Loading...
PRC 2017 03 28 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MARCH 28, 2017 Chairman Kelly called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Cole Kelly, Steve Scharfenberg, Brent Carron, Luke Thunberg, Jim Boettcher, Rick Echternacht, and Jennifer Hougham MEMBERS ABSENT: Lauren Dale STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Jodi Sarles, Recreation Center Manager; Adam Beers, Park Superintendent; and Susan Bill, Senior Center Coordinator PUBLIC PRESENT: Rita Trapp HKGi, 123 No. Third Street, Suit 100, Minneapolis Bala Chintaginjala 8289 SW Village Drive APPROVAL OF AGENDA: The agenda was approved as presented. Kelly: So before we move on I’d like to give a congratulations to Steve Scharfenberg and Lauren Dale for being reappointed to the commission. I also want to congratulate Meredith Petouvis and Karl, how do you pronounce his last name Todd? Hoffman: Tsuchiya. Kelly: Tsuchiya, Grant Schaeferle for being appointed to the commission. They will start at our next meeting. Any public announcements tonight? PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Scharfenberg: I have an announcement. The Red Birds Rally, 2017 rally is set for Saturday, nd April the 22 at the Legion from 6:00 to 9:00 and it’s, the Red Birds kind of one of their fundraisers that they do for the town ball team. There’ll be silent auction. There’ll be a raffle. Some of the players will be there. You’ll get to hear kind of about the upcoming season and that so if you can make it out that night we would love to have you. Boettcher: Where was that at Steve? Scharfenberg: At the Legion. Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Boettcher: At the Legion. Scharfenberg: The Legion in Chan. $10 to get in and that will get you your, they’ve got hors d’oeuvres and things to eat but you’ve got to buy your own drink. Kelly: Thank you Steve. It’s a good time. I’ve made a number of them and I hope to make the next one too and watching the Red Birds is always a great time in that wonderful ball field that the City has provided so attend if you can because you’re going to, it’s a great event. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Kelly: So what we’re going to do tonight instead of approve the Minutes we’re going to approve the summary Minutes because the Minutes disappeared on us somehow so does anybody. Hoffman: The tape did not operate. Kelly: The tape did not operate well. So does anybody have any changes to make to the summary minutes? Somebody want to approve the summary minutes? Scharfenberg moved, Echternacht seconded to approve the summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated February 28, 2017 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PARKS AND RECREATION SYSTEM PLAN; REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GOALS, POLICIES, AND STRATEGIES, AND PREPARE FOR SPRING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT. Rita Trapp: Alright good evening. Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, I’m Rita Trapp. Planning consultant for the City of Chanhassen and it’s my pleasure to give you an update on where we’re at with the Parks and Recreation System Plan and hopefully get some feedback from you on how we are doing and how we should move forward. So there are a few topics I wanted to focus on this evening is just a brief recap of the guiding principles. Many of you were participating in our January vision workshop so just to wrap that up and bring it full circle. Talk a little bit about the system plan recommendations, goals, policies and initiatives and then about the community engagement that’s upcoming. So I’ll start with the guiding principles. Many of you as I said were at the January vision workshop with the advisory committee and at that time you identified, I know it was a little bit hard. We identified a lot of information and we used that and pulled together these 4 guiding principles and then we had survey due and gotten your feedback about whether we were headed in the right direction. After that we also took it to the City Council and they reviewed and provided input so what’s before you is the current draft of 2 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 the guiding principles. There are 4. Connectivity, engagement, adaptable and stewardship. The icons did not go over well at all which is just fine. That happens. No, no, no. That’s okay. You just never know so you put them out there and we thought we’d see kind of where people were heading because we didn’t have a chance to talk about those. Right now our recommendation is to just use the photos or some version of photos to communicate the same idea. It seemed easier so if you have comments or thoughts on those you can certainly let us know. This is still a draft. It’s part of the system plan so it will be draft until the actual document goes through a formal review and approval process. Any comments or thoughts or concerns about any of the guiding principles? Okay, that was what I was hoping to hear but you never know. Kelly: So Rita just a comment. Rita Trapp: Yes. Kelly: I think these, I think this is kind of on the when I did the survey this is kind of how it was laid out and people kind of agreed with how it was laid out as far as how the order you have it in and why it’s in that order. Rita Trapp: Yes at the end of the survey we provided you an opportunity to rank those and those that participated ended up ranking them in this order and I went back to check this week just to make sure and this is, it’s the order that was preferred. There wasn’t a huge amount of difference between any of them but this was clearly the order that was suggested. Kelly: Thank you Rita. Rita Trapp: Then we’ll move onto the system plan recommendations. So the system plan recommendations were drafted based on a number of aspects. The needs assessment, system analysis that we did that we had summarized back in December. The peer community and national standards analysis. Community input. The review of the previous Comprehensive Plan. Our discussions in all of the advisory committee meetings as well as at the vision workshop. Meetings with city staff so the recommendations really come from a lot of sources. I can’t point to one particular area and say this is where they came from but they’re all intended to summarize how the system, how the City intends to move forward in implementing a system that meets the vision and guiding principles. As I noted in your packets they are divided into goals, policies and initiatives so just to make sure we’re all on the same page. Goals are the broad statements that are describing the long term outcomes needed to achieve the guiding principles so they’re in a little bit more detail than the guiding principles themselves. The policies are really I’m looking at those as the statements that will guide City decision making to achieve the goals so they’re not specific actions necessarily but when the City needs to make decisions about what it does, these are the things that you would use to guide those decisions. And then initiatives are really the specific actions or steps that will need to be taken in order to achieve the policies and the goals. What we’re looking for tonight is an understanding if there’s anything missing in any of those areas. Where you have concerns. Additional information or images that you think would be 3 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 helpful to explain or illustrate. I added a fourth bullet about measurability. That’s something that the advisory committee talked about was the notion of do we need to make these any more measurable than they are. There are a lot of goals, policies, and initiatives so I’m not going to walk through each of them. You had a chance in your packet to review them. I have slides. I have every single one of them so we can talk about whatever you’re interested in but I want to make sure that we focus on what you’re interested in as opposed for me to walk through these. I do want to talk a little bit about how I organized it so there are 6 goals which are these 6 and these are similar to but not exactly the same as the existing goals that are in the Comprehensive Plan currently for the park and recreation system. We’ve made some adjustments based on the discussions we’ve had but there are 6 goals and then for the policies there are policies that support each goal so, and the policies we’ve organized them and we’ve numbered them with 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 so we always know what goal they’re referencing. The initiatives we do not have those linked to a goal because many initiatives would serve and achieve multiple goals so the initiatives just stand on their own and they’re organized by topics so parks, facilities, trails, preserves, measurement and operations and I think I hit them all just off the top of my head but if I missed one you can let me know. So that’s how they’re organized and that’s our recommendation for how to structure them so they’re easy to find. They’re easy for staff to reference and it’s clear. So as I said I don’t want to walk you all of the goals, policies and initiatives. My thought was to focus more on the initiatives because those are the specific actions. That’s really the part that we are focusing on when we’re out reaching to the public as well as the actual initiatives as opposed to the policies and the goals. So with that Mr. Chairman, members of the commission is there a specific way that you would like me to walk through? Would you like me to walk through each of the initiatives or would you prefer to just have an open discussion so that we spend the time on the areas that are of interest to you? What would you find most useful? Kelly: As far as I’m concerned I’d like you to walk us through the initiatives and as people have questions while we’re walking through, if they want to stop and say we’re going to have a discussion on it. It will just happen. Rita Trapp: Sounds great. Kelly: And this way we get through it and I appreciate what you’re kind of skipping through the goals and policies and what you said about being similar because as I was reading through it I know that the City had already had a lot of similar goals if not the same so I think we’re at the right spot, thank you. Rita Trapp: Okay good. So if there are any questions on the goals and policies, as I said we have the goals on the last slide. I have all the policies at the end of the presentation if we need to, I’m certainly happy to talk about those. But I’ll move onto the initiatives. So as I said we’ve organized the initiatives by parks, facilities, trails, et cetera. In terms of parks, how we’ve organized these is looking at specific recommendations at specific parks as well as what we’re calling city wide recommendations. So the first initiative is really maintaining Lake Ann as the 4 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 premiere community park for the system. In order to do that the recommendation is to develop a master plan that really talks about how the park would be expanded. How we’re going to provide for additional recreational amenities that have been desired in the past. And looking at adding user amenities in a phased manner like permanent restrooms that have been requested. Benches. Electronic scoreboards, those type of things so that’s really the next few steps for Lake Ann Park and specific. Any questions? Alright I won’t necessarily stop at the end of every slide but in terms of Bandimere Park, really this recommendation is about implementing the master plan that currently exists. There are still some components that have not been completed so the master plan is recommending that those continue to move forward. At Lake Susan Park the recommendations deal with renovating the existing picnic shelter and including permanent restrooms. Overall the discussion was permanent restrooms belong at the community park level so wherever we don’t have restrooms we should look over the long term about putting those in and making sure that all the community parks have a similar level of user amenities that can be provided. Also at Lake Susan expanding the parking and adding lighting and structured seating for the baseball field. In terms of City Center Park really the needed amenity is adding the permanent restrooms. Overall kind of a city wide initiative is the idea of seeking opportunities to expand the capacity of the community park network. There are additional needs that could be served at the community park level but there really isn’t space so it may be for more efficient use. It may be from additional expansion but that needs to be thought about is how additional amenities or facilities that really are of a community scale rather than a neighborhood park scale, where would you put them. How could you fit them in and how does that impact the system? 1.6 is using the using the maintenance and replacement schedule to plan for phased replacement of neighborhood park facilities. If you had a chance to look at our fall community engagement there were a lot of very, very specific recommendations for neighborhood parks. This needs to be replaced. This needs to be replaced. We need to add this. The point is not intended to be necessarily a laundry list of every single park. Staff obviously has looked at it. Has made the notations. At the system plan level the recommendation is to use the maintenance and replacement schedule that we’re currently working on and use that as a means to identify the phased replacement that is needed because generally as, the earlier the equipment the more likely it is that folks will be identifying it as needing replacement so we have a map as an example of all the playgrounds. We know how old they are. When they might, when they best would be slated for replacement so those are some of the things we’ll share with the public because I know people want to see very specific recommendations but it’s very hard to have a, in a system plan to say this park needs this. This park needs this so we’ve kind of encompassed it with one recommendation. And then the final one is looking at adding parks or preserves as development occurs in the south part of Chanhassen so that would include in and around Bluff Creek Golf Course, Bluff Creek corridor and County Road 61 corridor plan areas so trying to seize opportunities as they make sense to either adding parks or preserves in that area. And that encompasses the 7 recommendations for the parks. Anything seem like it’s missing or off track or? Kelly: Just a quick question and I’m not sure that you’ve gone into it in any detail but when you said seek opportunities to expand the capacity of community park network to serve athletic and 5 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 community needs. Obviously more efficient space I understand what we’re talking about there and you said maybe expansion. What kind of expansion are we talking about? Rita Trapp: Well if opportunity arises and it would make sense looking at a community park, and particularly in the southern area if there’s an opportunity that arises. We haven’t said that you have to have it. It’s just as you try and add more community scale facilities there’s probably going to be a point at which there is no longer space. Kelly: Right. Rita Trapp: Within your current system and at that point you’d have to look at adding into the system so we want to make sure that over time we’re seizing opportunities as they arise and if you have a parkland trying to determine is it best as a neighborhood park or is it best as a community park because there may be occasions depending upon where it’s located and what’s surrounding it to be one type of park or another because generally neighborhood parks are surrounded by homes. They’re not really intended to draw people from other areas of the community. Need parking so it really depends on what comes up in the future. Kelly: So you’re saying as parts that are not built out right now that we take certain land, which I think is something Chanhassen’s been quite good at doing in the past. Rita Trapp: Right. Kelly: And so that we just be open to taking land when possible. Rita Trapp: Right. Seeking opportunities. When they arise do it and if it doesn’t arise then it’s not something that will happen in the near term. Kelly: Okay, thank you Rita. Rita Trapp: Alright I’m going to move onto facilities. We do have the maps which were provided in your packet but they’re hard to read on TV so I didn’t want to use them but as you can see this is kind of the format that we are using particularly with the public because we feel like it’s easier. A little more graphic to read so we’ve highlighted the city wide in a box. That’s not going to work here but in a box on the side and then have the specific recommendations if they’re park specific. Alright facilities. The first facility initiative is identifying and constructing a year round signature recreational facility in the community that includes indoor, outdoor and passive space. I know through our work there’s been a lot of discussion about the need for some type of signature recreation facility. I think it’s been even through the process undetermined exactly what that is and what it encompasses. The idea through the discussion has been that we should complete a number of studies to better define that. In particular aquatics came up with out of the community engagement we did, some people said indoor pool. Some people said outdoor pool. Some people said splash pads. Those type of things so looking at an 6 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 aquatic facilities study would help us better understand what are the needs and how are we going to address them and tied to that also would be a facility study for the recreation center and one for the senior center. There was a lot of desire for improved facilities but this plan does not have the capacity do an in-depth analysis of each of the buildings. What are the services? What would the cost be? So the first recommendation from the facilities study is to take to the next step to do those in-depth studies. One thing that I don’t have with me today but I did have an occasion to show the advisory committee is we are planning to have some additional information that’s helpful in the system plan and we’re thinking about including an open house next week of what is a facility study? What does that mean? What would be included? What are the values of doing it and summarizing some of the feedback that we got so people don’t feel like it was lost because it was very valuable but this study couldn’t get into the level of detail that folks wanted about a very specific recommendation for any of those facilities. The general recommendation is there’s consensus from the community that something needs to happen into the future. Kelly: A question, have you at one of your next meetings have you thought of inviting Jodi and Sue to your meetings to pick their brains because what you’re talking about is what they’re involved in every day and my guess is, I mean I know we want studies and we want to hear what the people have to say but my guess is they could give you a wealth of information on this would make this kind of improvement. This would make this kind of improvement and you know and here’s what the cost might be or here’s the, but they’re there every day. They know what’s going on and I would think it’d be wise for the committee to invite them and pick their brain at one of the last meetings before you come up with the facilities. Rita Trapp: I haven’t done that because I know that we wouldn’t be able to get, I would not want to make a recommendation as part of this study of any specific, this is exactly what needs to happen at either of these facilities because of the range of cost that are involved and because of the range of improvements that might be needed, it’s not something that I’ve considered doing because that type of study involves an architect who would look at the spaces. Evaluate the spaces and do comparisons of other community centers and that was beyond what we could accomplish through this. So we certainly have talked to staff. We have an understanding of kind of where the limits are. We have the information. It’s something I can consider further but I don’t know how much more detail I want to put in the plan because I don’t want people to assume that that’s the specific thing that’s going to happen so I’m trying to figure out how to strike the balance between we need it and here’s what people said but a study needs to happen to really figure out what is needed and what people are willing to pay for because a community center can be a huge range and once people better understand the cost. Kelly: Right because I mean what we’re going to be looking at at the end is what’s the cost analysis? What makes sense? What can we sell to the City Council? Does the City Council want to do bonding or do they want to say we’re going to wait until the park and rec has certain funds so some of this information might be helpful to those of us on the commission to make up our minds on certain things because at the end of the day we want to come up with something 7 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 that would be acceptable to the City Council and we’ve just got to figure out, and obviously there’s more to it than what you’re going to come up with for us figuring that out but you know how are we going to move forward in the next 20 years to make our city better and you know cost analysis is always a part of it and how the City Council feels on based on your surveys and the city input which we’ve had pretty good city input and it looks like we’re going to have more good city input with the signs you’re getting out so I appreciate all that but again for my analysis I might want to hear, and I can probably do it on my own but I want to hear something from Jodi and Sue. Hoffman: Chairman Kelly and members of the commission, so that process we sat down as a staff. They were at that meeting and we talked about you know what they’re hearing as both managers for our senior center and our recreation center but what Rita is explaining is that this study is not going to go to that level. As a community, as a commission you want to say City Council we want a study now. We want to study this aquatic facility. That’s a whole other study and so we start again in that process and so this master planning is not, it’s not a needs analysis. It’s not a plan for what that might be so that would be, we’ve simply identified that there is some interest. How you fare that interest out, is it valid or not? Are people willing to vote for it? We did ask that as a part of that survey and it seemed like people were willing to at least pony up some cash but in this plan you’re not going to get dollars. You’re not going to get final cost. That would have to be in a next study. Kelly: Right, okay. Rita Trapp: But I am trying to provide additional information. That’s why I said I have a separate page or a page and a half that provides a background of what did people say. We can certainly include information that staff may have to support why this is in here. Kelly: Okay. Rita Trapp: But beyond that it’s going to be tough because. Kelly: I understand that okay. Rita Trapp: It’s hard to say we specifically need this when I certainly am not, it’s not my place to evaluate the architectural part of the building and say we need this. We don’t need that but I can certainly look at adding some more. I have a notation so we’ll try to add a little bit more in there than what I have, and I respectfully, I know you’re not seeing what I have so it makes it tough to evaluate. Kelly: Right. Rita Trapp: So certainly come back if you think that more could be done in the document to help make sure that we continue to communicate that forward because that’s my intent is that the 8 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 document can stand on it’s own and when the study is done you can go back to this information and say here’s what people were saying at that time so we have an understanding of that and use that as a basis for further study. That’s my hope. Kelly: Okay. Rita Trapp: So we’ll see. Alright. Kelly: Thank you. Rita Trapp: Yes. Kelly: Thank you Todd. Rita Trapp: Facilities. So the next facility recommendation is adding a specific destination splash pad at a community park. So what we mean by destination splash pad is going to be a splash pad that’s large enough to be something that people drive through from someplace in the community, from outside the community so it’s at a scale that would fit inside of a community park and we need to make sure when that happens that we have additional amenities like parking and benches, restrooms, changing facilities, all those types of things but it seems to be a need in the community. A desire in the community to have a splash pad and our recommendation is kind of based on the scale and make sure it’s at a community park so we don’t have issues with too many people using the facility. Additional recommendations includes developing and implementing a phased improvement plan for the skate park. We know we heard throughout this process that there is a desire, additional discussions with those that use the skate park would be helpful to know what those look like. Similarly we’ve had interest from the pickleball group more on what our focus has been is on adding user amenities like seating, wind screen, sun canopies, things to make it a more pleasant experience particularly since they tend to do it in groups and so they’re sitting around waiting as different matches get played so I think the feeling from staff is we have enough courts per se in relativeness to the rest of the city and our facilities but that we could improve user amenities. Similar in improving user amenities for Bandimere disc golf so that’s permanent concrete tee boxes. On site amenities again. Volleyball amenities. Again improving them. Making sure we have seating, nets and shelters. So as I talked about in the parks to some degree you have a fairly built out system. Neighborhood parks. Community parks so there isn’t space to add significant amounts of new types of facilities and we’re providing a level of service that we feel is adequate for the population. For the needs. Obviously there are specialty groups that would like more facilities for their particular activity but we’re not capable of providing and meeting the needs for every specialty group for every range of experience so the recommendation has been that we have generally what we feel like is appropriate but we may add user amenities to improve the experience. And the last bullet is adding nature play. Nature based play at neighborhood parks at regular intervals throughout the community. This is an item that had some discussion with the advisory committee as well as with staff. Nature based play was something that did come out through the community 9 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 engagement. The challenge is knowing what nature based play is and if you had a chance to look at the social pinpoint we actually have a section on nature play where we were trying to gather information about what does that mean? Is it you know the place, is it a place in the preserves that you can just play with nature? Is it an actual structured playground that looks like nature? Is it a playground that actually has nature and has used, so it’s that kind of range and we will have information at the open house again to try and get a better picture of what people are looking at because that makes a difference between what you’re able to do so we have nature based play kind of throughout here in a couple of places. Nature based play at neighborhood parks would be at a smaller scale. It would be kind of like every third or fourth playground instead of having traditional play equipment you might have a nature based play type and so people can walk and you know people have favorite routes and favorite parks and so they could go to the one that’s kind of near them. Maybe not exactly near them to participate but that’s something that needs to be further flushed out and we’ll be doing that through the community engagement process because I think there’s still some uncertainty at what that means for Chanhassen. Scharfenberg: And just to comment Rita on that, that we talked about the fact that you know we would get input from neighborhoods as to whether or not they would even want something like that in their park. If they wanted to do, do that before we would decide anything so it would be something with involvement with the neighborhood if that was something they were interested and Todd brought up the example of Stone Creek, that they had the slide and everyone said no, we don’t like that anymore. Get rid of that so, but yes. Rita Trapp: Alright. Additional facilities. One aspect that we talked about particularly with staff but also talked about with the advisory committee is the idea of some type of interpretative space with an outdoor lab space. Maybe a destination nature play to support natural resource outreach and education. Currently there’s not really a place, a building that that is housed. It doesn’t necessarily I guess I don’t think any of us think, were envisioning a nature center with a full compliment but just a place that you could actually have natural resource outreach and education. Again that’s something that I feel like is part of this community outreach to try and ferret that out and your input would be valuable as well about what this looks like. How big it is. What does this mean? But it is something that we did talk about in here a little bit about through the community engagement process. Other facilities, exploring opportunities for a second community garden and then studying a public boat access for Lake Lucy. That was something that came up through the community engagement process. And then improving accessibility at both the recreation center and senior center through the re-examination of handicap parking. Trip hazards. Door accesses and that’s just something that came up that’s good for us to do and make sure that everything is as accessible as it can be no matter if the facilities are expanded, replaced or anything that’s just something we should do to the existing facilities. Any comments, questions? I’m on the last set. Related to that is completing an audit of system ADA accessibility and addressing issues that are identified. That has not been done for a number of years so that is a good foundational element that should be done to make sure that we’re providing the most accessibility that we can. As you’re probably aware accessibility for park 10 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 and trail systems does not mean every single feature needs to be fully accessible but it does mean that we need to provide it through most of the system. There are some exceptions for trails and places that it’s just not possible but it is something that should be done and updated. We also have a recommendation regarding piloting facilities for new or trending sports. The reason we have that is to have a method by which you’re clear when folks come in and say oh this is the newest sport. We want you to build the, you know the newest facility. You can say wait, wait, wait. We pilot it. We do this. We do it at a smaller scale. We make sure that it’s appropriate for our system. The cost. The durability so it’s kind of giving you the ability to say we will look at it but we want to do it at a small scale. Pilot it. See if it makes sense before we invest a significant amount of money into the system. We’ll include some examples of current trending. There isn’t anything totally new recently. There are more, there are some smaller types of recreational amenities but nothing significant at this point. Hoffman: We have a good example. Rita Trapp: Which is? Hougham: An adjustable basketball hoop. Hoffman: In a public park setting. We’re trying out a couple different… Rita Trapp: I like it. Hoffman: And one is already wrecked. Rita Trapp: That was an example. I was thinking more things like, oh there’s some other sports that have come up but that makes sense. Hoffman: This is a new trend. A lot of young parents want their kids to be able to play on a lower hoop. We’ve just never done it because… One down. We’ll see if the second one continues. Rita Trapp: I just had to raise mine at home. I didn’t realize it was so tall even for a 10 year old. Alright last two. Installing additional ballfields, safety fencing as needed and implementing the recommendations of the Athletic Fields Study. That was adopted just recently and so in the packet I provided the list of recommendations. I didn’t on the slide because it would take a whole other slide but the idea of making sure that we’re doing what was recommended in the Athletic Facilities Study still makes sense. There was no, in our analysis there was no reason why that shouldn’t still move forward as it was originally proposed. So that covers all the facility recommendations. Back to my kind of fundamental questions, anything missing? Anything seem off? Alright. Trails. For trails the first two are things that just are general in nature. Addressing the trail gaps that were identified on the included map and addressing the trail crossing safety issues that were identified in the included map. These are things that were 11 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 identified by staff as well as through community engagement so when we go back to the advisory committee and then ultimately what comes forward to you we’ll be talking about prioritization of those. Which ones are most important? How might we address them? Not every trail crossing safety issue means a tunnel. Some of them might be lights. Striping. There are other methods so making sure we’re clear and we tried to write the wording on the social pinpoint website so people understood it doesn’t necessarily mean they get a tunnel. It means there other things might be looked at as well. Increasing awareness and expanded trail use through maps and trail wayfinding. Just making sure that we’re communicating all the resources that you have in the system. You have a great trail system. Better I think in our analysis than many other communities that are surrounding so trying to promote that. Looking at trail accessibility through easily accessible routes. This was in particular response to some of the surveying that we did with the senior population. That they would love to walk more but the question in their minds is, eh am I going to be able to do it? Are there trip hazards? Are there steep slopes? Kind of where would I go so if we put some effort into doing that we can help provide that need. And then enhancing user experiences through kiosks at trailheads. Benches. Lighting. Garbage cans. Looking at enhancing not just having the facilities but making it a little bit more enjoyable. And then there are some on the next. Completing connection to the Minnesota River through the construction of a trail along Bluff Creek Drive or Great Plains. This is really other than the gaps that we’ve identified, this is the only really new expanded type of trail that is specifically identified. Looking at the number of natural surface trails, you have a few. You don’t have very many. We should map those because we don’t really have those in GIS right now and trying to identify new opportunities to expand that. Not everybody likes being on a paved trail. And also the idea of nature play. Getting people in when it makes sense into preserves and into open spaces would be supporting that idea. Exploring opportunities to add trailheads. Currently you have a few generally at community parks and so looking at adding those and at a trailhead would mean signage. Permanent restrooms. That’s why those at community parks makes a lot of sense because those are the facilities that we have but trying to add those as our opportunities arrive. Working with partner agencies to reopen the Minnesota River bluff LRT regional trail. That was something that was identified in the community input as well as a desire. And then the last one is looking at a single track mountain bike trail study. We’re not ready for identifying a specific location but that is something that has come up as a need as well. So that covers all our trail. If you on the map the orange line, lines are the gaps that have been identified and currently we have black X’s I believe it is for where there are safety issues. I just want to note because I know you’re knowledgeable about what you already have. A lot of the trail gaps and safety issues have already been identified by yourselves and by city staff as something you’re going to address. Just to reduce confusion with the community we didn’t separate those. We just wanted to put everything on an even playing field for this part of the process and then we will differentiate between you know new and those type of things in the future so just for your, I know many of you can look at that and go we planned this for a long time. I know. It’s just too confusing to explain that so we went with a basic type of system to explain to folks about where trail gaps are and where safety issues have been identified so. Any questions? Things missing? No? Alright Preserves. Preserves are a great resource that probably don’t have as much awareness in the system, particularly folks don’t probably know the 12 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 ones that are not near them. I know we had expressed through the community engagement and through discussions the fact that people aren’t sure that what they can actually access or where they can go so first part is expanding awareness of the preserves through marketing and way finding. Making sure people feel like it’s okay to be there. Encouraging the expansion for increased interaction and exploration of nature through the natural surfaced trails as I mentioned in the trail section. Interpretation. Actually having programming out in these areas. Signage. Way finding. Kind of reducing the barriers of entering these. We talked about 4.3 so 4.4 really identifying and prioritizing the protection of natural areas that provide linkages between parks, preserves and other destinations. This is particularly trying to seize opportunities as development occurs. Let’s see prioritization the development of natural resource management plans. Your preserves right now in general are, we own the land and we might do some maintenance but you don’t do a lot necessarily. Sorry I just feel weird saying that but that’s my understanding. You have these, some communities really are proactive with their preserves. You haven’t traditionally been. If that is an opportunity that could be an improvement and enhancement is actually have a natural resource management plan to deal with invasives. To deal with how to manage them. It improves and/or maintains the quality of the preserves so it’s something to do. Generally natural resource management plans are fairly intensive so you may not choose to do all of them. Many of the communities I work with pick a few preserves that are highly sensitive or whatever the case may be and focus on those first and build their capacity because it’s not free to do management of the natural resources but it is important for the stewardship part of our guiding principles so that’s what this is about. And it needs more discussion about how you would exactly do that. Hoffman: And to be fair to our planning group they do significant natural resource management in some of the preserves so that’s Jill Sinclair, Terry Jeffery and Krista Spreiter so where they available cash in their budgets for example the buckthorn removal project at Fox Woods Preserve so that’s been ongoing for 3 years. I can’t tell you the exact dollar amount but it’s significant that they’ve invested. So prior to the public reaching that preserve as an open park they’ve been doing, first they did the mass cutting and they did 2 years worth of treatments and so in certain areas in these preserves their group but say that Adam would have any either cash or extra time to do a lot of natural resource preservation plans or maintenance of preserves, it’s just not going to happen. We would be walking away from our neighborhood and community park system and we just don’t have the staff to do that right now. Rita Trapp: Alright. The last 2 items are collaborating with other governmental agencies in the protection of the Seminary Fen and the Minnesota River Valley and then continuing to preserve sensitive lands within the Bluff Creek Corridor and if you had an occasion to look at the map you’ll see we identified the corridor so we’re all clear on kind of the area that we’re talking about. Again a lot of the preserves is seizing opportunities, just taking it to the next level as you can to help do more with the preserves and interact with nature. Alright programming. Almost there through the initiatives. In terms of programming we had a lot of discussion with staff. Everybody would love more programming. The discussion in the community is more. We love more. Every hour of the day that’s available I would love to have something available to me for 13 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 every age and that’s as you know just not possible so we had to be, I think we chose to be more on the realistic side as opposed to more on the far reaching side with programming at this point just basing it on what you have available right now. You certainly could expand this if you had more staff but without that there’s really a limit in what you can do because programming is a very staff intensive type of operation so right now what we have is continuing to host 5 major community events. Currently we list them. That doesn’t mean that this necessarily needs to be forever if the city 5 years from now decides that something isn’t working that you can certainly move it. The idea that you would have 5 so one every other month or so for folks to attend and really build that community. Partnering with area businesses and organizations to provide the summer concert series. There was value in that mentioned in the community. Collaborating with schools and other organizations to provide public recreation activities in the park that currently exist. Try to do more of that. Expand the number of informal indoor/outdoor seasonal so trying to broaden it but again the idea of there’s a limit to probably all that can be done about trying to expand the number and we weren’t more specific than that at this point. And then expanding nature based events and programming. My discussion with staff is that’s something that could be of value and if we had a place to do it that would make it even easier to do. Expanding Senior Center awareness through rebranding and marketing. The community engagement indicated that there was still a larger percentage I think than any of us thought there should be of people didn’t realize the senior center existed so trying to increase awareness and maybe the rebranding. Maybe people just don’t like the term senior center. That’s a typical discussion but that’s something that could help with increased marketing. Collaborating with high school youth leaders to organize quarterly activities. This is really tough but really it’s something that is needed and requested so trying to figure out how to move forward with piloting some programs. The challenges we were discussing just internally at my office last week with my fellow staff is once you figure out something that you think you’d like to do they won’t come because they probably wouldn’t like it. It’s really hard to find a group of people that’s going to do it so that’s why we have collaborating with youth leaders as opposed to us coming up with ourselves but even that’s challenging but it’s still needed and it’s still valuable to do. Collaborating with the Arts Consortium of Carver County to expand the arts related programming in the city. Establishing an Event Management Plan. This in particular is related to a lot of the non-city sponsored events that are seeking to utilize Chanhassen parks and trails. If you had occasion to review the policies and kind of see how they were linked there is an issue of general park users and being able to use the parks when there’s a lot of events. If you have a popular community park they may have an event there very frequently and then you can’t use the park so this is having some type of plan in place so you know how you’re going to handle the continuing request and this is something that I’m seeing in most cities that we’re working on just the number of events. Runs, races, tournaments that want to be held in your parks. It’s great. It’s a great asset. It brings a lot of value to the business community. It brings a lot of value to your residents but there is a balance that has to be struck so thinking through that is helpful. And then annually evaluating the City’s pricing structure. You have a pricing structure. This just puts it in graphic form and I have a picture of it here. It’s just trying to make sure that we’re communicating the idea that if there’s a highly individual benefit, a yoga class, a Zumba class, that’s the easiest one so an adult individual fitness class has a very individual benefit. That they 14 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 should really, the user fee should really support the cost of that and then when there’s a general community benefit. The Easter Egg Hunt. The Summer Concert Series. Lots of people, the whole feeling of being a part of Chanhassen, that’s 100 percent tax supported and there’s kind of a spectrum that you have to look at for determining costs so just making sure that we’re aligning programming and events that are really highly individual versus community, making sure the pricing structure reflects that and that’s always a challenge on recouping the cost of your programs but it’s just something to think about and taking a step every year to just make sure that we think we’re on the right path is helpful to moving forward. And that’s it for programming. I just have one more section. Any thoughts, comments? Kelly: Yeah I’ve got a question. Rita Trapp: Yes. Kelly: When you talked about you know the highly individual benefit and yoga class. You don’t try to fit it into the cost scheme. How do we take into consideration all the private businesses that have yoga that we’re competing with because I don’t think the City really wants to be competing with private businesses on one hand. And on the other you’re saying well we need to give the citizens want this and they want it in their part of their rate so where’s the, I mean this is not an easy question for anybody and I’m not sure there’s an answer but where’s the balance there is what I’m trying to figure out on something like that. Rita Trapp: Well it’s a difficult, as you said it’s a difficult balance to strike and it’s something to look at. I think that there is a desire to have available if you’re a member of the recreation center or a member of the community to have those type of classes. It just may be, you may not offer them as frequently at the same amount of times as those other businesses. They’re providing a very specialized user with the services as opposed to the general community benefit but the idea is, on this chart is just the thought that they should be paying more of the cost. The cost for offering the class should be fairly close to the amount that they’re actually paying for the class so that there’s a direct correlation there so that they’re, the taxpayers in general are not supporting it. Now to some degree it’s hard to quantify. If you’re having at the Rec Center what part of the Rec Center and general operations comes out of it but we can generally kind of get to that amount so I don’t, it’s difficult to say. Should the City offer yoga classes when there’s private businesses, you know you’re providing a service to people that otherwise couldn’t use those businesses or couldn’t afford them and you’re providing a value in that respect so it’s a difficult question like you said but I think a lot of it has come, has to come down to space availability. Staff availability. Those type of features to whether or not you offer those. I don’t know if Todd or staff has anything. Kelly: No that’s fine. Like I said it’s not an easy question. There’s not an easy answer but I appreciate the answer your gave. 15 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Rita Trapp: Okay. Alright any other programming? Alright operations. This is including management and operations. We don’t have a handy graphic for this one unfortunately. Haven’t figured out the cool graphics but so really we want to make sure that the System Plan is used as a basis for annual budgeting and capital improvement planning and making sure we’re using it every year on deciding how we’re going to move forward. That’s the purpose of having a System Plan so that’s one of our initiatives. Also communicating the benefits of park and recreation. The impact of the preserves, races, tournaments on the business community. As I said I think that’s where that balance is being struck. It’s great to use the park system for those types of events. It’s helpful to communicate to the public the value that they bring to the business community. All of those folks that are coming in are going to be using the business community at some point during their stay so try to communicate that better. That’s one thing that’s challenging I think for all of us is how do you communicate the benefits of a park and recreation system. It’s somewhat intangible. There’s no dollar amount but they bring value. They bring value in terms of property value. A sense of community pride. I think that came out a lot in the community engagement and even in the discussions with the advisory committee. When we talked about facilities, we talked about the fact that you have great facilities within a drive but folks really want to have the facility in town. They value having something that they can call their’s. That is Chanhassen’s as opposed to driving to neighboring communities so that’s the value of having a good parks and rec system. Then we move onto things like, that are more in the management and the stewardship side so incorporating stormwater best practices. Rain gardens. Bio-swales. Permeable pavers. Those type of facility design components so that you can be a leader in sustainability. Reducing impervious surfaces and exploring turf conversion as much as possible. It’s helpful to do. It is important to recognize and we will have some additional information in the plan. Turf conversion to native plantings is not without costs. It’s just different cost. It’s a transition in your maintenance so it’s just important that everybody’s aware that it’s not a cost savings necessarily to have more native plantings but there are advantages in terms of the water quality. In terms of the natural environment. In terms of health but it is something that would involve different types of maintenance than maybe are done today in terms of cutting turf versus managing native plantings. Preserving natural buffers and setbacks throughout wetlands, rivers, ponds, reservoirs and lakes as appropriate on public lands and parks. This is just the idea again of being a model of trying to as much as we can not having the active areas all the way up to those natural resources but providing a buffer. We don’t have a specific number in here. Just the idea of this and you won’t do it everyplace. If you have a beach obviously you can’t have a natural buffer but there are occasions where it would make sense to have some type of natural native landscaping around those areas. Looking at improving water conservation and energy efficiency when we can when renovating or constructing new. Assessing annually the trail maintenance policy for debris removal, winter plowing and then reevaluating amending winter plowing plans based on things like historical maintenance, commuting routes, safe routes to school, resident request. This is just good to do every year because sometimes we get into a habit of doing things in a certain way and there may have been changes that would necessitate doing it slightly different than in the past. Establishing a formal process for program and event development and this has to do, and when I say event that might be like your Easter Egg Hunt. It might be programs that you’re offering. Making sure you have 16 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 a process for developing them and evaluating whether they’re working well. Whether there are new trends that need to be addressed so having a formal process for that so that it’s not necessarily always response based. That it’s more proactive and that just because we have a program that it doesn’t continuer indefinitely. Sometimes they just aren’t working anymore or they’re not meeting the need. I guess the example that comes to mind in my own community, they just rid of the Easter Egg Hunt just this year, which is okay. I’m okay. My kids are at that one but they did it because they said you know what there’s so many Easter Egg hunts we’re just going to do Breakfast with the Bunny and that’s really worked well with Santa and you know I had to respect the fact that they gave thought to it. A lot of concerns about people taking each other eggs, all that stuff so I mean I just from the standpoint of what I do I think great. They’ve really thought through it and there’s other opportunities so that’s an example of a process of evaluating it. Deciding not to do it anymore after 5 years and finding something else as an option. Alright 9 and 10. Consider the creation of a tobacco use policy for the parks and recreation system. There were some that came up as a response to the community engagement that there was interest in that. And then incorporating innovative sustainable design and maintenance practices to make Chanhassen a model to residents and surrounding communities and that one really came actually out of the advisory committee after reading the other ones. They liked the idea that Chanhassen is a model for other communities as well as to residents in that area so that’s why that got incorporated and I think that covers the initiatives that we have so back to my fundamental question of anything missing. Does anything seem off? Is there additional information that you think would be helpful next week for us to provide to the public or in the plan itself? I’ve written down a couple of things that maybe we provide some additional detail based on our discussion tonight. Any thoughts? Hougham: Next week with the public will we be reviewing like next steps like after this or could maybe either you Rita or Todd explain what the next steps are. So once this is all done. We present it to the public. Here we have this great plan. Then what happens? Rita Trapp: Well let me, I’ll talk about, I can talk about next steps in terms of the next step in the system planning and then also cover kind of what you would do with this after the fact and Todd can chime in. Let me hold that, is that okay? Alright any other questions about this? Kelly: No, Rita I think it’s well laid out and obviously you and the committee have put a lot of work, time and effort into this and I appreciate all the time and work and effort everybody’s had. The only thing I might ask is if Steve and Jim were on the committee might want to make some kind of comments before you get to the next level of discussions. Rita Trapp: Sure. Kelly: Do you guys want to add anything? Boettcher: No I think based on all the input, I mean you guys have done a great job putting this together. Every meeting that we’ve had in the last one, what was it 2 weeks, 3 weeks ago, I 17 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 mean you and your crew go back to the office and you’ve got 60 pages of notes you have to put all together. I mean you’re never going to hit it all but I think just the input from what 1,400 surveys plus we’ve had 4, is it 4 meetings now? Rita Trapp: Yes. Boettcher: You’ve presented here twice. I mean there’s always going to be something that’s going to pop up but I think something like this is not, when it’s done it’s not sealed up and put in a vault. Rita Trapp: No. Boettcher: I mean it’s a living document. It can change. I mean it’s like a business plan. If it’s not working by the end of March you scrap it and you do something different. We have to keep that in mind. You know Jennifer you raised a question about when we can present it and I think what’s presented we have to let people know that this isn’t probably the final version of this you’re going to see but like I say I think you guys have done a great job. We’ve been trying to be nice to you and loading you with stuff at every meeting but. Rita Trapp: Hey that’s, it’s your plan. We’re just kind of the implementers of what you want and what staff knows so that’s great. The input’s been wonderful. Scharfenberg: Yeah I would agree with Jim’s comments that Rita and her group have done an excellent job of leading us kind of through this process and we’ve had very good input from the members that have been participating in the committee and providing feedback back to Rita that they’ve been able to put in together for this so yeah. I think it’s been kind of eye opening to kind of listen to this and kind of talk about some of these different issues and stuff like that but yeah it’s, as you, as Jim indicated it’s something that as this kind of gets put forward what we will do with it and how we’ll implement it will be kind of up to us. Kelly: Thanks Steve. Thanks Jim. Rita Trapp: Alright let me talk about next steps and also a little bit about what you asked. So outreach. As hopefully you already know next Thursday is an open house at the Rec Center. The intention of the open house is to provide the information that you saw. Some of the additional information that I kind of referenced were things that we’re thinking about and working on. It is going to be an open house format which means people can come and go as they would like. Interact. Add notes. Similar information is available on the Social Pinpoint website. I hope you’ve taken a look at it. Please send it out. I was telling staff we’ve had over 80 people visit the site. Fewer have commented and I’m not quite sure what to make of that but there are some comments. There is a survey. There’s lots of opportunities to provide input in different ways and so we’re really encouraging that. Both the Social Pinpoint and open house, all these items are going to have similar pieces of information. It’s not like one is drastically different. 18 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Obviously at Social Pinpoint I’m not able to provide the level of detail because it has to work on the interactive environment but please continue to encourage folks to visit and provide comments and if you haven’t and you have comments of yourself please feel free to do that. Add likes or dislikes. Areas of concern. Hopefully likes to encourage other folks as well. Todd and I had talked about doing some pop up’s like at the Rec Center. Having a couple boards. The idea there would be just having the information, it wouldn’t be as detailed necessarily but it would be a chance for people to provide input that otherwise wouldn’t be able to make it to the open house. May not really prefer to go on the website so we can pop it up in a few different places. I think we talked about the Rec Center. We probably could do it at the senior center I assume. I haven’t asked Sue but I assume so. The library. Just some places to get that out. We don’t specifically reference the open house or Social Pinpoint on the pop up’s because there’s a chance that those will pop up at times. The open house is already done or Social Pinpoint has been closed and people get mad when you do that, and I don’t want to do that because I’ve had that happen in the past where you know you do your best and then they pop up so, but it does direct folks to the website and we always would be taking comments if people had additional comments. Any other outreach that you feel like is important. We did some other types of outreach last fall. The feeling was that we don’t necessarily need to do that again and reach out to those groups. They have plenty of opportunities through these methods but any outreach that you’re thinking of that would be valuable to include. No? Okay then next steps. So the plan is to do the community outreach and get a sense of whether we’re headed in the right direction. Pros, cons to the different aspects of the plan. Then we’ll be taking all of that input back to the advisory committee and then the advisory committee will make adjustments to the recommendations. We’ll talk about prioritization to some degree of you know all these initiatives, what’s the most important as best we can we’ll put some dollar amounts. Ranges. Big ranges but dollar amounts to give people a sense of what these types of things cost and so the idea is that we’ll walk out of this plan with some type of prioritization. I don’t know, it’s not a hard and fast science of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 but it might be high, medium, low. Things that help you and the council when you have to make decisions know what to do. We also recommend and this is something that’s, we’ll work through with the advisory committee as well as yourselves, in other plans we have included something called a decision checklist and what that does is it says when there’s a new idea, because as was stated these are not static documents. These are things that are going to change. They’re going to have to be responding to different new ideas. We have a checklist that we sometimes recommend including it says when there’s a new idea here’s the process we’ll use. Here are the questions that we’ll ask or how we’re going to evaluate whether this idea fits with our plan. That’s why we have the guiding principles and the questions that we do are actually different from community to community. I give you a suggested list, similar to how I did the guiding principles which I know was really tough but hopefully this will be easier. Where I give you a list and say here’s some ways that you could evaluate new ideas. What do you think are most relevant for you so that you have it laid out. When there’s a new idea it would go to staff. Staff kind of puts together some information. The person can provide information that answers these questions. Then you can say yes, that’s a great idea. It fits with our System Plan. We should look at implementing it so that’s something we can look at if you would find valuable and communities can make a choice about whether that’s something they 19 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 would find useful as a tool, and it’s not a tool for the next 2 years. It’s a tool like 5 years down the road when there are new things that we didn’t, any of us didn’t anticipate and you have a means by which to evaluate whether they should be addressed. In terms of using the plan the hope is that, so we’ll do the implementation. Then we have to draft the plan and that will go through the advisory committee, yourselves, ultimately up to the council and then my hope is that you use it as part of your annual process of setting goals and priorities and start incorporating it and using it on a regular basis. Did that cover it? Anything that I missed? Alright, good. Any other questions I can answer? Kelly: Thank you Rita for a great presentation tonight. Rita Trapp: Thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate getting a chance to make sure that we’re headed in the right direction and if you have input please make sure to let us know. I’d love to know it now if there’s things as I said that provide better background information or better value to the recommendations, it’s good to put them in the System Plan as best we can so. Alright. Hoffman: And for those commissioners that don’t know Bala I’d like to acknowledge him. He’s on our advisory committee for the Park and Recreation System Plan so he’s been at most of our meetings and he joined us here tonight as well. Bala Chintaginjala: Yes thank you. Nice to see you. RECEIVE 2016 PARK AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT ANNUAL REPORT. Kelly: Staying with the park and rec area I think Jerry you were going to give us the annual report. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Kelly and the rest of the commissioners. Annually we do take a look at our annual operation. We’re going to review tonight the 2016 Annual Report. So basically all the divisions and all staff members are involved in creating and updating this historical document on an annual basis so we had a couple goals this year as a staff was to reduce the overall document. We used to be about 40 plus pages. We reduced it down to 20 pages so just, with just with kind of layout and content. Different graphs type of thing we really wanted to make it kind of a condensed version of what we had so we accomplished that. Also another thing too we wanted to look at was to, in front of each category or division we wanted to kind of give kind of a quick snapshot or bullet points as to what I guess the highlights of that division or category was so at the front of each I guess new category we kind of had kind of the main topics or main points within that so I’m not going to go through all of those tonight but if you kind of take a look at those, those are kind of just a quick snapshot of what was in the interior of that document so I just want to thank all staff for their input. We started the process months ago on this so it really takes a huge effort between all staff members to kind of pull the information together and kind of preserve that history on an annual basis here for our future. I know I 20 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 certainly use it a lot. Other staff members use it a lot to kind of look back at certain numbers that we may need for reports or kind of pulling information together so we’re proud of it and you know it’s out there. We’ll put it on our City web page for other residents and other people kind of cruising our web page to take a look at and look at that so if there’s any questions that the commission may have tonight staff will certainly entertain those. I’d be happy to answer those. Kelly: Jerry I read through the report. It looks like a very nice report and thank you for presenting to us tonight. Hoffman: Just to clarify for the commission, this is your report. The commission so annually you are tasked with to provide this report to the City Council so staff assembles it for you and it represents your work on an annual basis to the City Council. Kelly: Thank you Todd. With no other questions I think we’re going to have Adam is on deck. RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL TO AWARD CONCRETE QUOTE FOR 2017 NEIGHBORHOOD PICNIC SHELTER PROJECT. Kelly: I think we approved everything above the concrete and tonight we’re going to approve the concrete. Beers: Absolutely. Thank you Chair Kelly, commissioners. Just quickly I guess last month you guys approved the recommendation for the council to purchase the shelters this year and they did so. You can see on the back side of this page I have the anticipated construction costs and the concrete as the associated work that will go with the shelters. So you can see everything kind of comes in on budget so if you guys have any questions regarding the concrete I’d love to answer them. Kelly: Anybody have any concrete questions? Boettcher: Very concrete. Just looking based on background I’ve done with bids and stuff, it seems like a pretty big spread there in the bids. Was there, I mean is one just that much? Beers: Yeah so Dayco’s obviously a much bigger company. Theis Construction is a small kind of mom and pop outfit and they do a lot of the smaller work around town. I had a third. They did not submit on time so we pulled them out so but it is a huge gap but we’re glad to take the work and Jerry does a great job so we’ve done a lot of work with him in the past. Kelly: Any other questions or does somebody want to put it to the question? Carron: I can’t it’s concrete. 21 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Scharfenberg: I make a motion to adopt the commission recommends City Council awards the quote for concrete work to be completed at Minnewashta Heights Park, Herman Field Park and South Lotus Lake Park to the Theis, or is it Theis or Theis? Beers: Theis Construction. Scharfenberg: Theis Construction in the amount of $41,790. Kelly: We have a motion on the floor as proposed by staff. Is there a second? Thunberg: Second. Kelly: And it’s been seconded. Scharfenberg moved, Thunberg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends that the City Council awards the quote for concrete work to be completed at Minnewashta Heights Park, Herman Field Park and South Lotus Lake Park to Theis Construction, Inc. in the amount of $41,790. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Kelly: Thanks Adam. Beers: Absolutely. ESTABLISH DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR APRIL 10, 2017 JOINT MEETING WITH CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL. th Kelly: Next is our discussion for our April 10 joint meeting with the Chanhassen City Council. I will be out of town and Brent has agreed to be the point person for that meeting for the commission since he is still a commissioner until the next meeting happens. And so I think what Todd put together here is a list of discussion points and I guess we’re going to figure out where we’re going to highlight what to the city, correct Todd? Hoffman: Yeah this is last year’s so it was pretty extensive. You don’t need to be that extensive. You could talk about 3-4 projects or concepts that particular evening. It’s really up to you. If you’d like to talk about the 2017 CIP which is somewhat limited this year. Last year was much more expansion. If you want to talk about the Park System Plan, that’s really a commission decision and it’s up to you to determine that and then we give those discussion th points to the City Council so they know where you’re headed with that conversation on the 10. Kelly: So I think we definitely want to discuss the 20 year commission plan that we’ve been working on because that’s kind of a mainstay of what we’re doing this year, especially since the CIP has been light. What have we spent this year Todd, do we know? 22 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 (Todd Hoffman and Jodi Sarles’ microphones were not turned on so some of their discussion was not audible.) Hoffman: Not a great deal. The major project this year is the trail extension from Bandimere past Fox Woods development north to Arbor Glen development which is currently is that blank piece of property at the intersection of Lyman and 101 south and so that’s going to be about the largest investment in dollars. We’ve been spending some engineering dollars. We just received the signed…documents from the Blanski’s. David and Mary Blanski so that negotiation is complete. It needs to be approved by the City Council and then we’re ready to go so that’s going to be a… If each commissioner maybe just wants to talk about a particular item they would like to talk about. If some of you match that’s one way at least to get something…that evening’s conversation. Kelly: Are most commissioners going to be able to make that evening? Boettcher: What’s the date? thth Hoffman: April 10. Monday, April 10. Echternacht: I’ll be there. Hoffman: 6:15 p.m. will be your time. Boettcher: Well I think the big thing would be with the upcoming the 20 year plan, some of the big ticket items. I mean we’ve tried this in the past, I think 3 years ago and didn’t get very far but what the feeling is. Are we going to do bonding? How are we going to get money? I mean we’re talking some big ticket items if they’re approved, even just the stuff we want to do at Bandimere and Lake Susan and Lake Ann. I mean that’s outside the money that we have available. Our funds aren’t going to cover all that so I’d like to get a good read from the Mayor and the 4 council members. You know like I said we tried it 4 years ago. We went in with all these plans for Bandimere and came out and we were told we could plant 15 shade trees by the bleachers which kind of shot down everything that we were desiring so I’d want to get a good feeling for that. Kelly: I think that’s going to be hard to do, especially before the full plan is done. Boettcher: It will but I mean the way we’re going at it now we have people that want a Rec Center and a senior center together and you’re talking anywhere from $25 to $45 million. Kelly: Well I think it’s good to get, you know let’s put different parts of the plan out there. Say okay here’s parts of the plan. The plan’s not done. Here’s things that people told us they’re looking at. Maybe a different person take the Rec Center and a different person take something 23 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 else to just say, to add in and then see what their questions are. See what their comments are because that’s the, that’s the only way we’re going to get, that’s kind of the way we’re going to probe. Boettcher: Right. Kelly: Because they’re going to do a good job of not letting us know what they’re thinking because before they get the whole plan in and you know and they’re always super interested in what the citizenry input is and what do the citizens want and what are they willing to partner with the City. I don’t think you’re going to get a whole lot but I would ask for comments or wait for questions and that’s one way to get an idea of what they might be thinking because that’s, I mean that’s the elephant in the room is are they going to do some bonding or are we just going to do it over 20 years out of our income and that’s I mean. Hougham: Yeah along the same lines I think it would be good if we could connect with them on priorities of the 3 major ones so the ones that we have to do the feasibility studies on. The aquatic center, the Rec Center and the senior center. Todd how much does a study like that cost and where does that money come from for those studies? Hoffman: Well it could come from a variety of areas. It could come from the park dedication fund, which you’re currently operating out of or it could come, you know the council could allocate that cash. So anywhere between $25,000 and $100,000 depending on the level of the study. Hougham: So. Carron: Todd didn’t, oh sorry. Hougham: Oh I was going to say so that’s something I think we would have to prioritize which study we even go after first and then where that money comes from. Carron: Didn’t we recommend to City Council to do that study and I think it was for like $70,000 rather than the short little version of it? Does anyone remember that when we recommended to go with the full blown for the Rec Center? Scharfenberg: Well I thought that was more. Hoffman: That’s what this study cost is $75,000. Boettcher: It’s this study. 24 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Kelly: So when I was, I did attend the Rita’s presentation to the City Council at their workshop and one of the City Councilors asked us, you know he said I thought we were talking fields and lights. Where did the Rec Center come from? So that was a question that was put to us and so. Scharfenberg: And that was something that we had said when we were initially looking at the Comprehensive Plan we said we wanted facilities and we wanted the Rec Center included as part of that and Todd went to Gerhardt and Gerhardt gave you the okay to do that. Kelly: That is correct. Carron: That’s right. That’s where that action money came in then. Kelly: We kind of had to explain it but the question did come up so that you know when you hear a question like that and I’m not quite sure where it’s coming from, you feel some push back right away so what I’m saying is, we’re not going to get, we have to prioritize. I agree with you we have to prioritize what we think is important and say here’s what’s being worked on. Here’s what we’re thinking. We obviously don’t have the final plan so we can’t give final ideas. You know we don’t know where this is going to go from a financial standpoint and that’s going to obviously going to be up to the City Council. So what are the 3 priorities we want to bring out to them? As far as the 20 year plan goes. Carron: Well if they’re, at that meeting they were confused a little bit about what was all entailed in this Comprehensive Plan why don’t we just stick with that and re-hit home hard some of our thoughts as being Rec Center is one of the highest priorities is what we originally thought and the surveys and the citizens have said it, that it’s either Rec Center or pool and what not and we have to plan for that so then that would be the next step. How are we going to pay for going to that next step? Looking at getting a study done on where the best place to put maybe a Rec Center would be. Do we expand the current one we have? Do we find a new place? I mean that’s another study. That’s the next thing so maybe we concentrate on that is just studies for 2017 and possibly ’18 because we don’t really have too much on the books right for ’17 anyways. Kelly: Well and I think that’s a great idea. I think another thing you might want to bring up is kind of do we want to make Bandimere a world class park which means we have to spend more money there than we’re capable of spending in the near term and so, I mean those are the kind of things I think we need to bring out to the City Council where you bring out okay, are we going to have bathrooms at Bandimere and at City Center which I saw all those in this document. You know I think there’s some way we’ve got to bring that out is what do we want to project as a city? What do we want our parks to project and is having first class facilities part of what we want to project or is the cost to have those facilities too exorbitant then what level do we go for it next? I mean that’s a thing I think we need to really hammer at the City Council is what kind of class of parks are we going to have and we’ve got 2 fabulous parks and are they world class yet? Probably not. Well Lake Ann is but Bandimere almost is but it needs some finishing touches and 25 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 the City Council’s got to want to move forward on the finishing touches because it’s going to be very hard for us to do it on our own and so I think those are the kind of things we might want to convey is what City Council, what do you want to see in your parks? How do you want people that come from other jurisdictions to view our parks and view Chanhassen? I mean right now people I think view us pretty well but I think we can do better but doing better, it means certain things are going to be taken out of our hands from a financial standpoint. Boettcher: Well that’s why I say that’s the exact same thing we did 3 years ago and got shut down. I mean you have to get that feel. We don’t want to go forward as a group saying we’re going to spend a million when we’ve got 50 dollars to play with. Kelly: Right. Boettcher: So we have to get that feeling up front. Don’t plan for something that’s not there. Kelly: Right and I agree with you we did get shot down 3 years ago but 3 years ago we didn’t have a 20 year plan kind of behind us. Boettcher: It was a lot smaller and we still got shot down. Kelly: Yeah. Boettcher: I mean it was a shelter with bathrooms at Bandimere. It was a splash pad. It was the sport court. It was the hockey rink. It was lighting. I think that was the 5 items and it came up to $1.35 or $1.4 million. Said well we’ll do this in stages. We need probably need the lights first and then the parking and then the whatever and I mean that was our whole goal back then. I think there were 3 of us Rick. I was there. Rick was there. Steve I don’t remember were you at that one? And that was the way we presented it so we’d like to do this in these steps and again it was nothing so we’re asking the same questions again. You just said the same thing I did 5 minutes ago but we need to keep that up front because I don’t want to come back in the May meeting. Kelly: We’ve also got a survey and citizenship behind us now which we couldn’t say 3 years ago. Boettcher: Right. Well we knew. Kelly: And I’m not saying we’re going to get it. I’m just going to say here’s what we’re thinking. Do we want you know, do we want Bandimere to be the world, you know the best park out there? Better than anything Eden Prairie has. However you want to say it because I’m not going to be there. 26 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Carron: In the past we’ve always talked about you know here’s our projects for 2017. He’s what we’re looking forward to. Maybe we just take a different approach and just say we’re looking at 2017 as a planning year. We don’t park benches. Adam’s got the shelters taken care of. I mean we’re good to go so 2017 is a planning year. We’re going to take what the community input is. What this report’s going to give us and we’re going to get budgeted costs. We’re going to get ideas. We’re going to throw them back in front of you and we’re going to want, and tell them hey this is what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to want input back right away if we’re going down the right path or not. Kelly: I like it. Hoffman: 2017-2018. There’s a lot of things…in September. Scharfenberg: Right so I would say in addition to that Brent that at least we look at what we’ve got in the CIP too over the next 5 years at least some of those items and have a discussion with them on some of those as well. Carron: Yeah not just 2017 but here’s the big picture. We’re going to look at planning. Really look at planning for the next 5 years. Scharfenberg: Yeah. Kelly: Don’t forget to mention trail extensions while I’m gone. Hoffman: I can take this agenda so you’ve got it covered… Kelly: Thank you everybody for your input. Thank you Todd. RECREATION CENTER UPDATE. Kelly: Okay, Jodi. I think you’re on deck. I think you’re up actually. Hoffman: And Chairman and commissioners so on reports we’re going to give you an opportunity to ask some questions but in the hour of time and the other items we had to do this evening we’re just not going to go through word by word so if you have questions or inquiries please let the staff members know but each of them will approach the bench and give a brief report and then ask for your questions. Sarles: …at the Rec Center I submitted my project or my report here and I just going to check in to see if you guys have any questions. Hoffman: Or if you’re hearing anything in the community about any of the operations that these folks manage let them know. 27 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Kelly: It’s a good report. I know you’ve always got lots of things going on and you’re always trying new things and I know Dance is always one of your big programs over there and that looks like it’s still healthy and. Sarles: Yeah very healthy. We have a competition team…competition in Chaska. One of our dancers got first platinum overall so one of the high honors… And our instructors got a high platinum for choreography as well… Kelly: It’s always great to see it doing well too. Scharfenberg: Jodi in terms of the facility at the Rec Center, anything that’s upcoming this summer or anything that’s going to go on that we need to know about? Sarles: Right now we’re making a few updates this year just out of the CIP…some aesthetic things like… Scharfenberg: Okay. Hougham: We could use some 3 pound weights in our fitness center. Sarles: 3 pound weights. Hougham: 3 pound weights. Kelly: Thank you Jodi. Thunberg: One comment the sports program booklet that just got sent out I think last Friday or over the weekend, one thing I’ve heard from a few folks is the timing of it. It seems to be 2-3 weeks later from other nearby communities and so when parents are trying to plan out which ones they’re going to sign up for, they’re already kind of looking at that and so it may be beneficial to bump it up a couple weeks earlier just so it’s closer in timing to the other cities. Sarles: …they put together our timelines. Scharfenberg: We weren’t too far behind Chaska. We were like a week behind, something like that. Kelly: Thank you. PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE UPDATE. Kelly: Adam you’re up. 28 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Beers: Thank you Chair Kelly and commissioners. A brief update. We’re in the full swing of spring here. Getting pickleball nets out and tennis nets and fields we’re going to start getting ready next week so if you guys have any questions about kind of our spring operations I’d be glad to answer them. Have some good news. This morning we were able to hire our new light th equipment operator, Adam Farrell. He will be starting with us April 17 so he was in touch with us over the last few days and he talked to Mr. Gerhardt this morning and accepted the offer so exciting times for us. He’s a great candidate. I think he’ll be an awesome addition. He’s a Michigan State turf guy so I like having those guys around. Hoffman: Adam’s replacing. Kelly: Is it Brad Morse? Hoffman: Yep Brad Morse. They went up north. Kelly: I noticed Brad’s name on the list but of course he was here last year. Hoffman: Yep, Brad had 20 years with us and went back home to the Park Rapids area. We’ll see if he retires all the way but his wife’s still working. Kelly: Well good, that’s good news. Say Todd I’ve got a question for you. Just south of the Longacres area on that trail there, you know it’s unlevel because parts of it have eroded. Is that on the list to be upgraded at any time? Hoffman: Is it in the wetland area or along side one of the roads? Kelly: It’s on the wetland area. Hoffman: Wetland area. I’ll check the pavement condition index score for you and so since pavement overlay and trail condition is all part of the pavement management program which is administered by our engineering/public works department. We take a lot of the inquiries. We send those straight to Paul Oehme our City Engineer/Public Works Director so I’ll check on the date and we’ll look at this specific spot as well. Kelly: Also in that area there’s two pine trees and I’ve noticed they were, when I was out this spring they were trimmed down from last fall which was nice but I happened to go right by them when there was a lady walking a dog at the same spot I was and I kind of had to be, I mean I slowed way down but I mean we were like right next to each other and so it seems to me that it was a little unsafe. Usually when I go by there there’s nobody there so it’s not a big deal. Hoffman: So there’s a blind spot from the pine trees? 29 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Kelly: It’s not a blind spot. It just forces you into the wrong side. It takes up too much of the trail I think. Hoffman: Okay thank you. Those we can trim. Most of that trail goes through private property but we do have a maintenance easement there and that would be the parks and recreation department’s responsibility. Kelly: Okay thank you. That was my questions. Any questions for Adam? Thunberg: Keep up the great work. Beers: Will do. Kelly: Thank you Adam. SENIOR CENTER UPDATE. Bill: Good evening. As Todd had mentioned and Jodi has submitted a report and to keep with the time constraints just wondered if anybody had any questions on my report. Kelly: No I don’t have any questions on your report but I was looking through all your activities in the booklet and I’m going to retire when Sue’s still around here because I’m old enough to go but I’m going oh, Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. and I’m not liking all the times. They won’t work for me but I was looking at these things and I go I want to sign up for all of them. They look like fun. Bill: Thank you. Thank you. I’ve tried some things in the evenings and some of them go. I’m going to do a couple of things with Carver County Parks. We’re going to partner and do a canoe excursion, some Nordic walking and outdoor cooking in the evening just to kind of test that and see where we go with that. Kelly: Well thanks for all the programs you do. Like I said they look like a lot of fun. Bill: Thank you. RECREATION PROGRAMS: 2016/17 ICE SKATING/HOCKEY RINK EVALUATION AND 2017 EAST EGG CANDY HUNT PREVIEW. Kelly: Katie’s not here tonight so Jerry you taking that? th Ruegemer: I am Chair Kelly. April 15 the East Egg Candy Hunt is coming up here at City Center Park so if anybody would like to help out with that certainly give us a call. If not just come and enjoy. We’d love to see. Anybody have any questions? 30 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Kelly: Nope, why don’t we move onto the ice rink evaluation. Ruegemer: Thanks Chair Kelly. Just 40 days our season was this year so all the information is in there from skate totals to maintenance costs. Seasonal labor costs. All of it is included along with our historical data. We open and close kind of through the years so for your viewing pleasure. Kelly: So are we happy with the, you know being the first season and not being available right away, are we happy with what we’re seeing at Bandimere right now for skating? Ruegemer: Yeah we didn’t have ice until probably January sometime so yeah I think it’s going to take through this year for people to kind of get into that habit of it being there so I think next year our numbers will definitely increase. All the construction is done. We’ll get the warming house and stuff in there and we’ll hit the ground running this coming December I guess so numbers should increase out there as well so. Hoffman: Yeah those local neighbors are very excited and I think we topped Roundhouse in the first year. The numbers were… Whenever you have lights, a warming house and hockey boards you’re going to have people. You just have to get a little more than 40 days. By the time they figured it out it was done. Hougham: Jerry is our schedule online somewhere that shows when open skate is versus when like a rink is reserved? Ruegemer: The hours are listed online for that. Hougham: Oh they are? Okay, perfect. Kelly: Any other questions? Thank you Jerry. Ruegemer: Thank you. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. Kelly: So I would just like to thank Brent and Luke for their years of service. I think Brent was with us for 6 years and Luke for 4 and they gave us a lot of valuable input and we appreciated th having them on the commission and we wish them best on their way. Also on April 24 the City Council will be giving out awards to both of them so anybody who can make it to the City Council. It would be at the meeting right? 31 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 Hoffman: Right here yeah. th Kelly: Right here at the meeting. Anybody who can make it on the 24 come and support our guys so thank you both. Hoffman: You’ll get to stand up here by the Mayor and receive their award. Get their picture taken. Bring your families. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Kelly: So Todd anything from the Administrative packet you want us to know? Hoffman: There is a couple points of interest in there. Kelly: We talked about the hoops already. When is it going up at Riley? Hoffman: First part of May. Kelly: First part of May, okay. And then that Walk in the Park you want to talk about? th Hoffman: It’s coming up on April 10 and that is one of the items that the senior center is requesting is additional information about walking. It’s one of the best ways to get out there and…we’ll talk about getting into some trails and how to access the different routes and the loops. I was down at the Rice March Lake loop today and stopped and talked to a lot of people and they’re, people are accessing that route. They’re not just walking the 3.2. A couple I was with today they were on a 7 mile route and that’s just part of their 7 mile route and they do it 3 times a week so people like these trails. I was inspired to put up a sign. We’re going to put up Welcome to Chanhassen on our side. It’s going to say you know featuring 102 miles of trails and sidewalk and on the other side it’s going to say Welcome to Eden Prairie…great walking trails and sidewalks in our community. Kelly: Yeah Terri and I were out on Rice Marsh trail a couple weeks ago and we did the full loop and we ran into, everybody we saw, we saw more than once. Hoffman: Again. Kelly: Yeah they were all doing the loop so it is a wonderful loop to take and take advantage of. Thank you Todd. Hoffman: Thank you. Scharfenberg: I’m sorry one more thing. Todd what is the date for, or is there a date for the Arbor Day planting? 32 Park and Recreation Commission – March 28, 2017 th Hoffman: May 6 as far as I recall. Scharfenberg: Okay. th Hoffman: Yeah May 6, Saturday morning. It’s on the cover of the Connection. Very nice th photo from last year. May 6 is a Saturday, that’s Arbor Day. I’ll send you the info. Kelly: Anybody want to put it to the question? Boettcher: Hold up. Kelly: Oops sorry. Boettcher: We have 2 people that won’t be here ever again I’ll let them make the question. Carron 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 9:05 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 33