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PRC 2004 01 27CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 27, 2004 Acting Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Glenn Stolar, Paula Atkins, Amy O'Shea, Susan Robinson, Tom Kelly and Jack Spizale STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Recreation Director; and Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent APPOINTMENT OF 2004 CHAIR AND VICE-CHAIR. Kelly: I'm fielding nominations. Hoffman: Just before we do that, so we make sure we know who's eligible. Susan has an announcement. Robinson: I'm resigning from the commission effective beginning April, so I'll complete my one year. O'Shea: So you're sitting in the center chair and... Hoffman: So you have one less on your docket for Chair and Vice Chair. Kelly: So we have 3 people eligible then for Chair. Ruegemer: No, everybody. Kelly: Jack and myself are eligible as well, even though we're? Hoffman: You bet. Yep. Kelly: Short timers. Hoffman: Well you're just up for re-appointment. Kelly: Well I'm still open to fielding nominations. Spizale: Okay, I'm going to make one. I'm going to nominate Glenn Stolar. Kelly: Do you accept the nomination? Stolar: ! don't know yet. Let's keep fielding nominations. Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Hoffman: ! think you have to get his agreement before you call for a vote. Stolar: Does anyone else want to? ! will do it if no one else feels they can. My biggest concern is that ! never know when I'm going to have start working out of town. That's my biggest concern, which would, you know I'm not planning on affecting these meetings but it may affect things that the Chair has to do outside of the meetings. So that's my only concern. Atkins: That's where your vice chair comes in. Stolar: There you go, good answer. Hoffman: Jack, Amy, Paula, are you interested in the Chair? O'Shea: No I'm not. Atkins: No. Spizale: No. Kelly: Then ! think we should call to a vote. Spizale moved, Kelly seconded to appoint Glenn Stolar as the 2004 Chairman for the Park and Recreation Commission. All voted in favor, except Stolar who abstained, and the motion carried. Kelly: So the record show 5-0 in favor of Glenn assuming the 2004 Chair. And now open nominations for 2004 Vice Chair. If ! can make a nomination, ! nominate Amy. Spizale: ! second that. O'Shea: I'm open to that. ! needed to say that right, if! was. Kelly: Any other nominations for Vice Chair? Nominations are closed. Kelly moved, Spizale seconded to appoint Amy O'Shea as the 2004 Vice Chair for the Park and Recreation Commission. All voted in favor, except O'Shea who opposed, and the motion carried. Kelly: Congratulations Glenn and Amy. Stolar: ! can sit over here still, can't I? Hoffman: ! think you need to go to the center. 2 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: Well let me just say Tom, thanks for all the work you've done as Vice Chair and we hope you and Jack will consider reappointment and stay as our senior members of the board. Kelly: Thanks. Hoffman: Both have stated that they will seek reappointment. Stolar: Fantastic. Atkins: So are we just looking to fill one? Hoffman: Two. Susan and Rod's, and then you will interview as many candidates who's applied and since you have four openings, you'll need to send up at least 6 recommendations to the City Council. The council will select 4 from those 6. Kelly: And 2 are 2 year and 2 are 3 year? Hoffman: Yes. 2 will be 2 year and 2 will be 3 year. Stolar: And have we gotten any nominations, or applications yet? Hoffman: One application so far, yeah. Other than Tom and Jack. So that'd be 3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Stolar: Any additions or changes to the agenda? Hoffman: I have an addition of 8(c), which is the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Lake Susan delta dredging project. To put it succinctly. Stolar: Okay, any others? Hoffman: Just a note for the record. We also have some displays this evening that were requested by the commission. The St. Hubert's Catholic Cemetery plan is here tonight that we can look at after the meeting. The City Hall remodel plan for the new senior center space and meeting room space, and we also have our 212 boards which were presented last night at the City Council, at their first formal public meeting, and then were also presented at the Chamber of Commerce meeting today so we'll take a look at those. Stolar: Okay, I'll put that as item 9 then. Any others? Todd, ! think for City Council report, ! think you're going to cover the two main ones so I'm not going to add anything else from the City Council. Hoffman: You can go over those items under. Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: Well I was going to say, the two I was going to actually talk about were the senior center remodeling and the 212 so if we're going to talk about those anyway. Hoffman: Great. Then just add your comments during that time. Stolar: Yep. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda. As amended or updated. Kelly: So moved. Stolar: Second? Spizale: Second. Kelly moved, Spizale seconded to approve the agenda as amended. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Stolar: I don't think we have any that I heard. Being in the Chair a total of 5 minutes. Hoffman: February Festival we should announce. Stolar: Isn't it on 6(a). Hoffman: I hope so. Yep. Alright, thanks. Stolar: It was announced by the Mayor last night. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Spizale moved, Robinson seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated December 16, 2003 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. CHANHASSEN FARMERS MARKET PROPOSAL. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, members of the commission. We have two gentlemen here who have been working on this proposal for quite some time. I'd like to introduce both of them. Jim Bledsaw on the right, and then David Boorsma. Dave lives just west on Highway 5 and Jim's been working on the farmers market with a small committee. I've attended a couple of their meetings and Jim, if you want to start out by making some introductory comments and then I'll go to my report. 4 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Jim Bledsaw: There is one typo on the proposal that we sent you. It says 10:00 to 2:00 and it's actually 9:00 to 1:00 is what we're asking for. We're excited about the farmers market. We want to have an excellent farmers market. We want it to be a place where area residents can come and gather, and meet the farmers who grow the vegetables, and it will be for locally grown produce and cheeses and honey and that sort of thing. But our goal is to have 20 vendors and we won't have that many to begin with of course but that's our goal. We would be meeting in the City Center Park over here. And if you approve this, ! will be a very happy camper. If you don't approve it, I'll be a happy camper but we're excited about it and we just think it will be a real addition to the city. Hoffman: Jim, could you go over the locations specifically on the map. Jim Bledsaw: The vendors would come in the very first, here's the park right in here. Vendors would come in there and they would be able to either use booths, which would be right up here on the paved area, or if they had produce they really couldn't take down there well, then they would be able to go from these spaces right along here. Hoffman: Dave has experience in these markets. ! don't know if you want to talk a little bit about what committees you're working on and some of the thoughts that have gone into that. David Boorsma: Well we still have some work to do on layout and so on. Just how it will work in. Depending on how many vendors we get in here. Markets always start slow. ! mean even markets that are well established like Excelsior .... Excelsior market for about 8 years now and it starts in May and you just don't have any tomatoes in May yet. So vegetables really, you're going to have bedding plants and honey and some of the things that, perennials and this type of thing. We won't have really a full compliment of vendors until you get into the end of June and July and so on, and then the vegetable growers finally have some vegetables to sell. So we haven't really figured out just how this is going to shake out here. ! think we're going to have plenty of space to begin with and as we get enough vendors we'll just have to have a little more how we're going to place them. Do you have any questions on the general stuff?. Stolar: Any questions for the guest or Todd, you wanted to give your report first and then we'll ask them to remain? Hoffman: Either way. Stolar: Okay. Any questions for our guests right now? Spizale: I've got one. What kind of booths are you going to use? You mentioned booths. What would that be? David Boorsma: Well most of the vendors would furnish their own, we'd give them an area. In Excelsior we have a 12 foot wide area by, ! don't know how deep it is. 50 or something like that. And we have a tent. Most vendors will have a tent to stopping the Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 rain out there, and furnish their own tables and of course their own produce and so on, and so it would be, and not all the vendors, people with perennials for instance, they don't always have a tent. They like to have sunshine on their plants, so it's not everyone will have a tent but majority of I'd say ! think would have the tent and that would be their space. Is that what you're looking at? Spizale: Yeah. They pretty much supply their own thing. David Boorsma: Right. Spizale: Yep. David Boorsma: They would supply it all. Hoffman: Tent and table for the most part. Jim Bledsaw: And people driving down 78th Street will just, they'll be able to see it right there. David Boorsma: That's one thing that really helps the market is these tents and so on. Something going on there. O'Shea: How do you recruit vendors? David Boorsma: Well we go to other farmers markets and rob them. But no, Excelsior is an ideal place to recruit vendors because that's on Thursday and this market's on Saturday. So it's a separate day. Saturday is really the biggest day for vendors. ! mean they can take their pick of markets to go to so it's a little hard to know just how many we're going to have. We won't know but I'll be calling some of the people ! know at Excelsior and so on, and they're interested. We've got some vendors that are interested but ! think we really have to go through the process and say, it's going to be. Now ! can tell them we're trying, but as soon as we have a market, then we'll have more concrete interest. O'Shea: Okay, thanks. Robinson: And I'm wondering how you balance out the vendors? Is there a plan there so that we don't have like all fruits and vegetables? That type of thing. David Boorsma: Yeah. The committee, you know Jim and I, there's about 4 of us on the committee, we're trying to get a few more on there. We've talked a lot about that. Robinson: Okay. David Boorsma: Vegetable vendors are the mainstay you might say. We might get a honey person and Excelsior has a bread, bakery people that come sell bread and that's Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 what really helps the market. You have 20 vendors and you have 20 vegetable growers, you don't have much variety. We'll try to get some variety and the committee would retain the right to accept or reject vendors so that if we have 1 or 2 honey people, another one who wants to come in, we'll just say we're filled up in that area. Robinson: ! like the kettle corn and the beef jerky up in Excelsior so make sure. That sounds great. Kelly: ! don't have any questions. Atkins: Have you checked with local growers like Klingelhutz and Dimler and those guys that do the corn and the vegetables? They already have established booths here in Chanhassen. Would people like that be, would they be welcome to sell at a market like that? David Boorsma: There's a couple problems. In fact they usually have a, Dimler has his corn huts and they're open every day of the week. And here we're open one day out of the week, so and one of the rules of which we haven't really solidified yet but one of the rules in Excelsior for instance. I'm pulling from my back out over Excelsior. You have to have a grown your own or produce your own product by yourself. If you're familiar with the corn huts, they have.., out of state and they ship in a lot of stuff. Atkins: So you want locally grown? David Boorsma: So we would prefer locally grown. Every market that I saw, and I mean you have to grow what you sell. And ! would say if there's going to be a corn hut out here, we're going to have a trouble getting a lot of vendors. They're going to go some other place where they're not competing with somebody that's bringing stuff in from like a supermarket. Atkins: Yeah, ! know. David Boorsma: And if they want to play by the rules, Chuck was selling at Mound for a while. Chuck Dimler and he just brought his own produce over there. He had trouble with remembering what was his sometimes but he, you know so he did get into that market so if they want to play by the rules, they would certainly be welcome. Atkins: If for instance ! had a huge garden and grew a lot of tomatoes and cucumbers, would ! be eligible for a booth? Do they, they don't have to pay a fee to have a booth? Jim Bledsaw: Yes, we have a fee. Atkins: Do you? Okay. David Boorsma: Excelsior is $200. They pay $200 in Excelsior. We don't sell...but we had talked about $150 a season. But that gives us money for advertising and ! forget Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 what all the expenses are but at Excelsior we bought the Chamber of Commerce and we have to pay the Chamber News and this type of thing too so. Jim Bledsaw: You know a person could conceivably come in and just have a one time fee if they'll just be there a couple Saturdays. So they wouldn't be regular vendors but you know if it was locally grown and that. Atkins: That's good. Jim Bledsaw: We're looking at annual fee basis and we're looking at possibility. Atkins: Short term. Jim Bledsaw: Like a one time fee. Like a lady who grow a lot of cucumbers. Atkins: Right. Tomatoes. One last question is, are you, are vendors that sell for instance soaps, natural soaps, or crafts, textiles, anything like that going to be included? ! know at Excelsior they do have a lady who sells soaps and candles too ! think. Beeswax or ! know I've seen soap at that farmers market. Candles. David Boorsma: What they do in Excelsior, they have kind of a farm related. We don't want it to end up being a flea market. Flea market people, they would love to get in here and come in so, so that's the kind of people we'd limit. If it was farm related, that's kind of a loose statement too. Kettle corn, ! don't know. Atkins: Yeah. Well that lends to the atmosphere too. People have to have something to eat while they're shopping. Hoffman: One of the conditions that is recommended is condition number 4 that products shall be limited to produce and other food products, flowers and outdoor plant materials. And so that can be adjusted or amended but it's getting after the same thing. When we have a flea market or an art sale, we'll do that separate or in conjunction with it on a special day, but city staff agrees. We don't want this to be a flea market. It's a farmers market. Atkins: Yeah. Good, that's all ! have. Stolar: Anybody else have follow-up questions? Thank you. If you would stay around when people have some discussion. We'll let Todd present his report. Thank you. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, the whole idea behind City Center Park is to bring the downtown together. It's our belief that if this farmers market is successful, this will be the signature event of City Center Park on a weekly basis, at least during the summer. Something that all the community will have in common. Something people can talk about and ! know starting out brand new it's going to be difficult but we're fairly confident that a location with this much appeal is going to be very successful for the farmers market and for the Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 people that are involved with it. There has been a variety of reviews completed today that are in your community development department and engineer department set to complete of reviews. The community development or planning department raised no issues with the plan. The engineering department required that no vendors shall be allowed within the front public right-of-way of Market Boulevard. And that would go for West 78th Street as well. Just simply because we have indicated that vendors would stop before they'd even got close. They did have to note that but it just needs to be remembered that setting up booths along the sidewalk would not be permitted and then booths at this location would need to be inside the parking lot and out of the right-of-way for visibility purposes. We have a partner in City Center Park and that is the Chanhassen Library. I've contacted Melissa Brechon who is the Director of the Carver County system, and Chad Lubbers who is our on site manager. Both Melissa and Chad are very excited about the proposal. The library opens at 10:00 on Saturdays. It's just seen really as a kick-off of the day at the library so they're very enthusiastic about the program. They would be willing to work with you in publicity and setting up a kiosk or a menu board inside the library, both to get your market going and also on the days of the market so people realize that the market is just right next door. One complication we thought might be encountered but as of today we had our pre-construction meeting with GenCon Construction that will be completing the space next door with the old library. They feel they'll be out of here in 3 months, and so ! think they'll be long gone.., so you won't have conflicts in our parking lot for competition of that space. There are some conditions that staff would like to see met in order for the market to be approved by the commission, and for you to make a recommendation to the City Council that they approve the Chanhassen Farmers Market. There is 11. All vendors shall be restricted to the area depicted on the site map, which would be a document of record. No vendor shall be allowed within that right-of-way on Market Boulevard that ! spoke about. Each vendor shall comply with all state and local regulations and provide proof of appropriate liability insurance. And the committee make that a requirement that those documents or copies shall be posted in a conspicuous location at their booth or be available at their booth. Products shall be limited to just produce and other food products, flowers and outdoor plant materials. That's where the committee can decide if a soy bean candle is a food product or not. That can be up to those folks. A member of the farmers market board shall be on the premises during the weekly set-up operation and take down of the market. And so we want a member of the board there to handle any issues that arise. This is a very public location and we want to make sure somebody's in charge on a weekly basis. That the market provides it's own barricades and block off both the east and north access to the vending area parking lot and so long as they obtain those barricades, we may be able to go ahead and provide some storage access. If we had a couple of nooks and crannies, wherever we could store those but you're going to have to block off this location and then the location where it turns up into the other parking lot. And so once vendors are allowed in, we barricade it and this would be barricaded. The main parking for the market, the customers then would take place in this parking lot and this parking lot, and you can also park on the street on Market Boulevard. The market, one of the biggest areas of discussion among staff was that the market shall provide it's own trash containers and pick-up. I'm not sure how much trash some of these vendors could produce but they need to at least police that and take care of that themselves. Access to the library shall be Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 maintained at all times. City of Chanhassen and the Chanhassen Library shall be permitted at various times to display and sell various items pertinent to our operations. The library holds book sales. I'm not sure if they'll hold it in conjunction with the market or separate. They typically hold it separate. There may be some times when the city would want to be present to identify particular items for events, a community event that we have. The farmers market board shall submit an annual report to the City Council at the close of each season. And that the city retains the right to close the market for any reason within a week's notice and ! hope that's just standard language to make sure if we run into a big issue with health regulations or something, that we can certainly close the market down as we see fit. With the completion of my report, I'll take any questions from the commission, and again it's my recommendation that the commission recommend the City Council approve the Chanhassen Farmers Market proposal for City Center Park and ! can't begin to tell you how excited ! am about the proposal. It's been something that's been talked about and talked about and talked about and all we said was well, this is really something the city's not going to take on. You need a committee or group to take this on so I'm just so pleased that these gentlemen and the other members of the committee have stepped forward to do that. Stolar: Thank you Todd. Paula, why don't we start with you. Any questions for Todd or Jerry on the recommendation? Atkins: Looks great. I'm just wondering who the board would be made up of, besides you gentlemen? Is it Chanhassen. Hoffman: They're taking volunteers. Jim Bledsaw: Yeah, we sure will. It will be... from the Chanhassen, from the Chamber of Commerce. It's Dave and ! and Kathy Ensince from Excelsior, and we're looking for one more farmer in the area to be on the board. The board will probably be made up of 5 to 6 people. Atkins: Good. That was my only question. Stolar: Any questions? Robinson: ! just have one more question for you as far as promotion. Is that the committee's responsibility then? And how is that, do you have a plan for that also? How's that going to be handled. David Boorsma: Yes we do. We're looking, we're thinking about having a community information meeting. Maybe around the third week in March and then go to the newspaper to see what they can do as far as giving us free advertising. As we get annual fees, and then have one big push for the grand opening. We don't want to be too big because it will be a little anti climatic because the vegetables won't be ripe until later, but we do want it to be, everybody to know so. 10 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Robinson: Well I know Excelsior puts up those boards at like key spots. Is that something that you're thinking needs to be done even though it's very, very visible? Yeah, to draw people in. David Boorsma: We'll have to do something like that. Jim Bledsaw: We haven't been looking at that. Robinson: Okay. That's all ! have. O'Shea: Todd, ! have one question. Is it possible to park in the back side of the post office too? Hoffman: No. O'Shea: So you can't park in there? Because I'm thinking there's going to be a lot of people, because ! know ! go down to... Hoffman: On Saturday mornings we would want to talk to them about that but there's quite a bit of parking available on street and in those two lots. O'Shea: Okay. And ! guess one more question ! have, is it going to be a problem for the vendors? ! know in Excelsior it they can drive right up and some of the flower vendors work right out of their trucks. You don't see that as a problem that they can't drive? Hoffman: They'll have access. These can all be truck vendors right here. O'Shea: Oh, okay. Okay, good. Hoffman: So the truck may be out of this parking lot. Block it off so essentially what they'll have is all truck vendors pull forward here. Marketing their wares and then people will just walk by if they traveled down the. O'Shea: Great. Okay, thanks. David Boorsma: Can ! get your opinion on something, while you're asking that question. ! was out there when, before we had so much snow and this parking lot, these trees are, it looks like they'll be that big in 15-20 years. Up until the boxes, there's quite a bit of sidewalk space here. Would you think that the trucks could back into this space and maybe set up their tent right here and sell that off the sidewalk? Would that be eventually a go, or even you said yourself. Hoffman: Yeah, either way. David Boorsma: That's something ! haven't quite reconciled yet but, we could just sell right out to the sidewalk and. 11 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Hoffman: That large sidewalk plaza was made intentionally for a couple of reasons. Snow storage in the winter was the main reason the commission planned these back so we had this large, nice large area where. David Boorsma: I was just going to get your opinion on that. O'Shea: Yeah, ! don't know if the structural integrity is strong enough for a truck to pull up. Hoffman: You could back right up to it and then. Ruegemer: On the parking lot. Hoffman: You would open up right onto the pavement. O'Shea: Yeah, then I'd say yeah. If you're not going to damage anything, that sounds great. And that's all the questions ! had, thanks. Hoffman: Because in the future the shade will be there which will make it... Stolar: Jack. Spizale: Yeah, ! don't have any questions. ! just think it's a great idea and just a great use of the park. ! mean the park is just like made for it and the one downtown that they have on Nicollet Mall, ! mean the crowds that that, obviously there's tons of people downtown but ! mean everybody' s buying something so ! just think it' s a great idea and ! think it will work out great. Stolar: Todd, I have a few questions also. First of all I think it's a great idea. Well farmers markets, ! go to the Nicollet Mall one also so ! think it's a great idea. ! would like to invite you guys to come back once you have some of your, the things that are still open and let us know. We'd love to see the layout that you choose. ! think ! speak for the board, we'd love to keep being involved. Just a couple of quick questions Todd. Power, or ! guess to both. Is there going to be a need for power, and ! believe we put like tons of power. Hoffman: There is plenty available. Stolar: Okay, just making sure on that. Parking, they can use the garage though right? Hoffman: Sure, yep. People could park underneath the parking deck and then walk over to the market and then make their way back to the library or, absolutely. Stolar: Because ! think as this gets bigger, I'm equally concerned as Amy is that there won't be enough room for parking, and also potentially a desire to move into that other 12 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 side of the parking lot. So as long as we have that structure, we may even want to divert traffic that way at some point. Do you foresee much city coordination needed and city time, because given the limits we've had and some of the cutbacks, ! don't want to see any burden to the city. Hoffman: No, in fact that's why we've waited until a committee stepped forward. Basically what you're authorizing is the use of the space. Other than that there will be public restrooms available in this building, on this corner which will have to be coordinated. The opening of that door, and other than that, we don't plan on having a staff member, city employee show up at 8:30 to help coordinate the opening of the market. They'll do that as a committee. They'll manage it. Close it down and it will run independently of our organization. Stolar: Great. And do you, but what about police service? Anything like that. Hoffman: Just as an on call basis as any other activity in town. If there would be a disturbance or an issue, then somebody would just simply dial 911 and a police officer would arrive on the scene. Stolar: Okay. And then a question for you is the committee part of a formal, not for profit organization? Or is it a part of the Chamber. Jim Bledsaw: We're in the process of incorporating. We're not part of the Chamber. But the Chamber initiated the concept and gave it a nudge, but the Chamber didn't want to sponsor it. So we're in the process of incorporating. Stolar: Good. And then the only, the other question. Any bonding needed by the city? Because ! didn't see that in here. ! saw liability insurance for the individual farmers but any bonding such as if there's damage to City Center Park in general. Not specific to a vendor. Hoffman: Not required. If it was something that was of great concern to the commission that you would want to pursue that, insurance retainer or something of that nature. Stolar: What's typically done ! guess is my question? For the city for things like this. Hoffman: No typical examples. We don't collect insurance for any other special event in the city. We write a variety of special event permits and we do not require, other than damage deposit. No other waivers or bonds. Stolar: Okay, so would they have to do a damage deposit then or you don't think in this case? Hoffman: Not in this case, no. 13 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: And I'm also more again thinking when it's very crowded over there, which we hope it will be. And then final thing, third and fourth of July this year, ! think one of those is a Saturday. So you might want to look at that. Actually coordinate positively that we'll be able to...and see if we can maybe even incorporate it as kind of a, since you are opening early, but the vegetables might not come til later. ! mean we should try to incorporate it into the Fourth of July celebration if the timings are right and it helps give a little bit of a boost. The celebration being out here. Hoffman: It would probably fit right in. It's the third of July Saturday, correct? Ruegemer: I'm not sure what the date is right now. Stolar: I think it' s the third. Hoffman: Yeah, third of July is Saturday which would be the street dance in the evening and it would be a great opening to the day to have the farmers market open up that morning. Stolar: Maybe even incorporate it as part of our promotion with the weekend. Hoffman: Absolutely. Same goes for another event which we have planned is the dedication of this park itself. And so we want that dedication to be on a Saturday sometime around the noon hour during the farmers market and so if there's an actual event going on, people are there. They're managing the park and then we'll hold the dedication ceremony so this first year we'll be working, well all the years... Stolar: Any questions for anybody else? Sorry, ! had quite a few. I'm very interested in this. It's very exciting. David Boorsma: Even on the third of July, which is a Saturday, what does the City do? Does the City do something for that? Stolar: We have in the afternoon, that's right because we have the Chamber. Ruegemer: Starting at 4:00-5:00. Hoffman: It's the largest city celebration that we have. It's the third there's the Chamber of Commerce Trade Fair which starts at 4:00 and that's all on the back lawn of City Hall, and then a street dance that evening and then Sunday we go to Lake Ann with other events. The parade in downtown and the fireworks that night. So the farmers market could open up our Saturday down here, and then you would continue on with the other activities throughout the day. Stolar: Seeing no more questions, do we have a motion on staff's recommendation regarding the farmers market? 14 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 O'Shea: I'll make a motion to recommend to the City Council the approval of the Chanhassen Farmers Market located in City Center Park with the following eleven recommendations and conditions that staff put together. Stolar: And a second? Kelly: Second. Stolar: Any comments? O'Shea moved, Kelly seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council approve the Chanhassen Farmers Market proposal for City Center Park with the following conditions: 10. 11. All vendors shall be restricted to the area depicted on the site map. No vendor shall be allowed within that right-of-way of Market Boulevard. Each vendor shall comply with all state and local regulations and provide proof of appropriate liability insurance. These documents or copies thereof shall be posted in a conspicuous location at each booth. Products shall be limited to just produce and other food products, flowers and outdoor plant materials. A member of the farmers market board shall be on the premises during the weekly set-up, operation and take down of the market. The market shall provide it's own barricades to block off both the east and north access to the vending area parking lot. The market shall provide it's own trash containers and pick up. Access to the library shall be maintained at all times. The City of Chanhassen and the Chanhassen Library shall be permitted at various times to display and sell various items pertinent to their operations. The Farmers Market Board shall submit an annual report to the City Council at the close of each season. The City retains the right to close the market for any reason with one weeks notice. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. 15 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: Thank you. Hoffman: I believe this will be on the February 9th City Council meeting. Stolar: Look forward to seeing the layout and seeing the market. APPOINT 2004 PLAYGROUND SELECTION COMMITTEE. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, members of the commission. In 2004 we have $215,000 worth of new playgrounds slated for the city. One at Lake Ann Park, one at Meadow Green Park. Those are both replacements. The Lake Ann Park equipment is the redwood structure that was purchased in the mid 80's from Landscape Structures out of Delano, Minnesota. Same material, same equipment at Meadow Green, just on a smaller scale out at Meadow Green. And then we also have a new playground project at Bandimere Park which will be for the smaller kids. The current structure there is scheduled or aged for 5 through 12. Designed for 5 through 12 and we want to bring in something for the younger, 2 to 5 age group. For the toddlers when they're there with their brothers and sisters at Bandimere Park. All projects exceeding $50,000 must be publicly bid and what we want to do in this case is to specify one playground manufacturer so what we'd like to do is select, pre-select one of those manufacturers and we would bring in probably 4, at the outside 5 manufacturers representatives. Have them make presentations to the group, the selection committee. Based on materials and information that we've provided them on each site, what is the size configuration. Do we want swings? Don't we want swings? What type of border do we want? What type of surfacing do we want in those locations? Staff will make some of those recommendations. Ship those out in a request for proposal to these manufacturers. They will bring in plans. You can either visit those manufacturer's equipment before or after their presentations are made, and then make a selection of one of those providers. What we will then do is package their equipment, their plans into a bid package which will then be bid by contractors. And contractors will bid it, supplying that piece of, that particular manufacturer's equipment. The concrete, the pea gravel, the border and then you get into a competitive bidding climate which is required by law. These other providers that are not selected can certainly discuss their product with these contractors and bid their product as an alternate or an equal, and then you as the selecting body can decide if you want to accept that alternate or not as a part of that bid package. So what ! would recommend we do is go ahead and select 4 of the commissioners currently on the commission. Contacted Jim Manders just to bring in somebody from the outside, just to mix it up a little bit. Jim has agreed as a past commissioner to sit on that selection committee. Jim has worked in the past on some other playground purchases in the city, and then you pre-select that manufacturer and then staff will continue on with the selection or the bidding process. So it's staff's recommendation that you elect 4 of the standing commission members to work on that committee with Mr. Manders. Stolar: Okay, thank you. Any questions for Todd? Audience: That would be 4 of 5 of you. 16 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: Well Susan actually qualifies though. Hoffman: Absolutely. Absolutely. 4 of 6. Stolar: First of all let ask if I have any volunteers. Kelly: ! would very much like to be a part of that committee. Stolar: Okay Tom. Jack? Spizale: ! would too. O'Shea: I'll volunteer. Stolar: Amy. Atkins: I'm much more interested in working on the community center issue and I'm also directing a play right now so I'm really stretched. Stolar: And ! have to refuse myself. ! cannot participate in that because ! have a friend who is...with Landscape Structures so once selected, after that ! might participate unless they are a part of it. So how about if we, is 3 okay? Hoffman: Sure. Stolar: Okay, thank you. Do we need any action on this? Or can I, by consent say those 3 are it? No objection? Okay. Hoffman: You can expect a packet in your mail, or delivered via police officer to your door. Stolar: My kids always love that. Hoffman: And just for your knowledge, Landscape will be interested in the before, probably Landscape Structures, Miracle, Little Tykes and Play world Systems. So those would be the four that we're looking at. They have their products, all their products at other playgrounds within the city and the things you want to be looking at are quality, longevity, play value, reputation and then of course their design. They'll each bring in a design for each one of these playgrounds and if you like that particular design and you like the other things they have to say, so believe me. They will come guns a loaded with this presentation because they know they have $215,000 project down the line so be prepared to be, you'll have to limit their time and I'm thinking probably about 20 to 25 minutes. 17 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: Plus they I'm sure will do a survey of the other ones and say oh, there's more coming. Hoffman: Oh yeah, there's more coming. O'Shea: Can ! just ask one, ! thought of one thing. Could ! ask a question on this topic? Do you get, ! brought this up before. Are you going to get feedback from the people, oh what am ! trying to say? The homes, the neighborhoods that this is affecting to say we'd like to see swings. We wouldn't like to see swings. We really would like to see specific do you get? Hoffman: We can do that. ! considered making, sometimes you take a neighborhood and you make that committee and at Lake Ann Park, we don't have a neighborhood. At Bandimere Park we have a couple of different neighborhoods that are involved there. In Meadow Green, ! thought we could go ahead and incorporate those folks. We've done it both ways. The commission really acts as the city's representative to the City Council in these type of decisions. If you don't feel comfortable making that selection at Meadow Green and you would like to direct staff to get more input, or if you would like to bring in their homeowners association, you certainly can do that. What we would probably do is break out the package then and separate Meadow Green because it takes a longer period of time. You can add about 2 to 3 months onto that selection and installation process because of just how much more cumbersome that gets. Getting that neighborhood response. But if you would like to do that, we've certainly done it both ways. We've worked with a neighborhood selection group where they actually make the final selection. Or we've worked with the commission to make the selection. O'Shea: See and ! guess ! would like to see if we can get the input of neighbors. You know ! don't know if you hold a, anyone who's interested, you know come and meet and some of us can meet with the neighborhood to hear their viewpoints. ! just think since it's their neighborhood park, I'd really like to know what they want. If that's, does that sound. Stolar: And given that we're one short maybe, even invite them to have someone on the committee, since it's only one neighborhood park right, that we're really talking about. The other two are city parks. Hoffman: Yep. Stolar: Maybe for that neighborhood have a homeowners association volunteer somebody. Would that work Amy? O'Shea: ! think that sounds good. What does everybody think? Hoffman: I'll contact them and see if they have somebody in mind. O'Shea: Okay, good. 18 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Spizale: I've got one question too. Do we know what age group we're working with as far as the parks? Hoffman: Usually 5 to 12. Spizale: 5 to 12. Hoffman: Yeah. They now make equipment that will go 3 to 12. Stretches it out even more, but for our guidelines they want a specific separated playgrounds for 2 to 5 and 5 to 12. And generally like at Lake Ann you would pick that larger age group. The older one. 5 to 12. There's only space for one playground at Lake Ann, and there's not space for swings. The swings that currently are there do not meet the guidelines and so Lake Ann will have just a structure, no swings. Lots of slides, lots of decks in order to meet the playground safety regulations. Stolar: And also we'll have ADA regulations in certain ones. Hoffman: ADA, ASCM and CPRC, all have guidelines. Stolar: Great. REVIEW 2004 LAKE ANN BEACH LIFEGUARD CONTRACT, MINNETONKA COMMUNITY EDUCATION AND SERVICES. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Stolar, the rest of the commission. Minnetonka has provided our, Minnetonka Community Education and Services has provided lifeguard services out at Lake Ann for a time going back, dating back to the 70's. It started as a handshake deal back in the early to mid 70's and we've kind of progressed into the timeframe that we're at right now. The city does contract annually with Minnetonka and we go through that annually in our January or February meeting. Keep the commission up to speed as to kind of what's going to be happening here for the 2004 season. Within that contract or that contracted amount we do include a lot of the expenses for the lifeguards. Example, the administration, supervisor, mileage, cell phones, lifeguard, postage, printing, really the whole operation of the lifeguard services that Minnetonka provides is included within the dollar amount that is stated within the 2004 contract. The Lake Ann Beach is scheduled to open up June 5th, and be open until August 27th. That is open 7 days a week from 10:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., weather permitting. ! believe the cutoff is 60 degrees for that and we always have lifeguards on duty if we do call that due to weather, make sure that nobody's on the beach swimming when the beach is closed during that process so the lifeguards normally clear the beach and go home after that. After they do call it for a cold type of a situation. During the course of the day the lifeguards, they are contracted. They work from 2 to 4 lifeguards on duty and it's listed as a breakdown, starting at 10:30 and going to 1:00. 1:00 to 5:00. 5:00, 5:30 to 8:00. It's kind of a breakdown so we do have overlap during the busier times throughout the course of the day, and then as it tends to not be so busy during the kind of mid-evening 19 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 timeframe before that 8:00 closing, we do kind of pare that down again so we're not lifeguard heavy ! guess and paying extra staff costs that we don't have to. It's interesting to note that the contract amount for 2004 remained the same as 2003, so that was a very nice surprise for us. Traditionally the contract has gone up anywhere from 3 to 5 percent annually, so that's a nice surprise for us so the contract amount for 2004 is stated again as $27,555. As the contract states, that is divided into 3 equal payments. The payments will be made on August, July 15th, August 15th, and September 15th. The contract amount again has been budgeted at our Lake Ann Park operations budget for the amount stated for the 2004 budget. So it's staff's recommendation that the Park and Rec Commission recommend approval to the City Council for the 2004 lifeguard contract for the Lake Ann Beach for services provided by Minnetonka Community Education and Services in the amount of $27,555. Stolar: Okay. Questions for Jerry. Spizale: Is this the same contract we had last year? Ruegemer: Yes. Spizale: Same hours? Ruegemer: Yes. Spizale: ! think it's great that they're keeping the same price. That's all ! got. O'Shea: ! don't have any questions. ! think it's a great program. Robinson: No questions. Stolar: Tom? Kelly: No. Stolar: Paula? Atkins: ! know that sometimes, ! probably should know this but if the weather is inclement and the beach is closed and there's no lifeguards on, this contract is paid, this amount is paid no matter what the weather or? Ruegemer: Right. Atkins: Okay. Just curious. Ruegemer: I don't have a hard number for you but traditionally throughout the course of the summer there is not a lot of days that we're totally closed. 20 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Atkins: June's been awfully cold the last couple years. Ruegemer: We used to open up Memorial weekend. Atkins: That was just for my own knowledge. Hoffman: They're there most of those bad weather days. They're there working. Not very many days that they leave the beach. Kelly: If! can come back with a question. Are you through? Atkins: I'm done. Kelly: On the weekdays is 4 lifeguards necessary between 1:00 and 5:007 Ruegemer: In talking John Rabe, the aquatic supervisor of the program, that's what's scheduled, provided it's, during the course of the day, you know they kind of play that by ear as well. If it' s not real busy, they have sent people home in the past. You know they want to make sure that they are adequately staffed. But they do keep an eye on that too. ! think it's in their best interest to keep costs down as well. Kelly: Keep their costs down but that wouldn't reflect in our costs. If they sent someone home because of low utilization, ! mean the city's still paying $9,100 every, it's the three payments. Ruegemer: Correct. Kelly: I'm through, I'm sorry. Stolar: Any others? Okay, ! don't have any questions. Seeing none, is there a motion regarding the recommendation for the City Council to approve the 2004 lifeguard contract for Lake Ann Beach. Spizale: I'll make a motion the Park and Recreation Commission approve the 2004 lifeguard contract for the Lake Ann Beach with services provided by Minnetonka Community Education and Services. Stolar: Do ! hear a second? Atkins: I'll second. Stolar: Any discussion? ! guess Jerry one thing, maybe next year when we bring this up for renewal, assuming same thing, to just list like actual hours related to lost days because of inclement weather and then any time that they came up short, that might help in understanding a little better. If they track it. ! thought we get that in the annual report, don't we? 21 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Ruegemer: Yeah, they have a daily attendance and log form that we could access. Hoffman: This is probably the longest standing contractual relationship that the city has. Wonderful deal for the city. This is, I'm going to say over 25 years. Ruegemer: Yeah, it goes back to the 70's with Jim Jones and Don Ashworth. Hoffman: That this relationship has been ongoing and I would hate to see the day that we would have to hire and manage our own lifeguards out at Lake Ann. It would be $75,000-$100,000. It wouldn't be $25,000. Stolar: Yep. Any further discussion? Spizale moved, Atkins seconded that the Park and Rec Commission recommend the City Council approve the 2004 Lifeguard Contract for Lake Ann Beach for services provided by Minnetonka Community Education and Services in the amount of $27,555. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. COMMUNITY CENTER UPDATE REPORT. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar, members of the commission. This is a, this report is in response to a work item that the City Council has on their task list, and that is an update on the, it's actually part of the strategic plan. Update on a community center efforts within our city. Last fall the City Manager asked that I write this report. I think it's actually on their agenda coming up in February or March at one of their work sessions. The report goes over all of the efforts in the past to secure a community center in town. The history is actually quite interesting with the referendum votes back in the 90's. The first one was the closest to passing and what, it was by 161 votes that it was th defeated. That was back on February 24 of 1988. That was to build a community center down on the site of the movie theater. The old Instant Web building. The old Instant Web building. Instant Web was downtown. They were relocated by the HRA out to the industrial park, hence the city had this building in downtown Chanhassen. The biggest problem with that is that Filly's was right next door, and that was the big push that defeated the referendum was the car flyers that went around the day before the election with the issue of the community center, potential future community center being located next to Filly's Bar. Hoping to find greater appeal and a new location the council moved an effort up to basically connect this building with the fire hall with the elementary school. Create a much larger gym on the elementary school. Hallways leading back and forth and ice arenas, senior center. A better plan actually but it failed tremendously. 1,609 to 3,745. That was back in 1990. Following the sound defeat, the issue was quiet for quite some time, although Mayor Chmiel at the time said that this was something that he wanted to work on and he did bring it up throughout his 6 years as being mayor. But there was really nothing that was ever accomplished during that time span in our community. Lots of young families moved to Chanhassen and these 22 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 people.., outside of our borders to access these services. Community center services. My family is one of those families. We go to Eden Prairie and Waconia, Chaska and the rec center to get those services .... The latest effort was back in June of '02 when the City Council solicited requests for information from 17 different organizations of how they would see themselves partnering with the city to build such a facility. The majority of them responded. In August of that same year the council reviewed those responses and they started a community center focus group. That group was made up of 18 members from the community and they met twice out at the recreation center. Dr. Robert LaPrade, on behalf of the commission, or the focus group, made a presentation to the City Council. You have his remarks in your packet, and the over riding theme that came out of those two focus group meetings was that if the city was going to be involved in a community center project, they wanted it to be public community center project. That's what they felt it should be is that when you get together, you felt a part of the community. So the public facility, they were not interested in a joint venture with a Lifetime or a Northwest Athletic where you go into a facility and you feel like you're in a business. You're not in a community center setting. And that was telling because at the time the real hot button was team up with somebody, join up with somebody. No formal action was taken by the council. Two recent events, one which is written here, one which I'll tell you about verbally are afoot that really provide some exciting opportunities for the community. The first is a school district announcement that the acquisition of the 95 acres of the Charles Mattson property, which is located on Lyman Boulevard, just south of the railroad tracks. South of Stone Creek. Just right there north of the Chaska power substation. That's a beautiful location. It's a great opportunity, especially in the area of aquatics to team up with the school district. If you're not aware, pools across the state of Minnesota are 4 inches too shallow. New safety regulations came out on competitive swimming pools. Most of them are 4 inches too shallow. They've all had to take out their starting platforms and you can no longer hold competitive meets in these high school pools. It's just sent these programs scrambling for new pools and new locations and so there is no doubt that whether this is a middle school or a high school, District 112 will build a competitive swimming pool at this location. The city could, if it deemed appropriate, team up on the indoor pool for some quote, recreation type elements, or add an outdoor pool to the facility. The views off of Bluff Creek there would be absolutely stunning so that's one opportunity. And there's certainly other opportunities with indoor space, outdoor space. There certainly will be discussions about will we do another joint powers agreement with the district such as Bluff Creek agreement or the Chan Elementary agreement. Who's going to take care of all the indoor rec facilities? Who's going to take care of the outdoor rec facilities? So lots of discussion left on that. The second big piece of news is that it will most likely be in this Thursday's Villager. Lifetime Fitness, it was a company based in Eden Prairie has announced that they will build a very large facility on Highway 5 either in Chanhassen or Eden Prairie. And it will be one of their facilities, probably one of the area's largest facilities. They have a very aggressive growth track. Right now they're tending now to stay away from these joint partnerships such as in Plymouth and Savage...the process slows them down. They get involved in these community projects and it takes so long. They found that their product is being so successful across the country that they no longer need those joint ventures to make it happen. Mark Zast, who is a member of our community. A resident here in town, met 23 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 with the City Manager and I probably 4 to 6 months ago and talked about some potential locations for the facility. It seems as though they don't have it closed as of yet, but they're going to announce it and then announce the location at some point in the future. If they build that here in Chanhassen, that will certainly play a large role in what the city would ever do in the future. If it's Eden Prairie, it will certainly be within our market but it would tend to be looked at a little bit differently than if it was actually in Chanhassen. So that's the latest. If you would like to amend this report, or make a report of your own. The person who is assigned to that meeting should be at that work session and so, if you can't make the work session that night, make sure you change with somebody else. If more additional members of the commission would like to come that night to participate in that discussion, you're certainly welcome. The council has made it very clear that they want to engage all of the commission in those types of conversations. That's where they see the real work being done. Stolar: Any questions for. I was going to say Jack, but I just realized you're next. Sorry, first mistake. Go ahead Paula, sorry. Atkins: Do you think that council is going to want to form another committee to possibly work with the school board? Discuss this with the school board, or is there such a committee in place? Hoffman: No. I don't know how they'll approach that. Kelly: I forget, how was the Waconia one, was that all school or was that city and school board? There was no private in Safari Island, right? Hoffman: Just city and school. Kelly: Just city and school, okay. And when you said somewhere on Highway 5 in either Chanhassen or Eden Prairie, are we talking, they have a general idea. It's a matter of if it's going to be 50 feet here or 50 feet there or could it be on the west side of Highway 5 in Chanhassen or on the east side of Highway 5 in Eden Prairie? Do they have it narrowed down to a few blocks or is it still? Hoffman: No, I think it's narrowed down. It's somewhere from the Rec Center to a couple miles over the border to Eden Prairie. They wanted to maximize the Eden Prairie/ Chanhassen market. Kelly: Okay. Robinson: So Lifetime has presented this to City Council, is that right? Hoffman: No. Lifetime gave a press release to the Chanhassen Villager. You'll most likely see it reported in Thursday's paper. 24 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Robinson: Okay. So then what would the process be if they wanted to build in Chanhassen? That would still have to go through? Hoffman: No. Robinson: Oh it doesn't? Hoffman: Just the development review process. Robinson: Oh, okay. Then what would be there be, like an open forum or something? Would they be concerned at all about what Chanhassen thinks? Hoffman: I think they believe they know their market. Robinson: They believe they know their market yeah. Okay. Just wondering how that all works. O'Shea: You don't have any specific locations though that you could tell us? Hoffman: No, I don't. O'Shea: Oh, okay. I was wondering if they were looking maybe at the Best Buy location. If that, I was just curious. Hoffman: They've looked at a variety of locations. I think the press release will say, they're looking at multiple locations and until they have a specific purchase agreement or signed purchase agreement, they won't announce which location. O'Shea: Okay. Stolar: Okay. No questions? Spizale: No. Stolar: I guess just a couple real quick. Jack I think you're on point for that session but I think if anyone wants to go, it'd probably be worthwhile so if you could just send a reminder or even an e-mail reminder to everybody. Also, if Lifetime does go forward, I think at some point we might want to just hear from them. Invite them to come talk to us about what they have to offer. Hoffman: Sure. Stolar: The other question I have, as I look through all of this and I'm fine with the focus group and all, but I think one of our goals probably needs to be to have this group more involved in those discussions about moving forward now that the school has purchased 25 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 property. I'd like to see us more active in the session with the City Council. State our interest to be more active, it might be worthwhile. Hoffman: You bet. Stolar; ! don't believe any action is required here. This was just an update. Any other questions? Okay. RECREATION PROGRAMS: 2004 FEBRUARY FESTIVAL. Ruegemer: Did everybody get a brochure? Everybody have it? Okay, great. Eleventh Annual Feb Fest is coming up February 7th. Corey's been working every day on Feb Fest with getting prizes and coordinating different components of the event. We've had a lot of help in house with getting information, fishing tags together and the prize board information and a lot of different things that go in with that so everybody' s been working hard on that. The advertising is going on. You saw the display ads in the paper and also , , th the insert in last week s Villager and another one s coming up February 5 , right before the event. Another round of scheduled events for the local paper here. A lot of great prizes again for the fishing contest. A lot of door prizes. Again, Corey does a good job of getting that information together and get that, it's a relatively cheap event to take on for your family. Come out and have a fun day of fishing. That really kind of remains the main focus of this event is the ice fishing contest, from 1:00 to 3:00. Corey's been selling tickets at a number of locations throughout the area here, mainly in Chanhassen and out at Cabin Fever Sports as well. Corey also wanted me to ask for volunteers for that day. We have a number of opportunities for you this evening and if you'd like me to send around the sheet, ! can do that. The main focus ! believe right now is the kind of the prize board area. And then also Corey's inquiring to see if anybody's interested in emceeing the event, as far as calling out, giving out general, you know kind of general information. Advertisements. Thanking sponsors. Naming off fishing prizes, door prizes. Announcing who's the leader at this point. Fred Berg was going to do it and now he had to get called out of town unexpectedly so he'll be absent that day so Corey just fielding interest at this point. If anybody's interested in joining. If not, we'll explore other opportunities at this point. But the main focus ! think is really the prize board right now and there's other opportunities here as well so I'll pass that around and ! expect 6 names on there. Kelly: Was this the first year you guys did a direct mailing? Ruegemer: A what? Kelly: Was this the first year you did direct mail to last year's participants? Ruegemer: For the fishing contest? Kelly: Yeah. 26 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Ruegemer: No, we've done direct mailings as far as inviting participants to come back again. We've done that for ! think probably since it started. Kelly: Oh, ! just hadn't remembered it before. ! got my, dear angler. ! never cast a line in my life but. Ruegemer: No, we do every year. That's a nice list that we have from year to year to kind of do some direct marketing with them and then also through the papers we do that in display ads. Stolar: Any questions for Jerry? ! have one, real stupid one. Do you need a fishing license? You have to go get that separate from this? Ruegemer: 16 years or older you need a fishing license. Stolar: Okay. And if your kid's doing it, you would need to have one so the kid could fish, right? Ruegemer: No. No, if your kids are under 16 they do not. And if you're just there observing, you do not need a license. You don't have to buy an annual license. You could buy a temporary license, just a 1 or 3 day. Hoffman: And you only need the license if you fish. You can buy as many raffle tickets without a license. Ruegemer: For the door prizes. Stolar: Where do you get those? Like at the hardware store. Ruegemer: Yeah, you can buy them here. You can buy them the day of the event on the ice as you walk in. Stolar: The license. Ruegemer: Oh the licenses? Oh. Hoffman: Hardware story. Ruegemer: Yeah, Gander Mountain. Merlin's. Cabin Fever. Robinson: And are the holes drilled for you? Ruegemer: Yes. Robinson: So you don't need to have your own auger or anything? Okay, that's what ! thought. 27 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: It was fun last year. I had never dealt with ice fishing at all. Saw all these holes out there. It's like, I'm not sure ! want to walk on a lake that has all these holes in it. But it stood. ! was actually jumping up and down on that cart there... Thank you. Any other questions? If you haven't been there, it's fun. Last year was perfect weather for it. Hoffman: We have been very lucky. Very lucky. SELF SUPPORTING PROGRAMS: WINTER 3 ON 3 ADULT BASKETBALL UPDATE. Ruegemer: Okay, just a general FY! for you. We're doing another league again this winter out at the Rec Center on Monday nights. We have 14 teams which it's up to from last year, which is good. So teams, we did split those teams. ! kind of went on past records and kind of shuffled people to kind of suit them to their competition levels so to speak so everybody has a good experience with that, and then we'll consolidate everybody at the end and have a post season tournament. The teams seem to like that. Kind of get together and do a single elimination with a consolation bracket tournament and stuff like that so they kind of like that. That goes on for 2 to 3 weeks at the tail end of the season. And then the winners, the league winners will receive, in each division will receive t-shirts and then the tournament winners, consolation and a tournament champion will receive a trophy, so it's kind of fun. Teams like it. Have fun. It's really the focus is social and recreation. Don't have too many fights out there, as we did in the past 5 on 5 leagues. That sort of thing so it is really sort of a fun evening. Stolar: Any questions? Okay. ADMINISTRATIVE: A. 2004 SCHEDULE FOR COMMISSIONER ATTENDANCE AT COUNCIL MEETINGS. B. 2003 COMMISSIONER ATTENDANCE RECORD. CITY Stolar: Does anyone have any questions about the schedule. Obviously we'll have to unfortunately identify new commissioners for where Susan's involved for the March 22nd meeting. Hoffman: Yep, there'll be 2 there. 28th and. Stolar: June 28th and October 11th. Any questions? Okay. Todd, did you want to add anything? Attendance. Commission members all met the recommended guidelines so congratulations everybody. Any questions on that? Hoffman: If it's any indication of your selection, you did choose two members with 100 percent attendance. Stolar: Thank you. Why don't we go onto the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek discussion. 28 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 RILEY-PURGATORY-BLUFF CREEK WATERSHED DISTRICT, LAKE SUSAN DELTA DREDGING PROJECT. Hoffman: Lake Susan and it's water quality, it's shoreland, shoreline stabilization issues have been a topic, really came out at the council level with the Lori Haak, our Water Resource Coordinator. You've probably seen some things in the paper over the summer. Variety of issues going on down there with road water and shoreline erosion. And then one of the areas which is really just more aesthetic. If you ever noticed where the geese can stand out on the delta that comes out of the creek out into Lake Susan. That's sediment from years past from both agricultural uses and then mainly when the industrial park area was developed during the early 80's, and so sedimentation traveled down during those development years. It deposited itself into Lake Susan, and so the watershed district is requesting a permit from the city. Permission from the city to come in. They don't need a permit from us. They need a permit from the State of Minnesota to take that delta out this winter. And so we have a review letter on file from the Riley-Purgatory Watershed District making that request. Our requirements are that we wanted to see the park impacted as little as possible, and in fact there will really be no impact. They will make an ice road off of the boat access to gain access to the delta. Dredge it out this winter. Haul the material off site in sealed containers so there will be no ice debris on the access road. And then be gone in probably 1 or 2 days, so that was more of an informational item. Wanted to make sure that you were aware that it was going on because we do receive a lot of comments when there's unusual type of trucks. Stolar: Is there going to be some sort of announcement? Hoffman: Probably in the paper. The residents in the area will get a mailing. Stolar: Okay. Any questions for Todd? Okay. Let's move on to what I'll call item 9 which is presentations of the key projects. Let's start with the St. Hubert's design. Hoffman: I'm going to let Jerry get off to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Is there any questions of Jerry regarding the administrative packet before he leaves for the evening? Ruegemer: That's mighty nice of you. Hoffman: You're free to go mister. Ruegemer: Thank you. Hoffman: Alright, have a good time. Ruegemer: I'll keep it between the trees. Hoffman: St. Hubert's has applied and received permission to go ahead with their cemetery. General site plan. So this gets you orientation. You can see the existing old 29 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 St. Hubert's Church at this location. And then the property travels to the east along West 78th Street down to this terminus. Picture existing conditions. There's the white house. The old Schlenk house, which is located on the property. It still remains. They constructed this road this past year and then they have plans to continue the development of the property into the future which will require the removal of the house, the layout, the cemetery plots and then the construction of other features, landscaping and hardscapes as a part of the plan. Atkins: Todd, would you show everybody where I live. Hoffman: You live right here. Atkins: ! live right across the street from it. Sort of affects me deeply. Hoffman: So to access it, there are three accesses. This is Frontier Trail. Atkins: That's Erie. Hoffman: Erie, excuse me. Frontier's lower down. And this is no doubt going to make it so much nicer for their, during their... One area of interest is that they show a future bridge, pedestrian bridge by others. This has always been a thought that when you come over the pedestrian bridge on Highway 5, it would be nice to be able to skip right over the railroad tracks and get into downtown much more quickly than having to go down this circuitous route. They've shown it, whether or not it would ever be completed is a long shot into the future. Someone else, namely the city would have to pay for it. Lots of landscaping. It should be a nice addition to the community. At one time this was slated for high rise apartment buildings. Remember that one? Atkins: Oh yeah. Any word on when they're thinking about moving the white house? Hoffman: No, ! haven't heard anything. Atkins: I'll ask around. Spizale: So they're going to move it, not tear it down? Atkins: ! really would like to see it preserved because it's kind of a historical item. Spizale: It's a neat house. Atkins: It was built from kit ordered from Sears. Maybe we should put it on a lot and make a coffee shop out of it. Hoffman: Well that's the cemetery news. The city has it's own cemetery, Pioneer Cemetery out on Galpin Boulevard, south of Timberwood. Karen, our office manager 30 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 manages the local cemetery. They sell plots and probably get inquiries on a monthly basis. Spizale: If you ever have a chance to walk through there, ! mean there's some really old graves. There's some interesting inscriptions on them. I've biked over there a couple times. It's a neat cemetery. Hoffman: The second one was? Stolar: The second one is the senior center. Hoffman: Senior center, we're working with KKE Architects. They've completed some other work at City Hall in the past. The project was awarded last night by the City Council to GenCon Construction out of Jordan, Minnesota. There was 15 bidders that sat right in those chairs as we opened, Matt Masica from KKE and ! opened up the bids. Amazing amount of interest in a couple hundred thousand dollar project. The low bid was the last one opened at $194,900 ! believe it was. And so there was one other person in the audience at that, that thought they had the bid up until that point. Architect estimate was $203,000 so the bids were very tight. GenCon was happy to get the work, and we were happy to have such competitive bids. The layout of the center is generally, we are right here in the council chambers. The long east/west corridor, which will be a major improvement over what is currently exists today because you have a door at every one of these openings. All of those doors are removed as a part of this plan. The old library becomes an expansion to the senior center, and then a large meeting room in the evening. A new office for the coordinator will be located here. The tech room, which is located just behind that screen, in fact the projector for that screen is located in the tech room, would be expanded to allow for more tech space for our entire city hall operations. This will become an executive meeting room to be used for the City Council before their meetings. So all of the work sessions would be coordinated here. The room upstairs just does not operate properly. Council or any commissions can be seated at this location for work sessions and the audience members can sit here to provide a much more formalized dialogue which will be very helpful in the management of the city. The existing senior center will stay. New bathrooms will be completed at this location. These are in place, roughed in right now. They'll just be finished off. And then the entire corridor will be tile with BCT tile. The elevator is located here which is used a great deal by our members of the senior center. For those of you who are not aware, this is a congregate kitchen, congregate meeting kitchen which they send Meals on Wheels out on a daily basis and then they also have their meals which are served in the senior center. They'll move in within two weeks and they'll be out of here within 3 months. That's their plan. The secondary bidding process for furnishings of approximately $50,000 to buy all the furnishings for this facility, and that will be bid separately from the general contract. Any questions that commissioners have? Atkins: Any remodeling in this room? 31 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Hoffman: Not in this room. Upstairs there will be a little bit of remodeling. Just some sheetrock for a new filing area, but the rest of the building .... Stolar: Okay, thank you Todd. And then the last point you wanted to talk about was Highway 212, which had very large attendance at the work session yesterday for the City Council and the meeting. Hoffman: Glenn was here last night for the first public comment period on Highway 212/312. John Chiglo was there last evening, and some other representatives. Quite a few of them from MnDot and they also made a presentation at the Chamber of Commerce meeting today. It was interesting, the primary center or focus of discussion was almost not 212 but 101. Because 101 is split, and as you can imagine as you travel south on 101, they're calling it the gap project between the future 212 and Highway 5. It's not being improved as a part of the 212 project and not improving that section takes all that traffic out of 212, puts it into this narrow little two lane Highway 101 section and then tries to bring it into downtown. MnDot has identified late this morning that they will have hopefully a project to work with the city on that to make those improvements. But then there was a gentleman who brought up the section of 101 south of 212 to old 101, crossing over Pioneer Trail and how that section of roadway or at least in his belief is under developed and in his words is not well thought out to put all that new traffic onto old 101, so that was a big issue last night. Right-of-way acquisition, berming, sound walls, all those type of things. What I'd like to do with the commission is run over the layout...and talk about the trails that are being built as a part of the project which are very exciting. Starting in Eden Prairie. This is Bearpath. This is a pedestrian underpass. This is the Chanhassen border. Rice Marsh Lake is right here. And our trail system will meet up with Eden Prairie's right at this location, so Eden Prairie will bring this trail down along this creek. Bring it down along the shores of Rice Marsh. We'll pick it up and we'll connect it over here with the trail section we just completed. That Marsh Glen trail connector. So that was a big reason behind putting that piece of trail in there when we did it and when this is completed. Kelly: Yeah, it didn't seem like when ! ran it, it didn't seem like it really went anywhere but that's why, okay. Hoffman: It will in the future. And so then you start to see, this is the Rottlund development here, North Bay. This is Chanhassen and these are the apartments down in Chanhassen down at this location. All of this property is owned by John Klingelhutz. Klingelhutz Development out of Chaska. Kelly: Would Eden Prairie's path, does that hook. ! know the LRT goes right through Bearpath also. Is that on this? Hoffman: No, LRT is down here. And this path will come out and come down and come right out to Lake Riley Boulevard. This is how that will loop. Continue moving west into Chanhassen, when you get to the first interchange at 101. So now you're at 101. This is directly west of where we first started in Eden Prairie here. This is the gap project 32 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 they're calling it between the new 212 and Highway 5 at this location. This is the interchange with 101. The clover leafs and then the park and ride, proposed park and ride location here. Trail system runs all the way down on the east side, up and over the bridge. Drops back down again and then will continue on down to Bandimere. Currently they have it shown on the west side. That is incorrect. It will come back onto the east side and continue on down to the Bandimere, and then there will be a trail system running along Lyman Boulevard, continuing to the west. Kelly: As part of this project? Hoffman: Yes. That trail's going in. There's also a trail, they'll make a connection into Chanhassen Hills, and then this trail is an add on that they really normally would not do but as you can see right here, this is old 101. And the trail which we recently constructed is being terminated. Now this trail that was recently being constructed as taken off by MnDot is the reason they have to put this back at their cost. If this trail was not here, this would be our cost. The fact that we have it in place, this is their cost to replace it. But we have a brand new trail which is terminated here. Something that people like, enjoy to do before work, after work, on weekends is make a loop and so if we could have people come out and then just not just terminate there, take a loop down and then connect back up with the park and then back up into the street which is Lake Susan Drive ! believe. So they've agreed to put that trail connector in. Normally they would not do that. Kelly: And they can still get to Bandimere, right? With that new trail. Hoffman: Yep. Kelly: Trail connecter but they shoot back. Hoffman: And then you can still get the east or Lyman Boulevard. Kelly: Oh yeah, up until Bearpath and then. Hoffman: Yep, it stops. Kelly: Yeah, and then the road. Hoffman: So this is the trail overpass, not a bridge, as a part of the Chanhassen plan. Then we move one. Kelly: Can ! ask one more question? Beyond Lyman, ! know beyond Bandimere there's the trail that follows 101 all the way to Pioneer. Would that be affected by this at all or that will be, that will still be in place? Okay. Hoffman: The only thing you will see is the change at Pioneer, they'll put a four way stop with semaphores in at Pioneer and 101. 33 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Kelly: They'll put a four way stop with. Hoffman: Yeah, with lights. Kelly: Oh, instead of the stop signs? The mornings there are just awful. It backs up west as far as you can see. Hoffman: The blue is ponding. Storm water retention. Move one click to the west. Kelly: Can ! ask one more, I'm sorry. One more question. The proposed golf course on Pioneer and 101, is that going to be affected at all by 2127 Okay. I'm sorry. Hoffman: No problem. Their project stops here, which is at the, just before the entrance of Bandimere. Kelly: Okay. Hoffman: So the project stops at that location. One of the incredible things about this project is that it's a design build. MnDot will have 30 percent of the project designed and then they will bid it. They think probably four groups of contractors, four consortiums will bid on the project. $240 million ! believe is about the estimated cost, and to put the bid together is over a couple million dollars. 2 lA million, 3 million dollars to put together the project... They'll employ, they being the design build contractor will employ up to 70 designers. They'll design this road as they're building it. Very interesting way to go about performing the project. And then the most incredible thing is that they'll start in the spring of 2005 and they'll be driving on this road in the fall of 2007. It's amazing. They'll build it, they asked the Chamber today, where will they start? He says they'll start everywhere. They'll build all of the over passes that will be built, they'll just be standing out there in the middle of a corn field. And then they'll make the connections, and so for example 101, they'll build this entire section of road right out in the middle of the corn field. It won't disturb anybody. The concrete trucks will have to drive down the road and they'll drive off, out across the field and they'll build the whole bridge and the whole section of road without disturbing anybody and then also they'll make a cut up here and make a cut up here and they'll put you back on that new road and then they'll do their construction on the old road, and he says they'll do that time and time again all the way down. It's 11 miles. 11 lA miles. Amazing construction schedule. Powers Boulevard will move farther west. This is an example where you can see the trail coming in from the park, and then connecting up and through a variety of conversations, the trail ended up on the south side and in a recent meeting, it was my request that we have it on both sides because this is where all the population is up on the north side, and you don't want to force people to jaywalk at this location, and then to get on the trail and then go across at a lighted intersection here. They're just not going to want to do that and so we want that trail on this side as well. So when people come out of this neighborhood, they can get directly on the trail. Go into Powers. Going north. Get back down by the park and then come back home. Those are the type of routes that people want to take. And we want to accommodate that. There's existing trails on both 34 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 sides of Powers. You see the two new trails on both sides of Powers that come down. Cross the bridge, and then right here we've made a request. This is the Fox property. The 34 acres. That they accommodate a trail connection here, and so we can get people from the west into the Fox property and in the future there will be some type of trail head on this property, most likely located on the eastern fringe of the property and so then we want to be able to make sure we have pedestrian movement off of the Powers Boulevard into the park and then continuing out back over to Bandimere Park. Then you see the underpass in Chanhassen at Bluff Creek. So Bluff Creek is the unifying connector of all of Chanhassen pedestrian activity. It crosses underneath Highway 5, underneath the railroad tracks and it will cross underneath Lyman Boulevard hopefully in the future or at grade, and then it will cross underneath 212. And that will be, really this is the base of the destination. Once you get farther down, if you imagine driving Pioneer Trail and you look to the south, Bluff Creek drops off into a large gorge, and there's really nowhere to go with the pedestrian trail system. This will stop here and branch both to the east along Pioneer Trail and to the west along Pioneer Trail. And this last board connects the bottom... If you look at that at the top. Here's the connection. This is Pioneer Trail as it exists today. You can see the alignment changes modestly. And so this underpass would come out, travel. This will be a development, some type of a, get off on this side of the creek and on this side of the creek. It will travel out and then continue down Bluff Creek Drive down to the river valley trail system. So that's what your destination would be, would be the river valley. Bluff Creek Drive under the underpass and then you'd be all the way up into Chanhassen. This is Pioneer Trail, which goes over to the intersection of the school. If you're familiar with the Pioneer Freshman Center, that's right here. And 212 continues on to the west. The interchange with Pioneer. There are three new crossings at Bluff Creek. These are all designed with no center piers, Minimal impact onto Bluff Creek. And the existing pipe is maintained at this location from Pioneer to minimize the disturbance to Bluff Creek. The major change here is the Bluff Creek Drive. If you drive it today, it traverses at this location. So this is the major realignment of Bluff Creek Drive, for those who use it today. Trivia for the future. There's a future river crossing in the planning. They're taking a look at a variety of locations. Chaska would like to see a new river crossing for 169 traffic. They want to get that out of downtown. You're taking one road out of downtown. You're taking 212/312 out of downtown and then you want to take the other traffic, the 41 river crossing traffic. This is one of the potential locations. Comes right here. Goes right down the property of Chaska, the municipal boundaries of Chaska and Chanhassen. Chaska has set aside all the property to make that happen at this location. And so you would be launching off right over the bluff, right over the top of the fen and continue on across the Minnesota River and then end up at 169 over, which would be just to the east of the Holiday station that sits over there in the corner of 41 and 169. So that's the next planning element is a future river crossing, and of course the state is very much in favor of that because both the Chaska river crossing and the Shakopee one flood out and so we don't have a viable route across there during high water periods. State has been very willing to work with us on our trail plan. The original cost was something of a $1,600,000 for trails. That's been backed way down. They were originally charging us for right-of-way acquisition. Our statement, our case was simply that you have to acquire this right-of-way anyway for the road. Why would you be charging us a portion of right-of-way. They agreed to that 35 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 reasoning. The second, they had their cost estimate for the first square foot trail up around $6 per square foot. They've lowered that to about a buck and a half, $1.75 per square foot so we've gone from about a million one to about $370,000 for trail construction cost on our side. So depending on what the costs come in at, the city is going to receive tremendous value for the trail portion of this project. As long as they're building that big road, we want to make sure people can get around by pedestrian means. So it's only a year away and then after that, it's only 3 years away from completion which is just mind boggling if you think about it. Kelly: Is that park and ride in addition to Market Boulevard or is that going to replace the park and ride at Market? Hoffman: That ! don't know. ! would think it'd be a replacement but ! haven't heard that. Kelly: Was there talk about putting shops there like Eden Prairie or would it be just a parking lot? Hoffman: There was talk about that. There's some neighborhood opposition to that but they talked about that. Stolar: Do we have any plans for how we're going to fund that trail? Hoffman: Not yet. Stolar: Is City Council aware of the opportunity? Hoffman: Oh yeah. Stolar: And then you said that they're going to, ! don't know if it's a future planned goal over the fen. ! assume you mean Seminary Fen. Is there any impact on that right now that we know? Hoffman: Depending on who you talk to at MnDot, their water and environmental people would have to be very concerned. But it will certainly be a topic of discussion as they talk about the different alternatives for crossings. Stolar: And where are we at, just kind of related, but the Seminary Fen initiative. Is that going through? Or are they still short? Hoffman: I don't know where the current status of that is. The newspaper article that you saw a couple, three weeks ago, just before the holiday was the last I heard about it as well so, I don't have an update for you. 36 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: Because we had said that maybe bringing them here to talk to us, but I was just thinking maybe they could convince the Department of Transportation to help fund it and give them right-of-way. Hoffman: ! know we talked about having them here. The conclusion was that they would really like to finish the negotiations before they entered into any public meetings. Stolar: Sure. Any questions? Hoffman: Big project. It's remarkable. The contractor will their own environmental person. Their own public relations staff. The representative from MnDot, Jon Chiglo came out of the Highway 52 in Rochester site. The contractor has a very defined interest in keeping people happy. They engaged all the people, all the different neighborhoods to keep the project moving along smoothly. And the bidding project is very unique in that these contractors want to bid it as competitively as possible so they've come up with all sorts of grand ideas on how to do things more efficiently, and they can go to MnDot before the bidding process and get these creative ideas pre-approved. If MnDot pre- approves them, then they have the right to go ahead and.., their price back to incorporate these ideas and MnDot cannot give those ideas to any other bidders, so it makes these bidders very competitive in the bidding climate. It's one lump sum. It's one bid. $245 million dollars, period. Build you a road. There's no break out. That's it. So it will be interesting to watch the project come on board. Stolar: Thank you. Any more questions? COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. Stolar: We only have one committee at this time so. Kelly: Nothing's going to happen with that right now. Stolar: Next meeting we'll have one for the playground committee. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Hoffman: Just make sure that everybody noted that Kara Wickenhauser has resigned. And the ad was published today for her replacement. Stolar: It's still going to be a part time though? Hoffman: 20 hours. 20 hour position as the senior center coordinator. Kara has worked with us for 8 lA years. Absolute dream employee so she will be sorely missed by the community and the seniors .... and her going away will be on February 14th. Valentine's Day so you'll get mailed in your packets... 37 Park and Rec Commission - January 27, 2004 Stolar: I do have a question on that. Is there any thought of trying to combine that with one of the positions potentially at the Rec Center or some other type position? Hoffman: No discussion. That's how it started. It was a part time person, part time programmer. In the future though there will certainly be the need to increase the level to a three quarter, probably a full time position at some point. With the expansion of the senior center.., opportunities are just growing. And so it currently is funded as a half time position. And then volunteers pick up the rest. Kara never worked 20 hours a week. She worked more than 20 hours a week and then there are volunteers that pick up the work. There's volunteers that worked with her 1 day a week for those full 8 ~ years so when Kara was off on Thursday, Helen was in the office answering the phones for that entire time so. Neat relationship. Stolar: Any other? If not, is there a motion to adjournment? Spizale moved, Atkins seconded to adjourn the Park and Recreation Commission meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 38