Loading...
PRC 2014 09 23 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 Acting Chair Carron called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Steve Scharfenberg, Elise Ryan, Brent Carron, Jim Boettcher, Rick Echternacht, Luke Thunberg, and Jacob Stolar MEMBERS ABSENT: Cole Kelly and Tyler Kobilarcsik STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Meghan Gess, Recreation Supervisor; Jodi Sarles, Rec Center Manager; Adam Beers, Park Superintendent; and Susan Bill, Senior Center Coordinator APPROVAL OF AGENDA:Boettcher moved, Thunberg seconded to approve the agenda as published. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Ruegemer: Just have a couple. The Chanhassen Homecoming High School, homecoming parade is this coming Friday. 4:00 in downtown Chanhassen so it will start at Chanhassen Elementary School right off th of Laredo. Go down to 78 Street and head west to Kerber and then head north on Kerber, kind of make kind of a U shape route on that so it’s been growing in popularity and numbers here in the last you know 3, 4, 5 years now so it’s always a great event to kind of kick off homecoming and the game that night, which will be home this year so please feel free to stop by. 4:00. Just an FYI, we have a state girls softball tournament going on at Lake Ann this coming weekend. On Saturday the 10U and 12U will be playing out there on Saturday. It’s a fall state tournament and then Sunday is going to be 14U to 18U out there so it will be the last weekend for girls softball out there so it will be a busy weekend so if you want to catch some softball, feel free to stop by. Carron: Thanks Jerry. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Scharfenberg moved, Thunberg seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated August 26, 2014 as presented. ESTABLISH 2014/15 ICE SKATING AND HOCKEY RINK LOCATIONS. Gess: Hi. So in your agenda G-1 you’ll find the recommendations for the 2014/15 skating rink locations. It is proposed to be the same as last year with 8 ice rinks and 4 warming houses. You can see the breakdown on locations and hours. Scharfenberg: Staff, remind me if you would, what is the date that we kind of agreed on? The drop dead date if after this date there isn’t, the weather isn’t suitable, that we aren’t going to freeze. Was that January? th Ruegemer: I believe it’s January 15. Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Scharfenberg: Okay. And have we, have we received within the last year any phone calls from neighborhood residents requesting a rink that maybe had been there in the past and hasn’t, they haven’t had one for a couple of years? I’m assuming the answer is no but. Ruegemer: Yeah we haven’t received any phone calls other than obviously I think people are just settling into the schedule that we’ve adopted the last several years and people are kind of getting used to those locations and we have not had any new requests. Carron: Jerry for the warming houses, is that pretty constant rental? Does the fees change much or can we expect more going into future years or how does that work? Ruegemer: As far as actual rentals of the units? Carron: Yeah, it’s on a per month basis I would imagine or? Ruegemer: No they’re all fairly competitive from kind of year to year. There isn’t really big drastic jumps with that so for looking ahead anticipating a potential Bandimere situation, we can just budget for that. You know the previous year but it depends on what company we’re at but the mobile mini units, the more the ground level ones are a little bit more money with that but they’re all $1,500 to $2,000 roughly. Gess: Yeah I think the average is about $1,700 last year. Carron: Per unit? Gess: Per unit per month. No, per month. Ruegemer: That sounds about right. Gess: I’ve put out bids to both of the previous companies. So far I’m waiting back on quotes so we’ll know how close they’re going to be pretty soon. Carron: Great. Anything else for Meghan? Scharfenberg: And just you know with respect to the warming houses, have we ever looked into purchasing those on our own and just keeping them instead of renting them? I mean is that something that we would ever want to consider? Ruegemer: You know we’ve certainly talked about it a little bit on the staff level but really kind of the thought of having them for 9 months out of the year when we’re not using them for warming houses is kind of a you know where do you put them and they’re kind of an eyesore and the maintenance part of it. Sometimes it’s easier with tents, tables and chairs and warming houses just to rent them when you need them and somebody comes and picks them up and it’s gone. Scharfenberg: Okay. Carron: Okay, thanks Meghan. Gess: Yep. Carron: Meghan, you’re up again with the annual Halloween Party coming up. 2 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Gess: I am. Scharfenberg: Just to go back. Do we need to make a motion with respect to a recommendation? Ruegemer: Yes please. Carron: Oh, did I skip that? Scharfenberg: I would move to adopt staff recommendation for 2014/2015 ice skating rink locations and hours. Carron: I fell asleep on the job. So is there a second? Boettcher: Second. Carron: Okay, there’s a motion and a second. Scharfenberg moved, Boettcher seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission approves that the ice skating rink locations and hours for 2014-2015 be maintained the same as 2013-2014. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2014 HALLOWEEN PARTY PREVIEW. Carron: Back to Meghan. Gess: While I’m talking I’m going to pass around this volunteer sign up sheet for the Halloween Party so feel free to put your name on there. Carron: I’ll sign up for Cole. Gess: I can talk a little bit too if you’re questioning on what positions or assignments are available. We can go through that too. I’ve got a power point to talk about the Halloween Party. So we’ll run through th this. This year’s Halloween Party is Saturday, October 25. Same times as last year. 5:30 to 7:30 at the Rec Center. We can see an image there of the new registration flyer and those are going in the Chanhassen Villager in early October. Estimated attendance, I’m looking at last year’s numbers. I think that number is a little bit high but we also only track kids so you figure older siblings and adults that are with each child are included in there. The $5 registration fee is the same as last year. Adults are free. Looking for Key Club students from Chanhassen and Chaska High Schools to volunteer. They’ve done that in the past but I think the numbers have been dropping a little bit year by year so kind of hoping to maybe tap into a few other groups and hopefully you guys will volunteer. Event activities, kind of the same as it’s been in the past. There’s going to be trick or treating. The hayrides outside, as long as the weather permits. Carnival games. Moon Bounce. Refreshments. We’ll do cookies and cider. The Spooky Room. Magic show is the entertain this year. An adult raffle drawing and face painters. Just kind of some fun photos from last year’s event. Again the entertainment this year is the magician with Halls of Magic. The magician Kevin Hall will be performing from 6:30 to 7:00 and the face painters and hayride vendors are both the same as they’ve been in the past. And it’s the fourth and final of our event sponsorship program for 2014 so we’ll wrap up and kind of give a final thank you to our event sponsors and then ramp up for the 2015 campaign right after this. And just some more photos so that’s it. Any questions on the Halloween Party? 3 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Boettcher: What are, or the hayrides, are they tractor drawn? Horse drawn? Gess: It’s horses yeah. Boettcher: Horse drawn. Do they go off the property? Gess: It will be in the fields behind the warming hours at the Rec Center. Boettcher: Alright, thanks. Gess: Anybody else? Great, thank you. Carron: Okay, thanks Meghan. EVALUATION – 2014 LAKE ANN PARK CONCESSION/BOAT RENTALS. Ruegemer: Thank you Vice Chair Carron. Hoffman: He’s the Chair tonight. Ruegemer: Okay, I’m sorry. Hoffman: Don’t downgrade him. Ruegemer: So yeah, this year was a really rebounded strong. We had kind of a slower June like everybody with our rain events that we had. A pretty wet spring but so June was fairly wet and cold but boy July and August we sure rebounded really awesomely with that. And really the, as you kind of see in that second paragraph it really was due to the popularity really of the new paddleboards that we had out at Lake Ann so it was a great partnership that we had with Twin Cities Paddleboard. I’m not sure if any of the commissioners were aware of kind of the arrangement that we had but we over the summertime, Adam and his staff built that secured rack that was down at Lake Ann where the boards were mounted on. It’s kind of modeled after a Three Rivers rack that’s over at I believe Bryant Lake for that so we kind of talked to Jeff Gibbon with Twin Cities Paddleboards. We went and grabbed probably a board or two in probably February or March maybe sometime to kind of model the racks after and make sure the ends are secure with locking. A locking apparatus so then Adam’s crew had kind of built this rack custom to the boards that Jeff was going to give us here for the summertime so he was extremely happy with how the rack turned out and Adam and crew did a fantastic job on that task to secure the racks down at the beach front itself so with that you know we had talked to Jeff in the past about a partnership. Pulled the trigger on it this year. He supplied 4 brand new paddleboards that he purchased. He licensed and maintained them. We did the staffing for the rentals and kind of taking them in and out. Locking them up every night sort of thing and we split revenues. The City had 70 percent of the revenue and Twin Cities Paddleboard had 30 so we felt that was a great situation for us and we really had just a bang up year with 363 total rentals for that and that was just short of the paddle boats this year for the kind of the high for the year so. So that was you know 363 more rentals than we had last year. Did some of the other numbers fluctuate a little bit? Yes. The paddleboards, or paddle boats went down a little bit. Some of the row boats went down a little bit because people were using more of the paddleboards but it was extremely popular out there. The kayak numbers dipped a little bit because I think people were happy to try the paddleboards with that and so it really was a great success story for us out there so that’s over $5,800 dollars in revenue from the previous year so that was a great situation for us so we’re talking next year, Jeff’s all on board for next year already. He’s all go. He was extremely happy with the way things 4 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 turned out so we have an agreement in place for next year already. We’re actually talking about adding a couple more boards as well for a total of 6 potentially for next year so, because at times on the weekends there was more demand than availability so, so those are good things. Good problems to have so we’ll take a look at that into next year. So just general comments. Continue to have you know I think a smaller number of vendors out there. We’re always continuing to look for healthy options for that. We’re looking to do a new paddle boat next year. We have one of the original paddle boats out there from 1993 that is outlived it’s usefulness and it seems to be a lot of trouble with that with sinking. Taking on water and pedals and all kinds of things so it’s time for that so we’re going to look to purchase a new paddle boat next year. You can see the Choco Tacos are the most popular ice cream item down there so people have certainly seem to enjoy those. And just continue to have information for people coming down. Certainly have signage out there for park rentals and have maps for people. Try to really get our concession staff up to speed as much as we can so they can answer questions that park users may have for that so. We seem to be in constant replacing life jackets here so it looks like we’re going to have to do some kids life jackets. Last year we kind of seemed like some of the older life jackets now are ripping or tearing and seeing what’s left now is no more vest jackets. We have the orangey. The old orangey style. Nobody likes the orangey style so we’re going to take a look at those and get rid of those probably for next year. I did purchase probably at least 30 to 40 new life jackets this year. We had Carver County come down, the sheriff’s department and inspect some life jackets and took them out of service and we replaced them with band new ones. That happens annually as well so we’ll keep an eye on that. We did th stay open one week longer this year than scheduled. We were scheduled to end I believe the 17 of August and with the warm weather and staff availability we stayed open a week longer and I think we took in another $1,600 to $1,800 in revenue for that week so we definitely paid for staff and product and gave some additional revenue for the program. So we’ll continue to look at that as an option. It’s always our goal you know to get through the season really depends on what we have for staff. A lot of people, sometimes people have to go back for school or for sporting events or teams, that sort of thing but we did have availability this year and it really worked out well. So just on that second page, that’s kind of a breakdown of all the boat rentals for the total so we had well over 1,000 rentals this year, which was a great year for us. Concession revenues was our highest on record of over $22,000 for that. And then you can see what the vending supplies are and the hours, staff hours and wages for a net profit of over $6,000 for that. And just the third page is just kind of a breakdown of the rentals per day. May through August for kayaks and canoes, paddleboards and such for that and then I think just the vendor breakdown of what we paid each vendor per each invoice. So all in all staff is happy with the season out there. We hope to get some warm weather again for next year and keep it going. Echternacht: Jerry got a question, just information. How’s the pricing of the paddleboards versus the pricing of the boats and other items? Ruegemer: Probably on the, you know the canoes and that sort of thing are $10 an hour and the paddle boats are about $12 and the paddleboards are $16 an hour and that’s, you know I did a little investigating on different rental places and you some are cheaper. Some were more expensive depending on where they are. Lake Minnetonka they might be a little bit more over there so I kind of felt that that’s kind of where we needed to be in our area and I didn’t hear any complaints that the price was too high. Echternacht: Alright, thank you. Scharfenberg: Jerry, kudos to you and staff for the numbers and that. Obviously you know when we’re, make a profit that’s always a very good thing so. With respect to Twin Cities Paddleboard, would we ever have them come out and do some programming? Paddleboard programming. I know that some places doing yoga on paddleboards and stuff like that, have we looked into that at all? 5 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Ruegemer: That has already started. They did some paddleboard yoga out there this summer. They were out there about 3 or 4 times so I did talk to Jeff about that. I want to have a partnership with that as well and then we can advertise for him and take a percentage of that as well. Carron: So on the flip side of that, would we ever think about buying paddleboards ourselves or, now that we’ve seen this year. Seen the amount of people that are looking for this. Ruegemer: Well you know it’s always a question that we ask. A paddleboard that he had out there ranged from about $1,200 to $1,500 a piece that we didn’t have to invest a dime in and we basically reap the benefits of Jeff’s generosity with that so you know for us to have to pay for 4 paddleboards at that price you know. Carron: Eats up the. Ruegemer: Eats up those profits so. Carron: The net profit. Ruegemer: Any type of partnerships that we can have like this I’m going to keep pursuing with that if we can have that type of thing. It worked out great for him in his minds and it’s good for him too because he sells them and a lot of times he rents them out on the weekends as well so a lot of times if he knew people were interested before they purchased, he send them down to Lake Ann and they tried them before they purchased so it really worked out good for him and it worked out great for us so it’s a great partnership that we have. Carron: Okay, good. Boettcher: Do you know what size, are they 9 ½? 10 ½ foot? Ruegemer: No, they were 10 plus because they needed to be licensed. Boettcher: Yeah because next year when the AIS sticker law goes into effect, if it’s over 10 they have to have the sticker. Under 10 they don’t. Is the way the rules are written right now. A lot of people were getting surprised by that. Thanks. Carron: Good report Jerry. Anything else for Jerry? Alright. Ruegemer: Thank you. EVALUATION – 2014 SUMMER DISCOVERY PLAYGROUND/LAKE ANN ADVENTURE CAMP. Gess: So I’ll go with Summer Discovery Playground first. You know it’s the most successful youth rec program that we offer. It was another successful year. 439 total kids ages 4 to 12 at 10 different neighborhood parks. Riley Ridge was the new location this year. That’s an increase from last year of 70 kids so adding that one additional park was huge for numbers. You know there’s a few playgrounds that struggled a little bit this year but the newer developments seem to have a lot of kids so that one helped out a lot. Participants go for one day a week and then that’s for 8 or 9 weeks depending on what day of the week they choose. This year what also is new is the Summer Sensations Playground which was for 3 year olds and that was held out at Lake Susan Park one day a week for a shorter duration during the day and that seemed to be pretty popular with the parents. A lot of good feedback on evaluations from that so 6 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 looks like something we’ll want to continue in 2015. I hired 11 seasonal employees to manage this program as well as help out in different recreation programs throughout the summer. So recommendations for 2015 would be to expand, and I’ll have a playground at Pioneer Pass Park. Also look at testing out an all day option at one or two locations as opposed to right now it’s you know about three-quarters of the day. Half day. And then implement also a late pick-up policy for parents that they’re kind of locked into before they sign up. Any questions on playground or I’ll move over to camp. Carron: What are the hours that parents drop off? Gess: I knew after I said that that you were going to ask me that and I can’t remember off the top of my head. It depends on the playground. There’s a morning, there’s like a morning shift and an afternoon shift so depending on the playground. I believe it’s either 9:00 to noon or 1:00 to 4:00. So looking at doing a location that would be the entire 9:00 to 4:00. Echternacht: If you do that, what do you plan for lunch? Gess: I think it would be to have them bring a sack lunch. They’d stay, you know if we did an all day program, and I haven’t planned it yet but you know there’s some options there also for doing maybe a field trip or some other options there as well but I would plan on them bringing a lunch. We provide a snack as it is so they would have a snack you know either at the beginning of the day or end of the day too. Echternacht: Okay. Ryan: Meghan another comment that I hear from parents that want to sign up but then can’t is offering some sort of like a flex pass so to speak where you know because when parents get out their schedule and they’re looking, a lot of times they can’t commit to every Monday for the whole summer and you know you almost charge a premium or additional to have that flexibility. Parents will pay for it because they sign their kids up for multiple camps and then they know that they’re going to miss out. Gess: Right. Ryan: As long as they can commit to days, because I know for staffing you have to have that covered. Gess: Right. Ryan: But like most parents they have their summer scheduled from start to finish and if they can pick and choose and have some flexibility, that might be something to consider. Gess: Okay. I can look into it. Anything else with playgrounds? A question was asked that did not get picked up by the microphone. Gess: That’s another question I don’t know off the top of my head. Carron: Okay. Ruegemer: I think it’s around 55. Carron: Okay. 7 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Gess: Lake Ann Adventure Camp. Two sessions in mid August. That’s for ages 7 to 12. Each week filled with 80 kids. I think we had actually 79 physically show up for the first week but 80 for the second week. Both of those had wait lists almost immediately after registration opened in the spring so those continue to be really popular and something that kids look forward to coming to every year. Kind of recommendations for 2015 would be just you know the rock wall is something that the kids have done one day a week. They do these rotations in the afternoon so they do all camp games and snack and some different things all together and then they break into groups and do these rotations and so depending on the day, it’s either you know fishing, boating, swimming, arts and crafts, and they kind of rotate through these groups. One of them was the rock wall. The last 2 years it was pretty popular but now I think the kids are kind of getting tired of it so I’m going to look at adding something new and fun for that afternoon rotation. Also we assigned 2 staff members that are not assigned to a team of kids and they are available to assist. We call them specialists and they’ve been great in just making sure that everything is smooth as the kids transition from station to station. Helping them out with whatever it might be to come up. Kind of having that extra manpower as issues arise or if kids need special help. And then kind of one idea, recommendation for 2015 would be to revamp the pick-up process just to ease traffic congestion. One thing I noticed this year is just, you know it’s a small lot as it is and you’ve already got beach traffic so maybe coming up with another system for pick-up and where parents don’t even have to get out of the car so it’s just kind of one idea I’m toying with. Carron: Drive thru. Gess: Yep. Drive thru and pick up your kid. You’ll see on the back there just a real bare bones, brief you know expense report. Revenue versus expenses. The playground program brought in net $2,371 and Adventure Camp $8,474. Ryan: Meghan when I was looking at the results, I mean the evaluations all looked great. A couple numbers that, I mean they’re all good but the ones that jumped out were the program length which you already discussed but when they talked about communication with parents, is that not enough? Not soon enough with rain days or what was the concern with the communication? Gess: From what I could tell in talking to a few parents over the phone as well it was just, you know they get a lot of information ahead of time. They get a welcome letter. There’s information on the website but making it maybe more interactive and daily as opposed to, you know they kind of get it ahead of time and then lose track of it where it would be each day specifically saying here’s what to bring tomorrow or I feel like a lot of parents were looking for a more detailed schedule of here’s everything your kid’s going to do this day as opposed to just kind of a general idea of what they might be doing. I think parents really want like here’s what you’re going to be doing every single hour of the day. It also gives them something to ask about and talk about when they get home so do that. Carron: With, you were saying there’s waiting lists right away. It filled up. Has there been any thought to making a third session? Or what’s staff. Gess: It would be great to. Kind of the problem we run into is we need the same staff to operate playground program so playground program ends, you know the last day of July, kind of the first couple days of August and then we segue right into camp. Playground program wants more weeks too so you either, you know you have to give on one end. If we did another week of camp we’d have to take away another week of playground program. If we extended further into August you’d be looking at the week before school and most of our staff would be returning to college so it’s just sort of a balancing act of staffing and you know a lot of those kids are playground program and then they’d be upset that that got cut as well. It’s just the summer needs to be longer. 8 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Carron: Isn’t that the truth. Ruegemer: And we did try that in I think about 2006 or ’07 we did cut a week of playground off and it was not pretty. At all. The evaluations, we got torched on it so Meghan’s right on with that. We also have Safety Camp in there that our staff is involved with. Beth Hoiseth in the public safety department so we’re spread pretty thin. Kind of the tail end of July into August with that but staff can certainly look at other ways of potentially incorporating additional numbers when we do return maximums and try to get the waitlist people on somehow but you know people do register early and get on and a lot of times, even if it’s 20 to 30 people on the waitlist a lot of times a lot of those people are getting in as people just sign up for a spot and then as the summer goes on drop out because they signed up for another camp or plans change or whatever so then we are able to accommodate people on the waitlist for that so. Gess: Yeah. We were able to get all the way through the week one waitlist this year and there was still maybe a dozen or just under a dozen on the week two waitlist so a lot of them did have an opportunity to come even though they were on the waitlist originally. Carron: Well it’s a good problem to have I guess. Gess: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean we want every kid to come but. Carron: Alright. Gess: Any other questions? Carron: Anything else for Meghan? Thanks Meghan. Gess: Thanks. RECREATION CENTER REPORT. Sarles: Thank you. Well it’s back to fall. Back to school at the Rec Center now. We had a small shutdown in August for the facility to kind of get cleaned up. Tuned up. The floors done. All of those good things. And then we were able to freshen, one of my staff is quite a handyman so he came out and fixed some drywall that was, had gotten wet and kind of issue drywall that we had after the rains went through this spring and the leakage in our roof so he was able to clean that up so we’re looking pretty spiffy. And now the next big thing, and it sounds like it’s going to be next month is we’re going to replace those, the acoustic panels that are in our conference room so we are going to ditch the mauve from, the original mauve that’s pretty stained and just going to update that. That update cost is going to be about $4,400 so it will add a fresh new coat there and it will get rid of a lot of the dirt and grime that’s picked up over the years on those panels that doesn’t come off and people that use the white board markers not on the white board so, so it will be nice. Nice to have that change and update in there so we were fortunate to get that. As far as fall program information, the Dance for Fun. The dance season has begun. This time around we’re offering 20 classes in a variety of styles. Everything from ballet, creative to hip hop to point. Competition teams so there’s 144 dancers that we have. Kind of the focus that I have with the coordinator and the staff and the Dance for Fun is we’re working to increase parent communication this year. Making sure people aren’t feeling out of the loop so every week the kids are bringing home kind of a practice plan and information and some of the younger ones are going to learn some new dance terminology so just to kind of help them as they go forward. Most of our classes only meet for one night a week so it’s nice to get them to practice at home and do some things to help them improve their skills as well. And then the parents can also see what, what we’re doing in class so that’s been a popular and positive, we’ve already received responses after the first two weeks of program so. 9 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Rec Center Sports, I feel like every time I come here I am telling you about a new Rec Center Sports Coordinator and again we had a great one. He just left. Logan went, he and his wife moved to Colorado so fortunately Ben Domjahn, our Summer Parks Intern you’ve all probably met throughout the summer here is now serving as our Sports Coordinator and he’s doing a great job with the kids so he’s had some great compliments. Even one of the mom’s stopped me tonight and wanted to let me know how great he was doing with the kids and you know can we get his picture with our son with a soccer ball so he obliged so that was good. So we made a few changes just because the Bluff Creek Elementary has changed their school schedule so in order to kind of work with that and continue running a variety of programs for the Rec Sports we decided to add an evening Small Fry. We were having waiting lists so it’s nice to be able to split them up and add some more participants and yet with the space that we have so that’s working out well now. The after school’s getting a little more tricky as they’re, their school time doesn’t match. Before Bluff Creek was the last school to get released and so other students and kids could come from different schools to take the after school programs which was very successful for us. Now they’re one of the first to release so the other schools are getting out after Bluff Creek and so they can’t come to participate so we’re trying to figure out what we can do to maybe balance that or gauge that right now. Our next program that we’re going to try to run for the after school is going to be football and that usually is a popular one so kids like to come out and play and run around. Tonight we’re finishing up the Small Fry soccer so right now they’re within, between Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s we’ve got 46 little ones that run around. We implemented tonight, the first time we’ve ever done this for the 3 and 4 year olds and trying to play a 5 minute game and learning, using the skills that they’ve been learning in the 3 weeks they’ve been playing and not too great success so. Carron: I think I drove by. Sarles: Yeah there was, it looked more like rugby. We had a lot of scrums and one little girl kept taking the ball and running and then the other little boys would tackle her so we’re going to work on that. So you know it’s a beginning and learning process here that we’re working on but it’s always fun to see those kids out there. The Lil’ Star Sports there’s 128 of those coming for soccer as well so that’s today and tomorrow night between those two sessions. Then our next sports will start moving inside as our weather makes us so we’ll go down knowing, when we move inside we do about 40 in the gym so. So instead of having 128 we’ll have 80 so we get waitlists for that as well. As far as some of the things th we’ve done over the summer, we held a free session of Zumba in the Park on August 16 during the Farmer’s Market. It was fun. It was a great time. People came out. Tried the class. People going to the Farmer’s Market were like what’s going on and then they jumped in. Kids. Parents so we’ve had a nice response and some new students in those classes so that’s been fun. We’re still taking submissions for the 2014 photo contest so we’re always looking for new cover ideas and things for the Chanhassen Connection and that’s kind of where this got it’s start and so most of the covers you’re seeing are coming out of these photo contests of kids and families and adults and seniors that are taking, doing activities in th Chanhassen. Barnyard Boogie was September 12. We had about 210 people out there. There was a Bounce House. It was a beautiful night. All sorts of critters and creatures so if you get a chance to check on the Facebook page for the City of Chanhassen you’ll see some great photos of families participating in that. It’s a dance. It’s a Bounce House and there’s a petting zoo and kind of crafts and snacks and things and it’s just a great night. People can get together and just have a good time. And then the next thst upcoming event is our Artisan Fair so the 6 Annual is going to be on November 1 from 10:00 to 2:00. Last year I believe we had about 35 artists so we always look, we can fit about up to 38 comfortably with enough space in the gym so it just kind of depends but we’re trending just to about what we did last year too so that’s a fun program. It brings plenty of people to town and a lot of Chanhassen folks out too so it’s good to see what sort of arts and crafts and things people make. Everything from metal work to knitting to dog toys. Anything under the sun so it’s kind of fun. And then finally we are, we’re at that season so tomorrow the pickleballers are going to line our pickleball courts indoors so indoor play is going to start tomorrow afternoon. That’s going to relieve the outdoor courts and Adam and his crew are 10 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 having those re-done in October so kick them off the outdoor courts. We’re going to try to make them 6 courts out there and see if we can appease the crowd that’s playing now so it’s a fun time. They have plenty of ideas. Lots of folks so we’re hearing lots of comments but a lot of excitement over what the new Chanhassen Rec Center pickleball courts are going to look like so it’s been nice to help them out and then offer another sport that’s quite popular these days. And that’s kind of the news from the Rec Center right now. Do you have any questions? Comments? Scharfenberg: Jodi, why didn’t the one lacrosse run for after school sports? Sarles: We ended with, I think we had only 3 kids sign up for that one so it was low enrollment. The second week of school. Kind of I think the timing on that was probably the biggest thing for us right now. Typically the lacrosse has been the most popular after school sport we have. Just as a chance we don’t, it’s not a hard core lacrosse. It’s a very safe one so people can get involved. Try it out. I think that, our next one will be much more successful. Time and things but I think that, we’ve always found that that first session in the fall is a little tricky as people are not adjusted fully to the back to school scheduling time for the registration so we may back it off a little. You know a couple weeks. Scharfenberg: And then how are the rentals coming for the gym and that with like birthdays and stuff like that. Are they pretty steady or sporadic or? Sarles: It’s pretty steady. It you know slows down quite a bit over the summer, as you expect but yeah the birthday parties are pretty steady. The one challenge that we have with the birthday parties is once we put that gym schedule public, it gets a little tricky if people so we tend to put it out for the month. The first day of the month so that people can get their party planned and I try to do my best to work with the groups that are a little later than a month out, which happens quite frequently so we do a few cases we’ll do half gym rentals and things like that so they can still do a birthday party but we can still offer the open gym space that we’ve kind of already told the community that we have so yeah, the gym is, it’s consistent and it picks up so starting in October it starts picking up pretty heavy. We must have some basketball try- out’s coming up pretty quick here too because we’ve gotten quite a few kids in this week. Carron: Has the concrete been fixed on the entryway? Sarles: Yes. Carron: Good. Anything else for Jodi? Thanks Jodi for the report. Sarles: Alright, thank you. Carron: Good job. PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT. Beers: Thank you Chair Carron and commissioners. Another busy summer is coming to an end and most of our seasonal staff has left for the year. We’re fortunate enough to keep 5 retirees around to maintain kind of our green space and frees up our full time staff to work on some projects. Speaking of projects, the 41 stair project is finally complete. We’ve planted and have a good stand of grass growing. Trees are in so we’re going to kind of just monitor that throughout the fall and keep an eye on the concrete through it’s first winter and kind of see where it takes us so cross your fingers and everything’s looking good so far. Drain tile’s been installed all along Highway 41 and Highway 7 to kind of capture and redirect some of the water. 11 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Carron: That’s been a major improvement. Beers: Yeah. We’re still in the process of doing some work along the Highway 7 sections but we’re waiting for some permits to go through and work with MnDOT to, they wanted a little more information about how much water was coming into their right-of-way so I don’t think it’s going to be an issue but we’ll just hopefully have that wrapped up in the next few weeks. Pioneer Pass construction, I should say the major construction is now done. Open. Everybody seems to be using that park quite a bit. We’re going to continue to kind of seed and try to hit the thin spots. Today we spent quite a bit of time down there so hopefully that takes us into the fall and we have a good spring so again thanks to Luke for kind of help coordinating the event. I think, I know Todd went on that tour yesterday and said the park was packed in the evening so it’s always good to see. We’re resting Field 2 at Bandimere. Each year we pick kind of our worst field and take it out of rotation to work on it and give it a little break so Field 2 was picked for that and we’ve already completed a pretty aggressive aerification program with some top dressing and seeding and that’s already filled in. Looks pretty good so we’ll just let that kind of sit for the rest of the year and start again in the spring. Plans for the shelter initiative are underway. We had the City Council meeting last night and they approved the agenda for that so concrete quotes are back in and thth the shelter quotes are out and should be returning September 8. Or excuse me, October 8 and then th we’ll be on the agenda for the 27 for council to approve at that point. Our goal is to have them in by st December 31 so let’s pray for some good weather and we’ll crack three of those out. And last but not least the construction at the cemetery is going to start this fall. Late fall. Once we get some frost in the ground and we’ll probably move into the winter so we’re going to be taking out all the trees in the back portion of the cemetery to kind of re-gain the property that’s already there. So that’s going to be quite an undertaking with all the tree removal and the grading that’s going to have to take place so I met with Karen Engelhardt and Kate in planning and we kind of hatched a plan to make this happen so we got the green light on that. So we have a lot of projects coming up and we’re still mowing like crazy and trying to keep up with everything so with the smaller seasonal staff it’s been a bit challenging but manageable so that’s kind of where we’re at. Any questions? Scharfenberg: Question more for Todd than for Adam but on the shelter initiative, was any discussion by council with our discussion about the one at Bandimere? Hoffman: The recommendation’s been forwarded to the council to omit it and then they take up the CIP at their next meeting. Scharfenberg: Okay. Ryan: On, along Galpin, the trail, I saw today one of the concrete blocks is out. Are they going to take both of them out for the Wynsong driveway? Just one was out but aren’t they replacing both? Hoffman: I’m not certain. I know they have a plan to correct what was installed there so. I know the north one was taken out. The south one they might be filling. I don’t know the exact plan but I know engineering is on top of it. Ryan: Okay, thank you. Carron: On 41 north of Lake Lucy, that trail there, the existing concrete block wall on the top of it looks like it’s shaving away. It looks like it had some problems maybe from the salt or something. Are we looking at sealing that or? 12 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Hoffman: It’s a warranty issue that came to light early on this spring. The County is working back through the manufacturer to have that cleaned and sealed and so I don’t know the schedule but that’s a County project. Carron: Okay, good. Beers: Forgot to mention, sorry to jump back in here but we were going to start the reclaim at the Rec Center for the pickleball courts too in the next couple weeks so I know the pickleballers will be pretty happy. Jodi’s been working with them to kind of let us get in there and bring them inside so we can start tearing that up. Carron: So is that a complete removal and replacement? Beers: Yep. Carron: Okay. Nice. Long time coming there. Beers: Absolutely. Carron: Anything else for Adam? Alright, thanks Adam. SENIOR CENTER REPORT. Bill: Thank you. As always there’s a lot going on in the senior center and I just thought I’d highlight a couple things that might be of interest. Fourth Friday of the month I have two volunteers that come in and will work with people on any type of mobile device and that’s really gotten popular with tablets and smart phones and transferring pictures and just all sorts of stuff. It’s really a popular program and I’m looking even to add another day because it’s just been so popular with the change in technology. They came to me. They volunteered their time. One is a Chanhassen resident who has a computer. I can’t remember, a computer business where they fix computers and another, Heather Bren, they’re involved in the community. Just wanted to give back and they do classes for me on different technical things. We did transferring digital photos. We did up updating your security on your computer. A variety of things and it’s just been a really, really nice program and relationship so I thought I’d mention that one. And August we had our first ice cream social. I wanted to do an event that could thank people for all their support and we had it in City Center Park which was just a wonderful evening. Todd was there to help. We had over 100 people. We had it at 6:00 at night. The park guys brought picnic tables. I think we had 110 people. Strolling barbershop quartet. Ice cream from Culver’s. The weather couldn’t have been better. The park was beautiful and we just featured that space between the City Hall and the library and everyone had a really great time so it was a really nice event. Jodi and I did something called We’re Listening. The end of August we invited people to come to the Rec Center where we wanted to listen to what they had to say about possibilities of future program ideas as well as volunteer opportunities. We didn’t have the best turnout. We heard a lot about pickleball. A lot about pickleball. But we heard you know, it was a smaller group but a really, really good discussion. We walked away with some ideas and also for the people who couldn’t be there we posted a, we’ve got what we’re calling a boomer survey on our website where people can give us their feedback and it went live I think, well we thought it was live a few weeks ago but anyway it went live, no it was Monday. That was yesterday. Anyway, yeah it went live. Carron: It’s been a long week already. Boettcher: I took it already. I took it yesterday. 13 Park and Recreation Commission – September 23, 2014 Bill: Yeah, it went live yesterday and we’ve gotten a lot of, lot of responses so it’s really been good so we’ll continue to track that. Kim from upstairs set that up and on the back end she can track all the survey results so we’ll keep an eye on that and hopefully we can walk away with one or two good ideas for future programs. And the last thing as always, two of our favorite events. Dinner with the Mayor. People turn out and just love that interaction with the mayor. Hopefully our new mayor will be able to continue that. Once again a beautiful night. We have a dinner. Mayor gives a talk and then we have a concert in the park and I work with Mitch and now Meghan next year. We pick a band appropriate for the older adults and it just is a wonderful evening. Ladies tea luncheon and fashion show. Once again I wish we could have the room twice as big. I have a waiting list all the time for that but we just can’t fit more than 66 people in the room. Got a new sponsor. Howard Jewelry of Chanhassen. They pay for the entertainment and donated door prizes so that was a nice partnership. She just happens to be my neighbor so that was really, really nice and that will be an ongoing relationship from where Guys and Dolls, Rosanne Gregory used to sponsor that so now we’ve got a new one and it’s one of the favorite of all the ladies so that’s what’s going on in the senior center. Carron: Questions for Sue? Thanks Sue. Thanks everyone for your reports. Very informative. Very well put together. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Carron: Anything in the Administrative Packet Todd that you’d like us to look at or point out? Hoffman: Any questions? There’s another development in the Villages. A specialty grocery store that you can see we’re collecting some park dedication fees on and that will go in the space just south of Houlihan’s and the hotel. Carron: Okay, if there’s nothing else, do I have a motion? Boettcher moved, Thunberg seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 14