PRC 2015 01 27
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
JANUARY 27, 2015
The Park and Recreation Commission met in a round table discussion with baseball
associations prior to Chair Kelly calling the regular meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Brent Carron, Jim Boettcher, Rick
Echternacht, and Tyler Kobilarcsik
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Luke Thunberg and Jacob Stolar
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Scott Lhotka Shakopee
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
The agenda was approved as presented.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hoffman: Ice rinks are closed for the time being. Likely through the weekend. The warm
temperatures they’re not, no longer skateable at this point but Feb Fest, the lake has 11 to 14
inches of ice. With the coming weather this weekend the lake will be in great shape so Feb Fest
thth
is on for Feb 11, or Feb 7. Excuse me.
Echternacht: Todd you should, the ice rinks are closed…time.
Hoffman: Through the weekend. Yep, through Friday likely and then depends on how fast we
can get them back. They’re melting right now so depending on how fast we can get them
flooded and back up and running. We’ll talk more about that in the later updates as well.
Scharfenberg: How are sales for the Feb Fest for tickets?
Ruegemer: Slow. Slow right now and that’s not out of the norm with that. You know we
probably get 80 percent, 85 percent of the ticket sales are the day of on the lake itself so people,
if we have a great day we’ll do well on sales.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Carron moved, Echternacht seconded to approve the
verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
November 24, 2014 as presented.
RECOMMENDATION TO APPROVE 2015/2016 LAKE ANN BEACH LIFEGUARD
CONTRACT; MINNETONKA COMMUNITY EDUCATION AND SERVICES.
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
Kelly: Jerry, I think we’re going to talk about Lake Ann Beach lifeguard services and contract
tonight. That’s amazing how fast 2 years goes by.
Ruegemer: Yes it is. Thank you Chair Kelly, good evening commission. We’re in, like Cole
said we are in the process of reviewing another 2 year contract with the Minnetonka public
schools. Independent School District 276 for lifeguard services at Lake Ann Park. So the City
contracts with Minnetonka and has for many years and it goes back to the 1970’s so we have
quite a history and really a great working relationship with Minnetonka. We had developed kind
of a 2 year contract format in 2007 so I think that’s really beneficial for both the City as well as
the school district with that. It’s really in preference for both of us so the format works great and
that’s why we’re going to go forward again with another 2 year contract here tonight. So based
on kind of the last contract we had in 2014, it’s kind of broken down. We had 22 hours, 22 ½
hours per day coverage for 72 days so roughly that was kind of the Saturday after school gets
out. Usually about the first or second, about the second week in June roughly and that goes to
rd
about the 3 week in August. So a daily hours of operation, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and last
thth
year’s dates were June 7 through August 17. Kind of how it was broken down, the total
contract with that with the parameters that are listed here was $29,187. There were a few I think
about, maybe Scott can refresh me. I think there’s about 2 to 3, 4 days of kind of rain credit for
the days that we lost in June where much of the beach was eroded and washed away during that
rain storm that we had so we did first time I think since I’ve been here that the beach was closed
due to weather conditions and rainfall so that was credited back with that. So looking ahead for
2015, there were different options that were included within your packet. Staff had taken a look
at the options and really is recommending approval for Option A. This option does increase the
hours, daily hours from 22 ½ to 23 ½ so basically 1 hour a day we’re going to increase. The
number of days that remain open will stay at 72. We feel that that’s a good number. You know
we certainly can reduce that number but you know kind of pick where you want to go. Either we
open up the beach later after school gets out or we close it down earlier. This seems to be a good
mix on where we’re at right now so staff is recommending that we stay at 72. The new proposed
contract amount will increase 5 ½ percent from 2014 to a total contract amount for 15 and 16 of
$30,879. The 2015 contract amount has been included within the Lake Ann Park budget on that
so. Dan is not here today, Mr. Dan Berve. Dan is at a meeting out of town. Mr. Scott Lhotka
who’s been involved with the program for many years is very versed on the contract and kind of
the operations of Lake Ann Park. Very knowledgeable person here to represent Minnetonka
tonight so it is staff’s recommendation that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to
the City Council to approve the two year contract with Minnetonka Public Schools, Independent
District 276 for Lake Ann Park beach lifeguard services in the amount of $30,879 per year.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry. Any questions for Jerry or for Scott from anybody?
Scharfenberg: I have a question for Scott. Scott correct me if I’m wrong but were there some
additional legislature with respect to pools and lifeguards? Did they put some additional burdens
on lifeguarding?
Scott Lhotka: Yes.
2
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
Scharfenberg: Can you speak to that and does that affect us at all relative to?
Scott Lhotka: Yeah. The, in the last legislature there was a new law put into effect as of January
st
1 that requires all public beaches to have Red Cross certified lifeguards and CPR and first aid
certified lifeguards and it won’t affect us at all. Our organization only hired Red Cross certified
lifeguards and we have for many, many, many years.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Kelly: Jerry, other than the dollar amounts and the possible hour amounts, were there any other
changes to the contract?
Ruegemer: No. A lot of the coverages, if you look at the lifeguard coverages, you know
certainly we took a look at that. During the peak times, normally peak times are kind of that
mid-afternoon timeframe. Everybody kind of gets ramped up after lunch. Kind of the hot part of
the day come there. There was some, a few adjustments kind of made in that particular area with
that but the hours are the same. We do increase one hour of coverage per day with that but the
beach hours are the same, 11:00 to 6:00 and staff feels that this is a, kind of a good format. Good
parameters for the contract and that’s why we’re recommending approval tonight.
Kelly: And we’re very happy with what they for the last 2 years for us I’m assuming since we’re
at the table with them right now.
Ruegemer: Absolutely.
Kelly: Okay. Any other questions? Or does somebody want to put it to the motion.
Carron: I’ll make a motion that the Park and Rec Commission recommend to the City Council
for the two year contract as Option A for $30,879 per year.
Kelly: Is there a second?
Scharfenberg: Second.
Kelly: Okay, there’s been a motion. The proposed motion for number A has been proposed and
seconded.
Carron moved, Scharfenberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
recommend to the City Council to approve the two year contract with Minnetonka Public
Schools, Independent District 276 for Lake Ann Park Beach Lifeguard Services in the
amount of $30,879 per year. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 6 to 0.
Scott Lhotka: Thank you gentlemen.
Kelly: Thank you Scott.
3
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
Hoffman: Scott if you could, this is our longest standing recreation services agreement so just
say thank you for us please to the people back at Minnetonka Community Ed and services and
your administration staff.
Scott Lhotka: Definitely.
Hoffman: As an organization we can’t be successful without these kind of contracts. We hope it
makes you more successful and so we really appreciate all you do.
Scott Lhotka: It is. We love our partnership with you guys.
Hoffman: Great, thank you.
Scott Lhotka: Thank you.
Kelly: Thanks Scott.
2015 FEBRUARY FESTIVAL PREVIEW REPORT.
Kelly: Moving right along, we talked a little bit about Feb Fest but I think we’re going to have a
little bigger overview. Jerry.
Ruegemer: Does everybody have a Feb Fest flyer?
Kobilarcsik: No.
Ruegemer: I have some here tonight if you’d like to take a look. I’ll wait a quick second. On
it’s in the packet? Okay, sorry.
Kelly: You can get an extra one now.
Ruegemer: My brain it’s going to the top floor these days so sorry about that. So coming up on
nd
our 22 Annual Ice Fishing Contest and February Festival event. Looks like things are really
starting to shape up here with that. We’re getting some really nice prizes here. As you see, take
a look at the 50, 50 largest top fish prize list. It’s a lot of nice things. We’ve got great
partnerships and sponsorships from a number of groups throughout the Chanhassen and area.
It’s kind of fun with Merlin’s, you know you just go down between Christmas and New Year’s
and Kent just loves kind of playing Santa Claus. He has all kinds of things that he’d like to
donate and it’s been a great partnership for us. He loves doing it and we can’t thank him enough.
It’s usually probably that $1,500, $1,600, $1,700 dollars in donations every year from routers to
tools to you know tents to whatever he has that he feels that he isn’t going to move and it works
out great for us for the fishing prizes and door prizes to allocate those and that isn’t anything that
we’re paying for so it’s great for us. We love having him as a sponsor. Also just got the Dinner
Theater today as well for $3,500 sponsorship here today with dinner show and tickets for that so
we really have a lot of great partners within our community that really give a lot to our
4
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
organization and we’ll publicly thank them and personally thank them come down here the road
and I do that all the time when I’m out and about town so we couldn’t do it without them so
we’re really coming up here. A lot of the permits are already in place for the fishing contest with
the DNR. We have volunteers signing up and getting ready to go. We have the computer
program getting loaded on the computers here. We’ll go through all those and make sure
everybody’s ready to go on those if we have a banner fishing year here this year so. Last years
been very manageable the last couple years with under 100 fish caught so that helps us out
tremendously inputting information into the computers so just really working hard with park
maintenance and Jodi and Sue really help me out tremendously today in putting together the
fishing prizes and kind of organizing and getting those kind of put together and it’s been fun for
our department to kind of work together on that and get everything kind of ready to go. Start on
the door prizes as well. We’re going to kind of the play everything by ear with the skating rink
out there. You know we’ve kind of cleaned an area off out there and the thought of it kind of
melting and self leveling and hopefully we can get some cold weather here and be able to put
some water down on it to kind of freeze it again so we’ll kind of keep tabs on that. The boy
scouts are going to be selling bait again this year. They have a new contact this year that I’ve
been in contact with so it’s been a nice partnership with us and the boy scouts have been
involved for quite a few years now out there for that and they’ll also be selling s’mores kits.
Working with obviously the sleigh rides we’re going to determine probably the next couple three
days here if the sleigh ride’s going to be on the lake itself or just have a hay wagon and go on the
trail between Greenwood Shores and Lake Ann so we’ll work with Kenmore Farms on that and
it’s really kind of his call. It’s his horses that he doesn’t want to potentially drop into the lake
here so, and/or slip and fall on that so it’s worked both ways. We have done it both ways so
we’re confident we can, we’re going to make it work one way or another so with that and really
the biggest thing is the ice fishing contest and the Rotary’s involved again with that doing
concessions. Culver’s will be down there. Coordinated with the Chanhassen Culver’s to provide
food down there as well so the Rotary’s been a great partner for us on that event and doing the
concessions and also drilling all the holes so they’ll be down there 7:30-8:00 in the morning.
We’ll drill 1,000 to 1,200 holes on there so it’s a great partnership. I think they enjoy doing it
and it really helps us out tremendously that we can dedicate our efforts in other areas to get
prepared for the event itself so like I said I think they enjoy it. We’ll see them again in the
morning. We’re presenting as a staff at the Rotary meeting tomorrow morning so we’ll publicly
thank them as well and pass on our well wishes onto them tomorrow morning so. There’s been a
number of inserts and flyers, ads in the Villager and also the Herald. There’ll be another insert in
Thursday of this week in both papers so we’re trying to get some coverage out there with the ice
fishing contest and the event. The medallion hunt is starting on Monday for that so clues will be
posted at 11:00 and they’ll be posted on our City web page, Facebook, Byerly’s, the Chanhassen
Library and the Villager website so that information is out to our sponsors with that already and
helpers with that so we have it all set to go at 11:00 on Monday for the first clue so. So we
should be all set to go. There is a picture of the medallion so people kind of know what they’re
looking for on that and so it should be a great event. I think people enjoy the medallion as well.
We have a $500 pack, prize pack for that so that will include a variety of gift certificates. The
Friends of the Chanhassen Library donated a Nook for that as well to include in that prize pack
so I think people enjoy looking for that. It’s a nice prize for that too so other than that we’re
progressing. Just working with Adam and the maintenance crew on getting our power needs met
and all the tents are ready to go and the garbage containers and bathrooms and all that sort of
5
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
foundation type of things so I know park maintenance has been busy kind of getting the park
ready and getting wood ready for the bonfires and I haven’t had to do a whole lot of
snowplowing on the parking lots but those are pretty much all ready to go at this point so we
have signage up around town and hope for a nice day and we’ll get some people out there.
Kelly: So Jerry with the company that provides the DJ, you know last year we had some people
in the further bounds that said they had trouble hearing the announcements and what the
announcements we were making. I don’t know there’s probably a couple ways to work on it but
we need to, when they come in and set up we need to set it up probably a little different than last
year so we can try and get it out further. We may not get it out to all edges but I think last year’s
set up, the tent probably could have been moved to right against the snow and it might have been
a little easier set up than where it was with people crossing in front and then we had the speakers
back and we can talk more about that later but that was something that I got some feedback from
last year from various people saying you know we can’t hear anything out here so.
Ruegemer: Yeah and it seemed like it kind of work, in the past we had just like a big daisy chain
of I think we have 4 speakers coming this year so far. Just daisy chain them and just put them in,
you know every other one point them in different directions and go all the way down to the north
and we should have pretty good coverage that way.
Kelly: Okay. Good. Thank you. Any other questions for Jerry?
Echternacht: Last year I think did we have the DECCA students help out and are they helping
out this year do you know?
Ruegemer: Yep, Molly Young is the contact from Chan High School. I’m drawing a blank on
the group.
Kelly: Key Club usually helps.
Ruegemer: Key Club, yep. They’re going to have at least 10 plus people there. Interact Club
with Rotary is going to have some volunteers as well with that so I had the volunteer sheet here
tonight if you guys all want to take a look. I think we had you guys down for that so park and
rec commission will be kind of in a variety of jobs. Help out with the prize board and we can
help with the weigh station. If there’s people that want to help out with data entry or writing
information for the door prizes and/or the fish prize board we’ll have you in that capacity during
that day. So kind of keep you around the tent area itself.
Boettcher: So I’ve got to ask this. So since you ran Meghan off, those that have replied to her
with what we were going to do, do you have those emails that you know what? I mean you kept
her laptop I’m hoping.
Hoffman: He’s looking. Yeah you got it.
Ruegemer: Is this kind of what you signed up for? Take a look at that and you can verify with
me and we can move you around. I thought you were on there. Is that where you wanted to be?
6
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
Boettcher: Yep.
Ruegemer: Okay.
Boettcher: Just wanted to make sure since you ran her out.
Kelly: …not at the hospital this year.
Boettcher: The other thing that came up last year was door prize tickets and I guess whenever
1:00 hit everybody just cleared out and we had people coming up to the weigh in until 2:30
wanting door prize tickets so if somebody just make a little sign and put it on the picnic table
where the tickets were sold, you know 10:30 to 1:00 that’s it. I mean it wasn’t that big a deal but
people were thinking they could still pick up the door prize tickets if they showed up at 2:00 or
whatever.
Hoffman: Yeah we’ve made it much more prominent.
Ruegemer: Prominent.
Boettcher: Right, I saw that.
Ruegemer: We hope but yeah we certainly can make a sign for that.
Hoffman: And that is all based on state law that you, once you start drawing you can’t put
another name in there. Everybody gets an equal chance so all names have to be in when you
start drawing.
Boettcher: I think last year didn’t we only have 43 fish weighed in. 44.
Kelly: 49.
Boettcher: What did we do with the other, how did we get rid of the other prizes?
Hoffman: I don’t recall.
Ruegemer: We drew names.
Kelly: We drew a name.
Boettcher: It was just drawings, okay.
Carron: I liked the last prize, $250 bucks.
Ruegemer: Keep everybody interested.
7
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
Hoffman: Yeah when you get knocked down to that one and then you get knocked off. Come
on baby, come on. Another small perch.
Kelly: Any other questions? Okay.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS.
Carron: I just have one question. We talked about speakers and what not. Easter, have we got
that figured out?
Ruegemer: I have not been thinking much about Easter at this point.
Carron: You’ve got a lot on your plate but I understand but just for speaker for next year, or this
upcoming season for because last year was kind of…
Ruegemer: We have a brand new PA system.
Carron: Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.
Ruegemer: That is 3 times the capacity. Well what we had out there, it’s about 10 times the
capacity of what we had.
Carron: Good.
Kelly: Brent I think you still need to bring your ear plugs this year.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Kelly: We’ve got the By-laws in there and I think in April comes 5 years so we will read
through the By-laws and update them if we need to in our April meeting is it Todd? Anything
else in the administrative packet you want to show us? Or point out.
Hoffman: No.
Kelly: Okay. Anybody else have anything they want to point out?
Hoffman: We’re going to talk about ice rinks for a little bit?
Kelly: Oh yeah ice rinks. We talked about that earlier. Go ahead and talk. Sorry.
Hoffman: No, no problem. Jerry.
8
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
2014/2015 OUTDOOR SKATING/HOCKEY RINK UPDATE.
Ruegemer: Yeah just to kind of reiterate what Todd had kind of mentioned you know just with
the warm weather that we’ve had really over the weekend. Really ice conditions on Monday
afternoon were really deteriorated with that. You could take your fingernail and scrape down
below your fingernail pretty quick here so they were not in skating condition at all at this point
so a mass email went out to the hockey associations, our rink attendants and pretty much
anybody. The Facebook and our City web page. Just a notification that until conditions improve
we’re going to be closed. We kind of put a, just looking at the weather forecast on Monday
looked like it was going to start cooling down here the tail end of the week. Put a soft date on
there as Friday of a re-opening but you know we’ll see how that plays out the next day or two.
How realistic that is at this point. It looks like overnight temps I think were around 17 if I’m not
mistaken so that’s not great for making ice and it looks like temperatures on Friday are going to
be in that 30, I think 30 range again with some sun and it is going to cool down a little bit over
the weekend so we’ll reassess on probably Thursday as to what direction we’re going to go with
that so you know it looks like it is going to cool down a little bit for about 2 or 3 days. Monday-
Tuesday-ish of next week it looks like it’s going to start warming up again. It doesn’t look like
it’s going to be in the mid to high 30’s but it looks like it’s going to be 20’s and low 30’s or
something again so we’re going to kind of see. You know we’re starting to get to the point now
where sun angles and you know we already had asphalt showing on some of the north parts of
the hockey boards with that so it’s starting to really warm up now on those surfaces and so we’re
not throwing in the towel yet but we’re going to kind of let it play out here in the next couple
three days and kind of see where we’re going to be at. Try to forecast the weather and look at
the, you know to mobilize and make that effort happen again we want to make sure it’s
beneficial for the residents and that we’re not just wasting a lot of resources at this point.
Echternacht: Do you have any last discussed an item, and I can’t recall…shut it down
completely.
Ruegemer: Yeah, and that was kind of more on the beginning start of the season. January I
ththth
think it was 15 I think it was, 10 or 15 was that so if they weren’t ready to go by that point
then we either reduce or eliminate and cancel the season so we are into the season right now. So
now obviously we haven’t closed them down this early prior to this year but we’ve always had
some times where we have been you know 2, 3, 4 days that we have been shut down during the
course of January at times so this isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary so if it rebounds and gets
cold again then we’ll continue but we’ll kind of see how it plays out. So at this point we don’t
have a policy saying that this is the drop dead date. If it’s cold we’ll continue to go. We’ve gone
into March before so it just really depends on conditions.
Hoffman: Yeah. Commissioner Echternacht we’ll your Minutes because there was a
conversation recall last year. Commissioner Ryan was very interested in the fact that we closed
down because of a snow fall if you recall so we still had ice underneath that snow but we weren’t
at that point in the season it was probably the third week in February so I know there was some
discussion amongst this board, should we have an end date so we’ll take a look at that and see if
th
that was something that the commission wanted to see. Once you get to February 15 it’s
difficult to maintain ice just because of the intensity of the sun. So we’re gaining about 15
9
Chanhassen Park and Recreation Commission – January 27, 2015
th
minutes of daylight a week right now and by February 15 it really starts to be difficult. You
ththth
can have zero degrees on February 16, 17, 18 and you’ll still melt the ice on the north side of
your rinks on a daily basis if it’s sunny and it’s going to be zero degrees. It’s just because of the
strength of the sun so.
Kelly: Any other questions?
Hoffman: Yeah take a look at the rinks if you get out. If they’re back up and running. I think
there was a couple hundred hockey kids out at the Rec Center the other day. They really
appreciate the free ice. The availability of that free ice when it’s there and they’re using it so the
ones that we currently maintain and use are still being used very well. High numbers and Jerry
has those number counts as well.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry and Todd. Anybody want to put it to the question?
Carron moved, Echternacht seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission
meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
10