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1 Approval of MinutesCHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 27, 1998 Chairwoman Lash called the meeting to order at 6:45 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Mike Howe, Jan Lash, Fred Berg, Jim Manders, and Rod Franks MEMBERS ABSENT: Ron Roeser and Dave Moe STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rcc Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Supervisor APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Approved as presented. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Berg moved, Howe seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated September 22, 1998 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. LAND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW REQUEST FOR REZONING OF 16.4 ACRES FROM RR, RURAL RESIDENTIAL TO RSF~ RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY; PRELIMINARY PLAT OF 16.4 ACRES INTO 17 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS WITH VARIANCES. THE PROPERTY IS LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF LAKE LUCY ROAD JUST NORTH OF LAKE LUCY~ LAKE LUCY ESTATES~ CONTRACTOR PROPERTY DEVELOPERS COMPANY. Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. Mandcrs: Is this like a dead end? You come in and drive out. There's no roads connecting to any of these other developments? Hoffman: Well, in the future it could go both east and west and this Lakewood Lane would be lnorc substantial. This is almost a private driveway to these two spots but this would be. Manders: How about to that east development? Is there any connection going that way? Hofflnan: No. That stops. Mason Homes has one road in and one road out... So these people are willing to pay their park and trail dedication fees and unless you have any other questions or interests for the development. Lash: Does anybody have any questions? Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Howe: Todd would that last one on the corner own that island.'? I mean who do you think will end up owning that little island.'? Hoffknan: I'm not, I haven't been participating in those discussions. They may split it among all of them or they may just, they're probably retaining it in private ownership right now. Manders: So would that Lakeway Drive be a private drive then? Hoffman: No. Oh, this way? This way down here? Manders: Yeah, taking off of the other cul-de-sac. Hoffman: Probably a private drive coming down into here. We would call it a cul-de-sac... And from the looks of it, Lakeway Court is also a private drive...The City would plow this and then plo~v this in the future. This is a private driveway as well. Lash: Okay. Any more questions? Is there a motion? Howe: I move that we recommend to the City Council that the full park and trail dedication fees be collected in lieu of parkland dedication or trail construction. Lash: Is there a second to that? Franks: Second. Howe moved, Franks seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to the City Council that the full park and trail dedication fees be collected in lieu of parkland dedication or trail construction for Lake Lucy Estates. All voted in favor and the motion carried. LAKE ANN PARK LARGE GROUP ADMISSION POLICY. Jerry Ruegemer presented the staff report on this item and asked the commission for any questions. Howe: Who's going to enforce this? The head lifeguard? Ruegemer: The lifeguard staff will. Yeah, the staff that we have on. Obviously it's going to be communications between our office and Minnetonka but you know I would like to do it that way. We have basically any information that I've had in the past I've always either faxed over to John or mailed it to him if we've had time just to properly notify him too. They do have people on stand-by so to speak that they can bring in. Howe: But ifa bus comes in unannounced, there's somebody new who's unaware of the policy and they don't have money, we're not going to, we're going to turn them away right? Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Ruegemer: That's the type of thing obviously that we have to work through some of those growing pains and we need to work with the concession staff down there. Obviously is a mass group of people are coming through, maybe we present a policy where they need to either check in at the concession stand or with the lifeguards that will have a schedule of some kind. A daily schedule. Lash: But ifa groupjust shows up, unannounced and they don't know about any of the policies, who's going to go to, looks like they're in charge and say who are you and where's your money? Ruegemer: Well that's something that we need to educate either our staff at the concession stand or the lifeguards. Obviously we want our staffto be aware of those type of situations too where they have some large groups coming in. We want to make them aware that they need to approach this group and that's something that we need to communicate to them. That ABC daycare will be out here today and here's a copy of their permit and here's the contact person. Here's how many people they expect. The time that they're going to be out here. The number of buses that are going to be coming out that day. That's the type of things obviously we need to do... We don't want to put that beach at an awkward situation either. We want it to be a clean process and that's what we're trying to do. Lash: But an unannounced group, you're not expecting. Someone from the concession stand you're thinking? Rucgemer: I think really, I think the lifeguards are going to be taking the lead on tiffs. It's in their best, it's in our best interest too but it's going to be a combination effort between the two groups. Lash: And what on a normal day say unannounced groups may be denied because daily capacities have been reached. What is the capacity'? Ruegemer: That's something that obviously we're, you know it's you know a lot of times we've had 3 to 4 lifeguards out there and the beach is completely packed from one end to the other. As far as...maybe we need to, we don't really have a per se number. You know we don't have a watt type of counting type of system but it's kind of more of a perceived kind of a situational type of thing. Approach to that. So we need to kind of take a look at that. We haven't really had you know, we've had some days where we've had 2 or 3 groups out there where it's been kind of pushing it to the limit but we haven't had, where we've been able to cover that at the last minute or that type of thing but we try to make people axvare of that so we want people to call ahead. More than that... 500 or 600 probably. I mean what. Hoffman: That's something they can probably work on. It would be a good idea for everybody involved. Insurance carriers. Lash: Find some...I mean I'm just thinking to have it down pretty clearly for the lifeguards. It makes their job easier you know than a judgment call for them .... 17 years old, I mean you're Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 pretty young...have reservations. That you don't need to pay for both things. You know they need pretty clear direction on how to handle this decision so they can say, I don't make the rules. I'm just here to, this is the rule. I'm trying to enforce the rule and follow the policy, whatever. Hoffrnan: And I'll talked with Jerry. We'll always have to leave I think a lead lifeguard to make that final call because if we have this, is the concession stand, is it city workers or is it contractual workers. It's going to have to be a contractual. Whoever's the lead lifeguard will have to explain that as a part of their policy. The concession people are going to be tipping them off. You know there's four buses in the parking and they're coming your way. Somebody better get out there and talk to them. And then also if we can manage a group, if they don't have cash or check, we can certainly arrange billing procedures so we don't inconvenience their day. Lash: So if they come unannounced, can they pay at the concession stand? Okay. Franks: ...but then I'm thinking you would want to have some kind of a statement available with like the billing information and the listing of the policies...prepared and then maybe the lifeguard... Howe: Would this apply to the group from Chanhassen? Ruegemer: Would it apply? Howe: Would a daycare from Chanhassen be subject to the same restrictions and fees? Ruegemer: Yes. Howe: Okay. And you know some of the people who have done this in the past. Would it be a good idea in March or April just to send them a note or call them and say hey, by the way we're changing our policy to protect you and to be safer. Ruegemer: Yeah. I mean we're not, it certainly wasn't our intention to beat up on ma and pa daycares or that type of thing. We want people to come down and it really isn't groups from Chanhassen that have been the issue. Hoffman: There's a lot of smaller groups. A lot of groups smaller than 24 people that come down. In fact a majority. Howe: ... Ruegemer: A lot of them are really good about calling. Calling ahead of time and making, yes. Franks: Well if the groups that we're talking about... Hoffman: Something of interest that I think Jerry could probably share with us. I don't know if you recall the numbers. The Council has us going through this budgeting by activity. Do you Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 recall what this is per person? $1.617 Something like that. I'll run upstairs and grab it but what it will tell you is, to operate Lake Ann, divided by 19,200 people, all the citizens of Chanhassen, how much do we assess each individual person per year to operate Lake Ann and I think it's a buck, buck something to operate per person. So this is an additional fee of you know, a dollar less per person so that kind of gives you an idea of what kind of burden we're putting on people. Every activity Jan. Activity based budgeting. Rod knows about it. Lash: Okay. Do you need a motion Jerry? Ruegemer: Would the commission like a redefine of this or do you want to just, with the changes that we have here, I'll just include it in the Admin Packet at a later time? Lash: So do you need a motion? Hoffman: I think we should have a motion, yeah. Lash: Okay... Franks: I would but I'm not clear. Manders: Yeah, I don't know what I'm moving on. Hoffman: You can enact this policy right here. That you have before you. Lash: Criteria tbr large group admission. Franks: I would move that the commission enact a policy tbr the group admission policy at Lake Ann as stated here and with the changes that were discussed. Manders: And I'd add that the two items of importance to me are enforcement and notification. Making that as clear as possible. Franks: Notification prior to the season beginning and also at the facility... Lash: Okay, is there a second? Manders: Second. Franks moved, Manders seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission enact the group admission policy for Lake Ann Park as presented in the staff report with the changes discussed, emphasizing enforcement and notification prior to the season. All voted in favor and the motion carried. GOMEZ REQUEST~ BLUFF CREEK TRAIL. Park and Rec Commission Meeting ~ October 27, 1998 Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item and stated that he saw no action that the commission could take on Mr. Gomez' request. Lash: Did everybody get a chance to look at this? Why don't we open it up for commissioner comments. Mike, how about you. Howe: Yeah, I saw it this afternoon just before it got dark and as I told Fred and Jim when I got here, I mean in my neighborhood there's a similar situation with the trail along Bluff Creek there, the connector. It's a beautiful trail. I don't see there's a lot we can do looking at the map. 1 couldn't find when I was there the stakes that marked where the trail was, but it looks actually his lot is further away than some of his neighbors. And I guess it's too late this year to even start this, right? Hoffman: Correct. It will be built next year. Howe: Okay. I don't think there's anything we can do and we should go forward with plans as they are. Lash: Rod. Franks: Well I was out there...in the dark and we did find the stakes...topography of the land. His house is up high. All of the houses along that area have some good elevations from where the trail would be. The berming, 1 don't see how that would help at all, especially xvhen he's...to the neighbors. It's almost below grade with his lot. I have no idea what good that would do. In fact Mr. Gomez was speaking about putting the berm on the...and safety for his children but that struck me as providing cover fbr those that might try to do exactly what it is that he's trying to avoid. If he were to put a privacy fence or really any kind of a fence in back of his property, that would more than stop the sight line and address the safety issues...actually parkland from what it looks like the lot line...landscaping and berming and that the trail should be approved as already approved. Lash: Just one quick question i guess for the record. As the trail goes past Mr. Gomez' house, approximately how many feet are between the trail and his lot line? Hoffman: We looked at that. It depends on, the north lot line is approximately 50 feet. And the south lot line is approximately 80 feet. Lash: And... Hoffinan: His home's another 40 or 50 feet from the lot line. Lash: I consider that to be an ample buffer between the trail and his lot line, let alone... Howe: It's all wetland here. It's not, I got wet today. Even today walking back in there so. Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Lash: ...over. Hoffinan: Built right at the base of the hill, right at the edge of the xvetland. There will be some elevation will be raised in there. Lash: So it's wet between his lot line and where the trail will be? Hoffinan: Well yeah, there's some. It's not in the wetland but it's in hydric soil, yeah. Lash: Alsojust so it's on the record. When we had the meeting in December I believe, before the vote when we were presenting these different options to the community first, I was approached by people in this specific neighborhood who were very happy with where the trail was going to be constructed and I remember in particular one person who said they had been waiting two years for this trail to go in and they were so happy to have it go in. And as much as I feel for Mr. Gomez and his frustration, I don't see any other alternative than for us to move forward with this project as it's been planned... There x~'as a tape change at this point in the discussion. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS: Lash: So xve'll move on to Park and Open Spaces Trail Referendum. Hoffinan: With the exception of open space acquisition, we're going to put these things to bed for the winter in pretty good shape. City Center will be, still be on it's schedule. Their goal is to pave the inline skating hockey rinks and the basketball courts yet this year. Not to pave the asphalt trails. To pave those in the spring. And to finish up, to touch up on Bandimere in the spring and finish up grading and seeding at City Center in the spring. All of the picnic shelters are under construction. Two are nearing completion. Meadow Green and North Lotus. Manders: Where is the North Lotus one'? Is that back behind. Hoffman: Right up to the parking lot. Right in front of the parking lot. Manders: By the. Hoffman: Play structure and the hockey rink. Manders: Yeah. Is it.'? When I drive by there I've been looking and I just don't see it. Hoffman: It's up. It will still get shingled. The shingles are not on. And then they need to do some back filling and grading and sod next spring. And on my, I continue to be disappointed with Dave Owen. I simply have not understood their lack of attention to the City of Chanhassen or the Park and Recreation Commission. He attempted to lay the blame on busy schedules and etc, etc. Well then that simply means we're not a priority. There's other people getting attention 7 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 in front of us. We've always been a good customer and they've always paid good attention to us so I'll remove them from the bid schedule for at least two years. Howe: There's a skate park in that I stumbled in in Mankato. Have you seen that one? It's by the high school. Hoffman: Yeah. Howe: But east. Hoffman: Yes. Howe: That was pretty neat. Hoffman: Really, yeah. Good friends of mine participate there. Howe: It doesn't look like it would be terribly expensive. Hoffman: We have placed $30,000.00 in the budget for materials for skate jumps and will attempt to go through a local and civic booster type of, it's going to be very difficult. Nobody's going to, nobody wants to, no individual business will xvant to put their names on a skate jump, I can guarantee you that. But individual businesses will be very interested. It's a high profile activity. Manders: This is inline skating and skateboard stut~ Hoffman: Yeah, right up here behind City Hall. The jumps and the ramps that need to be constructed and installed up here. Howe: It was real simple. I mean they had the big jumps and the big curves or whatever they're called, and they just had a great big fence all around it... Yeah, right by East. Berg: Yeah, take a look at it. Very simple. Plywood or whatever. Hoffman: We're going to take a look. Take some photos... We'll see if we can get somebody out of Mankato to take some photos when they're down there and stop in. Because we can build these things over the winter. We could do a goodjob of that. Howe: Like I said, they're real simple. Hoffman: You always walk that fine line between spoiling people and just buying them fine lumber and putting it out there in the spring and then the other side of it where you try to get the community involved and that's what has really happened on a lot of these is you get the kids involved. And we haven't seen them for quite some time. If you recall there was a group and those groups have evolved, you know... Yeah, no more skate park. Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 2?, 1998 Franks: ...the permanent boards. Hoffinan: We still though it would, we thought we were going to do temporary boards and so you can take those down and put them up and then provide the entire area. The permanent boards at the recreation center are very expensive and very permanent and in the long run that can be, if those things frost heave on it, they're a liability not an asset any longer so I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket and build two more permanent rinks up here. Then we'll have temporary boards that you can take up, put down. We can also leave up a set of temporary boards and play inline hockey inside of it and use the other one for the skate jump. It just kind of depends on what's hot and it seems like the entire area for skate jumping would be better received than having hockey. Berg: ...have boards at all. Just have a big fence. Hoffman: ...it's just going to be asphalt. There's asphalt edge on all sides of it. It's a big piece of asphalt. It's scheduled to go in so. Howe: Can we talk about Bandimere noxv? There xvas a letter in the administrative packet to Ingram. Hoffi~mn: Yeah, Ingram's stepped up the paces. I was disappointed that Todd Ingrain did not attend the meeting that we requested his presence at and they got a call into him that we were more than disappointed and so we spoke by phone within five minutes and they really stepped up the progress on Bandimere so. It's still not done but it's looking pretty good. The community has really been excited about it .... I noted an attachment and I apologize it didn't get in there on Sugarbush. It's a park. I mean it's beautiful. Parking lot is halfway in. The trMl's grubbed out. The basketball court's rocked. The playground was put up by a group of volunteers last Thursday and Friday. Pea gravel base. Kids are playing on it. Exciting. And the letter that I was going to attach was from the neighborhood coordinator. 1 don't know if you recall Cindy Jensen. She really picked up the ball. She xvrote her own letter. She was concerned that she could only find women to work with this install coordinator. I said that would be his preference. Send them over there. They'll do a great job. They work great together and so they had a group of guys that started it out and then a whole bunch of women that finished the project out and they just did a terrific job. Lash: Okay. Anything else? Manders: So as is it your expectation then that Galpin and Powers would be finished this year? Hoffman: Galpin will be complete. Powers will just be, it will all be weather dependent. It will either be rock or the first lift of asphalt. We will not allow them to put the second lift of asphalt down in cold weather. Howe: I can't believe how many people are using it already. Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Lash: I know. Howe: You walk by there and they're jumping around the piles of dirt and going through the barricades... Lash: It's good where it is. Anything else under administrative reports? Howe: Yeah, the guy that fell in the park, is he going to sue us? Hoffman: No. Not that I know of. Those typically come in, they come in six months after. He admitted his own fault in the letter. Manders: That was right out here or something? Hoffman: Yeah. Manders: So getting back to Bandimere and this one, so the grading and everything is basically in place and it's just final touches? Hoffman: At Bandimere. City Center still has a lot of work left. There's irrigation. Manders: Grading? Hoffman: Grading is mass graded. No, the site is essentially as you see it is where it will stay. Lash: ... Hoffman: Sure. It will either be on rock or asphalt. And we need to get power in for the temporary warming house. The playground is being moved. It's being moved right now. The past couple days they've been over there so. Manders: Have you heard anything from that neighbor that was concerned about the location of those ball parks around their property? Wasn't there a water thing over there too? Hoffinan: Yeah. He spoke to the Mayor again and she talked to me briefly but...for quite some time. COMMISSION MEMBER REPORTS: Lash: Is there any commission member reports? Mike. Howe: Thank you. I went on a watershed tour. One day when the market was falling 300 points. It was a great day to be out of the office. It was a rainy, wet day and all the watershed commissioners, including our own Mr. Conrad Fiskness were on the bus and they had Halloween 10 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 candy and pop and we just rode around in the rain. A couple of points I got out of it. The first stop, if you talk about an interpretative center, which is new in Eden Prairie. Have you been there? Hoffman: Which one? Howe: The one on Highway 5 and Mitchell. It's a water plant. Purification plant and they've made this new addition. There is a beautiful interpretative center about water. Where it comes from. How it gets recycled. You walk in what looks like a bathroom and there's little signs. When you brush your teeth and don't turn off the water, you waste this many gallons. You flush the toilet, you use this many gallons. A drip on your faucet, this much. And you go what fertilizer does and they have a lit map that shows the aquifer and where the water comes from and how it's treated. It's perfect. There's a lab. They were just finishing up a lab. A big lab for kids to use... I think it's by appointment only. I don't think it's open all the time but it's just fantastic. Outside there are three ponds of various, they've got one that's all natural. They've got piers that go over the pond so kids can study and high school students. Fantastic. Lash: Like how many kids could go in there? Howe: It's at least, I'd say a couple of classes. It's probably twice the size of this room and it's got a huge high ceiling. It's just gorgeous. Have you seen it? It is fabulous. Little facts about water and ~vhere it came from. That was the first stop. Hoffman: City oxvned and operated from what you understood? Howe: They xvork with the school district and as far as I could tell it was only for Eden Prairie and it was still brand new. It's brand new. They were very proud of it obviously. Manders: Did you get any sense of where the funding came for this? Howe: I imagine they sold bonds for the whole thing. The ~vater plant. Hoflh~an: Yep. Howe: I mean it was a big project. They've been working on that for years. Manders: Well they have yeah, but I mean all of this extra. Howe: The school may have kicked in some but I didn't ask him that. Manders: When you look at that and it isn't built out of your basic. Howe: No, it's nice. Manders: Boards and brick. 11 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Howe: When you go inside it's a huge lab... They're now worried about some other things. Silt fences. They want silt fences now to be orange so you can see them and take them down. They were really worried about that. They taught me about drainage and what a surcharge is. When the water moves from one spot to the other and what a wick drain is and all these engineers are talking pretty clinical terms. They went to Minnetonka. Looked at how Minnetonka deals with wetland issues and how they map out all their wetlands are mapped but some of it is, there's some development going on inside the wetland in areas and how they came to terms with that. Went to the Village on the Ponds where there's a silt problem apparently the day before we were there. The week before. They had dredged out one of the ponds and they're having trouble with them because, I guess a family owns it and the family's all squabbling about what they want to do and they've had some problems up there so I learned a lot. It was kind of fun on a rainy day to ride around on this bus and eat candy. So that's-my report. Lash: ...Rod, have you got anything? Franks: No. Lash: Fred'? Jim? Manders: None. Lash: We don't, we're only supposed to do...does anybody have anything for that? Questions? Comments? First one is Carver Beach. Are we going to put that on pretty soon'? Hofthmn: Yep, November. Beachlot, right? Lash: What? Hoffinan: Beachlot? Lash: Yeah... Hoffinan: Yeah, l took a look at it midway through the cycle and I said, no. Takes more time for publishing letters and Nancy noticed it on the Minutes and was real interested. Called and talked about it so. Howe: This is they're purchased and they want to...? Hoffman: It won't be empty in November. The room won't be empty in November let's put it that way. If we go November. Lash: Do you want to...what was it about it that caught Nancy's eye? Hoffinan: About people wanting to buy city parkland. 12 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Lash: Was she receptive to that idea or not receptive? Hoffman: Just wants to follow the process. She was going to be here tonight to talk to you about that and some other things but she had some other issues coming up. I think I also mentioned it to her Jan in conversation about some highlights and some upcoming issues. It could be a... Oh sure it could. I mean you're going to get a group of neighbors in here that want to buy the lakeshore and you're going to get the rest of the neighborhood in and they're going to say hey, what's going on. You're not going to sell these people lakeshore. It's got eye appeal. It will certainly catch the attention of the community. It's a high profile so... Lash: Well that's why I brought it up. ! wanted to make sure we didn't forget about it. And then I did, I drove into Bandimere the other day on my way home when it xvas still light just to see how it looked like things were coming in. I seem to recall that during the course of our looks of the different plans and stuff that Mr. Finger who lives on the property right next door. Right next door. Had some concerns and it seems to me that at the end when we were agreeing on this plan with a driveway that was going to be close to his lot, there was discussion that this really needed to be sensitive to their yard and we needed to provide berming and trees or something to take carc of that problem. And driving there, I mean it is right... Hoffman: The first house or the second house? Lash: The one closest to the TH 101. Hoffman: Yep. That's been, he was not concerned. That's the father and we've xvorked with him quite cooperatively throughout this entire thing but we. Lash: ... Hoffman: That's the second one. Farthest back. Lash: Oh. The first one is for sale. Hoffman: Yep. Kevin's gone. He sold. The house is empty. So that's a good transition. The other house they've worked with the power pole utility relocation. Storm water drainage. Expanding his driveway. But we xvill place some trees in there because it's... Lash: ...it's pretty, I'd be concerned. Hofflnan: Yep, one driveway next to the other. Lash: Yeah, I don't like it and I don't live there. Oh okay. We want to be a little sensitive to them. And then I know on, and this doesn't have anything to do with us but I bring this up every fall so now we have composting available on Saturday morning at Lake Ann. Do you know who set that? I mean is it just going to be big trailers? Some people are going to empty...away? 13 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Hoffman: Yep. Lash: What's the progress of trying to actually set up a compost site somewhere in town that real composting will go on? Hoffman: I can't report specifically on it. Jill Sinclair who is the person responsible for it is just recently out on maternity leave. I don't know who's going to pick that one up and run with it but they're taking a look. They're eyeing up that land over on Park Court so that's where they're thinking about doing that. Lash: ... Howe: ...go on record with a motion to encourage that? Lash: I don't know. I mean I don't know that it's this commission's place to really say anything about it but I mean we certainly can... Hoffinan: The Environment Commission has talked about it. Howe: Who owns the land where, we obviously own the land, or the city oxvns the land where they had all the wood chips fi'om the storm, right? That's on the corner of TH 5 and TH 41. Hoffman: No, that was the Arboretum property. Lash: But that's where, you know the public works building is. Howe: Yeah, Park Road. I know where that's at back in there. Lash: That would be, 1 don't know. I don't know that much about it but it looks like... permanent but I mean we've got to, we've got to do something about it. The problem's only going to get worse with more of these trees around. And we want to encourage people to compost and people...most communities provide something like that. I think we're really behind from service so it really needs to get taken care of. That's my every fall soap box speech. It just never goes anywhere. I need to get on a different commission. Okay. Anybody else have anything? Those are my tlu'ee things. Howe: I thought Jim was pretty good as Uncle Sam the other night... Ruegemer: Can I just have a real quick moment just to thank the commissioners for all their assistance on Saturday night. We did have a lot of great participation from the park and rec commission. I really appreciate all your efforts and your commitment to our programs. We had roughly about 625 kids signed up plus their parents so we were in excess of 900 to 1,000 people. Manders: It was just outstanding numbers. 14 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Lash: That's more than, it continues to grow each year. Ruegemer: That's the most we've ever had pre-registered and still we had over 70-'15 people at the door so. Howe: There was a line, they were lined up at 10 to six, quarter to six. That was amazing. Ruegemer: Some people were there at 20 after five. Manders: Who was all the participants in the scary area and stuff where they. Ruegemer: I had a really good participation from a Girl Scout troop of 9t~' graders. Troop 1380 I think they were. So they provided at least 10 young ladies for that. Howe: Who was the witch? Ruegemer: The witch was Chris Stone who is, she's an ex-playground director of ours in the early 90's. She's awesome. She's always eager to help us out and it ~vas great. And just a number of other, some other city staff: Chanhassen Lions. Manders: So a lot of these props are just recycled? 1 mean they're city stuff? Hoffman: They're stored away... Ruegemer: ...scavengers around town so he picks up a lot of things. He's very, very creative. I almost couldn't do it without him so, couldn't do it without you too so thank you very much for all your help and... Hoffman: How many pieces of candy? 15,0007 Ruegemer: 16. 16,000 pieces of candy...So that was, yeah we went through quite a bit of candy but hey, that's the mission. The kids got to have a good time so. Manders: The horse thing seemed pretty busy too. I mean it was a nice day. Ruegemer: ...at least 50 people around. A long line. They're talking about it next year... Franks: They mentioned that they'd never given so many. Ruegemer: He loves coming out here too. He's just a fantastic guy. He's a lot of fun. Lash: He couldn't bring two wagons could he? Ruegemer: Well he had two wagons. 15 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 27, 1998 Lash: Oh he did? Ruegemer: Yeah. Franks: ...the crowd last year. There was many, many...which moved a lot of the people out of the hallway. Ruegemer: Wanda the Witch burned us last year but Oscar and Half Pint...this year. We're already talking about booking them again for next year. They were really energetic. Hoffman: Wanda the Witch, we got burned. Ruegemer: Wanda the Witch was not good. Burned at the stake from Wanda. Franks: Can Ijust make one more comment about the Halloween party before I forget. Just eyeballing the crowd. It's young school age and preschool are like the majority of the kids. I noticed that kind ora lot of the candy was not necessarily appropriate for that age. Like lots of jawbreakers, hard candy. Milk Duds. So I know like when I got the things home I had to go through and about half the candy of course went into the adult...Not that I'm complaining about that but so that might be just something to keep in mind. I know you buy in bulk and try to buy for a lot of age groups, which is tough but it seems likc most of the kids were on the younger side so you might want to have... Ruegemer: I heard people didn't like the...so we got rid of them this year. Lash: That gets expensive though. Non candy items, are you talking like stickers and. Ruegemer: Plastic things...whistles. Lash: Well you can get them, I guess you can get them kind of cheap but that's... Manders: How about the door prizes? Ruegemer: There was... Lash: Does anybody have anything else? It's 9:00. Somebody make a motion. Manders moved, Lash seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 16