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PRC 2005 04 26 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING APRIL 26, 2005 Chairman Stolar called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Glenn Stolar, Jack Spizale, Paula Atkins, Steve Scharfenberg, Ann Murphy, and Kevin Dillon MEMBERS ABSENT: Tom Kelly STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent PUBLIC PRESENT: Joe Witterschein 7150 Harrison Hill Trail Todd Neils 990 Saddlebrook Curve John Holcomb 6352 Briarwood Court Daren Laberee Westwood Professional Services Dan Cook Pemtom Land Company APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Dillon: Can we add the item tonight, the signage, lighting issue with CAA? I don’t know where you want to put that. Stolar: We can put that, it’s been discussed but doesn’t have a formal item. Why don’t we put it under reports but I’m going to reserve the right that we might, since our guests may be interested in that discussion, to pull it early if commission members don’t mind. So it will be officially item I guess 6. We’ll call it signage and field lighting. Signage scoreboard and field lighting. But I’d like to actually talk about it after we do approval of the minutes so that our guests can hear what we said. And it’s related to the item in the administrative packet. Okay, anything else? Hoffman: Item 5(b) would be an addition, Chamber Business Fair. Chanhassen Chamber Business Expo rd for July 3. We’ve got that and 5(c), we have a letter I’d like to read from the Junior Girl Scout Troop 2334. Stolar: Okay. Then did you want to? Murphy: Oh, commission member committee reports, let’s add an item to discuss a meeting for the dog park. Stolar: Okay, anything else? Seeing none, can I have a motion to approve the agenda. Spizale: So moved. Atkins: Second. Spizale moved, Atkins seconded to approve the agenda amended as follows: Commissioner Dillon asked to add item number 6, discussion of the signage, scoreboard and field lighting request from Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 CAA. Todd Hoffman added 5(b), discussion of the Chanhassen Chamber Business Expo for July rd 3 and 5(c), a letter from the Junior Girl Scout Troop 2334. Under commission member committee reports, Commissioner Murphy asked to add an item to discuss a meeting for the dog park. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: th Hoffman: On May 7, Arbor Day in the community so check the paper or other publications and you’re welcome to come on downtown to City Center Park. Enjoy a day working in Arbor Day and picnic lunch that day is an opportunity to help clean up and then there are seedlings for sale as well, so like to invite the public out. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Dillon: I think just minor detail. I mean some of the quotes that are attributed to people I think are wrong so maybe we should just record our voices again for the person that does the transcribing. I mean I think all the detail is there but you know certain things are attributed to, I know in a few cases I was you know, I had a couple things that I don’t think I said but I know that somebody said. Hoffman: That’s Kevin Nann. Stolar: Why don’t we go through. Jack, why don’t you start. Spizale: This is Jack, the complaining one. Dillon: This is Kevin and I’m not complaining. Just being a fair commission member and reading all the stuff. Hoffman: Nann will appreciate that by the way. Murphy: I’m Ann Murphy. Stolar: Glen Stolar. Atkins: Paula Atkins. Scharfenberg: Steve Scharfenberg. Stolar: Thank you Kevin. That’s a good point. Other comments. Okay, seeing none, do we have a motion to approve the minutes. Murphy moved, Scharfenberg seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission dated March 22, 2005, noting that some of the quotes may be attributed to the wrong people, but the substance of the text is correct. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. DISCUSSION OF REQUEST BY THE CAA FOR ADVERTISING SIGNAGE, SCOREBOARD, DUGOUTS AND BALLFIELD LIGHTING. 2 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: Okay, and then again if there is no objection I’d like to pull forward the item number 6 under reports and talk a little bit about the proposal that’s been in discussion with staff and city staff from the Chanhassen Athletic Association. I guess I’d like to start with Todd, if you would just give us a quick update and this is also based on a previous presentation and discussion we’ve had with the Chanhassen Athletic Association. th Hoffman: Thanks Chair Stolar, members of the commission. You have my letter of March 25. Since that time Todd and I, Todd Neils, who’s in the audience this evening, we met. Discussed the first… in their proposal suggested that it wasn’t going to work in that form. To ask if it would work in another format under another proposal and so Mr. Neils went back and sent another rendition of that proposal down to City Hall. There was one thing you missed on that version was, they changed the financing. What the payment would be to the city. The full payment or a good portion of the payment would be coming directly to the city from… Smaller portion coming directly to the city, the rest by the CAA and then CAA’s feeding that money back to the city at a later time. $200 per sign would come directly to the city and collected at City Hall. Today I received an e-mail updating what they would want in return for that, those dollars being collected and that is the installation of scoreboard, dugouts, and additional athletic field lighting with input from the athletic association. So that’s the proposal I have in my office. I need to review that with our city manager, finance director, planning, community development director and have another discussion about that before we would make any, or have another discussion with Mr. Neils so that’s where staff is at with the proposal. Stolar: Okay. Steve, did you want to? Scharfenberg: Maybe Todd, maybe you could address for us exactly what the proposal is that you’ve presented to them because we haven’t necessarily seen the proposal. Stolar: Yes please. Todd Neils: I didn’t come necessarily prepared. Stolar: I’m sorry, would you please introduce yourself. Todd Neils: I’m sorry, Todd Neils. Vice President of the Chanhassen Athletic Association Little League. I didn’t come tonight necessarily prepared to speak on this matter. I would first like to make it public record that I talked to Jerry and want to thank him publicly for the work he did with us this year in field distribution. Secondly I’d like to thank Todd Hoffman for working closely with me on the issue of both signage and grant of money. So I would probably defer until Todd and I have had an opportunity to, or Todd has had an opportunity to discuss it with staff more closely. I do anticipate having the opportunity to present to you in the future, hopefully in May if Todd and I can come to an agreement. But I’m not necessarily prepared to say anything on that matter tonight, but I do appreciate you bringing it up Steve. Thank you. Stolar: Okay, thank you. I think certainly we’ve expressed prior that we’re interested. We want to help out and discuss this. One thing I personally would like to see is whatever comes forward, that there’s also discussion of if it’s relevant of a couple of options, so while we can do it this way, this is what we kind of recommend. There’s also potentially this alternative. If that makes sense. If there are points that you can’t come to exact agreement on. I mean please feel free. I guess what I’m suggesting, and I believe I speak for several of us, feel free to use us as a sounding board even for some of these things. Not the whole thing, right. We don’t want to sit there and debate the whole thing but if there are a couple things that you’d like our input, we’d be happy. 3 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Todd Neils: Thank you. Stolar: And Todd, obviously you know that. Hoffman: Absolutely. Stolar: Any questions on this or comments on this area, specific on this continuation of some discussions started in our February meeting? Hoffman: Are there commissioners comments about, is there anyone that does not like the idea of putting advertising signs on, as you drive into Lake Ann it would be the outfield fence so do you find that offensive? Those are the kind of, you know it’s a change from the present. At present Chanhassen does not have the plywood signs hanging on the outfields. No signage. You see that in many ballparks. Traditional type ballparks so. Stolar: Do you know of other park districts that have gone that way? Hoffman: There’s a few that have done it, yeah. Scharfenberg: All of the ballparks at Mound have signage. Hoffman: I know Lakeview has…we talked about it last time this came up so. Stolar: Todd, if you know a few that you may have done some legwork also. Todd Neils: I do know that we found that most of the surrounding areas, including Glen Lake, Minnetonka and as Steve mentioned, Mound, all have signage. The crux or the discussion that Todd and I are having at this point is not only the appropriateness of signs, but also whether it is a viable solution to the funding of the scoreboards and the grants that we anticipate giving to the city to fund that isn’t in their general budget currently. Hoffman: Correct. Todd Neils: Right. Again, at a future date we hope to address the commission with this matter as to whether they feel signage is appropriate. I do know, and will refer to, at that future meeting, the fact that in 2000 it was in fact passed by the commission while the agreement was never put into place, there is precedence set. Stolar: Sure. And then Chris for example when I was in Eden Prairie they got a Zamboni donated completely covered with advertisement from the person who donated it, and scoreboards all over have the same type of thing as they get scoreboards so, you do see it in places but I didn’t know signage itself. I mean you’re talking in the outfield fences and such. I don’t know if I’ve seen that around the area so. Todd Neils: And again without getting into great detail, the Little League, the Chanhassen Athletic Association Little League is willing to take full responsibility for putting up and taking down all signage, and any damage that is incurred from storms and so on and so forth, and so we are going to take full responsibility for that. Again that will come up in future presentations when Todd and I have had a chance to come to an agreement, thank you. Stolar: Other comments or questions from commission members? 4 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Spizale: Maybe just one. How long a time is it the signs are up? Just during the baseball season basically? Todd Neils: Yeah. We don’t anticipate having them up year round. Obviously the Chanhassen Athletic Association has multiple sports under it’s governing board. That also being soccer, which may in fact use the fields at Lake Ann. We may, for additional funding purposes, make that additional request but at this point we only anticipate having them up from approximately beginning of the season in May to the end of the season for our fall league in late September. Maybe early October. Murphy: I’m sorry, just to clarify that comment you made about the 2000, you said a parks and rec committee approved the signage in 2000, is that correct? Todd Neils: Yes, by a 6 to 1 vote. Murphy: Okay. And it just was never instituted? Todd Neils: It was never instituted, and maybe Todd can shed some light on that. I don’t remember the exact. I think there was a gentleman who was involved that passed away. Hoffman: Frank Scott. He was a former park commissioner, resident of Chan that worked on that proposal and then when Frank died it just didn’t move forward. Administratively there was no one to fulfill the contract. Todd Neils: And now I’m here. Hoffman: For many, many years. Todd Neils: For many, many years to come. Stolar: Okay. Any other questions on that or on the memo understanding that this is iteration 1 that Todd included. Scharfenberg: Todd, have you guys been out soliciting at all, or are you not even that far yet? Todd Neils: We don’t feel it’s necessarily appropriate to solicit businesses in the community quite yet, until we have signage approved because obviously we’d be selling widgets. Scharfenberg: Have you tested the waters though? I mean do you think that the signs would sell out if given the okay to go ahead? Todd Neils: I think conservatively we’ve anticipated being able to sell, at different price points, depending on and we’re in the process of establishing those price points, whether they’d be signage in addition to scoreboards, in addition to uniforms and so on and so forth. I think we can anticipate up to 70 businesses in the community in some way, shape or form participating in fund raising for the Chanhassen Little League so those grants can be made. I think we figured out that all in, if all signs were, or all fields were signed, at least the ones that were appropriate on city property, we’d be able to sell upwards of 105 signs total. Now in aggregate, if we were to quick math, I think that’s approximately $21,000 that’s not currently in the park and rec budget for the scoreboards, dugouts and additional lighting standards on an annual basis. Additionally there would be additional revenue if signage on scoreboards was also approved. 5 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: Todd, from, Todd Hoffman. From a scope perspective, are we just talking Lake Ann here initially in this or is this? Hoffman: Lake Ann and Bandimere. Stolar: And Bandimere, okay. Thank you. Seeing one, thank you for your time. We appreciate it. Todd Hoffman, thank you for your time. Todd Neils, thank you for your time. And one of you get a different nickname so we can clarify that. Alright, with no objection then we’ll move back to the regular agenda and talk about Curry Farms Park. Item 2 under new business. CURRY FARMS PARK, APPROVE MODIFICATIONS TO PARK MASTER PLAN. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, members of the commission. Tonight we’re asking for a modification or a recommendation to the City Council to modify the present Curry Farms Park master plan. Curry Farms Park is an interesting case study in what happens when you build a park on unstable and wet soils. You were there this evening at basically 6:00. Curry Farms Park was developed in 1987, concurrent with the development of the residential neighborhood there. It was definitely a wetland type soils piece of property. Probably snuck in just before some of the more stringent wetland laws were put in place for not being able to do such things and construct a park setting and other public facilities on top of those types of soils. I was here at the time in 1987, just started with the city and was not managing park development at the time so I don’t have the specifics, but if you dig a hole in Curry Farms Park in a couple different areas you’ll just bring up cattails. Old forgotten cattail stumps that are still down underneath the area. That’s definitely the case in the right field of the first base line of the ballfield there. So the parkland has undergone some modifications already. The original park plan or park master plan had a tennis court, I don’t know, Terry want to grab the overhead. Very beautiful park as far as a natural resource area. We were down there tonight and saw the drake mallard and a couple of honkers and a hawk flying around. The parking lot where we parked is here, then we walked this trail system and took a look at the drainage patterns here and then we continued our walk around. So this plan I’ll talk about it but in general there was a tennis court on the original master plan and that was taken out. The playground originally was slated to go more into the open area of the park. You get to the wet soil it was pushed up against the base of the sliding hill. That caused some conflict with the runoff of the sliding hill with that in it’s present location. This trail has been modified. This section of trail was removed. For it’s park configuration, this was always filled with water in this portion of the trail. Where the sand volleyball court did not get a lot of use and therefore it just grew a whole lot of weeks in the sand and that was removed. This basketball court was put down there in place of the tennis courts but the exact location a little bit higher than this location. Ballfield was put in and then the giant sink holes started basically in that location. It’s been filled twice and probably 6 feet, with 6 feet of material over the two times. The first time we shaped it up and…somewhat and that sank. When down to level and then went down again. The second time they were more aggressive. They came in and actually lift some material out, and then piled it up probably higher. 2 or 3 feet and spread it out over that area. Now it’s back down to the level and back down again to probably a foot or so… So we moved the right field line more like this and shifted this over in this location. Then with the proposal for the new playground we started taking a look around at investing $40,000 to $50,000 in new playground equipment and it just, I toured 6 different playground representatives down there and none of them were really excited about putting that investment down in the current location of the playground or somewhere else in that, in those wetter soils. This is about 2 1/2-3 feet higher than this area over here, and you’d have to take the ballfield out, which is one of those trade off’s and that is the proposal that we do take the ballfield out and put the playground on top of it. It’s unfortunate if that is approved, we need to lose a neighborhood ballfield. Currently we no longer put aggregate ballfields and back stops in the newer park plans. They just don’t work that well for long term maintenance plan and so in our newer parks, newer neighborhood parks they don’t go in in the first place. But parks like Curry Farms, Carver Beach, Rice Marsh Lake, they have been. In the old days of 6 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Chanhassen we would actually schedule games at those parks, Rice Marsh would host a lot of games. Carver Beach host a lot of games, but with the advent of Bandimere and Lake Ann and the Rec Center, we told those neighborhoods, we took a lot of complaints over the years. We said when we get these other larger community parks, we’ll take the games out of those sites. That does not mean that there’s coaches that use this. There are people that are aware of it and they use it for practicing and it’s well used for that. In fact I had a conversation with one of the neighbors up over here and using the park this spring for his softball, and there’s other people that use it for soccer practice as well. …when we met with the neighborhood. We met with them twice. Actually three times. The first night we talked about the new playground and we met at one residence in the neighborhood. The second time we met again and we started talking more specifically about moving the playground onto the ballfield. Then when we met on site last Thursday night, the consensus was that they’d like, if we do do that, they’d like to move it right on top of the aggregate this way so actually you would leave more of an open area here for soccer or ball play, so you’d have a little larger green space in that location. So we met with the neighbors again last Thursday and they were in favor of doing that. Taking out the ballfield. Moving the playground. Moving the playground to a higher location is advantageous for a number of reasons. Primarily you have a dry location for the activity. Frost heave is minimized on the tubes of the playground, and then the woodchip or engineered wood fiber material is not saturated and you saturate that material with that wicking from those wet soils in those lower areas, you’re going to see a lot faster breakdown of that particular material. So the action desired is that we would like the commission to consider a recommendation to the City Council to amend the park plan for Curry Farms Park to relocate the playground onto the ballfield and eliminate the ballfield from the park site. And as a part of that, redevelopment of the master plan, we do clean up the other things that have changed in the park as well. Stolar: Thank you. I guess I’d like to first see if there are any commission questions. Also, is there anyone from the audience interested in this particular topic and wanting to make comments? No. Okay. Ann, any questions? Murphy: No questions. Stolar: Kevin. Dillon: There aren’t any Little Leagues or anything that play at that field? Hoffman: Not as games, no. Dillon: There are no, just sand lot games? Hoffman: Practices and yep, sand lot neighborhood games. Dillon: You know in your discussion with the neighbors did they talk about much, many games being played at that field, because I lived there. We never really used it that much for that because it was there. Kind of unutilizable with all the water there so. Hoffman: Yeah, on occasion but yeah the right field, in the wet season, the rainy season right field is a pond and…but they are using it for practice. It’s not to say if they take it off you can’t still play a ballgame down there. You just have to play it on grass. Stolar: Jack? Steve? Scharfenberg: Is there any concern Todd with respect to moving the playground over there with sinkage or that, any problem with that and moving it over there? 7 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Hoffman: That area’s been, has been stable since ’87 so we’ve not seen any problems there at that location. We’ll do some soil investigation when we open the site up and if we find something we don’t like we may modify those slightly, but so far it’s held fast right there. It’s just out to that right field line where it really takes that dive. Scharfenberg: Would they do anything with drainage tile or anything from the playground area? Hoffman: Yeah, we would drain tile the playground area, just minimal benefit to drain tiling in that area because it all sits so low. There’s really nowhere to get the drain tile to. But they would drain tile that and, because it does sit up that much higher and get it over to those ponds that are on the fringe. Stolar: Paula. Atkins: Does it, I couldn’t, I can’t remember if you said that the trails would be re-routed a little bit or would they stay the same? Hoffman: The trails were re-routed once. There is a proposal from our Water Resource Coordinator to improve water quality in this drainageway which starts actually to the west and north of here, and then ends up in Christmas Lake. As a part of that, she is considering making this into a water quality pond. And my comments to her, it’s Lori Haak. To Lori is that I would like just as soon prefer to keep this trail here so when…into that pond and then pipe it back underneath the trail, if she would ever consider that. But if this does go in, they might actually…enlarge the whole pond and then you would have to take that section of trail out. Even if you make this one big pond, and then you would have to start to re-route the trail around that pond. There’s always changes. In a site like this that’s ever changing, or changing circumstances and conditions, and there’s always proposals to take those, what’s occurring down there and if we cannot mow this area that is sinking, it will turn into cattails in 2 or 3 years. Atkins: And you would let that happen? That would be good. Hoffman: Sure, yeah. From some people’s perspective. Some folks might not consider it good. Stolar: I just have a question then, given that that may eventually turn into a swamp, a pond, marsh, whatever, are we a fair distance away from that for the playground? Because little kids playing on the playground, is there any barrier that needs to be put between those? Hoffman: Yeah we would want to keep it, well there’s no barrier. Chanhassen Hills has got, many of our parks have storm water ponds. There’s no barrier. We’re going to want it to, we’re going to want to keep the playground shifted this way, away from the sink hole. Stolar: Right. For both the stability reason that Steve brought up as well as the safety. Hoffman: Correct. Stolar: Okay. And then the time tables, they’re getting, I can’t remember what their schedule, we’ll talk about that later. Hoffman: Their equipment’s going in in June. Stolar: Right, they’re the early one. And then we figure we would have the, part of the advantage of doing this is opening up the sledding hill. 8 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Hoffman: Correct. Stolar: And that other playground will be able to be removed by that time. This year. It would be intended to be removed this year. Hoffman: Absolutely. As soon as we open the other one up, we’ll remove the old one. They are, Curry thth Farms is the first installation taking place on June 18 and 19 I believe is the dates. Stolar: The only thing being, I know the summer gets very difficult to do some of these projects and they might have to wait til the fall to pull it out. But that’s one of the ones we want to get down quickly. Hoffman: Correct. We’ll get down. Stolar: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Do I have a motion on the recommendation in front of us? Murphy: Motion to approve the modifications to the master plan. Dillon: Second. Stolar: Okay, moved by Ann, seconded by Kevin. Any further discussion? Murphy moved, Dillon seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council modify the Curry Farms Park master plan to reflect the following changes: 1. Relocate the new playground to high ground near third base. 2. Eliminate the ballfield, remove aggregate infield and backstop. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. DEVELOPMENT PLAN REVIEW, LAKE HARRISON, PEMTOM LAND COMPANY. Hoffman: Chair Stolar, members of the commission. We were out here touring this evening. A couple representatives from Pemtom Land Company this evening. This property is the Jerome Carlson property located north of Highway 5 on Galpin Boulevard and then it’s got some frontage or proposed frontage on Lake Lucy Road to the north in this location as well. Very unique property and…trails as a part of the development and then the park and water treatment area that you visited or proposed area for that tonight. The Planning Commission reviewed this what, a week ago? Week and a half ago and received recommendation to forward it to the City Council. Our timing is a little different. Many times we review it prior to the Planning Commission but in this case we did not have that luxury so we’re after the Planning Commission this time around. If you take a look at the property, present located… This is the proposal for the development. Includes a cul-de-sac from Highover. Cul-de-sac off of Lake Lucy Road and then another street heading back over to Galpin. This is the area that we toured this evening when we visited the park right down in this location. So the housing development out of the west. Water treatment plant and potential park proposal on the east, and then sidewalk and trail system coming on through. Dan, one thing I noticed, did they talk about the connection here for trails? Dan Cook: One lot north from there. There…Lake Lucy and then connect. Hoffman: Okay, so that’s included. 9 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Dan Cook: Yeah. Hoffman: We go out here to Lake Lucy and then down, then back in. So the trail system is in place currently on Lake Lucy Road. The comprehensive trail system is in place. Galpin Boulevard is that location, then you have this internal trail system which is being proposed as a part of the plan. So that, all things work out fairly nicely. The park topic came up early on in the discussion when the property to the north, the Mancino property developed. Yoberry was developed. We have some neighborhood parks in this area, but they’re on the fringe of what we call our park service area. Our comprehensive plan for parks in Chanhassen states that we should have a park, a neighborhood park within a half mile of everyone’s front door. And that is based on the fact that we want a quality of life where everybody can leave their front door if they like. Take a trail system or residential street and get to a neighborhood park within a reasonable time and distance. If you take a look at what we have today with Pheasant Hills being just south and east of here, either the regional park if you want to consider that, or the Minnetonka Middle School to the northwest, and then down to the south off of Galpin you visited this evening was Sugarbush Park. If you draw arrows towards this property, this is kind of the bulls eye of the half mile where you start running out of that, what we call a service area. So if you were to not put a park in this location, let these folks develop their homes and build their homes, they would all have to go into one direction or another for half a mile, half a mile or more to get to a park and so that’s one reason that we proposed the site. Originally I was not looking at this location. I was trying to work out, I was thinking of something off of Lake Harrison where you utilize Lake Harrison and a nice open space and then put something up on the shores of Lake Harrison to take advantage of that. The engineer was talking about, engineer and public works, the utilities talking about this water treatment plant. We have one currently underway in downtown Chanhassen. They needed one out west. They identified this location primarily for the reason of it’s convenience to all the different piping systems and where the wells are located. You have to pipe the water there. Get it treated and then pipe it back out into the distribution system. Well we couldn’t take the utility site and a park out of a very difficult site to develop and still leave the applicant with anything to develop and so talking around city hall we said, let’s try to make both those public uses happen in one location, out here in this piece of property so let’s consider a park, a neighborhood park. Let’s consider a water treatment plant at this location. The water treatment plant, this is just a schematic that’s being used. So you look at this property. Originally I anticipated, there’s two knolls. Very beautiful overlook. One at this location and one down a little lower. I think most people thought that this would be a little farther forward but this is just the first plan so it does start to shrink the area for any proposed park amenities. The City also needs to bring a cul-de-sac, extension of Manchester. Right now it’s just a little temporary and the vehicles plowing snow and the other public works vehicles do not have a very effective turn around in that location so you need a public cul-de-sac to allow for turn around. And then this street, there was a question of whether or not it would have to go in as a part of this development. It would not have to be there if you took all the traffic out onto Lake Lucy. Under the current proposal it is in place so it starts to take away some of the potential parkland. So you’re squeezing now what you had originally for open space in this location. But it still doesn’t work for some type of a neighborhood amenity. For a playground. Possibly a gazebo or an overlook. Some trail systems, and then if we get some positive response from the park commission, we’ll send a recommendation to the council to continue looking at this site for a park, then we’ll start working with a park planning firm, most likely Brauer and Associates. Have preliminary discussion with them. They would team up with SEH who is working on the water treatment and start to try to get creative with this site to see how best you can fit those two public facilities. Obviously people will use the water treatment plant beginning with they turn on the water faucet but when they come to this particular location they would like to have the best neighborhood park that they could have so you’d want to make that best of both those two public uses on the property. And then there would be a trail system. The new residence, they’d want to come down and then probably work their way up this hillside onto a trail system onto this site and then probably back down the other way. Those walking trails that go through natural areas, our neighborhood parks are very popular in that community. People enjoy that. They might not even stop at 10 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 the park but they’d take that neighborhood walk in the evening after coming home where they could walk down, loop back through and then loop back up in their neighborhood. So I don’t have a park plan or proposed park plan to show you but what we’d like to talk tonight, and I’d like to give the applicant…a chance to talk about their development. Introduce them to the commission and to the other people in the audience. Allow some time for your input and the other people in the audience, and then have a discussion with the commission. Stolar: Okay, thank you. If commission members don’t object, should we have our guests from Pemtom talk first? Spizale: Yeah. Stolar: Okay. Would you like to say a few words? Daren Laberee: Good evening. My name’s Daren Laberee. I work for Westwood Professional Services. Representing Pemtom tonight. I was the planner and landscape architect for the project so I guess while I was just up here, I’ll give you a quick overview of kind of how we got to this area. Our original plan that we are showing here that was for the water treatment plant park, we were showing residential lots off, coming off Manchester. Then we were approached by the city a couple times. First time, we want you to identify a park and it was like Todd said, we started feeling like we were eating up land left and right on us but we did set this land here off to the side for a future park development if that’s what you guys vote on tonight. And then…road at Galpin and that was one of our initial plans…show the road going out to Galpin. We wanted to have simply a trail that could be fire rated for fire, life safety access onto the road that comes onto Lake Lucy but there was a lot of concern with the neighbors off of Lake Lucy Road. Lake Lucy Road is a collector road. In this portion of the city though the driveways are right on it and there was a lot of complaints and concerns from the citizens along that part of Lake Lucy which is why we had to kind of go back to one of our older plans and put that access onto Galpin so. If there are any questions at all. Stolar: Any questions? No? Okay, thank you. So Todd, what you’re looking for is basically confirmation of a park as part of this plan and then going forward with a design in conjunction with a water treatment plant and that’s the action you’d like the commission to take. Hoffman: Correct. Stolar: Okay. Any discussion on that item? We did have a site visit today. Or questions about the site. Paula. Atkins: I was just wondering, you mentioned, you were looking at Lake Harrison for a potential site for a park initially. Was that not, did not work out or? Hoffman: Oh, it would have been a great site but then you’ve taken a bunch of lots out of the development for that and then all of these lots out of the development for the water treatment plant, it’s just prohibitive on the plat. On the design. Stolar: Where would that be on the map? Hoffman: Lake Harrison is right down the center. If we were the only dog barking up this tree to put something public in this site, if the water treatment plant was not a part of it, we may have accomplished that but with, and they could put their houses over here, but with Paul asking for land and park asking for land, Paul Oehme, the City Engineer, it became necessary to compromise on one site. 11 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: And the water treatment plant has to be in that location right? Hoffman: It’s preferred. Preferred location. It doesn’t have to be. Stolar: Okay. Ann? Kevin? Dillon: I’ve got maybe a couple comments. I think if we did do this, it’d be nice to blend the water treatment plant with the park so they’re kind of molded together, complimented each other. I’ve got another question too concerning that, does that type of facility make any noise? I mean is it a pretty quiet operation? I mean it’s basically you don’t hear it. Hoffman: Don’t hear it. Dillon: So you could actually build the park very close to it or put it right next to it if you wanted to, right? Hoffman: You could, yeah. All the national security issues, there’s some security issues based on your water treatment, access to the building. How close you put other uses to it so we would need to work through that as a part of the design element so there’s also some graffiti and loitering issues that would be, need to be addressed. When you put park activities right directly adjacent to a utilities building, that can lead to some of those issues so all those would have to be drawn up. Considered and then whatever the most positive design would be. Dillon: Yeah, I thought it was a beautiful site. Stolar: Anything else? Steve? And then just to confirm the discussion that you see that there is a trail connection so that the other development areas we’ve talked about, all would have direct trail access or street access to this park? Hoffman: That would be correct. Stolar: Or do they follow a trail like Yoberry Farms? Okay. And then the one thing I noticed out of the tour we had as you mentioned is it’s a really pretty area to the extent we can keep that elevation and keep it unfettered so they can, people in the park can enjoy as much of that view as possible, that’d be great. From the design, and I know that’s your intention. And if there’s any way to move the plant back a little bit so that we can have a little bit more space there, that’d be great. Okay, do I have a motion to support staff’s. Hoffman: There’s people in the audience that may want to speak. Stolar: I’m sorry. Is there anybody else? Yes, I’m sorry. John Holcum: Well I happen to be in the house. Stolar: Could you state your name and address. John Holcum: Sorry Mr. Stolar. My name is John Holcum. I am at the end of the cul-de-sac on Briarwood Court and I’d like to support a motion, or not a motion, but a mention you just made a few seconds ago which was to you know, look at the water treatment plant and keep it as far to the southeast as possible. To open up that space. And it was interesting, I was going to come out there and meet you 12 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 guys tonight because you were practically standing in my back yard looking at the site so you know one of the things as you talk about is the beautiful vistas out there and for the park, I just want to make sure that when you put the site plan together that for myself and our neighbors, the beautiful vista isn’t a bunch of you know as you mentioned graffiti and all those other things, so I just want to make sure that when you’re looking at the whole plan itself, it’s not only neutral to you know certainly the new neighbors going in, but making sure that we mitigate any potential impacts you’re going to have to the residents that are already there because selfishly we were there first. But also understand the need for the park system and those type of things that from a city’s level that you want to make sure we provide to the residents. So that’s my comment. Thank you. Stolar: What are your thoughts about a park being there in general? John Holcum: Well you know I am on the trail system a lot, both to the Pleasant Hills, both to the school system, Sugarbush, to Ashling Meadows and…so seriously, we use all the parks in the neighborhood so I think when you look at your goal of having a neighborhood park in every half mile, I think you might want to consider the neighborhoods that have parks as part of their own communities. And sort of factor that into the equation and say if you take Ashling Meadows out, if you take Longacres out, you know is there a need to have a park. So I mean I’m not in the park commission’s shoes and certainly you know better than I on where people go and those types of things, but you know as far as, and I look at it as parking. How much parking do you need to support a park, if you’ve ever been by Sugarbush midday, early day, late afternoon, Saturday morning, there’s max 1 to 2 cars ever there because it’s most of the people riding bikes and myself pulling 2 kids behind me and those types of things so, keep as much green space as possible if you’re going to have a park. At least make it worth having a park there. You know for the residents to use. Okay, thanks. Stolar: Okay, thank you for the input. Any other audience comment? Spizale: Can I just ask, Todd what is the street here? Hoffman: That’s Highover Trail I believe. Stolar: Okay. Do we have a motion for staff, or direction for staff? Dillon: The motion that we support the staff’s recommendation on the Pemtom development park. Stolar: Thank you and a second? Spizale: Second. Stolar: Moved by Kevin, seconded by Jack. Hoffman: Just a clarification to make sure we understand what that. I didn’t have a specific recommendation so we should make sure we list. Stolar: The motion is to support staff working with the park designers as well as the water treatment facility designers to come up with a design for a park/water treatment combination in the Lake Harrison, Pemtom Land Company development plan. And some of the points that have been brought up were, Jack had mentioned a couple related to trying to make them blend together. I’m sorry, I forgot your name. John Holcum: John. 13 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: John, our guest had made mention to try and keep as much of the natural vista for the current residents to the, I believe that’s north there, correct? I think their only other comments, I talked about the elevation. Making sure we try and keep the beautiful scenery as part of the park and then if we can work to try and move the water plan a little bit closer to the road, that would be better. Does that sum it up correctly? Okay. Dillon moved, Spizale seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends to support staff working with the park designers as well as the water treatment facility designers to come up with a design for a park/water treatment combination in the Lake Harrison, Pemtom Land Company development plan taking into consideration blending the two facilities together, and moving the water treatment plant as close to the road as possible to keep the natural vistas for the existing neighbors. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. Stolar: Motion carries unanimously and then Todd I guess we’ll just wait until we get the plan. Hoffman: You’ll see it again probably in June. Stolar: Great, thank you. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: EASTER EGG CANDY HUNT EVALUATION. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Stolar, and the rest of the commission. The Easter Egg Candy Hunt was th held on Saturday, March 26 out at the recreation center. It was a wet area but we made due with what we had being a little earlier in the spring. We did roughly about 700 to 800 kids and parents that participated in that event. The Splatter Sisters did another wonderful job again this year with the entertainment and we have some volunteers again from the Key Club. That was very helpful. They’re very appreciative of the Park and Rec Commission recognizing them at our meeting. And then it really does work out great having it at the rec center. We can get in there and set up a little earlier on Friday and it is a great host site for an event. In looking at recommendations again, we have gotten to taken to task a little bit in the past. We haven’t done this recently but listing the times for that by age category on the flyers. It seems like a percentage of the population that does attend the event just comes for the candy and nothing else so once things get moving out there, it’s hard to wait the extra 5 to 10 minutes for the next age group. We just keep on rolling so that’s why we don’t really list times anymore. Just, it’s right after the performance. Everybody’s going to get their, we’ve staged people at different areas by age groups. That seems to work out very good. It’s very efficient. We get people in and out of there in about 15 minutes so it works out pretty good. And everybody, a good time was had by all. I didn’t see any bags that were going away very empty so I think the kids appreciate that. Probably not the parents but little background, just on the back side of the flyer is some expenses related to the event but again I want to thank all the park and rec commissioners that were there to witness the event. It’s always a great, great event. Scharfenberg: No tears? Ruegemer: No tears. That’s important. Stolar: Just one quick question I have. We charge an admission for Halloween, correct? Is there a reason we don’t for this? 14 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Ruegemer: Just following really history. There’s really no reason why we can’t. If the commission would like to make that recommendation, we can implement that for future years. Stolar: I don’t think I’m ready at this time. I’d like to hear, you know think about it, but I just, it just dawned on me that there was a difference there, because I remember the Halloween one we had our income and then we had our expense. Now wait a minute, there’s no charge for this one. We can also recommend the reverse. No charge for Halloween, but then we’d have too many people there if we did that. It gets pretty crowded as it is. Hoffman: We’ve increased the Halloween over the years as well. It’s what, 4 bucks now? Stolar: 4 bucks, yeah. I mean this would break even, just assuming even a 10% drop in attendance. But I see this as 800 parents and kids. I don’t know how many, we’d only charge again for the kids, correct? Hoffman: 400. Stolar: 400 so. Other questions or comments? Spizale: I guess I’ve got one, just this Key Club really seems to be such a great help. How do we recognize them after an event like this? Do we send then like a thank you letter? Ruegemer: Corey has, certainly Corey has followed up with their advisor and thanking them for the event. We did recognize them publicly in January and presented them with a Certificate but yeah, Corey does follow up with that and thank them. Normally lets the advisor know what students were there, because they’re getting credit for that, and students that were there in case she’s keeping track of that but it does work out pretty good for us. Spizale: Yeah. Every time I’ve seen them I’ve been impressed. Maybe if you could include us in the thank you because yeah, they do a great job. Stolar: I assume next year we’ll recognize them again if they continue to keep volunteering the way they have. Atkins: I only had one comment about charging for Halloween. It seems like there’s a little bit more entertainment value at Halloween with the Haunted House and seeing us all dressed in costumes. Stolar: Seeing me as the bunny last year was worth $4. Atkins: No I mean if we have someone dressed as the Easter Bunny, that might be worth 4 bucks. Stolar: I think that’s a good point that there is a difference in the Halloween. Both entertainment and the haunted house. Any other? Okay. Next one. TH 2005 4 OF JULY CELEBRATION. Ruegemer: Rapidly approaching. Corey’s been busy securing and getting all the food vendors and that th secured here for the upcoming event. As of April 14 he did have 6 food vendors lined up already from previous years. I know that number has increased already up to this point. He’s been working hard to get all the event details put together for that. And you kind of see the items of food that will probably be included again this year so you know we’ll be working on all the kind of the physical arrangements, the layout again. The space is kind of what it is and we’re somewhat limited in some ways to do that but it 15 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 does seem to add, we seem to add a little bit every year to the event. Again the parade is going to be th going again on the 4 of July, and that will be hosted by the Chanhassen Rotary this year. They’ve helped out in previous years but now they’re really the sole sponsor of the event together giving the Taste th of Chanhassen down on the 4 itself, down on the plaza, or the commons area here at City Center Park. I believe an antique car show again for that amongst other things. One exciting thing that is going to be happening this year for the fireworks is that will all be simulcast to music this year out at Lake Ann Park. Chanhassen was selected as a city with a larger special events budget for the fireworks to play host to this by St. Croix Events and they’re going to be stringing speakers and 3,000 feet of cable throughout Lake Ann Park, and all of that will be choreographed to music. So that will be a new event. They say it roughly adds about $25,000 to our show and they’ll work with Melrose Pyrotechnics, our vendor to kind of tweak our show a little bit and they kind of work together. They have worked together quite a bit in the past and that certainly will be a benefit to us as well, so that’s new and exciting. We did meet with the folks from St. Croix Events. They’re very, very intrigued with our site and that looks like that’s going to be a relationship for many years to come. They don’t just come in for a year and pop in and pop out so they’re backed really by a lot of big corporate sponsors. Coca-Cola, Kodak, Cub Foods to name a few. So that will be an exciting addition to our program here so stay tuned for that. That will be a great thing for us. Stolar: And that’s on Monday night, correct? th Ruegemer: The 4, yes. Monday. Hoffman: As will the melodrama of Chanhassen following the parade. Dillon: Meaning? Hoffman: The play. Paula can tell us. What’s the melodrama going to be Paula? Atkins: It’s called Love Rides the Rounds, or Will the Mail Train Run Tonight and it’s a melodrama that we’ll work with and make it personalized for every community that we perform it at. We’re opening here because this the first city celebration and then we’re taking it to Norwood-Young America and Waconia County Fair in Waconia so, will be lots of fun. Scharfenberg: Where are you going to perform it here? Atkins: I think probably where the Casablanca Orchestra performs the night before. Under the tent. th Dillon: So what, are you going to be needing help from us at the 4 of July thing? …We’re going to be here just so I can kind of get it on the calendar so like when. rd Ruegemer: Yep, July 3 I would put it on the calendar for sure. Help out with the business expo and also the raffle, prize board area. Those sort of things so. Hoffman: Kevin, if we’ve got you for 2 days, we’ll send a schedule. Dillon: I can give you, I’ll just give. That’s what I do. Hoffman: It’s not really work. 16 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 2005 MIRACLES OF MITCH TRIATHLON. Ruegemer: Thank you again Chair Stolar. Just wanted to kind of update everybody, just to kind of keep everybody in the loop as to kind of what’s happening. The Park and Rec Commission did take a look at this I believe last October and approved the change of day of the event from Sunday to Saturday. That isn’t going to pose really any great threat to the other park users of Lake Ann Park during that time. The th event again will be held on Saturday, August 20 from 9:00 a.m. to roughly 1:00. It may not be that long but it’s going to be kind of a worst case scenario time of the event. Last year’s first race did host about 300 kids and participants within that triathlon. This year Tony’s goal, Tony Schiller, Race Coordinator is 800 and we’ll see. It seems aggressive but Tony is out there kind of working the pavement on behalf of the race to try to increase the participation. Again the event will include swimming, biking and running. To kind of give you a kind of a chronological order of the events. The swimming will take place obviously down in the beach area. Depending on what age group you are, either do a single or a double kind of lap within the buoyed off area that’s designated as our swimming beach. You will then run from that area to the bike staging area, which is kind of the parking lot by the boat landing where we kind of th stage all the equipment. The fire equipment for the 4 of July celebration. For the fireworks. That will be the staging area for the bikes. They will then hop on the bikes, head out of the park to the south. Get th to West 78 Street. Head west. Make a big loop, come back…the boat landing area, kind of by our rental dock. So finish up on that trail. That’s kind of the brief kind of overview of the course itself. We did meet, the City, Carver County and the race committee members, we did meet with them oh probably about 2 weeks ago now. Kind of go through logistics of the park again to make sure everybody’s kind of working, they’re certainly going to be working on having a, kind of a parking lot coordinator this year again to kind of make sure that the inner traffic flows properly with the event itself. Tony Schiller is going to be working with Eckankar to try to secure parking. Their parking lot to kind of stage cars in that area and he’s going to try to see if they can walk them through the Eckankar property. Connect into Lake Ann Park and kind of go that way as well, so he’s working on behalf of the race committee with that but just to let the park and rec commission know kind of some of the, obviously the park and rec commission already approved the date. This is more kind of information for the commission that staff will be working on on behalf of the commission, working with the race people, you know securing a safe course throughout the park itself. If there’s any of those kind of details as far as you know Gopher One calls are going to be putting up any tents and that sort of thing. We certainly need to secure that to provide a safe area so they’re not pounding stakes into utility areas and that sort of thing here so it’s all kind of stated on here. The race committee again will, as they have in the past, will secure all the additional bathrooms and restroom facilities that they need. We’re going to be working again with a private refuse or garbage hauler to provide either carts on wheels. That’s usually, that’s what they did last year. That seemed to work out good so they can kind of move it within the park itself. Kind of what the city will provide again is you know support in the fact that, you know helping insure that they have a successful event. Will sweep the course area, parking lots and that sort of thing. Make sure the park is in good shape so to speak with that. We’ll work on really on any way that we can to providing kind of a safe and picturesque park the day of. We are not a sponsor of the event per se, or lead sponsor. We’re just basically offering support in a minimal way just to make sure that, I think the race committee, the Miracles of Mitch Foundation really wants to be the lead on this so really they’re essentially using the park for the morning and they’ll leave it in as good of shape as they found it so we may tweak a few things as far as not painting with fluorescent paints on our park trail system and working on some other of those kind of minor details. Just make sure the park isn’t looking at paint for the next 6 months so. The race committee seemed very receptive to that and they’ve been very easy to work with again. We’ve asked the race committee if they’re interested in using lifeguards, that they contact Minnetonka Education Community Services right away. Last year they did use kind of a combination of people, through Foss Swimming School. They used the Minnetonka High School football team to kind of create a human chain out in the water itself to make sure the kids aren’t getting too deep and to assist in any way they can, so I think that’s kind of the approach that they’re going to be taking again, and I’ll certainly work with 17 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Minnetonka just to make sure that everybody is on the same page that day so you don’t have any mix up or miscommunications on that so. They again will provide their Certificate of Insurance to the City and Carver County and Minnetonka Public Schools to make sure that everybody’s interest are covered with that so, just wanted to bring in to your light tonight just to kind of make sure that you kind of know as to really up to this point here’s kind of what’s been happening. There is activity that and planning that has been going on with the event and it will be a great event again. There’s going to be great exposure. I believe Governor Pawlenty has been invited again to participate with this event. There’s also a lot of news coverage out here so it’s really a nice way that we can showcase our jewel of a park as well, and I think at some point in time this event probably will outgrow this venue and we’ll need to look for additional venues but in the meantime we’re here to provide a nice area for the event. Stolar: Thank you. Any questions? Alright, thanks. 2005 DATE HUFFMAN MEMORIAL 5K RUN. Ruegemer: Again just wanted to bring the commission on it’s feet again. We talked a lot about water treatment facilities tonight and as far as the new and future water treatment facilities, wanted to update the commission with the new east water treatment facility going in this coming year. That is making it necessary to change the route for the Huffman race. The pedestrian bridge is going to be closed as part of that project so I met with a few race committee members, probably January-February of this year and we had kind of listed about 6 possible routes and really kind of looked at this route as kind of being the one that we selected as part of that process. And we are abandoning the start and finish at two different places. We’re going to start and finish at one location, at this park to give kind of an overview to the commission tonight. Here’s City Center Park, right here and kind of my starting point was the stop sign right behind us up here on Market and right off, basically where our parking lot right here. I kind of thought that might be the best area to stage 300-400 people. Flat. Relatively flat open space to give people time to kind of thin out before they make the corner. This whole area right here is 2.9 miles, which is a little short of what we need for 3.1 for the 5K, so what I’m going to do, what I’m proposing to do is we’re probably going to be starting a little bit further to the north, up in City Center Park itself. Possibly up by the tennis courts or that configuration up on the north end of the property, and then probably working our way, kind of meandering way down through the park itself and then ending up, and then kind of coming down on this kind of black line or that trail. And then we’ll probably end down near possibly by the skating rink in the winter time so we can make up 2/10 of a mile in that area so we really wanted to kind of start and end at the same location so we can eliminate busing costs. We still can showcase City Center Park and we can, our focus really was to simplify it a little bit. Kind of keep it downtown so we still can involve the Chamber, but I wanted to go, this particular route right here. Start early so then we’re not closing down main street, affecting businesses for a long period of time possibly as what we have in the past. You know if you start the race at 9:00, sometimes they wouldn’t be getting through for you know a half hour, 45 minutes and displacing people going to the bank or getting their hair cuts or that sort of thing so proposing this to start up in this area and work, kind of go east first and up north versus coming, kind of starting on this side and working north right away. I wanted to minimize as much inconvenience on main street as we possibly could so we’ll get through that area relatively quick. Probably in less than 10-15 minutes everybody should be through town. Then we can open all that back th up again so basically starting City Center Park. Working down West 78 Street. Going past Paula’s house and then we added the, kind of that easterly line right here to add a little bit more distance to, originally we were going down Frontier Trail all the way but we added this whole, little spot right in here to add a little bit. That added about 2/10 of a mile right there so, and then we’re going to head down Frontier Trail all the way, and there really is a nice area right by the lake. The halfway point is the Lotus Lake kind of homeowners beachlot, so maybe we can use that particular area for a water stop. Then we’ll be connecting then to Big Horn Drive. Take that out to Kerber Boulevard. Then we’ve got a real nice hill right here going up, right at the end here so that’s going to separate the men from the boys so to speak so, 18 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 but it really is a nice course. Then we’ll be coming down Kerber Boulevard, re-entering the park up on the north end of the park again and then we’ll be coming down and probably ending up right down in that area where the skating rink is roughly. We’re going to have to get this course re-certified for our race director and that will probably happen sometime in the next month, month and a half for that but it will be a certified course again. What we’re going to be doing within the neighborhoods certainly is notifying all the properties that are affected by this race. In that area. It’s not our intention to close down any roads. It’s similar to what we’ve done in the past going through the south neighborhoods. We will notify the areas and the property owners in those areas just basically stating that the race will be coming through that area. Just to please be careful. Look for runners and it will all be over with in an hour, or less. Stolar: Unless I run. Ruegemer: But we really look at this as really hopefully an area that will, the neighborhoods will embrace. It really is a nice course. It’s beautiful, especially that time of year. Maybe it might be a little bit too early for the leaves to be coloring but you can really see parts of the lake as you’re running through this area. It’s distracting for runners who are having pain going through that because it really does kind of meander through that neighborhood area. You never know what’s coming up behind the next curve. It’s not that long, 3 mile straight away like maybe some of the other routes that we were considering in other parts of the city so it really is a nice, kind of picturesque course and I think it’s going to work out pretty good for us. So I wanted to bring the commission up to speed tonight as to kind of what we’re thinking as a race committee and just kind of give you the heads up on the new course. Stolar: Okay, thanks. Any questions? Murphy: Would Kerber be closed down that day? Ruegemer: No, I think we’re going to be running, it’s my intention right now to run on the trail. On the east side of Kerber Boulevard, right along Chan Pond Park. Use the sidewalk and the trail system. Dillon: That’s a pretty wide trail. It should be pretty thinned out by that time. Ruegemer: That was my thought. Stolar: Especially as people start dropping off on that hill. Shovel them off to the side. Atkins: You can take a short cut through Kerber Pond Park. Stolar: Actually you know that’s how you could add some distance to this. Just have them circle the pond. Ruegemer: Good idea. You know I did try different variations of this and there really wasn’t really, there wasn’t any other place really to make that time, or make up distance other than City Center Park. So we’ll have to kind of work it that way, but it will work. Stolar: Thanks. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS: NEIGHBORHOOD PARK PLAYGROUND SELECTIONS. 19 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Hoffman: I have the boards from the neighborhoods. We met 4 individual meetings. Looked at 6 proposals at each evening. 5 in one case and 1…didn’t want to bring the plan in. And in all 4 independent selections the neighborhoods picked the same playground provider. It’s Midwest Playscapes. So for example we have the Curry Farms Park playground, so they were looking at 6 different ones each time around. Nobody knew who the other one picked and they all picked the same manufacturer and the same playground provider. Those are not the colors that are going to go there. Everything else is just as you would see it. North Lotus, this is the colors. This is the $45,000 playground. The neighbors are very excited about it. All of these are scheduled for installations, 2 in June and 2 in July for neighborhood installs. Chanhassen Hills was a playground, the site where we had the opportunity to do both a 5 to 12 and then a 2 through 5 or a toddler, so they separated 5 to 12 and 2 to 5. We have 2 separate structures. One on one side of the trail, one on the other side of the trail. Scharfenberg: Where’s Chanhassen Hills again? Hoffman: South of Highway 5, down south of Lake Susan. It’s the neighborhood right just south of Lake Susan there. Chanhassen Hills Park. Fourth one is Rice Marsh Lake, it’s located behind McDonald’s down in the Rice Marsh Lake neighborhood. Very nice playground. And then there’s the top down views, the schematic views of one of the playgrounds as well. So Mike Forest is our representative. He’s a local resident and very happy obviously. The other 5 were not but they just didn’t come to the table with enough equipment. Generally why Midwest Playscapes was selected is because they put on the plan everything that the neighbors asked for. They had meetings before the RFP that the neighborhoods came up with a list for preferred components. They gave it to them and they gave it to them in good quantity, good quality and they just were unbeatable in their proposal so they did a nice job. These are on order. The council approved them last night. They’re on order today and they’ll all be here in time for the installations. I was talking to, when I toured, I’ll get you a schedule. You’re all welcome to participate. There will be 8 days of installations. You’re welcome to stop by and greet and meet the neighbors and talk to them about the process and the playground. Last night we had lots of nice comments from some people in the audience. There was actually a mother and son from Curry Farms that stayed there the whole meeting to talk to the council about the process. Glenn was here for the meeting last night and lots of nice compliments about the process and lots of happy residents. This will involve up to a couple hundred of our residents, perhaps more putting in playgrounds. We’ll give them the weekend. We start on Friday mornings every time, with Midwest Playscapes, our crew starting at 8:00 doing the site layout. Getting the plans out. Spreading out all the different equipment. All the boxes all over the site. At noon, one crew comes in, a neighborhood crew and they start working with the, there’s a person from Midwest Playscapes, Bruce Pudwell. He’s the owner of the company. He’ll be doing the site installs and working with our two people to get all the jobs out and identified. Then they’ll auger all these holes that first day and mix the concrete. Put the posts in. That’s going to be the majority of the work that first Friday. They’ll probably work close to dark and then Saturday morning a fresh crew comes in at 8:00. They’ll work until about noon. They’ll be putting together slides and putting together all the different equipment. Start attaching it, the decks to the structure and then a fresh group will come in at noon and work until 5:00 or 6:00 that night. Then they’re going to throw, each neighborhood is going to throw a neighborhood party. Food is provided by Midwest Playscapes. And the neighbors will barbeque and have a party and celebrate their accomplishments so it should be a very nice process. The paper has picked up on it. David Jansen, the new reporter is doing a story on the process. Stolar: Oh he is, good. Hoffman: Yeah, you may see him around taking photos or giving you a phone call. Stolar: Is he going to talk to some of the neighbors, neighborhood groups? Good. Good, that’s great. 20 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Hoffman: Questions about the project? Dillon: Is this the same equipment that’s at the new Bandimere Park? Hoffman: This is manufactured by. Stolar: Meadow Green. Hoffman: Meadow Green, the new one? Stolar: Yeah. Hoffman: Bandimere is what is called a sky tower. It’s a great big one. That’s made by Midwest Playscapes or made by Play World Systems, but it doesn’t look like this. It looks a little different but the same manufacturer. But the one at Meadow Green last year is the same stuff. So last year this company won 1 out of 3 bids. This year they took all of them so far, and then we have one more coming up at Lake Susan, which will be on a future agenda. And the commission, you’re elected to be involved, you’ll be acting as the neighborhood for the Lake Susan one. What I wanted to do is get these under our belts. Get all the budget numbers in so we make sure to maximize our investment at Lake Susan on it’s structure. Lake Susan’s going to have a poured in place rubber and much larger structure and it will add some really, considerable excitement to that park site so we’ll be dealing with that in May or June. Scharfenberg: How many manufacturers Todd do you anticipate will come to us with proposals for Lake Susan? Hoffman: I think I’m going to go out to 3 or 4 and ask them. We’ll select 3 or 4 and ask them to come up with a design to bring to you, and then you’ll review those designs. The commission will select their favorite. The one that they think creates the most excitement, give the community the most play value. Then we will take that plan and put it in a bid package. Since we’re above $50,000 we have to publicly bid it. That plan, then obviously the company that proposes that plan will bid it but anybody else can bid too. So that’s the process for that one. Scharfenberg: Todd, one other question. You talked about previously about replacing the pea gravel at the neighborhood parks and putting it in with wood fiber. When is that scheduled to be done? Hoffman: At these sites it will be done concurrent with the installation. Scharfenberg: But how about existing sites? Hoffman: The existing sites will go, as they go through a remodel, so let’s say there’s 4 of them. Well there’s 2 others that are being affected. Minnewashta Heights in this year’s budget Minnewashta Heights and Carver Beach. The other ones, some other park sites, Round House, those are not included in this year’s projects so as we go through the years we’ll take those out. Stolar: Okay, thank you Todd. It was a great process and I do, maybe at our next, at our May meeting if we could have, or you can just e-mail us with the dates. Hoffman: Yep. Either a report or e-mail. Stolar: Okay, and I think that if you can get out to one of them, that’d be great. If you can help with one of them. I’ll help with a couple at least. Certainly Lotus Lake, which is my neighborhood, but I’ll help 21 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 with at least a couple more. I’ll go out there either the Saturday or Friday and help. And then also if any of you are interested, the actual agenda item for the City Council, I just downloaded it from the web today so it’s out there, if you want to have. Stolar. Next the Chamber of Commerce Business Fair. You wanted to talk about. Hoffman: Corey gave me a sign up sheet. Do you want me to fill that out on your behalf? Stolar: Do we want a booth basically? Hoffman: Yes. Stolar: And we were going to talk about a survey and all those sort of things potentially, if we can get some of those out there. Hoffman: Okay, so you want to be in the trade fair? Stolar: Yep. Anyone object? No? Alright. Hoffman: Kind of the start to the evening. And then we have a letter from the Junior Girl Scout Troop 2334. It says Dear Park and Rec Commission. It’s directed to the commission. Our Girl Scout Troop had a meeting on Earth Day. We learned about recycling and how to keep our community clean. We all talked about how we could help clean up our neighborhood parks. We would like to ask you, if the Park and Rec Commission could get more recycling containers for our city parks, especially the park where a lot of baseball and softball games are played. If people have a special place to throw their pop cans and water bottles away, it can help keep our parks cleaner. We want you to know that our parks are important to us and so is recycling and thank you. Ellen Scharfenberg, Ellen Nelson, Samantha Miller, Claire Capture and Natalie Anderson. Stolar: How is recycling currently handled? Hoffman: Recycling currently is we have 4 new recycling containers. We put one at Lake Ann. One at City Center. One at Bandimere and where’s the fourth one? These are the new large containers. Have you ever seen them? There’s one sitting out, we don’t have, what I would call an official or a designated recycling program in our parks. Some park districts do. Some don’t. We have a lot of what you call people who separate the cans and the folks that go out there and take out many of the recyclables before they’re even collected, so, and then internally we do some recycling but we don’t have an official with our garbage hauler. We don’t have an additional collection program. We don’t have designated bins. If that’s something that the commission would like us to see us undertake, then we would have to start investigating that type of a proposal so. In the old days what we did is we collected all our trash and one gentleman at the Lake Ann Park separated it all. Post collection. And took every recyclable out of there. He has since moved on. So now it’s all mixed and mingled but there are people who take mostly the cans and take that out and it’s gone before we’ve collected. In fact the current recycling we have has waste, cans, plastic and many times before we get there to collect, the recyclables are already gone. So there is some…going on but we don’t have an official program in our city or our park system. Stolar: So if, you have the separation though and we don’t have an agreement with the hauler, what do they do? Just throw it all together? Hoffman: Correct. Well no. Our, we take those recyclables today. 22 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: You guys do? Okay. Hoffman: …out of the 4 containers. Everything else goes into the trash… If you want to start an official program, then you need to buy containers and have it separated. Then you need to sort it as part of your trash pick up and then have an agreement with the hauler to take it away. Atkins: Where is the recycling container at Lake Ann? Hoffman: It’s up at the ballfield. Atkins: Good. Hoffman: Now we’ll have to add glass. Dillon: Will the, like the BFI’s or Waste Management’s, will they give you the trash cans with the little designation for what goes in there, or do you have to buy them? Hoffman: I don’t know if they will give them. One of the complications you hear in our industry across the board is that it’s very difficult to get folks to voluntarily separate on an efficient basis. So if you have recycling containers that not all end up to be recycled, it ends up to be trash, then you have to force somebody into again separating it as you collect it. Going through it. Making sure it’s clean recyclables and so that can be a cumbersome process. But some districts do take it on. Scharfenberg: Do you have to separate now? I mean like with Waste Management now you don’t separate anything. Hoffman: Correct. New program. Stolar: But you still separate the recyclables though from the regular trash, right? It’s just you can co- mingle the recyclables. Scharfenberg: Right, right. Stolar: I don’t know if any of you saw that Star Tribune series on recycling. It was very interesting. Hoffman: Yeah it was. New technology. Stolar: But that’s why you can co-mingle now because they have all these sorters that just pull from the recycling and separate it out. Scharfenberg: Well I would at least like to see some sort of maybe action item on this in terms of something in terms of cost. What would be the cost to Park and Rec for doing something like this. In terms of purchasing and maintaining that. I mean it’s important to us to have parks, clean parks and recycling obviously is important. And it might be cost prohibitive, I don’t know. Hoffman: I attended a session last fall in…at our annual conference about, it’s a big topic of discussion. Some people do it. Some people don’t. I’ll be glad to bring you the report. You know we’re…at home now so some large and some small park districts just hire BFI or Waste Management to be their waste collector and they give them trash receptacles just like you would at home. And so would Waste Management give us the co-minimal containers and we just drop them off and on Wednesdays we have to pull them to the curbs in our parks and they pick them up. 23 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: Okay. And would this be something the Environmental Commission would also consider joining, so maybe it’s something we can work together with them to figure out an option there. Hoffman: They bought our containers we have out there today. Stolar: Okay. So I don’t know if a motion is needed but if I can get consensus, would that be something we’d want to hear back from Todd? Okay. Yeah, and thank you, your daughter and her troop. Yeah, I think this will be great to at least understand and the fact that we’ve started doing it Todd, that’s great. Okay. We now have, we’re done with Administrative reports because we took number 6 and already talked about it, or reports. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. Murphy: Off leash dog areas. We would like to set a separate meeting in order to discussion and list out our options and alternatives for an off leash dog area so, and determine a direction that we’re going to recommend. Hopefully before the next May meeting. Hoffman: What’s the second Tuesday in May? th Stolar: It would be the 10. thth Hoffman: 10? May 10 work for folks? Stolar: That was the question. Do we want a separate meeting or do we want to have a working session thth before this one? Before our regular May meeting. So just consensus the 10 or the 24 then would be our regular meeting. I don’t know. Murphy: Before the meeting would mean 6:00, right? Hoffman: We would need that much time. Stolar: Yeah, probably. Atkins: That would be better for me. Dillon: You weren’t planning any site visits? …planning on using that pre-meeting time. Hoffman: Yeah we probably could. This time of year we try to do them most every meeting. You’d just have to fore go that if you want to do it that night. Stolar: Or if we make it shorter and then cross our fingers it’s nice weather and just actually have our discussion outside at a site. So Todd can get the site we would want to be inspired most. Hoffman: I don’t have one. th Stolar: Let me just do a quick poll. Would you Jack, for the 10, a separate meeting or before the May th 24 meeting, no…site visits. Spizale; I think it’s going to be easier for me before… 24 Park and Rec Commission – April 26, 2005 Stolar: Okay, Kevin. th Dillon: I’m thinking that the 24 would be, or the one day event would be better. Stolar: Okay. Atkins: Same here. th Scharfenberg: 24. th Hoffman: 6:00, the 24. Stolar: Now would we, is this something that we would do it here, and it’d have to be open to the public? Hoffman: We’ll just post it yeah. Stolar: Okay. It will be in the announcement as part of the agenda. Okay. Hoffman: We may actually… The best site that we have is the Lake Ann woods. The problem with the Lake Ann woods is that at prime time, dog park time which is after work is prime time fill up the park for softball so I’m sure there’d be some parking conflicts. But you could certainly fence off a section, but that’s the best location. Stolar: Then let me, I guess going back to this, would it make sense to maybe meet in Lake Ann? I don’t know if the pavilion would be used at that time. Just kind of meet there. We can walk around and see what’s there and then have our discussion. Hoffman: Sure. Stolar: I think we’ve had meetings at the pavilion before. Pre-session. Hoffman: Absolutely. As long as it’s warmer than tonight. Otherwise I’m calling it down here. Stolar: Subject to weather. Any other items? If not, can I have a motion for adjournment? Scharfenberg moved, Murphy seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 25