PRC 2015 02 24
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 24, 2015
The Park and Recreation Commission interviewed the following applicants from 6:00 to
7:30 p.m.: Jennifer Hougham, Lauren Dale, PJ Williams, Robert Macuna, Josh Stephan,
and Mark Herzog. Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Brent Carron, Jim Boettcher, Rick
Echternacht, Luke Thunberg, Jacob Stolar and Tyler Kobilarcsik
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Supervisor; and Jill Sinclair, Environmental Resources Specialist
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Brian Mastel 6388 Lake Sarah Lane, Greenfield
Todd Neils 9900 Saddlebrook Curve
Dennis Cruikshank 8380 Allegheny Curve, Victoria
Geraint Powell 548 Greenview Drive
Kelly: Before we move to the next item I want to congratulate Commissioner Kobilarcsik for
being an All State Cross Country Skier in Minnesota. Congratulations.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Kelly: Does anybody have any additions or deletions to the agenda tonight?
Ruegemer: Chair Kelly, just I have a few verbal update on the luminary walk from last Friday
night.
Kelly: Okay. We’ll put that down under reports. 1c.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
Kelly: We have visitor presentations and I believe our first scheduled visitor is from the Pinky
Swear Foundation.
Brian Mastel: Thank you. First of all thank you Todd and Jerry for having us out here tonight.
Kelly: Please, before you start please give us your name and address.
Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Brian Mastel: You got it. Brian Mastel, 6388 Lake Sarah Lane, Greenfield, 55373. Brian
Mastel. I’m the race director of the Miracle Kids Triathlon. Miracles of Mitch Foundation
which is now known as the Pinky Swear Foundation and Pinky Swear Kids Triathlon. I’ll talk a
little bit about that name change here in a few minutes but we were invited here tonight to kind
of update you all on what we’ve got going for 2015. Lots of changes within the Foundation so
I’m kind of here to update you on what those changes are and what we’ll be doing here in the
city this year. Before I get started I think most of you know Steve Chepokas. Long time
Chanhassen resident. Miracles of Mitch founder. He sends his regards. He could not be here
tonight. The entire Pinky Swear Foundation is at an event in Minneapolis called the Bold
Awards tonight. The Bold Awards is an award given by the Association for Corporate Growth.
It celebrates boldness and honors the very best in corporate growth strategies. Leaders and their
teams will be recognized for imagination, innovation and extraordinary efforts to grow
Minnesota and that banquet’s taking place tonight. The Pinky Swear Foundation is a finalist for
the Bold Award and I think that’s a perfect segue into what I’m going to talk about tonight and
what’s been happening with the Pinky Swear Foundation, Miracles of Mitch and but he sends his
regards and wishes he could be here as well but he’s probably enjoying a night at Surly Brewery
and hopefully bringing home a very cool award for the foundation. The Miracles of Mitch
Foundation was established by Steve and Becky Chepokas in memory of their son Mitch and
since his death in 2003 the foundation has provided more than 4 and a half million dollars in
financial support, financial assistance and quality of life support. We’ve helped hundreds of
families who’s children are bravely battling cancer and the ugliness of cancer. The main
fundraising vehicle, as most of you know, has been the Miracle Kids Triathlon which launched
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right here in Chanhassen in 2004 so this past August was our 11 year at Lake Ann and I’m not
sure who on the council orders weather for events here in your city but nice job. That was about
as nice a day as we could have had for the tri. As a director of many running events and
triathlons you’re biggest fear is lightning and rain and we had none of those things. We had a
very beautiful day so whoever did that, thank you. I’m not sure who’s in charge.
Hoffman: The Mayor.
Brian Mastel: Perfect. I will send him a letter to thank him for that. So the main fundraising
vehicle has been our triathlons and in December the foundation took a couple of steps, realizing
a new strategic direction not only to help more families here in Minnesota but to broaden our
scale of people that we’re helping. So the foundation changed it’s name to Pinky Swear. That
was part of that strategic move. Changed it’s name to Pinky Swear does anybody not know
where the pinky swear part of Miracles of Mitch came from? Does anyone not know that
because I can tell a brief story. Alright. So when Mitch had cancer, I’m glad these are here
because I may need them. When Mitch had cancer he was in his hospital room and it was
Christmastime and he heard, overheard his roommate’s family talking about not having enough
money for Christmas presents that year. So we had his dad go get his money out of his bank
account. Put money into envelopes and then distributed them to the kids in the cancer unit so
they could buy Christmas presents or whatever they needed and they get done with that and
Mitch told his dad, you know it’s the most fun he’s ever had in his life and they’re in the elevator
and he said dad I want to do that again next year. And Mitch, Steve had to tell Mitch you’re not
going to be here next year Mitch so he pinky swore with his dad in the elevator that he would
promise him that he would do that forever and that was how the foundation was born and with
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
the name change from Miracles of Mitch to Pinky Swear it really fits into I think what Mitch’s
legacy has become with this foundation so in December the foundation’s name officially
changed to the Pinky Swear Foundation and then obviously the triathlon now is called the Pinky
Swear Triathlon. What that also has done is that we’re able to help, the goal then is to be able to
help families, not just in Minnesota but around the country and as of today the Pinky Swear
Triathlon has partnered with 7 different kids triathlons in 7 different states. The first of those
coming in May, or actually in April in Houston and then in May with the second ever, or the first
ever out of state Pinky Swear Triathlon in Charlotte, North Carolina. So that means Mitch’s
legacy has grown beyond his home state’s borders which is a pretty cool thing. The other change
for 2015 is the way in which we as a foundation plan to honor and celebrate our all stars. Those
are the kids that have cancer. The families that the foundation is helping so the Pinky Swear
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Triathlon for the Twin Cities area will take place on August 1 at Lake Nokomis and then on
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Saturday, August 15 we’ll have our first ever all star picnic and, picnic and awards celebration
here at Lake Ann so that will be a change from the event that we’ve had here in the past but one
of the things that we did after the two triathlons this past year, we surveyed all of our participants
and overwhelmingly what those participants told us is that they wanted more of a connection to
the all star families. In fact we’ve heard a couple of stories here recently about some of the
racers and the connection, maintaining the connection to an all star family. We heard about one
particular racer actually at our staff meeting this morning who goes and spends time with her all
star. They made such a connection that she goes to her school. She does different things with
her so those are the connections that we hope to strengthen and this all star celebration, the picnic
at Lake Ann I think is going to be a perfect vehicle not only for us to showcase the gorgeous park
that you have here in the city but also strengthen that connection between the racers, the money
that they’ve raised and the all star families that they’ve helped along the way so that will be
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August 15 at Lake Ann. We haven’t laid out the entire agenda for that particular day yet but it
will be a fun family atmosphere obviously. Live music. Probably lots of, lots of stories and
different things so that the people we’re honoring, not just the racers but those all stars are
featured and that’s really where we want to make an impact on those families. If you’ve been to
the triathlon before, and I think probably a few of you have been in, we start the day with a
procession of all the athletes. Kind of a parade of athletes and those all star kids and their
families lead the way into that, into the arena so to speak and that’s really the only time that
they’re featured and I think this all star celebration, this picnic is going to be a way to really
celebrate everything that has gone on throughout the year to help raise money for them so the
Pinky Swear Foundation’s roots are here in Chan. We’re honored to be able to continue to play
in your beautiful park at Lake Ann and I’m really looking forward to the change that we made to
be able to honor the all stars and our triathletes in the fundraiser so I appreciate the time tonight
and looking forward to sitting down with you guys and hammering out the details.
Kelly: Thank you Brian. Anybody have questions for Brian? Good luck with everything this
summer.
Brian Mastel: Thank you. Appreciate it. I didn’t need these.
Kelly: Next we’ve got the CAA dugout field improvements. Todd Neils.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Todd Neils: Good evening commission. My name is Todd Neils, 990 Saddlebrook Curve,
Chanhassen. I’m coming tonight to discuss more conceptually the plans that the CAA is going
to be bringing forth this year. I’m excited on a number of different fronts. So everyone’s aware
my tenure as President running the CAA Baseball and Softball Association ended in October and
I was able to take on a new role as the field enhancement Dugout Club liaison for the
Chanhassen Athletic Association and doubly excited because for 12 years I’ve been begging
members of the association to join me and thankfully tonight we actually have some people who
are here who have put in a number of hours within the association to bring forth kind of a vision
of how we would like to enhance the parks in the Chanhassen and surrounding community area.
Again this is all conceptual in nature. We’ll be sending proposals to staff for your review. This
is also in an effort to based on the short timeline that we’re on trying to get some of our projects
completed in the spring, to get in front of not only yourselves but City Council so that we can hit
the ground running when the thaw finally arrives. I’d like to acknowledge at this point three
members of the CAA Baseball/Softball board that are here. Geraint Powell who is our
Treasurer. Jeffery Schein who runs our 12 and above league and Dennis Cruikshank who
through his strong efforts over the last 2 years has helped raise quite a bit of funds through both
our Chan Challenge Baseball Tournament as well as our State Tournament that we host on
behalf of Metro Baseball. So I’m going to, pardon the expression, machine gun a number of
things at you and am welcoming questions or concerns in relation to those so that we can help
move the projects that we hope to accomplish this year along. First and foremost and the number
one probably concern of our Chan Challenge/State Tournament participants of which we bring
upwards of 32 teams to the State Tournament. An additional 32 teams to the Chan Challenge
Tournament. Hundreds of families into the community and while they’ve all said what a
wonderful space Lake Ann Park is and Chan Rec Center, one of the concerns is at this point the
configuration of the fields at Chan Rec Center. Right now the requirement for that age group is
65 foot bases. We are going to propose that the Dugout Club in conjunction with the CAA
Baseball/Softball Association increase the field size by removing some grass. It will be a non-
funding, non-funded effectively event in that we’ll be working with both staff and employees of
the park and rec system to accomplish that. Just wanted to put that in front of you. A couple of
things that we think are going to also help enhance the parks are scoreboards. We are looking to
put in electronic scoreboards at this point at Fields 2 and 3 at Lake Ann Park as well as Lake
Susan Park. Additionally we will work with electricians to obviously run the electricity from, at
this point the proposed point is the northwest corner of the Lake Susan Park and place a
scoreboard in left field and then additionally a scoreboard in the north corner of Lake Ann 3 and
the south corner of Lake Ann 2. That will allow us to potentially and eventually pigtail onto that
and set in scoreboards at Lake Ann 1 as well as light both the batting cages at Lake Susan and
Lake Ann. I’m trying to think of the number of things that we’re trying to accomplish this year.
The next thing would be potentially, and this is much further down the road, is actually dugouts
in brick and mortar form at Lake Susan Park. We’d only be installing those particular dugouts at
the larger parks with older children. And then the last thing is really, it’s not as much aesthetics
as it is mother’s requirements let’s call it at this point. The Lake Ann dugouts right now, when a
large rain comes turns into a rather large swimming pool and so what we would propose is that
removing some of the infield mix, digging down. Putting a 2 by 4 frame in and putting concrete
in. Specifically 1, 2 and 3 this year with the expectation of doing all 6 fields at Lake Ann Park
eventually. We’ve gone through our paces to, we’ve gone through our paces to get the costs
generated and again from the hard work of the thousands of volunteer hours that the CAA
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
baseball and softball parents put in on an annual basis has allowed us to draw and build a cash
reserve that will accommodate some of these projects. At this point I’m open to questions if you
have any.
Kelly: Questions for Todd.
Thunberg: So there’s kind of the four different projects with the field configuration, the
scoreboards, the brick and mortar dugouts and then the, fixing the Lake Ann for the puddles.
Todd Neils: Correct.
Thunberg: If you were to rank those from kind of how the association feels highest priority, 1
through 4, what would you.
Todd Neils: Well since we want to continue, thank you for the question. Since we want to
continue hosting not only the Chan Challenge as well as the State Tournament for the 11 year old
Metro Baseball Tournament. We feel right now that the most important is the, is the expansion
of the field space or field size. If you have looked at, the City was nice enough to expand the
pegs at the fields. However in doing so they are either on the edge or in the grass so right now
that is the number one concern of the baseball coaches that come into the association. Or I
should say and play in the community. I would rank that as number one. Number two, again
always looking for opportunities to enhance the playing conditions for the youth in the
association and so I think that scoreboards is probably number two if I were to rank that. And I
understand bleach is fantastic in getting out dirt and so the dugouts would probably be number 3.
The brick and mortar dugouts at Lake Susan are a long term commitment and the intent is fully
to actually work with some of the surrounding home improvement stores to donate materials in
the same manner that they did when we improved the Lake Ann concession stand.
Scharfenberg: So is the recommendation with respect to the, enlarging the fields at all of the
fields at the Rec Center or just a few of the fields?
Todd Neils: Right now we utilize 5 fields. It would be essentially to expand all of them. You
know having had a couple of state tournaments and 4 to 5 inches of rain per state tournament per
day, what we found is that Lake, or Chan Rec drains in a very consistent manner down to Field 5
and so the intent is to expand the fields in an effort to make as many fields available as we can
get used in case of large rain.
Scharfenberg: So other than putting in pegs and what, cutting out grass, what else is involved in
that?
Todd Neils: The only thing, putting in the infield mix.
Ruegemer: Potentially moving the…
Todd Neils: Potentially if, yeah. Yeah.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Kelly: Todd you said you’re going to get something in writing to Todd Hoffman’s department.
When do you foresee that happening?
Todd Neils: A draft is complete. Intent is to send it either late this week or early next.
Obviously the absolute intent is to fast track this to a certain degree to City Council as quickly as
possible knowing that both park and rec and City Council have to approve anything over the
$500 cost. The hope and desire is to be on the early April City Council agenda.
Kelly: Okay. So your memo will have the costs laid out with the rankings of 1 through 4 with it
too?
Todd Neils: The proposals we’re going to come individually rather than in bulk.
Kelly: Okay.
Todd Neils: Which would give you an opportunity to, which would give you an opportunity to
look at each on it’s merit and have discussion about each.
Kelly: Okay.
Todd Neils: If you prefer I send it in bulk I’d be happy to do so.
Kelly: Well I think it’s going to all be discussed at one time so in bulk would probably be the
best way to do it rather than spoon feed. Spoon feed means, you know because we meet once a
month and so if you spoon feed it then you’re pushing things down. You’re kicking the can
down the road on some of the items, which is fine if that’s how you want to do it. But I would
think as a group we’d want to look at it collectively at one time, unless somebody else has
different feelings and then we can kind of, you know then we can go through our questions and
our concerns and look at it and see what, you know obviously what we think makes sense from
the information you’ve passed along to us and then what staff tells us of what can and can’t
happen and that type of thing.
Todd Neils: Okay. I will consolidate.
Kelly: Thank you.
Echternacht: Todd are you looking at having the same style or size at all the fields?
Todd Neils: In terms of scoreboards?
Echternacht: Yeah.
Todd Neils: No. Both are independent in size and so the intent is to have a 14 foot wide
scoreboard at Lake Susan Park and I believe it’s 8 or 9 feet at both Lake Ann locations. They
will both be consistent in font size shall we say. They’ll be 18 inches high. The numbers will be
18 inches high.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Echternacht: Thank you.
Todd Neils: And they’ll be LED in format. So they’ll be, last forever.
Thunberg: So Cold just to go back to what you were talking about. Seeing the proposals at one
time but I think we’d still like to see them with the costs separate for each of the four priorities
correct?
Kelly: Oh right, yeah.
Thunberg: So I just wanted to make sure when you said consolidate that it wasn’t putting them
all into say the cost of all of them together.
Todd Neils: And of course they’d all be anticipated costs. Not necessarily actual. Okay.
Kelly: Other questions for Todd? So Todd the, if we have the memo within the next two weeks
it will probably be in time for our next meeting if somebody wants to make a motion to add to
our agenda. As long as the memos reach staff within the next 2 weeks for us to discuss.
Someone want to make a motion to add it to the next agenda?
Carron: Sure. I’ll make a motion for the March meeting that underneath new business we talk
about the four topics that Todd Neils just brought up.
Kelly: Is there a second?
Thunberg: I’ll second that.
Kelly: There’s a motion that we put this on the agenda as long as staff has the memo with the
information within the next 2 weeks so they’ve got time to decipher it and put it out to us. And
seconded.
Carron moved, Thunberg seconded that the four items brought up by Todd Neils be put on
the March Park and Recreation Commission agenda under New Business as long as staff
receives the written memo from him within the next couple weeks. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 8 to 0.
Kelly: It will be on our agenda next month as long as you get your paperwork in.
Todd Neils: Thank you commission members.
Kelly: Thank you Todd.
Todd Neils: Thank.
Kelly: Anybody else? Any other visitors who’d like to get up and say anything? Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Hoffman: Let’s just thank all of you for all that you do with Chanhassen Parks and Rec and
Chanhassen Athletic Association. We really appreciate it. It’s exciting to be out there during
those tournaments. Seeing all those people brought to town and we’re here to provide facilities.
As you know it’s the Athletic Association…and the City provides the facilities and maintenance
and then all the folks that operate the events really bring those people to town and support our
business community…
Kelly: Thank you all for being here tonight.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Echternacht moved, Scharfenberg seconded to approve the
verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
January 27, 2015 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 8 to 0.
TREE INVENTORY PRESENTATION, JILL SINCLAIR, ENVIRONMENTAL
RESOURCES SPECIALIST.
Kelly: Jill, I think you’re going to make a little presentation.
Sinclair: Yes I am. Yes, thank you. Hello. Good evening everyone. I’m the Environmental
Resources Specialist for the City and I’m also the liaison to the Environmental Commission and
the Environmental Commission meets in the Fountain Conference Room and we just sit around
the table and talk all night so this is very nice and formal. It feels very official. So not that that’s
what you guys don’t do all night is just chat but yes. So I’m here to talk about the tree inventory
and this is purely educational for you guys. I just wanted to make you aware that we have it and
that Todd has access to it. Let you know what we’re doing with it right now for the parks and
what we could be doing with it for the future. So we started, and you know we started the
inventory in 2008 but it might have been a little bit earlier than that. It was whenever GIS started
coming into kind of the commercial realm and we had maybe one unit and somebody in the
parks maintenance went out to Lake Ann and just you know hit the button and found a dot on a
map and that was the start of our tree inventory so from there we didn’t do too much over the
first couple years and we realized the value of having that information and so I was able to find
some tree care advisors. These are people who go through kind of the master gardener program
but for trees so they’re educated by the University of Minnesota Extension Service and I have
three retired gentlemen, as you can see in this picture here who donate multiple hours every
summer to go out and do this and they’ve been doing it since 2010 so I’m always grateful that
they’re ready and raring to go for the next season and they do seem to enjoy it. They’ve been out
there on streets and in parks and they have never been you know approached or called upon or
reported to the police so obviously they don’t look very suspicious. I’ve got to, you know I kept
warning them you know like if anything happens, give them my name. But so yeah, they are
Doug Ewald, Conrad Darius and Ken Nystrom and of the three Ken lives in the city of
Chanhassen and the other two are in the surrounding areas and they all also donate a lot of time
out at the Arboretum so they are well versed in trees. So when they are out on site in a park they
collect the species of the tree. The location. Which park it’s in. The condition. The size.
Anything like lower damage or notes about broken branches or you know just diseases present,
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
that kind of thing. The condition rating is the hardest because it’s subjective. I try to give a list,
you know if a tree has a frost crack or poor structure or you know anything like that it’s more of
a fair tree than a good tree so recently I’ve been telling them that.
Hoffman: Checking on my son.
Sinclair: Okay, the reason I’m telling you that the fate of the ash trees in Chanhassen parks rest
in their hands because if they give it a poor rating it’s coming down so anyway, the condition is
probably the hardest thing that we have to standardize. Bonus points here if anybody can
recognize what park they’re in in this picture. Not you Todd. It’s kind of on the outer edges.
Echternacht: I was going to say off of Kerber but it’s not.
Sinclair: No. No. It’s Cathcart Park. Yep. It’s a row of silver maples and a row of ash and
yeah so maybe the first year they did the inventory, the newspaper interviewed them and so that
was one of the pictures for the paper. Alright, so right now in the inventory we have 2,770 trees.
There are actually 2,678 physical trees out there. We have 92 spots where there had been trees
and there are no longer trees so those are planting opportunities. And we only inventory open
growing trees. We don’t go into the woods at all so sometimes when you see total number of
trees in a park, it may be a little misleading because it is open trees. It’s not wooded areas. And
this information is a snapshot. It doesn’t last very long because we can go out there tomorrow
and a tree was removed or a tree was planted so this is just kind of a fluctuating point of data so
you know as we plant things. As we remove things, I try to keep it up to date but it’s always not
exactly perfect so. When they go out and now here they’ve done our street tree inventory as well
so that’s the first picture you see on top. When they go out they take, we’ve tried a few different
techniques and the one they like the best is actually going out with paper so I make them a color
copy of this map and the dots on the map are trees so I kind of help them along with that. And
then when they’re out there they have kind of abbreviations for diameter and species and
condition and things like that so then I take all that and as you can see put them into a table on
our arc map GIS program. So right now we haven’t included the two newest parks, Riley Ridge
and Pioneer Pass because they haven’t been officially inventoried but of the parks that are
developed right now here’s kind of the range of trees that we have. So we have some very small
parks with low number of trees. Herman Field and Stone Creek. All the way up to the largest
park, or at least the park with the most number of trees inventoried and that’s Lake Ann so the
Chan Rec Center comes in in a close second on that but it does give us kind of a good idea of
what we have out there and where perhaps we could put a few more trees. Again one of the
points of data that they take is the species of the tree and so here we have all the species that are
out in our parks. We have one category of other because what they have is kind of a, when they
were starting to do this it was on a laptop so they had kind of a drop down list of choices so these
were what their choices were and if their choice wasn’t on the list, then they had to choose other
so at this point when they’re doing it manually they could write down exactly the type of tree
that’s out there. So as we look through this list you can see I’ve highlighted the green ask and
the percentages is of the total trees that we have in all our parks, what is that percentage so out of
all the trees in our parks we have 21.6 percent ash trees and why is that a big deal? Well we
have, forestry has come up with kind of this 10, 20, 30 rule. So no more than 10 percent of your
trees should be of one species. So that would be a green ash. No more than 20 percent of your
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
trees should be of a certain genus so that is ash trees. And then no more than 30 percent should
be from a single family so ash are in the Oleaceae family and they’re basically the only trees in
that family and they’re basically the only tree in that family so as you can see in the family
category they still rank as a 21.7 percent. Once you start adding in things like into the genus
maple then not only do you have sugar maple but all the silver maples and the red maples and
anything else that’s out there also gets added into it so. The species, we have the greatest
concern because we have 4 species that are kind of over our 10 percent threshold. And then in
the genus category it is the ash that kind of comes up to the top. And then in the family we’re
sitting fairly good. The ash will not be much of a problem in the future so after those are
reduced we’ll be fine as far as the family threshold goes so. As we go into planting projects we
keep this in mind. We plant very few sugar maples. Very few crabapples. Very few spruce
trees. No green ash so. So then we can take those numbers and go to a park by park basis where
we see you know ash is our main concern right now so what is our percentage by park of ash
trees in the park and you can see it’s kind of ranked from high to low and Roundhouse Park is a
big concern. Bandimere, which was at, it’s dropped to 28 percent. We did a big planting there.
It was a little bit higher before but Lake Ann where we’ve done planting projects in the past.
And Bandimere we did our own planting project. Lake Ann always had the public Arbor Day’s
plantings in there. Slowly but surely we’re going to try to take care of these majority of the
parks that have that high ash. Either through removals or planting to kind of bring it back into a
more manageable percentage so, to have over half the parks have a greater than 20 percent,
percentage of ash trees is a little concerning but not impossible to deal with so.
Hoffman: Good to know.
Sinclair: Right. See this is all handy information for sure.
Hoffman: And Luke, look at Luke has taken the charge at Pioneer Pass. Zero percent. You’ve
done your work. Those new parks. Zero.
Sinclair: That’s right. We’re not planting them. And you know what if you have questions
during this feel free to ask. You don’t, you can interrupt no problem. Alright so, what else
would we use the inventory for. Well like I was saying before when we have, if we go by
condition rating. I’ve given the parks department kind of a list of trees that are in the very poor
category so we’re going to take those out first while we have the time to do it and we’re not kind
of under the gun to get it done. Things that are hazards, we’d pay attention to trees that have
more damage because that wound can turn that tree into a hazard by creating dead wood down at
the base of the tree. It also gives us planting priorities. Again when we go back to the table that
has the percentage of ash, you know obviously in those parks we need to add more diversity. We
have kind of a, we’re getting to be a mono culture in some of those and we need to add more
different trees so that’s also good to know. Filling empty spaces. Those 92 trees that were in
spots around town in parks that are gone could be refilled and also to kind of increase canopy
coverage just as a benefit to the community. So we can also use it for tree care priorities like this
map that you see before you, like all the blue highlighted trees were the ones that we pruned in
the winter so I gave this to a contractor and said these are the trees that need work and it’s very
handy to use that out in the field. And in the future different areas get treatment such as
fungicide sprays and things like that. Again I can give it to a contractor. They know exactly
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
where the trees are and which ones they’re supposed to be treating. So as an example I have this
information for each park and again you know we’re very focused on ash trees right now because
of Emerald Ash Borer so each park has been given a table, a matrix of the number of ash in the
park and where they’re located so if you look at the matrix the red area, the poor column, those
are trees that we’re going to remove regardless. Kind of the orange or the gold boxes, the 8 inch
and below size trees, even if they’re in excellent condition, those are ones that are basically too
small to treat or the cost of treatment will never equal the benefit that they will provide to the
city because it will, we have to treat them for the rest of their lives basically so those are trees
that will probably also come out. And then when you get into the yellow, those are you know
fair trees that are larger and providing more environmental benefits so it’s kind of a toss up.
Those could be treated and the trees in the clear boxes are the ones that would be candidates,
assuming that they’re in the right place and they are in excellent to good condition, that could be
candidates for treatment once we have Emerald Ash Borer in town so. And you can also see in
this picture of Bandimere Park, you know having an inventory and seeing exactly where those
ash trees or whatever trees you’re interested in are located gives you a strong visual that you
know when you have a problem with a certain type of tree it’s going to effect a lot of things.
Here we have all our ash trees in these very populated areas of the park. The parking lots and
around the ballfields so you know not having those trees there are going to have a big impact.
We did a fall planting project in Bandimere Park and now you can see that we’ve added a lot of
trees around the soccer fields. We’ve inter-planted among the ash trees in that north parking lot.
I guess I could say all the soccer fields got additional trees and around the playground as well so
that additional planting where, let’s see if I can do this. Where the park used to have 36 percent
ash with the extra trees, now we’re down to 28 percent so a little less of an impact but that south
parking lot is probably going to be an upcoming project. Hopefully we get that taken care of
before, while we have time and while we have the opportunity to do it so. So here we have
Chanhassen Hills Park. This is basically half the trees out there are ash trees. The vast majority
are too small to be treated eventually and so this is a park where once Emerald Ash Borer is here
this is going to be heavily impacted. You know the trees are all along the populated areas and
people who are at the playgrounds and the ballfield as well as the trail to the, that’d be kind of
southeast. So we have actually selected this one as our Arbor Day planting project so I’m just
going to do a shameless plug for that. So here you can see the purple. This is my Easter
drawing. The purple ones are the trees that will be planted on Arbor Day. So we’re going to put
in an additional 20 trees. I don’t think we have more than maybe 4 of one species so it will be
very diverse and again we’re focused on the areas where they’re going to have the most impact
in the future so around the playground and the picnic areas and things like that. We are going to
have that, let’s see. Sorry. So again as we go forward for like Arbor Day and money in the
budget for planting areas we’ll pick at those parks with the highest percentage of ash trees so we
can really make our planting projects have an impact in the future. So what about the future as
far as what could we do with this inventory. Well again I have my tree care advisors coming
back again and they’re always like I can’t believe you have more work for us. What are we
going to do this year? Well, like I said because it’s a snapshot. It’s an ever evolving set of data,
it constantly needs to be updated so in a lot of places we’ve had trees that got looked at 5 years
ago and haven’t been looked at again so their growth has changed or their diameter has changed.
Their condition might have changed. Things like that so again to get a really, as clear a picture
as possible we need to be constantly out there and updating so that’s what my tree guys will be
working on this summer. And like I said we also have Pioneer Pass and Riley Ridge to get into
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
our inventory. And how could we use this inventory in other ways? Well the, kind of the latest
national trend is that these inventories are used to place a value on the public trees in our cities.
Value as far as what they do for our energy savings. What they do for stormwater and erosion
control. Property values and in this case you know even a park has kind of a property value. Air
quality and again nationally carbon dioxide problems so the United State Department of
Agriculture has come up with online application called Itree where cities can take their inventory
and kind of dump all that data into their application and then they offer you know pretty much
anything you could ever want to be analyzed can be analyzed so as you can see here you could
put it into the hydro and see the effects of tree cover and impervious surface and how that effects
the watershed and stormwater and water flow. Water quality. So as we kind of get our inventory
completed we still have things to do on the streets part of it but we can use these larger programs
to get kind of an overall picture of what the value of those trees are in all of our parks because
you know you do have that, or is that conversation every so often of you know why are we
spending on planting trees? Why are we spending money on pruning trees? All they do is cost,
cost, cost. Well this is the other side of the coin. No they don’t always cost. They have benefits
and they are, they can be financially documented so as you, let’s see. One thing a homeowner
can do, so they can be documented. So here is another calculator. Kind of a benefits calculator
and this was developed by Davey Tree and anybody can use this. You just go in and put your
species, your diameter and where the tree is located. Either it’s a residential or a commercial,
urban area or as in this case a park and you also select, or you put in your zip code so it’s a very,
very generalized information but it is interesting nonetheless. So if we put in our green ash at 16
inches in a park here in town we find that every year that tree gives us $126 worth of benefits so
I can guarantee you that in a year’s time generally speaking we will not pay $126 worth of
maintenance for that tree so we’re getting more benefit than we are having cost for it so it is long
term very good to have our parks full of trees. So if you are a homeowner you can also do this
and select trees in your yard as long as you know their species and kind of their general diameter,
which is measured at 4 ½ feet above the ground and you can kind of find out what the trees in
your yard are worth, which is kind of fun. A few years back during Arbor Day the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources did a campaign called Trees Pay Us Back so they went to the
State Capitol and they put these price tags on all the trees there. Now this isn’t an annual. This
is over the lifetime of a tree. This is what the tree has provided in benefits so I mean it’s kind of
fun to see these bigger numbers. I like them but we are going to do this for Arbor Day this year
so the Environmental Commission is going to use that tree calculator to come up with that annual
cost of, annual benefit of what our park trees are worth and they will be hanging these tags on the
trees in Chanhassen Hills Park so that will kind of be, I don’t know. I think that’s visually a very
interesting thing and it makes you think about the fact that these trees aren’t just there. They’re
doing something and they do have value so the commission’s kind of excited about that so here’s
my shameless plug for Arbor Day. I have some familiar faces from the Park and Rec
nd
Commission that do attend but I invite everybody to come out on Saturday, May 2. We are at
Chanhassen Hills Park at 9:00 a.m. We plant 20 trees and I think that takes maybe an hour. It’s
quick. It’s really quick. And in year’s past we’ve had frozen fields trying to manage Arbor Day
so we’ve had very few trees to plant but I’m crossing my fingers that we have a good year and
we have all 20 trees out there on Saturday. And just Jerry off the record right now you don’t
write this down. Word has it that MacPhail Music Center, they wanted to plant a tree for Arbor
Day and as we were talking about coordinating the day and the time and things like that they said
well maybe we’d want to plant our tree at the Arbor Day celebration and we would bring some
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
students and have some music out there for it so it might be kind of a fun addition to that so we’ll
see.
Hoffman: And the planting is a part of their grand opening celebration in Chanhassen.
Sinclair: Yeah, it’s kind of a neat idea. Alright so here’s kind of, this is the last slide. The fun
side so again we, the park with the highest number of trees that we’ve been inventorying is Lake
Ann with 463. Herman Field and Stone Creek probably no surprise have a very low number of 7
trees each and who knows that might be pushing it. We’ll see if they’re all still there. In all of
the inventory we’ve only had one white oak found out there. And then when we talk about the
other category, these are the tamaracks that are out in the Lake Ann rain gardens that they found
and some service berry that weren’t on the list and so those 3 tree guys, the tree amigos is their
nickname so when they come in to visit the front desk always says the tree amigos are here so.
And again as you can see if you would ever like all this information for the different parks and
what’s out there for ash trees I could easily hand that over to Mr. Hoffman who could pass it
along to you guys so that was it. If you have any questions.
Kelly: Wow Jill, thank you. That was very impressive. I’m kind of curious, I mean having
everything mapped out it looked like it was a monumental task and I’m sure it was. So when
these contractors come into the city to do the pruning or whatever they do, how do they stack us
up against other cities when you give them a map and say here’s where everything is. Are they
like amazed or do we, are other cities doing what we’re doing?
Sinclair: They’ve never said. I have no idea. They don’t say one way or another.
Kelly: Okay.
Sinclair: No, I don’t know if we’re the only one that like hands them a map or if other cities
actually go on site or have them marked some other way. I think many cities are going in this
direction.
Kelly: But not there yet?
Sinclair: Right. You know I think we’re very lucky to have our volunteers because most cities
don’t have volunteers and the cost of hiring a consultant to this is very high so the State has
helped a few cities within the quarantined counties. Hennepin and Ramsey that have Emerald
Ash Borer so they’ve gotten grants to help pay for inventories but again they’re just starting so I
feel like we have probably 90 percent of the information in our system already. It’s a matter of
updating them and going back to some street trees where we don’t have species in yet. Just the
fact that they’re there so yeah. You know as time goes on we just, we keep finding more and
more ways to use this. Like I said the benefits, the value, I think that will come into play.
Already Terry Jeffery and stormwater, you know with their reports that they have to do I think
this will be information that he’ll need for his stormwater reports.
Kelly: So that, you brought up another question I had. I didn’t hear you mention stormwater but
I think the number of trees has something to do with, as far as the Met Council figuring out our
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
stormwater usage and drainage and, I assume the number of trees is another benefit as far as that
goes.
Sinclair: Exactly. So yeah they, you know and why are trees a benefit for stormwater? Well
they’re canopy intercepts the rain and so it allows it to kind of soak in a little bit slower because
it’s not hitting the ground as hard and the roots are there to hold the soil in place so they do have,
and I don’t have the numbers off the top of my head but they do have a number for you know
kind of an average size, fairly large tree will intercept 1,000 gallons of rain water. You know
some number like that so they’ve actually measured what comes through that canopy underneath
the tree.
Kelly: Right.
Sinclair: Yeah.
Kelly: So how many, you said we’re doing 20 at Chanhassen Hills. How many do we typically
do in a year including Arbor Day?
Sinclair: It has ranged quite a bit because it kind of depends on if we get our act together and
know what we want to plant. You know like this last year it was great because Todd already had
an established landscape plan for Bandimere so it was really easy to put that out for bid. Get the
trees. Get them in the ground. Most of these parks don’t have plans so we’re just kind of trying
to come up with well you know we’ve got X number of dollars. We have X number of spaces.
Let’s try to get it together so to answer your question I would say anywhere between you know
we could go, it could be as low as 75 trees are planted in a year to as high as 300 so and that is
including park and street projects.
Kelly: Okay. Other questions for Jill?
Scharfenberg: Jill and/or Todd. You could speak to this. The amount of money that we allocate
each year in our CIP for trees for parks, can you speak to, is that going just to purchase trees or,
and is it going to purchase trees for example for like the Arbor Day project and is it beyond that?
Hoffman: Primarily your park fund money is going to purchase trees and it’s separate from the
money that Jill is applying so we’re doubling up on that. So she has some dollars that she
dedicates not just to parks but to streets and other tree plantings but then those are two separate
funds and I’ll speak to that a little bit later as well as we close.
Scharfenberg: Okay. Jill can you speak to how you determine on a yearly basis what parks
you’re going to put trees in? Kind of how you rank those. Is it solely based on the ash or?
Sinclair: It is now.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Sinclair: It is now, yep. And you know when we started the Arbor Day planting, we started at
Lake Ann thinking you know it’s the big park. It’s the park everybody knows. People feel
comfortable coming there to help make a difference. Kind of leave a legacy in that park but now
as we go on we will just be going by percentage of ash in those parks so. In addition you know
some of them, like Stone Creek that only has a few trees, you know something like that I don’t
know that we would do an Arbor Day planting there. I would probably just go ahead and
independently plant it. Get the trees in. Yep.
Scharfenberg: And do you determine what species to use at parks?
Sinclair: Right. So you know if, let’s see I’m going to try to bring up that Bandimere. It’s a
little fuzzy but you can see we have all the species of the trees so I can actually highlight all the
trees in that park. I can know how many oaks I already have out there. How many maples.
How many lindens, things like that and based on that try to get in maybe a few new species.
Along those lines at Arbor Day this year we are going to be planting Turkish gilberts and black
tupelo in addition to oaks and some hybrid elms so along with kind of our slow change in zones,
our hardiness zones we’re starting to experiment with a few more different types of trees. You
know there used to be kind of a big push to plant native, native, native but now we’re finding as
climate changes they’re not going to be the best choices 20 years from now potentially so we’re
going to try some species that are kind of like a little borderline but have proven to be fairly
hardy. And when we do those I’m only planting 2 or 3. I don’t want to take a big risk on stuff
like that but if they survive then we’re kind of a step ahead.
Kelly: Any other questions? Thank you very much Jill.
Sinclair: Alright, thank you. Good to see everyone.
Hoffman: Chairman a few comments before Jill leaves if I may.
Kelly: Oh yes, go ahead Todd.
Hoffman: So thanks to Jill. Jill’s a big part of our team at Chan Park and Rec and you know she
helps us out a lot. We don’t have an arborist so she is our arborist. She’s a.
Sinclair: I am an arborist.
Hoffman: Yeah. Knowledgeable. She’s a trusted resource. Good example, when Pioneer Pass
Park, the trees were installed and Jill and I took a drive down there and took a look and they
were really just poor quality and poorly planted in some cases and so without that knowledge we
really don’t have the ability to go back and reject those type of products so she helped us out a
great deal in that area and what that ended up is all those trees went away so but for her ability to
guide us, those trees likely would have stayed there at least in a large part and 20-30 years from
now we would have been suffering greatly so due to her knowledge and her ability to help us
out, it really helps out the whole community in the long run. She’s an active tree planter so she
takes her dollars and she puts trees in our parks, which we really appreciate. She manages
primarily most of the tree pruning that goes on in our parks throughout the year and she pays for
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
most of it. Not all of it but most of it so we really appreciate that. The diversity that you’re
talking about, that’s Jill so gingko, Ohio buckeye, all the weird ones, that’s Jill and she takes all
the heat for it and we appreciate that. Talked about the dollars that she applies. She also, she
does park projects annually and then lastly Jill and Adam, our new park superintendent are really
forming, building a strong bond to ensure that our parks crew is efficiently and effectively
managing what we have because Jill doesn’t have a crew. We do so it really works out nicely for
us and she’s just a walk down the hall and we can have a nice conversation about trees on any
basis so thanks for all you do Jill.
Sinclair: Thank you.
Kelly: Thanks again Jill. Okay moving right along.
DISCUSS APPLICANTS FOR THE PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION.
Kelly: There were 5 of us that interviewed 5 people today and we sat around and discussed who
we wanted to send on to the City Council and we’re going to send two names to the City Council
for two positions. The first name being Jim Boettcher. The second name being Jennifer
Hougham and then we’ve got one youth commission we’re sending onto the City Council and
that will be Lauren Dale. Any other questions or comments? Then I’m going to let.
Hoffman: Can we get a motion.
Kelly: Oh we need to make a motion to send this onto the City Council.
Carron: So moved.
Kelly: Is there a second?
Thunberg: Second.
Kelly: It’s been moved and seconded that we have number one, Jim Boettcher. Number two,
Jennifer Hougham and youth commissioner Lauren Dale move onto the City Council.
Carron moved, Thunberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission forward the
following applicants to the City Council: Jim Boettcher and Jennifer Hougham, and
Lauren Dale as the youth representative. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0 with 1 abstention.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS:
FEBRUARY FESTIVAL EVALUATION.
Ruegemer: Thank youVice Chair Carron. Good evening to the rest of the commission. Just I
wanted to thank everybody. I think we had just about 100 percent of our park and rec
commissioners down at the event that day so thank you again for volunteering your time and
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
nd
being part of that celebration. We did celebrate our 22 annual February Festival down there on
th
an absolutely beautiful February 7 day. It was really probably the nicest day we’ve had in the
month of February at this point so I appreciate everybody coming out there and helping out with
that so just had a lot of great events that day. Just thank the Chanhassen Rotary Club and
Culver’s again for coordinating and providing the food and drink that day. They’re just such key
important pieces of our success of that event so we couldn’t do it without them so we really
appreciate their efforts not only in there but also the Rotary Club for drilling the 1,060 holes I
believe it was that morning so that’s all volunteer group that is really allowing us to focus our
energies on other parts of the celebration so I think it’s been, formed a tradition within their club
and a bit of a competition as well so we thank the Rotary for all their efforts on that so we
couldn’t do it without them. Just highlight a few areas. We did rebuild the bonfire pits a little bit
here this year. We’re going to tweak those a little bit for next year and hopefully to eliminate
some of the pooling of water underneath there for that. We’re going to work on a couple new
designs for that but the boy scouts were involved again with the S’mores and the bait sales.
They seemed to do pretty well down there again this year. I think they ran out of wax worms
again which they doubled I think their efforts from last year so I think they would like to come
back again next year. The horse drawn, they were going to be sleigh rides on the lake but just
with the, kind of the lack of snow and ice conditions we elected to do kind of an horse drawn
wagon rides on the trail between Lake Ann and Greenwood Shores with that. The lines were
very long all day long so we’ll kind of take a look and have a contingency plan for future years
of kind of shortening that route to get other additional people through with that so. Such a great
day. I know people wanted to enjoy that experience with the hay rides so we’ll continue to
tweak that as well. Tip Outdoor Foundation were back again this year. They’re really trying to
expand the sport of fishing with our youth of our city as well as our state so they’re, they bring
all the augers and fishing poles and electronics to get people and kids interested in that so it’s a
fun deal. It’s completely free for us so I think they add a nice element to the celebration to you
know occupy the kids time when they’re down there as well so. The medallion hunt, we did
partner with the Friends of the Chanhassen Library again this year for that in developing clues
and putting together the prize pack. They helped out with advertising the clues. We’re definitely
going to work on harder clues next year with that so. I thought they were hard enough but I
guess a 4 year old figured them out and won the $500 prize pack so point taken with that so we’ll
take a look at that again for next year and send them on a wild goose chase for at least 3-4 days
prior to the event so with that but it seems like people do enjoy that. With that and the Friends of
the Library I think enjoy being a part of that as well. Ice fishing contest was kind of our
signature event for Feb Fest. We had really a high number of ticket sales this year which we’re
very, very pleased with. 701 fishing tickets were sold and you can kind of see that 79 tickets
were sold in advance. 662 were sold on the ice that day so it really is a weather dependent thing
and I think we’ve learned through the years just to kind of go with that and not get too stressed
out prior to ticket sales are low going into it but we’re certainly going to look at doing some
marketing campaigns to increase those ticket sales prior to the event and then we’ll capture that
large number percentage on the ice that day as well so a great day helped that out. You can see
back in the expense report we had over $7,000 in revenue which is really good for us this year.
$6,000 in fish prizes were awarded. Were going to be awarded for the top 50 fish but we did
end up with 28 fish. All perch this year so we did kind of raffle off or give away the remaining
22 prizes to the folks that did fish for that so I think people appreciate that and it’s the right thing
to do for us as well with that so a Chanhassen person won the largest perch, largest fish for the
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
contest so that was a nice thing as well so. Door prizes, we’re going to tweak a few things on
that as far as kind of streamline that. Make sure everybody gets a door prize ticket. That is a
free ticket and then we’re giving away well over $3,000 worth of prizes for that so I think people
appreciate that and just so you don’t have to buy anything. Just a free chance of getting a nice
prize for that so we had a number of different volunteer groups and city staff, park and rec
commission volunteers so thank you everybody who helped out. That really helps our
department out and have really a seamless event. We had help obviously from our park
maintenance staff. Carver County was there. The fire department was there. The Explorer
groups from the sheriff department were there so it’s really a team effort and we really appreciate
everybody’s help with the event. Looking ahead, for next year we did alright with our computer
system this year with the number of fish that we caught so we were completely calm back in fish
headquarters back there so, but we did have one of our IT people, Aaron with us back there and
our Assistant City Manager, Chelsea Peterson were back as kind of keying in and entering in to
that. They were very well trained and kind of ready to go for the big number if that would have
came so. We’ll continue to look for kind of experienced people in Xcel and who can get
information in quick and we can print out prizes and stuff like that so, or print out the reports so I
think we’re going in the direction on that. The biggest task in working with teen volunteers is
making sure they dress properly so I gave up some boots and some gloves down on the ice that
day too when they showed up with you know their tennis shoes and no gloves on a, I mean it was
a nice day but it still got a little chilly up there so we continue to kind of pass out that
information so we’ll just reminding people that it is an outdoor event with that. Thanks again for
the Rotary. They did a little over 1,000 holes again for us so a great success for us as well and a
great partner with that. We’re going to move the fishing contest area in 20 feet to the south with
the hope of getting closer to the weed line and hopefully going to produce some more fish.
Hopefully some northerns along that weed line area to bolster some excitement for the event
itself so that’s what we’re hoping to do with that. We did talked about the bonfires a little bit
and look to investigate doing some dog sled rides again for next year or other types of activities.
Potentially we talked about fat tire bike demos or events or that sort of thing here as well or other
types of events that would add to the overall I guess appeal to the event. Back page is our
expense report for the revenue and then the expenditures as they go down includes fishing prizes
and medallion expenses. Permitting for the ice fishing contest. Hay rides. The music. The DJ.
Printing and publishing. Bathrooms. Garbage. That sort of things so all said and done we made,
or actually we lost, I’m sorry, $230.83 for that but just a little side note down on the bottom. It
says part of our annual sponsorship program and part of our four key events and special events
that we do through the course of the year. We’re actually over $42,000 in cash and good right
now for that and that includes the gift certificates, cash, checks, in-kind services from our
sponsors so we have a very generous business community and community groups within our
community that really help us out tremendously so it really is a team effort all across the board.
Not only with volunteers but with businesses and sponsors as well so we appreciate everybody’s
efforts and I thank everybody for helping out with Feb Fest.
Kelly: It was another great event. Congratulations to you Jerry for putting it all together,
especially when you lost an employee just before it. I think you did a great job. I did notice the
skating rinks were used much more this year than last year, which lots of kids were there which
means the weather was warmer. Much warmer so that was fun. I mean there were tons of
people out. The speakers, the DJ, I think his name was Bob. He walked out and checked it out
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
and we didn’t hear any complaints this year that people couldn’t hear us so that was taken care of
so that was nice. The only thing is I couldn’t go as far with, he’s got new, he’s got new speaker.
Mics. Portable mics and it didn’t go as far as the old one so I couldn’t, I had to drag people over
to do the interviews but that’s okay. It worked out so I thought it was a great event. Just I’m a
numbers guy. Ice fishing contest. 79 tickets sold in advance. 662 of the day is 741 so you might
want to make a correction somewhere.
Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly.
Kelly: Minor as well. Anybody else comments, questions?
Boettcher: What was the $1,884 for Cabin Fever?
Ruegemer: That is just fishing. Top 50 fishing prizes.
Boettcher: That was for prizes.
Ruegemer: Correct.
Boettcher: Okay.
Hoffman: They give us a discount.
Ruegemer: Yeah.
Echternacht: Jerry that was excellent. Do we send thank you notes I assume to the Rotary and
everyone?
Ruegemer: Absolutely.
Echternacht: Very good.
Kelly: Now you mentioned earlier when you were talking Jerry, you said we need to do more
advertising, which I think we do a fair amount so what did you see or what did you hear from
people that the word’s not getting out there and how are we going to do it?
Ruegemer: Yeah I think we just come up with some incentives. Maybe different pricing for
tickets prior to the event.
Kelly: Okay, so if you sign up by such and such a date so, yeah that’s a good idea.
Ruegemer: Yeah I think the word is getting out. I think it’s become a tradition with people
within our community and our region that people do kind of have that date kind of in their mind
but we need to try to get some people, some tickets sold.
Kelly: Paid in advance. I think that’s a good idea. Great, thank you very much.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
DADDY/DAUGHTER SWEETHEART DANCE EVALUATION.
Ruegemer: Thanks Chair Kelly. Thanks again. The Daddy/Daughter Sweetheart Dance was
held the weekend after. Actually that’d be the next weekend but 82 dads and daughters out there
for the event itself so it was a nice event with that. We had dinner and another DJ. A different
DJ out there that Friday night with that. We had different activities. Just a ton of activities. We
had carnival games out there. We had crafts. Art projects. We had coloring sheets and crayons
at each table. We had face painters out there and the different puzzles. The different activities
for the kids out there. We had the photo booth back for another year so it was really kind of fun
with the kids would go into the prop box and take silly pictures with their dads or with the kids.
They could take as many pictures as they would like with that. They printed them off right away
and they could take them home with that so it seemed like the, definitely the food of choice was
the macaroni and cheese and I doubled the amount from last year and it still was pretty short so.
Not pretty short. It was we could probably use a little more so next year we’re definitely going
to cut down on the shredded pork and add more macaroni and cheese so. We had a good, pretty
good amount of food this year as well but, but it was a nice event with that. Just thanks to the
Chan Rec Center. They really helped me out tremendously and other staff members. We had
some building workers in our building department that don’t miss a year. They volunteer every
year for that so they really helped me out with that event as well so. You know just general
suggestions, comments. Just continue to do bottled water and caffeine free soda. That’s what
the kids would like to drink. We had plenty of drinks out there. At the conclusion I think the
kids and the girls really liked having, we had mylar heart shaped balloons. Everybody got one
on the way out and a pink carnation with that that we passed out to everybody, as well as some
other little goodies on the way out so kind of a little special night for daughters and dads for that
so it looks like Friday night, we have enough capacity to even grow on Friday nights. We’ll just
stick to one night. We used to do two nights and we just couldn’t fill so we’re just going to stick
to one night for that on Friday. We’ll just keep looking kind of like Feb Fest, just keep looking
to keep it fresh. We do have people that return from year to year and so keep it, look for
different events and that sort of thing to kind of keep going with that. And it seems like the DJ is
looking to have some longer time spinning the music so he actually kept it going past 8:00 so he
wanted to play some more songs so they just kept on going with that but it’d probably be wise
maybe to maybe shrink down the dinnertime a little bit more and expand the music time. Then
everybody could dance a little bit more. He does the Hokey Pokey and other kinds of
Macarena’s and all kinds of different dances for that so. So it’s a fun event so again when we’re
going to look at the food and try to mix that around a little bit and other than that all the expenses
and that are on the back with that. Revenue and expenses so there we have it.
Kelly: Thank you. Questions? Thank you Jerry. Todd, I guess you’re going to talk on the
luminary walk.
Hoffman: Jerry is.
Kelly: Oh Jerry is, I’m sorry. Jerry.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
LUMINARY WALK EVALUATION.
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Ruegemer: Thanks again. Just the Luminary Walk was last Friday night. The 20 of February
at the Holiday Inn Express parking lot so we had a really nice bonfire going out there in our new
barrels with that and we lined the, kind of through the Chanhassen Nature Preserve. That kind of
mile loop we lined with sand bags and with LED tea light candles with that so we probably had
at least 90 people out there. Kind of a wide section of our population. We had families. We had
couples and girlfriends that came over on their way out to dinner and that sort of thing so it was a
pretty decent night out there weather wise and people just enjoyed. You know some people did
do the 2 mile loop. Most of them did kind of the one mile loop with the bag lights and did it a
couple three times and once they got back we had some treats for them and hot chocolate and
coffee and everybody really seemed to enjoy themselves. Kind of sitting and conversing and
with their people that came out with them. Whether it be family members or friends and that sort
of thing and just enjoyed each other and sat by the campfire and I think it was a good cure for a
little cabin fever so, for all of us.
Hoffman: How many years now?
Ruegemer: This is our second year. Yep, second year for that so. You know we had about the
same number last year so it certainly seems like people enjoy kind of coming out and just
outdoor activity. It’s amazing how many people didn’t know that that trail segment existed so
I’d bet probably 70 to 80 percent of the people that were there have not been on that trail before
so those are good things for our community to get out there and see other parts of Chanhassen
and see how beautiful it is so that was a great event and we’ll continue to do it again.
Kelly: I think it’s a great thing that you’re getting them out there. Any questions for Jerry?
Thank you very much Jerry.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATION.
Carron: So I’ll preface this by saying that no one’s seen this yet.
Hoffman: I’m going to preface it by saying we’re going to put him on staff with the quality of
this presentation.
Carron: Oh did you look at it?
Hoffman: Oh sure. Just when I was opening it.
Carron: So how do we get it popped up?
Ruegemer: Oh I’m sorry.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Carron: So commission members, the title of this is Chanhassen Amphitheater as you see and
basically this is just, take it as a thought process basically to think about something for maybe the
next CIP. Maybe even somewhere down the lines. I don’t have any reservations about this. I
just thought that talking about last CIP’s through the years, especially this last year, there’s a lot
of focus obviously on Bandimere Parks, athletics. That sort of thing and I got to thinking that
maybe, maybe think outside the box a little bit as we were challenged by the City Council a
couple, maybe it was a couple years ago of what’s the next new big thing for Chanhassen. And I
thought you know we’ve got the Chanhassen Dinner Theater here and arts can be part of this as
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well so arts and music and that sort of thing. We have obviously a big 4 of July thing with the
concert series and everything else so anyways. Take this as a, maybe like a little thinker for the
future and I’ve got some questions for staff and hit me up with questions as we go so it’ll be
pretty informal. So expanding our vision, asking the questions. Who, our community and the
Park and Rec, what is the addition of a possible amphitheater. Where is where it makes sense
considering both cost and availability of land. When, I think it’s never too early to say the next
CIP. We could bring it up then and discuss further. And the why would be more like why not?
Every idea’s a good idea. Just see where it goes. So what I passed out is something that I found,
and I did a little research on this and you know my first thought with amphitheaters is, is it just a
fad because this Star Tribune report was written in 2010 and it was a big thing. It was popping
up all over. I’ve got pictures coming up that you’ll see of, does every city have an amphitheater?
No. A lot do and there’s a lot of differences but going with our town here and what I think this
commission represents is the community aspect of it. Bringing people together and with this,
this kind of just goes in just talking about different cost and different things and why people feel
that it works well in their city. Not to say that it would work yeah or nay for our city but just
another article on different thoughts. So why are they so popular with our neighboring cities?
Just like with our own City Center, amphitheaters bring communities together. They offer a
variety of uses much of the year. It’s also been noted that it’s a destination point. Couple be a
center point or focal point of the city. People enjoy their natural feel of being outside while
taking in the arts and they can provide not only community benefit but also an economic benefit
as well. And that picture there I believe is Maple Grove. Doesn’t Chanhassen already have one?
Short answer is yes. Sort of. However there has been discussion in the past about needing a
shaded stage obviously for our hot summers that we have for the concert series. For the
presenters. That’s been put through with the commission in the past and City Council’s kind of
voted it down. Those remaining funds are still out there I believe but the question would be is
that, my question to the commission and everyone else and to the City Council at that point that
never got brought up was, is the City Center the right place to do it and I’ll get more into that in
depth a little bit but if you haven’t seen it that’s, or one of the concert series. That’s a picture off
of our website there for the concert series. And I’ll note the sound system.
Scharfenberg: Are you saying no sound system?
Carron: Well the sound system which is fairly limited.
Hoffman: Two speakers.
Carron: Yep. Think of the possibilities here. Think outside the box a little bit. Just listing some
ideas here that came popped into my head. There’s obviously more but future summer concert
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
series can obviously be held there. Community organized events. Graduations. School
concerts. Possible Theater in the Park. Boy and Girl Scout ceremonies. Weddings.
Celebrations. Award ceremonies. Art expos. Plays. Battle of the bands. Senior Center
programs. Rec Center programs. I think the possibilities are kind of endless of what you can use
this for. It just doesn’t have to be used for, like a music scenario. And that is Shakopee right on
the river. And their’s is in an industrial area and there’s really nothing else around it which is
kind of interesting, and it’s right on Highway 13. Or no I take it back. It’s on 101.
Boettcher: Is it just east of Dangerfield’s?
Carron: Just west.
Boettcher: West of Dangerfield’s.
Carron: It’s right by the river crossing bridge.
Hoffman: Just over the bridge.
Kelly: Just over the bridge, yeah.
Carron: So here we get into some neighbors setting examples and I wanted to put this out there
for, yeah. Just different ideas of how you can tailor this to your own city. Your own needs and
the vast differences that are out there. You can see Eden Prairie’s is pretty basic as far as the two
qualities I think about an amphitheater. One, the seating area and two the stage. Or St. Louis
Park it’s a little bit different. Little bit more open. Continue Maple Grove. As I said pretty
extensive amphitheater. Edina. That’s at the I think Carlson Towers. Or no not.
Echternacht: The Centennial.
Kelly: Centennial Lakes.
Carron: Centennial, you’re right. Yep. I was going to say that’s in Minnetonka. So, and this is
a concept drawing. I can’t remember where they had the concept drawing for but the city’s
possible locations. Just thinking outside, off the top of my head. Obviously we have the current
City Center location. The City Center north fields is another area that I can tell you why I
considered it as a location. Lake Ann and then staff recommendations and I haven’t probed staff
on anything about this so I know it’s been brought up in the past but there’s possible other
locations as well. So let’s start with City Center. Picture of it there. Pro’s, heart of the city.
Focal point. Current events are already held here. The concert series is already held there. Most
infrastructure’s already in place and it can be a visual benefit to the city. Right there in City
Center. Con’s. The size. It’s relatively small and I would say very limited. Parking obviously
if you’re familiar with the site, it’s limited as well. You’ve got the possible road noise of it being
on the main thorough drive of the city. And the location of the stage if we, if we wanted to
possibly a stage might block visual corridors of the City Hall, which I think is important as well
as people drive up to our city and local businesses are close so if you know noise might be an
issue. City Center north fields. Now the reason why I put this on here is, you know I was just
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
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thinking is because the 4 of July events are held here and I think the band always plays in this
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area for the 4 of July and again I’m just tossing out ideas to get some thoughts brewing here.
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But pros, obviously the current 4 of July events are held there, including street dance. Large
area. Heart of the city still. Possibly multiple uses for the neighboring schools. It could be still
a visual benefit to the city and it’s got a large area, large capacity. The cons would obviously be
the loss of a playing field here. As you see it’s a soccer field. Nearby residents and school. Still
limited parking and your topography is flat. Not necessarily like what you think of an
amphitheater. Lake Ann, and this is a picture standing on top of the parking lot looking down, if
you guys are familiar with just being out there with Feb Fest. But the pros. Large area to work
with. Ample parking. Granted if everything else is going on at the same time it could be a little
packed as we saw at Feb Fest but it’s got that amphitheater feel with the way the topography
works out already. It’s almost kind of a bowl in itself already. It’s got ability to expand in the
future if needed or desired so that this project here could be definitely phased. And the great
thing about Lake Ann is there’s no residents nearby so it’s a great place for a lot of things. The
cons is it’s away from the City Center so it’s bringing the focal point possibly of this amenity
someplace else and what I thought is the proximity to the baseball fields could cause some
scheduling conflicts so to speak. So here’s some additional Lake Ann pictures I just wanted to
bring up with the natural feel of the grade. So considerations that I would challenge the
commission and staff to is our current CIP has the majority of the focus of athletics and parks.
Should we consider more? We should ask ourselves that question as an art feels well and look at
something like this. Should staff take a look at and also provide the commission with the fact
findings in the past that I think they’ve already worked on and then possible things for the future
for an amphitheater and present the commission with their findings. Cost. Locations. Possible
more and it’s a public interest. Funding. Funding’s always a big topic so park and rec CIP.
Obviously that’s the number one place we go to or you think about. This could be a phased
project and phased what I mean by that would be if, depending upon where you go you could
build the stage first and then you could, you’re reading too far. Everyone’s smiling. You’re
reading too far in advance. You could build this as a phased project so that you could build the
stage first and then build the tiers on the way up or do grass tiers at first so you don’t have to
have all concrete tiers all the way. There’s multiple things that we could do. The structure from
what I found from like the example in Shakopee is right around $250,000 for that whole build
there up to $2 million so it’s, it can get crazy expensive but just to kind of give you an idea of
what I found to be the threshold there. And then I put down Mission Hills Senior Living funds.
I think City Council last night just gave the approval for the Mission Hills Senior development.
Hoffman: Yeah. That number may be coming down. Could be coming down quite significantly
depending upon how, we’re taking a look at how they’re licensed and so there’s a couple of
different. Apartment units are $3,800 per apartment unit but assisted living facilities, assisted
living unit or a dementia unit is $500 per bed so there’s going to be some…
Carron: Okay. So what I was getting at there is that with the assisted living there’s going to be,
well what I thought would be a pretty good bump in our CIP so. What I’m saying is that we’ve
got some dollars coming in. And sponsorships and then anyone…as my comedic. And then on
the other side I put city funded. Where I’m thinking here is that the City Council might be
interested in helping with the funding much like the shelter initiative and I think if you kind of, if
you present the idea we could get their thoughts on it and it’s just another avenue. And then
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
possibly a remaining balance sheet funds kind of like what they did with the shelters. So the last
slide is the Hilde Performance Center and if we build it will they come and that’s a pretty good,
that’s a pretty impressive picture right there I thought. Not just of the stage but the amount of
people there and everyone in one spot and I thought that was pretty cool.
Hoffman: Built with portable restroom money.
Ruegemer: Satellite.
Carron: Yep. Huge donation. Huge donation.
Boettcher: Where’s that at?
Carron: Plymouth.
Ruegemer: That’s got to be a couple million. I think with…
Carron: Yeah it’s over $2 million the total. Yeah so with that I just thought we should think
about something different.
Kelly: Good presentation Brent. At least one or two of the cities mentioned in here got grants
also but you didn’t list grants as a money source.
Carron: That’s true. Yep.
Kelly: Any other questions for Brent?
Hoffman: Good presentation and…for our joint meeting with council.
Thunberg: I want to thank you for that. I think it’s a fair challenge for us to think about other
things if in our CIP process. One other idea, this kind of jumps ahead to our administrative
packet as well but, or an item in there if we wanted to talk about it but the recent concept
proposal for the mixed use lifestyle center off Lyman and Powers. So that developer recently
held two open houses for residents, as well as they just went to the Planning Commission last
week and at the open houses again there’s very, it’s very early in any development process so
there’s not a lot of details but one of the things that wants, I think one of the attributes and
amenities that people are asking for and he’s brought up is entertainment and one of the things he
threw out during the open house was, in that area do you build an amphitheater and how can you
cross market that with the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Right. I mean I think you mentioned
cons of certain areas and if you do that is that a draw away from downtown and things like that
but it was brought up at that open house. As a part of what potentially could go in that space.
Kelly: Good, any other comments? Thank you very much Brent.
ADMINISTRATIVE CORRESPONDENCE PACKET.
None.
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Park and Recreation Commission – February 24, 2015
Kelly: Anybody have a question or want to put it to the question?
Kobilarcsik: I have something quick but I was wondering, this is from a long, from a while ago
with the ice fishing contest and stuff you brought up the idea of doing a fat tire bike on test rides
or just like kind of event with that and I work at Bookoo Bike Shop in downtown Chan and we
brought in new fat tire bikes. They’re actually less expensive than the typical ones. Typically
the Surly’s and other brands like Salsa run like $1,500 or more. We brought in ones that are
$500 that have kind of been a new idea and it’s been getting a lot of publicity lately. I just
thought it’d be a good idea to maybe confront us and other local businesses that we could try and
bring that up to I guess.
Hoffman: Yeah absolutely. When we thought about the idea that’s the first you know
organization that we thought about it. That we’d go to Bookoo and see if they would like to
partner with us for next year and do a kind of a fun event and then also some education and
demonstrations.
Kobilarcsik: Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah I’ve also read an article about the fat tire bikes. That it’s becoming so popular
that’s another reason why the prices are coming down because they’re manufacturing more of
them so it’s definitely catching on with the public.
Kobilarcsik: Yeah.
Kelly: Great idea, thank you Tyler.
Kobilarcsik: Yeah, thank you.
Kelly: Anybody else anything to add? Or anybody want to put it to the question?
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 9:20 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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