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PRC 2005 02 22 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 22, 2005 Chairman Stolar called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Glenn Stolar, Tom Kelly, Jack Spizale, Steve Scharfenberg, and Ann Murphy MEMBERS ABSENT: Kevin Dillon and Paula Atkins STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; and Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent PUBLIC PRESENT: Name Address Phone No. Jack Jensen 8480 Pelican Court 952-368-3349 Anne Voas 8450 Mission Hills Circle 952-906-0110 Renee Rambler 17950 Flying Cloud Drive, Eden Prairie 952-974-1078 (Cornerstone Home School Lego League Team) Todd Neils 990 Saddlebrook Court 952-401-8950 Kevin & Renee Schmitz 8490 Swan Court 952-448-1811 Jennifer Graves 3220 High Point Drive, Chaska 952-443-1838 Glenn & Laurie Toews 18039 Palmer Circle, Eden Prairie 952-906-9958 Carol Zalusky 960 West Drive 952-470-4207 APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Hoffman: Chair Stolar, I’d like to add item 10(a). Administration item, interview. Schedule interviews for commission candidates. The closing is this Friday so we can schedule interviews for any time after that. Stolar: Okay. And then, I’m sorry, was this where the citizen survey questions on the agenda. Hoffman: Please… Stolar: Then 11 I guess. Hoffman: 10(b). Stolar: 10(b)? Any commission members want to add anything? Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Scharfenberg: I don’t know if this would be under committee reports but could we get an update thth on whoever attended that dog park meeting with the Carver County on the 9 or 8, whatever date it was. Stolar: Why don’t we put that under committee reports since we do have a committee for that. Dog park. Okay. Carver County dog park update. Okay. Anything else? Do I have a motion to approve the agenda as amended? Spizale: So moved. Kelly: Second. Spizale moved, Kelly seconded to approve the agenda as amended. All voted in favor and the motion carried. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: None. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: CORNERSTONE HOME SCHOOL – HANDICAP ACCESSIBILITY AT LAKE ANN PARK. Stolar: First I’d like to welcome the Cornerstone Home School who did a handicap accessibility study for us at Lake Ann Park, and I will welcome you and I don’t know, Jerry if you want to introduce them. Ruegemer: Yeah, just give the, thank you Chair Stolar and commission. Give the commission a brief kind of overview. The Cornerstone Home School group did come in probably in about September or October of 2004 stating they would like to do a, kind of an overall accessibility study and kind of looking at Lake Ann Park as part of their, part of their kind of Lego kind of competition that they were going through at the time, and we did, the City did provide the page from Lake Ann from our accessibility study that we had done back in the early to mid 90’s to guide them through their process. So from that, you know from the findings they did note certain items maybe of interest that the City should take a look at. Overall Lake Ann did review fairly high with high marks as far as accessibility with trails and/or facilities. That sort of thing here too so they were, that was all part of a, kind of a project that they needed to research as part of their State tournament that they were attending in January. So they are here tonight. Renee Rambler’s here to kind of represent the group and I’m sure the kids will want to come up and kind of share their facts and findings with the commission tonight so I would like to welcome Renee or the rest of the kids to come on up and speak into the microphone. Alright, come on up. Do you guys want the overhead over here? Eric Schmitz: Hello. I’m Eric Schmitz from Chanhassen and we are the Sonic Boom Team and we competed in the First Lego League. First Lego League is an international program for children ages 9 to 14 that includes hands on interactive robotics. In Minnesota there are 200 teams. Each year a new challenge is given to teams. The teams strategize, design, build, 2 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 program and test a robot capable of completing a mission. They also develop a presentation based on a recent assignment that relates to a problem or opportunity facing the world today. At tournaments teams are judged on robotic performance on a challenge table. Some pictures are in the notebook. Technical judging of a robot design and performance. Teamwork and a presentation with the team’s research assignment. This year’s challenge was no limits. SOL teams learn more about people with disabilities, their community, technology, and accessibility by completing the no limits research assignment. Our team chose Lake Ann Park for our research assignment. Members of the team introduced themselves. Team Members: Step one is to identify and evaluate a public place. We chose Lake Ann Park. We chose Lake Ann Park. We visited the park several times and took measurements. We then compared the measurements to ADA requirements. We also interviewed 3 handicap children. Step two… Step Three. We wrote a letter to the Mayor and City Council and local administrator proposing our changes. We spoke to Mr. Ruegemer about purchasing handicap accessible swings. We saw several different swings. There’s a body brace swing which is kind of like a roller coaster seat. And then saw a jet swing. It like reclines. It’s a reclining swing and we saw this other really cool swing called… It is shaped like a pirate ship but it go hold like up to 8 people and 2 wheelchairs and there’s a table with hand holds for physically handicap people and benches for the other people. I interviewed a boy named Scott…and he was severely disabled. When he goes to Lake Ann Park, the only thing we can do is lay on a blanket on the ground. But there’s a swing at this school that he really likes to ride so if you put in a swing at Lake Ann Park, he’d have a lot of fun like other kids. Thank you for how much you have done to make Lake Ann Park accessible. We thank Mr. Ruegemer for meeting with us. Providing us with excellent information on Lake Ann Park. Sending us a nice letter and allowing us to meet with you tonight. It was very interesting to learn about people with disabilities, their community and accessibility. We would like to help. We are asking for your input about raising funds for a swing for Lake Ann Park. Stolar: Well thank you very much. Steve, want to start? Scharfenberg: Not right off hand. Go ahead. Kelly: I apologize I’m short. Could you put the swings on that board just so I can see what they look like. Hoffman: Want to explain the types again for your swings? Team member: This one is the…swing. Shaped like a pirate ship. And this one is the body brace swing. They’re shaped like you’re on a roller coaster seat, and this one’s a jet swing. Kelly: Okay, thank you. The person you interviewed who had a swing at school, did he have one of those types of swings? Team member: One near the body brace swing. 3 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Kelly: One near the body brace swing. Team member: Just shaped slightly different. Renee Rambler: They do have a swing like a body brace swing at Excelsior Elementary. Kelly: Okay. Renee Rambler: And more severely handicap children in Minnetonka go to that Clear Springs on 101. They’ve got a lot of indoor equipment as well. Murphy: Looking at the swing on the bottom, the bench swing, is that, I can’t quite see the price on that one. Team Member: Oh, that one’s $7,500. Murphy: $7,500. Okay. Spizale: Todd, we don’t have any type of swings like this in our, in any of our playgrounds? Hoffman: There’s one at Chanhassen Hills Park but other than that, I’m not sure where they’re at. Spizale: Okay. Stolar: Steve, do you have? Scharfenberg: Not right now. Stolar: Well first of all, thank you. This is tremendous. As Todd and Jerry and some of my fellow commission members know, I am always asking the question are we going to have an ADA swing in the new playgrounds that we put in so thank you for bringing this forward. Hopefully this will spur us moving forward at least at Lake Ann. I do have a question for you. Outside of the swing, what other, what would be the next thing you would recommend? Team Member: Either lowering the telephone or lowering the hand dryer. Stolar: Okay. Jerry or Todd, do you want to comment on some of your thoughts as it relates to this? I know you wrote a letter. Ruegemer: I did. It was nice to see that the Cornerstone Group come up and talk to us. We don’t have a lot of visitors as it relates to ADA accessibility. Obviously we do have a document on file from the early 90’s that did state a lot of the deficiencies in ADA that we had at that time. A large percent of those deficiencies so to speak were corrected so we do have really a very good system right now. But it was nice to see that you know I walk past that pay phone 3 times a day 4 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 sometimes in the summer time and I wasn’t aware that you couldn’t get a coin in the slot. Obviously when we set those types of pieces of equipment, we hope that they would be but it’s good to bring that type of stuff to our light. As far as the ramp leading down to the dock, kind of the ramping plastic material going down, that does fluctuate with water levels at times where it may cause gaps so to speak but we do keep, try to keep up with that with our park maintenance staff to fill in those types of gaps or kind of move that stuff around so it’s also good that they noticed that out there and kind of keep us on task on that as well but we’re always looking for opinions or suggestions for our park system and I just applaud them for doing it. It was a great project for them. Hopefully they learned a lot by going through the process and presenting it tonight. I see a lot of smiles over there so I think they’re having a good time, so we just appreciate their effort with that. Stolar: Anything you want to add? Murphy: The only thing I would say from experience having an elderly person in my family out at Lake Ann, that automatic doors are important too for the bathrooms. Those doors are kind of heavy and they’re, it’s hard to get in there. Stolar: Do we have any thoughts on how we can approach this? I know it’s not an immediate thing. To help follow up on some of these? Hoffman: We’ll respond by taking a look at their recommendations. We want to hear from the park commission tonight and hear your thoughts on their presentation and what they thought at Lake Ann Park and these things are very simple and what I would like to tell this group is that, first of all I’m very proud of you as citizens of our community to take this project on. I’d like to thank Jerry for working with the group. Taking the initiative. Studying the problem out at Lake Ann Park. Publishing your findings. Coming to a public meeting to make a presentation. Did a very good job…and I attend a lot of ADA seminars and to hear it from some young people in our community is very special so thank you for that. Appreciate your thoughts. Stolar: Couple of final questions for you. One, how did it go at the State tournament? th Team Member: We got 8 place overall. Stolar: Awesome. Congratulations. That’s fantastic. The second question. Is it your desire as a follow-up project to raise the money for the swing? Team Member: Possibly is. Stolar: Okay. We definitely will be supportive of that and I individually will be donating to it. Because I’m all for that. Commission members. Kelly: Just one quick question. Does the current swing set at Lake Ann, can it support a half swing or would it cause us to actually do some improvements to the infrastructure just to be able to get a handicap swing in place? 5 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: I don’t know that answer exactly…but we’ll just ask the manufacturer. Renee Rambler: I think that it can go where one of the baby swings are right now because you already have the right surface for a wheelchair to roll up there. I talked with several manufacturers and you can get the proper swing length with the chain for your configuration there and you appear to have the right width and all those types of things already. So I think it will be relatively easy. The one swing, there’s a company in Delano that actually produces and sells that one. I believe it’s the body brace one. Stolar: I assume for the other one, that’s a much bigger area. Renee Rambler: That one is Earl F. Anderson and I believe they are the ones that did the upper playground. That would cost also about $3,000. The spatial concrete and everything but I mean if you could find someone to donate the money, I thought it was a little interesting because the whole family could interact as well with handicap people. So it’s kind of a unique thing. Stolar: Great. Commission members. Would you like to take this as an agenda item to discuss? Scharfenberg: Sure, yes. Stolar: Okay. I think to do that, since it is a presentation we probably would need a motion of some sort to put this on the table. Maybe to ask the commission, the staff to come to our next meeting with a recommendation. Should we do that? Spizale: That’d be good. Stolar: So I’ll make that motion. I think I’m stepping out of my role as a chair here, is that we ask the city park and rec staff to provide us with a recommendation related to the study performed by the Cornerstone Home School Group across the various points that they made to improve the ADA and accessibility of Lake Ann Park. Murphy: Second. Stolar: Any comments? And I guess we, as commission would probably be a little bit remiss if we do not thank the staff for what they found to be great accessibility at Lake Ann Park and the nice thing is we can make it better. But thank you. Alright, shall we vote on the motion? Stolar moved, Murphy seconded to direct the city park and rec staff to provide a recommendation related to the study performed by the Cornerstone Home School Group across the various points they made to improve the ADA and accessibility of Lake Ann Park. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. CHANHASSEN ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION. Todd Neils: be remiss if I was going to say I didn’t have a little difficulty following that presentation. Pale in comparison at best. My name is Todd Neils. I’m the Vice President of the 6 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Chanhassen Athletic Association, Little League, Softball and Baseball. We’re here tonight with Anne Voas and Jack Jensen and I’m not sure quite how long but I know Jack has been with the CAA for 16 years and so is able to give us quite a big of backdrop information. We’re here tonight to discuss basically, not only our charter as a board of Little League but also where we would like to go in partnership with both the City and the Park and Rec Commission going forward. As you can see, I’ll start off briefly with just a snippet of our mission statement which is to provide equal opportunity for all children to learn, grow and have fun in sports. The Chanhassen Athletic Association historically started in 1972 hosting both baseball and basketball. In 1991 the CAA partnered with Victoria Athletic Association as well as the Carver Baseball Association. In 1996 inter-league play began in softball and baseball and then in 2002 Chanhassen Athletic Association applied and received official Little League Charter for District 112. As you can see, and while the history pre-dates the chart, you can see the kind of growth not only we’ve experienced but also expect over the coming years as not only the community grows but as I’ll get to a little later, our children grow. At the time the Little League Charter was applied for and received we felt that we established a large enough program to join the outstanding world renowned Little League organization. The organization offered the necessary standardized rules and operations to grow a strong community program for years to come for us. Again, as you can see from the chart in 2002 we seemed to be tracking nicely but in 2002 when we actually received charter and were recognized as a Little League in the community, we had over 46% growth over a 2 year span. Particularly in 2003 and 2004. Now the estimation is that again based on the level of growth in the community we’re going to have an estimated 1,200 children in our program by the year 2007, which is again 2 years away as you all know. rd Currently Chanhassen is the 143 largest or fastest growing community in the United States. Compared to our neighbors, we have 21% of our population age 10 and under. Minnetonka is just 12% with a much larger population and while Chaska is a close with 19%, 21% is quite a rate of growth, particularly as we see the expansion of these numbers. As a Little League Board and a program we want to provide a quality, long lasting experience for our youth that they’ll remember for years to come through partnership with the City of Chanhassen and the Parks and Recreation committee, or commission rather. And we feel that now is the time to prepare for that growth. I’ve got a nice picture of some kids in Little League. Think about them as you’re listening to my presentation. The questions probably first is how we’re going to get there. We’ve talked about this at length and not only in establishing ground rules for our coming season but also how our future growth expansion’s going to occur over the next several years. We do have an aggressive fund raising mission that will allow us for capital improvements which we’ve already discussed with Jerry and Todd. A couple of those. The fund raising will be supplied by local businesses with sponsorship through uniform, field and scoreboard signage. With the support of the Park and Recreation Commission we can make those improvements. We would like to make the following improvements to our parks. We would like to add at our cost through the fund raising scoreboards and dugouts to, which will be legged in over a number of years based on the sponsorship and again I have a small drawing of something we proposed as a scoreboard that we’d like to erect at some of the parks around the city. Now while we’ve discussed both electronic and manual scoreboards, we think that initially our charter will be to put up manual scoreboards because they’d be the easiest and the least expensive to populate all the playgrounds or all the fields around the city so that we can give the best baseball experience, baseball and softball experience to all of our youth. Let’s talk about the future a little bit. We are planning to present a detailed recommendation document at a later date to the Park and Rec 7 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Commission. The document will lay out the following. Our request for additional lighting standards to be erected on select fields. These lights, and I think right now our only available at Lake Ann 1 if I’m correct. Youth fields are at Lake Ann 1. By erecting those light standards and lights on additional fields around the community we’ll have the ability to adjust for anticipated growth in the community. As you saw from 1,200 in 2007, allowing us to play multiple games on any given day. We’d also like to form a close partnership with the City to re-work lower level, possible lower level re-work of Bluff Creek Elementary for a Little League complex, and again I have a couple nice pictures. One that Jerry was nice enough to give me. Now this, I couldn’t get much there. This will give you a better idea. Essentially what we’d like to do is take some more measured drawings and when we give our recommendation document to the commission, we’d like to possibly give a recommendation as well as to the re-work of those ballfields using the additional land that’s available at Bluff Creek Elementary. Finally, as the community grows we do envision a multi purpose super park that could be used for both soccer, baseball, possibly basketball, outdoor basketball and so on and so forth somewhere in the community. We’re now in a position to invest and request investment from community leaders and businesses to establish a long standing community program. With that we envision a stronger, more strategic alliance with the Park and Rec Commission. We feel our local program can give a sense of community which is very important to us, and belonging to a stronger City of Chanhassen that is consistent with the goals and mission of the Park and Recreation Commission. Thank you. Stolar: Thank you. Spizale: How many more fields would you feel that you’d need? Todd Neils: I’d like to call on Jack to maybe answer that question. It will be. Jack Jensen: Well different fields, like at Bluff Creek it’s a possibility of, and I know we use them for soccer too and the city uses them for soccer for their programs and Lacrosse uses them, things like that. But I think there’s different areas that we’d be able to re-work some of those fields to add fields to the existing, whether it be in the outfield or whatever, for the younger kids… But we also, if we got into the light system like at Bandimere or more of the fields at Lake Ann, we could double each of the capacity of those on any given night for more games being played there so it’s, by having light standards and things, that would help immensely. By going in and adding some fields like this, or re-working some of the fields that we have in existence. Like at City Center, did a real nice job with re-working that. Working with the school district and that. I know at Bluff Creek, Field #1 is also a school district field but the lower ones are city owned fields. So to work those would be a little bit easier to manage. And the size, there is a creek that goes along the base…and then a cart path too that goes all the way around the park. But we haven’t worked that in to be able to put at least one more field down on, you know where Field #5 is down at the bottom there. Toward, is that Coulter Drive? Todd Neils: Down here. 8 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Jack Jensen: Yeah, right in here. So where the younger kids would be able to have that and they wouldn’t interfere with the kids on the others because the balls just don’t travel that far with the younger age groups. So I mean that would be. Anne Voas: …we mentioned that really looking to the future, 3 to 5 years, 2 fields with lights are necessary. 3 fields and lights are a nice dream. Yes? Jack Jensen: Yes. Todd Neils: Really if you look back to again our youths, all of our youths, we knew or played Little League baseball and if you go to the surrounding communities, whether it be Glen Lake, Minnetonka, Chaska, Victoria, they all have center parks that are surrounded by baseball fields. Now they may not be multipurpose like the mission statement probably requires, but they all are very large place of gathering for families in the community to come and watch tournaments and watch their children grow and play through their adolescence. Spizale: And one more question. If they have lights at that age, how late at night do they play? Would they play? Jack Jensen: Well depending on time of night, and during the summer, well the parks are open until 9:00. So we wouldn’t have them play, you know depending on the age, wouldn’t have them play later than that. Last year on Friday nights we had some of these groups playing on Lake Ann #1 and we sporadically set that around to different age groups. But most of those games were ended somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00. Is where we tried to get them to be done, just because of the age of the children. But with the growth and the growth chart that Todd had shown up there, shown earlier, that is just in the baseball/softball program. That is not our whole overall organization. We’ve had this last year in basketball we’ve had a little over 550 families or so. In soccer we had over 600, almost 700 families you know, participants in that. So, and baseball last year we had over 750 kids playing baseball and softball. And just because of the growth of the city and what, you know all the different developments going on, we’re anticipating because of the demographics that are coming in, we all have those demographics that are, it’s mainly the younger kids that are coming into this community right now so, and that’s why that really shows in the age 10 and under is the large population group. And the Little League we have, that we start at 5 years old and we go, you know on the boys side we go til 15 and on the girls side we go through 18 years old. We also anticipate with the added possibility of a high school here, we’re hoping for a high school, that that will also increase the older age group that we have here in playing sports here within our community. You know we do have Lake Susan and a couple fields at Bandimere that are already large fields that can accommodate some of that, and then with the addition of the school, would have some fields there for additional, for the older group. We’re also anticipating trying to get another Legion team going. We had a Legion team here many years ago and it ended up merging with the Chaska Legion and then the Eden Prairie Legion ended up going out of business and then they found this Legion to support a legion team and they went to the Legion World Series and I can’t remember exactly how but they came out pretty darn well in the final thing of last year. And that was through the Chan Legion that supported that team, so we know we can get the support from different 9 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 businesses within the community here. We just would like an opportunity to be able to make this a real nice atmosphere for the children to play. Todd Neils: And the families. Murphy: Do we have a situation now where we have to turn some kids away because programs are so full? Jack Jensen: We have never turned anybody away from playing. And our mission is to not turn anybody away from ever playing. We’ll find a home for them. We sometimes don’t like, when they sometimes sign up and we end up, you know getting high numbers on teams because we’re trying to keep it to a manageable for, but we do insert those children if they come in late, whether they move in late or they sign up late, we find a place for them. Now there’s other organizations that do cut but we have not. Kelly: I was just wondering what fields were you thinking about for scoreboards and dugouts? One specifically you were thinking? Todd Neils: I think initially, obviously the Lake Ann. Not all of Lake Ann fields at this time because that’s an expensive proposition that will take a number of years to leg into. The first order of business for us is to put new scoreboards to make it feel a little more like a Little League or a baseball game. As we, it’s really a difficult question to answer merely because we’re not sure how much we can raise through the community. We do have a committee that is established to raise funds. The same committee that was able to put on the addition at the Chanhassen Elementary. And so they have, they already have a list of businesses they can contact and over the next several meetings we’ll be talking about which businesses, how much for funding each of the varying levels. Whether it be bronze, silver, platinum, gold that we’re going to establish, and then at that time we’ll be able to come back and give a firmer number. I think it’s my understanding that we need to present to you our hopes and desires with the expectation that we’ll go onto Planning Commission if you so grant that we can get signage and scoreboards okayed. Really what we’d like to do is fast track this as much as possible, so that we can try to establish it for this year. Making it a more, rounder, full experience for the community and the families that are in the league. Kelly: I was wondering, do you see a need to fence in any of the existing fields or do you think there are enough fields out there that have, the Bandimere fields have fences and some of Lake Ann have fences. Is that adequate do you see or do you think, because the age demographic is going to, these kids are going to get older and older that you’re going to need more fences. Todd Neils: I think in the long run we’ll, if we can get to the super, the multi-purpose super park, we should be able to, with the addition of Lake Ann, Bandimere and possibly the re-work of Bluff Creek, have adequate fields to support us. I think we need to do a little further study on the Bluff Creek idea before we are able to best say this is the best process to go through. Jack Jensen: But as we’re fencing, once you put a fence around it, then you really limit the uses of that. We’ve been finding that that works because we will specifically say we put this, you 10 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 know we’ve put, you know use the outfield during soccer season to use, you know to have the certain age on that field. If we can get, make that all work, fences all the way around the fields would be ideal. Kelly: Okay. Because I knew a couple kids on the Yankees last year, Sentadre I swear could have poked the ball through. At least against our team they did but okay. Jack Jensen: They did against us too. Kelly: That’s all I had. Scharfenberg: In terms of funding raising with respect to the lights, are you guys proposing fully funding the lighting or as shared expense with the City? What have you looked at in terms of that issue? Todd Neils: I think because it’s on city property and it’s a city park, I think the onus is on the Park and Rec Commission to erect appropriate lights. We are prepared to pay for the other amenities such as dugouts and scoreboards and you know, some other things that we probably haven’t even thought up yet, but I think that from a lighting perspective, I don’t think that’s within our scope. Scharfenberg: And have you made any recommend, or is there any sort of time table that you would like to see that going forward? Todd Neils: Well we can’t necessarily expect that you’re going to put up light standards tomorrow, but we sure would like to see a solution being worked towards for possibly 2006. Scharfenberg: And other than re-working Bluff Creek, the fields at Bluff Creek, have you looked at re-working any other city parks in terms of adding additional fields or space? Or has that been strictly your focus is Bluff Creek? Todd Neils: Right now the focus has been Bluff Creek. I think in some respects Lake Ann is tapped. I think there may be opportunity at Bandimere but I think in terms of dealing with expansion right now Bluff Creek’s been our sole focus. Jack Jensen: And part of that is because of some, most of the other parks like Meadow Green are in neighborhood parks and those are, we feel it’d probably be more difficult to have those communities agree to have either more ballfields, especially like at Meadow Green, there’s lack of parking there for kids come in, kids going out. So to have more fields on there, I think that would put a big burden on the city either to make a bigger parking lot or. Todd Neils: And I live close enough to Lake Ann that I can light, they light my back yard at night during the summer when they’ve got the softball fields lit so, it’d probably be a bit of a hindrance to the neighborhoods to put in lighting standards in any of those. 11 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Scharfenberg: I think if you’re going to put in lighting anywhere, you’re going to put it at Bandimere and expand. Todd Neils: Or additionally at Lake Ann. And maybe even Bluff Creek. Because it’s not surrounded by houses. Scharfenberg: But you’ve got, you’ve got people like Jack that are just behind Bluff Creek and you’ve got people across the Highway 5 with new developments going in. At least with Bandimere you’re somewhat limited to the neighborhoods are, I mean close enough that it’s going to affect that neighborhood but. Todd Neils: Far be it for us to argue with anything you want to give us. Stolar: Todd, did you have any comments? Thoughts. Questions. Hoffman: We were happy to enjoy lunch with this group and talk about some of the ideas and we suggested that they come to the park commission and make a presentation. It’s up to you folks at this point to guide staff on what you’d like to see us do. Kelly: Are there any lights proposals in the 5 year CIP right now? Right now, currently no. Stolar: We had them at Bandimere. We postponed them but we didn’t take them out did we? Hoffman: I’d have to check. Stolar: I thought for Bandimere we had one that we kept postponing because of the other priorities that we had. Kelly: How about City Center? Is there anything that can be done to get more fields at City Center? Or lights on some of those fields. Hoffman: City Center was just re-worked in 1997-98. Rebuilt. Aerated. Redesigned. It’s 50 percent or more owned by the school district. We own the two fields to the north. They own the remaining fields. Todd Neils: And with their inability to hold winter ice, you know the skating rink is up to grabs too. Scharfenberg: Todd in any fields that are owned by the school district, would we need their permission to put lights on their fields? Hoffman: Yes. Scharfenberg: Okay. But we can do whatever we want with the fields that we own? Hoffman: Yeah, in theory yeah. 12 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Stolar: From a process perspective, you’re going to come back to us with a proposal. Todd Neils: We’d like to do that, yes. We’d also request a kick up to the Planning Commission to start the process of signage and scoreboards. If that’s necessary. Stolar: Is the Planning Commission needed to do that? Hoffman: Why don’t you explain your idea about the signage a little bit more. Todd Neils: Yeah. What we’re looking to do is, through sponsorship get signage that we’ll put on the fences during the baseball season, which we would put up and take down. We’d be responsible for that. Additionally we would have signage or sponsorship on either the dugouts or on the scoreboard. Stolar: And that requires, I guess Todd that requires any commercial. Todd Neils: And again we’re willing to fund the cost for implementation and placement of those with the necessary help from the city, if in fact we need to run any electricity or anything like that. Stolar: I guess if it has to go to the Planning Commission, I’m not sure what you’re seeking from us. Because I personally would rather see a whole proposal in front of us before I do anything. But as far as you’re going individually to the Planning Commission, I don’t see any, we have nothing to say on that and it might be a good idea to at least, what you’ve done with us, inform them of your intent. Hoffman: Yeah, how this would typically occur is they would make a full presentation to City Council. At the same time that would slide over to the Planning Commission for their review as a part of the signage ordinances in the city and they would send their recommendation to the City Council. Stolar: Okay. So once we get the total package then we can move forward on that. Todd Neils: Would it be too forward to get on the next agenda and get that, so that we can hit both planning and park and rec? For your next meeting? Stolar: I don’t see any problem. Todd? Hoffman: Same thing as last presentation. Todd Neils: Okay, great. Thank you. Stolar: I mean this has been very helpful and I think it’s something that we all know there’s going to be a tremendous amount of growth in Chan. We know we want to have premiere recreational opportunities so it’s good to get a start on this. Obviously when we see the whole 13 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 thing we’re going to see what we can do. What we can’t do, but I think it’s great that you’re taking a lead and bringing this to us. I appreciate it. Thanks. Todd Neils: Thank you. Now for the hard stuff. Anne Voas: I’m concerned about the impression that this piece of the puzzle is done. I would like to tag on one idea, if I could. As an opposite idea I would like to ask your attention to this document, the outdoor athletic fields with the intention of us coming to an action plan tonight. The document details the concept of scheduling for all groups interested in use of fields in Chan. It’s a great working document for park and rec staff doting deadlines, decision making. What works well about this document is the application dates are very clear for groups looking forward many weeks and months to their schedules. It allows ample time for planning. The eligible organizations, front page lists 1 through 6 are clearly described. And there’s a natural concept of priority scheduling that’s delineated and it’s in here 3 times. Center of the page, priority listing of groups are as follows. Middle of the page, priority, with the an asterisk. Priority scheduling will be given to groups, etc. Bottom of the page, priority scheduling will be given, etc. What doesn’t work well about this document, in all fairness to our esteem park and rec staff is that our Chanhassen Association has changed and has grown tremendously. Scheduling of the groups that qualify as a priority is not adhering to policy verbiage. Jerry, I have a couple of. On page 2 of your document, the flip side there is a chart, 100% down to 1%. And this is a look at how Chan Athletic Association specific to baseball and softball qualifies for residents of Chanhassen. We have a 98% rate in 1990. 2004 we’re at 89%. Well within that 80 to 100 category. It’s dropping, if you’re interested because we are including those students who attend school here. Chapel Hill, St. Hubert’s in our program although they may not reside here, but they certainly have a welcomed presence in our community. Same thing as you have on your policy. There’s a nice statement about, if you’re in X group, what number of days per week are you eligible for? Some real life examples though and demonstrations of what’s not working well. The complexities of scheduling have increased expedentially and I am 10 steps removed from that process and I feel it. I can’t imagine being in the middle of it, thank you gentlemen. We are unable to provide dates of play to families until just days before the season because of the presumed juggling of who has made requests and trying to be politically fair to all groups at the table and try and come up with a win/win solution and the truth is that our large group is paying a larger price every year. We are unable to provide dates of play to families until just a few days before the season starts. So the deadline concept at the beginning of the policy needs to be worked and reworked and reworked at our expense is the bottom line. We can’t provide for games and practices with our past, recent past experience of allotments. We can only provide for game play. The fields are that crowded. And further we can’t routinely support game day or start times that are family friendly. You proposed some nice questions before about how late will kids be playing on lighted fields. Anytime that we have to double up kids on a field that has no lights, we’re starting that game play at 5:00-5:30 and hoping, hoping that the sun doesn’t go down and there’s not a cloud in the sky for the second game that has to be played on that field. We have to push families to Friday night and Saturday play on a regular basis as opposed to a rare basis in order to get enough game play in as promised in their registration package. I think it would be stating the obvious but it’s worth saying in Minnesota there are only so many weekends and I treasure them and if my kid is playing on that third week in June, which is the best vacation week for Minnesotans, I’d prefer to not have to routinely play on Saturday if I had 14 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 a choice. Another thought that is not working well about the current policy. A very effective past practice I’m sure relying on group meetings, bringing cities to the table and groups requesting and using that as a way to resolve who will get what fields is now costing our players and families because it diminishes the recognition of being in the 80 plus percent group. Some real life examples. We were limited last year for play of 90 minutes, 3 innings for most of the 10 and under players. This is not regulation play and is not necessary if we were allowed to be using the priority scheduling definition that is on the table. In addition we cannot turn to other parks and communities for field use. Those communities are welcomed here to that group meeting and are offered some level of recognition. The reciprocal situation is not true. We are not given access to fields in Victoria, in Chaska, in Minnetonka. But those entities are being welcomed here. So in looking for a solution we’ve done several different things. We’ve asked our families to prioritize and articulate their thoughts. …comments from two surveys and word conversations. If you register in a Chanhassen league there is an assumption that that means I will play in Chanhassen, and I will play with my neighbors and their children. That people of relevance will be in conversation to coordinate field use and access and that there will be fields available to meet our needs, assumed before offering those facilities to other groups. We’ve turned other communities and school facilities for fields access and nothing is available, it is a very quick and clear statement of no. We certainly have agendas to address some of our needs, particularly with the school district but I have an eminent issue for 2005 I’d really appreciate your help with. We sought the council, the park and rec staff and that’s what brings us here tonight. Clearly through Todd, your presentation, through thinking about lights. Through thinking about extra fields, from also asking our families where they’re willing to compromise on game night play and game time starts, we’re looking to the future but this summer is in dire straits and here’s the action item I’d like you to consider. Given that we’re eligible for the 80 to 100 percent ranking, I’d like to ask you that we be first in line for distribution of fields. With other groups that qualify at that level of course. We’d like direction to the park and rec staff that other organizations requesting field provide valid residency information to put them in the right category and that they be ranked for consideration for field access. And I’d like to ask that staff st be prepared to act on your direction toward that policy for an upcoming March 1 meeting which is the final meeting setting the schedule for this season. What I am not asking for is rewording of the policy. I’m asking for a reiteration of what the policy was intended to mean. It’s my impression that the word priority in city government is not misunderstood but that the need, I’m going to assume in past years has not been at this peak level of conflict. It’s here. It’s here and we could use your help. I neglected a slide that you were trying to get numbers… Here’s the th count of what we need to have happen from late April to June 30. 700 regular season games. And if we were to allow people practice time, which up and down from experts and child development and our parents is we need practice time to have a quality experience, would be 800 events that we would be requesting of the park and rec staff in a roughly 8-9 week window of time. Kelly: Given the fields that are available in that time frame, how many, what is the maximum number of events that can be supported by the, by those baseball fields? I’m just wondering what percent of the 800 events, what percent is that 800 of the total number events that can be played on those types of fields. Anne Voas: I’d have to defer that to Jerry. 15 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Ruegemer: I can’t give you a percent right now. I mean it’s, you’ve got to give us time to kind of prepare some of that information that you’re asking us tonight so. Stolar: Let me ask the question. Ruegemer: …I can’t give you a percent. Stolar: Have you guys, did you guys see this ahead of time? Ruegemer: No. Stolar: Okay, then to me this is a discussion that we can’t have. As far as I’m concerned. We need to understand from our staff in advance what this means to others who also use the fields. We need to understand what the relationship is to some of the…anyone in this room would disagree with that. To understand whether that is occurring in the manner in which it should, we would need to give staff ample time to present to us the facts surrounding this discussion. And I don’t want to put staff and my commission members can disagree with me. This is a democracy. I don’t want to put staff on the spot. I want them to be prepared so we can have a logical discussion. Anne Voas: Todd and Jerry actually would it be fair to say that you have received the schedule th request from people because it was a January 28 deadline and have a perception of this is what Chanhassen Athletic Association is requesting? th Ruegemer: This isn’t a, yes. I did receive a deadline of January 28 for the applications. Many of the associations did you know submit those applications, whether it be Lacrosse, soccer, softball, baseball. You know we have a number of organizations that have Chanhassen residency that are requesting to use our fields. A lot of them are in that 24 to 40, 50 percent range of Chanhassen residency. Obviously the complexities of facility scheduling have changed to great detail since I’ve been here 15 years. And it’s, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t think our policy is the best policy in the world. What I’ve always tried to do at the table, and Jack can contest this, I’ve always tried to be fair and get people as much time as I can with that because you know we’re not going to be, our department’s policies aren’t going to get into endorsing associations or other, we don’t feel that that’s right and play people off each other. We’re trying to incorporate fields and facilities for all the associations. The question that you refer to, you know not getting a time and space in other types of facilities, we have no control over. It’s not our practice to prioritize like the City of Chaska or other associations or cities out there. I’ve always tried to be, look at everybody’s request and try to work it out. Maybe that doesn’t work anymore. I feel it is affecting a few people in the same room to work out those types of, I think people that weren’t willing to give in those situations. You know I don’t doubt that you guys have a high growth right now, but so does everybody else. You’re not alone in your percentages. The solution is obviously lighting type of situations. I wish we had more fields but we have what we have and we only have a certain amount of fields and it’s always been my belief to try to give everybody a little something because they deserve it. They have Chanhassen residency like you guys do. You have a very high percentage of Chanhassen residency but you know, we have groups from 16 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Minnetonka, Chaska, Victoria, they all have Chanhassen people playing in it and we need to try to be fair to everybody across the board. Where that fits into your 4 days, I mean you guys did get a lot of space last year. I wish I had more to give you but I can’t solve you know your obstacles or hurdles when it comes to practice time. What we’ve done is given you an allotment of fields. We really believe it’s been beneficial for the association to work it out versus being mandated by the city to tell you how to run your association, and we give you that I guess flexibility in your schedule to make your own decisions on what’s best for your association. Anne Voas: If I could steer us back a little bit. You made a meaningful comment about it’s my preference not to prioritize but to have the team work it out and make everybody happy. Would you be willing to look again at the policy and note that there is a priority message being sent in your policy, and if you could consider that 4 days a week on the youth fields and allowing the obvious rank order situation to happen, is written in the policy, could that be the methodology this year? Ruegemer: I think if you’re looking for ultimate changes in the policy, that certainly like to be discussed by the Park and Rec Commission. Anne Voas: …just the opposite. I’m saying no change in policy. Ruegemer: Well I think what you’re reading into is it’s kind of a loaded question because we’ve had discussions, not so much with you Anne but with Jack and a lot of the other people involved with the field scheduling. What 4 days of the week are priority? I know what the 4 days are priorities. You know a lot of that, it’s a little bit more to it than just 4 days with that and the commission certainly can direct staff how they would like to do that, but you’re asking I think the commission tonight to make a decision to affect next Tuesday’s meeting and I don’t know whether that’s going to work. Hoffman: That’s not going to happen. Policy’s not bullet proof. 4 days a week, that doesn’t mean that it has no identification. Is it Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? That’s 4 days per week. Stolar: Let me comment on a couple things. First of all, my children are in the Minnetonka district, even though I’m a Chan resident. We play every Saturday and Sunday in the summer. It’s what it is. We find our own practice fields. It’s what it is. It’s the game. Capacity is a huge issue in this state and it’s great by the way we have a state that really likes doing recreation activities. It is an issue. I also have a concern, I look at this and I’m sorry, I’ll throw some statistics or I’ll leave that for Tom here to really do the analysis for me, but if we have enough 80 to 100 percent Chanhassen residents in your organization, is that 4 days per week, we may have people get nothing. We’ve got to be careful then I think is what Jerry’s trying to say is that we’ve got to balance because I do philosophically believe every organization that has Chanhassen residents should get something. Certainly this is a guideline at the higher residency should have greater access but to the point where, I mean as you guys have told us, right our capacity issue is just a problem so we’ve got to balance as much as possible so that nobody’s left out in the cold and I understand your point and that nobody’s shirked given their volume of residency and number of people. This policy can’t do that in my opinion. That’s why you have 17 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 to have these discussions. This policy can’t do that mathematically and if we get the growth you guys are talking about, and I can tell you the fields are going to lag. The fields aren’t going to keep up with that growth. Mathematically we can’t do it. So we have to at least try something. I understand your plea and understand your point of wanting to make sure we understand that a heavy Chanhassen residency organization has some greater priority as it relates to this policy, as it’s stated here in the sequences stated, and that’s all you’re asking, but I don’t think it’s to the letter. It has to be a balancing still because it’s not that easy. Jack Jensen: Well can I say something with regards to that? Whether it be Minnetonka. Stolar: Well actually would you mind introducing yourself up to the mic, thank you. Jack Jensen: I’m Jack Jensen, I’m the President of the Little League here in Chan. As to whether it be Minnetonka or Chaska, okay. Chaska, what they do is they get the fields in their city. Okay, then now the kids that sign up from Chanhassen that go into their program, you know they also come and ask for fields here. Now they’re coming up and asking for Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday is the days that they have to play. While they’re getting all their fields and we’re not getting those fields, and we’re getting less of our fields because they get 100 percent of their fields and they’re getting some of our fields, but they’re getting our prime days. Now whether they want to play on Saturday and Sunday, let them decide that. That’s where if you use the 4 days, let us pick what 4 days we’d like and then there’s still days for them to play. We’re not eliminating whether it be Minnetonka or Chaska to come and play, as long as they have Chan kids in there, but we should have priority. You know our’s are the highest percent. You should take care of the highest percent. Now if those people choose to go into those other cities to play, whether it be with Chaska or be with Minnetonka, those are choices that they’ve picked to go and play whether it be closer to their home, which is Freeman or you know Bennett Fields. Those things. They’re closer to their homes because you’re going to the Minnetonka school district and you’re playing with Minnetonka school kids, and that’s what’s important too is to play with kids that are within your neighborhood too, whether they’re going to Bluff Creek or Chan Elementary or St. Hubert’s or whatever. You want to play with their friends. They don’t want to have to play with their friends on Saturday because Chaska has come in here and taken Monday and Tuesdays or Wednesdays and Thursdays on fields that we could have used on those days… Stolar: Well I think that that’s a suggestion that’s a change in the policy which we’d more than welcome a recommendation. Jack Jensen: Well it’s really not a change. It’s just an interpretation of it. Stolar: No, it’s a change. Because it says 4 days per week. It doesn’t say which 4 days. Jack Jensen: But it says priorities. So the priorities should be given to the people that need it and what they’re asking for if that is their priority. Stolar: I’ll defer to commission members, I don’t interpret it that way. I interpret it as a volume issue, not a selection issue. 18 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Jack Jensen: But we’re not denying that those Chan kids should be taken care of. I mean we agree that those Chan kids. We’re also saying that because we have that large number, we should be taken care of. Stolar: All I’m saying is, you’re saying that it also affects which days and I’m just saying that would be a change, or clarification that might be well served to recommend to this commission that we amend the policy and I’d be happy to consider that at our next meeting, to include day selection potentially as part of this policy, but it currently doesn’t state that. So that might be just something. Jack Jensen: So you’re putting the kids that are in this group, our group at a disadvantage of what days we want to play on. Yeah, you are. And we have the largest number of Chan residents in our group, whether it be Minnetonka or Chaska’s group. Chaska’s group is somewhere in the 25 percent range. Minnetonka, if they didn’t. Stolar: I’m going to call order here. Let’s, this is an issue that needs to come up in a motion and unless the commission members bring one up, I don’t know that we can continue this discussion so because you’ve asked us for a motion. You’ve asked for action. Jack Jensen: Yeah. Stolar: Okay, so I will leave it to commission members to either ask questions or bring up points. Murphy: Well I have a question. Stolar: Yes. st Murphy: Are they looking for something to happen before March 1, is that? Jack Jensen: Yes. Murphy: That’s right, okay so this motion would have to happen tonight to, the change would have to be made tonight. Stolar: Or the interpretation as they described. Hoffman: You cannot make a motion tonight. You have to move… Murphy: Because our next meeting isn’t until March, the end of March, yeah. st Scharfenberg: And the significance again of March 1 is you’ve got? Jack Jensen: That’s when the groups are coming together with Minnetonka and Chaska and all the lacrosse, whoever else is wanting fields here in Chan. 19 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: This is an interpretation issue. Mr. Jensen asked just take care of us. Well, that’s an interpretation. What we’d might consider, staff might consider taking came of them would certainly be potentially different than what they feel is being taken care of, so that’s a broader issue. Kelly: Can I just ask what the issues were last year with the fields? I mean I know some teams played on occasional Friday night. I know the Jamboree was on a Saturday, but besides that, I mean was there any, were there other besides the very young kids, were there other kids playing on Saturdays or did you squeeze everyone in on the first, on the weeknights? Jack Jensen: Well 11’s and 12’s play on Saturday also. Anne Voas: And the other second issue is there were no practice slots. Jack Jensen: When the fields get distributed they’re also distributed for the amount of games that you’re, just because of the capacity of the fields. We also wanted to implement having access to have scheduled practices for each of the teams too instead of just being able to get the st games in. Could we make a suggestion to move the March 1 meeting to a later date? I don’t know who we’d. Ruegemer: Commission can certainly direct staff to do that but I don’t know how advantageous that is, and with stating how it affects families and schedules and priority nights and all that other stuff, I don’t know why you’d want to do that. Jack Jensen: Well we’d like to have the nights that we’d like to have. Stolar: Again I’m going to pull order here. Unless there’s a motion from the commission to take some action, we’ve heard your points. The staff has heard your points. Commission members. Questions, and feel that they can ask questions too, I want to make sure the commission feels appropriate. Anything? Murphy: I mean I’m sympathetic to what you’re saying. It sounds as though you know the higher residency perhaps that it should be an interpretation that we make but I mean it’s pretty st short notice now for us to try to do something by March 1. I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like it’s feasible to move the date, the scheduling date back now. True, there’s a price either way. If we ask Jerry to move that meeting back to the beginning of April, that’s very difficult in order for us to meet again in late March and… Stolar: Tom. Kelly: I’m torn on this because you know I’ve coached the last couple years in this league but I understand that it’s almost like city staff was blind sided on this so I think it’s unfair to put them in this position, and also in the position on such short time period. I would love to have, I would love to say hey, I’m only going to coach Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday because that works well for me and my family, but it may not be the fair thing to do, but I’m all for putting 20 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 this on an agenda item in March so we can talk about it but I don’t know if we have the right to actually postpone this early March meeting. I don’t think we, do we even have the right to? Hoffman: Postponing the scheduling meeting is not going to solve this issue. This issue is larger than one month. This is not the only group that would want to speak to this issue if you change this policy. Many groups which we’ve discussed would also want to be present here discussing with the commission their feelings on this issue as well, so this would take 6 months to probably make a dent in this type of a conversation in the community. Not 20 days. Not a month. Stolar: That’s right, because it seems to me you don’t want to have, solve this issue. You want to get all the facts in front of you. Want to understand the capacities, the forecasts, the relationships of Chan residents and have it all laid out in front of us and I would want staff to make a recommendation. I wouldn’t want everybody else to tell you something you’ve been doing for 15 years. Doesn’t mean we won’t guide. Doesn’t mean we won’t change but I want to get your thoughts after you’ve analyzed this also as part of the input so that I agree with you Todd, it’s going to be a while to do it. If something needs to be done. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good point that you brought up here. Just can’t do it on this short of notice. Hoffman: It’s a significant conversation which could have long range positive effect on the community. There’s other people that need to understand this issue in the community. Stolar: Right, because it could also spur more support for such things as lights and increasing the capacity, right? All that could be a benefit of this whole process. Hoffman: Correct. Stolar: Steve, did you have anything you wanted to? Scharfenberg: No, other than, I mean being a coach and being involved in CAA, I whole heartedly support your proposal but again I don’t know that we can do anything tonight to move that on. I would request that staff give priority to CAA. I think that happens in terms of scheduling because I think given the participation rates that we have, I think they should be given a higher priority than other organizations for scheduling. Stolar: May I ask a clarification, that they and anyone else who falls within that group of capacity. Scharfenberg: Right. Right, exactly. Stolar: Which is what your point was. That anybody in that high range capacity. Scharfenberg: Just in terms of the, Anne you had said the 80 to 100 percent range and they should be first in line. Of the groups that come and are requesting that, is CAA the largest group? 21 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Anne Voas: It is to our knowledge. The YMCA, 4, 5, 6 year old program is the only other group in that… Ruegemer: Yeah and that breaks down to the kind of the ranking of that, but CAA, as far as the community based groups is the highest amount of percentage of participation with Chanhassen residency. Stolar: And don’t take this wrong, Jerry does do a nice job of trying to make things work for everybody. In fact he goes out of his way to try to be nice so I mean, I wish he wasn’t that nice sometimes. Scharfenberg: In terms of getting practice and playing time together, I know you want to get as much playing time as available that you advertise but have you guys thought about cutting back in terms of the number of games and allowing more practice time at the beginning of the year as opposed to scheduling all of those games? Personally it’s been my opinion that you guys schedule too many games and there should be more practicing and teaching of skills and then you know the game shouldn’t be the big emphasis. It should be other stuff and especially with the younger kids as opposed, you know the older ones. The older you get you don’t maybe need that much practice time and you want more games but have you guys studied that or looked at that? Jack Jensen: Yeah, we’ve also gone through and asked you know the parents for feedback on what they want. Every year it comes back, usually they want more games than practice. Now coaches may want different, but the kids and the parents want more games. Anne Voas: And there is also analysis of that and adjustments and Little League squeezes us and… Stolar: You have some rules you have to follow as to the number of games played. Kelly: Have you guys looked at the possibility of splitting your seasons a little bit more and again, that’s capacity issue and thing like that but you know, typically I think most of the stuff ends about the middle of July and you know running that stuff later, I know then you get into conflicts with soccer and things of that nature but have you looked at those possibilities? Jack Jensen; You do. I mean we have and we also have a fall league too that we do. But because of the parents try to put their vacations off for the summer until they know the season’s th going to be done, that you know from the middle of you know right after the 4 of July until soccer starts it’s, there’s nobody here. Anne Voas: In the recent 2 years, Little League would mandate this is when you need to play. If you’re not interested in being eligible for state tournament or. Jack Jensen: For district play or. Stolar: Right. Right, right. 22 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Jack Jensen: Because they go through district play which is in the end of June, beginning of July and then they go through a state tournament that goes to the middle of July to the end of August and then the world series goes from the beginning of August to middle of August. Anne Voas: While Jerry, I appreciate your comments about how much tougher it’s gotten the last couple years, and I appreciate your working through this pain with us and it is for you guys to decide. If your action request is going to go similar that the policy will be put on, I mean you st certainly answered my question about can we direct staff for the March 1 meeting. It seems to me there’s… Stolar: …from the commission, yes. Scharfenberg: I guess I would make a motion for staff to come back to us, I know you don’t want us to do the policy now but to study that particular policy and come back to us with a recommendation. Probably not next month but you know again you said this is going to be a 6 month process Todd, something like that, but I mean within maybe 2 to 3 months with some sort of policy recommendations that we can examine and make some recommendations on. Hoffman: One thing good when you’re molding policy is to hear from the people that it affects first. Stolar: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering is if it would be better for us to have, as commission members, a focused meeting where we invite those affected to discuss some of their thoughts and concerns, giving staff sufficient time to have information pulled together for us and we do have it on an off week. We’re allowed to have off, we have it once a month. Our meetings. The second Tuesday we’re allowed to have a special meeting so I think some future second Tuesday we have a meeting on this and then invite the right people to participate and have that be the sole item on the agenda, because this is important. You are experiencing great growth. We’re going to grow as a city. We’ve got to talk about it but not this way because we can’t do anything with it, so let’s focus on getting it the right people and information and do it. Hoffman: Good suggestion. You need to hold a town meeting of sorts regarding field scheduling. Stolar: Yeah, I mean do you guys agree? Murphy: Agree. Kelly: So realistically it’d be 2006. 2006 season. Stolar: For summer but it could affect things in the, potentially in the fall. Well fall might even th be tight but certainly winter. Because Fall is June 10, I see the applications. Well I guess we could maybe. Kelly: They can have all the Bandimere fields in the winter. 23 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Stolar: But I mean I think that that’s, I mean I appreciate you bringing up the point because some of us may not have noticed. Known the impact that this had. Just I think if we can get everybody together and focus on it, we can maybe come up with a resolution. And I think your point has been heard by staff and your concerns. Hoffman: Need a motion? Stolar: Did you make a motion? Scharfenberg: Well I guess I would re-change that motion to request again that staff study this policy issue and that we make, set a schedule for I don’t know, May. For a meeting possibly to meet with these other organizations and at least advertise to them the telling forward and having that town meeting with them at that time. Murphy: I’ll second. Stolar: Any discussion? Scharfenberg moved, Murphy seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission direct staff to study the field scheduling policy issue and schedule a town meeting in May to receive public input. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Spizale moved, Murphy seconded to approve the minutes of the January 25, 2005 Park and Recreation Commission meeting as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL; 2005 REACH FOR RESOURCES ADAPTIVE RECREATION CONTRACT. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Stolar, rest of the commission. Looking through, you know Reach for Resources did, has provided our services in 1999. I think the commission is well aware of kind of what they’ve done for us in the past. They’ve done a lot of training and that for us for our seasonal staff to go through situations with people with disabilities within our programs. That’s been very helpful for us. It worked in providing inclusions and other types of services for us. And I believe last year the Park and Rec Commission kind of directed staff to kind of give you some comparisons as to kind of where we are with the other cities as far as that kind of our percentages and our numbers. Kind of a side to side comparison. So as we look on the second page, just kind of that. Hopefully that information was helpful for the commission. As you can see, we did raise our percentage in growth within our contract year last year. The 2005 contract amount did increase $1,292. Excuse me, $1,292 over 2004 and that did rise from 6% to 9%. That percentage has increased because of our participation within those programs, and that is reflected on the numbers on the back side. The contract amount at 9%, the contract amount is $5,854 for 2005. It is staff’s recommendation that the Park and Recreation Commission approve, recommend approval to the City Council for the 2005 contract with Reach for 24 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Resources to provide adaptive recreation services in the contract amount. That was also included within our 2005 recreation program budget for that and we take a look at that every year and incorporate a percent increase. Pursuant with our numbers they have been increasing as you can look on the next 2 pages and then attached is the contract itself. Murphy: I don’t have any questions. Spizale: Is the increase, is the program getting out to more people or there’s just more people using the program? Ruegemer: I think kind of all of the above Jack. I think people certainly are becoming more aware of the services and that certainly was always staff’s hope that word of mouth is spreading within this very unique population with that. Certainly our population is growing and with that increase certainly there are people with a higher, a percent of our population who are in requirement of our services provided within the contract so I think kind of all the above. As we’re growing in population and word of mouth, so is our percentage is growing with the contract amount. We are, they may not seem like huge numbers but going from 29 overall to 39 overall is significant for us. You look at some of the bigger, the larger communities…we’re holding our own so to speak and we are increasing the numbers so the percentage is taken off the subtotal and not the grand total. There was discussions within some of the northern cities that are in the consortium that the grand total of the special events skewed those subtotal numbers that maybe some people, adults or kids participated in special events that maybe didn’t participate in some of the ongoing types of programs requiring inclusionary services or other types of programs. So that’s, the 9% is actually taken from the total, the subtotal numbers is what I’m trying to say. Spizale: It looks like a good program. Stolar: Steve? Scharfenberg: I don’t have any questions, no. Stolar: Tom? Kelly: I don’t have any questions, no. Stolar: Okay. My usual question. Still think this should go out to bid. Think we ought to look for other people. It is great service. Just want to know if others can provide it more effectively. First priority and then most cost effectively second priority. Right? I mean it’s a good program. These guys do a good job. I don’t want to just price ourselves, that’s not the purpose but knowing what else we can do might help. If there are others, and I know last time you said you didn’t think there were. I suggested does somebody like Courage Center, any other organization provide similar. Ruegemer: Yeah. You know as we progress and become a little bit more familiar with programming for people with disabilities, there are starting to be more options out there. I know 25 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 of one other option possibly at this point. There aren’t a lot of you know businesses out there that are looking to pick this type of service up, but I do know of one other group now that just kind of became available recently. Stolar: Just something to consider. The other thing is, it is a good service that is getting more use. Now that we have the Maple Leaf as a communication vehicle, it might be good to throw something in there to further promote it. I mean if we’re going to have it, yes. We want to use it to it’s fullest extent because it’s a good service. I mean it’s nice that we have that vehicle now. Hoffman: Almost every one. Next one’s coming out soon. Stolar: Any other questions? Can I have a motion to approve staff’s recommendation? Scharfenberg: So moved. Murphy: Second. Scharfenberg moved, Murphy seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend the City Council approve the 2005 contract in the amount of $5,854 with Reach for Resources to provide adaptive recreation services for children and adults with developmental disabilities. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL CONCERNING A MEMORIAL POLICY. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar, members of the commission. Staff has provided a brief history on the issue of memorials in the city and provided a draft policy concerning some general ideas concerning memorials. A tree and plague program. A memorial bench program and then ashes, the scattering of ashes. We have a recommendation that the commission review this draft policy and upon conclusion of your review, make any changes you deem appropriate and then make your recommendation to the City Council concerning this policy. Our over riding goal is to have something that’s simple to understand and useful for people who are in this position of wanting to make a memorial… Stolar: Okay, questions. Steve, I’ll start with you. Scharfenberg: I think it’s a good policy. I didn’t see any additions or changes. Stolar: Tom. Kelly: I know there’s one memorial in Bandimere I think is very nice. It’s a rock and was that just because Bandimere was being built and the rock was available or, I’m just wondering if something like that could also be added to this policy. I just think that’s a very nice… 26 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: It was just a unique situation that that was a time that Dave Huffman was killed and being constructed and a rock was dug up and sitting there. They wanted to know if they should remove it or leave it. Kelly: Okay, so it wasn’t, it didn’t come at the request of a rock, it was just, okay. Hoffman: No. Kelly: I just think that’s a very nice, okay. Then no other questions. Hoffman: Yeah, it’s pretty unique. I think if you offered that as an option, the biggest thing you hear from cities that have been around for a number of years, Edina, Minnetonka, is that if you start putting 75 rocks in your park system, it starts to look like a cemetery type of approach and that’s what they want is to try to stay away from that. Stolar: My quick question for both the tree and plague and the bench, should the cost include the plague? Hoffman: Yes. Stolar: It does include the plague, okay. Don’t know if we want to say that or, either that or just take memorial tree and plague, just make that memorial tree and assume that the tree would include, you notice how it’s different for that versus the bench? Hoffman: Yep. Stolar: It doesn’t say and plague so that’s always confused a little bit. But this is a great policy. I’m all for it. Murphy: Is there any cost for ashes scattering? Hoffman: Not that I noticed. Murphy: Just curious. Hoffman: You’re not going to scatter ashes on the Lake Ann beach. It’s going to be in a location, water at Lake Ann or in a wooded area. You’re not going to scatter ashes on the outfield of ballfield #1. These need to be more discrete locations that are appropriate for the entire public to be able to feel would be appropriate. Spizale: I just noticed that the Arboretum has done this, it’s a nice touch. They do it with the benches. They do it with the trees. It’s a great way to get some nice new trees in the parks and everybody loves to have a bench. I went over the policy. I think the policy is nice and simple. It’s good. 27 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: I assume the Arboretum may be allowing the scattering of ashes as well. I’ll contact them and see what kind of approach. That was one of the areas that, the newest type of request that’s coming up. Scharfenberg: The only other thing that I just, came off the top of my head was, I wasn’t on the commission at the time that City Center Park was being built and I know there were things that I think Jack mentioned that kind of wish items that if we could you know put this in a sculpture or something like that, it would almost be nice if you could include. I know the policy said this isn’t an exhaustive policy but if you could almost put in a section that if you almost had like that wish list of a sculpture or some things that you couldn’t do because of cost, was cost prohibitive but somebody came and said you know what, I’d like to spend $10,000 to do this and you had that list and somehow had that memorialize that if somebody wanted to do something and gave up a large donation to park and rec that you could say well, we had these things that we wanted to do to City Center Park. Would you be interested in doing something like that, like a sculpture, another fountain or something like that. Hoffman: Some cities actually do have a…and that’s the one reason for other memorials if someone does want to make, if they have some sort of connection and they say we want to make an improvement and that’s…if they’re going to make a $10,000 or $5,000 contribution, you start looking around and hoping to identify some of these things but I’ve seen cities where they’ve run right down to the copier machine in admin and ballfield lights on field number 4 and park shelter and police cars and you can take it to any degree. Stolar: So Steve are you suggesting that we put some verbiage that says under other memorials, something like or other items desired by the Park and Rec Commission? Some how for the Park and Rec Director too. Scharfenberg: I was just talking off the top of my head. Stolar: Something to just consider because I think that would be. Hoffman: Make it a little more broad. Inclusive. 90% of what we’ve done has been trees and benches in the last, I’ve been here 15 years. They’re very welcomed. Stolar: Any other comments, questions? So, I think we just had some clarification so I’ll make a motion to approve the staff recommendation. Murphy: Move to approve staff recommendation. Spizale: I’ll second. Stolar: Questions? Murphy moved, Spizale seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council approve the Memorial Giving Policy as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. 28 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL CONCERNING AN AMENDMENT TO CITY CODE SECTION 14-61 TO PERMIT THE CONSUMPTION OF WINE IN CITY PARKS. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, members of the commission. The City Council as a part of their 2005 strategic plan identified the desire to review the current ordinance governing consumption of alcohol beverages in city parks. Specifically they heard from residents that it would be nice to be able to drink wine while visiting a park, or attending a special event held at a city park. I’m going to go over the current section of the code governing alcoholic beverages and it says, except for malt beverages, which would include beer and other malt beverages from hard lemonade type of beverages, no person shall consume or have in their possession within a city park any bottles or receptacles containing anything else. It’s also worthy to note that currently park rules prohibit the possession of glass bottles or glass containers or glass receptacles within a park, including malt beverages are not permitted… If you’re going to drink beer currently, you need to drink it in a can, not a bottle or a keg which are also permitted. We surveyed the area communities concerning alcohol in parks and turned up the following data. Chaska does not allow any alcohol in their parks. Eden Prairie, alcohol prohibited at school park sites and youth athletic fields. No other restrictions on any alcohol consumption at any other locations. And no restriction on glass containers in Eden Prairie. Minnetonka allows beer and wine in picnic areas only by special permit. With the exception of that it’s not permitted. Plymouth, no alcohol is permitted. In Shorewood, no alcohol is permitted in their parks. In conversations with these communities, the ones that do not permit alcohol, they cited a desire to maintain a family friendly atmosphere. To limit access to minors and to avoid problems associated with excessive consumption of alcohol. Eden Prairie takes a different approach allowing all types of alcohol at specific locations, while banning alcoholic others and they’ve had that policy in place for I think close to 20 years and they expressed no over bearing problems that they have noted. Staff recommendation that the park commission recommend the City Council amend Section 14-61 of the City Code to permit the consumption of wine in addition to malt beverages in city parks and then Section 14-68 to prohibit glass containers from public beach areas only, and permit them in other locations in our park system. If you have questions, I’ll be glad to answer those. Otherwise I’ll wait for discussion from the commission. Spizale: Do we have a problem with alcohol at all to speak of? In our parks. Ruegemer: I wouldn’t say anything really specific to problems. You know certainly there’s Lake Ann Park there may be some underage consumption that’s not specific to a certain policy. I personally, the one that schedules the facilities, a lot of people do ask, they have questions about our alcohol policy. What’s allowed. What’s not allowed. You know certainly beer has been allowed with the exception of some other malt beverages but certainly there are many th groups that do request the use, or to consume wine of some kind of you know 50 birthday parties. Company functions, that sort of thing so there is requests out there. Spizale: I personally don’t see a problem with having wine or having beer. And I haven’t really heard of any, or read of any excessive problems with the alcohol. 29 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Murphy: I guess the concern though might be the glass versus just the alcohol. …you don’t get wine other than those boxes, you really can’t buy it other than glass so. Well I guess we haven’t had that problem because we haven’t had the issue with glass right in our parks yet. Hoffman: There’s glass in our parks now. Stolar: It’s an issue but it’s not allowed. Kelly: Plus the wine can be in a brown paper bag. Ruegemer: It could be. Stolar: Well I share Ann’s concern about the glass, but I don’t want to approve glass and quite honestly it makes it more difficult. You’re limited to certain grades of wine potentially, but you’re also, you have a choice. I mean there are plastic decanters out there and you can decant the fine bottle of wine like you should and let it sit. I mean that to me is something that I just am more concerned about the glass. The wine policy I think is a great idea. Kelly: Is there any way to amend the recommendation to prohibit glass in public beach areas and on athletic fields? Hoffman: You can amend the recommendation however you feel. Kelly: Because I mean, I don’t think there’s a big issue about prohibiting glass at the fields. At the parks but I think I would like to make sure you don’t have some guy playing softball, first base glove in one hand and a bottle of Bud in the other. I mean I’d like to prohibit, at least have it into the bylaws to say that. You know, there’s no glass allowed on the fields, as well as the beaches. That’d be my only change. Scharfenberg: So you mean not on the field so they can drink in the parking lot afterwards? Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. They already probably bring bottles anyway I would guess. Stolar: We could follow Minnetonka and just say picnic areas. Sort of like in Excelsior they can have a glass bottle of wine but not anywhere else. I’m just, I am concerned too about the broken glass anywhere, you know the playground. Kids are going to be playing there. Outside of the beach area. There’s so many places where we’re concerned but if they’re in the picnic area and we, you know. Kelly: Does Eden Prairie have an issue with people stepping on glass with. Hoffman: Not that they disclosed, no. I asked them specifically about the glass because quite frankly I think allowing, permitting glass in parks was one of those issues where I haven’t really considered it. And you’re tapping the subject but apparently not Eden Prairie. You certainly have many glass containers in parks today and we clean up a lot of glass on an annual basis and glass is difficult to clean up. It takes a lot of man power to clean up glass bottles and they drink 30 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 them at our skate park. They drink them in our parking lots. It’s not a simple thing to clean up. It’s not like picking up a piece of trash. It takes time. Kelly: Based on your recommendation though, it sounds like you are in favor of glass in the parks? Hoffman: To allow wine, it’s very. Kelly: It goes hand in hand. Hoffman: Yeah. My interpretation. Kelly: Can I ask you another question? If the wine issue would never have come up, would you have, would you still be in favor of allowing glass in the parks? Regardless of wine. Would you have been in favor of allowing malt beverages and beer to be consumed in either cans or bottles? Hoffman: No, because it’s so prevalent in canned containers that it really doesn’t make sense to. It’s not only what the wine comes in, but what people drink it out of is a glass glass. If you pass an ordinance that says you can drink boxed wine in plastic containers, plastic glasses, I think you’re eliminating the spirit of what they’re after. Stolar: Yeah, but we’re giving them a chance to have a toast. All picnic baskets I’ve ever bought that had wine glasses in them, they were plastic. Hoffman: This is definitely one of those issues where this is a policy issue that the recommending board should make to the City Council. Don’t let the staff or any, there’s no right or wrong answer with alcoholic beverages in your park system. It’s clearly a preference issue. We can’t cite any studies that says it’s good or bad. Kelly: Would the commission be okay with allowing glass containers in shelters? To accommodate people that, I think someone mentioned, kind of people that want to toast th someone’s 50 wedding anniversary or whatever, but still keep the current policy intact for other areas of the park. Murphy: But how would we enforce that unless they have to get a permit to have wine in the shelter. I mean there’d be no, that’d be difficult to enforce I think. To say to people you can only have it in the shelter. It’s going to be kind of confusing. Ruegemer: Currently you know staff isn’t issuing permits for, you know I’d say it’s a new venture that we’re looking at tonight but staff isn’t issuing permits of any kind for a keg of beer or you know cans or that sort of thing. I guess staff would ask that it be a clear policy, more so than staff interpreting what the policy should be. Stolar: May I propose to the commission a couple things. One, can we split this into two motions? One being the wine motion, the other being the glass motion? 31 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Murphy: I agree. Spizale: That’s fine. Stolar: Can I have a motion to approve the wine, or amendment to Section 14-61 to permit the consumption of wine in addition to malt beverages in the city parks. Kelly: So moved. Stolar: Do I hear a second? Murphy: Second. Kelly moved, Murphy seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to amend Section 14-61 to permit the consumption of wine in addition to malt beverages in the city parks. All voted in favor, except Scharfenberg who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. Stolar: I’m sorry Steve, were you not okay with splitting the motion? Scharfenberg: Yep, I’m fine with that. Stolar: Okay. Second question. You have an amendment to the motion regarding Section 14.68 to prohibit glass. Kelly: Right. My amendment would be to allow glass containers within the picnic areas and shelters only in the parks. Stolar: Do I hear a second to the amendment? Spizale: I’ll second that. Stolar: Okay. Discussion. You had brought up it would be hard to enforce. Murphy: Yeah, I just don’t think that’s going to, I just don’t think there should be glass allowed in the parks because I think you’re just opening it up to problems. Stolar: Anyone else? Scharfenberg: I would second that complaint, yeah. Stolar: Okay. Any comments? Hoffman: One comment from staff is it may be easier to clarify where you would not permit glass. Because the interpretation of picnic areas is going to get very broad. 32 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Spizale: Maybe shelter. Hoffman: Well if you have specific areas where you’re very concerned, ballfields, beaches. But somebody’s going to say I’m going to have a picnic under that tree. I’m going to have a picnic in this park. I’m going to have a picnic in. Spizale: I guess when I think of glass breakage, I mean you could have a jar of pickles or any other container made out of glass that could break. Hoffman: Not right now you can’t. It’s prohibited from the park. In ordinance. By ordinance. But they’re certainly currently there. There’s no doubt about it. Kelly: Can I amend my motion then? Stolar: Yes. Kelly: I’d like to amend my motion to prohibit the use of glass containers on city ballfields, other athletic fields, public beaches, playgrounds and spectator benches. Hoffman: Spectator areas? Kelly: Spectator areas. Stolar: For that being all shelters, just to make sure. That being all shelters or any open field where they want to lay a picnic blanket down would be approved under that discussion. Kelly: Yep. Hoffman: As long as it’s not on a beach. Or in a play area with a blanket. Stolar: Do I have a second to the amendment to the amendment? Kelly: Skate park, yeah. Stolar: Well I mean you’re whole thing we need to have seconded. Spizale: I’ll second it. Stolar: Any other discussion? So what’s before us is a motion to amend Section 14-68 to prohibit glass, bottle container or receptacle within the ballfields, athletic fields, playgrounds, spectator areas and skate parks. Kelly: And public beaches. Stolar: And public beaches. Okay. 33 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Kelly moved, Spizale seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend the City Council amend Section 14-68 to prohibit glass, bottle container or receptacle within the ballfields, athletic fields, playgrounds, spectator areas, skate parks and public beaches. All voted in favor, except Murphy and Stolar who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2. Kelly: …difficult or easier, I don’t know. I was trying to find somewhere they can go drink their wine. Hoffman: If I can clarify the 3 to 2 vote for Nann… Stolar: Sure. In favor were Steve, Tom and Jack and opposed were Ann and Glenn. Hoffman: Thank you. APPROVE JOB DESCRIPTION; PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSIONERS. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, members of the commission. This item I think you’ve all gone through the commission member interview where the commissioner, or the potential commissioner interviewing did not have a full grasp of what the job entailed. It wasn’t with this particular commission, so the city manager asked that we review these descriptions. This comes directly again out of the city code. That a park commission shall be established. It talks about your membership, your officers and your meetings, powers and duties and reports, and the City Manager asked that the commission review these to discern whether or not they’re accurate and complete and to give staff recommendation on any changes or let the council know if it’s fine. Stolar: Todd, does this become part of our by-laws then? Hoffman: Does this become part of your by-laws? Stolar: Yeah. Hoffman: Are by-laws mentioned in here? Stolar: They are mentioned in here. It says we should adopt our own by-laws and I’m wondering if this becomes part of the by-laws. That makes it very difficult. It’s kind of circular. I mean where does this go I guess? Hoffman: This is currently written. They just want to make sure that this is what you want to see included in the city code. Stolar: Okay, so it’s in the city code, okay. And then the by-laws then give us more of a direction of how we maintain our meetings and structure. The ones we passed last year. The ones 2 years ago. Last year. Okay. Hoffman: They slur together those years. 34 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Stolar: Yeah. Any comments? Hoffman: This document was recently updated and amended so, that’s…complete. Stolar: Okay. I don’t see an action on this so no comments. Looks good. Todd, off the subject, st we probably should talk about the written report that is due by March 31. Hoffman: That date has been changed as well. It used to be September. Stolar: And excuse me, remind me again. The city is on a fiscal year basis, or calendar year. Hoffman: Yes. Stolar: Okay. Hoffman: The reason they changed that was to allow for outgoing commissioners to participate in the annual report for that year, so if you were the outgoing commissioners, your term expires stst March 31 and the incoming commissioners April 1. Stolar: So it’d seem to me we should have an agenda item on March’s meeting to review our annual report. Hoffman: Correct, that staff will prepare. Stolar: And as Tom suggested, I think the Vice Chair’s in charge of writing that now. No, Todd I’ll meet with you and we can figure out what you’d like me to do. Thank you. Okay, next item. DEVELOP SURVEY QUESTIONS FOR THE 2005 PARK AND RECREATION TH COMMISSION BOOTH AT THE 4 OF JULY TRADE FAIR. Hoffman: This is an item that the commission asked that we bring back to your attention. Each year at the trade fair the commission holds or hosts a booth. In the past it’s featured a suggestion box where people would write down what they think is their idea and that has seen limited success and so the commission talked about potentially a questionnaire… Stolar: So I guess you’re asking if we think we should do a questionnaire. Hoffman: Yes. And what questions you would like to ask. Stolar: Let’s start with the first point, questionnaire. Do you think we should do one? I don’t know, were you guys at the booth last year? Scharfenberg: I wasn’t there last year. Stolar: Or you were there the year before. 35 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Kelly: Yeah. The hot year. Rain year. Stolar: That’s right. We just have open suggestion box. And then we have a piece of paper where you write your name and any suggestion and we try to get people to do it. Kelly: It’s crowded in there. I mean people are walking along grabbing free stuff. I think is the reason that people actually go into that booth and I just don’t know if we went to this effort would people actually sit down, or take 5 minutes and actually fill out answers to these questions. I just don’t know if this would be wasted effort on our part. Stolar: Okay. Hoffman: That’s a good point with the fact that you have this other agenda item, yeah. Spizale: I agree with you. I think people want a free sucker or they want this, they want that and if they were there and if they want to bring up an issue or talk about it, I mean I think they do that personally. Which a couple people have. Not many. Basically when I’ve been there, what we basically hear is all the nice things about our parks. I very seldomly hear a complaint. You know maybe a suggestion, which is really nice to hear. I don’t think people would spend the time to fill one out. I really don’t. Murphy: Well maybe if we give them the direction of questions, they, I mean obviously they’re not, the suggestion box isn’t doing very well because they have to come up with an idea on the spot. But if we had some questions that we’re already reviewing, for example the dog park. I mean that comes to mind. I think that might be at least giving people some direction might spur some of their comments. Hoffman: You probably already know the answer to the dog park. th Stolar: I’m hoping we’ll actually be announcing the dog park at the 4 of July meeting, or trade fair. We’re going to figure that out soon. Steve. Scharfenberg: I don’t have any suggestions. Stolar: I know I was one of the ones that brought this up, having worked the trade fair a couple times. I think a couple things, one if we do it, it has to have very limited questions. Maybe at most 5. 3 to 5. You can’t have very many. I also think you would need a prize of some sort to get people to do it. I also think, not knowing that we were doing this overall one, I guess I would like to maybe postpone this for another meeting to see what comes of the survey itself where we might get the information we desire. Also if we end up coming up with 10 questions we really want, or 5 questions we really want and the city takes 2, maybe there’s our 3 questions. Hoffman: Let’s hear a motion to table. Stolar: Motion to table if anybody. 36 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Murphy: Motion to table. Scharfenberg: Second. Stolar: There you go. Murphy moved, Scharfenberg seconded to table developing survey questions for the 2005 th Park and Recreation Commission booth at the 4 of July trade fair. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: FEBRUARY FESTIVAL EVALUATION. Ruegemer: Yeah, I just want to thank all the commissioners that were out on a dismal day out at Lake Ann for our annual fishing contest and the rest of the activities. With the warm weather it did limit some of the other sledding…and that sort of thing but I think kids still had fun splashing through the water puddles out on the lake, and there was just about the same amount of people again roughly, and it was fun to see everybody out there. I think everybody had a great time. Kind of get out of that hibernation mode into an afternoon catch up with family, friends and community members haven’t seen for a while so it was a great event. It’s almost the general common suggestions, specific information but certain components of...for the commissions review. Kelly: I had a question. I don’t know what this organization does for the city, they may do a lot but I’m just not aware of, but given the fact that we lost $1,200 this year on the Feb Fest, has any thought been given to charging the Lion’s for serving food at the festival? Ruegemer: You know I don’t know that staff has really considered that. I mean it’s very community service organization. We feel it’s nice to have their presence at the event. They’re not making a ton of money, hand over fist on this thing. They may make $1,000 to $1,500 when it’s all probably said and done. When they get done paying for expenses and that sort of thing. We’ve had kind of a special relationship with the Lion’s through the years through their contributions to our ballfield lighting projects and other projects that the city’s been involved in partnerships with. So to answer your question, no. Staff hasn’t really considered charging a percentage to the Lion’s or any other service organization. Kelly: I was just curious. I didn’t know what all they did for the city but. Okay. Spizale: Nothing else. Great event. Had great weather. Stolar: I just had one to Tom’s point. It’s been $5 for a few years. That’s another question with apparently 1,031, or 1,061 people paying for it might be something. Maybe even just raise the adult fees and not the kids. 37 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Ruegemer: It’s all the same. Stolar: I know that’s what I’m saying. Maybe just raise the adult fee. Charge a little more for the adults and we’ll keep the kids, because it’s great to have all the kids out there. Wouldn’t want to over price that, but something to think about. I don’t know what the price point would be but something. Hoffman: Yeah, that was an ugly issue in the past. We used to have two different charges and then you can buy, if you have a lot of kids you can buy a lot of tickets for your kids. Increase your odds just because of the fact that you have kids. It’s a raffle drawing ticket. So there was a big push by the commission to equalize that price. Stolar: And even again, consideration that maybe our prices have gone up. Something to consider. A dollar, if we have $6, assuming, I mean I don’t know that many people would be lost for that extra dollar. You almost make up that whole deficit. I’m not saying we absolutely need to do it. The only other point was Todd I thought you were going to make sure that a recommendation of getting rid of the small fish contest was ended. Again it was a wonderful event. I think there are a lot of people out there. Some people who have never been on ice were nervous about the water they saw there but outside of that. Kelly: Because then we had that little crack to drain out that little pond. Stolar: Great event. Kelly: I know we talked about this a couple years ago. Has anything been thought about looking to get any other type of events on the ice that coincided with the ice fishing contest? Maybe a hockey shooting contest or something else that, not fishermen would enjoy doing with their kids. Ruegemer: We’re always open for suggestions. That’s a good suggestion. You’d probably get the local hockey association to do something like that. Stolar: I also suggested to Corey snow volleyball because the volleyball court’s right there and there are snow volleyball tournaments in Minnesota. Kelly: I love the golf that was going on 5 or so years ago but that was probably pretty expensive. I’m not too sure how much, how many people actually participated in that. Hoffman: It’s a big tradition up on Lake Minnetonka. You need a sponsor for each one of these activities. Stolar: Hockey sounds like something it’d be… Kelly; Yeah, you get 3 shots and maybe you board up the nets and then, keep track of. Yeah. Maybe get our friends at Gold Medal Sports to do something with that. 38 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Ruegemer: Can certainly talk to them about that. DADDY/DAUGHTER DATE NIGHT EVALUATION. Ruegemer: Yeah, the Daddy/Daughter Date Night again was held the week after Feb Fest out at the Recreation Center. Had a lot of couples attend, both Thursday and Friday night. You can kind of see how the overall program would be a catered deal to add space for any entertainment. That sort of thing so Corey does a great job with that. Certainly there are expenses that go along with that but it’s a great experience. We do get a lot of positive feedback from the participants that you know this event, me and my personal situation, I’m the father of 2 daughters as well so there aren’t a whole lot of events to go out and do something with your daughter. To get dressed up. You know get her a flower. Do that type of thing so we do hear a lot of feedback from the fathers, how fun it is to spend a night with their daughters. Stolar: Comments or questions. 2005 EASTER EGG CANDY HUNT. Ruegemer: Easter Egg Candy Hunt, just kind of an FYI. I know the flyers that are being run off right now. The last couple days. We’re going to get those out to the schools here soon. It’s th coming up Saturday, March 26. Little earlier this year but hopefully we can use the, a dry field somewhere, if not we’ll make other considerations again and move that to the driest place th possible to distribute the candy for that, but that is coming up the 26 of March, so if anybody would like to be out there for that, let us know. INTERVIEWS FOR COMMISSION CANDIDATES. Ruegemer: I know Todd has received I think 2 to 3 applications up to this point. One is I think Terry Kimball who’s involved in the CAA as their administrator. Also Terry Kelly has done the Sunset Ridge neighborhood. I know the deadline is this coming Friday for that. There’s been some other names kind of mentioned but I don’t know if there have been any, well I think there was one other formal application that are involved with that process so. I think Todd probably has those applications. Hoffman: Oh, commission applications you’re talking about that here? Stolar: Yep. Hoffman: Yeah, we have all 3 returning applicants and 3 new applicants as of now. Kelly: You said Terry Kelly, someone on CAA and who was the third? Ruegemer: It’d be Terry Kimball is one of them. Terry Kelly’s another resident of the Sunset Ridge neighborhood who’s been involved in adult softball here for a long time and other programs that we have offered. 39 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Stolar: Okay, and were you wanting to set up times for the commission, other than those re- applying to interview? th Hoffman: Correct. March 8 would be the second Tuesday of March. Which would be your off meeting date. Stolar: There was me, I was up so I won’t be there. Hoffman: And Steve. Stolar: And Paula. So it’d be the 3 of you guys. Hoffman: 3 and then Kevin. So you’ve got Tom and Ann and Jack to decide if the evening of th March 8 would work. th Spizale: March 8? I can’t do that night. Scharfenberg: I can’t do that night. thst Hoffman: They close this Friday which is the 25, so you could even go to the March 1. Murphy: Which day is that? Hoffman: Tuesday. Murphy: I think that will work. Spizale: I think that works for me too. I just have to check my schedule. Hoffman: Okay, I’ll e-mail you tomorrow. Stolar: Also e-mail Kevin. Hoffman: Yep. Spizale: What time was that? Hoffman: Well depending on how many interviews we have, if you want to do them after work or in the evening. It’s up to you to say. Murphy: Evening it’d have to be for me because I can’t. Hoffman: So 7:00 on. Spizale: Yeah, that works good. 40 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Murphy; Yeah. Hoffman: Okay. And you would interview the new candidates only and then all remaining candidates would go to the council. Unless you feel the need to interview incumbents. Okay, thanks. CITIZEN SURVEY QUESTIONS. Hoffman: The community is going to undertake a citizen survey. There is a changing methodology or changing format I guess. Decision Resources has traditionally worked with the city, or we’ve worked with them to complete our surveys and this is a League of Minnesota Cities document. It’s a little bit more cookie cutter type of approach but it’s also probably about a fourth to a third of the price. So you’re still getting valuable input for quite a bit less money. The standard, Chair Stolar asked the question about the standard questions which if you read through them, they actually touch a large majority of issues which are of concern to municipalities. Chanhassen specific questions about can we change the language from parks to parks and trail, and I don’t know that answer but I’ll get that answer. And then the question before you tonight is, the questionnaire will be customized to include, I think we say 3 or 4, 3 to 5 questions which are specific to Chanhassen. As a commission, the council wanted to make sure that all commissions had a chance to voice their opinion on what type of question or questions you would like to see as a customized question for the survey. I’m not sure if we talked about, is it housing? Is it traffic? Is it athletic facilities? What is that you feel as a commission is a very important issue for this community to be asked a question about. And council would like to hear from you. Spizale: Scheduling the baseball fields. Stolar: Should Jerry be allowed to have this meeting. Kelly: I guess I’d like to put it to the citizens of the city to say, would they be willing to maybe increase taxes to support the building of a recreation center. Given the fact that everyone knows that if you have a mailbox you know Lifetime’s coming. But given the fact that Lifetime is coming, would the citizens still support Chanhassen building it’s own recreation center for the potential that that could lead to increased taxes or some type of a referendum. I think it’s an issue that we’ve talked about on the commission for a number of years and it’d just be nice to get citizen’s input now that there’s a private facility that’s going to be the best in the state coming by the end of fall. That’d be a question I would like to see on there. Scharfenberg: Kind of along those same lines Tom, I’ve been thinking about this but I was somehow trying to tie it into you know in partnering with District 112 or the new middle school or high school, would you, what, I was just trying to come up with not necessarily a recreation center but would you like to see us coordinate with a pool or something along those lines. So that’s kind of, I was just kind of trying sound that out. But in coordination with District 112, the building of a middle school or high school, would additional facilities or things would you want park and rec’s to consider, or something like that. 41 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: That’s a big question to remain. If Paula was here she would ask about the performing arts, if that’s basically a concern. There is not a performing arts stage in Chanhassen. Scharfenberg: Right. Kelly: These have to be trade off questions right? You can’t do something, would you like a dog park and who’s going to say no if there’s nothing to trade off a dog park. I think you’re right, it’s got to be some type of a trade off question to make these people make a choice. Stolar: And then the question is, do we get that option in these type of surveys? I was trying to see if they had one that did basically the same thing. Kind of like we’d like them to rank order and have one of the options be none of the above, saying I don’t want to spend any more taxes for anything. You know having that as one of their options. But then the one that I was thinking along those lines, rec center. Performing arts center, I don’t know if that gets encompassed in a rec center. Golf course has been mentioned. Lighted fields is you know a capital, I don’t know how we want to talk about it. Just a mega sports complex that they’ve been talking about or just lighted fields but the idea to extend the capacity by increasing the availability of the current fields. Those were the ones that I remember us talking about. Ice rink at Bandimere we’ve talked about. Or increased ice rinks so those are, I guess to build on this site, to get to your thoughts too on this, to me there are 5 or 6 things that have been mentioned and we’d like to know the strength, relative strength of their support for those recognizing that it would encompass increased taxes. Hoffman: In the back if you note the additional questions, examples that were given. Stolar: Yeah, but they seem to be one off on each of the you know, but what I was wondering, I was looking actually at the, if you look at question 13. Is there a way to maybe list 4 or 5 things and one of them being none of the above in one question and just let they list strongly support through don’t support. So like a question, would you support a tax increase/bonding to provide the following additional recreational facilities. List 4 or 5 of them and strongly support, then you can get some relative. It’s not a ranking relative but it’s, unfortunately they could choose to say support, support, support or don’t, but at least you get a side by side on the question. Hoffman: Which question is that? Stolar: Number 13. On page 4 of 5. Hoffman: You asked, what was your? Stolar: The question, yeah what was your impression. We would ask, would you support an increase in taxes or whatever. The wording would be to recognize, it’s a cost increase to support, or how much would you support the following additional recreational activities if a tax increase were involved. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Strongly support to not support. Then we just come up with what the 4 or 5 items are. If not if someone doesn’t want to pay any more taxes for any more facilities, they go down, whatever the appropriate methodology is but looks 42 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 like the right side and say no. Don’t support. They say tax the heck out of me, I want everything being there. Go down the left side. Or pick and choose. Spizale: That’s good. Stolar: Certainly lunch hour reading. It fits well with what we were talking about with the, I th mean this is what we want to ask on the 4 of July anyway. Hoffman: And you’ll get a better answer. Stolar: We’ll get a better answer here. Spizale: I agree. Murphy: I do want to get the dog park in there, just so we can, because there seems to be still some questions on City Council about whether that’s really a strong enough request from the whole city so I would like to get that in there. Is would you support funding for proposed dog park. Kelly: Would you suggest it as one of these line items in this overall question or are you suggesting it as a stand alone question? Murphy: I’m suggesting it as a stand alone question since we’ve already discussed so much discussion’s already been going around about it. Scharfenberg: So Ann would you propose something along the lines that that would be kind of a two part question where you would break it down just given the discussions that we’ve had, a dog park within the city of Chanhassen or through Carver County or do you want to just say, just generally do you support a dog park within the city. Strongly agree, disagree. Murphy: Yeah, I think probably Carver’s already doing something on their own so we probably shouldn’t, I wouldn’t put a question on whether adding Carver in because that just kind of confuses the answers of Chan. I would just be looking for feedback from Chanhassen residents on whether they want one in Chanhassen. Spizale: Should it be whether they support it or whether they would use it? Murphy: Well why would they support it if they’re not. Spizale: I mean how many people would actually use it I’m just thinking from, would you use a dog park or would you support one? Hoffman: Some people support things they don’t use. 43 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Kelly: If it’s not going to cost me anything and if I’m never going to see it, I’m going to support it because, just because it doesn’t affect me at all but I think that’s the best, would you actually use it. I think that’s actually, that might be a better question. Spizale: Because I think you’d find a lot of people would but. Scharfenberg: Well maybe just to get ultimately to where we’re going to be in the agenda for commission reports, maybe do we need that question. Maybe some answers can happen with what happened at that committee. What happened at that meeting in early February? What did Carver Park say? I mean are they going to go forward with a park at Minnewashta or? Murphy: Well we’re still back at square one on the planning. They’re still looking for funding for their dog park so. Scharfenberg: Okay. Murphy: I know we’re going to review that later but…still don’t have any funding for it so. They’re still back at square one as far as going to City Council looking for funding for it so. We would still be coming to our City Council with the same questions we’ve come totally forward as far as funding. Hoffman: Please remember on the survey is that this is 3 to 5 questions across the entire city. So you’re asked to come up with 2 or 3 potential topics and then questions will be developed so it’s not as though you need to come up with a specific question. If you want dog parks, if you want facilities, that’s what the Assistant City Manager’s asking. And the council will determine which ones they would like to see put into question format. Spizale: Well I think dog park for one. Stolar: And again going to your question, is it supporting or is it how, because they have these usage questions here too on number 9. But that might be a good format of how often would you use a dog park. Kelly: 4 or 5 times a week. Twice a week. Once a week. Once a month. Murphy: Yeah, that sounds. Stolar: Because that’s what I think we wanted to get to is that there’s going to be a lot of usage or not, which makes, because I think it’s going to be a different level of capital request than it would be for some of the other things we’re talking about. So I think we have a couple questions. One being to gauge the support of citizens willingness to be taxed to provide these additional recreational opportunities, or areas or facilities, whatever we want to call them. Which we need to make sure we come up with a list for Todd. And then how often would you use a dog park if one were available in the city of Chanhassen. Does that summarize what we’ve sort of said. 44 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: That’s two. Stolar: Of course the first question has like six parts but. Just using the formats here. Hoffman: Okay, and your list of facilities include a golf course, recreation center. Stolar: Performing arts. Lighted fields or additional fields. Spizale: Additional lighted fields? Stolar: Yeah, maybe that’s the best way to say it because we’d want to, and maybe actually building new fields and then. Spizale: Was ice rinks one of them? Stolar: I would say permanent, additional permanent ice rinks. What do we call it, like the ones at City Center Park? Hoffman: Back boards? Stolar: Yeah, but not just the flooding of a neighborhood park but the actual boarding and asphalt. Hoffman: Hockey rinks. Stolar: Yeah. We probably should put outdoor on that shouldn’t we. Scharfenberg: …people are going to think you want an indoor rink. That you may need anyway if you get a high school here. Stolar: And then you had talked about the partnership question. Do we want to gauge, you know for our third question, gauge the preferences to having one independent of the park, of the school board versus, or school versus not? Kelly: One what? Stolar: Whether we would want… (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Stolar: Other questions? We might as well give a third if we have the opportunity. Hoffman: So school partnership question? Stolar: Did you want to include pool as one of the facilities? 45 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Scharfenberg: It makes sense. Murphy: Just like a stand alone pool? Stolar: I don’t know if we’d want to call it a water park. We could say pool/water park. I don’t know. It doesn’t give, there’s huge differences between those. I mean it’s up to the commission. Just a thought I had was, is there a question here to ask how their experiences in Chanhassen’s parks compared with their experiences in other parks. I tried to working this, and I haven’t gotten it clear in my mind but basically I want to understand, how do we compare with other cities? Is it something that we think we’re way ahead of the game? Keep doing what you’re doing. Hoffman: Sounds of satisfaction question. Stolar: But comparable satisfaction because they ask the satisfaction in here, but it’s, do you have accessibility to parks? Yes. Do they meet your needs? Yes. Are they as good as Eden Prairie, Chaska, Plymouth, Minnetonka? Yep. How do we want to see comparably if they’ve lived elsewhere and moved here? And I don’t know that we do but that was one thought that came to me is that a possible question. Scharfenberg: To some extent actually comparing apples and oranges because you know, yeah everybody has parks but then again you’re getting into that whole amenities, yeah I like Chaska because they have a community center, you know. Well yeah, we have one too but we don’t have a theater or a pool or. Stolar: And part of me does think asking these other questions that we have might give us that sense anyway. Scharfenberg: Yeah. Murphy: It’s a good idea if they can write in a comment underneath, because just comparing, just saying well, we’re worst than other places I’ve lived doesn’t really tell us anything. Stolar: Yeah, that’s true. You’d have to have the verbiage to say what exactly are we ahead. What exactly are we lagging. Which we don’t have that possibility do we? Murphy: We have a comment question, open question right? Looks like there’s an open question. Maybe if it was right above that open comment. Stolar: See worksheets for details and price of this option. I have a feeling the City Council will use that question. Well there might be an opportunity, maybe that’s what we say as our third, that if the City Council can allow parks and rec to be included in an open optional question. So maybe just generic but it allows parks and rec to be included so please provide any general comments you have regarding our city, including parks and recreation, trails. Now we can get some of that qualitative feedback. Any other? And you know, upon thinking something, we th have a few days before we have to give this, right? March 14 they’re going to vote on it, so I 46 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 assume probably at least a week ahead of time you’d want it. So if you have any other ideas, we can just exchange e-mails maybe. Or send it just to Todd. Hoffman: Well yeah, as a board you should decide so tonight’s your opportunity I think. We th don’t meet again before the 14. Stolar: But I meant tweaking, like if someone coming up with another thing to maybe list as a suggestion on the list of ones that we have. Hoffman: I would accept that. Stolar: Is everyone okay then with what we’ve recommended? Kelly: Can you go up the list for the second question? Just so. Hoffman: Golf course, recreation center, performing arts space, outdoor hockey rinks, outdoor, actually not an outdoor pool. Aquatic center, if you want to say outdoor/indoor? Murphy: Leave it ambiguous. Stolar: Yeah, aquatic center. Hoffman: That’s it. Stolar: Were lighted fields? Hoffman: Okay. Stolar: Or additional lighted athletic fields. Kelly: Has anyone every had about a dome? Had anywhere we can put a dome. Hoffman: People always talk about domes. Scharfenberg: That was part of District 112, they were talking about putting in a field house as part of their long range planning but there was that discussion. I don’t know that that necessarily included a dome but it might be something. Stolar: We may have to come back and prioritize those because they may want, not a list but. Kelly: I was wondering if that’s something that we should put on, I don’t know. Stolar: What do you think? Scharfenberg: Maybe it’s just dome envy. 47 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: A lot of that. Stolar: What do you guys think? Should we add domes to that list? Spizale: Why not? Scharfenberg: Yeah. Kelly: I was thinking something like what Eden Prairie and Minnetonka have. Hoffman: A field house. Kelly: A bubble, yeah. Scharfenberg: That you can take up and put down in the summer and put up in the fall. Kelly: Yep. I don’t know…if people ever mentioned about putting something like that in our city. Hoffman: All the time. Depends on what you’re bubbling. Hockey, fields, golf, soccer. That’s the big question. In Shakopee the bubble was always the ice arena for years and years and years. And in Plymouth it’s a golf bubble and a soccer bubble and they do multiple things down there. Stolar: Eden Prairie’s the football practice field. But in the non-football season they make it open for park and rec. It’s a lot of fun. Alright, administrative packet. We actually did have one more agenda item. It’s here somewhere. Scharfenberg: Were we going to do dog park as part of commission. Stolar: Oh I’m sorry, yes. Dog park. Murphy: You want me to do it? Stolar: Yes please. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. Murphy: Well, basically that meeting was a chance for Carver to get feedback from people that attended the meeting on what amenities they would like to see in the dog park. And what’s important to have in a dog park so that they can come up with a, my opinion is so they can come up with a better estimate or final estimate so they can ask for funding with a little bit more detail. But as far as we know, they still don’t have any additional funding than what they had before, which was nothing as far as I know. Hoffman: Us and Shoreview. 48 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Stolar: Shorewood committed an amount or just committed to participate. Hoffman: Shorewood, excuse me. Stolar: Shorewood committed to participate? Hoffman: Correct. Verbally. Their Park Board Chair that night. Stolar: Okay. Murphy: But neither have approval from a City Council, right? Okay. Stolar: So they have interest from two cities to the level of saying the park boards would commit to make a recommendation to the City Council. Which includes us. Hoffman: Where the funding is falling down is Chaska has said no and Victoria’s going to get one in Carver Park Reserve so Victoria’s not a likely candidate so, and so they’re just letting that issue sit there until they come up with this plan. Commissioner Workman was at the meeting and he was asking about, well how much exactly does this cost. You know is it $100,000? Is it $20,000? What is it exactly and they said let us develop a plan and then we’ll bring that back so. But I have a feeling there’s probably even a lot of room in that plan as to what it’s going to start at. There were questions about access off of Highway 41. So there’s still a lot of unanswered questions but they were firmly committed to moving forward with the concept and they’ll bring it back to their Carver County Park Board in a future meeting. Kelly: How about the Lake Ann idea? Wasn’t there some land that, at our last meeting or two meetings ago at Lake Ann that could be suitable for. Hoffman: The wooded area? Kelly: Yeah. Wasn’t the thought that we would wait until Carver figures out what they want to do before pursuing that or not necessarily? Hoffman: I don’t know if you defined that thought. Murphy: Well we have it firmly, I guess we said not necessarily but we haven’t gone forward with any plans to pursue Lake Ann yet. Stolar: I think what would be helpful for us, although Carver still has a ways to go to finalize what their costs and offerings are, what might be good is to, at a future meeting, either March or April, to bring just kind of the top 3 or 4 options that we have. What are the pros, cons and costs as we know today. So Lake Ann in the wooded area. What’s the pros. What’s the cons. What’s the cost. Carver’s proposal, which we have a fairly good idea what they’re talking about, pros and cons and costs. And then if there are a couple more options that we can think of, one or two. It doesn’t have to be two. I think that might be helpful and then we can at least get a sense to what the City Council asked us to do which was think about other alternatives to paying what 49 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 was it, 20 grand we said that Carver was asking from each of the 5 cities. Or not 20 grand. It was 40 grand total and we said we’d be half the usage, which would probably still make sense as far as proximity, and that would be helpful. Just a few options that we can just go through and it doesn’t even have to be an action item. More of a report to us with the different ideas. Hoffman: Our options are limited but we’ll put them down on paper. The Lake Ann area, it’s space, one drawback is it’s completely wooded. And then the other drawback to Lake Ann is that prime time, which is about 5:00 or 5:30 after work, one of the prime times in a dog park, is the same time that the lots all fill up with ball players. So there is no parking there at all. So you’re going to have a usage conflict at Lake Ann. And even on weekends sometimes. Stolar: And also if we can think of one other location within the city, that might, even if it has pros and cons attached. Hoffman: We’ll put it down. Lake Susan’s one option. There’s some area there to the west of the ballfield. We used to talk about putting dogs on ballfields during the winter. Stolar: Oh yeah, that was a good. Hoffman: That has pros and cons as well. Murphy: Did that come up during that meeting? At the end of the meeting or is that something. Hoffman: Talked to Eden Prairie, Eden Prairie’s putting dogs in the summer on hockey rinks. Dirt hockey rinks. Small dogs. They’re planning to get 4 outdoor hockey rinks for the use for small dog parks. They actually come in and they put a supplemental fence up between the end fences and the boards, and then they let small dogs. I don’t know how they classify them. If they’re 50 pounds or under 40 pounds, use those for dog parks. Stolar: I think, not necessarily has to be a part of the subcommittee’s recommendation. The other question is, can we do smaller areas in neighborhood parks that are just signed off. Not even fenced off. Because I think the whole issue of dogs running loose is that people who don’t want to deal with dogs, don’t want to have to deal with them. Right, if they’re jogging or whatever. If there’s a portion of a park where we could just sign it and say, this is an open dog area. As long as there’s not a running trail going through it and all those sort of things. I don’t know if there is a place like that but that’s another thought. Spizale: I thought…say they need a certain amount of space, which they wouldn’t get in a smaller, neighborhood park. You almost need a bigger area for them to run. The real small ones, you know that smaller space isn’t really going to, all they’re going to do is go to the bathroom in there and not a lot of exercise, I wouldn’t think. Stolar: I think way back when I told you last year around this time I went out to South Carolina. They just used a regular, just there was a circle road and there was a little piece of grass inbetween and from 4:30 to 7:30 at night, that was a dog park and the dog people cleaned it. The 50 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 people who owned the dogs cleaned it all up and it was ready to use the next morning. And it was fairly, I doubt it was a half acre. Murphy: That’s an option. Hoffman: Kind of like the corner of the parking lot at every stop along these routes you know as people get their dogs out of the car. They’re, I think this is one of those things where everybody looks to an example for a boiler plate and that’s not the way these things are going to advance I think across the country because each community’s unique and, people like what they did in Bloomington. People don’t like what they did in Bloomington. It’s a utilities, big chunk of utility, public utilities ground. Well it’s not forever and it’s back, way back in an area that’s not very pleasant to visit to some people and so it doesn’t appeal to some. It appeals to others. Same thing, Eden Prairie. They saw the need. They said their little dog owners just want a place to socialize with other little dog owners as much as the dogs socialize and so they just meet at the hockey fields. Very easy to identify. Where’s the hockey rink in town? You go there and they’ve got 4 of them designated as dog parks. There’s the concept of a dog playground where it’s not a large area. It’s just a small fenced area. Acre, half acre in size and you have almost a dog playground. Not necessarily a dog park. Carver is going to be 15 or 20 acres. Unless you want to close a park in Chanhassen, we don’t have a 15 to 20 acre site currently in our system. Scharfenberg: And these aren’t mutually exclusive necessarily because some of them might be so low cost that you would just do it. Stolar: And still save time to do you know participate in a larger one. Murphy: We could list that as an option and just you know, as you said, we’re listing the drawbacks and the advantages, so the drawback would be that it’s small and it may be a problem for larger dog owners, but may solve part of the problem so, we can include that in our list of options. Hoffman: Presentation was good that night. The person talked about the fact that at least in our overall population in the metropolitan area, there are more households with dogs than households with children and so if you get into older populations especially, they have dogs. They don’t have kids. Scharfenberg: She did a great job. That was very interesting. Hoffman: I watched that presentation 7 years ago in St. Cloud so she’s been doing it a long time and she’s made some advances. She’s very committed to her volunteer organization. Murphy: She’s one of the people that’s willing to come and talk to the City Council too so. Stolar: When is our next joint meeting with the City Council? Do we have one scheduled? Is it in March? 51 Park and Rec Commission – February 22, 2005 Hoffman: I will call on dates. It’s coming right up. I know it’s scheduled on our schedule. I’ll let you know. Stolar: Any other matters or administrative section, we still didn’t get to that. Todd? No. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. None. Spizale moved, Kelly seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 52