaches for every team so it’s great. The volunteers are wonderful. I was out
taking photos tonight. It was picture night so all the teams were well represented. The Cheetahs or the
Chan Zoo or whatever they’re up on the website now so you’ll have to go home and check out their goofy
photos. They do serious photo and then they get to do a goofy photo too so. Then After School Sports,
we do tennis lessons are Tuesday evenings and on, so we have 8 of them that showed up tonight and were
playing. And then flag football with Coach Mitch, we’ve got 28 that are out there on Wednesdays so
we’ve got a great staff. A lot of fun people. A mix of guys and girls that are out there playing with the
kids and helping them build some skills. Currently we have some art on display at the Rec Center. It was
a group, 2 artists that came to me. They’re trying to raise money. They’re doing some fundraising for a
group in Africa and they’re called the Northrise Arts Educational Foundation so if you’re in and there’s
some neat paintings. Some paintings of bicycles. Some random paintings. Some different lithographs
and things like that so it’s a neat, neat display and a lot of comments about that. Hopefully they’re raising
some money for their cause so. They even have the little you know iPhones things where you can click
on it and get more information on the picture so it’s kind of neat. We are now still accepting submissions
for the Chanhassen photo contest so if you guys have anything to submit or know or have neighbors that
have been taking pictures throughout the seasons, we try to get all of our photos for the Chanhassen
Connection covers through this process so we try, all the photos have to have some sort of recreation or
people in them and I think there’s some great ones you should see coming up but the Feb Fest one was the
grand prize winner for this past year and it’s a great picture so, smiling kids. Bright sunny day and big
sunglasses so that was a fun one. And then a couple upcoming events and I’ll wrap it up here. We’ve got
the Kids to Kids Garage Sale. With the two school districts it’s always hard to find a day that works for
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both so we are going with MEA this year so October 18 from 9:00 to noon the kids, basically 5 to 18,
anybody can participate. Sell things. I think tables are like $9 or something like that. We’ll do the
advertising and they can bring in toys and folks can come in and do some shopping at the Rec Center.
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And then finally our 2012 Artisan Fair. That’s going to be on November 3 from 10:00 to 2:00. Last
year I think we had 33 artists. This year we have expanded and moved to the gym so if we get more we’ll
be able to utilize that space as well so we had well over 500 visitors last year so it was a successful fair
for our vendors. But that is the news from the Rec Center.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Cole Kelly: Anybody have questions for Jodi? Jodi, I think I can speak for the whole park and rec
commission when we send our sympathies out to Steve Simmon’s family and thank you for all the great
work that you do.
Sarles: Thank you.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Hoffman: There’s a letter there to the County. Mr. Martin Walsh about the LRT trail that leads from
Chanhassen into Chaska on our southern border… Dale Rusch, our local bluebird expert, or one of them,
there are a couple…
Cole Kelly: Questions for Todd. Todd, is the County going to be paving that?
Hoffman: They will.
Cole Kelly: And that starts right at, is that where it starts Bluff Creek Road?
Hoffman: They will pave it starting from Chaska heading east towards Chan and the pavement will stop
once it reaches the top of the railroad grade at the hill there. So once they come up off of Highway 61
then the pavement will stop at that point.
Cole Kelly: Thank you. I think that’s it for the administrative packet and I guess we did have a
commission member presentations. I apologize. Jim and Brent went to a seminar and I think they’re here
to report on the seminar.
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Boettcher: Yeah, it was on Wednesday, September 5, 3 weeks ago and it was kind of an environmental
conservation thing. They had a guy that was an environmental architect and part of the tour was that we
went to a couple of subdivisions. One in Wayzata and one in Medina and what it showed, I just had
enough here for the commission members but this little handout that says, Having It All. This is actually
a subdivision or an area that this architect had designed and if you look at it, on the inside you see the
cover of it but you see the layout on the third page and it has all the lots laid out. You look at the total
size of this thing, I’m sorry I didn’t have enough for you guys.
Hoffman: That’s okay.
Boettcher: If you look at the way it’s laid out, you’ve got like one third acre lots where originally they
were going to set it up with 1 to 1 1/2 acre lots for each house but what they did by making the lots
smaller, you can see how much of the existing stuff was saved. The forest. The wetlands. Things like
that so it’s interesting when they go in to a development like this and they look at it and how they’re able
to preserve a lot of the stuff that’s there. The natural, you know the woods. The streams and things. The
two neighborhoods that we went to, the first one is this handout. It says Locust Hills in Wayzata. It’s
kind of on the Wayzata/Minnetonka border area. And this was a real nice, I think the homes were $1.4
million I believe was about the average.
Carron: The package, the package just for the lot and the dock and the dock is on Grays Bay was $1.4
million without the house.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Boettcher: Right. So it’s kind of a, I don’t think any of us will be buying there any time soon.
Carron: They’re still selling lots if that says anything.
Boettcher: There are still some open if you want to go but this one you can see the same thing. If you
look at the layout, he did a better presentation in his slide show where you could actually see, this was the
way it was going to be originally and this is the way we set it up so if you look in your packet here on the
second page, and you see the red line there. The red is actually a trail. I think it’s 9.3 miles total of trails
I believe that they were able to add that in. One of the things that the perspective home buyers had a
problem with was the fact that every home lot has got the trail at the back of it so if you’ve got a beautiful
back yard and there’s this trail back there. The nice thing, it’s a private trail so it’s only residents that
actually can use it so you don’t have the public coming in and walking it but we went out and we looked
at it. We had a, the real estate banker that was there. Very knowledgeable. They talk about going in.
They save all these natural plants and stuff that are already there so to look at the way the thing was laid
out, like I said I’ll never live there but it was really interesting to see how it was laid out. How they were
able to preserve so much stuff. The second place we went was your last handout. Wild Meadows, which
is up in Medina. Up on 101 and this is one that’s all, it’s everything is pretty much completed. It’s a big
area. You can see on the front page there’s a lot of different streets, the layout but if you look at all the
natural area that was preserved in the dark green there. All the woods. You see the dotted lines. You see
trails going through everywhere and connecting to all the different sections of the neighborhood so again
what was really interesting was just the way that they were able to lay it out. Instead of giving everybody
2 acres of land, you know a lot of people want to move out to, out of the cities and get an area where they
have some property and instead of really doing that they cut down on the size of the lots and they were
able to save everything so you have all the common areas. You’ve got the trails. You’ve got the
playgrounds. You have things. The little lakes, little ponds and stuff that everyone can use. You want to
add to that Brent?
Carron: Yeah, I guess I’ll just touch a little bit more with what Jim was saying on the Locust Hills area.
They also are looking at cost is a huge thing so, obviously when you’re going out and you’re buying a 2
acre lot you get more bang for your buck so as a developer I think the question was brought up why
would a developer want to do this? In the Locust Hills the developer had 28 lots that he could have had
sold at 2 acres on Grays Bay to have 28 single family homes and what they did is, they went down to
third acre lots and had 44 homes or lots built there so you can, you have more houses and more lots that
you can build as a developer and get your money back that way but the big drive here and the reason why
the, was it Planning Commission from Wayzata I think was there and the reason why Wayzata went with
this, especially on this lot. This is the last piece of undeveloped property on all of Lake Minnetonka and
they wanted it as a kind of a centerpiece or kind of like a, kind of a showy deal where they can do this and
it’s something different to add to their city and to their book of things that they have there in Wayzata.
Pretty neat. Pretty expensive and the other big thing too is, that they had to take into consideration is with
this conservation design, a lot of saving of native plants and also a lot of plantings that go on. A lot of
grasses and that sort of thing to make it look basically pristine and they want to keep it really natural.
There’s a big push right now with stormwater prevention, with rain gardens and treatments and those
sorts of things so that’s what they’re kind of driving for. On the flip side of that they have a little bit
higher association dues because every single year you get the native species that are actually invasive
species that they call it because it’s like you know trees growing up or just common weeds or thistle or
buckthorn that they have to go in and clean it out so about $14,000 a year gets spent on just cleaning that
stuff out. Hiring a company and re-planting new plants to keep it looking really nice. But pretty
impressive areas. Kind of spendy but it was good for I guess a lot of planning commission people were
there. A lot of people from Greenwood, Wayzata.
Boettcher: Victoria.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2012
Carron: Victoria, yeah so it was an interesting, it was an interesting presentation.
Cole Kelly: Thank you very much. I think with that there are no other presentations. I’m looking for a
motion to adjourn.
Boettcher moved, Carron seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was
adjourned.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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