PRC 2015 07 28
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
JULY 28, 2015
Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Luke Thunberg, Jim Boettcher, Rick
Echternacht, and Jennifer Hougham
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Brent Carron and Lauren Dale
STAFF PRESENT:
Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Katie Favro, Program
Specialist; and Adam Beers, Parks Superintendent
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Bob Slipke WSB & Associates, Inc.
Pat Beer 7126 Highover
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
The agenda was approved as presented.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Kelly: Moving right along any public announcements tonight Jerry?
Ruegemer: Just real quick Chair Kelly. The State Legion baseball tournament is starting on
Thursday out at the Chanhassen Baseball Stadium. I think opening ceremonies are roughly at
2:30 for that so on Thursday there’s going to be some military planes flying over to kind of kick
off the event. It sounds like a real nice event and it will be busy with baseball here through I
think Sunday with that so please feel free to stop out. It sounds like a great event out there. And
then just two concerts on Thursday. One the 11:00 to 12:00, kind of over that pre-lunch hour and
then the other one at 7:00 at night so hopefully it’s going to be nice the way it looks so come on
out.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Kelly: I have one change. Page 5. First Kelly. Second sentence. They wrote in versa and it
should be versus. Otherwise I have no other changes. Any other changes or somebody want to
put it to the question?
Thunberg moved, Boettcher seconded to approve the verbatim Minutes with a change on
page 5, changing the word versa to versus, and approving the summary Minutes as
presented for the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated June 23, 2015. All voted
in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
RECEIVE RECOMMENDATION CONCERNING PEDESTRIAN TRAIL SAFETY
IMPROVEMENTS AT GUNFLINT TRAIL AND HIGHOVER DRIVE.
Kelly: So the concern on the pedestrian trail safety at Gunflint Trail and Highover Drive, Jerry
you want to give us quick overview on that please?
Ruegemer: I sure can. Good evening commissioners. Thank you Chair Kelly. Just wanted to
give an update on this item before us tonight. The park and rec commission did talk about this
topic last month at our June meeting. It was brought up by Commissioner Carron for that. There
seems to be some people running through on the trail through vehicle traffic and motor traffic
through there kind of creating an unsafe situation between the two neighborhoods with that.
Kind of the background is on that, that was constructed in 2005 to be a 9 foot trail with that.
There’s a variety of topics of discussion that evening as to you know kind of what to put in on
that particular trail segment. It could be gated. It could be bollards. Could it be any type of
thing there. It is unfortunate that you know, you know some ill advised people do drive through
that area so staff did talk with Bob with WSB who is here tonight if anybody has any questions.
Bob certainly can come on up and answer those. To kind of put together kind of a plan or a cost
estimate on what to do on Gunflint Trail and Highover Drive to kind of try to curtail that type of
activity. So included with the memorandum is cost estimates as it relates to kind of correcting
that problem or looking to correct that problem so the cost estimate to install new curbing and
some different other improvements for that would be roughly $18,254 so I think what staff is
recommending that the park and rec commission approve or include $20,000 into the 2016 park
and trail acquisition and development capital improvement program for 2016 so, and that is up
for discussion this evening to potentially include that so the plan is included and the cost estimate
is included with the memorandum and kind of what the improvements would look like on the
streets and the location that they would be improved. So at this point.
Kelly: Thank you. We’ll open it up for discussion but before I open it up for discussion
Commissioner Carron who lives in the neighborhood did send me an email with some of his
thoughts so I’m not speaking for him. I’m speaking what his thoughts were and he said he
would make a few modifications to the plan. One he said eliminate all the signs and keep the
ones already in place there. We don’t need two at both entrances. If somebody can’t read the
first sign, they’re not going to read the second. His second thought was the cost $18K is a lot
period. In actuality I think we should not approve this if it’s going to cost that much. Need to
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
find ways to cut and ideas to eliminate the truncated domes and just do the curb patch back in the
path. This will not bring the red, this will not bring the pedestrian ramp up to ADA standards
however. Maybe we can scoot by and just patch the path back in with asphalt so those were his
thoughts on this topic. Any discussion?
Hougham: I also thought it sounded high for the neighborhood incidents that have been
occurring. I understand the work that’s being done and why that costs that much money. Are
there any parts of that, I mean it’s really neighborhood people pushing for this. Is there any part
to it that could be, that we could use volunteers from the neighborhood?
Scharfenberg: Volunteers for what, for doing the work?
Hougham: And again I’m not 100 percent sure what that all entails but yeah. For any part of it.
Scharfenberg: I don’t think the City’s going to.
Kelly: No I don’t think the City, for something like that I don’t think the City would agree.
That’s not the type of thing where you use volunteer work plus the liability that the City would
have.
Hougham: Yeah.
Kelly: I think it’s one of those things, I don’t know, I don’t know where we could pare back on
the cost and what we could do specifically and maybe that can be addressed. Is it Bob?
Bob Slipke: Yes.
Kelly: I’m sorry Bob could you come up and introduce yourself and thank you for being here
tonight by the way.
Bob Slipke: Thank you for letting me be here commissioners and staff. My name is Bob Slipke
with WSB and I worked with Todd on this so I’m just kind of going to talk somewhat on behalf
of him not being here tonight but when we contacted me he talked to me about you know there’s
a few incidences that happened this year that were probably a bigger concern and few that
happened over the years past but the several this year was kind of what spurred up more interest.
It is more specific and proprietary to just that neighborhood. It’s not a bigger regional issue. It’s
more within just that neighborhood. Cost wise, flipping over to that, when Todd and I did talk
about this a few things you know we explored were some different fences and bollards and
things. The biggest items that he brought up really was emergency purposes which I don’t think
he identified in the memo but he did say that because of the length of the cul-de-sac to the north
they really need that as a secondary means of access so if there is a tree or something were to fall
that they, you know in tornadoes or something they have to have a secondary access to the
neighborhood so that was one big reason and that kind of dove tailed into the maintenance
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
vehicles of not really doing bollards. The other piece which is included in here just talks about
the hard with a trail when you have a mixed use, walking and biking, you tend to just try to avoid
putting solid obstructions within the pathway because it’s just a liability risk on the City’s end so
I think that’s more so what the neighborhoods were looking for were some kind of gate or
bollard to really just you know neck that down and minimize really any potential to have a
motorized vehicle in there but because of the maintenance and the fire emergency vehicles we
actually need to get a vehicle that big enough through there so that was kind of our, kind of our
drawback to it. I think where we ended up on the design was just trying to make it not look like
a driveway and make it look as much like a sidewalk as possible. A quick analysis I brought up
was the truncated dome. I said right away it is a trail. It really isn’t per standard anymore. I said
it got built without the truncated domes. If you were to reconstruct it you really probably want to
look at that as one of your immediate needs is just getting the truncated dome in there so it meets
kind of current ADA. There is a cost to those. The cost I put in there was the cast iron ones
which are pretty common these days. There obviously are other materials out there a little less
expensive but it becomes a maintenance cost and the City can kind of decide what that material
may be. The asphalt conversation, the asphalt was a little bit of a steer away because we were
trying to make it look like a sidewalk so we were kind of leaning towards using concrete. The
asphalt we felt might look more like a driveway or something and people might perceive it to be
a driveway and currently that’s what’s out there is the asphalt which they said people aren’t
delineating between the two so going to that was the other one. I mean one thing we could scale
back on potentially which isn’t a huge cost item but it is still a cost is curb and gutter.
Everything right out there to date is I guess a mountable or a drop curb that allows vehicles to go
in the driveways and things in a residential neighborhood. What I suggested was taking some
span of about a car length or two on both sides of it and actually making it a vertical full high
curb. Again just trying to show the channelized passageway. That should neck it down a little
bit more. Not make it quite as inviting but you know in the end I said you know still what you’re
kind of amounting to is not knowing exactly who the people are that have done this before, but if
they’re people that are in the neighborhood it doesn’t really matter how much you sign it or how
much you change it because if people are aware that’s a trail and they just choose to do that in
lieu of going up and around the north or the south then you know it doesn’t really accomplish
much. All you’re really doing at least in a minimal level is bringing it up to ADA standards but
beyond that I don’t know that you’re going to achieve more vehicular deterrence by doing the
improvements.
Scharfenberg: Bob I have a question for you on the map showing the Gunflint Trail portion of it.
Bob Slipke: Yes.
Scharfenberg: So there’s that whole kind of wide section to the left of where the trail is. Can
you speak to that and why that is all part of that instead of just having like where the trail is?
Why is that section to the left included?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Bob Slipke: Currently that’s where the asphalt is at. We did talk a little bit about a few different
things. One is to eliminate it. There is a pedestrian crosswalk that crosses the street right there.
Equally so there is one that goes straight across the Gunflint Trail to, there’s two different ramps
there.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Bob Slipke: And that certainly is something that could potentially be eliminated. I mean it
provides two different means of access so I can’t remember now the image is cut off a little bit
but my understanding though there is an access that does cross the intersection in two directions.
We’re just putting back kind of the way it was to date. I know Todd did indicate that it’s a little
bit difficult sometimes for the snow removal in there because of that maneuver they have to
make around that little finger but at the time we just said well we’ll just kind of put it back as it
is. We’ll just change the materials out but I think from a costing standpoint yeah, probably half
of that could be taken out if the City really wanted us to take it back to just that simple level.
The only real difference is if somebody actually wanted to go westbound they’d have to kind of
cross Gunflint and then go back across Gunflint and there’s multiple crossings but aside from
that there’s, you know again the users I couldn’t tell you and maybe someone has a better idea
but if it’s a relatively minimal amount of users that are really impacted most people would
probably cross. Go into the street and then cut across the street and get on the other side to go
westbound but that’d be a good point.
Kelly: So Bob you lost me a little bit at the beginning is we need a secondary access for
emergency vehicles. What are we doing because of that? I didn’t catch all that.
Bob Slipke: No in discussions of trying to neck it down what we were trying to do is actually
originally a recommendation was to take it down to a more of a sidewalk level, which is 5 or 6
feet wide and I don’t know specifically who it was but Todd had said the Highover Drive piece is
kind of an anomaly in terms of the length and distance that it is from access outside of that
particular street and I can’t think of a secondary roads that are up to the north of that but I think
it’s about 3 blocks long and so he said because of the length of really that segment and cul-de-sac
it becomes, in current design standards which I’m not a planner but I think he said in current
design standards they’d never build a cul-de-sac to this length in today’s standards. They would
either have the developer bring in another street or have it connect to another roadway because
the biggest thing is emergency. He said usually it’s for issues like tornadoes or something where
if something were to fall on the road, they can’t get emergency vehicles that far in without a
secondary means of access so the way I understood is if something were to happen in Highover
and the fire emergency vehicles couldn’t get through, what they would do is come around the
south on Gunflint and actually go through the trail and come in from the south side and use the
trail as really a roadway.
Kelly: Okay. So in other words that was the thought to skinny the trail and that’s why we’re
not. The trail’s what Adam 8 feet now?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Bob Slipke: It’s existing at 9.
Ruegemer: 9 feet.
Kelly: 9 feet, okay.
Bob Slipke: Most multi purpose trails are 10 but again this isn’t really a long length of trail. It’s
a pretty short leg. It’s just a segment of trail so you could go as narrow as 8 and that’s really
what we’re kind of doing. We’re taking the curb opening down to 8 feet but it just opens back
into the existing 9 foot trail. I think there’s a difference of a foot but the 8 foot is kind of
minimum that at least we were directed to kind of go to just to allow maintenance vehicles and
those emergency vehicles to utilize it.
Kelly: Okay, thank you Bob. Any other questions for Bob? Thank you Bob. Other discussion.
Thoughts. Or do we want to table this til Commissioner Carron’s here next meeting since it’s his
neighborhood and see what his lead is?
Boettcher: Yeah I don’t know if we’re past that point. I know he had sent the email, was that a
month and a half ago? Two months ago when the last instance happened and it sounded like he
was going to have a lot of the neighbors here. Maybe he met with them separately but I mean I
agree too. I guess the cost is a little bit but I think it’s something that has to be, we have to
address it. I mean definitely dangerous. You get kids on bicycles, skateboards or whatever and
somebody comes blasting through with a car that has to be stopped you know if we can pare
down a couple thousand dollars or whatever. I’m not going to get hung up on the money. I
mean safety wise it has to be done definitely but my understanding was that Brent was going to
have a lot of his neighbors here too and we would get some input but I don’t know why that
didn’t happen.
Kelly: I can’t answer that either.
Boettcher: If we want more suggestions from them possibly because they live right there and
you know they see it happening.
Kelly: Other thoughts?
Scharfenberg: Well just to speak to that issue that Jim brought. I don’t know even know if
we’re going to get through CIP tonight so I mean clearly if this is something that needs to go in
next year and we don’t necessarily get through all of our CIP tonight and do it in August he’ll be
here hopefully to be able to speak to some of that issues.
Kelly: Are you one of the neighbors?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Pat Beer: I am.
Kelly: Please come up and tell us who you are and give us your address and you may speak to
us.
Pat Beer: Sure. So Pat Beer. I live at 7126 Highover so I’m on the north side of the end of that
trail and so, so you mentioned Commissioner Carron. You know if it would help I can certainly
rally some neighbors to come back and speak if that’s relevant or important to you guys. Just as
a data point so we’ve noticed that it’s young, high school kids and 20 year olds. We’re not
seeing you know adults with car loads of people running through there and so, so there is a
dynamic there that I think we all need to consider which is it’s high school kids having a good
time and so police did show up. They issued some tickets. There’s some discussion that perhaps
that’s had some effect on that group. It is something that we do want to address and make sure
that we’re very cautious. My kids were back there playing when the cars came through so I’m
fairly sensitive to this whole topic but on the flip side do we want to rip it all up and add a bunch
of additional either make it a road or I don’t know but I think the rest of the neighborhood should
probably swing by and have input here if that’s appropriate to you guys.
Kelly: It’s always appropriate if the neighborhood wants to give input, we’d love to hear from
the neighborhood.
Pat Beer: So I can talk to the, I live a couple doors from Carron here and I can chat with him
and, but it is something that is extremely important so I think some resolution would be much
appreciated from at least the north side of Highover.
Kelly: Right so I think based on that note if we table it to the next meeting where Commissioner
Carron will be here and we’ll have some other neighbors possibly depending upon what your
discussions are with Commissioner Carron.
Pat Beer: Sure.
Kelly: And we’re always happy to get neighborhood input and so that is welcomed.
Pat Beer: Okay, well thanks for the consideration too by the way. I know it’s kind of a lot to
chew. $20,000 isn’t easy to get approved all the time so thanks.
Scharfenberg: Pat have you looked at what the changes that they’ve, have you seen them?
Pat Beer: No I haven’t. I didn’t see the Minutes yeah.
Scharfenberg: Here. I’m kind of interested in what your input would be about what they’ve
proposed. You might have to go back and speak at the mic.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Pat Beer: And I apologize for an uneducated question here but truncated domes, so what does
that really look like? What are?
Bob Slipke: If you, do you want me to come back up?
Kelly: Yeah, he’s got the picture right there so you’re going to.
Bob Slipke: Yeah so if you flip a little further back in. I don’t know if it’s in this particular one
or not.
Boettcher: Jerry could you put one on the overhead so they could point what they’re talking.
Bob Slipke: Like I said this is kind of what you see. Sometimes they’re yellow. They’re kind of
steel. There’s brick pavers but like I say basically this is a visual delineation for our visually
impaired. Whether it’s visually impaired or blind but this is kind of what you see as of 2001 for
the ADA so like I said it’s currently not there and that was our first discussion is well at least
let’s bring it up to ADA you know because it is a trail. It should be there. It should delineate
that you’re moving from a trail to a roadway and by doing that most people cue in that this is a
pedestrian crossing and not a driveway because I think that was the biggest concern right now is
people perceive it as a driveway because it’s this half coming into the street. So we just thought
going to concrete. It will make it look like a sidewalk. Putting the domes in there will you know
visually be a cue too that you’re having something. The signage we just talked about that. It
could be one sign, two signs. It could be existing signs.
Scharfenberg: So Bob does ADA, I mean to be ADA compliant do those need to go in right now
or because it’s not a trail?
Bob Slipke: If you were to take this apart and do any improvements in there you’d have to put
the domes in.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Bob Slipke: I mean you can always not do it but then the City becomes liable of basically an
ADA claim that could be put against them if someone were to pass from the trail to the road and
get hit by a car and say we didn’t realize that and they said oh we reconstructed this post 2001,
the City could potentially be a liability risk.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
Hougham: Do you think just adding that in itself would help?
Bob Slipke: Well I said.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Hougham: And maybe like.
Bob Slipke: I don’t know, the truncated domes I think would help. I mean to me I think the
biggest thing is to try to transition it. Now I know some people still have concrete driveways but
we talked about you know trying to join it down. Make it, in terms of little socket joints you
know joint it down to a sidewalk scale so it’s not you know big time foot panels like a driveway
so just visually make it look more of a sidewalk nature and then, at least to me and maybe I
perceive things differently than the average person because it’s my job to look at these little
meticulous details but I do know I noticed the truncated domes right way. Even if you go around
like an urban area and you hit like a complete drop curb on a corner you’ll see the domes like all
the way around a radius and at least to me I perceive those as yes it’s a pedestrian area.
Sometimes they get like downtown areas you’ll see even in like an urban core pedestrian malls
and stuff will still have truncated domes even if there’s not a curb or something and you can just
freely move from say like an urban plaza, the sidewalk just integrates down to the street. There’s
technically like on Nicollet Mall or something you’ll still see the domes even along that
separation of the bus traffic to the sidewalk traffic. It’s a continuation of those domes so.
Hougham: And if perhaps the signs on the side weren’t wanted by the neighborhood could you
put the words like on the path itself?
Bob Slipke: Yeah you could.
Hougham: Paint it there.
Bob Slipke: I know the City plans on plowing it and again it didn’t, initially the sign could not
go in and if it becomes something down the road where it becomes an interest to be done later, I
mean the City can very easily put signs in on their own. I mean initially we just talked about the
roadway improvements and Todd kind of made it sound like you know you probably have a
contractor do the paving improvements. You wouldn’t do it through city staff. Signage is
something that could be very easily done by city staff and the only thing we typically do is just
recommend at least a 10 or 12 inch maintenance pad at the bottom of there so whoever that
homeowner is that it’s easy for them to mow and not have to like weed whip or something
around there so.
Beers: Just as a quick follow up, there is one sign that City did put signs on both the north and
south side and one’s probably sufficient. That’s just my opinion.
Beer: And so I think the question you asked is had I seen this, no. And again just one person’s
opinion. I think this has a significant value. I think there is, this looks very compelling or
appealing to me. Now I understand the cost piece of it but I think I would agree with your
position.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Bob Slipke: No and I mean I priced this out about a month ago and I don’t know what you’ll
have. I mean ideally if you can bid this at a prime bidding window that’s certainly ideal.
There’s, and you are all aware of that. I mean the pricing thing is always kind of, I mean prices
this year have been about 20 percent higher than they were just last year so I don’t know what
has hold for next year. If things will start coming down next year. If they continue to rise but I
knew Todd had just indicated he’s looking for something for budgetary purposes so I’m like I’m
just going to make sure that you have enough in there so we don’t have to come back and say oh
we budgeted 15 but we really need like 17 and you have to come back so I made sure that at least
the number was seemingly good enough for like a 2016 budget probably so.
Kelly: Okay any other questions for Bob or Pat? Thank you both for your input. We appreciate
it. So any discussion or do we want to push it off til next meeting? Not hearing anything from
anybody does anybody have.
Scharfenberg: I’m just, I think it should come into play for our discussions for CIP.
Kelly: Okay.
Scharfenberg: And so I think we have the ability tonight to talk about it and put a value on it if
we think it’s worth it.
Kelly: Oh yeah when we get into CIP we can talk about it.
Scharfenberg: Yeah.
Kelly: Yeah. Okay so at this point I think we’ll just push it off to the CIP discussion and guess
what’s next on the list. CIP time.
CONSIDER RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL 2016-2020 PARK AND TRAIL
ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP).
Kelly: So Jerry do you want to give us a quick overview of the current CIP status please?
Ruegemer: We sure can. Obviously the park and rec commission is responsible for making a
recommendation to the City Council concerning the 5 year park and trail acquisition and
development capital improvement program so we’re asking tonight that the commission take a
look at all the items that are currently listed and any potentially new items that would like to be
listed in the next 5 year program here from 2016 to 2020 for that so. Staff is, would like the
commission to kind of take a look at everything and have a consideration for council approval
th
coming up on the August 25 meeting and recommend approval for the 2016 budget calendar.
So tonight we ask that the commissioners kind of review the current set of projects in the CIP
and take a look at potentially new projects with consideration obviously to the improvements at
Gunflint Trail and the Highover Drive project as well. It’s important for the commission to kind
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
of take a look at that and kind of plan ahead for the next 5 years. Is there something for the
Roundhouse Park that should be included within that 5 year span cycle just with the
neighborhood meeting tonight. Things that came out of that meeting as well so, so we should
take a look at that program tonight. The dedication, park dedication fund is used obviously to
finance the majority of these projects within that 5 year cycle. The current balance in the park
and rec dedication fund is currently $1,904,000 and certainly that money is used to certainly
increase the public park and trail amenities through our park system. So looking at some of the
park and trail improvements for the next 5 years that are currently programmed. We have some
picnic tables. We have trees. We have a trail project at Camden Ridge. The final phase of the
Chanhassen Nature Preserve trail. The hockey rinks at the Bandimere Community Park with
parking improvements as well. And entry monument signs at Bandimere and Lake Susan parks.
Athletic field lighting. Bandimere community park shelter. And the Galpin Boulevard trail
extension that currently was programmed in 2015. The City of Shorewood did lend that out to
bids. The bids did not come back with a favorable price or bid on that so the project was
postponed in 2015 so staff is recommending tonight that the 2015 number that was included in
the CIP be reallocated to 2016 with the hope of that project being completed next year. So it
looks like also for 2016 to 2020 the Bluff Creek Drive pedestrian trail project. That looks like
that will be included within a future road project so would not have implications on that. The
neighborhood park picnic shelter initiative that’s going to be $80,000 to $120,000 annually. The
Recreation Center and Bluff Creek Elementary reconstruct for the roof will be coming up and
also tennis court refurbishments for future considerations. Other improvements that are being
proposed and looked at right now. They are not currently programmed is Recreation Center
dugouts and backstops. The Bandimere Park hard surface sport courts and also the Arboretum
trail connector with the project with Lifetime Fitness and the Arboretum as well out on State
Highway 41 and State Highway 5 so it’s recommended that the park and rec commission
continue it’s discussion concerning the 2016 to 2020 park and trail acquisition and development
capital improvement program and advance these, advance the process of assigning priority
rankings to specific projects. In addition it is recommended that annual expenses in the park
dedication fund the CIP averages $300,000 or less per year over the next 5 years. So included
with the memo certainly is the projects that have been identified and the funding source for that
and the dollar amount is included within each capital year out until 2019 and we’re looking into
2020 or 2020.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry. Jerry can you answer this question for me? I don’t know if you have
the numbers or not. The $1,904,000 that is current balance, have all the expenses except for the
Galpin Boulevard trail been taken out for 2015 yet or do we still have some expenses hanging
out there?
Ruegemer: Let’s see here. Still probably working on trees. There has been some benches and
some other things purchased. I know that part of the dugouts have been done and there is
additional fencing going in the first part of October for the backstops so that will be an expenses
coming up. The soccer field fencing is done at Bandimere. The Galpin trail did not get
completed. And the reconstructed 61, I do not know if that is complete yet. I know the round
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
about is done down in that area and I think they’re waiting for the bridge to be completed at this
point. So a handful of those are. A large number of those are.
Kelly: So just a handful have been paid so you guess that we still have, well we’re moving
$150,000 out so that takes the budget down to just under $300,000 and maybe what? We still
have $150,000 hanging out for 2015?
Ruegemer: Yeah not knowing off hand. We could calculate it out real quick I guess if we
needed to.
Kelly: No I don’t think that’s necessary. I think rough numbers are fine for our discussion
tonight. So the Galpin trail needs to be moved to 2016 and then you mentioned the Arboretum
trail which the County received a grant to get the underpass done under 41 in 2019 I believe that
is the year, correct Jerry?
Ruegemer: I’m not sure of the status of that at this point.
Kelly: I’m pretty sure that’s the year is 2019 that the grant’s coming through and I know we’re
going to have to put a place holder on a certain amount of money but I think it’s going to be
$100,000 or less that it comes out of our budget so at this point I would be in favor of putting a
place holder of $100,000 for the Arboretum trail that’s going to come out of our budget. I know
that the County is going to pay probably more than we are and then we got a nice grant approval
from the State and I don’t remember the numbers on that. So and then as far as the Galpin
Boulevard trail, that is $150,000 is an estimate and of course those numbers could go up since
we got pushed back a year.
Ruegemer: Correct. Yeah just not knowing the bid climate at this point.
Kelly: So the City of Shorewood as people might remember is going to finish the trail on their
side and we are going to meet up with them on Galpin trail and they rejected all the bids they
received this year because they felt they were too high so without the City of Shorewood
finishing their trail we didn’t see any reason to finish our trail and so that’s where, that’s why it’s
a place holder for next year. We’re expecting that it will get done next year but it’s up to what
the City of Shorewood does because I think we’re going to use the same people and it’s going to
be cheaper for us to do at the same time the City of Shorewood does it so it makes a lot of sense
to do it at the same time. Thoughts, questions. Do we want to add a place holder in for $20,000
on the Highwood trail upgrades at this point? Knowing that we’ll probably discuss it further
maybe tonight and maybe next, I mean we’re not going to get the CIP figured out tonight and I
think we have 2 more meetings to get it all figured out but I think we should, the things we think
we’re going to do we should put place holders in you know and we’re going to have some
discussions obviously on Roundhouse Park tonight where we had a meeting and we might have
Jennifer give a quick overview of all the notes she took and the survey that she did and we had
quite a few people turn out for that which was very nice.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Scharfenberg: Jerry just a question. When is the field study supposed to be done?
Ruegemer: That’s going to be presented at a work session late August of this year.
Scharfenberg: Okay so we won’t have it for our next meeting?
Ruegemer: We will have probably a summary of the findings at the August Park and Rec
Commission meeting.
th
Kelly: So is that the August 24 work session, which will probably be before our meeting?
Ruegemer: It’d be the night before our park and rec commission meeting in August, yes.
Kelly: So at this point for 2016 we’ve got $10,000 on picnic tables and park benches. $15,000
on trees. $460,000 to build the hockey rink at Bandimere. We will be moving the place holder
for the Galpin Boulevard trail extension of $150,000 from 2015 into 2016. And then we’ve got
the entry signs for Bandimere Park and Lake Susan scheduled for 2016 at $60,000. Questions,
thoughts, comments, discussion. People want to move stuff around? People want to move
things in there? Do we want, what kind of place holders do we add so we’re moving from
$445,000 in 2015 down to $395,000 which means we’re moving 2016 from $545,000 to
$695,000.
Echternacht: Well Cole if we need to average $300,000 we obviously are going to have to, I
would think that we’re going to need to move something out of there. We’ll come in over
$300,000.
Kelly: Well some years we’re going to come in over $300,000 so the question is, is do we want
to.
Echternacht: Do we want to come in that high?
Kelly: What years do we skinny out? Right now we have 2019 skinnied out but we know we’re
going to have to come up with at least $100,000 for the Highway 41 underpass. So do we leave,
you know at this point we, you know my thought is that we stay with what we have in 2016 and
maybe add a few small items because you know we spent a lot of money to get the extra property
at Bandimere and I’m not one who wants to just let it sit. I mean why did we spend the money if
we’re not going to do something at Bandimere so I’m in favor of keeping the hockey rink in
there at this point and you know the park benches and trees, you know we always have scheduled
each year and I think we pretty much run the budget on that and I don’t see any reason to change
those. You know back when I started we used to give $25,000 for trees and we skinnied that
down to $15,000 and I don’t see a reason to move it up or skinny it down anymore.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Hougham: Something that’s here in the notes is that the new estimate for the hockey rink with
parking is $639,000.
Kelly: Right so that, and that means are we going to add the, at some point we have to add the,
so we’ve got a lot of things to talk about.
Hougham: The additional parking.
Kelly: The parking lot.
Hougham: Was definition a big thing that the park needed.
Kelly: Yeah the park is already, parking lot space everywhere of course is always at a premium
and so you know if you’re going to do one you almost have to do the other. Does that mean that
we then turn around and push what we have, do we push back the athletic lighting back a year
for other things which means we’re probably going to move the Bandimere Community Park
back a year? I mean what do people want? What do we need to move around and you know
$300,000 is what’s recommended by the staff. We actually are bringing in money every year so
that number might be a little light for them to recommend. What I like to see is we have, you
know we keep a minimum of a million dollars in the bank because if something crops up like it
did with Bandimere you want to be able to take advantage of that so I think the $300,000 might
be a little light that staff recommends and if we go a little higher than that, right now we’re
expecting to pull in $300,000 a year so basically that means when we talked with Todd last
meeting, so that means basically staff is recommending that we keep a million 9 in the bank all
the time and I think that’s too much money to keep in the bank, especially when our parks and
our citizens have needs.
Boettcher: One quick question too on Bandimere. I know we had many discussions on this over
the last 12 or 18 months, whatever but we have the lighting after the hockey rink. Would we not
want to switch those? I know Steve you were involved in that real heavy too. That was my
recollection was that we had the lighting first.
Scharfenberg: Jim if you look on your packet back on the second to the last page, it has the
break out for the hockey and lights are included as part of the $473,000 cost. Flood lights for
rinks is $40,000 so the lighting for the rink is part of the cost of the hockey rink.
Boettcher: Right but I think we were talking about the fields.
Scharfenberg: Right.
Boettcher: The softball and baseball fields separate.
Scharfenberg: Right.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Boettcher: And I know the discussions we had had was you know which comes first, you know
A, B and C and we said well where are we going to get more bang for the buck because they play
softball 4 months a year or because they play hockey X months? Just looking at it, it looked like
those two may have been flipped around. I don’t know maybe that was our final decisions, I
don’t recall.
Kelly: Yeah that’s what we came to last year because we had a lot of different ideas and this was
kind of the consensus that we could all agree on was we need to build a few things and then put
in the lights and that doesn’t mean that we can’t change our mind as we go along but I think we
need to get going and building something at Bandimere and it would be, you look at, if we’re
going to be spending what we are on the hockey rink you know you’re going okay the Sport
Court’s probably going to have to wait a little bit because we’re not, it’d be nice to put it up right
away but it’s, it’s one of those things that may have to wait another year or two before we get to
that even though it’ll be a nice entrance piece when we do get to it. So other thoughts for 2016.
Hougham: I think we should put in the $20,000 for the place holder for planning purposes so we
know it’s on the table. For the Highover trail.
Kelly: Other thoughts on the place holder? I agree at this point. I think we should put in the
place holder and have little further discussion with Commissioner Carron and the neighbors next
month.
Thunberg: I agree with that.
Echternacht: I agree with that.
Kelly: Okay so let’s.
Thunberg: Do we also want some sort of place holder for Roundhouse? Do we want to, not to
jump ahead but I think if we all agree with the place holder on the Highover trail.
Kelly: Right and so, just a minute here. Highover. So what are we thinking on Roundhouse? I
know a couple years ago when we were at Herman Park we upgraded their, the basketball court
with better, I think we redid the asphalt and we put in one hoop or two. I don’t remember.
Ruegemer: I don’t recall offhand. Adam do you remember Roundhouse, or at Herman Field? I
think it was one.
Kelly: Okay, I think that’s what I’m thinking. I’ve been in there since but that’s my
recollection. And you look at all the options we have at Roundhouse Park right now and you
know I think we’re, I think you’re looking at either tennis courts with basketball which would
run what, $60,000?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Scharfenberg: The cost of a tennis court?
Kelly: Yeah.
Scharfenberg: Well the sport court out at Bandimere is $230,000.
Ruegemer: Yeah I think it’d be more than that Cole.
Scharfenberg: I think you’re looking more at.
Ruegemer: About probably $250,000 roughly.
Kelly: Okay. So and what would a basketball court just resurfacing and putting in hoops?
Scharfenberg: Are you talking about tennis court plus basketball?
Kelly: I’m just talking just basketball now.
Scharfenberg: No, no, no but are you talking about, okay. So I guess clarify for me what, you’re
talking about just putting in or refurbishing the tennis? The basketball court.
Kelly: No it would depend upon staff would come up with. Do we refurbish that court or does it
need, or do we need a new court? I don’t know that answer and that would make a difference in
the cost. And then I mean it definitely needs better basketball back board or hoop and then if we
do redo it, do we put in one hoop or two hoops? You know I guess those are some of the
questions.
Scharfenberg: Well you know I go back again to what the Bandimere example was that we had
that, was one tennis court with two basketball hoops and then they want a back board there too
and so they have that back board so I kind of referred to the Bandimere example of what was put
together for that you know that you would take that and kind of lift it and put it out at
Roundhouse.
Kelly: Okay because my recollection is when we, and I don’t know all that we redid at Herman
Field but it wasn’t that expensive.
Scharfenberg: That’s because I think we just put down a thing of blacktop and a hoop. I mean I
don’t think it was that big of a deal.
Kelly: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Scharfenberg: Didn’t require a lot of excavation and was just a pad. You know an asphalt pad
with a hoop.
Kelly: So I guess if people are interested in doing something over at Roundhouse we’re
probably a couple years out looking at the expenses and well why don’t, since we’re talking
about Roundhouse Jennifer why don’t you kick in with your notes and the survey and just kind
of go over for everybody please.
Hougham: Yeah so we had a good turn out today. We met under the shelter, so we put that to
good use today. There were about 30 people there I think. They had lots of opinions about the
park and everybody liked the park and liked using it. We did a little survey about what people
wanted. They all got one vote. The number one response was tennis with 9 votes. Basketball
was second with 7. And those were the first two, one and two. We all had also discussed
pickleball, hockey, playground upgrade which would be taken care of under another kind of
fund. Softball, soccer and just leave it alone. Some other comments that were brought up and
suggestions were adding a spot for water for people to access and to put in a fitness trail along
the path in the park.
Kelly: So while I’m thinking about it, Jerry can we have staff look into what kind of water they
have over there and how expensive it would be or wouldn’t be to add some kind of water
fountain like we did at Lake Susan?
Ruegemer: Absolutely. We can take a look at that and find out if it’s even feasible to do so
without major infrastructure.
Hougham: And Jerry if I give you the recap from today, could we have estimates for next
month’s meeting to look at what the different options cost for the?
Ruegemer: For the top, kind of top 4 or 5?
Hougham: Yeah.
Ruegemer: Sure. Absolutely.
Hougham: Okay. I feel that way we can review it next month with maybe more insight.
Ruegemer: Point of clarification for the playground upgrade. What did that entail? Was that
surface or was that additional playground equipment?
Hougham: I think upgrading the current equipment. They would also like to see a different
surface.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Kelly: Which I think we can defer to Adam if we have any questions on that since we’ve got a
programmer there grading all the, all the parks and would that come out of the assessment fund
then if we replace that or the capital replacement fund?
Ruegemer: At this point I’m not certain of the funding source right now but certainly Todd and
Adam can present that at a future time.
Kelly: Perfect.
Echternacht: We need to take into account the emails that came into Todd as far as the
recommendations that, I think there were 6 or 7 of them into these.
Hougham: I’ll include that in my recap.
Echternacht: Thank you.
Scharfenberg: And I think based on that it kind of puts overwhelmingly that people want tennis.
I mean if you look at, look at that with those additional emails that people want a tennis court
there.
Kelly: It does but I was talking to a few of the tennis players and they were telling me about the
various courts they go to and I asked them if they had wait time and they didn’t so I still have a
problem putting up tennis courts because every time I go by a tennis court in Chanhassen there’s
nobody on it and I can’t see spending $250,000 for two beautiful looking tennis courts to look
nice. That’s a problem for me and I just don’t see enough use anywhere in the city and I know
down the road we’ll consider it for Bandimere because the south side is supposedly is under,
what’s the word I want. Under exposed to tennis courts but personally since I see tennis courts
never being used I really have a tough time spending money on it and maybe you guys feel
different but everybody who plays tennis has a place to go and there are other comments that you
know and this is so people can walk to tennis instead of drive to it. I’m sorry but I’m not going
to spend, I just don’t see it in the plan. I don’t know where we’d put $250,000 in the next 5
years for it and so I would be in favor of upgrading basketball there and find out what the costs
are for that and making it a nice basketball court. Those are my thoughts. I’d like to hear other
people’s thoughts.
Thunberg: I agree with a lot of that. I mean the feedback overwhelmingly was tennis courts,
basketball courts but in using a place holder of Bandimere, sport courts being $230,000 knowing
that we would have to cut out and we may still have to anyway some of our Bandimere priorities
if we were to especially put a place holder in for $200,000 at Roundhouse. One to your point,
tennis courts, walking versus having to drive there. That is, that’s a very expensive thing to add
for that. And then also knowing that that would essentially replace or push back Bandimere
priorities. I don’t know, my opinion is I would rather keep some Bandimere priorities in the next
5 year plan because we’ve gotten to the point now with the land acquisition. So from that level
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
of dollar I don’t know if I would make that trade and I think there was other options that if we
could look at making the basketball court slightly bigger to have two hoops with a fence on the
side so that it maybe, you know so the balls quit rolling around so much for them as well as
looking into something like the trail having 4-5 stations of equipment along it. I think a year or
two ago we brought that up about, was the a possibility of something for Bandimere so I know
we’ve talked about that amongst ourselves at least once or twice before but I think those are
things that might be more doable to make some short term improvements without a price tag of
$250,000.
Kelly: Other thoughts. Do we want to put a place holder in or wait til we get some numbers
next months for Roundhouse? And if we’re putting in a place holder right now I think we’d be
looking at 2017 maybe.
Scharfenberg: I’d even go out later than that.
Kelly: Yeah, and that’s a good possibility depending upon what it is and what the costs are so
let’s figure out what we, I think when we get some numbers from Jerry next month I think is the
time to figure out what year we want to put Roundhouse in. Is everybody pretty much in
agreement with that? So as far as, so Roundhouse we’re not going to put anything in tonight.
We’ll have an obvious discussion on the numbers next month and we’ll be juggling numbers
again next month which is part of what the program is anyways. So any other thoughts for 2016
at this point?
Thunberg: For 2016 are we going to change the hockey rink Bandimere amount from $460,000
to $639,000?
Kelly: That was my next question is do we want to add in the parking and I think if you’re going
to do the hockey rink you pretty much have to do the parking at the same time so that.
Thunberg: I agree.
Kelly: So my thought would be is yes, we change it to $639,000 which means with the kind of
money we’re spending next year, 2017 we’re going to have to lighten the load. Everybody in
agreement to change that to $639,000? Other thoughts. Other comments.
Echternacht: I agree.
Scharfenberg: Well I, so we’ve got $20,000 for the Highover. $150,000 and $60,000 for the
signs. You know I, I don’t know. I’m just, I’m thinking you could even, I know that you people
are wanting to put something in there in 2016 but if you want to kind of even things out, I mean
even moving the hockey rink back one year you know wouldn’t be that bad.
Kelly: So then if we, well then the.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Scharfenberg: Then you’re taking out. Then I’m thinking you take out athletic field lighting out
of 2017.
Kelly: Well I was thinking we were going to take athletic field lighting out of 2017 anyway and
build the rink next year and then 2017 would be kind of a skinny year and so either way you
know, either 2016 or 2017’s going to be a skinny year, why wouldn’t we build something when
we have money in the bank would be my thought.
Echternacht: And I think we need to like Luke said, get something built out at Bandimere. Get
something happening out there.
Thunberg: If we have 2016 at the $639,000 could we push the 60K for entry signs out to 2017?
And from the athletic field lighting kind of totally throwing something different out there to
almost take it off all together. I guess some other thoughts were I do, I thought part of last year
was building stuff first to see the usage until we could really use it so that one makes me think
we could push it back or take it off. We never really got to a firm ground of where we would put
it or what fields we would do so it’s still a really big question mark. When we met with the
baseball and the soccer associations last year, there wasn’t an overwhelming yes light it. I think
from a soccer standpoint they’re saying if we put turf on a field that would actually be better and
then also with the lighting, knowing that the school board is moving forward with potential
referendum for building a dome in Chaska would, if that goes through do we need athletic field
lighting as well because that opens up space so I just feel like there’s a lot of question marks that
we never resolved as well as other options that are out there that I would propose pushing the
60K to 2017 and either taking out the $400,000 or if we wanted to at least switch it with
something that’s on the next page, you could put in the 230K for Bandimere sport courts and that
could either take the place of the $400,000 or even the $500,000 with the picnic shelter I guess.
Hougham: Is lighting part of the athletic field study that we’ll be getting a recap of?
Ruegemer: It is.
Kelly: So how does the City feel about the entry signs for Bandimere and Lake Susan? Like
how important is it for the signs to go in next year as far as the City’s concerned or does it matter
which year we put up the signs?
Ruegemer: You know it, we certainly can, you know we have existing signs at Lake Susan right
now. Kind of the wood, historical wood ones I guess that we’ve had. I’m not sure if we have a
Bandimere one. I don’t think.
Scharfenberg: There is yeah.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Ruegemer: So I guess in my humble opinion I don’t know that it would make that much
difference if you pushed off that $60,000 into a future consideration.
Kelly: So I like that idea Luke of moving $60,000 out a year and so if we’ve got $639,000 in for
the hockey rink. That means we’re pushing $400,000 back a year or two which means we’re
pushing the $500,000 back a year or two and you know that Chanhassen Native Preserve trail,
you know there’s not a lot of clamoring for that. I don’t know if we, you know it’s been in the
CIP ever since I’ve been here and it keeps getting pushed back because there’s no real push for
it.
Scharfenberg: Well I’ll just speak to that. It’s not that there isn’t a push for it. It’s that, that has
to be built once that piece of land gets developed and so.
Kelly: Okay.
Scharfenberg: And so that’s why we have to keep it in there. We just don’t know, that’s why
we’ve pushed it out kind of and it’s on the tail end so it will have to be built and we’ll have to
put that money in there but it’s not until that piece of land gets developed.
Kelly: Thank you Steve.
Scharfenberg: Yep.
Kelly: So we can push that back to 2020 and as a place holder.
Scharfenberg: You know speaking to Luke’s question. I’m okay taking out the lighting all
together and just leaving that out until some of these questions I think as you’ve pointed out
Luke get answered about is there going to be a dome in Chaska. Does that alleviate some of the
space needs for soccer? You know we’ve asked in the past CAA to, and they were willing at
least at one point to pony up money for athletic field lighting at one field but now that they’ve
put their money towards dugouts and things of that nature I don’t know what they’re willing to
do going forward you know on some of those lighting issues. We’ve talked about partnering
with them and obviously if we can do that, that’s good but personally I’m okay with taking out
the $400,000 and increasing the dollar amounts for the shelter and having that done at Bandimere
and then including the place holder for the trail at the Arboretum trail.
Kelly: I’m not ready to remove the lighting and I’ve never been big on the Bandimere shelter for
half million anyways because I think we build up things for us and then if we get to the point
where it’s built up, that’s when you add you know some kind of picnic shelter. I don’t know I’ve
never been big on that and I still am not. If I was going to eliminate anything that’s what I would
eliminate. I think at this point until we get the athletic study I’m not ready do eliminate anything
but it’s, we don’t know where the referendum is going to go so we’re speaking a little ahead of
ourselves and I think we’ve got to move on. The lighting is a few years out. Are we still going
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
to keep it and the referendum is going to happen in November so next year’s CIP that might be
something that comes off at that time but at this time we don’t know what’s going to happen and
what’s not going to happen and so to remove lighting completely at this point I’m not in favor of.
Boettcher: What was the last you know after we had our discussion with City Council, I know
last year we got pretty much blown out of the water. I think 3 of us were at the meeting. We
laid all this stuff out and I think the only thing they okayed was some trees at Bandimere for
shade when you’re watching the ball game. You know we went in there with high hopes of $1.4
million and got about $30,000 so at this point are we thinking too far ahead? I mean is, they
haven’t given official blessing. I know we have to present something.
Kelly: No we have to present.
Boettcher: I know the way we presented last time we thought you know it’s pretty much in the
bag and it wasn’t but I agree too with the lighting. I think we need to build something because
Bandimere when we were there, was it 2 months ago for the meeting? I mean the amount of
traffic that came in there, all the people, all the games. You know disc golf to softball to soccer
and everything, we need to keep adding stuff there. That’s definitely a priority right now but I
just don’t want us to get too much of the pie in the sky look in our eyes and get shot down before
we get to first base you know. It’s happened before and it’s not a good feeling.
Echternacht: Definitely adding the parking with the hockey makes sense and then we’ll get more
bang for our buck because the soccer people and everyone else, the disc players and all that in
the summer time will have use of that parking as well.
Kelly: So at this point I see 2016 laid out as the $10,000 for the picnic tables. $15,000 for the
trees. $639,000 for the hockey rink and parking lot. $150,000 for the Galpin Boulevard trail
extension. $60,000’s going to be moved away at least one year for the Bandimere and Lake
Susan parks. And then we’ve got $20,000 place holder for Highover trail. And so that’s going
to give us a total of let’s see. $834,000 I think is what I come up with. And part of that
obviously is because $150,000 moved from 2015 to 2016 that’s in the budget so at this point in
2017 we’re going to move the athletic field lighting back somewhere because we’re going to
have to have a skinny year so that means right now for 2017 we’ve got $10,000 on the picnic
tables, park benches. $15,000 on the trees. $60,000 on the entry signs for Bandimere and Lake
Susan. So that’s going to give us a total of $85,000 right now for 2017 and do we want to add
some kind of place holder for Roundhouse Park for that year?
Echternacht: I think we need it pushed off another year personally.
Kelly: Okay so leave it at $85,000 depending upon obviously depending upon where our budget
goes and what kind of money comes in next year we can make adjustments at that time so are we
good at leaving 2017 at $85,000 right now?
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Echternacht: Well I guess I mean that would be my opinion but I guess we could wait for the
numbers to come in for next meeting.
Kelly: And we’re making adjustments before the end of this but we’re trying to just get, set
something for us to be guided by you know our next meeting before we finalize everything.
We’re not going to vote to finalize anything tonight. We’re just kind of setting up where we
think it should be and where it should go and airing our feelings on certain things. So we’ll
leave, at this point we’ll leave 2017 at $85,000. So that gets us into for tonight’s discussion, gets
us into 2018. So do we, where do we push back the lights to and where do we push back the
picnic shelter to? You know right now what we’ve got for 2018 is $10,000 on the picnic tables.
$15,000 on the bench and we should either have the lighting or the picnic shelter in there because
we’ve got nothing else going on especially if we’re at $85,000 for that year so we have to have, I
think it’s 2018 is we want to build something somewhere. We want to do something so the
question is what are we going to do in 2018? Comments. Thoughts.
Hougham: I think we should leave the picnic shelter where it is and move the lighting out to
2019. Obviously with the study done next, or here in August we can adjust this as we see fit.
Kelly: So other comments. You know my feeling from our meeting with the City Council is
they were not, they were not big on the picnic shelter for a half million dollars and the lighting
they wanted justification on the lighting. Why we’re going to do it and what the benefits were.
They wanted justification on everything but I didn’t get a good feeling from them on the shelter
and that’s why I’m more likely to push it out. And then the lighting is, you know should it be
Lake Susan? Should it be Bandimere? At this point we should, you know Bandimere is going to
be our, turning out to be our crown jewel next to Lake Ann which is the big crown jewel and so
maybe that’s where you do put the lighting. And we’ve got one lit soccer field over at Lake
Ann. That’s lit right?
Ruegemer: (Yes).
Kelly: So do we light the baseball fields or do we, how many baseball fields are lit at Lake Ann?
Ruegemer: All 6 plus the soccer field for 7.
Kelly: Okay. So everything at Lake Ann is lit so Bandimere I guess would be the next ideal
place but again part of that would be, we have studies that show that we’re still busting at the
seams more. Are we busting at the seams more for soccer, baseball, softball?
Ruegemer: Well it definitely isn’t adult softball with that. Soccer. Soccer is popular. Lacrosse
is popular as well. Baseball seems to be holding steady.
Kelly: So you know we haven’t had much of a discussion about lacrosse and we’ve got this one,
I think that’s all being done on a privately owned field right now, other than the high school and
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
we don’t know if or when that field will dry up and so have we talked about internally at all
about what we’re going to do about lacrosse going forward because that does seem to be a
growing sport.
Ruegemer: Yeah it grows slightly per year obviously with that. We’ve been extremely
fortunate to have turf at the Chanhassen High School. Turf A and B and also on the football
stadium on that turf as well so we’re extremely lucky with that. That’s been filling our needs
with C3 Lacrosse. Tonka, Minnetonka Lacrosse has been playing at the Instant Web fields right
off of Park Road and Cole is correct. I mean that land is owned and operated by the Instant Web
Companies. It’s basically a perpetual lease that renews automatically every year and it has for a
number of years so we are extremely fortunate to have that field to service our needs for lacrosse
and also for soccer with the St. Hubert’s program in the fall so that, you know may go on
forever. It may be sold next week. We don’t know that. If push comes to shove then probably
what would have to happen is lacrosse would have to be programmed or laid out on a soccer
field. Or any other type of field that’s identified but more than likely a soccer field.
Kelly: So if we do it on soccer fields then when we get down the road would we get more bang
for our dollar lighting soccer fields over baseball and softball fields or would we be getting more
bang lighting the baseball fields first?
Ruegemer: You know that’s a big question. You know certainly what we’ve done in the past
without lighting, we’ve done multi-colored lines onto fields where we’ve had dual uses on a field
so that’s a possibility certainly with that. It’s been done at the high school turf. Right now
there’s multiple field lines down there on Turf A and B and the stadium itself so you know it’s
hard to say. Obviously once the field study is complete I think the path will be clearer. I know
that the associations have, a lot of the majority of the associations have completed their surveys
that were laid out through Hoisington with that so all that information is kind of being compiled
right now and it will be interesting to find out so I think we’ll have a better idea at the end of
August on that very question.
Kelly: Okay so here’s what I’m thinking for, thank you for that information by the way Jerry.
With that information from Jerry and we know this is going to change but I think at this point
what we do, which will change next month is put both lighting and the picnic shelter in for 2018
and then we have to figure that out from all the information that we’re going to get next month is
what makes more sense. You know what’s the consensus of this group and so at this point if we
leave both of those in and the picnic tables and park benches we’ll have $925,000 for 2018
which would leave us again 2019 at this point, one of those would probably be pushed into 2019.
We know we’re going to put a place holder for what, about $100,000 for the 41 underpass. Does
that sound like a reasonable number or should we make that higher Jerry?
Ruegemer: You had mentioned $100,000 and I thought you had mentioned that in 2020 versus
2019.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Scharfenberg: No I think he said 2019.
Kelly: 2019. That’s when we get the grant is 2019.
Ruegemer: Oh okay, I’m sorry. I wrote that down wrong.
Scharfenberg: I’m fine with putting $100,000 and just leaving that as a place holder.
Kelly: Okay, let’s put $100,000 for the 41 underpass.
Boettcher: And after all that was Roundhouse still going to stay at 2017?
Scharfenberg: We haven’t, we didn’t put anything there.
Boettcher: There’s no number there but I mean that would be the year we would look at?
Scharfenberg: Possibly.
Kelly: Yeah that would be the possible year because we only have $85,000 in there so and again
certain things are going to move around and if something moves back in there that could move
out but that would be the likely year because next year we’re already, we’re maxed out for what
we’re doing so yes, I think that would be the year at this point. So we’re moving the $90,000
from 2019 into 2020 knowing that, depending upon when that piece gets developed that’s going
to move around. That’s a place holder so with the $100,000 for the 41 underpass and the
$10,000 for the benches and $15,000 for the trees we’re at, currently at $125,000 for 2019 and
we know that’s going to change but that’s what, for purposes of getting through tonight’s
discussion that’s where we’re at which means in 2020 right now what we would continue the
picnic and park benches for $10,000. The trees for $15,000 and then we’d have the Chanhassen
Native Preserve trail for $90,000 and that would give us $115,000 and I don’t know if we have
anything else we want to add there or if we just want to leave it at that for tonight’s purposes.
Thoughts, discussions. So 2020.
Echternacht: $115,000.
Kelly: Would be $115,000 thank you.
Hougham: Could we put a place holder in 2020 for the Bandimere Park hard surface sport
courts?
Kelly: Oh okay. Yeah let’s put a.
Hougham: I’m guessing the price would be higher than that $230,000.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Kelly: Well if we’re going to put a place holder in I would suggest $300,000. So let’s put a
place holder in for the sport court in 2020 of $300,000. So that takes us up to $415,000 for 2020.
Other thoughts and discussions or do we want to wait until we get more information next month
to continue discussions on CIP? We’ve kind of laid out you know a basis for a 5 year plan
tonight. Obviously we know things will change on some of these years. Are we good with
where we’re at for tonight’s discussion?
Echternacht: Could I just throw one thing out when we do get back to the lighting, Jerry am I
not mistaken but Lake Ann soccer, that field is used with Minnetonka?
Ruegemer: Tonka United and CC United. Primarily Tonka United.
Echternacht: That’s what I thought so there’s very games played by CC United at that field so
they don’t have a lit field to really play on that much.
Kelly: And I think part of our discussion on the lighting will have to revolve around do we light
1 soccer field or do we light 2? If we light the back ones you’d have to do 2 and if you’re
lighting the up ones so then if staff can show us what the numbers show, you know where the
bang for the dollar is. Is it worth lighting 2 fields or is it only worth lighting 1 soccer field if we
end up going that route? That’s something I’d like to see.
Ruegemer: Well the commission kind of goes back a little bit too. You remember that, through
that kind of last work study presentation that we did, I believe that was 2014. September, they
had talked about kind of a phasing process lighting project at Lake, excuse me at Bandimere. So
the thought was to, if that is to be considered for future lighting would be to Field #1, the soccer
field number one would be kind of the furthest away from the neighborhoods. And then
potentially then some of those ballfields kind of so we could try to keep that away from the
neighbors as much as we possibly could and then phase that over time. I think it was 2020 might
be that next kind of phasing for the back fields potentially so that was a step approach for that
just to try to minimize the discussions I guess.
Kelly: Okay, thank you Jerry. Okay.
Scharfenberg: So for next month’s discussion will staff, can staff provide to us those numbers
again because the $400,000 was just a number, an arbitrary number. It doesn’t tell what it is to
light Field #1 or to light 3 ball fields. Three baseball fields or to light those other 2 soccer fields
so I think we have those numbers somewhere. We had them in the past, if that can be shared that
would be great.
Boettcher: And I think the other part of the discussion too Jerry was that if we did 1 and then 2
there was added expense versus going all 3 at once or something. There was you know running
the service here. Run it there. You’ve got to get the crew out to do the same thing at another
station and that was one of the reasons we had looked at it, the same thing so we, the number that
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
we had arbitrarily was a low number figuring on doing everything at once so Steve’s right, that
would change.
Kelly: Perfect. Anything else or should we end the CIP discussion for tonight?
Hougham: I do just have one other question or request of the staff for the picnic shelter I agree
with Chair Kelly that we would need some rationale or I guess more behind it to go forward with
that large amount.
Kelly: Right in other words what’s, what’s the reasoning and what’s the real need is what, that’s
the question that was put to us.
Hougham: Yeah.
Kelly: What’s the real need for that?
Hougham: Could you please provide how often the other shelters are used? I mean are they
used all the time? Are there vacancies there? I mean are we in need of another shelter that can
be rented out, that kind of thing?
Scharfenberg: Well the, go ahead Jerry.
Ruegemer: Go ahead.
Scharfenberg: Well I was going to say Jerry’s got numbers in terms of how often those shelters
are rented and how much are charged for all of those. I would say just given my experience is
that if you put a shelter there and have it charged as, and a charge that’s associated with that, it
will get rented. It may take away.
Hougham: Okay.
Scharfenberg: It may potentially take away or it may add because I think there are people aren’t
there Jerry who can speak to this, that your turning away people to some extent because of
graduation parties and stuff like that where it’s the busiest time that you have to potentially say
no we’re not, or there are people saying no because it’s rented.
Ruegemer: You bet. That happens every day with that so the numbers that we certainly can
provide are for paid reservations and that would be at Lake Susan and the Klingelhutz and the
Lakeside pavilions at Lake Ann.
Hougham: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Ruegemer: So and those are just paid reserved spots for that. That number is much higher. I
think last year was our highest number. Just off the top of my head it was around 140
reservations and that’s really from about May 1 to October 1. That number again is much
higher, like Steve said, you know there’s a lot of times when you know the picnic shelters may
be available in the morning. There’s a group of people there. People go out there after a softball
game and grill out so the shelters are being used much more than when I have them reserved so
Steve is correct. A shelter in a community park setting it really is an added benefit with that for
soccer tournaments, baseball tournaments. Go grill and some place to gather similar to what we
did tonight out at Roundhouse Park. It’s a focal point. A community gathering point for the
park itself so we certainly can provide the use, just the staff report from last September when we
reviewed that.
Hougham: And the rationale behind the request was I see the purpose of the shelter but if we
weren’t looking at putting it in relatively soon were there other options like either a scaled down
version or multiple smaller shelters for use around the park so.
Scharfenberg: Well and to answer that question Jennifer originally when we did, when the
council did the small shelter initiative at all the parks, they were going to put a small shelter
down you know where the 2, where the 3 baseball diamonds are. They were going to put a
shelter inbetween the 3 ball diamonds for people to kind of sit and watch the games and we said
you know no. We don’t want you to do that council because we may have envisioned the
possibility of putting in a bigger shelter. What we’ve been talking about and so that smaller
shelter they aren’t going to do that right now. They’ve taken that out so I mean the other thing to
consider with that shelter at Bandimere is with the increased use you know putting in, we’ve
talked about putting in bathrooms as part of that shelter and so you’re going to have, you know
you’ve got a multi-use facility there and families and soccer people and everyone, softball,
baseball and having some restrooms there for people to use so.
Kelly: With that if there’s no other questions or thoughts we’re going to end the CIP discussion
until next meeting and we’ll have the notes with the changes and all the information we’re
looking for. Thank you Jerry. Thank you and thank you everybody for your input in the
discussion tonight on the CIP. Moving right along, Katie there’s a name here for you. You can
sit over here if you’d like.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2015 FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION
EVALUATION.
Favro: Thank you Chair Kelly. This memo is just a report I guess of an overall summary of the
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Fourth of July. This year’s Fourth of July celebration was the 32 year that we’ve had this and
with the 3 day event we estimate that about 70,000 people attended at least one aspect of it. This
is all just kind of a brief overview of all the activities and events that we have with this. Just a
major highlights. The family night at the carnival, this is the fifth year that we’ve done this. It’s
just a nice soft opening for the event and it gets families out there to experience a carnival
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
without huge lines and massive amount of people. We estimate that about 3,000 people
participated in this event. Another highlight that we have is the Minnesota Twins baseball and
softball clinic and approximately 150 kids attended that this year and it’s a free program that we
offer at the Chanhassen High School. The kiddie parade is another big event with approximately
1,400 participants and spectators took part in this kiddie parade. It’s probably one of my favorite
events of the whole celebration. It’s super cute just to see all the little kids dress up and their
bikes and trikes and scooters and everything like that. It’s made possible by the Chanhassen Fire
Department. They help lead it with the big fire truck and then the Carver County Sheriff’s
Office they just assist with the traffic control. Just some other big ones, the Business Expo we
had about 38 local businesses participate in that this year. It is a huge draw and a lot of people
come to this and they know that Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce, they said it was one of
the most effective and easily run events that they have all year so it’s huge props to the City and
everybody who works hard to put that together. Some of the just other activities we involve for
kids or adults or anybody looking to participate is just we’ve got face painting, air brush tattoos,
wacky hairdos and caricatures. We’ve got Water Wars that comes. We provide kiddie games
through the City that are just a quarter that our playground staff, they lead those. Pony rides.
This is the second year that we’ve done it with Fantasy Corral and they’ve been easy to work
with and we are looking at keeping them or possibly expanding them and getting other animal
attractions and not just ponies. The 3 on 3 basketball tournament was unfortunately cancelled
this year due to low number of registrations. We had about 4 teams so it’s hard to run a
basketball tournament with just 4 teams so we’re looking at maybe moving it up. We did lower
the cost this year but maybe moving it up in time so it’s not kind of in the middle of the day and
more in the morning. The Summer Skateboard Series is a very popular event that a lot of people
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get to go and see our skate park and that’s a huge attraction. 3 Lair comes in. They set it all up
and they run that. And then our skate park attendants assist them with setting up and judging and
all different aspects of that. Our Chalk It Up contest is another large activity that we get for free.
The staff puts out grids and then everybody just gets to come and you get your own square and
then we judge it and hand out prizes in different categories. I recommend to this one if you
haven’t. We had some pretty amazing artists this year. It’s crazy to see what they can do with
chalk. Gamin’ Ride, they come and they just bring in their truck and then kids and teenagers and
adults I guess can go and play video games and we attain part of their profit. Let’s see here. We
have the baby changing station. This is offered for anybody who needs a place to change their
diaper. If they need to feed their children they’ve got free water for them and they just come on
ndrd
the 2 and the 3 and they set up their tent and then it’s just free to use for all families. So the
Chanhassen Rotary Taste of Chanhassen and Beer Garden, this is probably the biggest event of
the whole, or the celebration. The Chanhassen Rotary they run the Taste and the beer and wine
garden so this is CBO played this year in the big tent while this was going on and that was a
large quantity of people in that tent. So the carnival comes and it’s provided by Midwest Rides.
They provide 13 rides, 10 games and 6 food booths. We offer just kind of different things
ndth
throughout the celebration. Different prices for like the 2 and the 4 when things are a little bit
slower to just try to draw more people in and we also had live music featuring Ragtown and they
opened up for CBO so they were a nice opening to get the crowd excited and ready to go for
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Casablanca Orchestra. So on July 4 the adult fishing contest, we filled up this year so we had a
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
max of 50 participants and everybody came. Everybody, we have an entry fee of $20 and
everybody leaves with some sort of door prizes. We do provide trophies and prizes for the
largest bass and the largest northern and then everybody else gets entered and the door prizes can
be anywhere from a gift certificate to Culver’s to a trolling motor so we have a lot of variety of
prizes. And then right after the adult fishing contest we do a kid’s fishing contest and this is free
to participate in. The kids just come. They get a trophy for different age groups and the largest
fish. The longest fish and the smallest fish. I think the smallest fish this year was like an inch
and a quarter so I don’t even know how they caught that. I think they might have just scooped it
up but so that’s always fun to see. We also offer a sand sculpture contest so this is another free
event that people can go and participate in and build their sand castle or sand sculpture or
mermaids or whatever comes to their mind. We also do a medallion hunt which we get to hide
around in Lake Ann and then we just set up clues every 20 minutes at the concession stand and
people can go out and just try to figure out where the medallion is. This year it took them all the
way to the last clue to find it so that’s always good. The Chanhassen Senior Commission
sponsors bingo and that is just in one of the large tents during the celebration. We also have then
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on the 4 the beer and wine garden are open again for people who are listening to American
Bootleg. They’re another band that we have just to kind of keep the atmosphere alive and
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exciting. And then we have the 4 of July parade which the Chanhassen Rotary helps sponsors
and organizes that. Okay then the grand finale of all this is the fireworks and Pyrotechnics
Display is who did the fireworks this year and I think they have worked with us for the past 2
years?
Ruegemer: Multiple years. About 20 plus.
Favro: Oh so 20 plus years so we’ve worked with them for a while and that was another great
show. It was very exciting to kind of see all the behind the scenes and how that goes down.
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Once again we have our 4 of July t-shirts this year. It looks like we did a little bit better than
last year which is always nice and we do save on it because we have Amy. She does all the
artwork for those so it’s always good to have her and it all ties in with the theme that we do, that
we send out with like our brochure. The magazine, all the other promotional material that we
send which we do work with the Chanhassen Villager. They help put together the magazine and
help run all the ads that we do with them so we have a good partnership with them and we like to
continue that to keep going. I guess all our suggestions for 2016 is just to continue to work with
the Chanhassen Villager. We’ve been marking out the physical layout so that when vendors
come we can just put them right in their spots and it’s clearly labeled so they know where they’re
going. We have t-shirt sales, just begin those sooner so that people are aware of them and we
can just increase sales. We have a lost and found tent which is right next to our first aid tent.
That way people can go if they can find any promotional materials. Information about anything.
Have any questions, comments or if they lost and found something. We did find a few things so
that’s good. They returned to their owners. We sprayed for mosquitoes in both City Center Park
and Lake Ann which was just nice because that is a very heavily traffic area just to try to make it
more enjoyable for all the participants and not getting bit. And then we just continue to work
with the Rotary Club to have a minimum of 10 food vendors to participate in the Taste of
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Chanhassen and just focus on having other food options. And the back is all the revenue and
expenditures. That’s just a brief overview. If you have any specific questions feel free to let me
know. We can try to answer them to the best of our ability.
Kelly: It’s quite an undertaking and I usually make it to the street dance, which I couldn’t make
this year. I was out of town so I missed it but I heard wonderful things about the event and the
City of Chanhassen always does a fantastic job and I know a lot of people put in a lot of hard
work in getting this done at the City. I did have, somebody did ask me a question. Apparently
there was a kid flying a drone during the fireworks.
Favro: Yep.
Kelly: So the question was put to me why wasn’t that kid arrested and I didn’t know anything
about it. Apparently the cops went and talked to him and then after they left he still flew the
drone while the fireworks were going off and I don’t know what happened there?
Ruegemer: Commissioner Kelly that is correct. The drone was present during the fireworks
display. Currently there isn’t any federal law governing drones so at this point we’re going to
wait for the federal law to get enacted before we can have any city codes involving any type of
drones so at this point there is really not a whole lot we can do about it at this point.
Kelly: Is it, couldn’t it be considered an unsafe situation with it being up there with the
fireworks?
Ruegemer: Potentially but you know at this point we’re going to have to figure out into future
years as to what’s going to happen with the drones. Obviously this was the first year that it was
present.
Kelly: Right.
Ruegemer: For the parade as well as well as the fireworks celebration so moving forward I
imagine there’ll be increased conversations regarding drones.
Kelly: Thank you Jerry. Other questions or comments for Katie or Jerry on the big party?
Thunberg: Yeah, we were there on Thursday night and having Thursday night as the family
night and less lines like you’re saying it was great so thank you for that. No camel rides this
year?
Ruegemer: Camel rides, Vogel Exotics was the vendor for that. Kevin got out of the camel
business per se and he opened up an exotic safari farm south of Brainerd on 371 so if you go up
371 towards Brainerd there’s that big exotic animal farm on the west side of the road, that’s
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
Kevin Vogel’s operation now so that’s why we switched over to Fantasy Corral out of northern
Wisconsin and will continue to take a look at other options.
Thunberg: Sounds good. And then the other one, I think it was new this year was the water
bubbles you could go in. The kids seem to love that one so that was pretty cool.
Ruegemer: I partook in that myself. They needed 2 or 3 guys to lift me up onto the platform so,
and I have video to prove it.
rdth
Echternacht: Both the 3 and 4 I was there almost the whole time and it was fantastic. Just a
question we used to do free throw contests a number of years back. I remember when my kids
were growing up and I don’t know if it was too hard to organize or what but they used to do it by
age group and gender and gave prizes. I don’t know if that’s something to do again in the future
or was it just too hard to organize.
Ruegemer: Yep, do you want to answer that? I didn’t think so. Yeah obviously the 3 on 3
tournament kind of evolved from the free throw contest. I mean really I think anything at this
point is really up for discussion so obviously the 3 on 3 tournament didn’t go so do we need to
change that approach or programming event as well so like I said if the commission has any
ideas for future years we are all ears at this point and we’re looking ahead to 2016.
Hougham: I just want to say I also enjoyed many of the events and the thing that I would say
was a probably good thing that I noticed was after the parade how the park maintenance followed
the parade to collect up trash. I thought that was very smart.
th
Kelly: Katie those shirts you provided to the commissioners and the nice red 4 of July shirts,
I’ve been wearing it quite a bit and I actually of all the shirts I’ve gotten over the years I’ve been
getting a lot of good comments on that shirt so nice job.
Favro: I’d like to take all the credit on that but Amy’s the one who does all the designs and I just
get to pick out the colors so.
Ruegemer: Amy Lloyd is on Chanhassen staff and she’s kind of responsible for many of the
promotional material that goes out. Does extensive work on the Chanhassen Connection. Any
of the other publications or promotional materials that goes out. She’s a super creative person
and really has brought our game up significantly in the last couple, 3, 4 years.
Kelly: Well good. Well pass along to her I’ve gotten lots of nice comments on my shirt.
Ruegemer: We will, thank you.
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
th
Kelly: Any other questions or comments on the 4 of July celebration? Thank you for a
wonderful celebration and all the work, hard work you put in and thank you for the report tonight
Katie. Moving right along.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS.
None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS.
Thunberg: I don’t have a formal presentation. I’ll just give you a quick update on the 5K. So
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it’s still September 12. The website’s up and running. I’ll send you all the link but if you want
to go sign up or learn more about it www.chanhassencharity5K.com. Yeah, you can see all the
information there.
Kelly: Remind us of the date on that again.
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Thunberg: Saturday September 12. There’s the 5K and we are adding a kids half mile that will
loop around the park at Lake Ann and then also the option for folks to walk a mile if they’d like
to. I’ll send you all the link. Spread the word.
Kelly: We will.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Kelly: Okay anything in the administrative packet Jerry you want to point out to us of
importance or is this just all for our information?
Ruegemer: Oh it’s all important Chair Kelly. Just picnic evaluations with that so you know
obviously there’s we usually for the most part get pretty decent reviews on those and just the
resources information for our adaptive recreation community so I’ll entertain any questions on
that if needed.
Kelly: Any questions or comments for Jerry? Thank you Jerry. Anybody want to put it to the
question?
Scharfenberg: Before we do that Jerry, will we get for our next meeting will there be a survey,
kind of final clean out regarding the surveys from the community band events or the?
Ruegemer: Right. Yeah, Landon has been working on those every concert. Yes I believe that
should be included in the August commission agenda. Or are we going to have, we postponed
that one. We’ll discuss that, yeah. As of right now it’s on for August.
Scharfenberg: And then one thing that I was just thinking of as we were concluded our CIP
discussion is we didn’t really talk about the band shell and that’s certainly something that should
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Park and Recreation Commission – July 28, 2015
be in our consideration or discussion for August so I just thought we didn’t, that wasn’t in the
packet and I don’t know if it was on other people’s radar or not so.
Kelly: Thank you for bringing that up. I think you’re right, it should be part of the conversation
next month.
Scharfenberg 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 9:00 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
34