PRC 2014 10 28
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
OCTOBER 28, 2014
Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Elise Ryan, Brent Carron, Jim Boettcher,
Rick Echternacht, Luke Thunberg, Jacob Stolar and Tyler Kobilarcsik
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent;
and Adam Beers, Park Superintendent
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
The agenda was approved unanimously as presented.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Kelly: Do we have any public announcements tonight?
Hoffman: I have two. Would like to make everybody, all the commissioners aware that the Bandimere
expansion property has been final cleared, graded and seeded. It’s ready for your next phase of
improvements so when you have an opportunity take a look this winter, before this fall before winter sets
in and then next spring we’ll take a tour out there and go over the site in some detail. That was a long
process but it’s always exciting to see it in a final state. At least pre-development wise and so it’s gone
from two homes on 2 ½ acres each to a 5 acre park expansion for our, one of our community parks and
that site now when you include the expansion and then the Bandimere Heights property is just reached 40
acres in size for a community park so that’s very nice.
Echternacht: It looks great. I was over there the other night.
Hoffman: Really makes a.
Echternacht: Now you can see Fields 2 and 3 when you pull in. It’s like a shock.
Hoffman: Yeah, you can see them. And secondly we’d like to wish good luck to commissioners Elise
Ryan and Jim Boettcher on their run for City Council and good luck next Tuesday. Thanks for running.
Kelly: And I’ll add one more public announcement. Tyler Kobilarcsik qualified for the State tournament
in cross country. He’ll be running down in St. Olaf on Saturday. Good luck.
Kobilarcsik: Thank you.
Hoffman: It’ll be cool that day. Not too hot. Yeah, we’ll be rooting for you.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Kelly: Anybody have any changes to make to the Minutes from last week?
Carron: I’ll make a motion to approve the Minutes.
Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
Kelly: Is there a second?
Echternacht: I second that motion.
Carron moved, Echternacht seconded to approve the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park
and Recreation Commission Minutes dated September 23, 2014 as presented. All voted in favor
and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 9 to 0.
OVERVIEW OF WINTER SNOW AND ICE MAINTENANCE: PARKS, TRAILS, CITY
SIDEWALKS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND ICE SKATING/HOCKEY RINKS.
Beers: That’s me.
Kelly: Great Adam.
Beers: Thank you Chair Kelly and commissioners. As we’re getting closer to the winter months I
thought it’d be a good idea to talk about some of the maintenance practices that the park department’s
responsible for throughout the winter, specifically trail maintenance or snow removal on the trails, ice
control and our hockey rink maintenance. So I thought as we were kind of creeping closer it’d be a good
little refresher for everybody to, you know when they’re out and about and see some of the equipment,
you guys can have a good idea of what we’re doing and kind of how we’re prioritizing our time moving
through the city so with that I will start our presentation. This is a trail map that we put together. Kind of
lays out in five sections. Five routes I should say. How we kind of move throughout the city. Each one’s
color coordinated which kind of helps our department and any, for example if we had someone out and
we need to have someone jump in we can, each truck has one of these plow map books in it and they can
kind of jump in and just get going. It kind of helps us star organized with how we’re kind of pecking
things off the list as we’re moving through each snowfall. So we have 5 routes. We maintain you know
100 miles of trail and 4 foot sidewalk so it’s a big infrastructure to keep up. What have we got here
Jerry? 15 parking lots so it’s quite a bit to maintain.
Hoffman: As Adam goes through his presentation feel free to jot down any questions and ask him as he
moves through.
Beers: Yeah, feel free to chime in any time.
Echternacht: Yeah I have a question. Does Eden Prairie do anything with that trail over on, where we
connect with them around the lake?
Kelly: Rice Marsh?
Echternacht: Rice Marsh. Do you know?
Hoffman: Initially they did not and then they changed their mind basically due to pressure from the users
that we were plowing our half and their half was not plowed so they are now plowing their half of the
Rice Marsh Lake loop.
Echternacht: Okay, thank you.
Carron: On an average like let’s say one inch snowfall, how long would it take your guy’s crews to clear
all this?
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
Beers: On just those typical snowfalls we can generally get through in one day.
Carron: One day.
Beers: Now if it’s later in the season and we have you know some of the compounding effects of the
season long snowfalls, it tends to take a little longer because we have to go back out and widen everything
out so the typical 2, you know 2 to 3 inchers we can, if it’s just the light and fluffy stuff we can get
through pretty quickly. So that being said kind of how we prioritize how we move about the city and
where we start and finish. Two guys are usually dispatched to City Hall here and the Rec Center. Two
guys go to the Rec Center, excuse me. So we’ll get everything opened for business hours. That’s kind of
our goal every morning is to make sure things are passable up here. So we’ll have two plow trucks up
here. Just three-quarter ton pick-up’s and generally Charlie gets going right away doing all the hand
work. Getting all the stairways and the walk ways and the brick paver cleaned through to the library.
Two guys will go to the Rec Center and Bluff Creek Elementary so that’s open by 7:00 a.m. for their
business hours and typically when those two priority areas are finished down here and over there we’ll
start with the trail systems that butt up to those sites so that way the walkers can get to school safely. And
then once that’s done we usually reconvene back at the shop. Kind of make a plan. Talk about what went
well. Were we falling behind here. We need a little help there and then we’ll go out and try to start our
system throughout the rest of the city of Chanhassen. So we have 7 guys on our staff including me and
one of our staff members typically Jim, our heavy equipment operator, will work with the streets
department on almost every snowfall so those guys generally start a few hours before we come in. So by
the time they are wrapping their stuff up Jim usually gives me a call and says, you know he doesn’t have a
designated route per se in our group of 5 so he’ll jump in kind of as needed to either you know jump in a
truck or he’ll jump in the loader or a tractor or whatever and I’ll kind of show you and talk about some of
the different pieces of equipment we use and when and why so it’s kind of our ace in the hole if you will
to have a guy that’s free to jump in when we need him.
Kelly: So Adam let’s say we have a 6 to 10 inch snowfall and I think you kind of answered the question
when we were talking about one inch where you jump in first.
Beers: Yep.
Kelly: What other priorities because it’s going to take, if we get 10 inches how many days is it going to
take to get it done?
Beers: You know it’s all, it just depends if it’s the wet, heavy. Heavy stuff it might take you know 2 or 3
days but we’ll generally work I mean until it’s done. I think we logged a few 18 hour days last year. We
might not get it all done the first day but then we’ll, you know we’ll be back again at, you know go home
and get some dinner. A couple hours of sleep and then we’ll come back and hit it hard again so within
you know 2 to 3 days. I think that’s really the longest stretch we made it without having everything at
least accessible. It might not be perfect and widen out but everything was mostly accessible within that 2
to 3 days. So when we get those big, heavy snow storms that don’t allow us to use the, just our pick-up
trucks. We have two tractor blowers that kind of help you know knock down the banks. We can get
through all that heavy stuff with a little more ease. However it’s extremely slow. It’s a slow process so it
becomes wildly inefficient to get through everything so what we’ll try to do, Dean and I are usually in
pretty good communication figuring out you know what, there’s always some trails that we can get to
with pick-up’s. Even if it’s the deep stuff we can get things into piles where we can send the loader out or
the two tractors or, however it works. You know we’ll just keep doing what we can with what we have
and generally we get through it. Meanwhile we’re out plowing the trails and cleaning parking lots. Brad
Morris is a guy that usually spends, he goes out immediately from public works building down Powers
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
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and then he jumps on 78 in the Bobcat with the V plow so you know along with keeping all of our high
priority areas open, the school and the Rec Center, City Hall here and the library, that main street is a big,
hot button topic for us to keep you know all the businesses open and keeping people moving through
main street so that is another one of our you know, we deem our high priority areas. And when he can’t
get through that with the V-plow later in the season or if we get the big, heavy snow storms we do have
an attachment that he can throw on just like on the tractor where again it’s much slower but he can kind of
buck everything back a little bit and knock down the sight lines are a major issue up there. Keeping
things clear for pedestrians walking through the crosswalks so that’s generally where he spends most of
his day and if it’s the light snowfalls he might be able to just fly through everything downtown and then
we can immediately put him on either a truck to help out, finish some routes or he’ll jump into hockey
rinks which we’ll be talking about here shortly.
Echternacht: Adam that, on Lyman between Powers and Audubon. It’s under construction right
now…on the north side of that, is that considered a sidewalk or is that a trail that they’re putting in?
Hoffman: Trail.
Beers: It’s going to be a beautiful trail.
Echternacht: So that would be added to this then.
Hoffman: Correct. It’ll be a 10 foot asphalt trail.
Echternacht: Okay.
Beers: And each year as our trail system continues to grow we in turn just keep modifying our plow route
map and updating and hoping we can get another full time guy sometime. Figured I’d keep dropping that.
Back to the presentation. Typically when we go out we’re using our pick-up’s. Three-quarter ton pick-
up’s with plows and we’re able to get through everything pretty efficiently, pretty quickly when it’s just
you know like I said those normal few inches of snow and it’s the light and fluffy stuff. We can usually
get through everything with pretty good ease so that’s what we always hope for. We don’t always get it
and hopefully we don’t have another winter like last year. So again here’s another picture of the guys
clearing the lots early in the morning. Getting everything spiffed up for the Rec Center and City Hall
here. And this one when all else fails we do have a loader with a big blower on the front and this is
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typically used along Highway 5. The western sections of 78 when we have those farm fields there that
get drifted. I mean you can’t even get the tractor blowers through there. Those things are taller than the
pick-up at times so Jim will go out with this and this is a great tool, especially talking about Highway 5
for example. When you get the big dump trucks coming in and they’re getting everything that’s got the
road salt on it and then now it’s extremely heavy and it’s difficult to move. This guy can get through with
no issues so.
Hoffman: Hydrant maps are important when you’re doing that.
Beers: Absolutely.
Hoffman: That will shear a fire hydrant right off.
Beers: And those guys do a pretty good job. The utility department along with us and streets, making
sure that those are kept clean and at least flagged if they’re not cleaned so we know where they’re at and
we do a pretty good job. I think there’s only maybe one or two that got damaged this last winter which
with the winter we had I felt was a pretty good success.
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
Carron: I’ve got a question. When it’s in a residential area is it the homeowner’s responsibility to clean
all the fire hydrants or does the City do it?
Hoffman: It’s not mandated by ordinance but it’s preferred that, the fire department is often asking the
residents to clean the fire hydrants near their house and most do.
Beers: Yeah I think it’s, they do actually a pretty good job but most of the things in the utility
departments run a route on the main Powers and those right-of-way areas. As far as ice control goes, we
got pretty lucky last year. I think we only had to send our salt truck out maybe 5 or 6 times. Every day
when we’re going through, you know once we get through a typical snowfall and we get everything
opened up, we’ll spend a portion of that next week widening all the trails. Preparing for the next snowfall
which seemed to come pretty steadily last season so as we’re moving through where everybody’s keeping
a pretty close eye on the conditions of the trails and the parking lots and sidewalks and we really only had
to go out a few times to, it was towards the end of the year, to drop any product down so we got pretty
lucky but we’re always on standby. This truck is always in the shop ready to go out the door at a
moment’s notice so. For us on trails and parking lots ice control is pretty minimum compared to the
streets department so.
Ryan: Where do you store all your salt and?
Beers: We have a big hoop house at the public works building. I mean I couldn’t even tell you how
many tons they get in there but it’s a lot. It’s a pretty big pile.
Hoffman: Most of it comes in to the port of Duluth and it’s purchased in bulk early in the season and
then it’s trucked from Duluth here to Chanhassen.
Beers: Any other questions regarding trails and snowplowing? I’ll move into hockey rinks. So currently
we maintain 8 rinks. Four hockey rinks, four open skating rinks. Soon to be a few more once Bandimere
opens up. Typically if we just have you know no snowfall and we’re just doing a bare minimum rink
maintenance procedure we’ll just be able to send the brush out which clears up any of the skate shavings
from the night before. Once that’s done everything gets scooted to the outside and the guys will quick run
around with scoop shovels and throw everything out which is the key I think to our success with having
great rinks here. A lot of people don’t spend the time to clean the edges and that really makes a big
difference. It’s labor intensive but it goes a long way I think for the overall use of everybody out playing.
However if we were to get snowfall and we’re out plowing trails and parking lots, as we’re moving
through the city and cleaning lots with these certain parks that have the rinks we’ll go in there with the
three-quarter ton pick-up’s and push everything to the ends and depending on kind of where we’re at and
how much snow we have we might pull a guy off a little early. Somebody, one of the other guys will
pick up the slack on his route and then we’ll send the tractor out with the blower on the front. He’ll make
a few loops to get the bulk of the snow off and then in turn another crew comes in with a walk behind
snowblower and to do some hand work and then the brush will come through the final time to get
everything cleaned up so there’s a lot of steps but we’ve got it down to a pretty efficient process. It’s just
a matter of know when to kind of pull the trigger and move certain guys around and that’s all kind of
depends on what’s in front of us and how much snow we have and what’s going on that day so. You guys
are familiar with our flooding process. You know as soon as we get the deep freeze we’ll go on those 24
hour shifts of just building and establishing our base. Shooting for that 3 to 4 to 5 plus inches if we can
and basically everything after that is just maintenance goes to keep it looking spiffy so that’s kind of the
ice rinks in a nutshell.
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
Ryan: I have a quick question on, not about the rink flooding itself but checking on the boards at the
hockey rinks. How often do you, when you’re going around cleaning off and are those checked? I just
noticed some repair this summer at North Lotus Lake.
Beers: Yep. We check those every time we’re out there. We, I don’t think we actually had to do any
actual maintenance of the boards during the season last year. It seemed like towards the end of the year
once things were, I don’t know why or how that happened but we went through and replaced some
hardware. There was some bolts falling off and we replaced a couple of the boards that were getting close
to the end of their life cycle so everything is good to go at this point for the skating season and we’re
ready to rock and roll as soon as we get this cold weather.
Kelly: I hope we have a month and a half or so.
Beers: I hope so too. That is about it so if you guys have any other questions I’d be glad to.
Kelly: Any other questions for Adam?
Beers: Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
Kelly: Thank you Adam for going through that.
Hoffman: Jack or Tyler, do you get out on the trails in the winter? Hockey rinks at North Lotus.
2014 RESERVATION PICNIC SITE EVALUATIONS REPORT.
Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly. Good evening to the rest of the commissioners. It’s a pleasure to be
here tonight. Just want to go through the 2014 picnic site evaluation. 2014, we saw another good year.
Our highest on record here for a while here so 131 total paid picnic reservations and that was an increase
from 119 from 2013. We hosted a variety of events. Reunions, weddings, graduations, birthdays,
baptisms, kind of a wide variety of uses out at the park itself. The most popular site again this year was
the Lakeside Pavilion at Lake Ann. That had 51 reservations. Second was the Klingelhutz Pavilion at
Lake Ann. They had 46. And third was the Lake Susan shelter at 34. So those 131 reservations
generated over $17,000 in revenue which is an increase of over $2,000 or 13 percent from 2013. With
that many reservations we had an estimated number of 17,000 people attending those picnics which is an
increase from previous years. And that number is based on just the paid reservations that we have on file.
There still is other, at lot, many other people using the picnic sites that don’t make a reservation. That
just go use the shelters so that number is quite a bit higher than that so, but we feel very lucky that we
have the shelters in use for our residents and other picnic users. Again attached is kind of a breakdown of
the 2014 and kind of how those numbers kind of ranked throughout the course of the week and how
they’re ranked or broken down between resident and non-resident reservation groups. So we take a look,
go ahead Rick.
Echternacht: The reservations at Klingelhutz, did most of those come from previously were they at Lake
Susan or do you know Lake Ann or Lake Susan before? Before we had that facility. You know where
did we pull those?
Ruegemer: Yeah I mean there’s a variety of different areas. Certainly Lake Susan was popular you know
previously. We did have a shelter, or we had a reservation area out there before called the Parkview
Picnic area. A non-covered area so obviously it wasn’t as popular as the other covered areas but certainly
now that bigger shelter is very attractive for people coming in. Staff did include many of the evaluations.
We certainly try to seek out information from our picnic users to give us a kind of a grade on how we
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
performed and how, what their experience was like at that. Staff did include those in the administration
part of the packet for the Park and Rec packets on a monthly basis. For the most part they were favorable
or positive comments, but certainly there’s some things that we had to address with different maintenance
type of issues made within the picnic areas which is, we strongly encourage people to let us know how
their experience was and if we need to address something we can address something as well so, so we’ll,
staff will continue to include those in the admin packet just for your viewing pleasure. Obviously with
the two shelters at Lake Ann we do, we have obviously a lot of reservations out there at the Lakeside and
the Klingelhutz Pavilion. You know it seemed like the last couple years now we’re kind of starting to
kind of pick up steam now with larger groups. Not only during the week but on the weekends. That has
created some parking problems at times when we have, for the most part in the month of July when we
have larger youth athletic association tournaments out at Lake Ann for that so we have you know two
different picnic sites going with larger picnics and the beach, if it’s a warm weekend the beach is going.
We have six fields of activities going on, that does create I guess some additional problems for us that we
don’t have enough parking capacity for that so what staff is proposing to do is certainly work with the
athletic association for next year and I’m proposing that we don’t schedule the Klingelhutz Pavilion on
those big weekends you know depending on I guess the capacity of the group but that sort of thing but
kind of keep it more away from the ballfields and keep the parking more towards the beach area and book
only the Lakeside Pavilion so I’ll kind of work with CAA on that. Kind of what the weekends may be.
They have been doing a lot of state and national tournaments out at Lake Ann about the second third
weekend in July the last couple years so we kind of know kind of where the weekends are kind of
earmarked right now so staff can certainly just not book the Klingelhutz Pavilion in particular with larger
family reunions or company picnics, that sort of thing and then just to try to alleviate some of those
parking problems.
Scharfenberg: Jerry just a thought with respect to Klingelhutz and those weekends that you have. Would
it be feasible to block off those two entrances to that, to the parking area that kind of just supports
Klingelhutz so depending on the size that we put up barricades prior to the picnic that, you know
depending on the size. I know if it’s a large picnic you’re going to have overflow anyway but.
Ruegemer: Yeah that certainly is something to consider. I don’t know how feasible that would be just to
try to block that off and you know do we have to try to manage that you know on a weekend type of basis.
Whether either through a seasonal staff or CSO in particular. It might be I think just as wise just not to
book it at all. There will be overflow parking from the beach area as well as the ballfields for that so I
think those are highly sought after parking spots that may not be worth the aggravation in trying to save
them.
Scharfenberg: When those tournaments are here, are those parents and ball players, are they going all the
way to those far lots? You know all the way around because you know a lot of them are looking for those
first ones just in whereas, so when they’re out there are those other lots empty or is there parking
available and maybe we need to do a better job with signage you know to tell CAA listen, you need to tell
your people. Have somebody there and tell them that they need to park all the way around. I don’t know.
Ruegemer: Yeah it’s human nature obviously they want the closest spot and if that means to park on the
grass they park on the grass so you know I can’t give you a for sure answer that yes, the parking lots are
full over on the east side of the property. That certainly would make sense and that’s something staff can
communicate to the athletic association as well. So again the 2014 picnic reservation season again was
very successful and it looks like the majority of the customers and guests out there had a positive
experience. Again staff will continue to look for ways to improve our facilities and procedures to ensure
our customers have a good experience and want to return in the future. This year we added some
attachments with that. We touched briefly on the picnic reservation categories and that’s with all three
shelters that we have kind of broken down by the day of the week and how many picnics were reserved
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
on those particular days. We added this year kind of a trend. Kind of a bar line to kind of let you know
kind of where we were in previous years. Like going back 6 years and kind of track our attendance for
picnics and then the number of picnics or the attendance from 2008 to 2014. We had over 83,000 people
estimated that used the facilities. Picnic revenue and you can see from 2008 to 2014 almost $94,000 was
brought in just in picnic revenue and it seems like it’s been for the most part a steady increase in revenue.
Especially the last 4 years for that and then reservations by number was a total of 784 from 2008 to 2014
again and again that seems to be kind of a steady climb so staff will continue certainly to look for ways to
fill those non-reserved days as we have in the past so that certainly is our goal to break or exceed our
revenue and reservation goals annually.
Kelly: Questions for Jerry? Jerry I have a few. I see that reservations are up about 8 or 9 percent but yet
you’ve got attendance up about 33 percent so are we, we have larger groups that are reserving than in the
past? And is the amenity at Lakeside Pavilion one of the big reasons why?
Ruegemer: Well certainly larger groups are up in the Klingelhutz Pavilion.
Kelly: Yep, that’s what I meant.
Ruegemer: Yep, and there are larger you know family reunions, company picnics. Cargill’s been out
here. Blue Stem brands and a lot of those have been you know 300 to 400, 500 people. The bigger
companies now are reserving both locations. The Lakeside and the Klingelhutz Pavilion during the week
a lot of times so they can have you know games or food set up so to answer your question there are, there
have been larger groups that are kind of seeking out and finding Lake Ann for those reasons. It’s
relatively cheap if you’re a company picnic out there or family reunion.
Kelly: Well geez you led me right up to my next question Jerry. Thanks for the softball. Reservations
are going up and attendance is going up, are we charging enough?
Ruegemer: You know that’s, staff thinks we are charging enough just to try to keep you know in line
with market. If you go look at other Three Rivers facilities. The City of Chaska, some of those, we’re
way higher than the City of Chaska and I certainly hear that when people are trying to make that
reservation. It seems like we you know kind of talk about this every year. Should we just get rid of the
non-resident fee and go just a resident fee? Certainly people are finding their way around a non-resident
fee but the honest people we still are.
Kelly: How do we compare to Carver Park Reserve where they have some rental areas?
Ruegemer: You know Carver Parks with the shelters at Minnewashta and that sort of thing, we’re in the
same ballpark as them certainly.
Kelly: Okay, thank you.
Hoffman: Some of those other facilities have running water and that’s often a request we get. We’re
priced at the same price level as facilities with more improvements so going any higher would push us out
of that range people would say.
Kelly: Okay.
Hoffman: We really like your location. You’re currently not offering the same amenities others do but
you’re asking the same price so if we go above that we’re going to start losing customers.
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
Kelly: Great, thank you. Any other questions? Moving right along.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORT.
None.
COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS.
Scharfenberg: Can I just ask Todd that for the commissioners that weren’t at Stone Creek the other night,
just to touch on that. What happened with the Stone Creek meeting.
Hoffman: Sure. So Stone Creek is getting remodeled. The playground as a part of the installation of the
shelter. There’s three shelters going in. Stone Creek, Sugarbush and Roundhouse Park. The shelter, the
picnic shelter at Stone Creek is so closely tied to the playground that the playground needed some work as
well so we’re replacing border, surfacing. Taking out some asphalt trails and putting in concrete and then
as a part of that the hill side slide that was incorporated into the playground originally about 19 years ago
was in need of some maintenance work. It’s always been a topic of conversation since it first went in that
it’s a little rough at the bottom for some younger kids and it also causes a lot of skin burns due to the
length of the slide. And so we thought well should we just take that amenity out but we wanted to ask the
neighbors first so we did a neighborhood mailing to the entire neighborhood. Had limited response but
we did have some unsolicited response during the process that hey, said as long as you’re here are you
going to be taking that out? It’s really not used that much. It’s not being maintained so we had one
person there that evening with 4 children so she thought she could count that as 4 votes to take it out and
we had one email to keep it and one email to take it away so that’s a 2 to 1 vote on a public process and
we took it out the very next day so it’s just one of those things where the neighborhood wanted to invest
some of their dollars in that but it was a little bit cumbersome to maintain over time and it really was a
distraction from the overall quality of the product. The quality of the remodel and so it was either needed
to be remodeled and put some additional money into it to keep it going or take it out so it has been taken
out.
Kelly: Thank you Todd. Any other questions?
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Kelly: I think we’ve got about 3 things in the Administrative Packet. Chanhassen AIS, Carver County
AIS and how much money they might be getting. I forget how much that is and I think some reviews of
park reservations. Anything specific you want to point out or talk about?
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Hoffman: The City’s aquatic invasive species program continues through November 15 at Lotus Lake.
There’ll be a final report later on, probably January or February of 2015 for the Chanhassen City Council.
Carver County is also talking about modifying their program because there is state allocated money. The
State legislature has allocated $10 million dollars annually to all counties in the state of Minnesota.
Starting in 2015 Carver County will get approximately $120,000 annually. The way that money is
distributed is the more public accesses and the more parking spaces you have at those public accesses in
your county, that’s the allocation of the dollars you receive so the $120,000 coming to Carver County is
due to the fact that Carver County has a number of lakes. Three of those at least happen to be in our
system. Lake Susan, Lake Ann and Lotus Lake so the County has yet to determine. The County Board
has yet to determine how that money will be allocated. It could be for education. It could be for
equipment. It could be for inspections so we don’t know exactly what they’ll be doing yet and then staff
has not prepared our report for our City Council until our program is completely finished out. If you did
notice in the press release, 3 zebra mussels were stopped this year from going into Lotus Lake. A couple
of those were attached to watercraft. One to a boat. One to a trailer. And then about a half a dozen or 10
smaller zebra mussels were attached just to vegetation that was on a trailer that was attempting to enter
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Park and Recreation Meeting – October 28, 2014
Lotus Lake so program is working on that level. Three watercraft were stopped and final report will go to
the City Council and I’ll copy the commission on that as well.
Kelly: Any other comments, questions on the Administrative package by anybody? How hard would it
be to put in a water fountain at Lake Susan?
Hoffman: Attached to the building or independent?
Kelly: I would think you would have to attach it to the building wouldn’t you?
Hoffman: We’ll take a look at that.
Kelly: That would seem like a nice amenity that since we’ve got water out there that we could look at
putting out there at a reasonable cost. I think if you did a stand alone it really wouldn’t be reasonable.
Hoffman: No. The biggest thing is the connection to the sanitary sewer and that’s accessible there in the
restrooms so we’ll take a look at if they have a spot…
Kelly: Okay, great. Thank you.
Hoffman: Also something I was thinking about today and I did not bring it up during our agenda but we
could combine our November and December agendas. You could meet in either November or December.
It would be up to the commission to choose.
Carron: I would approve that motion.
nd
Hoffman: That’s the easy part. Now pick the month. The dates I think are what, November 22.
Scharfenberg: Well we have to keep the November one because aren’t we having a meeting?
Hoffman: Oh correct.
Scharfenberg: So.
Kelly: Yeah. Yeah we have a meeting before so you have to do November. Thanks Steve. So are we all
in favor that we’re having a November meeting and not a December meeting? Yeah, okay. One
meeting.
Hoffman: Thank you.
Kelly: We’re going to have to get together in December though for something else. I’ve got to figure out
what that is but I’ll come up with it at some point. I just want to mention that Meghan ran her first
Halloween party. Did a great job last Saturday and you guys really should come out to it because I really
hit the irons hard to bulk up for this event and somehow my muscles just kind of go away right after it’s
over. Is there a motion out there?
Carron moved, Thunberg seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 9 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
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