PRC 2015 09 22
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 22, 2015
Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Brent Carron, Luke Thunberg, Rick
Echternacht, and Jennifer Hougham. Lauren Dale arrived during discussion of the Athletic Field
Use and Facility Expansion Study.
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Jim Boettcher
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; Katie Favro, Program Specialist; Adam Beers, Park Superintendent; Jodi Sarles,
Rec Center Manager; and Sue Bill, Senior Center Coordinator
VISITORS PRESENT:
Matt Walker Minnetonka Baseball Association
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Kelly: Luke you want to add somewhere and tell us about your 5K?
Thunberg: Sure, I can give you a recap down in J. I don’t really have a presentation.
Kelly: Right okay. Let’s do recap on 5K under J. Luke. Any other additions or subtractions?
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS.
None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Echternacht moved, Thunberg seconded to approve the
verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
August 25, 2015 as presented.
ATHLETIC FIELD USE AND FACILITY EXPANSION STUDY; RECEIVE DRAFT
REPORT FROM HKGI AND MAKE RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL.
Kelly: We got a big handout with a lot of interesting things. A lot of numbers on the athletic
field use and facility expansion study draft report from HKGi and we may be looking to make a
Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
recommendation to the City Council tonight. Todd you want to give us a little background on
the report.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Kelly. I would love to and this evening Jerry invited all of the, well
sent the report and agenda to all the associations so they have the information if you happen to
hear from them. Hear what they have to say about the report. We’ve not received any formal
comments as of yet from the folks. They may or may not at 36 pages plus they may or may not
have delved into the report as of last weekend so we may hear from them in the future and if we
do we’ll pass on those comments to you. Primarily we’re going to go through, talk about some
of the take away’s out of the report but if you recall there’s a variety of reasons that this field
report, field study is before you. The Park and Recreation Commission has been talking about
athletic field improvements for quite some time. You also hear from athletic association
representatives, parents about you know we need more of this. We don’t have enough of that.
We think we should change how we do field allocations. We want you know more of
Chanhassen people in town. Less Minnetonka people in town or vice versa so we hear a lot of
things about athletic fields and so we wanted to distill down, the council is very interested in
understanding specifically before they move forward is that reality. You know are we short
fields? Do we need more of one particular type of field and so they really wanted to seek some
overall information about what’s out there today. How many users do we have? How many
field users do we have and you know what should be built in the future as we move forward. So
but coming out of that, you know we were going to talk about should we be building something?
What should it be? And really there’s been some discussion on the City Council that to move
forward with anything that we talk about as a part of the study we may want to consider a 2016
fall referendum as a part of the presidential election for athletic field improvements in our
community and that could include a variety of things. It could include athletic field
improvements. Neighborhood park improvements. There’s discussion of bringing back a
conversation about a splash pad or a water amenity for all families and people in our community
so that’s the presentation that you have. Once we get through the ballfield conversation the
motion tonight is that you as a commission consider making a recommendation to the City
Council that they again direct you to facilitate a referendum conversation. If that would happen
we would have basically about 6 months to get a task force in place and up and running with a
recommendation for what would be on that referendum. You would want to have that by early
spring and so you can get the information published and out and then plan for a fall referendum
in 2016. So keeping that in mind I’ll go through.
Kelly: Todd, can I interrupt you for a moment?
Hoffman: You can.
Kelly: So if we send down a recommendation to the City Council for a task force, typically a
task force would be what, 10 to 12 people?
Hoffman: Something like that.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Kelly: And the City Council would appoint everyone who’s on the task force?
Hoffman: They would. They would set the number. They would set the composition of the task
force and then they would solicit for members.
Kelly: Would you typically have what, 2 or 3 people from the park and rec commission on
there?
Hoffman: They would make that designation. They may serve. They may put a council
member on it. They may not. They don’t have to. Athletic association people. General
citizens. People interested. The last committee in ’97, ’96-’97 worked for a couple of years and
then there was some turnover in that task force. That referendum took about 2 ½ years to get to
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the vote which was June 14 of 1997 so it’s been 18 years since the last park referendum.
Kelly: Thank you for the interruption.
Hoffman: You’re welcome. So we’ll go through this page by page and we’re not going to talk
about every page. This is a draft and so as you read it if you notice things that you question,
please take a look at those for clarification. I will point some of those corrections out this
evening and then we want to finish this up. Paul Paige, the President of Hoisington Koegler was
at the council meeting in August at their work session. They wanted to get kind of a pre-look
before their budget conversations took hold so Mr. Paige presented then. He’ll be back to
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present the final report in November. November 9 to the City Council and this was part of the
KFS, key financial cities, or key financial strategies study for 2015 so. If you’ve read through it
you know what it’s about. There’s an executive summary. The background of what the project’s
about. Existing conditions. Needs assessment. Cost benefit analysis which is one of the things
the council really wanted to see is you know, so what kind of benefit do we get for what inputs
the community would make. Recommendations and then the charts and appendices. First page,
which is number 3 and then we have the first corrections and so before we move on, you want to
look at the bottom row in the chart. There’s 28 fields. Currently per national standards we need
10. That means we’re plus 18. Not plus 10 and that continues on in that same row so the second
column 2020 we’re plus 17 and the third column we’re plus 15 I believe are the numbers.
Correct. Oh, so the bottom column 10 and then it’s plus 18, plus 17 and plus 15. Plus 18, plus
17, and plus 15 so that’s a correction. And what that’s telling you is the need is 8, 3, 2 and 10 so
we need 10-60 to 65 feet softball fields and we have 28 of them so we’re way ahead in that
category. The one you’re going to see that you’re short in is the 70 to 75 foot baseball field.
We’re short 1 throughout that entire timeframe. Part of that is there’s just no school fields in that
distance in our community. We have 2 and then soccer by 2030 you’ll be 3 soccer or multi-
soccer lacrosse fields short by 2030 and we’ll talk a little bit about an opportunity. There is an
opportunity at the Holasek site to potentially take a look at anywhere from 1 to 3 soccer fields as
a part of that development of the Holasek property. So that’s one opportunity and I think we’ve
talked about that in the past as well. Cost benefit analysis. Because the City has no immediate
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
plans we don’t have any immediate plans for expansion of our park system. It’s worth exploring
other methods and we’ve talked about this for a number of years and those would be mix of
flexible field design. You could light. You could put in artificial turf which extends your
season. Provide an indoor athletic facility and then each improvement provides unique benefits
with some additional cost or significant additional cost depending on what you’re considering.
Cutest picture in the presentation so I’m going to go with that. Rec center sports?
Sarles: Yep.
Hoffman: Did you take that Jodi?
Sarles: I believe I did.
Hoffman: Yeah I like it. It’s very nice. So the basic components. We did a data gathering and
field inventory phase where we reached out to all the associations and received their input. The
needs assessment. The cost benefit analysis and then the recommendations that we have tonight.
Existing conditions. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it. If you look at the bottom graph
you can see there’s a broad spectrum. Anywhere from zero percent of the fields were satisfying
for C3 lacrosse or Chan Chaska Football. They’re not playing in town so we don’t provide any
of their fields to 100 percent. We provide all the fields for CAA soccer. Chapel Hill soccer and
anywhere inbetween and that comes, rings true in this report many times throughout is that we’re
not everything in the mix. All these associations go to other cities. They go to school districts.
They go to private businesses for their field needs so we’re just part of the puzzle. If this was
Marshal, Minnesota and we’re standing out in the middle of you know an independent city it
would be a much different look. The city would be the primary, probably the primary provider
along with the school district and then that’s it. You don’t have neighboring communities.
Suburbs to fall back on. Map of our community parks. Pretty well distributed throughout our
center core area. City Center, Lake Ann, Chan Rec, Lake Susan and Bandimere. I think the
important distinction here is that Chan Rec Center and City Center Park are coops. They’re
owned and operated in cooperation with school district, both District 112 facilities and at both
sites they’re shared land and then shared maintenance responsibilities. Primarily on the City’s
side for the outdoor and then scheduling is primarily the City as well. And those are the large
sites. I think it’s also interesting to take a look back at how these were acquired based on the fact
that we are potentially discussing a referendum. If you were to start with City Center, City
Center was incorporated as a part of our city. Downtown you know rec center with City Hall
and the school. There have been no specific referendums but the last ’97 referendum did buy the
north 2 fields on City Center Park so when there was dollars for athletic fields, their open space
acquisition, those 2 fields were purchased with referendum dollars so it does have some
referendum action going on. Lake Ann Park was started with a referendum in 1969 and so the
acquisition was the brain child of some local community members. It was a primarily
agriculture. A very small community at the time and they said you know Lake Ann Park is, or
Lake Ann is so special, the swimming beach there. You know parts of our community already
are able to go and utilize it. Let’s make it available for the whole community in the future and
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
they passed a referendum for a half a million dollars in 1969 which is just forward thinking.
Might have been a quarter of a million dollars. One of the two. It seemed like, not a lot of
money but at the time it was a lot of money. The brochure’s upstairs. Chan Rec Center
purchased outright and the Chan Rec Center was in response to all of our schools going to
Chaska. All of a sudden city of Chanhassen residents woke up and they said you know what,
they’re building all the schools in Chaska which means all the athletic facilities that go along
with the school are going to Chaska and the reason why is because Chaska was either negotiating
with developers for land for schools or they were setting aside land themselves and so the
Chanhassen elected officials woke up and they said whoa, we’ve got to get in to the same game
if that’s the game. Let’s buy some land so they bought 40 acres. The City bought 40 acres at the
intersection and invited the school district to build a school there and pay for half the land which
they did. Lake Susan Park acquired as part of a development of the business park in that area.
Very key acquisition early on in our development and then Bandimere again purchased with
referendum dollars and then developed with referendum dollars so there’s quite a history of
referendum activity in our community to make sure that these facilities are available to the
public. Existing conditions. This is just nice documentation for now and into the future so we
use this for a variety of things. We have this in our inventory already so when we’re trying to
decipher what’s what and what do we have in the ground we know what they are so not going to
go through each one. 7 fields at Lake Ann, all lit. All our fields are turf. Lots of activity at the
Rec Center with the small, all the numbers off the diamonds. Our soccer fields. Small, a lot of
small soccer fields for our smaller aged kids. Under aged children. That facility works out very
nice as a coop with District 112. City Center, the north 2 fields are the ones we talked about
where these were purchased with referendum dollars. The school owns the center parcel. The
City owns the bottom parcel so the school is the primary owner in the facility. Hi Lauren,
welcome. You can add her. Lauren has arrived.
Kelly: Welcome Lauren.
Hoffman: Nann knows you’re here now. City Center Park, just talked about that. Lake Susan,
one baseball field. Nice facility. And then Bandimere, again a couple different acquisitions
going on there. The original referendum purchased fields, the space for fields 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Fields 5 and 6 were acquired as a part of Springfield. That was this module right up here and
then these 2 single family homes were recently acquired to make Bandimere a full 40 acre site
which once you acquire 32 acres you might as well just keep going. It’s the same theme as we’re
doing here at City Center. Just keep expanding as much as you can if you can. Lake Ann was
expanded on 2 occasions. The Rec Center’s not been expanded. There’s no further expansion at
most of these sites but as long as you’ve got it going on you might as well expand it and
maximize it as much as you can. Needs assessment, this is where we get down to talking about
numbers. So the benefits. The drawbacks. There is benefits and drawbacks to each but we’ll
talk about some of them specifically. Participation rates. There’s all sort of graphs showing you
know what’s going on with real numbers at our school districts. In our associations. Baseball
and softball fields. National standards. So here’s the chart again. These are the correct numbers
so these same charts that are on page 3 and 23 shows the total fields in Chanhassen, 3, 2 and 28.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
What the national standard is or what the need is per the national standard. What the excess,
either surplus positive or negative would be. And then you see some community comparisons
down below. And again on a neighbor to neighbor basis we stack up very good so you know we
provide sufficient fields for the basic recreation needs. Outdoor recreation athletic field needs of
our community and our citizens. All the different trends. Youth baseball is increasing. We’ve
heard that many times. Softball the same. Numbers continue to climb. Adult softball has
declined and has leveled off at some level but it’s certainly, was probably about half of what it
was 15 or 20 years ago. And we see that in how Lake Ann is laid out. Where it was primarily
adult softball in the early days and now it’s primarily youth softball and baseball. The adults still
play there but it’s a smaller percentage. Total fields for a rectangle multi-use, that’s a soccer/
lacrosse field. We have 8 and the need is 8 but then as our population continues to grow you see
by 2030, 31,000 people we’re short soccer fields because we currently have no other soccer
fields in the system. Soccer/lacrosse or rectangle multi-use fields so we’ve had a conversation
with a developer that’s working on the Holasek site and there is a potential there. You know
what that future deal could look like through park dedication acquisition. Fee purchase. They
have got some poor soils. Well how poor are they? Are they so poor that they will not support a
soccer field? Can we get a cross use agreement for parking? That would be the best thing where
the developer pays for the parking lot development and they use them during the daytime for
their business and then the public can use them at night for the soccer fields so there’s a lot of
things to work through but they’re being very upfront with us and we are with them. If you look
at the other chart, population per field so we are a little bit higher in this area so rectangle multi-
use fields, we’re at the 3,000 mark where most of the other cities in our area, you know they
have close to double that number of fields per resident in Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Chaska, and
Victoria. But if you look, that school number really skews it. We talked about it earlier. You go
to Chaska they have 6 city fields. We have 4 but they have 17 school fields. We have 4 and the
important thing to remember is that same conversation just because those 17 fields in Chaska
doesn’t mean that our Chanhassen associations don’t have access to them. They’re just not
physically right here in Chanhassen but they are in our school district and they are being used.
Soccer trends, again that’s an upward trend. Football declining or flat. Lacrosse is a big upward
trend again. They’re out playing lacrosse tonight at City Center Park if you noticed on your way
in. There’s a lacrosse camp going on. Cost benefit. Prime time, that middle paragraph. One of
the bigger desires for almost all groups across all sports is the desire for more prime time
reservations. That 6:00 to 9:00 especially on weekdays and you’ll see that when we go through
the graphs. You hit May and June and that’s when people want to be out on the ballfields.
Monday through Friday, 6:00 to 9:00 and then what we’re going to find I think is that you just
can’t build enough fields to meet all the demand during that prime time. It’s just one of those
things where there is demand at that time of the season and during those times of the day and the
week are always going to out strip what you have for field availability. So if we do nothing, we
maintain the status quo the benefits are that the fields we currently have are maintained at a high
level. That high quality was noted by multiple user groups. You know they’re not perfect. They
would certainly, they’d always like more. They’d like more striping. More lining. More final
touches and details to make those look like tournament fields on a daily basis. If we’re not able
to provide that they do some of that on their own as associations. Drawbacks of our current
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
system. Our fields are subject to weather conditions, especially in the spring so if you have a lot
of wet weather you’re just not going to be out playing. We see that. We saw that last spring.
We had a huge backlog. Probably more rain dates than we’ve ever seen. Fields at Bandimere
are not lighted. Subject to natural light especially in the spring and fall. Fields must be rested on
a rotating basis, primarily our soccer lacrosse fields. In the city we currently invest about
$25,000 per year in an annual maintenance cost for one field so that’s how much we’re spending
to maintain a field on an annual basis. Includes all of the functions. Mowing, fertilize,
fertilization, field dragging. If you would stop in any day, stop in on a June morning and then
track our folks when we have you know our 15 or 16 seasonals. Many of them are primarily
doing field maintenance for much of the day during the summer months. So this is maintain
status quo. The top is talking about lacrosse and soccer. Important thing when you study these
graphs is that red line. That red line is prime weekday capacity so that’s what we currently have
in this system is that red line. You see we don’t meet all of the demand or the desire in April,
May and June and then once we hit July-August we have excess and so that’s pretty easy to see
if you drive around Chanhassen in late July or August, you’re going to see a lot of fields that are
empty because things are over. Families are off doing vacations and other things and there’s
excess time. Field resting is noted there because it is important. They don’t have to always be
full because you’ll just wear them right out but it does show that one of the things we could work
with the associations with is trying to push some of that demand later. Could you do that?
Instead of building more fields or adding more lights or adding turf could you change a season?
Could you push one of these programs out a little bit to take some of that excess capacity? And
the same goes for our baseball groups. It’s even a little taller graph in they have out stripped
demand there in May, June and July. You also want to watch the figures on how many you’re
talking about on the left. 200, 300, 400 versus the 40, 60, 80 so you’ve got to take a look at the
hours per week. Basically we have a lot more hours in baseball than we do in multi-use fields.
Lacrosse and soccer. So needs assessment. What do you do if you have, you provide lighting on
an existing field. You have longer play. You pretty much double your ability to have a field.
Drawbacks, you know there is some light pollution that goes with it. The fields are still subject
to weather conditions and the fields must be rested and the cost, $200,000 per field. Bonded for
at 30 years at a 3 percent rate, your annual cost around $10,000. Operations and maintenance
about $35,000 to $40,000 per year. So O & M costs you know need to be considered as well
once you, anything you build something new you have additional cost to maintain it and operate
it over time.
Scharfenberg: Todd question. In the green box it’s got associations that have expressed interest
in partnership or partnering in lighting. Was that obtained through the survey?
Hoffman: Correct. It was asked in each one of these cases would you be willing to partner and
at what level.
Scharfenberg: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Hoffman: Those aren’t dollars in the bank but they’re just pledges that they would be interested
in working at those kind of levels.
Scharfenberg: Thank you.
Hoffman: So again the top is lacrosse and soccer. If you add lights your capacity does go up.
Your prime weekday capacity. What you’re going to notice when you compare these is it’s, it’s
typical to see simply because you light one field or you put one field in at turf your capacity
doesn’t jump huge. The primary capacity is what we already have out there on the ground. We
can’t add some additional capacity but it’s going to be incremental in nature throughout the
entire presentation. So you add some and as you add capacity what you’ll also see is that field
resting or the white space on the right just continues to grow larger because as you increase your
capacity in May-June to fill that desire mode, then once the teams are gone you just have that
much more additional capacity that’s not being used. Not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just
something you want to keep track of. If you change existing grass field to artificial turf the costs
continue to go up so you look at the cost column. Artificial turf field about a million dollars to
install and then you have to budget the $600,000 for replacement of the turf every 10 years. If
you bond for it it’s going to cost you about $50,000 to $55,000 a year for 30 years. Operation,
maintenance and replacement cost about $85,000 a year and so O & M budgets operation and
maintenance budgets go up you know right along with these improvements. If you put them in
the ground then you have to finance those other things to make sure the costs are covered. This
one does talk about, we currently do not charge for field reservations. We don’t charge a per
athlete rate for fields. For field maintenance or long term field acquisition but here it’s talked
about. If you start to put in turf are you going to start to charge per hour? $50 to $75 per hour
so you’d get you know for one field about $25,000 to $45,000 per year. If you add up just that
over the 10 years you’re not even going to pay for your turf replacement and that does not
include your operation and maintenance cost so there’s still additional costs. If you put down
artificial turf you’re going to have to generate some additional cash to make sure you can operate
it, maintain it, schedule it on an annual basis. You do see that now desire fills in because people
want to use this. It’s a more attractive amenity so they want to use it earlier and longer and so
you’re prime weekday capacity fills up just about uniformly throughout the season. People want
to be on that and they can be on it in any weather. The sites we’re talking about, potentially
Lake Ann. The soccer multi-use field could be turned into turf and then Bandimere could be
turned into turf. Any of the fields at Bandimere but, well probably the first soccer field going up
in the main which is number 4. Field 4, soccer 1. Right? And then to Commissioner
Scharfenberg’s note, here they start to lay out that they’re willing to invest anywhere between 1
to 25K for all of the organizations with the exception of lacrosse and soccer have more interest
because they are primary users at $50,000 to $75,000. That if you said I’m going to put turf in at
Lake Ann soccer, both of those potentially could come to the table for $100,000 to $150,000
between the two of them to be a partner in the process.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Kelly: Todd? On that survey where we picked up these numbers did they, did the organizations
also, was there anything in there that said if we go to turf fields how do you feel about being
charged for that? Was that in that survey also?
Hoffman: It was not.
Kelly: Not, okay thank you.
Hoffman: Change existing grass field to a lighted artificial turf. Again you just gain even more
red line prime week capacity and it’s filled up so once you put turf in you may as well light it
because it can be used. You know right now it’s dark out. If you didn’t have lights you
wouldn’t be using it. If you had lights on it they’d be using it right up until 10:00 in these kind
of weather so if you’re going to put artificial turf you should add lights as well. The costs go up
for the lights but you already have the turf. May as well use the space. And again everybody’s
willing to contribute once you get into these kind of questions. If you do a dome, either a
seasonal or a permanent dome and one thing to consider is there’s a referendum in Eastern
Carver County Schools in November that’s going to have a dome on it. If that passes there’s
probably less appetite to take a look at one in the Chanhassen city park system. The costs go up
significantly and really when we take a look at the graph, people don’t want to be in a dome if
it’s seasonal. You’d want to take it down in the summer. They don’t to be in there in the
summer and so really what you’re doing is extending the season and you’re extending that
season for a lot of traveling or competitive teams and as a park and recreation commission, as a
city you want to kind of think about what is our mission? Is our mission as a city to maintain
and operate facilities for more competitive leagues or are we more general recreation provider in
our community so that’s one thing to consider but it was worth taking a look at. The dollars 4 to
6 million for a temporary. 7 to 10 million for a permanent facility. That’s a picture of the one
down in Savage which they went ahead and built because they got donated land and so they had
donated land with the thought that then the city would put up a dome, which they did and it’s
very popular. Teams from Chanhassen travel there quite often. Commissioner Echternacht’s
talked about it. Look familiar? You’ve been there many times.
Echternacht: I have.
Hoffman: It’s a big dome.
Kelly: A question.
Hoffman: Yep.
Kelly: If you get one that’s not a, that’s a seasonal dome, what are the costs to put it up and take
it down?
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Hoffman: I don’t know the specific cost but there’s operations and maintenance go into that so
you take it down in the spring. You put it back up in the fall. Don’t know what those costs are
specifically. Lots of the infrastructure stays there on the outside of it so lots of the concrete.
Lots of the framing stays right there. And then, but at least it’s in the open air during the summer
and people continue to use it.
Kelly: Thank you.
Hoffman: Plymouth does that. Who else does that?
Ruegemer: Edina.
Hoffman: Edina, yeah. Minnetonka.
Echternacht: Maple Grove does it. They have a dome they take down.
Hoffman: So you know there’s a lot of curiosity on what’s going to happen in November.
There’s 2 questions in that referendum and the first one has to pass in order for the second one to
be considered. You know there’s probably good reason to think those are going to be pretty
successful and that dome, when that would go up behind the middle school down at Chaska on
top of the hill so it’s not too far away for all of our different. Much closer than Savage and it
would be in one of our districts. These graphs are interesting because what they do is really
bring that season out to 12 months a year and so you have some capacity you know all the way
into January, February and March but the capacity is not huge because it’s a single facility. You
know depending on how you chop up the field inside of it so you’re using it just about 12 months
out of the year. Those later season months and in the summer again there’s a little bit of excess
capacity. Build a new grass field. It does add capacity but you need to buy land but this is what
we would be talking about at the Holasek site. Could we add additional property there for
soccer/lacrosse at the Holasek property? Community Development Director Kate Aanenson has
given an update to the council on next Monday about our large parcels that are left for
development. If you study them, you know could you visualize a future athletic complex on any
one of those? Gorra? Prince? You know Gorra is right next to Lake Ann. Then down south
you have the Holasek piece. Then you move over to the tree nursery. The Wilson tree nursery.
The Erhart piece. The golf course. Halla and that’s about all that we have left. And then the
Quadrant, the piece for the mall so not a lot of areas left. 18 years ago during the last referendum
everybody thought there was plenty of land left for just about any dream that anybody would
have. Housing development. Commercial development. Malls. Parks. Soccer fields. Roads.
Land was pretty unlimited 18 years ago and so that’s changed and it’s changed pretty quickly.
And that shows if you add a field you basically go back to the same chart that you started with.
You fill a variety of capacity. You add 1 one field but it still sits somewhat dormant in the later
half of the year.
Carron: Hey Todd one question here.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Hoffman: Yeah.
Carron: Sorry, back to page 39.
Hoffman: Yep.
Carron: Just so I can understand these graphs in regards to the capacity.
Hoffman: Yep.
Carron: For the dome, why would the prime capacity only be at 20 during the winter months?
Hoffman: 20 games per week and so you take Monday through Friday. I’m not sure if they’re
adding in the weekends and how many games can you do during that prime time, 6:00 to 9:00.
It’s 20 games.
Carron: Why would that be any different than May?
Hoffman: Oh the capacity?
Carron: Yeah.
Hoffman: That’s a good question.
Carron: I’m wondering why that line is down by 20 where you’d think at a dome that would be
consistent.
Hoffman: I’ll ask that question. Until I have a answer I don’t know what it is.
Carron: Okay, thanks.
Hoffman: It may be that the prime time hours switch. What they consider prime time once you
get, you take the home down. They may be considering different prime time hours during the
play time. I’ll get that explanation. Email it to you. These recommendations are worthy to just
read and understand. There’s more demand than capacity when the city’s park systems during
peak times. Hoisington-Koegler does not believe it’s prudent for the city to try to meet all the
demand for athletic facilities by our self. The City’s parks exist in a network of recreation
provider that we talked about and access to quality athletic fields is important qualify of life,
community health and economic development. We love what our Chanhassen athletic fields
bring to the community, both for our all levels of sports. For our tournaments that we host here.
We like what it does to our downtown you know as far as an economic driver in our community
so we feel even though there’s a significant investment in both acquiring and maintaining and
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
operating those that it brings back many dollars and many life satisfaction qualities to our
community so we’re not afraid about that. But if you add up, if you just take a look at the
investment, it’s a 50 to probably a 50 to 100 million dollar investment in athletic fields you know
in all the things that go along with land values and those type of things and you compare that to
the cost of a high school, our high school’s $100 million dollars. You know these things are
public investments in our community that if you add them up they’re significant and so. It’s also
important to consider those numbers when you’re talking about, okay you’re talking about a
million dollar improvement or you’re talking about a $500,000 improvement or a $400,000
improvement to $200,000 for lights and it seems like a big number but when you consider you’re
working on a 50 to 100 million dollar piece of infrastructure, you know the numbers kind of
come into focus a little bit better. The City should explore partnership opportunities, which you
have. You know we’ve talked about these associations are willing to partner. That’s not always
been the case. 20-25 years ago athletic associations were most of them were not that well
organized and financed that they could come to the table with those kind of dollars so that’s a
new I think component in moving forward. Seek to maintain the current management of fields
as demands continue to increase. So we rotate fields as we need. Postponement of use after
significant rain events. That’s critical. One single rain event, one Saturday rain event at Lake
Ann we lost a field for a over and a half because they played a tournament on it on one single
day, on a rainy type of event so that’s a significant take down for one day’s activities for a year
and a half to get a field back. That was a natural turf field so we have to do that and Jerry in his
position and others do a nice job. It’s kind of interesting on a rainy forecasted afternoon to
decide should we cancel? Should we not cancel? Or the morning after a rain, should we cancel
or should we not cancel? We don’t let Adam chime in. We just tell him if we want them dry or
not and make it happen. We should continue to support the stated goals of the parks in
Chanhassen and reasonably meet the city needs. Promote a sense of community. Expand the
capacity of athletic facilities through improvements and efficiencies within the current
community parks. Based on current trends combined with projected demand we talked about
this, we’re going to be a multi-use field short in 1 to 3 fields in the next 15 years but we’re really
not short anywhere else so that’s a good take away from the study. And then based on national
standards and desires of the baseball community the City should continue to emphasize
flexibility in ballfields with basepaths and moving pitching rubbers or mounds to better meet the
demands of that 75 foot basepath fields so we can do that. We saw we’re one short we can do
that through some modification on how we operate these fields and that’s been a consistent
message. Fields used to be a field and now they’re much more multi with different base peg
lengths and how many do we have on any given field? Three different lengths?
Ruegemer: Base?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Ruegemer: Yeah 3 to 4.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Hoffman: So there’s lots of information in there. If you have any additional input at any time
before November send it to us. We’ll have Hoisington-Koegler take a look at it. They want to
th
incorporate this in and then come back with a full report to the City Council on November 9.
City Council is then going to decide you know what does this information mean as far as future
capital improvements for our community? What does it mean when they hear from residents or
from associations? You know much of this is driven because the council is always hearing that
you know we need more. We don’t have enough of this. We would like more of that and so
they said let’s really find out. Let’s get to the bottom of this. What’s real and what’s not real
and what this study is telling you is that you know we’re in pretty good shape and it’s going to be
a challenge to meet all of the desires during that peak time and that you probably shouldn’t do it
all alone and so you know if you move forward. Do it with a referendum. That’s a question, do
you want more? Do you want to have either better or more capacity during your prime time
hours as a community? If you are, are you willing to pay for that? Are you willing to pay for it
during the development? Through a referendum and then the future operations or maintenance.
If that’s a yes vote then you understand that people are, as you talk about a commission, a
referendum would open up a whole variety of other conversations. Playgrounds for you know
aging park settings. Finishing our trail system and so if you got into that question everything
would go into the conversation. You know what do we want to finish? We’re building out our
community. We have lots more residents here than we did in 1997. People have a desire to have
things complete and finished for their families and for property value, all those different type of
things so everything would go into the mix and the task force would make a recommendation
back to this commission and then you would either approve or make a recommendation to the
City Council for a referendum. And when you do that at a Presidential ballot, that’s a pretty true
test. Lots of voters. You know you’re going to get a good representation of your community
whether or not they approve what you’re proposing to them as a park referendum or not. Dollars
have been tossed around so you know $5 to $10 million. $5 to $8 million. You know it all
depends on what gets brought into the conversation and what sticks. People have always asked
for an expanded Rec Center. Do we come out towards the parking lot with an expanded Rec
Center facility? You know is that part of something that we want to do. You have that space
there. We could certainly add onto that building and change up what you’ve got going on there
so that’s all good things to talk about as a community and it all started from a baseball study.
That’s the curious thing so thank you for your time. I’ll be happy to answer any questions. We
do have a guest in our audience tonight and if they would like to talk about what they provide as
an association. It’s Minnetonka?
Matt Walker: Yes. Matt Walker.
Hoffman: Yeah, come on up.
Matt Walker: Matt Walker with Minnetonka Baseball Association. I might be able to answer
the question that you had. I believe that the red line, the reason the red line is flat is because that
would be the capacity for the winter months. If you looked at the, some of the summer months
there’s no red line in January, February and December so that indoor facility provides prime time
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
capacity during those 3 to 5 months or whatever they are. Whereas, and then it lowers the
amount of prime time capacity because you’ve got more fields to use in those other months but
that’s my assessment on that.
Hoffman: It’s taking into consideration all fields.
Matt Walker: Right, right. So you’re adding another field but that field you can use year round
which is why the red line goes, it’s flat for those.
Hoffman: Because it’s winter and you can’t use an outdoor field.
Matt Walker: Right.
Hoffman: Yeah. You understand that Commissioner Carron?
Carron: Yeah.
Matt Walker: But that’s just my guess.
Hoffman: Yeah I would tend to see that. We’re not just talking about that one facility.
Matt Walker: No but I would, I mean I would agree with what Todd has said with regards to the
baseball and even though I’m not representing soccer or soccer you know, our need from a
Minnetonka association is you know in that prime time window so whether it be lights. Whether
it be additional fields or whether it be a turf, you know that would be something that Minnetonka
would definitely partner with the City of Chanhassen. I guess for the council to consider every
community that we participate in is a little bit different. Like Shorewood they do charge a
nominal fee. It’s like $7 a kid that’s in the Minnetonka baseball program that’s got that address
so, and you know some charge us like Big Willow they charge us for field, actual field usage
similar to the time that was proposed in here. And then some like Chanhassen and like some of
the other Minnetonka parks or like Deephaven, some of those, I mean there’s no charge. It’s part
of the I guess the community life. I guess our, you know as a Minnetonka Baseball Association
one of our big concerns would be is if this was opened up to the private sector so that you know
some of the more, I don’t want to say professional but some of the more elite training then that
would put a lot of our community, you know our community leagues, that would put us out of
space real quick because they have the dollars behind them and they could partner up more than
what like a Chanhassen or a Minnetonka Baseball Association or a Tonka United could so.
Scharfenberg: So Matt are you referencing places like Hit Dog?
Matt Walker: Yes.
Scharfenberg: Okay, alright.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Matt Walker: But no I appreciate being included in the and being able to participate in the study
and as I’m needed going forward I would love to provide input or help out in whatever way I
can.
Kelly: Matt got a question for you.
Matt Walker: Oh oh.
Kelly: So let’s say we build a turf baseball field, so that’s going to cost us a million bucks. Put
in lights for $200,000 so we’ve got a million two and your association has agreed to put in
$100,000. Let’s just say a twelfth of it. How would you feel then if we’re going to come back
and charge you each time you use the field since you already put money towards it? And again
we’re talking maybe $50 a game or something like that. Nothing earth shaking but.
Matt Walker: You know I would say the initial reaction might be.
Hoffman: You might want to negotiate that point as a part of your million dollar investment.
Kelly: Right.
Matt Walker: Well right but then.
Kelly: I mean obviously if we have associations that are going to use it that didn’t put money in
it would be, that type of thing would be unfair. Obviously if you put money in.
Matt Walker: Well what I was, sorry to interrupt. What I was just going to say, the expectation
would be is that you know we would be able to reserve it or schedule it more and that’s you
know one of the down sides of you know providing a field to the community like if it were to be
turf and whatever. The associations that commit to it would want to know that if they have
practice or if they have those prime time hours they can use those prime time hours and that there
aren’t just the random family you know at the park and out there you know squatting because
those associations have committed dollars and they want to know that they’ve got a committed
time slot.
Kelly: Okay thank you. Any questions for Todd? Anybody?
Hoffman: Real quick for Matt. Prime time, are you using weekends for your prime time as
much or not? So during May and June, are you playing weekends as well?
Matt Walker: Oh yeah. Most of our games, yeah. Or yeah, we have a lot of games on the
weekends. A lot of, or some of our teams that are in, some of teams are traveling on the
weekends but some of our in house teams that might have games during the week will have a
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
practice or two on the weekends. Especially maybe a Sunday afternoon or something like that
but no, our prime time like at Bennet right now, our weekends are booked solid with games.
Hoffman: And it starts as soon as we can mid-April, first of May and then how fast is the drop
off the end of your season. When does that happen?
th
Matt Walker: So our season typically starts, our practices usually start around the 15 of April
where we like to get out on the fields if we can, if the snow’s gone. And then our games usually
stth
start around that first weekend of May so May 1. May 5, somewhere around that time period.
And then a lot of our younger leagues or our younger kids, so let’s say 9, 8-9 and under, they’ll
thth
end around that week before, the week after the 4 of July so let’s say July 15 at the latest and
some of our other teams that have maybe some tournaments or some other, I don’t know yeah I
guess tournaments in the area or other in house tournaments or kind of city wide tournaments
where they’re getting ready for maybe the state or the, you know the potential of the Little
League World Series sort of thing. That would go through the end of July so typically our
seasons are done by the end of July.
Hoffman: Thank you.
Matt Walker: Sorry, and then the one last thing like right now we have fall ball going on where
thth
our fall ball leagues started around the 15 of August and then this year that goes to October 11
th
or 12 so usually the middle of August to the week before MEA where for fall ball we have
games every weekend. Saturday and Sunday and then teams have one practice a week so but
you know again looking at the capacity schedule like we’re not stretched for capacity at those
times other than on the weekends for games but like during the week for a practice you know
we’ve got plenty of space where we can get a practice in but on the weekends we are kind of
tight on games partly because a lot of the leagues and fields and parks are doing fall maintenance
or resting certain fields and rotating things out and fixing it from the beat up that it took over the
summer and the spring so. Thank you.
Kelly: Thank you Matt. Questions, discussions on sending a resolution to the City Council to
look at putting a task force together to possibly do a referendum. Thoughts.
Thunberg: I have a couple questions just on the data from the study. Todd it’s probably for you.
With the pretty large surplus of the smaller 60 foot softball and baseball fields, is there any
potential for taking 1 or 2 of those fields and repurposing that land into a larger rectangular
multi-use field? The location possibly would be the Rec Center or I don’t know what the other
one. City Center Park but I didn’t know if just because we have such a large surplus of that and
then also with the smaller baseball fields, this is obviously a focus on the community parks. Not
the neighborhood parks but some of that overflow some of the neighborhood parks have the
smaller baseball field so if some of that could shift to that which then the second question is, is
there any consideration to neighborhood parks ever being a part of this to help facilitate or meet
any of the city’s needs.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Hoffman: I’ll answer the second one. Jerry can answer the first one.
Ruegemer: So the question was as far as repurposing more the kind of the multi-purpose fields
at the Rec Center and to kind of make it a bigger field?
Thunberg: Some of the smaller baseball fields. So I didn’t know if the land of like 2 smaller
baseball fields could be repurposed and turned into one larger rectangular multi-use field since
we have a surplus in that.
Ruegemer: Potentially. You know if you look at the Rec Center. If you look at between Fields
2 and 3 that could accept kind of a larger rectangle, it wouldn’t be a full sized field but it would
be a larger soccer field with that. You’re certainly limiting you know the uses of the ballfields if
you do it that way. That would be a really, the only kind of biggest possibility you could have at
the Rec Center. This works out better for doing the smaller ones because we could put them on
the outfields of the ballfields for fall only so we don’t play any soccer there in the summertime at
the Rec Center just because it is a capacity issue and the sizing issue with that so you could
potentially get probably one larger field kind of in the middle.
Hoffman: Part of the challenge with that Commissioner Thunberg is that I think you’re going to
cash in more chips than you get back and that’s because of the remodel factor and so you’re
going to throw what you currently have and try to get something back and in an area like this
drainage is going to be an issue because you’ve got a drainage pattern right now that you really
would not accommodate a large soccer field. You don’t want a soccer field draining from one
side to the other because then somebody’s always playing uphill and so you want that ground
decent and so there’s some of those factors. But it’s something we could certainly take a look at
and I think there has been ongoing modifications at Lake Ann. We had Fields 1, 2 and 3 which
were primarily all adults. You rarely saw a youth at Fields 1, 2 and 3 at Lake Ann. Then we
added Fields 4, 5, 6 and 7. Then the youth started being introduced and part of that was your
second question is that in the early days of Chanhassen many athletic sports at the youth level
were played in neighborhood parks. People tolerated it but they really didn’t like it primarily
because of the parking issues and so as we continued to add Bandimere, Lake Ann our pledge
back to the neighborhood parks was we’re going to take organized sports out of your parks so
you as a neighborhood do not have to deal with parking issues and then you can also go down to
your park and use it on your own and you’re not going to run into organized youth sports there
so we’ve gone through that cycle where 25 years ago there was many organized sporting
activities in community parks or neighborhood parks. The smaller parks. They’ve mostly been
taken out with the exception of North Lotus and Meadow Green and that’s it.
Ruegemer: And probably Sunset Ridge maybe.
Hoffman: Sunset Ridge doing a little bit out there so we’ve, I don’t think we want to go back to
where we push people back out to the neighborhood parks so.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Scharfenberg: Jerry going back to your, you know you talked about the Rec Center but then at
City Center Fields 3 and 4 look like the possibility of something that could be repurposed into
one multi-use large field.
Ruegemer: Yep and we definitely have played soccer in the past up on that north field. When
you get to, when it kind of gets to be a larger soccer field some of the soccer purist don’t like
playing on ag lime infields.
Scharfenberg: Right.
Ruegemer: So you know if we make it kind of a larger field, more than likely the lines would be
on those kind of dirt infields and that happened up at North Lotus. We made that field a little bit
smaller to get it off that ag lime surface.
Hoffman: But you could take out 3 and 4 ag lime and make it one soccer field.
Scharfenberg: Right, that’s what I was thinking about.
Kelly: So Todd let’s say we get to the point where the City Council appoints a task force, at
some point when the task force is doing their research and figuring out you know what do you
put into the referendum. What don’t you put into the referendum. We’d be hiring some kind of
firm to make phone calls to see if that type of thing.
Hoffman: That’s a choice but a firm like Decision Resources that does a telephone survey.
Kelly: And so, so if a task force would find out then if they’re barking down the right tree or the
wrong tree and this is pretty much what the citizens want or don’t want.
Hoffman: Correct and that’s based on cost and then also facilities and so they’ll test a variety of
things. Primarily the tolerance for the cost or the investment’s going to take per household and
then are we proposing the right components in a referendum that the citizens would find
attractive.
Kelly: Thank you. Other questions or thoughts?
Carron: I think, I think we have a pretty good list of, or I should say a wish list otherwise known
as our CIP and looking at that and the discussion that we’ve had this past year on what we’re
going to prioritize and looking at our budget and how we’re going to fit things in to make it most
valuable for our citizens and residents of the area. And good discussions that we’ve had on that.
I think we have an obvious need for some more money and we’ve got projects lined up that we’d
like to get done and like to see, especially with spending that kind of money on Bandimere and
moving forward with Bandimere and those sort of things and not just to take away from the
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
athletic fields and stuff but all the things that we do as a commission with trail improvements.
Splash pad. Shelters. There’s a lot of things I think that a referendum could address and a task
force would be good to sit through this and find what actually might work for us and what the
community wants and maybe get some money and get the flow of this going a little bit faster
than our $300,000 per year that we’re kind of budgeted at. So with that I think it’s my
standpoint is I think it’s a great idea and seize the opportunity if the City Council’s asking for
what we think of this. I think it’s a go.
Kelly: Other thoughts.
Thunberg: I’d agree with Brent and the other thing I’d just add is Todd you had mentioned a
month or two ago in our meetings with recently Chanhassen being voted number 7, which is
awesome but also I think the council had kind of asked the question of you know can we as one,
at least one body look at why we slipped and what other communities that are raising up the
ranks are doing so it’d be a good opportunity that if, to do a task force that that could also be a
part of it is to just make sure we’re tying in and looking at what other communities are doing so
that if there is a comprehensive list of other things being added to that it’d be a chance to review
and see what other opportunities are out there.
Kelly: Anybody else like to weigh in?
Carron: I’ll make a motion.
Kelly: Okay.
Carron: I’ll make the motion that the Park and Rec Commission recommend to the City Council
accept the findings and recommendations of the City of Chanhassen Athletic Facilities Study and
that they direct the Park and Rec Commission to initiate a referendum task force.
Kelly: Is there a second?
Echternacht: I’ll second.
Kelly: We have a motion put forward and a second and Brent I’ll have you re-read the motion
one more time.
Carron: That the Park and Rec Commission recommend to the City Council to accept the
findings and recommendations of the City of Chanhassen Athletic Facilities Study and direct the
Park and Rec Commission to initiate a referendum task force.
Carron moved, Echternacht seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
recommends that the City Council accept the findings and recommendation of the City of
Chanhassen Athletic Facilities Study and directs the Park and Recreation Commission to
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
initiate a referendum task force. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 7 to 0.
ESTABLISH 2015/16 ICE SKATING AND HOCKEY RINK LOCATIONS.
Kelly: Katie, I think we’re going to talk about ice rinks for this winter.
Favro: Thank you Chair Kelly. Every year staff closely monitors the outdoor skating rinks and
identifies how to the best service skating needs of the residents. For the season of 2015-16 the
staff recommends to flood 8 ice rinks at 4 locations and maintain 4 warming houses. This is very
similar to what we have done in the past and listed below are the locations and the type of
skating rinks we have. Whether they are pleasure rinks or hockey rinks. The times that the
warming houses are open and then the last column or the last little graph is the skating counts
during the supervised hours of last season. If you flip it over we have those totals for the past 4
years as well.
Kelly: So Katie basically are we following pretty close to what we had last year? Are we
changing the hours at all or are we keeping the hours we’ve had in the past?
Favro: We are keeping the hours that we’ve had in the past.
Kelly: So they’ve worked quite well.
Favro: Yep. They are mainly the same. There are a few times when they’re closed like on
Christmas it’s closed and then when there is winter break they are open for a longer period of
time.
Kelly: Okay, other questions for Katie?
Thunberg: Have there been any locations, other locations considered in the last few years just
looking at where we’re at. They’re all at Highway 5 or north but for the southern half of the city
are there other parks that have ever been considered or used before?
Scharfenberg: Chanhassen Hills.
Hoffman: Yep Chanhassen Hills had a family rink and then there was actually a light added to it
in 1997 as part of the referendum. Then the use just flew by the wayside so Bandimere would be
the next hockey and ice skating rink location constructed…
Scharfenberg: And the only other location is at Rice Marsh Park. I remember there was a family
that had come to us several years ago and asked that we flood that park. Flood the baseball field
and we did it at that time but after that we had also looked at, wasn’t Pleasant View.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Hoffman: Well there was a number of sites.
Scharfenberg: Yeah I mean Sunset Ridge was flooded at one time.
Ruegemer: Yeah Minnewashta Heights.
Scharfenberg: Yeah I mean there have been a number of ones over the years that we flooded.
We haven’t had a lot of people I would say in the last 6 years anybody has come forward and
asked that any additional place be flooded.
Hoffman: Big request is lights and then a warming house so just when you put a sheet of ice out
it’s not really attractive… It primarily needs hockey boards, open skate and then a place for a
warming house location and that’s what Bandimere…
Kelly: So we don’t need to vote or anything on this. This is how it’s going to happen unless we
recommend changes right?
Hoffman: Correct.
Kelly: Correct. Good job Katie, thank you.
Favro: Thank you.
SENIOR CENTER REPORT.
Kelly: Sue, going to tell us about some activity updates. I know you don’t have enough going
on over there.
Bill: No, not at all. Thank you. As stated there’s always a lot going on at the Senior Center.
Pretty excited about some new programs we have. I think last time I was here I talked about our
new live teleconferencing programs that we have and we offered one in June and August and
they were really a big hit. Both of them we connected with the FDR Roosevelt Library in
upstate New York and met with the docent there who gave us a tour and talked about all the
artifacts and things in the program. That one was on FDR and then people wanted to hear the
next program was on Eleanor Roosevelt. Probably had 30 to 40 people at each one of them.
First one we held in the Fountain Conference Room and Rick went out and got a camera. Now
I’m happy to report the Senior Center is getting rewired with about $10,000 worth of new
equipment. Camera. New projector. New sound system and we’ll have, we’ll be able to have
larger capacity there because like I said it’s interactive. People really enjoyed that where they
were able to ask questions so it was really, really interesting. I’m trying to push for our next one
to be a tour of Denali in Alaska so it’s just pretty unbelievable what we can do with that.
KleinBank has been the sponsor. They’ve been coming to the programs and they’re pretty
excited about it so I will write a proposal for them to sponsor them again next year.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Scharfenberg: Is there a cost associated with that Susan?
Bill: There is. You can buy unlimited use for $1,200 for the year or you can pay per program
which can be anywhere from $100 to $150. These two both were $50. They were a trial basis
ones but yeah I might even go out and try to solicit another sponsor to cover the gap on those but
they were very, very, very interesting so that was one new program that brought new people and
added another dimension to our programming. Another program we tried was a canoe excursion.
We partnered with Three Rivers Parks and we had I think 8 to 10 people canoeing at Lake Ann
one evening in August. That program I think out of those, I can’t remember 8 or 10 people,
probably 75 percent of them were not regular participants so beautiful night. People had a good
time so we’ll look to continue to offer something like that again. Something I didn’t mention,
I’m trying to do more programming nights and weekends and I’ve really noticed the difference
in people we get. A couple weeks ago I had a painting class on a Sunday afternoon. I had 18
women. Now men were invited but I don’t know why they didn’t come. Probably because it
was opening weekend of football but anyway I had 18 people come on a Sunday afternoon and
out of those 18 people, over a third of them were participants that had never interacted with any
other senior programming so diversity in programming is a good thing.
Hoffman: I see you didn’t bring your picture that you painted.
Bill: No I did not.
Hoffman: It’s at the Senior Center.
Echternacht: Sue could I ask a question? Do you, were there charges for any of these 3
programs?
Bill: Yes. What I have found, usually my fees are associated with what I have to pay for a
program. Like the painting class I had reimbursed the instructor $20 per participant so I up
charged it 25 percent and charged $25. The Life Long Learning programs are these Senior
Network programs. Even though they were nominal and KleinBank gave me $500, I think
there’s some added value when you charge a nominal fee. It’s $3. My experience I offer a
number of free educational programs and people don’t hesitant to cancel, not that $3 is much but
yes. Every fee has a, or all of these have a cost. The canoe excursion was $10 per person. We
didn’t do so well on that one. But anyway it opened up another experience so next year we
might have to charge a little more. Lastly some of our favorite Dinner with the Mayor. This
year it was really exciting. Mayor Laufenburger did a great job. People are really excited. Not
that Mayor Furlong didn’t but he kind of added a different perspective and we had 56 people.
Concert after. And then always our favorite one is the Ladies Tea Luncheon and Fashion Show.
We had 66 people which is pretty much to capacity in the room at the Senior Center so lots going
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on. Overnight trip, 44 people we took on our mystery trip. I think it’s the 8 year. We’ve done
an overnight trip partnered with Chaska. 44 people had a tour of Schell Brewery. Went to New
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Ulm. Went to some other places and people are now talking about that. Reason it was set up 8
years ago was, when gas and the recession hit a number of years ago the cost of travel really
went up and Joan and I, my counter part in Chaska felt that number one, people didn’t have the
resources maybe to travel as much and there were some people that didn’t want to go on
extended trips so we just every year we do a 2 day trip. An overnight trip with, we’ve been able
to maintain the cost right around $200 for all meals, lodging, transportation and tours and people
really love it so, and they ask if we can’t go more days and we say no. That’s what travel
agencies are for. So anyway all good things happening at the Senior Center and I welcome any
comments or suggestions for any programs or activities anyone would hear of.
Hougham: Can I ask what the mystery portion is?
Bill: Well the last 2 years we called it a mystery trip because last year we went to St. Cloud and
people talked about that as the most exciting trip we’ve had and we thought if we asked people to
join us to an overnight in St. Cloud they probably wouldn’t be very excited. Same thing with
New Ulm but we find different things about it. If we’re going to like Duluth or Brainerd or
somewhere else we’ll let them know where we’re going but now the mystery component kind of
has them guessing, and we were in Todd’s neck of the woods. We went to Sleepy Eye and went
to, and I mean it was really interesting so based on where we’re going sometime.
Hoffman: That’s the mystery…
Bill: That’s the mystery. Last year we were on the bus and they’re like are we going to
Chicago? And our parameters are we don’t want to go much more than 3 hours. 3 to 4 hours
and you can’t do Chicago in a bus in 3 or 4 hours so. Anyway it adds a little excitement. Yeah
we’re heading south so anyway.
Kelly: So as usual you do a lot of fun and exciting programs over there. Keep up the great
work.
Bill: Thank you.
Kelly: Somehow I didn’t get my H(2) but I did go online and read it so I do know Adam’s up
next.
PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS FALL REPORT.
Beers: Thank you Chair Kelly and commissioners. Like the Senior Center it’s a busy time of
year for park maintenance.
Kelly: Adam can I hold you off for a second?
Beers: Absolutely.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Kelly: Looks like none of us got H(2). Can you put that up on the.
Hoffman: Don’t have H(2)? Do you have it Adam? Can you present from up here.
Beers: Yeah.
Kelly: Thank you.
Hoffman: We’ll use the doc cam. We’ll teach you a new trick.
Beers: I can’t really that. I’ll just wing it here. So like I was saying busy time for park
maintenance. The summer’s wrapping up. We’re starting some of our fall projects so now that
we’ve lost a majority of our seasonal kids, we’re down to our core full time staff so it makes
moving our projects forward and keeping up with the daily tasks a little more challenging but
we’ve had a pretty successful summer. We finished all of the shelters at Curry Farms, Pheasant
Hills and Sugarbush. We just have a little bit of restoration left to do and this season’s shelters
will be wrapped up so they look good. Have some good turf growing. Been working with the
CAA and the Dugout Club on the installation of scoreboards at Lake Ann and Lake Susan as
well as updating the fields at the Rec Center so at this point all the fields at the Rec Center are
pretty much done. The ag lime’s in. Everything’s packed down and just kind of letting them
settle in so they should be good to go for the next season.
Hoffman: You want to talk about where that came from? That project. The donation.
Beers: Yes. The CAA Todd Neils came in and presented something to the commission. That’s
a project you guys pushed forward so it was definitely time for an update at the Rec Center
fields. They were in need of some work. We actually just finished and wrapped that up within
the last couple weeks and now we are transitioning into the scoreboards at Lake Ann and Lake
Susan. The footings are in. The posts are in and they’re, I just talked to Mr. Neils this morning.
They’re hoping to install the scoreboards this Sunday assuming everything goes well and things
are dry enough to get down in there. Hopefully he can get it wrapped up but never say never
with the weather we have.
Hoffman: Yeah and an important thing, it happens in every case. Probably more so in this case
is that a volunteer project is probably now we’re at below 50 percent volunteer and well about 50
percent staff time and so when you hear volunteer contribution, make sure to ask a lot of
questions.
Beers: It’s definitely more than I think we were anticipating getting into. Regardless it’s good to
have these updates done at the Rec Center. The fields look pretty good and they were in
desperate need of some work so that’s kind of where we’re at with our major projects for 2015.
As far as park and trail maintenance goes we’re starting to get into our fall fertilizing apps.
Trying to get as much spraying finished as we can as weather allows. Lake Ann soccer has been
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
taken out of service for the fall. We’ve aerified and over seeded and been working on the goal
mounts just to try to get that field back up and ready for the spring. We’re working with the
street department and the pavement management program to put a new trail overlay in Rice
Marsh. It’s going to go from the Eden Prairie border west to 101 so we have been working with
those guys to kind of get everything set and prepped with doing some tree work. We installed a
root barrier to hopefully curb some trail issues in the next, I don’t know 6, 7, 8 years when things
start to grow. They start to buckle the trails so hopefully we got in front of some of that and
we’re scheduled to start October 1 assuming again we have good cooperating weather. And last
but not least, I don’t know if we ever talked about this but you know a good portion of our labor
and how we are able to get a lot of these things done are from our seasonal staff each year. We
have 15 to 16 college age kids and retirees that come and do a lot of our mowing and I think
Todd mentioned earlier they focus a lot on the field prep and just doing a lot of the daily trash
pick up, weed whipping. A lot of things we just can’t get to with all the projects we have going
on so we had a great staff this year. A lot of our retirees have been around for I don’t know, 8 to
12 years so these guys know what, they know what’s going on and they’re a big help to our
operation so I just want to give a little nod to those guys and let you know how much we
appreciate it.
Scharfenberg: Adam what’s the anticipated timeline on that Rice Marsh overlay? I mean I know
it depends on weather and stuff but kind of what’s the time table on that?
Beers: I would guess a couple weeks from start to finish.
Hoffman: Probably I would say the month of October.
Beers: Yeah. In a perfect world a couple weeks but there’s always some outlying factors I guess
that slow things down.
Hoffman: We haven’t seen a perfect world trail project yet.
Beers: Right.
Hoffman: I’d go with a month minimum.
Kelly: I see you got the new fence up at the underpass on Highway 5 by Lake Ann. That’s all
up and it looks really good. The whole thing looks really nice. Did you get any Sentenced to
Serve workers this year or has that program dried up?
Beers: No we typically run those guys in the spring.
Kelly: Okay.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Beers: So we had, I can’t even think how many. Probably 15 to 20 guys come in in the spring
and periodically through the summer a lot of, if we have little projects. Graffiti removal or I
think they helped put some benches together. Just some smaller tasks that we again can’t get to,
those guys will come in at the drop of a hat so, and we still use their service quite a bit each
season.
Kelly: Good. Any other questions for Adam? I was on the Highway 41 trail and one of your
maintenance guys was cleaning it off so it’s fun to be out there and seeing them when they’re in
action so you guys do a great out there. Thank you Adam.
Beers: Also I forgot to mention this but a section of that 41 trail was paved this morning from
Longacres entrance to.
Hoffman: Bud Olson’s old house.
Beers: Bud Olson’s old house so. Always good to get more trails paved.
RECREATION CENTER FALL PROGRAM REPORT.
Sarles: Thank you Commissioner Kelly. It’s good to be up and running again at the Rec Center.
It seems like with school back in action the Rec Center is buzzing again. Little bit different this
year with the change in the district 112’s school year schedule. They started before Labor Day
so everything kind of got pushed earlier and we shut down early in August this year instead of a
little bit later like we normally do but fortunately the projects in the school were completed and
the one’s in the Rec Center as well so we are back up and running and I still, I have the sound of
kids screaming in my office again so back to get used to that. And with that the Dance for Fun
program kicked off again. We have about 250 kids participating in those classes. We kind of
reworked how the classes are being offered. Some of those competition ones we broke down
into smaller groups and so the fees go to come down a little bit that way so it’s kind of exciting
to see some of the changes that are going on there and some changes we’ve made to the program
and that they’re being very well received by the parents and the dancers. As always we are busy
with little kids sports so all summer, I’ll tell you my staff was so happy, the Rec Center Sports
staff was so happy to put away the t-ball equipment after running about 10 different sessions of t-
ball. They were happy to take bats out of little 3 and 4 year olds hands. Or 4 to 6 year olds
hands but over the summer the nice thing about summer is we can add more staff and hold more
of those Small Fry Sports in the summer so you’ll see like we get about twice as much kids that
can participate over the summer months with t-ball and things than when we start coming inside
so we had 60 kids participate just on the August Small Fry programs. Right now we’re, we
finished soccer. The kids are playing football right now, the little ones so it’s always fun to see
them and watch them learn. Our Little Stars Sports, we have 108 little ones, 4 to 6 year olds
playing the soccer over 2 nights so there’s a continued need for of course soccer fields out there
and we’re filling them up on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with our youngsters. And then we
started up an after school tennis so once we get the kids back to school a little bit, now we’ve got
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
12 kids. It’s kind of the max on the 2 tennis courts we have out there at the Rec Center but
they’re learning. They’re, the good news today when my staff came back inside was that none of
them got hit with a racquet or a ball today so that’s an improvement from last week so we’re
getting better so that’s the exciting stuff. And Sue and I partner up with a bunch of these senior
fitness programs and just kind of wanted to highlight. We haven’t talked about them for a while
but Tai Chi. We have a new Tai Chi instructor. We tried to do a little bit different thing this
year. Do some free trial classes to get people to try it out and those have been really successful
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so we had 16 people come out for the September 9 class and I think we have 8 people of those
continued to take the full session of Tai Chi. And then Fit for Life, that’s always a fun class and
got my first person calling me and say do I have to be 55 to take the class and I said no, you
don’t have to be 55. I said it’s just kind of that guideline knowing that you’re not going to be in
a you know crazy step aerobics class or something like that and so no she said, it’s exactly what
she wanted and tried it out at the trial class and of course signed up so that’s kind of fun. And I
didn’t include pickleball but the pickleball courts have been full and have been well used this
summer. I have had to resupply the pickleballs because they keep cracking them. They’re
hitting them too hard so it’s fun to see all those people. Once the gym floors were refinished
they, the Southwest Metro Pickleball Club came in last week and relined our inside floors so we
have 3 courts waiting to be used but I had one guy show up today to play. Everybody else
wanted to be outside so it’s you know, it’s a little interesting this time of year so I give them time
but it’s typically not in use right now. And then a few upcoming events, or well this has
upcoming but it was actually Friday. The Barnyard Boogie. That’s always a great event and a
lot of fun out there. Kind of a preschool petting zoo. Dance. Bounce house. Everything. And
this is the first year that I’ve been here that it’s had to come inside so the full thing so we had a
little bit of too much rain to have the kids running around outside so the larger animals stayed
under the overhangs so, but the mini horse and the llama came inside and the bunnies and the
chickens and the, those were in room 1 so we had bunnies, chickens, and I think the goat stayed
outside so that was good. But then it kind of bumped everything so we had kids running little
John Deere tractors up and down the floor and bounce house in the gym and everything but it
was a great time and I think we had over 250 people participate in that event between Chaska
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and Chanhassen so it’s always a fun time. And then we are celebrating our 20 anniversary or as
the Bluff Creek Elementary kids want to call it, the birthday party for the Chan Rec Center and
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the Bluff Creek Elementary School so if you get a chance to stop out on Thursday, October 8
we’re going to have tours of the facility. You can see any of the programs. Kind of the exciting
thing is for a lot of people to come in and actually get to see a classroom and how things have
changed now. You know their media center and now they’re including things like they built the
community garden out front so they’re very excited about that so we’re going to have some sort
of passport so you can kind of get checked off throughout the event and then turn it in and get,
go in a drawing for a few prizes that we have out there so it should be a fun night and we’re
excited to celebrate our 20 years together so. And then the last 2 things here, the Artisan Fair is
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coming up November 7. 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. It’s a free event. Come out. There’s some
amazing art that gets sold out there or is being shown so it’s fun to see anything from little kids
making hand made wallets out of duck tape to some gorgeous paintings, photography, weavings,
everything so it’s a neat event and it’s very well received by the community. And then we did
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
move, last year I moved, or this year I moved the Spring Boutique to the Holiday Boutique
because I had the uncanny ability in January of picking the best first day of spring for the past 3
years so nobody wanted to come inside on a Saturday when it hit 75 in April so we decided to
move that. I talked to some of the vendors and we decided to move it into being a holiday
boutique so and it seems to be well received as well and that one is kind of a combination so
folks that represent you know any sort of at home business can be at that one as well as the
people that make things by themselves so. So that’s kind of what is going on right now at the
Rec Center.
Kelly: Any questions for Jodi? Thanks for all the great work and the good programs you’ve got
going over there.
Sarles: Great, thank you.
RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: HALLOWEEN PARTY PREVIEW.
Kelly: Katie, I think you’re back up and we’re going to hear about the upcoming Halloween
Party.
st
Favro: Yes, thank you Commissioner Kelly. The 31 Annual Halloween Party is going to be
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held on Saturday, October 24 at the Chanhassen Rec Center. This is the last of the 4
community events that our community sponsors support and it is open to children ages 13 and
under. Participants can go on hayrides. Play carnival games. There’s always family
entertainment, refreshments and a spooky room with trick or treating. This year’s family
entertainment will be Treasure Beyond Measure. It’s a pirate show with Captain Curley and it is
from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. An event flyer, the event flyer that’s attached to this will be distributed in
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the Chanhassen Villager on October 15 and we’ve also brought it to local elementary schools.
They’ve put it on, they have like an Eblast that they kind of send out with all the upcoming
events and we’ve also gone to some youth organizations. Pre-registration is encouraged for this
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event by October 23. We do take registration at the door. It is on $5 per child and adults are
free. The adults can enter in a raffle to get some gift certificates too for coming to this event
with their children. And then if anybody is interested in volunteering at this event please feel
free to let me know. We’re always looking for volunteers to come. Dress up in Halloween
costumes and pass out candy to little, the trick or treaters. I think we’ve got some pictures of
Chair Kelly as Mr. Incredible handing out candy.
Kelly: Yeah Mr. Incredible plans to return again this year and so will his wife the good witch.
Favro: Oh good.
Kelly: It’s a great event and the community really likes it and the little kids are so much fun.
Some of them are afraid of Mr. Incredible and some of them aren’t and we had I think a mom
and dad and the son all dressed up as Mr. Incredible last year so they’re like ah. It’s always a lot
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
of fun. I’ve been doing that for a number of years so any other, any questions for Katie? No,
looking forward to another great event. Thank you Katie.
Favro: Sounds good, thank you.
2015 LAKE ANN PARK CONCESSION/BOAT RENTAL EVALUATION.
Kelly: Jerry, you going to tell us about boat rentals this year.
Ruegemer: You bet. Thanks Chair Kelly. I just want to go through briefly the 2015 Lake Ann
concession and boat rental evaluation and here for the summer. Lake Ann continues to be a great
destination for many of our community. Not only in our Chanhassen community but really in
kind of region as well. We had another great summer out there for warm weather. It really
extended through the third week in August when we were open so, and that did help contribute to
the highest grossing revenue that we’ve had in our history out there so. 2014 was a record year
at $24,000 in revenue combined and this year we were at over $30,000. Over $32,000 for that
so. So for a second straight year we had just a great, a great summer. We did continue our
relationship with Twin Cities Paddleboard to provide the stand up paddleboards for rental out
there. We started last year, the 2014 season with 4. We added 2 more for 6 this summer and
with the popularity of those rentals we’re going to add 2 more next year for 8 on that so that is
our current capacity on our rack that we have out there so if we go beyond that then we’ll have to
build an additional rack out there to house the additional paddleboards so again that was a
revenue split with the City and Twin Cities Paddleboard. They buy and purchase the
paddleboards and maintain them and we supply the labor to rent and I guess rent and get that
taken care of that way. And then the City maintains 70 percent and Twin Cities Paddleboard is
30 percent so with that rental this year the rental check or the commission check so to speak for
30 percent back to Twin Cities Paddleboard was about $2,600 so, and that increased obviously
from last year just with the increase in rentals with that. Just talked to Jeff Gibbon with Twin
Cities Paddleboard. He is completely pleased with the operation that we have. He is completely
onboard for 2016 with the same arrangement that we have. And then with the addition of the 2
additional paddleboards so we’re going to rotate some of the ones that we’ve had out there this
year and then have some brand new units again out there next year for that so looking forward to
that. Jeff’s a wonderful person and a great partner to have with the City. It seems like it’s
mutually beneficial for both of us so it really works out really well for that. So you can see the it
seems the theme. We rented a total of 552 times. The paddleboards this summer which is an
increase from 363 from 2014 so. The revenue really increased in those and it will increase again
next year with the addition of the 2 paddleboards. So kind of going through just some general
comments. Certainly staff could do a better job of doing some better job on food sales with that.
It seemed like the watercraft rentals have been kind of carrying the operation out there so we’re
going to look for additional ways to increase profitability out there through different menu items
and different ways to increase the traffic down there with that as well.
Hoffman: You could call a food truck and it’d be instantly popular.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Ruegemer: We could call a food truck. You do another percentage. Another partnership with
that so. Something that we did this summer is we did have cross over between the first and
second shift to kind of help out inbetween so often times when the shift is kind of crossing over
or changing it’s busy. You know with people in lines and boat rentals and that sort of thing,
particularly on weekends as well so we had the first person stay for at times an extra 1 to 2 hours
to kind of help kind of bridge that gap between the 2 shifts so that seemed to work out best.
Really the main thought of that was just to help out our customers and make sure that we’re
taking care of their needs with that so if you saw an increase, up tick in the staffing cause with
that certainly is my wish to make sure that everybody out there was having a quality experience
with that and we’re going to continue to do that into the future as well. Just in the initiation or
initiative I guess you handle and provide additional healthier options out there. We did do some
different menu items this year with wheat buns and additional granola bars and we’re going to
look for additional items for the future in that as well. It certainly was one of our staff goals this
year to introduce some new items out there so the sky’s the limit out there as to what we can
provide with that so staff will continue to look for additional options for that. You know going
with our ice cream, you know going back to unhealthy items the Choco Tacos and Lick-a-Colors
were the most popular ice cream items out there. Just some other things, just general things that
people were looking at and requesting. Maps. Picnic information. Large group calendars to
help our staff out notifying who’s going to be in the upper level of the Lakeside picnic area and
also the Klingelhutz Pavilion. We’re going to look for additional beverage choices with that.
You know any type of new life jackets. It seems like we’ve been on a life jacket purchasing
binge about the last couple years so we’ve just been rotating through. We had Carver County
Sheriff’s Department comes out, the Water Patrol every year and goes through and if there’s a
small tear or anything wrong with the life jackets we get rid of those and then purchase and
replace those with new life jackets to make sure everybody is safe. Obviously we’ve had the
capacity for new life jackets just with the addition of the paddleboards this year with that. We do
provide a life jacket with every rental as well with that and just something that wasn’t on the
general comment. After the season concluded in 2015 our city hall staff worked with Adam and
his staff to get a new floor put in the Lake Ann concession building and also then the back room
so that was the original tile floor that was in there. It was kind of individual squares that were
kind of peeling up and were really starting to show it’s age so last year 2014 we did all the
bathrooms and the hallways in there with kind of that epoxy, kind of garage type of floor that
you have in there. We did that last year. We did a color match and did the rest of the lower level
at Lake Ann this year so that’s done now so Adam and his staff now will get back and kind of
put together everything back again so we didn’t miss a beat. We had hoped to get it done prior
to the season. The start of the season but the concrete has to be at a certain temperature for a
number of weeks here to kind of maintain that we have a, I guess a prepared surface for that so
the decision was made to do it at the tail end of August or first part of September so, and that was
done so it looks really nice out there so everything is kind of pigeon holed into the lifeguard
room right now so when time allows when we’re not dealing with rain and a lot of other massive
projects we’ll get back to that and get everything kind of put back together so, and that can be
done throughout the course of the winter as well with that so that’s another great addition. So
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
you know the original shelter itself was built in I think ’92 or ’93 so we’re just trying to do some
small improvements every year to just improve the appearance of that and we had a brand new
paddleboat this year with that and that replaced an original paddleboat with that so it seems like
the life cycle of those paddleboats are 20 plus years. And Adam’s staff are very good at kind of
McGyvering and fixing those and kind of getting them in service so you know throughout the
next couple years we’ll try to get another. The next one they’d like to replace is a 1996
paddleboat and that’s starting to show it’s age as well. There’s not much to weld on the bottom
of the pontoons anymore so we’re kind of limping that one through but we’ll see how that goes
here the next couple seasons of the budget cycle with that so we’re going to continue to stay
open a week longer if the weather allows out there. We’ve had some great Augusts the last
couple 3 years so we’ll continue to do that. And we do that again to accommodate the Lake Ann
Adventure Camp that was going out there this summer as well so that’s great to have our staff
available to help Katie’s staff and make sure that everything is going good with the camp as well.
I had the Coca Cola rep out there already and we already looked at new menu boards for next
year already so there’s already a ton of marketing options that we can do as well as far as Coca
Cola providing signage for us as well so we’re going to take a look at that as well and just you
know go through equipment. We talked about paddleboats. We’ve talked about a number of
different things so the electric trolling motors may be on some of their last years here so we may
be purchasing some additional trolling motors for next year as well so just trying to keep up with
everything and you know Lake Ann is a popular place and just want to make sure that we’re still
relevant and provide a good service for our customers.
Kelly: Jerry are all these rentals one hour rentals or do you rent longer than an hour?
Ruegemer: They’re based on an hour rental and that’s what the fees are. Oh I guess we didn’t
go through the sales report. So I’m sorry to answer that, so yes they are an hour rental.
Kelly: Okay, thank you.
Ruegemer: With that so if you look at the paddleboards were the number one rental this year.
Paddleboats are second. Kayaks, canoes, row boats with trolling motors so I think at this point
I’m probably going to eliminate the option of just taking a row boat out there with oars. It
doesn’t seem to be very popular at 9 rentals so just probably eliminate that at this point so. As
you can see the total was over $32,000 but with the commission of 30 percent that’s owed to
Twin Cities Paddleboard the revenue is roughly, well it’s close to 30 I guess with that we’ll
round up for conversation purposes. The total expenditures, if you look at hours and wages we
were at 922 hours out there this year for over $9,200 in staffing costs with that and then just kind
of a breakdown of the concession supplies with Watson and their hotdogs. They are ice cream,
nachos, that sort of thing and then Midwest Coca Cola is our beverages and then Cub Foods is
kind of that miscellaneous hotdog buns. Any other I guess supplies needed to make the
operation go on a daily basis so total expenditures are in that $17,422. Revenue of $29,000 so
we did have a net profit this year of over $12,000.
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
Kelly: Those paddleboats have really taken off. Or those paddleboards, excuse me. So do you
allow people to rent for more than one hour at a time or just because of the popularity you say an
hour and is that what most people want?
Ruegemer: No, no, they’re completely available to rent for additional hours as well. You bet
and we do work with company picnics as well or family events if they would like to set aside
some paddleboats or paddleboards, canoes, kayaks, whatever they like to do. We will have kind
of those set aside and we work with our concession staff then to make sure that those companies
then are taken care of so.
Kelly: Good report. It looks like you’re taking care of the people for what they want. Good job
Jerry. Todd, anything to point out in the administrative section? No actually before we get
there, I’m sorry. I’ve got to back up here. Luke was going to report to us on his 5K.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS.
Thunberg: Thank you Chair Kelly. The first annual Charity 5K took place Saturday, September
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12 at Lake Ann Park. Couldn’t have been better weather. It was about 60 degrees and sunny.
Not a cloud in the sky. We had everything set up in the Klingelhutz Pavilion so that was a great
place to just use the table and have registration tables. The food and beverages available for the
runners. The course for the 5K was, started just about kind of down the hill there from the
Klingelhutz Pavilion. Mostly out in back. It went out of the park west along the trail. Did a
little loop in the neighborhood and came back so utilized the trails coming back to Lake Ann.
There was a kids run that was about a third of a mile that went just a loop through Lake Ann so
they kind of went up past the park. Around a couple of the ballfields and back and we set up a
finish line for them so they could run through. Break the ribbon, things like that. The turnout, so
the week before our sign-ups were at 65 or 70. We ended up with 139 participants so couldn’t
have been thrilled at the turnout. That was great. I think the weather helped and just the timing.
I think after people got back to school, Labor Day there’s just a lot of late interest and so, but
was thrilled with the turnout and we were a little surprised it got that high so that was fantastic.
Thank you to the City, Todd, Jerry, Adam. You guys were very accommodating to let us use the
park. Vests and cones so we had some volunteers so Chanhassen Cross Country team had a
handful of kids come out and help with the kids run and out monitor the course. We actually had
some volunteers from Eagan Cross Country. Had a connection with one of the coaches so they
came all the way across town. Helped us set up. Also kind of be out along the course to make
sure runners knew where they were going. Mayor Laufenburger and his wife were there.
Councilman Campion. His kids participated so it was fun to see them. What else? The response
from local businesses was pretty incredible. So we continually through the last couple months
reached out to a variety of businesses from donations and for bottled water or prizes or just
things to give to the participants and every single business we reached out to donated in some
way so the response and the appetite to help and willingness to be involved was pretty
wonderful. Target donated gift cards so the top 3 men and women runners each got a $25 gift
card. And then for the kids, ABC Toys Zone donated a rather large basket so that was a grand
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Park and Recreation Commission – September 22, 2015
prize. We did drawings for the kids names just because the ages varied so much from, rather
than doing it a winner so we had the grand prize was a large toy basket that they filled with toys
and then also they handed out coupons to all the participants as well. Kids Hair donated a few
haircuts. McDonalds, 5 free happy meal cards as well as Gogurt and apple slices for all the kid
runners as they crossed the finish line so they had that. Trying to think what else. Cub, bottled
water. I don’t want to forget people but there was a lot of businesses that reached out or that
wanted to be involved and are actually excited to be involved again next year so that was, that’s
pretty cool. Make sure I’m not forgetting anything. All in all after all expenses which is the
biggest one is the cost for the shirts for all participants, we raised over $3,500 for the Star Legacy
Foundation and I think a lot of awareness for their work and their cause so I’m pretty excited
about that.
Kelly: Luke thanks for the report and congratulations on a successful 5K.
Thunberg: Thank you.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Kelly: And Todd I’m back to you again. Sorry to interrupt you before. Administrative section.
Anything you want to point out?
Hoffman: Just want to point out the evaluations for our picnics and really I’m proud of the staff
that pulls those together. Jerry each year is our main contact. Our intern works on that every
year. Katie chips in. The people up front chip in and then Adam and his crew making sure that
those sites are clean and ready to go. You see it in the evaluations and this is a big part of
bringing our citizens, our relatives, employees, businesses. From out of town businesses from in
town. Get them into our park system and enjoy what we have here to offer and so we just kudos
to all the people that are involved in making it happen and it just, you see a lot of happy people.
They’re at their company picnic or their family reunion or their birthday party. Their graduation
and so I think people really take a lot of happiness and pride away from being able to do that in
their local park system so thanks everybody.
Kelly: Great, thank you Todd and nice to see all the good work there Jerry. That’s always
everybody in here seems to love Jerry so. Is there a call to the question?
Scharfenberg moved, Thunberg seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation
Commission meeting was adjourned at 9:20 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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