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PRC 2013 05 29 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MAY 29, 2013 Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Cole Kelly, Elise Ryan, Brent Carron, Jim Boettcher, Rich Echternacht, and Luke Thunberg MEMBERS ABSENT: Steve Scharfenberg STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; and Miranda Hopp, Park and Recreation Summer Intern APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Kelly: As far as agenda, there’s a few items I want to add to the agenda. We’re going to add, I might as well make these 5, 6 and 7. Cost analysis for lighting at Bandimere and, oops. Thank you. With part of that we’d like Jerry to talk to us on how we rest fields. What does he think of having lighting at fields, what damage or good will come from the lighting so we want Jerry’s input on it. Number 6, Westwood soccer field. Number 7 would be shelters at parks that the Mayor mentioned during our meeting and Elise did you have a number 8 to add tonight? Ryan: I did not, no. Kelly: Okay, so any other additions? Thunberg: Is this for, to be considered? Kelly: This is to be talked about tonight. So anything you want to add. Thunberg: I don’t know if this should be added but has this been discussed about a pool for the community center? Hoffman: It has been discussed but you can certainly add it… Kelly: Yep, let’s add number 8. Pool for community center. Okay, any other additions? PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Kelly: Any public announcements tonight? Hoffman: Other than the introduction of Miranda, which I think most of you have met. Miranda Hopp. The summer intern for Parks and Recreation. She’s been with us a few weeks. Doing a great job for the City so glad to have her on staff and she’s graduated, or will be graduating from Minnesota State Mankato with a Sports Management degree and the minor is? Hopp: Marketing. Hoffman: Marketing, wonderful. Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Ruegemer: Would you like to give them any more background of yourself for the commission? Hopp: Yeah. I’m originally from Cosmos, Minnesota, which is 20 minutes west of Hutchinson. Do you guys know where that is? Like Todd said, Sports Management and this is my third internship so trying to learn the ropes of the city. This is a new one for me but it’s a great experience so far and can’t wait to do it some more. Kelly: Welcome to the City Miranda. Hopp: Thank you. Ruegemer: Commissioner Kelly, just would like to say, and Mitch is absent tonight. Mitch is attending th the Southwest Metro Magazine banquet tonight. Chanhassen’s 4 of July celebration is up for the best community festival in that category this evening at the Carlson Towers so he’s representing the City in that venture tonight. I think we have a pretty good chance of winning that award and we’re up against Victoria Volkfest and the Waconia Nickel Dickel Days for that so it looks like Chanhassen might be bringing home another award for best community celebration or festival in the area so we can keep our fingers crossed. Mitch is going to text me during the meeting here if he finds out so I will be happy to share that current information with you all tonight and we’ll talk about it maybe a little bit later here but th we’ll talk a little bit about the Klingelhutz dedication on June 9 out at Lake Ann Park. That is a Sunday, 1:00. Kelly: Congratulations to all staff on the perceived award and the honor for being up for the award. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Echternacht moved, Carron seconded to approve the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated April 23, 2013 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. ESTABLISH 2014-2018 PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM CIP TOUR SCHEDULE. Kelly: Todd, any specific comments you want to make? Hoffman: Sure. The packet you have is the written information. As Cole stated, Chairman Kelly stated the CIP is your planning document for the next 5 years so what’s going to be happening over the next 5 years in capital improvements, it’s kind of a road map for your budget. It really represents priorities of the community in the area of park and recreation capital investment. Staff’s worked on a power point to go through and then, so instead of reading down through numbers, and what we’re asking the commission to come up with tonight is, typically we take a tour so next meeting you’ll talk in depth about CIP but if you want to go out in the field and take a look at some of your ideas. Take a look at some of the locations. Getting out on the ground and actually taking a look at the site is the best way to understand what you’re going to be talking about later that evening so in that June evening we typically go out for our tour, but tonight you would want to set some priorities so we hit the sites that you actually want to see. Some of these images that are in the power point will help you make those type of decisions. It’s split into two parts. It’s the current 5 year CIP items are in the first part of this power point and then ideas that are out there but currently not budgeted in the next 5 years are the second part of the power point. Be glad to answer questions as we go through. It also includes the Bandimere improvements for lighting and then we’ll talk about the other two when we get to that point. So ready to hit that please. There you go. 2 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 So you’ve got projects currently programmed 2013 to 2017. Annually we have a $10,000 allocation for picnic tables, park benches throughout the city. All of these, the white benches, the memorial bench, all the memorial benches are purchased out of here. We do one or two or three of those a year depending on the given year and they’re about $1,000 investment so those benches would come out of this fund and then the people purchasing those, the dollars go right back in so this is just a clearinghouse for that. These benches are at City Center Park, or these tables and then we add new parks. This year we’re adding Riley Ridge and next year we’ll be adding Pioneer Pass and those shelters, or those benches come out of this budget as well. Trees, there’s an image from another Arbor Day celebration with Brent and Elise and Rick planting a tree out at Lake Susan so this allocation of dollars, $15,000 it’s not for Arbor Day but it’s for other planting activities. The Arbor Day is funded through the planning department Arbor Day budget but we do an annual tree planting program typically in the fall so we don’t get hung up with a lot of summer watering because if we plant trees in the spring then we have to water them typically all summer long. But we do many tree replacements. $15,000, especially with the eventual oncoming of Emerald Ash Borer really is not keeping up with what’s going on but it’s making a good contribution to our tree program on an annual basis. We’ve got a lot of reasons for loss. Disease. Storm damage. Stress. All those type of things so we pick out 3, 4, or 5 sites each year and then go back in and plant some trees in those particular locations. The lightening strike was not on our property but at Minnetonka Middle School West and that was just a few weeks ago. Kelly: Todd? I can’t remember what agency did that but they just put one of the Minnesota State Agencies just put on all the cities a stronger water runoff code. Hoffman: Yep. Kelly: Did you catch that article in the paper? Hoffman: Did not. Kelly: It was in the Minneapolis paper and so I’m wondering how that affects us with, obviously with trees we have less runoff. Hoffman: Yep. Kelly: You know normally I would think $15,000 is enough for trees and I don’t know if it’s been discussed around City Hall with these new restrictions coming in from the State. I don’t know how they affect our city and I’m not sure most cities, I think this applies starting in 2014. Hoffman: We can ask our Water Resources Coordinator to report back on that. I think we’re doing very well in that area and it is obviously a concern with the Emerald Ash Borer. Cities in Illinois and to the east experienced significant increase in runoff when they lost their ash trees and so that would be the, it could be one of the challenges we face into the future. Kelly: I think it’s worth some more discussion if you can get some more information. Hoffman: We will. Kelly: …needs to go. Hoffman: Star Tribune article or where was that? Kelly: Star Tribune, correct. 3 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Hoffman: Okay, we’ll ask Terry Jeffery or Krista Spreiter, our Water Resources Coordinator employees to come on in and give you an update in June. Kelly: Okay, thank you. Hoffman: Tennis courts, in 2014 we have $75,000. That’s in the capital replacement fund. For all commissioners, we really have two funds. The park dedication fund, which are dollars collected at the time of development, and then capital replacement funds. Capital replacement funds are general tax dollars that are put into a capital replacement fund to buy trucks, heavy equipment, any type of replacement equipment and so when these tennis courts are built the first time, with park dedication funds or other projects, then the second time when they’re re-built we should be using capital replacement funds to do that work. That’s what you’re telling people when you take their money for park dedication that when you come to town, we’re going to build something new for you to meet your increased demands on our park and trail system. It wouldn’t be fair to take that money and replace or to repair park infrastructure in the community so the City Council bought into this program and in 2014 we’ll be working at City Center and Lake Ann Park. So this is the maintenance history of all our tennis courts. Rec Center, City Center, Lake Ann, Lake Susan, Meadow Green. On the bottom you can see, these courts have been around for many years. 16 years. 33 years. 39 years in the case of Lake Ann. 21 years but they have been maintained throughout their history so this is the maintenance history starting in 1972 when the first court was built out at Lake Ann. Then it shows future maintenance which is already scheduled and year 2014 is up there, City Center and Lake Ann. Last year, or 2 years ago in 2012 you did Lake Susan, Meadow Green, North Lotus and South Lotus. It makes a big difference. When you get towards the end of these maintenance cycles and the courts are starting to show their age and are starting to deteriorate. We get a lot more complaints so the complaints go up and really the conversation you have with people at that time is it’s, you know it’s kind of like your driveway or things that deteriorate. A paint job on your house. You just really have to use it up. It’d be nice to replace it when it first starts showing signs of age but you really can’t do that kind of program so, and then accolades go up once they’re improved and looking good, then people are real happy for a few years until they start deteriorating again. So this program is all laid out and it’s affordable simply because of the fact that we didn’t scatter tennis courts everywhere in the city. So tennis courts are grouped at community parks primarily and you need to either bike or drive to those locations. We also have tennis courts at schools. Kelly: Didn’t you kind of design it, the tennis courts so as far as maintenance goes we didn’t have them spread everywhere? It’d be easier to handle. Hoffman: Yep, correct. Less courts and concentrated in community parks. In 2015 you have allocated $275,000. That would be called seed money. It’s not going to pay for the project in park dedication money for a pedestrian trail to the Arboretum. This plan shows kind of the phase that starts at Highway 5. The intersection of Highway 5 right here and then heads towards the Arboretum to the west. Picks it up right outside their entrance and then either stops at their entrance or continues all the way in down to their gate house and it’s a 10 foot wide trail. This project would also include an underpass. Just right outside the front door of Lifetime Fitness at the intersection of 5 and 41. That’s part of the project. Total project cost with the underpass, about one and a quarter million. We applied for an STP grant. A federal transportation enhancement grant and this project was pretty close to being funded so we’ll reapply in the next round of applications. Lots of residents still go there today just without a trail. They just head out and they get to that intersection of 5 and 41 and they just head on down on the shoulder of Highway 5 to get to the Arboretum. Ryan: Todd, when you say that something is pretty close, do you get feedback on why it didn’t, why it wasn’t accepted or how do you know where you stand? 4 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Hoffman: We get a ranking and you get a point scale so you can tell exactly where you ranked high and where you want to kind of tweak your application and we work with a consultant on that so, and we have very good letters of support so we had Lifetime in there. The Arboretum. So we just have to continue, and then it depends on how many applications come in. If a whole bunch of good ones come in, you still have a tough time but I think we’re positioned pretty advantageously to take another good shot at that. And then we can look for some additional lobbying too because there is, you know there is a ranking board just like any other scoring system. It’s a big project. Important project but it’s going to take a different, a second set of funding, source of funding to make that happen. 2016, the Chan Nature Preserve Trail and it’s one of these two blue lines. So this one across the center denotes, or indicates a future potential boardwalk. It’s not necessary for the trail loop. The real thing you’re taking a look at here is a 2 mile trail loop around the Chanhassen Nature Preserve and this last segment will be built concurrently with this lot. This lot is Mamac Systems. When they develop their building they were required by our development contract to build this section of trail. We pay for the rock and the asphalt. They grade it. They install it as a part of their, and private improvements as a part of their lot. Whoever buys this lot, it will also be in their DC. Their development contract that they have to install this section of trail. This last piece and then we would pay for the rock and the asphalt with that $90,000. There’s also a retaining wall needed. That’s why the cost is somewhat significant. That would be the last phase. This whole trail system was started in 1995 and so that 2016 is not a firm date. It’s really a moving date based on when this lot is sold. So that will just keep moving out until that lot hits, and then it will be the last phase of that trail loop. 2013 we have Pioneer Pass Park, Phase I construction, $350,000 in park dedication and so there’s the site as it looks just early this spring, or late last fall. It’s growing some cover crop now. This is the park plan that’s been approved. Phase I of the project, we’re going to bid this package mid-summer or early summer. Final grading, storm sewer improvements basically to collect the water and the important parts and then get it down to this pond so we’ll be taking water out of the parking lot. Water out of this drainage area in the west side of the park. Some drainage off of the fields and then collecting it. Taking it into this storm water pond. Parking lot improvements. The construction of the parking lot, basketball court and the construction of the softball/baseball field. Soccer/lacrosse field. Trails. Play area. That’s not included in Phase I construction this year. The picnic shelter will be next year and then seeding will be late this fall. Early fall. August. So for a late fall growth season. Carron: So it’s just got a temporary cover on it now? Hoffman: Yep. Echternacht: What did you say was not included this year? Hoffman: Picnic shelter and play areas. Echternacht: Okay. Hoffman: Everything else will be in that first bid package. Basically the thought behind that Commissioner Echternacht is to build everything out but not to put it to things that are real attractive and fun in there before you’re growing a good stand of grass so we need to get the hard court surfaces put down. The parking lot put down. All the hard infrastructure. Grow some good grass so then when we invite the families and the kids into the playground next year that it’s ready to go. 2017, the Bandimere Park expansion. Phase I and again that’s a seed money allocation. $250,000. This is a million dollar project as well. To do this expansion. Currently with the road project you are having a new park entrance built. A much safer location. The existing park entrance you can see right here in this concept plan and th then this is the new park entrance so this will be open by, for July 15 to July 4 sometime this year. June thth 15 to July 4 sometime this year. And that’s the new entrance into Bandimere Park. Then these other 5 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 improvements, tennis, parking, hockey, open skate, warming house, that would be this future expansion. In 2012 we bought these two properties adjoining to add that 5 acres and then full project estimate, $750,000 to a million. Kelly: Todd, with Bandimere up right now, should we move up the cost analysis on the lighting for Bandimere and discuss that at this time? Hoffman: Sure, yep. It’s, let me find it. Kelly: Oh, if we’re out of order we can wait. Hoffman: Well it will be in there. We’ll just go back. There’s Bandimere Park. Another image of it, an aerial image and so these are the two houses that are getting moved off. Two story house in the back. The rambler in the front. And there’s 6 fields here. 3 soccer fields. Basically two 40 by 360 soccer fields. One right in the center and then the 2 that abut up to the Springfield neighborhood and you have 3 baseball/softball fields. The shortest one’s 220. Second one’s 250 and the baseball field’s 300. Basically adding lights doubles the capacity of an athletic field to host games so on any given evening you can get really one game in before it’s too dark to play. Once you add lights you double that. You get a second game in. If we could have parents and families and coaches out there at 2:00 in the afternoon, it would be great. You could, you know on the weekdays increase your capacity but you don’t have that ability with people’s lifestyles. Approximately cost is $150,000 per field. Costs would go down if you do all 6 fields so if you do 3 that’s you know, it’s just one of those, $450,000 per 3. If you do all 3 soccer or all 3 ballfields. Kelly: So the soccer and the ballfield, the pricing is pretty much the same? Hoffman: Just about identical, yeah. And when you get into this project, depending on how many fields you do, costs are going to go down and then you can buy you know cheaper lighting over more valuable lighting but in, especially with lighting we want these fields to be a 50 year type product or more and so you want to take a look at something and they would be designed, but that’s your, you’ve got a lot of work to do along with that. You know bringing in power into the fields and installation of underground utilities and utility boxes so those are approximate costs. Echternacht: Was it Lake Susan was the one that was on the list? Kelly: Correct. Echternacht: And that’s just one field? Hoffman: One field. Echternacht: Would that, if you do one field like that by itself is that still about $150,000? Hoffman: Yeah. And it might, for that baseball field with a larger, little taller lights so they could be the cost could go up a little bit and then it’s also since it’s a single field you’re not going to get the same pricing that you would out on this. Echternacht: So it would be… Hoffman: Yeah, it could be $175,000. 6 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Kelly: Jerry, maybe this would be a good time for you to educate us on why you rest certain fields when you do. I want your thoughts on what lighting it going to do to the fields and just kind of fill us in on how you see things? Ruegemer: Okay. Well obviously on an annual basis we, we’re extremely heavy on scheduling our fields. Now with the Chanhassen High School online we certainly have a partnership with the school district to provide athletic fields, not only for baseball, for soccer and that sort of thing so in some ways that has kind of taken our ability to not rest as, or inability I guess to rest fields as much as maybe we have in the past with that but kind of what we do on an annual basis, I’ve had like a 10 year resting plan for fields. Soccer fields in particular with Lake Ann Park, North Lotus and the three, well City Center Park is also in that resting as well as the Bandimere fields. So kind of what we do, you know kind of an annual basis about early July, mid-July we take a look at that. I get together with the park maintenance staff. We go down and kind of have that conversation as to you know is there certain fields that you know the goal mouth areas are in pretty tough shape or there was games played in the rain that really kind of raised heck throughout the kind of the middle of the field. If there are some fields and I kind of go on really kind of the expert opinions of you know our park foreman and our park superintendent in that case. If there’s a field or a situation that is in need of resting then we’ll take that down, whether that’s in the 10 year resting plan or not. So for example we typically take down a field at Bandimere down at least one field per fall, depending on the year. If it’s been dry and that sort of thing like last year, we didn’t take any fields down at Bandimere during the fall time but if we’ve had kind of a wet spring or had some tournaments, district tournaments or other type of play that maybe had some wear and tear on the fields, then we would look at those fields in particular and then at the conclusion of the summer season we’ll take the field down and whether we over seed, add black dirt, re-sod, goal mouth areas, then that work then would be completed at that point so then we complete that you know early August. Then we have the rest of the fall then to get that field kind of back in shape so as of kind of now it’s kind of as needed and then, then the high school plans accordingly so then I’m in contact with Dick Unger, the Activities Coordinator. Then he can plan accordingly and kind of know what fields are available in that situation. As far as City Center Park we have 3 fields up here for C.C. United. Again we kind of take a look at those. You know City Center Park is kind of a unique situation with not only community based programs but we also have you know phy ed programs and recess, a lot of those type of, kind of things kind of going on a daily basis so kind of what we try to do is take a look at the condition of those fields. th Certainly with the carnival and the 4 of July, it’s really a busy area so what we try to do is kind of rotate the fields around that campus. At max we can have 3 during the summer time. We can add another one in the fall time where the skating rink is. The winter skating rink right here. Kind of where the tents go th for the 4 of July. Typically what happens in the spring is park maintenance crews come in and kind of th slit seed or over seed that area and then by the 4 of July we have a pretty decent stand of grass so we don’t schedule anything there in the early spring and summer. Fall they will add a soccer field, add another one there. So the rest of the park and City Center Park will kind of rotate around so if there’s areas where it’s been kind of a heavy use around the goal mouth area, we’ll take that field off line. A lot of times in the fall time or maybe I’ll, maybe the spring time, if we feel we can get by without that field in conversations with associations, we’ll take that whole area down and then re-seed it typically after the conclusion of the school year, so about early June. It’s not ideal for seeding or field maintenance but a lot of times we try to get a jump on that with it being irrigated and we can then kind of take that down then for the summer and the rest of the fall with the hope of kind of rejuvenating that by the time the school season kind of starts and then we’ll have that conversation with the phy ed department to maybe kind of rotate phy ed classes and other types of activities to a different part of the park to maintain kind of the work that we’ve done throughout the park itself so we’re certainly trying to be aware of all those situations and rest where we need to. You know Lake Ann, certainly we’ve had lights on that soccer field. We’re kind of getting back online with that field after kind of the major overhaul that we’ve done on that field to kind of get it back into shape with the damage that occurred during a tournament, must have been 3-4 years ago now. So certainly trying to limit that. You know the amount of games per week 7 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 on that if we possibly can. I know we’ve had some make up’s and stuff here so I’m sure this, when it does start to dry out in here that we’ll have to start kind of adding some additional games here to get Tonka United for the most part. That’s their field during the summer time so I’m sure there’ll be some increased use on that field once it does dry out. Kelly: Okay Jerry, how do the fields that are lit over at Lake Ann handle it and what’s your thoughts on lighting you know at either Bandimere or Lake Susan. You know I mean also address it as far as additional maintenance. What it does to the fields. You know additional costs we’d have outside of the lighting going in with the maintenance. Ruegemer: Well certainly I’m not the most popular person in town these days with the cancellations of, I think we’ve played about 2 games of soccer in the month of May but I cancelled again tonight so as Todd is aware I’m certainly in communication with associations on a daily basis. We have an email distribution situation or system in place where I’ll let people know typically by noon if possible if the games are cancelled for the night. Tonight was a little bit later since we had a down pour around 3:30, quarter to 4:00 today so what I’m trying to do on a daily basis is in rainy type of situations like this, I try to stay on top of that so we’re not letting play go on during these situations to preserve the integrity of the field. Kind of be good stewards of the fields. Obviously that puts a log jam on, in the games that are scheduled through the leagues, that sort of thing but really my main purpose and my main goal is to keep the fields viable and in good shape so then we maybe don’t have to rest them throughout the course of the year. Will lights, you know adding lights increase the use? Absolutely and those are good things in my opinion. We certainly can talk about that if that lighting project does go forward to limit the amount of games per week to kind of put a cap on it. That certainly is something to consider. Also I know some other cities or complexes have put kind of a cap of hours per season. That certainly is another thing to consider if the commission would like to but you know if it’s a dry situation and the fields are pretty hardy with the way they’re seeded and that sort of thing. If we kind of stay on top of managing that in rainy situations and really for the most part our associations that use the fields are extremely invested in and okay with the decisions that I make because it’s really in their best interest as well to have really premiere fields in the southwest area so they really want to take ownership of those fields too so in those situations where maybe I don’t make the decision in time, they’ll take a look at that situation and they have cancelled as well prior to my phone call or email. Ryan: Jerry are they’re upgrades, sorry. Upgrades to the fields themselves like draining or are there things that we could do if we’re doing lighting, are there additional things that we can do to protect the fields? Ruegemer: Yeah, a lot of those improvements have been done as far as draining. I mean Bandimere and Lake Ann have a lot of drain tile underneath you know throughout the course of the fields so really the playing surfaces at Bandimere, where it may be squishy on the side lines, if they’re crowned properly and it does have a lot of drainage, a lot of that water is kind of taken away from that playing surface so those improvements are actually in pretty good shape, or those fields are actually in pretty good share right now so as far as adding a lot of other things other than lighting costs, those would be I think very minimal. Hoffman: There’s an increase in electricity for operations and maintenance. There’s a big difference between baseball/softball and soccer/lacrosse so, you can light baseball/softball and you can play all the games you can get on there just about. Soccer/lacrosse when you have wet conditions, you’re not getting in a game tonight because you’re not playing the first one without the lights so you’re not getting the second one but the damage is done on soccer/lacrosse when they’re really wet and then they continue to play on them, especially if they play on a weekend tournament on very wet conditions and took out the Lake Ann soccer field for a year. 8 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Thunberg: Jerry, you seem to mention soccer all the time but lacrosse I haven’t heard the fields being used for lacrosse. I know that Chaska uses like Clover Ridge and that area for lacrosse. Are some teams using these fields for lacrosse as well? Ruegemer: We have a dedicated lacrosse field at the Instant Web properties off of Park Road. Echternacht: Okay. Ruegemer: So during the summer time Minnetonka Lacrosse uses that field exclusively for their needs and then in the fall time that field goes to a soccer field for the St. Hubert’s program. C3 Lacrosse is another lacrosse program in our community that serves Chanhassen kids and they primarily play in Chanhassen at the turf, at the new Chanhassen High School. Echternacht: Okay. Boettcher: Just curious Jerry, you talked about the one field at Lake Ann that was damaged 3 or 4 years ago. Was that just from one day of soccer tournaments? Ruegemer: It was. Boettcher: It was. How many games? Was it 3? Ruegemer: It was a pretty major tournament called the Tonka Splash. Boettcher: And it was like similar conditions like we have today? Ruegemer: Yeah. You know kind of historically the first weekend in June typically has been kind of a rainy pattern and I’ve had conversations leading up to that weekend about the conditions of the field. If we cancelled but you know at that time I think they had probably, over 300 teams and they really utilized fields throughout the whole southwest metro so kind of their mentality was, you know the game must go on and that’s not necessarily my mentality and so therefore after that year that was kind of it for us. I’ve been real hesitant about doing any type of tournaments in early June. Obviously with the district tournaments for both Minnetonka, for the Tonka United program and CC United program, I have allowed that in July typically when it’s been drier so those type of situations or requests are granted. Boettcher: How long did it take for that to come back then? Ruegemer: Well we took the field down that year about, well I think it was pretty much right after that so you know second week in June it was taken down and it was down for the whole rest of the year and I believe the whole rest of the next year because the seed didn’t take and there were some other, a variety of other issues that arose during that situation so, and then we limited use in the spring that following year so they were really out of a playing field for a better half of a year and a half for sure. Hoffman: Which would be dozens if not close to 100 games. Ruegemer: Absolutely. Boettcher: Okay, thanks. Ruegemer: So you know Cole probably what will help as well is that youth soccer in this area has been increasing double digit percentages here for quite a while and what will help is the Victoria fields I think 9 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 are finally coming online again at the community center in that area. Those fields have been down for about 4 or 5 years so those will be additional fields that we can kind of hopefully spread the wealth a little bit. CC United that’s been primarily at Bandimere and they’ve been playing on the stadium turf at the high school so that’s been taking some pressure off of our turf as well. It seems like there’s never been enough here but hopefully if we can kind of keep spreading it out and after the high school season’s over with now the turf will open up a little bit more for other uses as well. Carron: Question Jerry. You talked a lot about soccer here. What sport is the toughest to schedule for? Is it soccer? Ruegemer: No. Baseball is by far the hardest to schedule. The soccer groups are extremely easy on an average. Carron: You mean as far as like lighting or amount of fields you have to play with? Ruegemer: You know again it’s, you know we’re kind of putting together some information on that too. It seemed like there’s everybody’s been increasing participants in their programs and I think the level of the intensity has also been increasing within these programs so everybody’s always looking for more space so any type of a lighting situation obviously would help relieve the scheduling obstacles that I have for baseball and soccer, lacrosse, all those type of things so I don’t know if that answered your question or not but. Carron: Yeah, yeah it does and then one other thing. Soccer to me sounds kind of like lighting a soccer field, if you’re to balance it out. Spending $150,000 let’s just say to light a soccer field or to build a new soccer field itself, sounds to me like building a soccer field itself would be better because most resting time. More area because if you light a soccer field it’s just going to be, well if it’s resting period for a year, those lights are out of use for a year. Is I guess, is that something that you’d be as a trade off kind of looking for? I mean I guess I’m trying to pry something out of here but is spending $150,000 of the CIP money that we have better used for soccer field, a new soccer field or lighting a soccer field? Hoffman: It would be if we had a place to build it. Carron: That’s the other thing. Is Westwood Church still, is I mean that’s, is that an option? Hoffman: That’s an option for a single field, yeah. Carron: Okay. Okay. Kelly: So I think what I’m hearing between both Todd and Jerry is let’s say somehow we find a way to light some of the fields but not all the fields, we’re going to get, even though I’m a former soccer player, we’re going to get a better bang for our dollar if we do softball fields and baseball fields. Hoffman: …but I think you’re going to want to balance that approach as you move forward. Right now we have 6 baseball/softball lighted and one soccer field so I think you’re going to want to take a balanced approach. Bandimere is 50/50 and you’re probably going to want to approach lighting one and equal amounts of the same fields. When the weather cooperates you can play 2 games a night on a soccer field with no issue. When it’s not cooperating you’re just not going to play there. We’re not playing softball tonight either. We’re not playing anything tonight. Carron: It’s been a wet spring. 10 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Kelly: Any more questions for Jerry or Todd on this issue? Todd, you want to move onto Riley Ridge? Hoffman: Sure will. Somebody with a big award? Ruegemer: We won. Got a picture of Mitch holding the hardware right now so. Kelly: Congratulations. Hoffman: Riley Ridge is in the midst of construction. 2013 Phase I. That’s the basic budget for the $200,000 in park dedication dollars. Final grading was completed. We could not seed in August of last year due to the drought so we seeded the dormant seed where you place the seed and you mulch in real late in the year in November. The seeds lay dormant and we have really good germination this spring. We have some raveling and waterways that we’ll get back and repair those raveled areas but generally the overall site is holding very well. Basketball court’s in. You can see that in this location. This is the cut out area for the playground that’s coming in August so things are being put in place. This budget will be consumed with this Phase I. The parking lot is currently in place. First lift. It needs a second lift of asphalt when the time comes after we’re all done constructing it and scraping it up. That’s the park plan thth down in this location so August 9 and 10, that’s a Friday-Saturday. We’ll send you out a sign up sheet. Those who would like to participate with the neighborhood can come out and work with the th neighborhood. It will start at approximately noon on Friday on the 9 and go through completion and the way we’re staging this, when the playground, the last bolts are tighten on the playground it’s going to open up so the park’s going to open up. All the improvements will be. The trees. The mulch will be there. The last thing the residents will do is haul all the mulch in so the kids can start playing in the playground. The concrete border will be in and so it will be a big opening night and a community picnic th for their neighborhood on August 10. In 2015 we have $25,000 in capital replacement fund dollars to do some safety improvements at the front door of our Rec Center so we have a concrete heaving issue and then we also have a lighting issue. If you’ve ever noticed there’s really a lack of lighting in the evening and the dark hours at the Rec Center. We get a lot of comments about that so we have a lighting plan to add additional 4 safety lights and then to fix this concrete. We’ll try to move that up if we can but working with our finance director, he needs to space out those capital replacement items so right now we’re sticking at 2015. Carron: Is the traffic issue fixed? Hoffman: The traffic issue? No. It’s being monitored. It’s same as. Carron: As it’s always been. Hoffman: Yeah, same as always been. Echternacht: Is that a safety issue with the sidewalk right now? I mean how’s that being handled? Hoffman: It is. It’s being handled with this metal plate and so we bridged this lift here with this metal plate. It seems to be working. Those metal plates have been in place for a number of years without issue. That’s something that we manufactured. Without that metal plate you really couldn’t leave this in this condition. This gets worst each year but we’re talking a significant investment here. If it gets so bad that we do have a safety issue that we think is presenting itself to the public, then we would want to advance this project and we had lots of frost heave last year. This goes up and then it comes down and sometimes it goes all the way down. This year it stuck so it didn’t settle all the way down so. Without that piece of metal there we would have a significant safety problem. This project is just underway right now. It’s the Pleasant View Road intersection and trail improvements on 101. If you look at the yellow, that’s 11 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 everything going on in the road at 101, which is north. South and north here so this is north and south. This is 101 heading up into Minnetonka and 101 heading south back into downtown Chanhassen. So you’re doing a lot of turn lane improvements. Widening that intersection and then everything in the pink or the red color is the trail improvements so we start all the way up here at the Eden Prairie/Minnetonka border with Chanhassen and we bring that trail from that curb cut down along the east, west side of 101. Intersection of Pleasant View and then this bottom graph shows you taking a westerly approach on Pleasant View going all the way to the access point to Near Mountain and then continuing down to a trail access. A neighborhood trail access here so two significant chunks of trail. One on 101. One on Pleasant View. All wrapped into a $1.2 million dollar road improvement project and the cost to Park and Rec is $95,000. The last time we took a look at this for your budgeting it was in that $300,000 to $400,000 range to finish these trails so. This road project is doing a lot paying for that and we’re into it for $95,000 so when you see Paul Oehme, the only guy taller or skinnier than me at City Hall say thanks. 2013, Trunk Highway 101 improvements. Lyman Boulevard to Pioneer. Again the project underway. They wished they weren’t in so much mud but they are like the rest of the contractors around the state and this is a this year photo right there at the new entrance to Bandimere Park. That’s what they’re building is this new entrance road into Bandimere and again a $10 million dollar project and we’re into it for $25,000 for a brand new entrance road to Bandimere. Trails on both sides of the road. A box culvert so again a big thanks to our engineering group for bringing us along in their project and making a lot of improvements. It’s not just parks and recreation that builds trails in this community. Our road projects and our engineers do a whole lot of that as well so they deserve a great deal of credit. It’s going to improve safety and mobility on 101. Allow for future growth in the community south of Lyman Boulevard. That’s basically what it’s setting up with the new 212 being put in. This is setting up growth in southern Chanhassen. It’s a big project and the contractor’s out there right now. It’s Eureka Contracting. Carron: Who gets the credit? Hoffman: For this one? Carron: Yeah, because it’s not $10 million. Hoffman: Yeah it’s a little less, yeah. Yeah. Carron: Well we have $12 million on here. Hoffman: Yeah, it was at 12 and then it was at 10 and now it’s the bidding climate. The contractor gets the credit. Carron: No, I mean as far as here. Hoffman: Goes away, yeah. Carron: It’s gone. Hoffman: Yeah. Carron: Just checking to save some more money. Hoffman: Yeah, we’re not getting anything back at $25,000. Carron: Hey I’m helping. I’m trying. Scratching for every penny we can get. 12 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Ryan: You bet. Hoffman: It’s back in the road projects at the State or, just something, just to show you how really aggressive our group is here at the City. This is a State highway and it’s going to be turned over to the County and who’s doing the project? The City of Chanhassen in cooperation with the County and the State and the federal funding so really proud of our engineering group for taking those kind of projects in our community because these other agencies are busy and they’ve yeah, we’re going to get to it eventually. If you want to advance the project, if you want to take it on now, we’ll send the funding your way but we’re not going to be responsible for managing that project if you want to take that on so really proud of that group for what they do in that area. So this is the wish list. Things that you’re thinking about. Liberty at Bluff Creek. This trail might happen sooner than later. It’s, this is down, the best way to get your bearings is this is Pioneer Pass Park and this is the new Bluff Creek Boulevard. The first half is built. The second half that goes over to the interchange on Powers Boulevard is not. This was the Gayle Degler farm that was developed and this is Luke’s neighborhood up here, Pioneer Pass. So this section of trail, Liberty at Bluff Creek. Liberty at Creekside would be that section built with these houses down on the Jeurissen Farm and that is currently being investigated by Ryland Homes. And if Ryland comes in and develops a housing plat here, we’re on the hook for, it’s probably less than $275,000. Again we’re on the hook for asphalt. Rock. Any retaining walls. Any hard equipment. Any hard materials that go along with the project. The developer’s on the hook for planting. Grading incorporated into their project and going ahead and completing the improvement. And then this trail would come underneath Highway 212 right at the spider bridge. The bridge with the big spider legs right here and then come back up onto Pioneer Trail and so this would be the final length in about a 5 to 7 mile trail system in Bluff Creek starting from Pioneer and going all the way up to Westwood Church for the final piece. So again it needs to be plugged in. Right now we should probably be taking a look at it and plugging it in in 2014. The development’s going to be coming in. You’re going to be seeing it here probably in June before you so we’ll talk about that. Carron: Has Ryland gotten everything approved? Hoffman: They’ve submitted their application, yep. You’ll see it, well we’ll review it for park and trail requirements. Development requirements here in June. Bluff Creek Drive gap trail, and this is a view at the bottom. So you’re leaving Pioneer. Going underneath the Highway 212 bridge and you’re heading south down to the river bottom and this is where the trail ends currently so the last project. Stop the trail there. And then the plan up above shows how that would be continued and finished. So this is the termination point right here and this is heading south. Picking it up back at the top of the hill. Going down the hill and then continuing down the hill to the LRT trail head right here. This driveway is the white picket fence along Bluff Creek Drive. The Klingelhutz residence with the big barn in this location to get your bearing. So it’s a significant gap. We really want to connect the city’s trail system from the main part of our community down to the river. This would be that first connection and now you’re aware things are coming up from the south. Kelly: Yeah, also I’ve come up from the LRT going up Bluff Creek road and there’s no shoulder on that road so it is kind of a dangerous area and as bikers you’re pretty much going straight up hill. It’s not an easy bike up the hill and I think it’s something we should look at closely doing sooner than later. For one thing a safety issue. For the other thing is, when you come along the street there when you’re going north, nobody hops onto the trail because there’s no entrance to the trail there. And I’ve got to say the cars that go by me have been awfully nice but you know it’s, when there’s cars going both ways it’s a little nerve racking. I think this attachment to the LRT would be good. Luke, have you ridden down there and back? 13 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Thunberg: Yeah I have. It’s a two prong without being shoulder. Even for the cars driving it can be a safety issue because the elevation changes on the road as well. If you are being polite to move over for a biker, you don’t necessarily see the car coming the opposite direction so it can be a safety issue for drivers as well. Carron: Todd, what is the total cost of the, estimated total cost of this project? Hoffman: This one’s in the $250,000. Carron: Is there land acquisition that has to happen for this? Hoffman: There could be and there could be some retaining wall costs that could drive that estimate up. Thunberg: And this is just to close the gap to the LRT right? Hoffman: Yep. Thunberg: This isn’t continuing down the hill past that. Hoffman: But that will occur. Thunberg: That’s a separate phase. Hoffman: It’s going to occur with that Highway 61, or 62 down at the bottom and then the river bridge crossing so that’s happening as a part of that project. So again we’re coming from both directions and, but we really thought we’d be going down over the hill first but they’re coming up at us with those State projects so that’s good. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have happening. Carron: We put in for a grant on this one? Where’d we score on that one? Hoffman: Low. You’re not going to, it’s not going to score out. It’s too local. Even with the regional trail connection. They have thousands of these kind of applications. That’s a local street. This trail could be built either before the street or with a street improvement project and I’ll get you a more firm date. I don’t think that’s anytime in the near future that that street would be improved but we’ll check on that. Yeah you can see from this photo, the lane is the lane. There’s no room for a bike and a car. You have to move over. Thunberg: She’s forming some potholes. I take it every day. Hoffman: Is it getting some potholes in there? Thunberg: Oh yeah. Hoffman: They’re behind on pothole patching as well. Kelly: Would this be an in-house project or would you be hiring it out? Hoffman: No, this would be bid. Yeah. Bid. A couple small items in the future. There’s no docks currently for a boat landing at Lake Susan or Lake Ann and so this is what people need to do is basically wade. When it’s warm and you’re wearing shorts it’s not a big deal. Then also accessibility is a challenge for those folks that have limited accessibility to get into those watercraft without a dock. That’s 14 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 a challenge so it’s a little rustic. Without a dock it would be nice to have a boat access dock at Lake Ann and Lake Susan. A future park project, Phase I. This is Lake Lucy Road and Galpin and all this open space was acquired and/or dedicated as a part of the Lake Harrison neighborhood. Much of it is wetland but there is a big knoll down here where the developer wanted to install houses and the City took this trapezoid here and then the land around it for a west water treatment plant and then a neighborhood park. And so the neighborhood park would be accessed from Manchester. It’s kind of a top section and then on the lower section would be the waste water, or excuse me. The water treatment plant for drinking water. That would be built into the hillside here. It’s a longer term project but when the time comes for the west water treatment plant we’re going to have to be ready because that’s when we want to build the park and so it’s a timing issue with that water treatment plant. It’s not going to be a big park. More of a kind of a pocket park or a neighborhood park. They are in a park deficient area. To get to a park here you either have to walk to Pheasant Hill which is, Pheasant Hill Park which is beyond the half a mile or down to Sugarbush which is beyond the half a mile. And then also the Minnetonka Middle School playground is outside of the half a mile range. Carron: Is the water treatment plant based on like per capita or do they have an idea of when they’re going to need it? Hoffman: I’ll check the CIP. I don’t think it’s scheduled currently. It’s based on new rooftops and what’s going on right now, the farther you move west the, the water treatment plant’s in downtown so that water pushes out. Mingles with water that’s not treated and so you’re getting less treatment as you move west and eventually that’s going to become, there’s going to be such a demand on the water that it’s going to get so diluted by the time it gets out there, they’re going to just be saying hey, we’re paying the same taxes as the rest of the community. You’re treating water and everybody east of us is getting good water and by the time it gets out here we’re getting untreated water and so that’s going to push that demand eventually. Ryan: Were the people that built in Lake Harrison sold on a park or was that not part of the? Hoffman: They weren’t really sold on that. The developer was actually quite upset to have to give that land up. The park came along as a step son to this acquisition for that land. Ryan: Okay. Hoffman: For the water treatment plant. You were a funding source. Future projects, a couple of playground projects. Phase II developments and so Roundhouse Park. There’s a container. There’s a playground container for both 6 through 12, which is there and a 2 through 5. We’ve just never gotten back. Really if you put a Phase II in at this point, Phase I is, 25 years is about the age of a playground before you need it replaced so you could wait until you’re going to replace Phase I of the 6 through 12 and then if you choose to do both, 6 through 12 and 5, 2 through 5, then you could do it at that point. Not a real urgency. Same thing at Sugarbush. There’s a container that can hold both playgrounds but it’s not a real urgency and it’s been so long since this budget was established, you couldn’t buy a Phase II for $25,000 any more. It would take more money than that. It’s another one of those projects that’s been discussed. This is right down in the City Hall plaza so a fabric and pole band shell to create architecture. A little bit of theming and then some shelter for the performers. Again a future project that can happen at any time. It’s not a huge budget but it’s a significant enough a budget that you’d have to find room in a future budget when you had the time and the money to take this on. Carron: What’s the maintenance with that? 15 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Hoffman: You just take it down in the winter. Take in down in the fall and put it back up so it would be long lasting. These poles would be permanent and then the fabric would come down. It gets hot for the performers and then also I think just the architecture and the color of that during the performance time period in the summer would be a nice addition at some point in the future. Bandimere lights, we talked about that. We have lights at Lake Ann on six baseball/softball fields and a single soccer field and then at no other city properties. Other city properties that could have athletic lighting would be the Chan Rec Center, Lake Susan and Bandimere so you have plenty of availability. Land, we have no additional land to be developed into ballfields. Bandimere was the last property that was acquired and these six athletic fields were built. And that goes back a long time. That’s all we have today and then as commissioners we want to talk about those other items you have on your list. Kelly: Yeah why don’t we, Westwood soccer field is on the list and we kind of discussed that but I think why don’t you give us an update on that. Hoffman: Sure. We had a conversation about 18 months ago with some of their management staff out at Westwood. They have property that could accommodate a soccer field and they were planning some additional parking at that time. It’s just you need parking to accommodate the parents and players coming to the soccer field. They were willing to go ahead and put up the land and then have us schedule, the City the athletic field but to get it built they would need to run irrigation and they didn’t have the cash to run that irrigation at the time. They said it just wasn’t in their CIP or their future capital improvement plans. And then we would finish grade and seed and then they would take care of portable rest room and waste management for the field so at that point with those kind of costs, including running the water line and irrigation out to the site, having a soccer field without irrigation is one thing you don’t want to do. You can have a soccer field without lights but you can’t have it without irrigation so, but again that’s an equation that could be moved if the City is willing to up front all the costs and build the soccer field, they’ll give you the land. I’m sure they’ll dedicate the land at least for that use. It would still be under their ownership as a church. Their request was that they wanted it for their Sunday activities or their, you know some of their activities that they have out there with their camping program. Their day camp program. Kelly: So what would those costs entail, do you know? Hoffman: Not in total at this time. You’re talking $50,000 to $100,000 or more to develop that field in total by the time you’re done, depending on how much work you do in-house. It’s not all ready to go. There’s significant grading out there so there’s an investment in dollars but if you want to take a look at those costs we can easily put together what irrigation would cost. Kelly: Well my next question is if we do move forward have they said that they’d be willing to have Jerry be the scheduler for that field? Obviously they want it specifically for their Sunday’s and are they willing to let Jerry be the scheduler for the rest of the week? Hoffman: At that time they were. Kelly: Okay. Hoffman: But that would all have to be discussed. That was about 18 months ago we had that, we had a series of meetings. 2 or 3 meetings. We went out on the property. Met with their maintenance staff and some of their programming staff. Echternacht: Would it be worth it to meet with them again to see if they now have the funds to maybe go forward? 16 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Hoffman: Sure. Absolutely. Kelly: I think they reached out to Denny Laufenburger didn’t they? And so. Hoffman: Yeah, I don’t know exactly what the correspondence was but Denny asked us to look into it and so we’ll get back with Westwood Church and, he’s a member there. Kelly: Okay. So I think it’s something to, if we can get numbers and get what their thoughts are, something to discuss in June. Hoffman: Sounds good. Kelly: And maybe look at where the field would be on our tour. Hoffman: Okay. Kelly: Do you want to comment real quick on the shelters? Hoffman: Sure will. Mayor Furlong has shown some interest in adding additional park shelters as a focal point in our neighborhood park system and so he was inspired by the new shelters going in at Riley Ridge and at Pioneer Pass. He’s instructed the City Manager to work with me and others to put together a plan so we have 7 parks that have them today and there’s about a dozen neighborhood parks that could accommodate a shelter. You know $15,000 to $25,000 to $30,000 per site, depending on the size of the shelter but I think where the mayor is coming from is, you have a substantial investment in any single park as a set of infrastructure. As a public improvement and to add that kind of investment for those kind of dollars he feels really brings additional value for, if you’re going to have a birthday party or you’re going to have a sporting event where you have some place to meet. You have some shade. It just really draws everything in. Brings a focal point for people to gather for a variety of events in their community parks. If you set a date for a birthday party or a family reunion and there’s no shelter there, sometimes you don’t want to take that leap because if there’s rain or little inclement weather, even for a half hour, 15 minutes thunder shower you don’t have anyplace to go and so I think that’s what his goal is so we’ll put together a complete plan. Show you what parks have them. What parks don’t and show you what those costs were and I don’t want to speak for the mayor but I think he’s talking, these are capital investment dollars at least as a potential option. Kelly: Thank you Todd. Any questions on the shelters? I guess the next question would be a pool for the community center, which you said has been discussed before. I don’t know Rick what your specific questions are. If you want to address Todd or Todd if you just want to discuss what’s happened in the past. Hoffman: Well there’s been a number of people that have walked in our front door with their swim suits on and their towels around their neck and once they figure out they’re not at the Chaska Community Center they ask why Chanhassen doesn’t have a pool at their recreation center or community center. A municipal pool was talked about early on, in probably the mid 80’s for the most part where there was should it go on a referendum or should it go into a community center. It was a portion of a community center referendum at least on 3 different occasions and so there was community center proposals in downtown. That failed twice and there was a community center proposal attached to the elementary school to combine the Chan Elementary school with City Hall. That also failed and so there was, but those were broader community center but they did include a significant aquatics portion. Now we have pools at a variety of our, or some of our schools and at Lifetime Fitness and so there is some relief but we 17 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 still do get requests for aquatics. It’s not currently not part of our program and it would significant change what we do as a department. It would be a big investment, both on initial capital and then on long term maintenance and there’s a variety of questions. Should it be indoor? Should it be outdoor? Nationally people tell you that you should build outdoor pools. Doesn’t matter where you’re at. If you’re in Minnesota or if you’re in Texas because the swimming season is the 3 months out of the year. That’s when people want to get outside. Most of the pools currently being built in the state of Minnesota are outdoor pools. They’re outdoor themed center pools. The kids swim. They’re available to swim in the summer. During the school, when schools are out. If you want to build an indoor pool, that’s a different kind of a pool. That’s a pool not necessarily for a lot of family recreation. There is some recreation when it’s so miserable in the winter there’s nothing else to do, people will take the time to go down to a municipal pool but it’s not nearly the same experience as enjoying an outdoor pool in the summer with an outdoor type of atmosphere. Inside pools are also for fitness and recreation, aerobics, those type of things. So you could add it on. The school owns the property. It would be a joint facility. It could be jointly operated. It could be a joint venture between the school district. There are people clamoring for a pool at the school for swimming at the Chaska High School because you don’t have a pool there. I’m not sure that the Chan Rec Center/Bluff Creek Elementary site could host you know a competitive pool for the high school so there’s been a lot of discussion. The school can’t get it done. It’s never raised since the failed referendums, that conversation has never really raised past just a mummer at the city level but that doesn’t mean that it can’t. We do get requests on an annual basis. People call in and say why don’t we build a pool in the city of Chanhassen but it hasn’t been a big clamor. Echternacht: The reason I had the question is a couple people asked me about it and there was an article th in the Trib on March 8 about Eden Prairie looking at $16 million dollars to add, to redo a pool with 6 lanes for seniors and so on and then an additional pool. And then they referenced Edina adding pools so they just, they knew I was on the commission so they just asked what, and they knew that back in the 80’s that. Hoffman: There was that conversation. Echternacht: They had been turned down and so on and so they were just wondering what was happening on that so that’s why. Hoffman: Yeah, and the answer would be nothing and the follow up to the Edina and Eden Prairie, those are completely different service level departments and so you take a look at Eden Prairie Parks and Rec spends more money on parks and rec than the entire City of Chanhassen spends on all of our functions. Administration, public works, and so our city runs on $10 million dollars. The Eden Prairie park department budget is more than $10 million dollars. Edina is similar and in Chanhassen we spend, if you invest a dollar in every citizen in parks, Eden Prairie’s up in that $2.50 to $3.00 range so it’s a completely different service level, and that’s by choice in some regard. When the Lifetime Fitness was built here, people had said you should have never built a public Rec Center. Now what would you have done. You would have been competing against Lifetime Fitness. You would have never made it. You would have never paid your bills. We know everybody doesn’t want to join Lifetime Fitness but that’s a good choice for a lot of people so that would also come into that conversation. If you, if the community or the park commission or the council raised a question about should we build a pool in Chanhassen, people would say why would you build a pool. You’ve got one in business already. Why do you want to be competing against Lifetime Fitness? So there’s a big conversation about you know, there would be a big conversation about that if we would bring it up. Echternacht: Very good. Kelly: That would spark another referendum I would assume if people wanted it badly enough. 18 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Hoffman: It would have to. Echternacht: See I’d like it to be more like on the school site maybe. Hoffman: Yeah, the school is really, right now they’re both swim teams are down at the Chaska, or actually the middle school, yeah. Ruegemer: East. Kelly: East. So I think at this point, unless somebody else has something they want to discuss specifically about the CIP that we’ve talked about or we haven’t talked about, we need to kind of set our tour for our next meeting. On what we want to see. Anybody have anything specific they want to see? I think I mentioned before we’d obviously like to drive up and down Bluff Creek. Most people have seen that. I think it wouldn’t hurt to look at what Westwood has. And of course that is also going to be dependent on your conversations with Westwood. If they’re not interested then there’s no reason to go look at that. Hoffman: Okay. Kelly: And maybe we need to go over and look at the possibility of the park over by the new water tower. Hoffman: Okay. Water treatment plant. Kelly: Water treatment, thank you. Anything else anybody would like to see specific? Carron: What about the pedestrian trail to Arboretum? Hit that on the way. Hoffman: Sure. Carron: Since that’s in 2015 so to speak. Hoffman: Sure. And we’ll bring boards along so when we’re standing in a location you can take a look right at the plan right there. Carron: And maybe at that time get an update if the Arboretum has any things as far as completing that trail through. Hoffman: Okay. Kelly: And then if it works in the plan maybe we stop at a few smaller parks where we’re looking at putting in shelters and maybe something else but make it so it’s kind of on the way or as part of the deal because what we plan to meet then at 5:00 or 5:30? Hoffman: 5:30 if you could and then we’ll be back here shortly after 7:00 for the meeting. So that’ll be 5:30 on your June meeting night. We’ll meet here. We’ll carpool. Van pool out of City Hall and we’ll have a box lunch for you at one of the locations and we’d also like to take a look at Highway 101 and Bandimere. That’s a pretty significant project. We’ll take you down there. Get you in front of the project manager and give you an update on how the project’s going. 19 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Kelly: Good. If no one else has anything else they want to add on the CIP right now I think we will move onto item number 3A. RECREATION PROGRAMS: LAKE ANN PARK SUMMER SCHEDULE. Ruegemer: Thanks Chair Kelly. I just wanted to give a brief update on kind of what’s happening at Lake Ann here up to this point. We did open up the concession building last weekend down at Lake Ann. We had staff training last Thursday to kind of get everybody up to speed on the operation of the building and the watercraft rental situation, that sort of thing. Just to let you know we did not make a lot of revenue last weekend with the cold and rainy weather so people were not in the mood for ice cream and boat rentals and swimming so we’re going to be open again this weekend. Hopefully with the, hopefully with th little bit better weather. And then starting on Wednesday, June 5 we’ll be open for the rest of the summer with the hours of 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The beach is going to be opening up that Saturday, I th think that’s June 8 this year and we did, as the commission may or may not remember we did enter into another 2 year contract this year with the Minnetonka School District and Community Education this year so this will be our first year with that. And we did have a change in the beach hours from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., which is an hour less than what we’ve had in the past. I would take the liberties of updating all of our signage out at Lake Ann already so that to reflect the new beach hours so we did do, install a brand new sign as the kind of by the turn around area. When you start walking down to the beach, that’s a brand new sign. That one was looking a little faded. A little rough so we took the opportunity to add a brand new sign there. And then we had a number patch then for the other two signs located at the far west side of the beach and then kind of on the east side of the beach where the sand starts as well just to let people know that no, that new change. Certainly with the operation, with the Lake Ann we’re hoping to get rid of the rainy, kind of cold weather here and get going and get that operation moving. Obviously last year we had a great winter with the number of days that we had over 80 degrees and 90 degrees so we had a fantastic season. We did increase our revenue in 2012 over 2011 by 25% so we were very happy with that number with that so hopefully we can kind of keep that momentum going. Up to this point I have booked quite a few picnics. We do not have, I don’t think any Saturdays or Sundays left anymore in June at any of our locations. July is pretty busy and August is pretty full as well at this point so we’re kind of filling in a lot of those you know weekday open spots with Blue Stem Brands is coming back again. They’re kind of a big company. Express Scripts is coming back again for a big company picnic so we’re starting to kind of get that, you know kind of larger, non-Chanhassen companies kind of coming into our park system and using the Klingelhutz Pavilion. Some have been renting both. It seems like graduations are very popular again this year. I think people look at the picnic fee of $125 or $250 is a lot cheaper than remodeling your house for a graduation party so I think people are a little in tune with that so, and certainly weddings have been increasing out there so we’ve had wedding couples reserving both locations. Down at the lakeside area as well as the Klingelhutz Pavilion for maybe the ceremony down at the smaller shelter. Having food and entertainment up in the bigger shelter to kind of keep everybody in that area so, so that’s been pretty popular so far. You know we normally are booking anywhere from 100 to 120 picnics a year with revenues over $14,000 for that so Miranda’s been kind of taking over that now that she’s started here so she’s doing a great job of you know responding back to emails and phone calls and booking picnics for groups so that’s really helped me out to dedicate time in other areas as well so she’s doing a great job with that. So just hoping to increase some warm weather and get things moving here. School’s obviously finishing up for the year so it’s really going to start hopping here out at Lake Ann the next week or two. Kelly: Any questions for Jerry? Ryan: Jerry, I have a couple. First you have the checklist for people running boats to make sure plugs are in the boat. 20 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Ruegemer: Yes, we talked about that at our training session and we showed everybody during the training session where that plug goes and how to adjust that so water isn’t coming in with that so we did discuss that and do you have another question? Ryan: I do have, well you can finish. I do have one more question now. Ruegemer: Go ahead. Ryan: Or a thought. When people come to, or when they reserve picnic shelters, is there an option, I mean I’m thinking of high school groups or what not or reunions, like a game package. Like if you had a you know a bunch of mitts or Frisbees or something that they can rent those as well in addition to? Ruegemer: We’ve had some of those type of things in the past and it seemed like it just kind of tailed off and we’ve had Bocce Ball sets and volleyballs and different things. Ryan: Bean bag toss and. Ruegemer: We certainly could put together a package like that again and advertise it. Hoffman: Many of them just go right to rental companies. Ryan: Oh they do? Hoffman: Yep. Where you’ll see the rental companies, the cater shows up and the rental company shows up with all the games and. Ruegemer: And the bouncy and the different things. Ryan: So they prefer to do that through the caterer versus. Hoffman: Well, yeah they’re doing it through a rental company so if they’re getting chairs or tables, they’re also getting their activities, their games and we just couldn’t provide that level of service. We’ve rented volleyball nets. Ruegemer: Horseshoes in the past. Bean, well not bean bags but other types of smaller kind of type of items more so than inflatable’s and those type of things. Ryan: So you just went away with it because it wasn’t successful? Ruegemer: It wasn’t in the past. Ryan: Okay. Ruegemer: We’re not like a retail operation that’s, you know there’s just not enough dollars there to make up the cost…having to store it all. Short season. Echternacht: Jerry the boats that you rent are canoes, where does the operating money come for those? When you have to replace them or repair them, etc. Ruegemer: Yeah, our fleet is not brand new out at Lake Ann Park. I think our newest paddleboat is a 2006 so and our oldest is a 1993 so, and anywhere inbetween that so we have 6 paddleboats that are out 21 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 there ranging from ’93 to 2006. The canoes I believe were all brand new in 1993. The fishing boats are 1993’s. Echternacht: That’s when I moved here. Ruegemer: So you know a lot of the, certainly the paddleboats are a little bit more maintenance with that and our park crews are very creative on how to replace rudders and peddles and those type of things. You know there are, there isn’t really, there hasn’t really been major, major costs associated with keeping the fleet in operation so, you know knock on wood. It’s been pretty good. Certainly we’ve had to replace chains and peddles and you know plates and some steering wheels every now and again but for the most part it’s been pretty good. Hoffman: There is a Lake Ann budget and if one needs to be replaced, that’s where it would need to be included so we would bump up the capital line item in the Lake Ann budget and then it’s going to raise a red flag because that’s going to take that budget like 27% increase and somebody’s going to say, first the city manager and we’re going to say well we’re buying a new boat. This boat’s worn out so that’s where it would come out of is the Lake Ann Park operation budget. Echternacht: Thank you. Kelly: And I think as we discussed in the past, isn’t the paddleboats our biggest revenue source? Ruegemer: The paddleboats by far are the number one rental out there and then canoes are right there and kayaks are gaining popularity as well. Hoffman: But in total the whole system is a service. Kelly: Right. Hoffman: It’s not going to pay for it’s operation and maintenance costs over time. Kelly: No, I realize that. Plus I think we also discussed the problems with adding another paddleboat. The costs and the problems associated with that and storage and all that fun stuff. We kind of went through that a little before you were here Rick so just bringing it up to refresh people’s memory. Ryan: Did you look at paddleboards? Was that something else that was. Ruegemer: We did and you know cost estimates on paddleboards were $800 to $1,000 a piece. If you buy one you have to almost buy two with that. It’s just like a jet ski. And I’ll tell you, we did put an air conditioner in last week into the concession building itself for the sole purpose of you know during the course of the evening when everything is closed up for the night with all the machinery running in there, it was extremely, extremely hot inside that closed up concession area and just with that increased heat, the compressors on all the machines just kept running and running and running putting more heat out with that so our thought is to hopefully save electricity and equipment and that through the course of time here we installed, it’s called a split unit air conditioner there and then it will be programmed to come on on a timer situation when concession staff are not there to cool that space overnight and then it will off you know a half hour before staff gets there and then it will not run at all during the day when the windows are open and we’re open for business so it’s really hopefully an improvement that will help our customer, overall customer satisfaction. A lot of times the ice cream is you know, not so cold when it comes to that because it just doesn’t have enough energy or capacity to keep that, to cool those items over the course of time so those type of improvements that we’re trying to make for that. I also wanted to let, we did add, 22 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 we’re trying to add obviously more, hopefully healthier options. We did add a gluten free frozen yogurt out there again for the season. We’re going to take delivery on that next Monday for that. We’re going to try that out there. We tried granola bars. We’ll do that again this year. Those are simple things to add so we’re trying to you know obviously add some other options for people if they don’t want nachos or hot dog or ice cream or soda, that sort of thing so we’re going to start small with that. Just found a local vendor or Twin Cities vendor I should say. Not local but with that and it’s a really inexpensive way for us to try the item. There’s really no contracts. We just order what we need. We can do split cases if we want to so it’s really an easy situation for us just to see if it takes off. If it takes off then we add more through the course of the summer. Kelly: Any other questions? Ruegemer: We did add a new popcorn maker too. Now that I’m thinking about that. Our old popcorn maker was from 1993 and it was extremely tired so we did upgrade that and that did arrive in our office this morning. Carron: Did you try it out? Ruegemer: We did not. The wrap is still on it. Miranda was supposed to take care of that today but she did not so. Hoffman: She was busy. Ruegemer: She was busy today. So we’ll get that all taken care of and then we’ll get that out to Lake Ann here in the next couple days and we’ll be brand new popcorn here for the weekend. Kelly: Great, thank you Jerry. Mitch is out collecting deserved honors tonight so Miranda’s going to discuss the 2013 summer programs with us. 2013 SUMMER PROGRAMS. Hopp: Thank you Chair Kelly and good evening commission. First I just want to thank you for having me here tonight and opportunity. It’s terrific and if you wanted to look at the report that Mitch gave you, it kind of just lists all of the possible summer programs that youth and people and families can get involved in. Some of our more featured programs is the Minnesota Twins Baseball and Softball Camp. The Penny Carnival and the Chanhassen Teen Volunteer program, which Mitch just started on this year. The way he explained it to me is that there was a need for the kind of inbetween ages. They’re not young enough to kind of be in our programs but not old enough to have a job so he created this teen volunteer program that will actually help out with all of these events and kind of gives them some experience and something for them to put on a resume. And other than that the KleinBank Summer Concert Series starts th June 13. As you can see on our magnet which actually just came today. Other than that I just kind of look forward to helping out with all the programs and wherever else I’m needed. Kelly: Any questions for Miranda? The KleinBank Summer Concert Series is wonderful. I only made a couple last year and I try to make as many as I can. It is a lot of fun and people can bring alcoholic beverages onto our parks so they can come out and have a cocktail and enjoy some live music which is really fun to do so thank you Miranda. SELF-SUPPORTING PROGRAMS: 2013 ADULT SOFTBALL UPDATE. 23 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Ruegemer: Just a real brief update. We’re running adult softball leagues on Monday’s and Thursday’s nights. The corporate men’s open league on Monday nights is a double header league out at Lake Ann. We’re playing on Fields 4 and 5. The leagues on Monday night and Thursday night were delayed one week with the spring that we had with kind of the cold, rainy, snowy, frozen ground and that sort of thing with that so it worked out just fine so far with the schedule. We haven’t had any rain out’s yet up to this point for the adult programs so we’re feeling very lucky with that. So we have 8 teams on Monday night and on Thursday night we have two divisions. We have 14 teams on Monday night that are playing, or excuse me Thursday night. They are playing just single games out at Lake Ann on three different fields for that so a lot of the same teams are back again this year to kind of carry on their tradition. A lot of the teams on Thursday night have been playing with us for well over 20 years out there, if not more than that. Maybe 30 some of them so a lot of teams are still interested in playing so we’re going to keep offering leagues on the nights that we have interest. Certainly we did try some other leagues again on that. Actually Tuesday night actually was a women’s league, not a co-rec church. I didn’t catch that typo so I apologize for that. We did try to partner again with Eden Prairie on Tuesday nights to offer a women’s league as we have in the past and that did not go. There really wasn’t any interest really with either city of teams calling to get into that league. Wednesday night I had about 3 or 4 teams again that were interested but nobody would commit and send their money in and they just kept calling me every week you know, any update. Any update. It’s like well get your money in and then I’ll tell then we have teams that are ready to play here but really no, there’s interest in it but nobody got their money in so I just cancelled that. That’s 2 years in a row with that league so we are moving on. Probably on those two nights we’re going to look to offer other things to supplement that time. CAA certainly I have scheduled that time, those open spots for CAA activities with baseball and softball so they’ve been using the space for practices or games as they see fit through their program so the fields are not sitting empty. It is kind of within their ability to schedule those so we’re hopeful we’re still using the fields and they’re not sitting idle so. Carron: Maybe Chair Daniels could get a single pitch softball league going. Ruegemer: Maybe so. Hoffman: He was up for that wasn’t he. Kelly: Any questions for Jerry? Thank you Jerry. Ryan: I do have one question. Miranda maybe you can answer it on the, for the KleinBank concert. The kids, the Okie Dokie Brothers. Is that 11:00? It’s not noted on the magnet. Hopp: It is. It’s not? It should be the one, we had a direct one from our marketing or the person. Ryan: Well the one, there’s the Wonderful World of Woody’s it says performance at 11:00. Hopp: Oh, and then the Okie Dokie Brothers is at 7:00. Ryan: Is at 7:00 at night? Hopp: 7:00 to 8:00. That’s what’s in the Connection and every other flyer that we have out. Just our one. Ryan: Okay, so there’s only one kids at 11:00 and the other kids is at 7:00 to 8:00? Hopp: Correct. 24 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Ryan: Okay, thanks. Hoffman: Grammy Award winning Okie Dokie Brothers. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Kelly: Todd, anything in the administrative packet that you should bring to our attention? Hoffman: Yeah, please note the youth commission applications. We have 2 that the council will be interviewing shortly. And I will organize that. I think the staff will all team up on this side and so other staff can sit behind and the youth commissioners would be on that side. Down below here. Kelly: Okay. Hoffman: There’s not room for one or two more of you up there. Ryan: When would their start be then? Hoffman: Probably June or July. Kelly: And so the dedication of the Klingelhutz Memorial is June? thth Ruegemer: 9. Yep, Sunday, June 9 at 1:00 out at the Klingelhutz Pavilion. Out there so we’ll have a program out there for that. Mayor Furlong will be there speaking. I think possibly Gayle Degler with the County Commissioner. Family members will be involved with that and there will be kind of a picnic lunch afterwards as well. Kelly: I’ll be in the Black Hills that day so I won’t be there. Hoffman: Okay. Kelly: Anything else? Anything else anybody needs to bring up? Thunberg: Was there recently a tournament, a disc golf tournament at the? Ruegemer: There was. Thunberg: How did that go? Ruegemer: Was that opening fishing weekend? I know it was cold. Hoffman: It was cold. Thunberg: Just a couple weekends ago. I was just curious how it went or. Ruegemer: You know what. 25 Park and Recreation Commission – May 29, 2013 Hoffman: It was. It was the Saturday with the 40 miles an hour winds. Ruegemer: Yeah. Yeah, it was really cold. You know I think they had between 20 and 30 people participating. Oh that’s right because he had, going into the last hole the kid had about a 2 foot putt and just as he let go of it a big gust of wind came. Hoffman: ….about 75 feet away. Ruegemer: It kept just rolling, rolling and rolling. So he went from. Hoffman: Winning it. Ruegemer: From contender to out so… Kelly: Anybody have a motion out there? Hoffman: I just want to say thanks for those who attended Arbor Day. Really appreciate that and I think Luke was intending on maybe participating but he had his new baby that day so that’s a special note for Luke. And then the little free library is going to be coming to, a little free library is going to be coming to the Chan Rec Center this Saturday, 8:30 a.m. is the kick off so Saturday. Anyone interested in little free library program, just head over to the Rec Center Saturday morning, 8:30 and they’ll have a little presentation. So you bring a book and take a book and these are nationwide, statewide, worldwide little free libraries. Kelly: Thank you Todd. Echternacht: You know I’d like to make a remark about Memorial Day service that we had outside here. It was really very nice and the Mayor spoke but it was a very nice service that the City put on. Hoffman: It’s thanks to the Legion and what they do for that. Jerry is our point person in getting the chairs and just doing some coordination with the Legion but that event this year is a smaller group because of the weather but still 350 strong and just the emotion in this year’s event was just fantastic so it’s always at noon. We thought once we dedicated it that people would say okay, that’s enough but they hosted it the next year and they just blew the doors off the place so people are very appreciative of that ceremony and it’s a beautiful site. It really, you just can’t image the people that say thank you for the park and thank you for the downtown and thanks for the Vet’s Monument so neat event. Kelly: Oh, and I drove through downtown this morning, it was fun seeing all the flags up. I noticed they were down tonight when I came in. Carron moved, Echternacht seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission was adjourned at 9:00 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 26