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PRC 2013 03 26 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MARCH 26, 2013 Chairman Cole Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Cole Kelly, Elise Ryan, Brent Carron, Peter Aldritt, and Jim Boettcher MEMBERS ABSENT: Steve Scharfenberg, and Tom Kelly STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Mitch Johnson, Recreation Supervisor; Dale Gregory; Park Superintendent; Jodi Sarles, Rec Center Manager; Susan Bill, Senior Center Coordinator; and Jill Sinclair, Environmental Resource Specialist PUBLIC PRESENT: Joe Shneider 1035 Holly Lane John Colford 7470 Chanhassen Road Dennis Mills 9510 Foxford Road Ron Kleve 7307 Laredo Drive Pam & Tom Devine 7640 South Shore Drive Marc & JoAnn Syverson 489 Pleasant View Road Larry Koch 471 Bighorn Drive Greg Fletcher 7616 South Shore Drive Val & Bob Flynn 40 Hill Street Denise & Scott Smith 30 Hill Street Sharon McCotter 7000 Utica Lane Carl B. Fitzsimmons 7480 Chanhassen Road Anna & Pat Fitzsimmons 7400 Chanhassen Road Bill Kirkvold 201 Frontier Court Laurie Susla 7008 Dakota Avenue Carroll Aasen 112250 Eitel Circle, Chaska Mike Domke 9361 Kiowa Trail APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Cole Kelly: Does anybody have anything to add to the agenda tonight? I am going to add a number 8. We have a list of discussion items when we meet next month with the City Council so that will be the eighth item on our agenda. Ryan: Tenth. Cole Kelly: Okay, any other? Ryan: Coke, 8 is Park and Trail Maintenance on the back side. Cole Kelly: Oh, I’m sorry. Make it 10. Thank you Elise. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Cole Kelly: Any public announcements? Todd? th Hoffman: The City will celebrate it’s 30 Annual Easter Egg Candy Hunt this Saturday morning at City Center Park. It’ll be located behind City Hall next to the Chan Elementary. 9:00 that morning. $5 per th child and you can register that day and 12 and under right? Children 12 and under. So 30 Annual. Big tradition here in Chanhassen and obviously we’ll be on the snow but we promise above freezing temperatures. Cole Kelly: Thank you Todd. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. Joe Shneider: So thank you for letting me speak tonight. I’m Joe Shneider. I’m a Christmas Lake Homeowners Association member. The Coalition for Minnehaha Creek Waters Chair and an executive on Minnesota COLA. The superset of COLA’s around the state. Hoffman: Joe, excuse me a second. Could we clarify if there are visitor presentations other than items number 4. We should take conversation on item number 4 at that time. Cole Kelly: At that time, okay so. Joe Shneider: Well remember who I am and I’ll come back. Cole Kelly: Joe, okay we’ll have you come back at item number 4. Hoffman: If there’s visitor presentations other than anything on the agenda on a different topic then we would be willing to take those now. Cole Kelly: Any other visitor presentations other than the AIS at this time? Okay we’ll move on to approval of the minutes. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Cole Kelly: I’ve got a couple changes. Page 8 where it says at least being on the Board, it should be Elise being on the Board got to go out so. And then also on page 20, it should be on my last statement it should say it was down to the half second instead of second half. Hoffman: Big difference. Cole Kelly: That’s a big difference. Any other changes? Carron moved, Boettcher seconded to approve the summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated February 26, 2013 as presented and the verbatim Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated February 26, 2013 as amended by Cole Kelly on pages 8 and 20. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. EMERALD ASH BORER PRESENTATION – ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE SPECIALIST. Hoffman: Chairman Kelly, members of the commission, this evening I’d like to introduce Jill Sinclair. Jill is here with us this evening to talk about Emerald ash borer and it’s effect on Chanhassen parks. Jill serves as our Environmental Resource Specialist with the City of Chanhassen and she’s also our de facto 2 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Forester and deals a lot with trees so we welcome Jill to the Park and Recreation Commission and look forward to her presentation. Cole Kelly: Thank you Jill. Sinclair: Thanks. Thanks Todd for putting me on the agenda tonight and thanks to the commission for having me and tonight we’re just going to have like kind of a brief overview of this invasive insect that’s on it’s way here and what potential impact it may have for our parks here in Chanhassen. Just so that everybody has basic information about it, the Emerald ash borer is an invasive species. Invasive insect that is from Asia and it attacks only ash trees and within the ash species it attacks every type. Black, green, white. Most of our trees in town are Green Ash but it doesn’t differentiate between those two. It will go after all three species equally and so it’s life cycle is that it will come and lay eggs on the bark of an ash tree. Those eggs hatch. The larva burrow into the ash tree to this first layer under the bark called the phloem. That’s a vascular tissue that’s basically straws that carry water and minerals up to the top of the tree. The larva eat through that phloem and so it’s either you know severing those straws or puncturing them so that there’s no more suction that can get up to the top of the tree. The tree ends up dying from the top down and eventually is gurgled by all the larvae within the tree. Here last I don’t know spring or so I was in Minneapolis at one of the parks there that have Emerald ash borer. They were cutting down trees already. We were able to strip the bark off and see some of the borer larva markings underneath the bark. That doesn’t look like a big deal but eventually the trees end up looking like this where the entire trunk of the tree is gurgled by those little larvae galleries. And in the top right corner you can kind of see the effects of having all the larva under the trunk. The tree is dying from the top down. Kind of making a last ditch effort to live by sending out sprouts along the trunk and often times it will come out from the base as well. These are the signs that we will be looking for for Emerald ash borer. We do already. You know as I drive around during the winter and the summer I kind of have my eyes open. We’ve had a few trees that looked suspicious in the past but nothing has ever been confirmed. We haven’t received any bugs at City Hall and plenty of people bring them in for identification and you know as far as we know there’s, as far as we know there’s nothing in Chanhassen yet so right now the most telling sign of the Emerald ash borer on trees in Minneapolis and St. Paul is the woodpecker activity. They, the woodpeckers go crazy on these trees. They end up tearing off the park and that mottled bark is kind of a clear indicator that there are plenty of larvae underneath that bark. A lot of times you can also get the bark splitting and these exit holes are always D shaped. That is after the larva has gone through it’s metamorphoses and turned into an adult and it’s exiting the trees. The stump sprouts in the lower left hand corner, those are a symptom of having ash borer and a lot of times, like I said earlier along with sprouts along the trunk, there’s epicormic sprouting at the base of the tree as well. So you know why is this a big deal? Well ash trees, like all trees, provide a lot of benefits to our city and our parks. Here’s a street in St. Paul. This is a before and after last fall or the year before. Quite a difference in the neighborhood with and without a boulevard lined with ash trees. You know these trees not only shade our streets and our playgrounds. They help defer stormwater that hits the ground. They clean our air. They increase home values. There are now studies out that correlate trees with a lot of tree cover equals healthy baby weights at birth. Significant tree loss due to Emerald ash borer kind of losses have an uptick in cardiovascular and respiratory disease deaths so there’s a lot of connections between having a quality life and having healthy trees around. So you know what kind of impacts are we seeing out east in areas that already have the insect? Well lots of public safety issues. These trees are not like average dead trees. Because of the way they die I think and because of the type of species the tree is, they tend to get extremely brittle extremely quick. You know you have seen dead trees standing throughout town. Oaks and elms and things like that and they can stand for a number of years. They’re finding that these dead ash trees that die as a result of Emerald ash borer are shedding limbs on a clear blue day with no wind. There are you know cities in Ohio and Indiana and Michigan are all getting all sorts of claims for damaged vehicles and houses. So far you know no human injuries but enough where people’s lives are severely impacted by these trees. They can’t park on the street. They can’t park in their driveway. You 3 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 know things like that so it’s a major ordeal. And then there’s the economics. You know if you lose all the trees in your yard. If the city has to spend hours of their street crew time out there removing trees. Treating trees. Clearing trees. Grinding stumps, things like that. It has a big impact on city budgets. And then the environmental. If you have a street that was totally canopy covered, now it has no coverage. You know you’re going to have a heat increase in the neighborhood. You may have water increase. You’re going to have increased stormwater runoff. They all kind of add up to making a major impact. And then there is political impact as far as you know cities out east they, you know a city may decide we’re going to treat trees in a certain neighborhood. Well that’s fine and then the other neighborhood that doesn’t get treated loses all their trees so there’s heat taken at City Hall for those decisions that are made. How did it get here? Well it got to Minnesota probably in firewood. That’s what they’re finding is that after the initial discovery of it in Detroit, it probably spread to a lot of other places between people camping and taking firewood with them that are infected. Tree care companies you know locating wood st to other cities. Things like that. Right now as of March 1 these are all the counties in the United States that have infestations of Emerald ash borer. It started in Detroit with shipping materials from Asia. The Emerald ash borer was there. By the time Detroit identified it, it had been you know in that area for a number of years and so they started right behind the 8 ball right from the start so lucky for us, you know we’ve had a lot of other cities go through this and we can kind of glean the information from them of what works and what doesn’t and there’s plenty that doesn’t work and luckily a few people have had a good success. And when these cities do have successful management plans they incorporate these 5 aspects. Education. Everybody tries you know to get the city officials, decision makers, the residents all educated on what the disease or what the insect does. Methods of you know what trees to save. Why to save them and then how to save them. They also do a survey. We have done a survey, an inventory of all the park trees in developed areas so we do have that information. Our next step is to educate the park crews on detection to make sure that they’re always aware of what’s going on out there and can catch it if, when it happens. And then using that inventory data to assess and analyze what we have out in the parks. What’s worth saving. What’s not worth saving and where we want to put our time and money. Using all that information to again make that management plan and make the right decisions at the right time, and then also incorporating treatments. Chemical treatments are effective and should be used is what they’re finding. When you save a large, mature tree, the amount of money that it takes to do a chemical treatment on that tree is far less than the value that tree has on the environment and on our city utilities. So when you think of any of these things it’s always good to keep in mind that it is going to cost money to deal with this any which way we choose. You know when you are talking about hundreds, perhaps thousands of dead trees, whether you cut them down or whether you treat them it’s going to cost us money and the key to having a successful plan is to find that balance between minimizing the cost it takes to deal with these things and maximizing the value that we have right now in our trees and public parks. So here we are. You can go on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture site at any time and put in your address and see how close the nearest confirmed infested tree is. Right now the closest tree to us is at Lakewood Cemetery near Lake Harriett. If you measure as the crow flies we are 12.61 miles from there. The Department of Agriculture’s recommendations are you can start treatment on ash trees when it is within, when you have an infested tree within a 15 mile radius. Well we have now broken that radius. Before this time it was far enough away where treatments were not recommended simply because, because it wasn’t within a certain distance. It was basically putting chemicals into the ground and into our trees that weren’t really preventing anything. It’s best to do it when the pressure is starting rather than too far ahead of time when you don’t have any clear pressure yet. So we think you know, knowing, not knowing that there’s anything confirmed nearby that we are still in this really early onset stage between year zero and year one. Usually you know when an infested tree is found we’ll probably jump all the way to two. Because those symptoms are so subtle sometimes it takes a while for the population of larvae to build up to create symptoms that are obvious enough for our visual detection. So once a tree is confirmed to be infested, you generally have about 4-5 years within a city before you start seeing rapid growth of dead trees. And then once that growth starts it is a very short time before that growth becomes expediential. Not just rapid but expediential. As time goes on, so your options decline. Right now we have, we could 4 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 write a hundred different management plans. We have all the options available to us because we have no pressure to make any decisions at this point. As time goes on and we have more trees dying our options decline so when we get about a 30 percent mortality, and that’s kind of throughout the city, that’s when you know it’s either that tree is going to die and we’re going to have to remove it, or it’s already been treated. There’s not a whole lot of finesse at that point so the fact that we have time and that we have information makes me think that we will come up with a good management plan. We will do the best options and we won’t be caught with 100% mortality in 15 years. And the other thing to notice about these is after you get that first infestation, it truly is about 15 years where every single tree, every single ash tree will either be dead or alive because it’s being chemically treated. So what are the options? Well you know there is always the option to do nothing. Cities that have been through this have found that while this seems like the cheapest option in the beginning, it quickly, quickly, quickly gets out of control and you end up spending much, much more on management in the end. Another option is to do pre- emptive removals. We have kind of started that. We’ve started that on our streets programs. People who have boulevard trees that are ash and want them removed, we have gone in and removed those and replanted those if the homeowner would like that. This is good when it’s kind of structured. Some cities have gone in and done a complete pre-emptive removal. That is not such a good plan. There’s also structured removals is which I had talked about where you go in and remove a little bit at a time and replace them as needed. This is okay in the early years when the tree deaths are still at a manageable amount but once you get into that expediential death curve you cannot sustain that plan. And finally there are chemical treatments. I know early on when Emerald ash borer first hit there were a lot of rumors and misinformation about what the chemical treatments were and if they were viable. They have done a lot of research with how much to apply. When to apply it. What size trees to apply it to and at this point you know chemical treatments can give about a 99 to 100 percent protection done the right way so you know if we decide that there are trees that we want to protect, we can definitely do so. The thing to keep in mind with chemical treatments is, you know our focus will be on protecting healthy trees and then understanding that this will be an ongoing commitment. You know Emerald ash borer is here to stay. Once it gets here, the pressure will be less because the population will eventually drop but for a number of years it’s a commitment that if you want to keep this tree you have to keep treating it. So a few examples on the removal side. Algonquin, Illinois, again you know we’re kind of in this do nothing mindset so in 2008 they had 44 ash trees die from Emerald ash borer. Not a big deal. Totally doable with street crews and park crews. 2009 they had another 116. The next year it was 739. Do you think their crews could get to that many? Possibly not so then they have standing dead trees following into the next year when they had 1,200 more trees die and then the year after that it’s over 1,200 so again it quickly gets out of control. I’ve heard from a lot of city foresters from cities out east and that’s what the bottom, the overall message is, you have to, it really helps to have a plan to start with. You don’t want to get behind this because once they start dying you cannot keep up within a couple of years. Even if you have a good crew of street and parks crews. So a Westland, Michigan took a different attack on this. They did the pre- emptive removal so they did an inventory. They found they had 3,000 ash trees in town. They went out and they chopped down every single one of those ash trees, which solved their problem with you know we’re not going to have any standing dead trees in town. The problem with that is, the following summer water consumption throughout the city rose over 30% which is a very large amount and their district issued them a 10% surcharge on every resident in the city. So that had some major effects. The other effect it had was that you know over time, cities are built and they have kind of a standard canopy coverage in the town. Say it’s 20% or something. As things are built and stormwater pipes are put it, it’s measuring the amount of rainfall considering it has a 20% canopy coverage in that city. When that canopy coverage is significantly changed, those water rates go way up and so the stormwater that used to be handled by those pipes may or may not be handled by the increased stormwater that is now coming down through those pipes. So again going back to the chemical treatments. This is the other option. A lot of cities are maybe not necessarily using the chemical treatments to save a tree indefinitely but they are using them to stagger the removal so that they don’t have 1,200 trees that they have to remove in one year. Maybe they treat 600 and they have enough crew and time to remove the other 600 so they kind of 5 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 stage their removal so they have time to do it all. In a park setting it would be maybe we’re going to treat some ash trees in every park so that we don’t have parks that are completely you know lose half their trees in one summer so that would be a good strategy to take with some of our city parks. Getting into the park tree inventory for Chanhassen. So for the last 3 summers I’ve had tree care advisor volunteers go out in city parks. Inventory every tree with their location, the species, the condition and their size. We have that information now and are able to kind of extrapolate whatever data analysis we need. 2,500 trees. Now these are just open grown trees in developed areas. This doesn’t count you know park reserves and forested areas, anything like that. Of those 2,500 trees, we have about 550 green ash in the parks and overall that’s about a 22% coverage. Lake Ann Park, there are about 480 trees that have been inventoried in that park. There’s about 111 green ash so that’s about 23% so if you can, you know if you know Lake Ann Park well enough you can kind of picture all the ash trees around the ballfields. Some around the park shelters. That’s kind of what your average park inventory is showing you is that Lake Ann is a really average park so if you can image that park minus about 25% of it’s coverage, that’s what’s going to eventually happen potentially. So the other things that, the other information that we got out of the inventory is the condition rating. So again with our management options you don’t want to spend too much time and money on trees that aren’t worth it so trees that are in that fair to poor category, we could take those out right now and we wouldn’t be missing too much. So if that knocks off about 130 trees out of your total 550, that would take care of that amount that we wouldn’t have to deal with in the future. Now the City of Richfield is treating any tree, any ash tree 10 inches and larger. If you look at the size class distribution where all the majority of trees fall within that 4 to 12 inch range so we have a fairly young population of ash trees out there. That is the bulk of the ash population. If we decide to go with only treating ash trees 10 inches and larger, well there’s you know again over 200 trees that would be taken out. Why you wouldn’t treat less than that is again, that cost benefit analysis. This is a young tree. The cost of us treating it for the rest of it’s life compared to just taking it out and replacing it now may end up being more cost than benefits so that’s why between Todd and I going through a cost benefit analysis, figuring out what that magic diameter is going to be for us spending the time and money to treat trees. So just to have a little example, and I just picked these alphabetically. At the top of the list kind of parks so here’s Chanhassen Hills Park. That park has 45% ash trees. If you took out every blue dot you would see that any canopy around the playground, along the trail, near the parking lot would be gone. So again that’s kind of a major impact for that park. If you go to Bandimere, again if you look at blue dots those are the ash trees that are out there now. We have parking lots, ballfields, and again more parking lots in Bandimere Heights. That would be basically devoid of trees taking out all the ash trees in that park. Ryan: Did we take out any ash trees when we did the disc golf course? Or did we not? Hoffman: Probably a few incidental. Sinclair: So I don’t know, I know a few of you have been at our Arbor Day park plantings in Lake Ann Park for the few years. For the last 3 years. That I have to say yes. 23% of the trees out there are ash trees but having those new trees planted in among the ash trees along those ballfields already is making a big difference and in the next few years if we decide to do removals out there, we’ll have had potentially a 5 year head start on some of those trees out there so this year we’re in Lake Susan Park planting around those ballfields because those are all ash trees out there and I think again, you know when we do planting plans from here on in, diversity is at the top of the list. Making sure that we don’t have entire parking lots and entire playground areas that are all one species because then we get kind of caught in the middle here. Let’s see, so just to wrap it up, we’re not talking disaster here but we do have, there is some work to do so between doing an inventory assessment, this is something where I can give Todd inventory information which he can pass onto you in all of our parks and what kind of trees are out there in the present and then deciding again what that magic balance is between benefit and cost because our city park trees do have definite value. Just I did do kind of a quick calculation, I mean standing trees, standing ash trees out there 6 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 in our parks even with all those conditions from poor to excellent, the value right now is over $300,000 for those 550 ash trees so it is something to, it is significant and it is something that we need to value. And so here are the questions we will be asking over the next few years. When EAB is done, so 15-20 years from now what do we want our parks to look like? And then along with plantings at Lake Ann Park and Lake Susan Park and whatever park we pick next, do we, are there canopy coverage initiatives that should be done at our parks where you know eventually just like we do for new subdivisions, we have a canopy coverage requirement for new subdivisions when they go in. Should we have one for parks? You know should we say you know with open space and trails and things like that, do we want a certain coverage in our parks so that we have diverse trees and enough coverage that when we lose some due to one reason or another, there’s other ones there to kind of take it’s place. And finally you know, you know from all your research you know what does the public want in their parks? Do they want parks with trees? Do they want wide open spaces? Again the final management plan will come up with the end result of what the City would like to see in their parks. So sorry, that was really fast and furious. Do you have any questions? Cole Kelly: Questions for Jill. Aldritt: I have a couple. Sinclair: Sure. Aldritt: Is there any way to, once a tree’s infected can you use the wood for either lumber or for burning or anything if you chop it up? Is there a way to use, re-use the wood? Sinclair: Potentially yes. So you can chip the wood. You can use the wood chips. You wouldn’t want logs to be left intact because the larva is under the bark so if you were going to use the wood for any purpose you would have to debark the entire log. Some people are okay with that kind of work. Some people aren’t. Again because they turn brittle so quickly, useable wood for furniture, for baseball bats, for anything like that, it would have to be you know cut down and gotten to the mill sooner than later because then it will lose it’s value if it dries out too much so. Aldritt: Okay. And then trees that are removed before they’re infested, is there any way to offset some of that cost by selling the lumber? Is there a market for that? Sinclair: Yeah potentially. You know that’s, again when we talk about management I didn’t get into that but the wood debris from this, if you think about having hundreds of trees, what are you going to do with them? So again cities out east have come up with a few different alternatives. Around here a lot of our wood waste could go to the MRC plant in Minneapolis. I know they’ll be accepting a lot but then it will be us plus Minneapolis, you know there will be a lot of communities so that is a challenge and the Department of Ag and the DNR are both working on wood utilization and different alternatives. Aldritt: Okay. Cole Kelly: Jill, especially with the younger trees that might be removed depending upon the plans that go forward, have we identified certain trees that would be best to replace the ash? Sinclair: Not necessarily and again it’s, it will be plural. I mean we’ll probably try to replace them with you know as many different species as we can think of and with okay, so being in Minnesota we have kind of a limited palette of trees. The one good thing is if we do have climate change, we are a little bit warmer, that opens up the door to planting a few different types of trees around here so we could throw in some species that perhaps we haven’t used in the past. But you know we would start with kind of our 7 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 native species. The lindens, the oaks, the hackberry, maples, although we do have a lot of maples in our parks already so we’ll be trying to broaden that list as much as possible. Cole Kelly: Any other questions for Jill? Thank you Jill. Very nice presentation. Ryan: Actually I have one question. How much does it cost to treat a tree? Or do they get it by roots or? Sinclair: They do it by diameter so depending on the size of your tree. Generally speaking maybe $100 to $200 but that treatment will last for 2 years so from the City standpoint, if we did it in-house it’d be probably closer to about $50 so. Ryan: Okay, thank you. Cole Kelly: Thank you very much Jill. Okay, Todd I think we’ve got the, actually that will be Jerry, the 2012 Park and Rec Annual Report. PRESENTATION OF 2012 PARK AND RECREATION ANNUAL REPORT. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly. A very exciting time in our department here that we just completed our 2012 Annual Report for your review tonight. Everybody, all the commissioners should have a copy of that document with their Park and Rec packet tonight. It’s a, we just completed our fifth year of that report so it’s really an important historical document that really kind of guides our department throughout the course of the year and really preserves our history on you know kind of what we’ve done in the past and kind of where we’re going for the future. What I’m going to do tonight is go through and highlight some of the areas between all of our departments and divisions with our city so we really have a lot to be proud of with this document and we hope that you’re going to enjoy it tonight so. Start off with this amazing crew in front of us here tonight so just thanks again to all of our park and rec commissioners that served in 2012 for really kind of providing their vision in park developments, program advisory and just really all, and just really guiding our department throughout the course of the year. We couldn’t do it without you and we really appreciate your expertise and experience that you provide us annually so thank you so much. We’re going to start out with the senior center. Sue Bill is here tonight. She does a great job. Her programs are always filled to capacity and she really has a tendency to offer really a lot of cool, new events and programs down there. Just to highlight a few, you can see she did a hula hooping program this year, which I thought was very interesting for seniors. They seemed like they’re really starting to get into pickleball as well out there and Sue does a lot of kind of joint programming with Jodi out at the Recreation Center. Really a popular program certainly has been Details with the Deputies. I think our senior population really, is really riveted by Lieutenant Enevold’s reports down at the senior center. It’s really a cool thing so it’s always really at capacity, all of Sue’s programs so thank you again for all you do. Recreation Center, we continue to invest in new equipment out there. We did add 3 new fitness machines this year totally over $10,000 for that. We’re really trying to offer a lot of adult programming which resulted in over $22,000 in revenue. Again Jodi is doing a great job out there introducing pickleball. That seems to be kind of the craze certainly in the senior population out there. We did convert some tennis courts over to outdoor pickleball courts at the Chanhassen Recreation Center this past year so that’s been very well received as well as offering indoor courts in the gym at the recreation center so and Jodi’s always looking for new events to hold. We held an artisan fair out there in November with over 1,000 visitors so again just trying to get new people into the recreation center so we can showcase our talents and programs out there. Rec Center Sports has been really a growing program for us. I was amazed in 2012 we had over 41 sport sessions throughout the course of the year with 814 participants and that was really a great feat for us. We increased the number of sessions by 13 and this is a brand new program started in 2008 really from scratch and it really continued to grow every year increasing additional revenue for the city as well as filling a nitch in certain age groups within our 8 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Chanhassen community so just some of the highlights. We kind of trying to freshen it up. We did a brand new logo this year which I think was very well received and we just continue to increase our marketing to get additional children involved in the program so Mitch and Jodi do a great job with that along with Lindsey Ragu, our Recreation Sports Coordinator. Youth programs in 2012, we had over 250 programs serving 3,000 participants. Wide age group from birth or babies to age 17. Summer Discovery Playground really continues to be kind of one of our foundation programs. It’s been offered in the city for many, many years and again we had 22 sessions in that program last year serving well over 400 participants so Mitch and staff do a great job with that as well so we’re very proud of kind of that program that’s been with our department for a long time. Adaptive Recreation, we do contract that service out with Reach for Resources. A company located in Hopkins. They really do a wonderful job in not only providing resources for us as it comes to inclusions and kind of evaluating people in our community that may need some special assistance with that. They help train our playground staff and seasonal staff to just identify and help out kids with disabilities within our programs so it’s really, we get a lot of bang for our buck for our annual contract for that. We host an annual picnic out at Lake Susan Park in the last Wednesday of June every year so in 2012 we served 22 children and adults who were very happy to have a partnership and contract with Reach. Adult athletics. We had over 43 softball teams last year in 2012 with over 650 participating and revenues totaled over, almost $22,000 between the summer and the fall programs. All the games are played out at Lake Ann Park and it seemed like a great majority of our umpires and umpire coordinators have been with us for you know, between 15 and 25 years so we have a lot of history with our people that really do a great job for us in our adult program. Our annual sponsorship program is supervised by Mitch Johnson. Last year we had over 60 sponsors that contributed nearly $30,000 for that. That money is allocated to our annual community events such as February th Festival, the Easter Egg Candy Hunt, 4 of July and the Halloween Party with that so those programs, not only cash but also volunteer hours in kind contributions with gift certificates and other types of merchandise that we can have as prize packs or other type of needs for our special events so we have a great community. Very giving community. It’s nice to walk around town and talk to sponsors throughout the course of lunch or whatever you’re doing throughout the day. That is really a unique relationship that we do have with our sponsors and we’re very proud to call them really our, one of our best friends within the community so our community events are very special to us. Historically they’ve been really the back bone of our department for lots of years. People enjoy coming to Chanhassen because of the small town feel in the events that we do offer. So as you can see over 54,000 people participated in our special events last year in 2012 so we’re very proud of that number. Facility highlights. It seemed like it was, 2012 was a year of warmth from the lowest I think days that we were open for our warming houses. 28 days. I don’t remember what it was this year. 60 or 70 days this year for 2012/2013 but we really had a warm season last year and that really created really poor ice conditions for that but, and that kind of parlayed into kind of the summer with our, you look at the days that we were over 80 degrees in 2012. 63 days so it was a great beach season. Not so great ice skating season but we had really a lot of picnic reservations as well this year and revenue that was over $14,000 so again we’re very proud of our facilities that we have. People really enjoy our outdoor recreation that we do provide and offer at Lake Ann and a number of other parks now within our community. 2012 we did implement an aquatic invasive species program really that highlighted the action steps of watercraft inspection program. Best management practices for water accesses. Grant and collaboration with other project partners. Public awareness and education in AIS so I know there’s lots of folks that will be interested in talking about that tonight so it was a good year of getting that program launched. Park maintenance. We’re always amazed with what Dale Gregory, our Park Superintendent and the rest of the park maintenance staff and crew really accomplish on an annual basis. They’re always amazed with the number of miles of trails they maintain throughout the course of the winter and the summertime and we’re very proud and Dale and Dean Schmieg, our Park Foreman work really hard on developing a winter/summer maintenance schedule that’s included within the document here tonight that really identified just a lot of the kind of nuts and bolts information and duties that really Dale and the crew do on an actually a daily basis from garbage removal to putting in docks, you know just a number of different highlights with that so great job. That’s 9 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 really an important document that we use on a daily basis so great job with Dale and the crew. We’re very proud of a lot of the park improvements that we did do this year. You know thanks to Cole and the rest of the commission that were present at the ribbon cutting ceremony and that we celebrated our grand nd re-opening at the skate park September 22 of last year so that was a much needed improvements and as you can see from the glee and happiness on the kids faces they were very happy for that day to come and so we’re happy that that continues to be one of our most popular recreation facilities that we have and I’m surprised they’re not out shoveling snow as we speak to get it ready to go but as soon as it’s ready to go and safe, free of ice and snow we’ll open the gates back up again so the kids can start enjoying that. Another really cool project the depot, historical depot downtown was painted in September by the Volunteers of America so a much needed facelift for that project. Had a large number of volunteers that day and it was really a great community event. Had lots of positive comments not only in person but on our city Facebook page as well so really it looks fantastic so. Dale and crew coordinated tennis court improvements at a number of parks here this year so those were kind of much needed facelift that we needed for those as well, and we’re really proud to open up our disc golf course in 2012 down at Bandimere Park. We even had sightings of people playing disc golf with snow shoes this winter so, so it looks like that’s going to be a year round amenity as well so we’re very happy with that and it seems to be very popular with a certain, our community members so we’re very happy with that. Partnerships. We’re always amazed about how many partnerships we do have on an annual basis here. The Chanhassen Lions are cooking up a large variety of picnic goods for the senior center picnic with that so we have over 70 partnerships involved with all of our divisions from the recreation center, senior center, park maintenance, our recreation division, and other types of programs that we have throughout the course of the year so they range from a lot of different organizations and companies in town and we’re very proud to have a lot of those partnerships. They really help us out tremendously throughout the course of the year. Capital improvement highlights. This is a picture from the ground breaking for the 41 trail project for that. We did have 8 project items last year in costs ranging from $10,000 to over $633,000 with that for a total of $1,268,000 so it was a great year. We accomplished a lot within some of our capital budgets so thanks again for all your vision with the capital program budget so. At that point I will entertain any questions that the commission has with the document. Cole Kelly: Very impressive document. Any questions for Jerry at this time? No questions at this time Jerry. I think we covered most of those topics throughout the year that you pointed out to us. Thank you very much. Ruegemer: You bet. Thank you. Hoffman: Chair Kelly, the next step for that document, it will be approved by the City Council and then it will be available on the City’s website so any citizen can view it there. Cole Kelly: Okay. Great, thank you. DISCUSS CITY OF CHANHASSEN AQUATIC INVASIVE SPECIES AIS PROGRAM. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly and members of the commission. Tonight we’re going to go over what the 2012 program was and what the proposed 2013 program for both, what would be referred to as the City Aquatic Invasive Species or watercraft inspection program and then also what the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance has contributed as well. So in 2012 the City of Chanhassen, let’s go to this one. Yeah, there we go. In 2010 zebra mussels were discovered in Lake Minnetonka. There’s over a hundred Minnesota lakes and waterways that are confirmed to contain it now. That number continues to rise unfortunately. Lake Winnebegosh was the most recent confirmation although that’s just been through a winter water sample so they’re going to do some more tests this spring. Concern over the close proximity of zebra mussels prompted the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance to initiate a volunteer led AIS program 10 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 at South Lotus Lake Park. At the boat access in 2011 and that was volunteers so that was the Association taking up that effort on it’s own in 2011. In 2012 the City of Chanhassen initiated an aquatic invasive species program at the three city owned public water accesses within our community and those are at Lake Ann in Park Ann Park, Lake Susan at Lake Susan Park and then Lotus Lake, South Lotus Lake Park. There’s also a watercraft inspection program taking place in our community at Lake Minnewashta through the Carver County Park there at Minnewashta Regional Park. Again the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance paid for additional inspection hours and continued to fill up a portion of the unstaffed hours at the access at Lotus Lake with volunteer inspectors and that was last year in 2012. Last year in 2012 the DNR also conducted watercraft inspections at Lotus Lake water access periodically. The AIS program description includes, and Mr. Ruegemer went over this earlier, the watercraft inspection program, best management practices for water accesses which includes basically signage, grants in collaboration with other project partners and we’ll talk about those. Public awareness and education on AIS. I don’t think we’ve gone a single month since this issue landed in Chanhassen without some sort of public education going out in one form or another. Our inspection program last year, we contracted with VOLT Work Force Solutions to staff the city’s watercraft inspections program. It’s a pretty common approach for how we operate on a contractual basis. We’re a small organization and we just don’t have all the resources in house to put these kind of programs on the ground in an efficient and effective manner. Inspections were conducted on a voluntary basis. However there were no refusals to comply with the voluntary inspections at our public water accesses. Inspectors were certified as a Level I inspector through a Minnesota DNR led aquatic invasive species training program. It’s an in-depth program, we had classes at the Chan Rec Center and then these inspectors were also taking classes at other locations throughout the metropolitan area and the state. The inspectors were stationed at the three public owned accesses at peak use times during the summer season. Additionally all Carver County deputies have been trained as Level I inspectors since they may be responding to public water accesses if a water transfer of an aquatic invasive species has been found in the watercraft. The challenge depending on which one you’re looking at but this is the 2012. So last year this is the schedule. It includes rd everything from Memorial Day weekend, that Friday up til September 3. Generally Lake Ann, Lake Susan and Lotus Lake on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 14 hours for those days and then Lotus Lake picking up the midweek periods. So the details, and again this is for what we would refer to as the city program thrd was 102 days long from May 25 to September 3. The hours of operation, Friday, Saturday and th Sundays and holidays and including the entire week of 4 of July from 6:00 a.m. in the morning til 8:00 p.m. in the evening. And all of the days for Lotus Lake from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the evening. So our total inspection hours there are shown at 2346. 2346 times our contract rate of $15.75 per hour for a total expenditure of contract hours of $36,949. We had budgeted supervision, training and equipment and materials. Most if not all of those costs, there were some minor expenditures in some of those areas never materialized so this project was under budget in 2012. VOLT Temporary Services chose not to charge the City of Chanhassen for some of those agreed upon expenses due to some challenges that they had delivering this service. They also, the uniforms were paid for by VOLT since they worked other locations in addition to the City of Chanhassen. Funding for last year’s program came from the Riley-Purgatory- Bluff Creek Watershed District at $25,000 which they have confirmed that they will be supplying again in 2013. City of Chanhassen at $10,000 budgeted for the program and then Minnesota DNR grant which we were successful in securing last year for $7,750, and generally it’s Terry Jeffery, our Water Resources Coordinator who is coordinating the acquisition of these funding sources as a part of his duties and he did secure again that Minnesota DNR grant for 2013, the $7,750. We’ve been notified of that grant in the past about 10 days or so. This is what the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance funded specifically last year. Starting in May at fishing opener and then working through the first part of June and adding an additional basically 2 weeks at the start of the season and then the full month of September at the end of the season. thth September 4 through the 30 of the month. And Laurie Susla and I coordinated these times. It was an easy process. They would contact us, the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance would contact us with the hours they would like to have contracted with VOLT and paid for. We would contact VOLT and VOLT would respond with that schedule. So their activity, the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance spanned 142 11 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 days. They funded a total of 49 days at Lotus Lake. 450 hours. They paid $15.75 per hour and so they wrote checks to the City of Chanhassen which then we wrote to VOLT for $7,050. How did the program do? It included those 3 lakes. 2655 hours in inspections concentrated on Friday, Saturdays and Sundays. They were on, inspectors were on duty during those days at Lotus Lake Monday through Thursday. 2,834 inbound and out water inspections were completed for an overall inspection rate of about 1 inspection per hour. These are some of the questions that people had going in is how busy are these accesses going to be and the Lotus Lake public access had a rate of 1.7 inspections per hour. Generally that’s 3 times the level of activity at Lake Ann and Lake Susan. Of the sites that we operate it’s the most popular watercraft launch within the city facilities. Fishing boats were the most common watercraft inspected followed by runabouts and personal watercraft. Again digging a little bit deeper into the data. The watercraft inspected on entering the lake, 72% had been out of the water for 3 or 4 days. 22% for 1 day or less and the least amount out for 2 days. The last item there, the watercrafts inspected upon exiting the lake, 84% had been in the water only 1 day or less so a majority of these people are just going in for that one day, and then your 15% have been in the water for 3 or more, that would be folks that either spend a week on a particular lake or are taking out their boats at the end of the season. How was the compliance with state laws. So during the 2012 program the following compliance rate and failure rate for the state of Minnesota aquatic invasive species and watercraft transportation laws were recorded. Lake Ann, those who arrived in compliance with state law was 96% or 263 watercraft. Arrivals in violation of state law, 4% or 11 boats and generally those are weeds on a trailer or the watercraft attached to the motor. Or in some case water onboard but not very many. At Lake Susan the arrivals that were in compliance with state law was 95% or 308 watercraft. Those arriving in violation of state law were 5% or 15 boats. And again the same primarily weeds on a trailer or weeds on a boat or prop would be the primary offense at that location as well. Lotus Lake arrivals in compliance were 94% or 1,434 watercraft and arrivals in violation of state law 6% at 85 boats. So moving forward to this year’s program development for 2013. In 2012 AIS input was received by the City Council during visitor presentation on rdththndth those days. July 23, August 27, October 8, October 22 and then on November 26 that was the day that the council received the 2012 report and we also received as a presentation public input that evening. Another chart that’s hard to read but generally what that shows you is the City of Chanhassen budget th calendar. So how many budget meetings take place and the final one is the December 10 meeting. When the final budget was adopted as was the 2013 aquatic invasive species program adopted on December 10, 2012. The aquatic invasive species program 2012 Annual Report was produced and was th presented to the City Council on November 26. A number of the people here this evening were present that evening as well to hear that report and that was in the Fountain Conference Room. Adoption of the 2013 program, the City of Chanhassen aquatic invasive species program was approved and adopted, the 2013 program by the City Council on December 10, 2012. This is the program as it appears in the City budget. Surface water management aquatic invasive species management program. So this is again a public document. Residents can look it up online in the city budget. So it’s got the strategies and services. Budget highlights and future trends. The 2013 goals of the program. This is the revenue. These are the numbers we talked about earlier. State grants, the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed contribution. At this time, if you look at last year’s contribution from Lotus Lake, Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance and that was $2,500. At the end of the program they contributed over $7,000 by the time the summer was done. And then in the 2013 budget they have informed the City that they, if they can, if they’re able to they would like to contribute again in 2013. Just don’t know what that would be at this point. Those are the expenditures and again it’s primarily contractual services to pay for the Volt inspectors as a part of the program. This is the 2013 schedule. To fill out those hours that were under funded last year since the Volt is going to roll in all of those charges that we talked about at the beginning of last year’s program into the contractual rate of $15.75, we just took all the cash and put it into inspections so every dollar that we have in the program will go into inspections and what that did is add mostly hours at Lotus Lake but some hours at Lake Ann and Lake Susan as well which we’ll talk th about that. This program starts on May 24, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend and then concludes on Labor Day weekend. So again the city program as proposed for 2013 is 102 days. Lake 12 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Ann, Lake Susan and Lotus Lake Friday, Saturdays and Sundays and holidays. And then Lotus Lake all th other days will, on those Friday, Saturdays and Sundays and holidays, including that full week of 4 of July starting at 5:00 a.m. and going to 8:00 p.m. The council talked about that. Even though our city park hours are 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., people arrive at the public accesses prior to that time to make those early morning fishing hours or boating hours and the council was cognizant of that. They did want to change park hours. They said let’s just start our inspectors there. That was supported by generally the groups that were participating in the conversation so 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and then Lotus Lake all of the days 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. for those morning peak hours and then 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the evening. So we’ve added those morning hours throughout the summer. Throughout that time period for Lotus Lake. The inspection hours did go up to 2702. We point out that we do have one other water, public water access at Lake Minnewashta that’s covered by Carver County. We also have a small public access at Lake St. Joe that’s not covered in an inspection program. Lake St. Joe is upstream of Lake Minnewashta. So the proposed budget, 2,703 hours at the $15.75 so that spends all of our revenue. $42,572.25 and there’s the revenue at the bottom. We’ve got the grants secured. The City of Chanhassen $10,000 and then Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District cash. There’s our funding partners again. Very fortunate to have all the partners working on the program. Bluff Creek Watershed District. Lotus Lake group. The DNR grants. This talks about the expansion of the program in 2013. That inspectors will start one hour earlier at 5:00 a.m. That’s an early start. That’s going to be one of the challenges getting those inspectors onsite at 5:00 a.m. and Volt says they’ll do it. And then we’ve also added that 5:00 a.m. to 9:00, it’s 9:00 a.m. Excuse me. Not p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays so that’s a typo in the power point. It’s 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Additional hours throughout the program would be 51 additional hours at Lake Ann, 51 at Lake Susan and then an additional 255 at Lotus Lake so taking a look, the difference from 2012 to 2013 program is being expanded by 15% over 2012. Tonight’s recommendation for the commission, if you choose to make one, is that the commission endorses the City of Chanhassen aquatic invasive species program as established in the 2013 annual budget, and approved and adopted by the City Council on December 10, 2012. I’ll be happy to answer any questions at this time or any other time during the presentation from the commission. Cole Kelly: I think we’ll hold off on questions to you Todd and at this time we’ll have Joe come up and give his piece to us. Joe Shneider: Thank you again commissioners. We’re, I was remiss. I forgot to tell you that I live in Chanhassen so I am a card carrying member. Several things, I thought Jill, she just left. Her presentation was fantastic. The S curve that she had of adoption is exactly the same stuff that you see with aquatic invasive species. We are on the very front end of that S curve. Minnetonka, Prior Lake, zebra mussels and it’s going up, right. And the same thing happens with zebra mussels once they get in a lake. They start low and then they just ramp up like crazy. So what I said the last time still is exactly true. The DNR is doing less this year than they did last year. The Governor’s recommended budget is for less money for aquatic invasive species this year so what’s happening is around the state, and I’ve been involved with collection of data. Local government units spending on aquatic invasive species is ramping up dramatically. It is still being outpaced by homeowner and lake association and other volunteer spending. Across the state nearly 2 1/2 million dollars was spent last year by homeowners, lake association, lake improvement districts, watershed districts, counties, cities, etc. It’s starting to get close to the amount spent by the DNR and what we think is happening based on the rate of the curve is it is going to exceed what is spent by the DNR probably this year, if not this year next year so you’re on a train that is going, or on a rocket ship that’s going up in terms of the spending so I say that to make you aware of what’s happening around the state. What you’re experiencing in Chanhassen is no different than what is happening around the state. There are two counties that are doing anything serious about this. One is Becker County and one is Carver County. They’re the only two counties in the state that are spending aggressively on AIS. Becker County is hiring staff. An aquatic invasive species specialist. Carver 13 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 County is extending their program at Lake Minnewashta. As I mentioned to you the last time the Minnewashta program is going to be extended this year. They’re going to do remote inspections for Christmas Lake. We’re hoping that that will start up about the middle of the summer. Until then Christmas Lake to achieve 100% inbound inspection, we’ll be using Volt as the City of Chanhassen is and hopefully we’re going to get there by the middle of the summer to do remote inspections. Now that is first of it’s kind. It’s not been done anywhere in the state. It’s now legal and it’s very exciting to be on that path. The reason I mention this is tying together the fact that spending is going up and local government units and volunteer associations, etc, it’s not sustainable at this rate. Inspecting at every landing is not a sustainable model for the state. The DNR did a study last year with Thompson Engineering that said, for the 3,000 ramps in the state to do inspections at the landings would be $600 million dollars. That’s about right. That kind of money just doesn’t exist. The DNR budget last year for aquatic invasive species for one year was $4 million dollars. $600 million dollars to protect at the landings, $4 million dollar budget. It doesn’t work, right. So the name of the game has to be, from a city government, county government, local government point of view is how do you get value for the taxpayer dollar that you’re going to spend to protect the waters and finding the ways to leverage that individual dollar to the greatest extent, and you do that by leveraging the things that Carver County is now trying to do with Christmas Lake. Now legal in statute which is to do remote inspections that allow you to take an inspection site and service multiple lakes from it. So with that I would say thank you. Cole Kelly: Thank you Joe. Greg Fletcher: Good evening commissioners. I’m Greg Fletcher. I’m representing the South Lotus Lake neighborhood and I want to thank the park commission and the rec commission and the City for all their efforts and help last year on the aquatic invasive species work that you did and I would just like to request that you do more because we found infestations on the last day of our extended inspection period last year so please keep up the good work and we look forward to working with you this coming year. Thanks. Hoffman: Could we get your address please? Greg Fletcher: 7616 South Shore Drive. Cole Kelly: Thank you. Sharon McCotter: Hi. My name’s Sharon McCotter. I’m a resident at 7000 Utica Lane on Lake Lucy in Chanhassen. Also a member of our lake association. I’m also a citizen advisor on the Riley-Purgatory Watershed. I think I missed some words in there but anyway. I’m really thrilled that you guys got on board last year and did what you did for aquatic invasive species control. I think what Joe said was really telling that you can’t afford to do these kinds of things year after year. We have to do something different. I really like the proposal that the Lotus Lake group has come up with. I think the multi-lake inspection seems to make sense and is worth trying something different because the same old I don’t think is going to work. Lake Lucy is connected to Lake Ann. We don’t have a public access on our lake but we have a little channel and every year it gets wider as people drive bigger cars through in the winter and take hack saws and cut down trees so they can get through so I work from home and I’m there, other than my travel for work, I’m there every day sitting at my desk looking out and there are people every day that come in from Lake Ann. I would say, I have no science behind what I’m saying but I would, like today we had 3 people on the lake doing ice fishing. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s, I’m sure there’s more as their data shows on the weekends but I think during the week there’s just as much you know people coming in and a lot of people come early in the morning. I start about 5:30 and people are there and people are there at the end of the day as well and during the day so I think this program that they have is worth listening to with a good heart and an open mind because I think it will get us somewhere faster and I think it’s worth trying. If it doesn’t work there’s other options you can think of but I think it sounds 14 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 like a good plan and I just wanted to voice my concerns because I think you’re really getting another lake in this. Not just the 3 but you’ll get protection for Lake Lucy as well. So thank you for your time. Cole Kelly: Thank you Sharon. Hello. My name’s Pat Fitzsimmons. I live at 7400 Chanhassen Road. My family’s lived in Chanhassen for over 10 years. I’m a fishermen. My kids are fishermen. My grandkids are fishermen. Hopefully their kids will be fishermen. We love the lake and the opportunities that it provides for my family and really all the families of the city. If we allow zebra mussels or any other invasive species to invade the waters of Chanhassen it’s going to ruin it for all of us. I’m a new board member with the LLCA but the last 3 years I’ve observed the lake association and the interaction that they’ve had with the DNR, the Riley-Purgatory Watershed, Carver County, the Christmas Lake Association and Minnehaha Watershed to accommodate and to come up with a solution that can protect our lakes and best accommodate everybody concerned. We’ve been fortunate. Laurie Susla and her husband Dave and the rest of the lake board have spent hours and hours working with these different groups to find an economical way to protect our lakes in Chanhassen. The only way to do this is hundred percent inspection. I mean that was proven last year. All it takes is one boat and it’s going to ruin everything. I understand that one of the residents on Lotus Lake is totally in disagreement with what we’re talking about and loves to send emails to the council but I’ve got to tell you we’ve got 140 people that live on the lake and another 250 people that are members of the LLCA who are around the lake that would be more than happy to send you guys all emails if you’d like to give me your email address because they’re definitely in favor of 100 percent inspection. You know it’s why is it that one complaint gets more attention than many that simply appreciate the blessings that we have with our lakes. The proposed program offers protection to our lakes and it’s a physically responsible way to do it. I ask that you approve this pilot program. I hope you’ve all looked at it and recommend to the Mayor and the City Council that they implement this program starting thth May 10, which is the opening of fishing season, and they run it through November 15. We were th fortunate last year but it really needs to run through November 15 in order to make sure we keep these little buggers out of our lakes. If for some reason the suggestions, I mean if you’ve looked at this and you have any suggestions or changes, by all means tell us about it. Our goal is to protect the lakes and that is our only goal and our only agenda. If for some reason you feel you can’t totally support this idea of saving Chanhassen lakes, I ask that you recommend to the City Council that they develop and alternative, collaborative plan that would be developed with the input from the city, the watershed, the DNR and the LLCA to be implemented in May and again run through the fishing season and run through November. If for some reason this isn’t acceptable I wish you would give us an opportunity to take our plea to the constituents of this city and recommend a public hearing. Thank you so much for your time. Cole Kelly: Thank you Pat. Ron Kleve: Ron Kleve, 7307 Laredo Drive. I am a member of the Sunrise Hills Association. We are one of the associations on Lotus Lake and if you’re familiar with the lake, if you’re at the boat launch, we’re about halfway up on the left hand side. We have a beach, a dock, swimming raft, buoys marking the swimming area and a gated boat launch. A cement boat ramp. About a year ago the association, Sunrise Hills Association was approached by the LLCA representative and asked if we would be interested in closing or restricting our boat launch. There was, and the reason we were asked that is, and I’m hearing you’ll maybe have to help me out a little bit but I believe somebody on the council brought up when the LLCA was pressuring the City to do inspections that somebody from the City said back, well what about the other boat ramps. The private boat ramps and so our association voted and approved that we would restrict using our boat ramp so we could possibly get the City to do inspections. And so that association is 55 homes. Approximately 6 live on the lake and so the, I guess those homes would comply with using the public boat launch. You know we actually thought it was necessary last year and we were 100% compliant on not using our boat ramp putting our boats into the lake. And that was just on a voluntary 15 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 basis. Now if there is, and we would use it to take it out and if we wanted to, if you wanted it to be restricted somehow else, you know give us some direction and we’ll comply to that. If the City wants to give us direction. If the watershed wants to give us direction. The DNR, whoever we have an open ear and willing to comply to any suggestion. Thank you. Cole Kelly: Thank you Ron. Mike Domke: Good evening. My name’s Mike Domke, 9361 Kiowa Trail in Chanhassen. I’m the President of the Lake Riley Improvement Association. As you may or may not know, half of our lake is in Eden Prairie. Half of it’s in Chanhassen. Thus Carver and Hennepin County so we have our own special challenges there. We’ve been working, just a little bit of a background. We’ve been working several years on plans to prevent AIS. We’ve worked with the University of Minnesota on carp removal. Our association has donated a lot of money to the University of Minnesota. We’ve worked with the DNR for over 15 years on fish plans and fish stocking, again with private money stocking the fish. We have a current group of people together and we have an extensive plan to remove invasive plants from our lake. We’re working with the DNR, the University of Minnesota and the watershed district so this is the first year we’ve actually going to go after the weeds as well. Invasive weeds. Our goal is to eliminate the invasive plants. Promote healthy and native plants. We’re actually talking about planting native plants into the lake. And the purpose I guess is to promote a healthy and balanced fish and other wildlife populations. With regards to zebra mussels we fully support the proposed AIS plan and plan to work with the City of Chanhassen and City of Eden Prairie jointly to either ride the shirttails of this plan or create our own plan so again thank you for your time. Cole Kelly: Thank you Mike. Tom Devine: My name is Tom Devine. I live at 7640 South Shore Drive. I’m just going to briefly give you a report from the University of Minnesota. I serve on the Board of Regents of the University of nd Minnesota and I was elected and represent the 2 Congressional District which includes Carver Counties and a number of counties here in the Congressional District. I want to share just very briefly the work that has been done here in the lakes by the University of Minnesota has been very significant. Over the course of the last 4-5 years, as was just mentioned, the University of Minnesota has done some basic study work of the carp study. They’re doing a number of other studies that have progressed now under Professor Sorenson’s direction and it has been absolutely cutting edge work that’s been done. The work that’s been carried out on Chanhassen lakes, and I should say Eden Prairie lakes has now had an effect where people from all over the world have come onto and into our lakes to really understand more fully what can be done to control invasive species and invasive plants and a number of wildlife issues as it affects the lakes. I want to point out that the Lotus Lake Alliance very early on, along with the other lake associations within Chanhassen and Eden Prairie have devoted a significant amount of time, effort and money and led the way, led the government in terms of moving forward and taking the positions that we need to go aggressively, becomes shepherds of our lakes and do much more than what we’ve done. Last session, last legislative session with the support of Representative Joe Hoppe and Senator Julianne Ortman and a number of other legislators, there was a bill that was introduced in the legislature that would, that was passed through the efforts of many of the lake associations here, right here in our backyard here and across the state that supported an appropriation of $4.2 million additional dollars to further study the aquatic invasive species, both here in Chanhassen and statewide. A lot of the work that has been done preliminary, has all been laid out in the lakes here within Chanhassen and obviously it’s had wonderful outcomes and we intend and watch and hope that a much greater effort will be moving forward in cooperation with the DNR. Much of the work that’s been done here has also led the path that the DNR has gone down in terms of looking at monitoring and setting up programs that have evolved, not only here in Chanhassen but have been the template that has been used statewide in a lot of their efforts. I would very much implore you as commissioners here to take a very aggressive role in terms of moving 16 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 forward to act to support the efforts to protect our lakes here in Chanhassen so that in turn will continue to be a model that will be used statewide and hopefully globally in terms of the work that’s going on right now with the University of Minnesota. Thank you. Cole Kelly: Thank you Tom. Carroll Aasen: Good evening. My name’s Carroll Aasen. I’m a resident of Chaska. 112250 Eitel Circle and I’m also on the Carver County Parks Commission. My main reason is I’m a sportsman. I love fishing and I love your lakes. I like the plan as laid out but I’d also like to see an additional option stuck in there and that’s for sportsmen like myself and a number of others that get out early and often, to go take the invasive species training by the DNR and get a pass so we can go straight to Lake Ann or Lake Susan or wherever and have a pass that just allows us to be self inspected. The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District put this option in their long term plan that’s not completely approved yet but it’s going through the approval process to allow people to be self-certified to do their own inspections. The main idea as I see it is, education and if the boater’s willing to go take the time to take the training and be you know, to be certified just like your inspectors are, then they should be allowed an option similar to this. I know I’ve talked to a number of different lakeshore owners from other areas. They like that idea. I don’t know how many of the lakeshore owners here would like that idea but I’d like to offer that as a solution to, it cuts down on the work of the inspectors and it gets boaters educated. Thank you. Cole Kelly: Thank you Carroll. At this time seeing there’s no more visitor presentations, we’re shutting down visitor presentations. This would be time for us to have our discussions. Before we start that, Joe would you be the designated person if we have questions or would that be Laurie? Laurie Susla: Joe is by far a better AIS expert than I am but I would be able to speak to the plan itself. Cole Kelly: Okay. Laurie Susla: Is that fair? Cole Kelly: That’s fair. Thank you Laurie. First of all I want to thank the Lotus Lake Conservation Alliance for all their volunteer hours and all the money they’ve put into fighting the AIS problems and for their stewardship of the lakes. At this time I’d like to open it up to questions for Todd or for the Alliance that anyone has. Ryan: Chair Kelly, if I could begin. I believe that we should properly frame this discussion for tonight so we can have a better conversation amongst us as commissioners but also to let the folks here know what our role as commissioners is tonight and what our role is to make recommendations to the City Council so I think we need to break it down in two parts. Number one, Todd and the staff have recommended that we proceed with the AIS plan that was implemented in 2012 with the additional changes that he mentioned tonight and use that approach for the boating season of 2013. That’s number one. The second piece of it would be that we’ve been given a proposal, a pilot program created by the LLCA. They are asking us to move it forward by having a collaborative discussion between the LLCA, the Park Commission, City Council and staff, watershed and DNR and others that are interested in participating. Their ultimate goal being that this plan, or some version of it be implemented for this summer’s 2013 boating season. This pilot program is simply a starting point for conversations among us as commissioners around setting an AIS policy for Chanhassen and what that policy ultimately looks like is ultimately up to the council. It is my understanding Chair Kelly, that we are not here to dissect the specifics of the pilot program put forth by the LLCA but based on what we have read from the information we’ve been given by staff as well as the LLCA and the members here tonight, we are to determine if further discussions are needed in order to best preserve our city’s natural resources. So the 17 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 question in my mind is this, have we as a commission done our due diligence in reviewing last year’s program and do we feel satisfied with moving forward with the status quo and endorsing the 2012 program for 2013 or do we have an obligation to move this discussion forward and take a more in-depth look at what was successful in 2012. How we can build upon those successes and make improvements where needed and using the LLCA piloted program, have a comprehensive discussion on how best to protect our lakes so I believe those are the two issues that we need to discuss. Cole Kelly: Okay, and there is, thank you. Point’s well taken. There is a third option and that is that we do nothing. Ryan: Correct. Cole Kelly: So there are three options actually to the board. Ryan: Okay. Cole Kelly: Joe, I’m going to ask you a question. On the centralized inspection plan, you have that set up as Lake Ann being the best alternative but when I look at the number of boats going in and out, Lotus Lake seems to get a lot more boats so why wouldn’t the centralized plan be where most the boats go in and out of the lake? Joe Shneider: I’m going to need my counterpart here. If it relates to the plan I’m not the person. Cole Kelly: Go ahead Laurie. Laurie Susla: Hi. Yes, the plan that you all should have received does call, originally back when we were looking at different options for centralized inspection we recommended Lake Ann because that facility, it’s enormous. It has plenty of space. As we took a look at what we learned in 2012 which was that 68% of the boaters are going to Lotus Lake anyhow we thought that it was a much better and boater friendly solution to have the inspection station located at Lotus. You should have had this information. Cole Kelly: I’ve read through so much stuff in the last few days, I probably read it. Laurie Susla: Yeah, right. So if you look here, that is exactly what we’re recommending. That the inspection station happen at Lotus Lake Park which is just north of Highway 5 and just west of 101. In addition to 68% of boaters, that being their final destination. 76% of the boaters who, we learned this from the license plate study that we did last year, are coming from other cities and primarily those people are coming from either the northeast or the east so they would be going by Lotus Lake on their way to Ann or Susan anyhow. So those two reasons why we shifted from the thought that Ann would be a good idea to realizing when we looked at the data from last year that Lotus provided a better solution. Cole Kelly: Thank you. Carron: Ah Laurie, actually while you’re up I have a question. Can you explain a little bit of what you guys discussed with this centralized location and why you feel it’s the best option versus having, there’s no perfect option. Laurie Susla: No. Carron: The perfect option would be to watch every single boat landing. 18 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Laurie Susla: Yeah. Carron: But we all know that one zebra mussel attached to your trailer that’s put in could infest our lakes. It’s as simple as that so leading up to that, can you explain why you feel that this plan as a centralized location and taking that chance of someone dropping their boat in on Lake Susan let’s say and not going to get the inspection done, you talk about fines and that sort of thing but it only takes one so just give me a brief discussion about that. Laurie Susla: Correct. Well because we currently have such exposure at Lake Ann and Lake Susan on that Monday to Thursday, those days when there’s no inspections happening there at all, we felt that it was better to provide inspections for you know starting at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, depending upon the time of year. Going til 9:00 at night, that would be enforceable by observation. If someone is parked at Lake Ann, if it’s a Tuesday they should have a hang tag, or whatever. A hang tag is, can all be changed but there should be an identifying method for a police officer to determine whether or not that person had gone through a boat inspection so what this plan does is, although we’re not having an inspector at each of the three sites, we are able to every day of the week see if the boats that are going into the lakes that are not currently being served on the Monday through Thursday, if they have been through inspection. Does that make sense? Carron: Yeah, you’re just, you’re basically saying that it’s a less risk to the lakes to have this situation rather than shorter hours at every lake. th Laurie Susla: That’s our belief, especially with the issue that came up on September 30 when we narrowly avoided infestation. I mean it would be great if all the activity occurred from Memorial Day to Labor Day but what happens in, when you have a lake like Minnetonka that’s very close full of both milfoil and zebra mussels, the milfoil by that time of year has, is grown up and it’s boats that are coming out, it’s getting attached and that goes on well through the fall. That doesn’t end until there’s a good hard frost and the milfoil dies down, that type of thing. Carron: With this plan do you, would you say that, playing devil’s advocate here, that you would have less education for boaters out there? Laurie Susla: No, I would actually say there’d be more because regardless of what day you’re coming to a Chanhassen lake, you’re seeing an inspector. Carron: Having to go to that centralized location, okay. Laurie Susla: Right. Carron: Thank you. Laurie Susla: Thanks. Cole Kelly: One more question here. Or maybe a statement. I noticed put out the Minneapolis Park and Rec Board facts in here from last July. I went online and they haven’t updated it so that’s still July of 2012 on here and they basically are saying that they are trying to delay the AIS from getting to the lakes before you know maybe there’s a solution down the road so what you put in here, Minneapolis is basically saying it’s going to happen. We hope to delay it as long as possible and what are your feelings on that? 19 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Laurie Susla: Well I think in Chanhassen we have a pretty unique situation. Unlike Lake Minnetonka where there are multiple accesses, it’s very hard to control. We have 3 small lakes, each only has one access and all are controlled by the City so we have a wonderful little model here to try something like this on. All of our lakes, it’s a mile and a half from Ann to Lotus. It’s 2 miles from Susan to Lotus so they’re all in good proximity to each other. They all only have one access point so it’s easy to monitor what’s going on. Cole Kelly: Following up a little bit what was said earlier and Todd you might want to address this too. We had what, I think 4, 5 and 6% of boats that were out of compliance? Laurie Susla: That depends upon which figure you’re looking at and Todd and I looked at that data slightly differently. If you are a boater arriving at the ramp and an inspector observes that the hull plug is in your boat, the inspector makes a note on their data collection sheet that the hull plug was in. We use that figure, the inspector observed figure. The next part of the protocol for inspection is that the inspector will ask the boater did you travel here with the plug in or not? If they traveled with the plug in to a boat ramp or on the streets of the state, that’s illegal. Cole Kelly: Right, I understand that. Laurie Susla: So the inspector asks the boater did you do this? If the boater says no, I didn’t do that. I stopped at the top of the hill and put the plug in. That, Todd was using the figure that the boater told to the inspector so we were just looking at the data differently. Cole Kelly: Okay. With the education that’s going on, and I know the DNR is stepping up the education and I believe we have signs that are posted around our lakes now courtesy of the DNR, Todd is that correct? Hoffman: Correct. Some of them are DNR and then some we purchased as well. Cole Kelly: So would we expect that the percentages, whichever one you use of people who are not in compliance would be going down? Laurie Susla: Yes we would and they are but there’s still, I think that the middle of last summer it was still over 20% or so. Do you know Joe? It was over 20% still non-compliance statewide. Cole Kelly: Any other questions for Laurie at this time or Todd? Laurie Susla: Thank you very much for considering this. Cole Kelly: Thank you Laurie. Any motions out there at this time? Ryan: If I could just, if you could give me a little time. I feel passionate about this and I’d like to just express some of my views before a motion is put forward. And this has specifically to do with us as a commission and how we approach everything. With every event and activity, program, park maintenance and trail that we have we as a commission have always performed an audit. As a group we do a review. th Be it 4 of July. Be it Feb Fest. Be it tree lighting. We get a report after the event has taken place and we discuss it as a group and because it’s our responsibility to make recommendations for improvements for the next time it takes place. We hear the reports. We get a full presentation and discuss as a commission what we think needs to be done and I do not believe that we have done that as a commission for 2012. The 2012 boating season and we haven’t evaluated the program and I do not believe that an inspection, or there should be an exception to our standard protocol. Perfect example tonight is getting 20 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 the presentation on the Emerald ash borer. Jill Sinclair came in. Educated us on what happens. Talks specifically about management plans. That we are in the early stages. How are we going to manage it? What are we going to do? I feel that this is a great opportunity for us as a commission to take a lead. Review what worked well in 2012. Let’s see what can be done for 2013 using this as a pilot program. We would ask the City Council to move forward in reviewing this pilot program taking into consideration feedback from the LLCA. Have a member from the park board speak. The DNR. Watershed. I feel like this is a great opportunity for us to be leaders in the community. In the state of Minnesota in protecting our natural resources. We do it for neighborhood parks. We did it for the disc golf course and you know one other important fact I think is when you look at the number, 76% of the people are coming from other cities onto our lakes and they do not have a vested interest in our city lakes. Our citizens do as we can see by the people here tonight and I truly believe that it is our responsibility to represent the interest of our community, our residents and not make decisions based on whether or not it is more convenient for people coming in from other cities. What we need to do is maintain the quality of life for the residents in our city to maintain clean lakes so I just, I’m in favor of the pilot program upon further discussion and I hope the commission can support that. Cole Kelly: Any other discussion or any motions out there? Aldritt: I’d like to ask a question, and maybe this is for Laurie. If we do go forward with this pilot program, how do you gauge the success of this versus doing the traditional inspections what the City is proposing? Laurie Susla: Well the gauge of success of any of this is can we avoid infestation and so that is the goal of Todd’s program. That is the goal of our program. We’re just looking at it slightly differently. If we can catch, if we can make that be the end game we have succeeded. Hoffman: Just to clarify, it’s not my program. It’s the City Council’s. Laurie Susla: Developed by I should have said. Cole Kelly: Thank you Laurie. Laurie Susla: Thanks. Ryan: Well I’ll go ahead and make a motion, unless you have something further. Carron: One second. More of a comment then anything else for the Board here. I’m kind of stuck inbetween. Maybe I am a lot but it basically what we have is, there’s no way to 100% catch everything and we have education. Boater responsibility that plays a huge aspect of this. Not saying that the plan is bad. Not saying that the City’s plan is good. But what I’m coming back to is the one thing that deters me a little bit from going along with the option B of the LCA. LLCA is we as a commission voted down putting gates on lakes so that people could come in and come out. Basically, I’m just throwing out there the way I’m thinking about it is this is kind of like putting an invisible gate up. In order to launch your boat at a lake you have to go get it checked by someone else which to me is just like having to go to Lake Minnewashta to get checked by the DNR and getting a punch code and going to the lake. And we voted that down last year. I’m not saying that we could, I’m not saying that we should change our mind last year or this year but to me it’s almost, it’s almost the same thing. We’re requiring a centralized location. All boaters have to go to the centralized location. Get checked out and then go to another lake. The only difference is that there’s no mechanical gate. Just something to think about. 21 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Ryan: When we discussed this a couple years ago and we talked about the gates, the biggest concern was obviously the freedom to enter the lake at your leisure or pleasure. What we’re discussing here today and the LLCA took that out of their program so there aren’t gates, what we’re discussing here today is let’s continue evaluating or let’s evaluate what happened in 2012 and have the discussion on improvements for 2013 and that discussion has not taken place. And when we talk about you know infestation is inevitable and it’s going to happen, I think we need to define what inevitable is and we talk about zebra mussels but there is as Jill again pointed out in her presentation, there are still so many, when the ash borer was in Detroit they didn’t know what it was. There are still a lot of AIS that we don’t know that exists that could be coming into our lake and why would we not want to do our very best to protect our natural resources and even if it is inevitable that a zebra mussel’s going to make it on a lake, what is inevitable? Is it 2 years? Is it 5 years? Is it 10 years? Maybe in that timeframe you know something will have been developed to eradicate that species and we can protect our lakes. You know kind of a cheesy analogy I guess would be you know how many years ago was it when you had a torn ACL. You’re out of football or you’re out of your sports for the rest of your life. You were done. Well I bet Adrian Peterson would argue with that and so I think we need to buy as much time as we can to you know pursue options and I think that this proposal may not be in it’s final form but it gives a starting point for a discussion and one that we have not had yet. Cole Kelly: Any other comments? Any motions? Ryan: I’ll make a motion. Cole Kelly: Okay. Ryan: I’d like to make a motion that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council review the 2013 AIS program focusing on the proposal created by the LLCA. We’d also recommend that a task force including a representative from the Park and Rec Commission, LLCA, Watershed, DNR are included in discussions prior to setting policy for 2013. Cole Kelly: Is there a second? Seeing that there’s no second, that motion is, will not happen. Commissioner Ryan moved that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council review the 2013 AIS program focusing on the proposal created by the LLCA and recommend that a task force including a representative from the Park and Rec Commission, LLCA, Watershed, DNR are included in discussions prior to setting policy for 2013. The motion failed for lack of a second. Cole Kelly: Any other motions on the table? Okay, we move onto the next item on our agenda. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2012/13 ICE RINK EVALUATION. Johnson: Alright, thank you Chair Kelly, and good evening commissioners. The 2012/2013 outdoor ice thth rink season ran from December 24 through February 28. During that season warming houses were open for 59 days and closed 8 days due to low temperatures. Anytime the wind chill gets to 15 below zero we close just for the safety of the skaters and because of low numbers. During the days we were open, those 59 we recorded roughly 6,500 participants during supervised hours from the rink attendants that we had on duty. These numbers were about typical from average years. You’ll remember Jerry kind of mentioned it in the Annual Report review that last year we were only open 28 days because of the warm weather so it’s nice to be kind of back on track. We had rinks at four locations. City Center Park, 22 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 North Lotus, the Rec Center, and Roundhouse Park. Hours at Roundhouse Park were held to non school days and Saturdays and Sundays so that’s why the numbers are a little bit lower at that location. Once again this year we rented portable warming house trailers for the North Lotus and the City Center Park locations. The trailers sit flush. Very easy to get in and out. Great company to work with. We highly recommend continuing the business with them. Contracting that out. You’ll see there we’ve got the numbers kind of broken down by month of the different locations with total number. Below that you’ll see the expenditures for the program including the 18 rink attendants we hired. About 8 of them are seasonal college students who work mostly around the holiday break. Once school starts generally about mid-January we get down to about 10 rink attendants. They worked a total of about 1,300 hours and you’ll see the expenditures there. With flipping the page you can compare the numbers from this year to previous years. Something we added this year is I kind of did some in-depth tallying of the attendant sheets. I broke it down by month. Day of the week and on the back side you also see times actually so see how when we kind of eliminated the hours at Roundhouse, you know where those numbers fluctuate th so. But yeah, it’s great to be back on track. We closed February 28. We kind of had that week or two where it was getting really warm. A lot of frost boils out there. We all thought spring was coming and then it went whoop so, we were kind of joking that hey, maybe we should open those rinks back up but yeah, but we had a great season. You know 60 days or 59 is about typical so. But yeah, that’s outdoor rink season. Be happy to entertain any questions anybody has. Cole Kelly: Any questions for Mitch? Thank you Mitch. I think we’re staying with you. Easter Egg. 2013 EASTER EGG CANDY HUNT. th Johnson: Alrighty, thank you. This Saturday, 9:00 a.m. at City Center Park the City is hosting their 30 Annual Easter Egg Candy Hunt for children ages 12 and under. This is the second of four community events that the City offers through our community event program. This year we have, we’ll have typical egg hunting with the candy and stuff. We will be in the snow so bring your snow boots, you know tell the kids. Also as part of that we’ve got a coloring contest. Just got a nice stack from Jodi. It’s always fun to look at the kids, you know they turn their events in, or their coloring sheets so should be a fun event. Still looking for volunteers if anybody’s interested. We would certainly welcome you out this weekend. Cole Kelly: Any questions for Mitch on the Easter Egg hunt? Thank you Mitch. RECREATION CENTER REPORT. Cole Kelly: And I think we’re moving onto Jodi. Sarles: Thank you Commissioner Kelly. Things are, we’re back at March Madness at the Rec Center and as much basketball time as I could put out there it gets snatched up pretty quick so just about everybody has caught the fever I guess. Just a few things. We are all fully functioning and have our security cameras up and running so that’s been a very positive response that we put those in. People feel safer being in the fitness center if they’re by themselves or something like that so they know that we can monitor what’s going on down there. Indoor pickleball has expanded. We got approached to restripe our gym and volunteers, we had about 20 volunteers out restriping 3 courts in our gym so quickly we’ve expanded our players play out there 1:00 to 4:00 Monday through Friday. This week we gave them a couple days off so that the kids could have the gym time during the afternoons so, but so far it’s expanded very well and folks really appreciate the time out there. Dance for Fun, we’re chugging away onto our third session here. We added a few new classes. Father-Daughter Dance and two elite technique classes th and all of those classes are full for this spring. They’re working up to their May 11 recital. I’ll let you kind of check in on Rec Center Sports and the next big thing we have upcoming here, and I invite you all ndth to come to our Spring Boutique. That’s our 2 annual one. It’s going to be Sunday, April 28 from 23 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 10:00 to 2:00 out at the Rec Center so last year we had great participation and the numbers are coming in just as good so far this year so. And after that if you guys have any questions for me. Cole Kelly: That Daddy-Daughter Dance, how young do my children have to be? Sarles: They’re all in high school I think. They’re all middle and high school, the girls are so. Cole Kelly: Darn. Questions for Jodi. Any questions? Thank you very much Jodi. Sarles: Thank you. Cole Kelly: Sue, I think you’re up. SENIOR CENTER REPORT. Bill: Thank you. I’ll keep it short and sweet tonight. As Jerry mentioned the Senior Center and programs have been busy throughout the winter. It’s been a long winter. They’ve provided an excellent outlet for people to get out and I’m pretty amazed at the number of people that get out despite the temperature and cold. So the only thing I really want to talk on, and I think you’ve heard me talk before of creative programming to try to engage younger older adults and baby boomers and to draw new people in. We have had a winter where there have been a lot of illnesses and falls so I had heard about a gentleman who did historic military presentations. I had the first one on the Dakota War of 1862 and then one on Gettysburg. Had 55 to 60 people at both of those presentations and I bet a third of them were people that aren’t regular attendance and they were men as well so I’m going to continue to look at creativity to draw new people in. I charged the Senior Advisory Board at our meeting yesterday that we’re going to have a mini retreat to really look at how we can continue to add and pull people to draw in participants to meet the needs of the younger population. Cole Kelly: Very nice, questions? Thank you Sue. PARK & TRAIL MAINTENANCE. Gregory: Thank you. Well I’ve got skating rinks first. Mitch has pretty much covered that and I really don’t have anything to add to that. We did do our wood duck house cleaning and inspections about a month ago. Our percentage has gone up a little bit. Last year we were at 25%. We’re up to 32%. We’re still way down from what we used to be. We used to be up in the 40’s to as high as 80’s and we’re still low though. There is an attached report. It will show you all the, all of our inspections for back into the 1990’s. Early 90’s and that and but like I say, they’ve been staying fairly low lately. Sentence to Serve, it’s a program put on by the County that we utilize and it’s where we get to use inmates to come up and help us do cleaning or whatever we need and we get them every year for helping cleaning up around the City Hall, fire stations, downtown area and that in the spring right away. We did have them scheduled for May, or I’m sorry, end of April and that and we pushed that back now to into May and we’re kind of on hold with them and that until we know the snow and everything is going to be gone so once it leaves we’ll have them up here and do the cleaning. This was a project or a program that about a year ago was really on the just about the County was going to eliminate it due to budget cuts and they kept it and we’re really glad. I mean we use them about 3 or 4 times a year so it really works out good for us. The Lake Susan, everything is looking good there. We get, we do readings every week on the oxygen levels and that and it’s going down a little bit and that but we’re still well above putting in any aeration or anything so we’re looking real good for this year again and hopefully pretty soon we’ll get a little more runoff and water running into the lake and there won’t be any issues at all so that’s all I got. 24 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Cole Kelly: Questions for Dale? Thank you Dale. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Cole Kelly: Anything in the administrative packet you want to point out to us Todd? Hoffman: A letter went out to Cullen Bahn for his presentation that he gave at the commission meeting and last night Councilmember Laufenburger introduced and the council supported a bid for the state tournament for 2014. The State Baseball Tournament for Chanhassen and Chaska as a joint sponsoring communities so look for that. Cole Kelly: Cool. Okay. We’ll move on to number 10. We need to set an agenda for our discussion items coming up in April with the City Council. SET AGENDA FOR JOINT MEETING WITH CITY COUNCIL. Cole Kelly: Basically I think what we want to kind of talk about, probably the new parks and the Bandimere addition as well as what we’ve done at some of the smaller parks. I think we added to, I can’t think of the name. We put up at least one basketball court. What’s the name of that park? Ryan: Herman Park. Cole Kelly: Thank you. Herman Park. Other things that need to be added to the items of discussion? Ryan: I think it would be a great opportunity to re-discuss AIS since the motion didn’t pass tonight. Maybe we can have an open discussion with City Council and get some of their thoughts. Instead of moving to tonight on anything, let’s take that opportunity with them to get some feedback. Cole Kelly: We could do that. Todd, isn’t this meeting more of a review of what we’ve done in the past year? Hoffman: It’s open to anything. Cole Kelly: Okay. Then let’s add it to the list of topics. Ryan: Thank you. Cole Kelly: List of topics going forward, add lights at Lake Susan. Let’s start discussion on Bluff Creek Road path. Hoffman: Just a suggestion, also the Arboretum connection. Cole Kelly: Yes. I’ve actually ridden through the Arboretum since they’ve had their signs up. It’s a little confusing over there. I’ve still got to figure it out. Any other additions? Ryan: We were talking about the successes, I think we should add the Highway 41 trail. Cole Kelly: Yes. Hoffman: …interviewed by the newspaper. 25 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Cole Kelly: You’ve got enough there Todd to put something together? Hoffman: Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate your help. Cole Kelly: Okay, and I know I put it on my calendar but remind me what the date is again. nd Hoffman: April 22. That’s a Monday. Cole Kelly: Monday. So it’s the day before our meeting. Hoffman: Yep at 6:00 p.m. Environmental Commission I think is right in front of you. Maybe the Senior but you’re second. Cole Kelly: I think the Senior’s in front of us and they have two the next night. So I guess you’ll have to email that out to us. Hoffman: We will. Cole Kelly: Thank you. Hoffman: …out to you. It’s your annual opportunity to discuss with the council what’s going on and you also have some new commissioners that evening that will be joining you as well. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Cole Kelly: We already did the Administrative Packet. Is there a motion? Hoffman: Just we. Cole Kelly: Oh, sorry. Hoffman: Yep I skipped we’re saying farewell to Commissioner Aldritt tonight so Peter thank you for your service and served a 3 year term here with the commission. We really appreciate your dedication so this is his last meeting on the Park and Recreation Commission in the city of Chanhassen. The City Council did not have time to fulfill all the discussion about new appointments last night but they’ll be th making those appointments on April 8 back to the Park and Recreation Commission so we’ll know then. Peter you will be receiving a Certificate of Appreciation from the Mayor and City Council. You’ll be notified of that date and you can come back here and commissioners are welcome to come that evening as well and participate in that process so that’s news so far on commission appointments. There’s more to th come shortly on the 8 of April. Cole Kelly: Peter, thank you for being with us. Aldritt: Thank you. I just want to say I really enjoyed the time on the commission. It’s been a great experience. I appreciate all the hard work from staff and the other commissioners. It’s made the experience very enjoyable. I really enjoyed making the community a better place to be. 26 Park and Recreation Commission – March 26, 2013 Cole Kelly: With that said, is there a motion? Carron moved, Boettcher seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned at 9:35 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 27