PRC 2005 07 26
CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
JULY 26, 2005
Chairman Stolar called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m..
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Glenn Stolar, Jack Spizale, Paula Atkins, Steve Scharfenberg, Kevin
Dillon, and Tom Kelly
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Ann Murphy
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; and Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent
APPROVAL OF AGENDA:
Stolar: Do I have any updates or changes to the agenda?
Hoffman: I can give an update on last night’s council action.
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Stolar: Yeah, I was going to say for, and I can give the July 11 report. I was able to attend that
meeting. And then Ann had sent a note about the dog park. Shall we just discuss it under the
CIP discussion?
Hoffman: Sure. I don’t believe they’re ready to present the final report so.
Stolar: Did you see, she sent you an e-mail on that so, but let’s go ahead and put it on the agenda
for August because I think the CIP and that are quite intertwined anyway. If no other changes,
do I have a motion to approve the agenda.
Scharfenberg moved, Spizale seconded to approve the agenda, amended to include an
update of the City Council meeting by Todd Hoffman and discussion of the off leash dog
area under the CIP discussion. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously
with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
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Hoffman: One, just to get it on your radar. August 19 is Chanhassen Day at the Arboretum.
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That’s a Friday. August 19, Friday. Chanhassen Day at the Arboretum. They did a nice job
with it last year and I suspect that they’ll do the same this year.
Stolar: And then also, when’s the next concert?
Ruegemer: Thursday is at August.
Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
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Stolar: So that’d be the 18, right?
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Ruegemer: 18 I think it is, yeah.
Stolar: Okay. The concerts, the noon concerts in City Center Park seem to be going very well.
Ruegemer: We had over 100 people again last Thursday for that. It was Bob and the
Beachcomber Two. Kind of a beach theme for it and next month will be kind of a reggae style
band.
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Stolar: So that’s August 18. And then just real quick on the playgrounds. Curry Farm’s in,
Lotus Lake and.
Hoffman: And done.
Stolar: And done. Ready, open, being used.
Hoffman: Playsmart concrete poured today. Chanhassen Hills to be constructed by Saturday
and I’ll e-mail that agenda and contact you in length. Steve wanted to go work.
Stolar: Yeah, I’ll be out of town for that one. But again those are going great and again the staff
is just doing a fantastic job. The manufacturer is doing a fantastic job with Rice Marsh. They
were way ahead of schedule again. Alright.
Hoffman: A couple other announcements I, we won’t be back before Miracles for Mitch is on
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August 20. What time do they start, do you know the start time?
Ruegemer: It starts at 9:00 a.m..
Hoffman: At Lake Ann.
Ruegemer: Registrations are up I think over 350 already, which is more than last year so Tony is
still hoping for 800.
Hoffman: Which is 500 over last year.
Ruegemer: Yeah, that could crush our little park so we’ll see.
Hoffman: And then that same day I believe, on that Saturday is the ground breaking or grand
ribbon tying ground breaking I guess it would be for the Highway 212 project and that takes
place at 11:00 to 1:00 or 11:00 to 2:00 at the Pioneer Freshman Center. It’s going to be quite an
event…
Kelly: Are they doing the same route for Miracles for Mitch? Are they doing the same route for
Miracles of Mitch as last year?
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Ruegemer: Yes. Tony’s been working with Eckankar to possibly secure some additional
parking and then kind of shuttle people in from there or walk in from there so, and we’ve been
trying to schedule another meeting with Tony here in the next week or so with Tony. Also
members of the Miracles for Mitch committee, Jim Olson and any other city staff that would like
to be there.
Hoffman: And finally for those who haven’t heard, Susan Marek has resigned from the Rec
Center. I believe I sent that information out and she’s headed for Chaska to take care of their
new fitness center as their fitness coordinator as they remodel their community center and we
have 75 applications sitting upstairs and ready to go through for a new recreation center
manager. From across the country and I’m not sure if it’s internationally but I know from many
places in the country so.
Kelly: Wow. What’s the process? Is there a committee or how, can you give me a process?
Hoffman: Interview process will be 3 of us from city hall who will interview. Justin Miller and
I have gone through the applications and pointed out the highest qualified candidates and then
we take it from there. Probably interview 6 to 8 the first go around.
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Kelly: They’re going to be want to be working for the community center in the 16 best city in
the country.
Hoffman: Absolutely. So we’re excited about that.
Stolar: Anything else? Quite a few announcements. Okay.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
Todd Neils: I my name is Todd Neils. I am the Vice President of the Chanhassen Athletic
Association Little League. I’ve been here a number of times over the past several months
discussing a proposed signage at the public parks, which was graciously passed by the
commission last time I was here. I don’t know if Commissioner Stolar, your prophetic but it did
get lukewarm response from City Council in the work session that I attended and so I’m here for
a different reason this time. Quick statement. We as a board wanted to thank the commission.
With their cooperation and support we’re able to serve over 700 families in our community with
our baseball and softball programs this year. We culminated in a championship tournament a
handful of weeks ago. Having the state tournament for softball here in Chanhassen. Additionally
we were able to field several highly competitive boys and girls teams in all star competitions that
have since finished. I’d like to speak on behalf of the entire Little League Board of Directors.
It’s our hope that we can parlay our successes from this year with our families into a greater
expectation for the 2006 season. We know we have a lot of hard work and planning to do and
we’re counting on continued support from the city to help this goal become a reality. We also
would like to thank you for your guidance and support Mr. Hoffman over the last several months
in guiding us along this process regarding the requests made to the Park and Rec and council this
year. We had laid out an assertive plan to generally more generate incremental revenue for our
program with the intent of re-investing those funds directly into ballfields and facilities. We
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
know the city shares our vision of creating a positive and enriching experience for our growing
program and are asking for your support in the following areas as you look to plan for your 2000
budget. At this point I’ll leave my prepared statement and wing it a bit. Because we did receive
lukewarm response from the City Council, didn’t necessarily feel compelled to press the issue.
Also with the knowledge that you were going through a budgetary process for the 2006 year, we
are here to request that you either amend or increase your budget to the extent that you will make
the facilities that we were willing to fund within your guise rather than the use of signage or any
other funding means that we would grant to the city. Specifically the Little League would like to
see the addition of lighting standards on Fields 2, 3 and possibly 6 at Lake Ann Park over the
next several years legged in. And additionally some dugouts placed, some more permanent
structure dugouts placed on the fields to both provide shade during the heat of the, as we all
know the, after the last 2 weeks, the heat of the sun, wind and possibly safety issues from foul
balls. That’s about where I end and would be more than happy to field any type of questions or,
that you may have.
Stolar: Questions?
Dillon: So Todd when you’re talking about including the, I’ll just use the word amenities or
additions that you were looking at the ballfields, other than what you just mentioned, the lighting
standards and the dugouts, are you referring specifically to scoreboards?
Todd Neils: Scoreboards I believe are a separate issue at this point. We still have not addressed
City Council formally to make our donation of the scoreboards. We had some issues in shipping
and really only received one viable scoreboard. That was acceptable by what we felt our
standards and actually shipped the other two back, with the expectation that they will replace
them, at their cost. The amenities would be, as I said, the dugouts and the lighting standards but
would be as much for safety in addition to expectation of increase in participation over the next
several years. I think back in February when I was here and I didn’t bring the chart necessarily,
our expectation is, as we expand our boundaries and as Chanhassen continues to grow, being the
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16 most livable community in the United States, that we expect our participation in the next
several years to grow upwards of double to possibly 1,200 to 1,400 children that are going to go
through our program. Based on the fact that there isn’t a dedicated ballpark in Chanhassen area,
other than the Lake Ann area and possibly Bandimere, we don’t feel that the current make-up of
ballfields can support that. By adding additional lighting standards we can add additional games
on a nightly basis. Have double headers and so on and so forth.
Dillon: So just to get back and just clarify I think at least for me and maybe other people on that
scoreboard issue, is that it’s still the plan of the CAA to donate scoreboards for placement at
Lake Ann?
Todd Neils: Yes.
Dillon: Okay.
Todd Neils: Three scoreboards at this point. We’re going to donate 3 scoreboards at this point
to Lake Ann.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Dillon: Okay. And is that, I take it Todd with the assistance of the city putting those up, do we
still have to get approval from the council at this point or is that?
Hoffman: To install scoreboards?
Dillon: Right.
Hoffman: They don’t have a concern with that portion of the proposal.
Dillon: Okay.
Stolar: Other questions for Todd.
Atkins: Which do you think is more important, the lighting or the dugouts?
Todd Neils: That’s a great question. The reason I say it is because I want to take into
consideration both the safety of the children in the program because I’ve seen enough foul balls
go over the screen to have concern. But also know that with the growth in the program, we’re
going to find it necessary sooner than later to run double headers possibly on a nightly basis.
Unless there are additional fields added to the Chanhassen area.
Atkins: Are you wishing for dugouts on all 3 of those fields?
Todd Neils: Yes. I, you know initially my thought was to have, or that the appropriate structure
would be a cement block with a roof and you know possibly sunk in and so on and so forth with
a drain and, but after going to Hopkins and seeing the simple chainlink structure with roof that
they have erected, I think those are equally as appropriate from a safety standpoint. As well as
shielding some of the sun from the children.
Atkins: Okay. That’s all.
Stolar: Thanks Paula.
Scharfenberg: How many fields now currently have lights on them?
Todd Neils: Lake Ann 1.
Hoffman: 1, 4 and 5.
Todd Neils: 4 and 5 are typically used for adult softball and aren’t available to any of the
surrounding communities. For Little League or other purposes.
Scharfenberg: …Todd, what’s the average amount of money to put in lights on a baseball field?
Hoffman: $50,000 to $100,000. So it depends on what you buy.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Scharfenberg: I don’t have any other questions.
Stolar: Okay, anything?
Spizale: No, I don’t have any.
Stolar: Okay. Then I assume you’ll be staying around when we do our CIP discussion in case
we have other questions?
Todd Neils: Sure.
Stolar: Any other comments you want to add?
Todd Neils: No, not at this point.
Stolar: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Scharfenberg moved, Dillon seconded to approve the
summary and verbatim minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated
June 28, 2005 as presented.
2006 PARK AND TRAIL ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT, CAPITAL
IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP).
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar and members of the commission. Park acquisition, it’s
actually park and trail acquisition and development, CIP, is a tool utilized by the department, the
city, commission, the City Council and the residents to identify important improvements within
our park and trail system that we would like to see funded and projects approved to move
forward with additional amenities throughout the city. We’re looking at years ’06 through 2010
so 5 year CIP to take a look at the overall numbers. The 5 year CIP as you have it before you
identifies $6,590,000 in acquisition and improvements. Much of that is in land acquisition in the
2005 MUSA area. That particular item, it’s a place holder. It may or may not actually occur,
depending upon how that park is acquired and it’s a cash, or a cash and dedication acquisition, or
perhaps simply an acquisition through the Bluff Creek Preservation Zone, so the one thing we
know is land is very expensive there. It’s $200,000-$250,000 an acre and so if you take a look at
those kind of land costs, you’re talking a 15 to 20 acre site that we have in conceptually terms
identified and what the actual size of that park will be is yet to be determined. So you take the
$4 million out and you’re down to $2,590,000 over that 5 year period. Current cash reserves in
the park dedication fund total $1,100,000. Over the next 5 years we predict that an additional 7
and a half million in park fees will be generated. Much of that will be coming out of the 2005
MUSA area and these other infill areas within the community that will be generating additional
park dedication income. You run these expenditures and revenues out to 2010 and you see a
positive cash flow of $2 million and that’s kind of a long range budget scenario. It’s a
comfortable position for a city to be in. I’d like to go through this specific improvement because
that’s where the things really get done. The individual items. If you look to the flow chart with
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
the spread sheet. Take each one, one at a time. 2005 MUSA area park, I’ve already talked about
that. It’s a place holder. It may or may not actually be a cash expenditure. It might be a
dedication. It might be a combination of other things. West water treatment plant.
Stolar: Todd, quick question and this will hit the west water treatment also. Are these funds just
for land or are they for the park facilities also?
Hoffman: Just for land.
Stolar: Just for land. So where would the park facility costs be?
Hoffman: Depends on the time of development. When you acquire the land and when you want
to develop the park site so. If we think we’re going to develop, purchase in ’06 and you want to
develop in ’08. Then we’re going to have to include those costs.
Stolar: Yeah, I was thinking we might want to start at least a place holder for those also because
I would think within the next 5 years, assuming they go at the pace they’re talking, we probably
will have those expenditures…
Hoffman: Often times what we do is we, or another way to look at it, if you, the acquisition goes
through then we can more closely identify what the programming will be and get a better.
Stolar: Better estimate, okay.
Hoffman: It’s difficult to say if there’s ballparks or no ballparks. The price of this park could go
anywhere from probably $1,000 to a million and a half.
Stolar: Gotch ya. Okay.
Dillon: Where’s the MUSA? Where is that?
Hoffman: Sure, the 2005 MUSA area is the, if you drive down Lyman Boulevard and head
down Audubon to Chaska, it’s those farms that are in that particular region. You can take a look
at this overhead. You’ve got Lyman and Audubon to the west, and then this entire agricultural
region north of Highway 212 will be developed as 212 comes in.
Stolar: That’s where they showed that we have the bluff and we’re looking at 20 acres or 25
acres by the bluff, or by the creek there, excuse me.
Dillon: What is MUSA an acronym for again?
Hoffman: Metropolitan Urban Service Area. And so the Met Council allows only certain
amounts of land to come into the urban service area for sewer and water to control growth within
the metropolitan region. So our comprehensive plan states that this area is in a 2005 MUSA
expansion area where now developer can go ahead and the city can work with them to push out
roads and sewer and water lines and to start the development process. Up until 2005 you could
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
not develop in an urban manner in that area. And then there’s a 2010 MUSA area which is south
of 212 and a 2020, which is even farther south of that down near the golf course.
Stolar: Okay.
Hoffman: West water treatment plant park acquisition. We’re looking at a plan for that as well.
We’re talking about the Lake Harrison development. Put an asterisk there because it is an
expenditure which has been identified. There is a purchase agreement pending and City Council,
working with the City Manager, they’ve identified that $540,000 will go under park dedication
dollars. Where that number comes from is the park service areas. Includes the Pinehurst
development which is the Mancino property. The Crestview or Highcrest Meadows which is,
what it used to be called Yoberry, and then the Lake Harrison. And so they took these new
developments in that area. Added up their park dedication fees and you know you reach about
that $540,000 total. There’s also over $600,000 in water and utility money going into that
acquisition because there’s going to be a water treatment plant there as well. So again expensive
land acquisition. Land costs are extremely high in that community. Acquiring these last few
parks to fill out our system is getting to be more expensive, but it’s just the cost of doing
business in today’s world.
Dillon: And this is the one right off of Galpin right?
Hoffman: Right off of Galpin. That we walked up on the hill. So $540,000 is dedicated to that.
Lake Susan Park. Parking lot expansion and improvements, but if we’re talking about a dog park
or any future ballfield improvements there, we have an area where we can expand that parking
lot. That park is always overfilled with parking when we have group activities taking place
there. I’m noting that there’s two items here with a double asterisk that would come out of the
Fund 400, which is our general capital fund. All other projects would be funded through the
park dedication allocation dollars. Highover Trail is a trail segment along a power line and with
the development of the Yoberry or Highcrest Meadow development, now we have an outlet for
that trail and so it’s right now a turf trail and an outlot, city outlot. Very linear. Runs from the
Highover development and once we have that connection to, down to Highcrest Meadows, we
more or less promised the neighborhood that once we get that connection we’ll make that
improvement and complete that pedestrian improvement through an asphalt trail. Athletic field
improvements. We’ve noted $60,000 for some of the items generally that that would fund
dugouts and some other type of improvements. The lights we talk about a little bit later on in the
2008 budget, at least as a part of this proposal. Lake Susan Park trails. When we go ahead and
start to take a look at the playground remodeling, the dog park proposal, new parking lots. We
need some additional dollars to reroute some of the trails in Lake Susan. If you’ve ever visited
Lake Susan, you have some traffic routes that aren’t taken care of in our pedestrian travel plan.
Liz and I walked one of them this morning when you have to cut across the park and make some
good sense to make those trail connections. We’ve identified $30,000 for a city off leash dog
area in 2006. $35,000 for a City Center Park performance stage, and that would be in the area
where currently we pull a flatbed trailer in and put our performances on. We’d like to, it was
always slated for a performance area. We wanted to see how the park finished out, and if that
was going to be a viable location for performances. We think it is. It’s located just in front of
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
the tiered walls where you would come in with a paver or concrete area. Perhaps with some of
the removal shade netting that you can put up during the concert experience…
Dillon: Todd, would this be something that could be used in the evening?
Hoffman: Sure. Oh yeah. Yep, can be used by library programs. City programs in the evening.
Music programs. Plays. Skits. Just a formalized performance area to allow some diversified
programming in that area. Recreation center trees. If you’ve ever played on a softball or
baseball tournament, recreation…know that we need additional trees because many of the trees
there have not lived to grow into their maturity. There’s a row of oaks that go along that trail
and they were poor stock to begin with. We worked very hard. I wanted to say fought but we
worked very hard with the original installation folks and we had some new trees put in there,
some of which survived but they were poor quality to begin with and so we are suffering the
consequences. We would like to rectify that and plant some new trees. Neighborhood athletic
netting. This is a constant complaint at the soccer fields where the soccer balls are kicked either
into back yards or into the highly, heavily wooded area down the hill from the soccer fields. We
would like to put in some chainlink nets behind the soccer goals to eliminate that problem. Lake
Minnewashta off leash dog contribution is something you know about already. Bluff Creek trail
plan. Lyman to Pioneer. We need to hire a consultant to go ahead and finalize a plan to take the
pedestrian trail down in Bluff Creek corridor from Lyman Boulevard south to Pioneer. This is a
trail plan for, when all of these developments come in, Degler and Jeurissen, the bridge and the
road, which side of the trail, which side of the creek is the trail going to be on? Where the bridge
is? You know just how is that trail going to be developed and so these are consulting dollars for
that trail plan.
Stolar: And there has to be time with the development layouts and such.
Hoffman: Well we would want to do it next year, pre-development so then we would have the
plan in place as each one.
Stolar: So they can be incorporated in when they start…
Hoffman: Yes. As they develop.
Kelly: So that’s just all consulting?
Hoffman: Correct. Couple of park trails. When I saw park trail, the trail, working on the Rice
Marsh Lake Park folks, they would like to see a trail winding around their park, similar to
Chanhassen Hills has one that cuts through it. North Lotus has one that goes around it. They
seem to be very popular for people to take a walk through their park, and we included two of
them. One at Rice Marsh and one at South Lotus Lake park areas. South Lotus Lake has a
playground in the middle and it has half of the trail but the other half isn’t completed yet so
people can get around their parks a little bit better. Park master plan updates. We have an
outdated park master plans which provide some usefulness but obviously with any document as
it gets updated, it just needs to be updated and then put in a soft copy as well, so we included
some dollars for that. The Bandimere Heights half court basketball. Something that the
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
commission’s been talking about to, once we take that playground out to give them something
back. Bandimere Heights Park. And that’s the extent of ’06 and it adds up to $5,087,000. It
includes, on the last page there some picnic tables, benches and then some trees and an annual
contribution that we make for $6,000 and $5,000. So why don’t we take each year and we won’t
draw the final conclusions but have some discussion on each year so we can keep it a little better
organized, everything going through. So interested to hear the commission’s comments and then
I’ll answer any questions for you. You can also obviously add, amend, delete. Make any
changes that you feel appropriate as long as you can get the votes and send this onto the City
Council.
Stolar: Jack, why don’t we start with you.
Spizale: I guess so far they all look great to me. It’s really nice to see that there’s money in
there for the city’s off leash dog area which we’ve been talking about. Looks good to me.
Stolar: Kevin.
Dillon: You know just off the top of my head it looks, I don’t know, like 5 million dollars for
the funds, give or take a little bit, and so how much is in the budget? Is 5 million there? I mean
even with the fees that will be coming in for the land that is dedicated, is it, I mean how much of
this is doable…
Hoffman: Well depending on the timing of the mechanics timing and mechanics of the 2005
MUSA area park acquisition, and the timing of the development of that area, park dedication
fund may experience a deficit for a period of perhaps 1 or 2 years, so if we did go out and spend
the 4 million, that would drive that budget to a deficit. That’s something we would have to
manage but may not be a cash outlay at all. It may be a dedication and may be part and parcel so
that bridge will have to be crossed when we get there but it certainly is.
Dillon: So you don’t know.
Hoffman: We don’t know and it’s a place holder. It’s something that the council will be very
involved in and we look at these other items, so you take out the $4 million and you’re down to a
million dollars and the fund can finance those items.
Stolar: And you take out the 540 also because that was targeted as the fees we’re going to get
through those developments. One fund that we already received though, right?
Hoffman: We already received Highcrest Meadows or Yoberry, yes.
Stolar: Okay, so part of that 540 is also kind of separate in that it’s targeted towards fees we’re
going to receive from Lake Harrison and.
Hoffman: Yeah, well part of the 540, the 540 is part of the 7 ½ million that will come in over the
year.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: So it’s really, what I was getting to, it’s more like about $600,000 that we’re actually
outlaying roughly.
Dillon: Alright, so given the situation with the MUSA park, and maybe it’s not laid out all at
one time or at all, is there an opportunity to bring some of the other projects in, in a sooner year,
say in ’07 or ’08, and/or and there’s just too much on the plate right now just in terms of like
what can be executed by the department. Would there be any desire to do that I suppose?
Hoffman: There may or may not. Even if you back out the 4 million for the MUSA park, you
back out the 540, the remaining items are fairly aggressive CIP for the department. Probably
100% larger than what we’ve done traditionally. We’ve traditionally performed $250,000-
$300,000 in annual improvements. So we’re being a little bit more aggressive because of the
growth in the community. Things we have lined up. Then if you look at the other years, ’07,
’08, ’09 and those are all, basically $300,000-$400,000 so more back in line with where we’ve
been in the past years. This year is, 2006 there’s just a lot of things lined up that people have
been waiting to see happen or have a desire to see happen. It adds up to a million bucks…
Dillon: It looks like a good list and I don’t have any other questions.
Kelly: I have a couple. Athletic field improvements for the $60,000. Those are pretty much
slated for dugouts? Is that what?
Hoffman: It’s just a round number. We haven’t identified the total breakdown yet.
Kelly: I was just wondering you know, kind of what Todd had brought up. How much is, is that
one dugout? Is it two dugouts? I mean I guess I’m curious how much $60,000 buys you if you
use that toward building dugouts.
Hoffman: Well if you built 3 fields, 6 dugouts, you could spend that entire amount if you did the
concrete block and roof, so you can go from that on down to the chainlink fence and roof. We
would have to, once the number is in there, you’ll have to kind of start to see just how far you
want to take it. We can do some of that pencil work before we get into the final approval as
well. Council may want to know the specifics about what we’re proposing.
Kelly: Other question I had too was a couple times we’ve seen that surface, the rollerblade
surface at the rec center and it looks, I don’t know, it doesn’t look good. Is there any plan in the
CIP to, I know we’ve talked about bringing something in and would that money actually come
out of the CIP to fix that up or would that be a separate?
Hoffman: Those would come out of a park maintenance fund and what it’s proposed is to
remove the asphalt and then reconstruct the boards and grass or gravel surface.
Stolar: Is that with the Rec Center hockey boards would say? CIP.
Hoffman: Which one?
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: Rec Center hockey boards.
Hoffman: Oh yeah, $60,000 yeah.
Stolar: Is that included with removing of that asphalt or not?
Hoffman: Yes.
Stolar: Okay. And they will be flooding the grassy area for the winter hockey.
Hoffman: Yeah, I apologize. Tom I missed…what we had included there but out of a separate
budget. Not out of the 410 budget.
Kelly: Alright. I think that was all I had for that year.
Stolar: Paula.
Atkins: Looks like maybe the off leash dog area question might be a good time to settle that
soon before the Lake Susan parking lot improvement and expansion goes down. I think we
should really concentrate on that. I really liked that site a lot. And yeah, I was wondering about
the noise factor in the City Center Park with the performance stage too. It’s attractive noise.
Hoffman: Yeah, we were concerned about that and there is traffic noise there, but it seems to be
tolerable at least and perhaps not even that noticeable during…
Atkins: In the evening.
Hoffman: Well at noon and the evening, we’ve had both types of performances down there.
You wouldn’t want a real quiet.
Atkins: A drama.
Hoffman: Drama.
Atkins: Okay. That’s all for me.
Scharfenberg: Are we talking about other years too other than just 2006?
Hoffman: Yep, we’ll get through with them and then you can start to move things around if you
like.
Scharfenberg: You know with the off leash dog area, is there any, is there any update in terms of
Lake Minnewashta and what the status of that is at this point?
Hoffman: No change since the last time I’ve heard so. Don’t know if they have any additional
money and they think it’s a very nice site. In fact people have been, there’s a lot of groups that
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
are very excited about it. Have been working on the proposal and they think it’s the best site of
any park, developed or planned in the metropolitan area, so they’re excited about the location.
Now it’s just somebody’s got to put the 40 grand in the till and that’s tough to do so.
Scharfenberg: Well and you know, I see our City Council looking at it and you’ve got 35 for an
off leash dog area. Then another 20 going into Lake Minnewashta. Then you’ve got 55. Well,
why don’t we just give the full 40 if we’re going to do that and we’ll do one site as opposed to
putting in 15 more and doing two sites. I mean I’d prefer, I’d much rather prefer doing
something like that than developing two sites. I mean we are the stakeholder, I mean it is in our
city where the majority of the people from our city are going to be using it. You know, it
appears that money is the big item driving that whole particular issue. I mean they’ve said,
we’ve got the park. We’ve got the land. We’ll do it. We just need the money. That’s what I’m
hearing for the most part. And there’s been, you know I would prefer instead of doing that, I
mean I’d like to keep the money in there and put it in one particular site but push, you know
make the push on the other communities. Shorewood, I though Todd last time you talked they
said there was a group from Shorewood that was very interested in doing something like that. I
mean I foresee this coming but I hate to do two sites spending money, especially what I think
some of the reaction we’ve gotten from council in the past about the money issue. I’m assuming
that’s going to come up with that while they’re looking at this.
Stolar: Okay. Why don’t we hold off one second. I’ll ask a couple questions but before we
leave this year I’d like to talk about the dog park, so we’ll bring it right back to Steve. Any other
points?
Scharfenberg: That was it.
Stolar: I just have a couple of quick questions. Athletic field improvements, and I know we’ll
talk about the specifics later and I think there are a couple different options we’re going to have
in this CIP discussion. One will be the dog park and I think the other one’s going to be
ballfields. If the $60,000 were used, were you envisioning it just Lake Ann or were you
envisioning it across the entire city in this initial year?
Hoffman: Fields of highest priority based on a joint conversation with the athletic associations
in the city.
Stolar: Okay. So it’s still to be determined but in all those other variables we talked about what
type of things we do will come into play.
Hoffman: Yeah. And the conversation just will not be with the CAA. But with the other.
Stolar: Other leagues and such. Okay. And then we also just, I’ll throw this in. We also need to
make sure that we understand are there any needs outside of the baseball/softball fields that
might fall into the improvement area, correct? Okay. Just wanted to see some, I think that’s all I
had for 2006 was the question about that. Kind of as a preview, as we get into the other years
and rearrange, you and I talked about the view, my question will be do we need to look at Lake
Ann 2006. What can we do on the fields, athletic fields more than just the ballfields, to improve
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
capacity? Which is going to be an issue for us. And maybe it’s worth looking at it in 2006 so
I’ll bring that up after you talk through, including a little bit of the dugouts or whatever safety
shelters we need across the fields as well as lights. Should we talk about the dog park because I
actually have a different question. I’m going to take a different tact than you but I think both of
our, gearing towards the same thing. I’m also uncomfortable with two, but I’m actually
uncomfortable with continuing to hold out $20,000 to Carver County. I think we have a good
site in Lake Susan. I think we’re trying to, we have a vision for that park. That’s including you
know playground, extended parking lot, redoing the path and putting a dog park there. A simple
dog park. Not a, off leash dog area. We won’t even call it a dog park because there’s going to
be no amenities. It’s just going to be, it’s more in our control. It’s more doable in the shorter
time period. I actually think we need to put a time stamp on the offer out to Carver County. It is
a commitment, but I don’t think it’s a commitment beyond this year. If they take it, then that
impacts them and then our fault where you’re saying that let’s put the $20,000 there and you
know be careful how much more we spend but I think if they aren’t decided by the end of this
year, we ought to just put the Lake Susan one in. Now I don’t know how that impacts us. We
might have to decide sooner though, right?
Hoffman: Sooner than?
Stolar: Because of the stuff you’re going to do this year in Lake Susan.
Hoffman: ’06.
Stolar: Well after the new playground, aren’t you going to extend the parking lot as part of that?
Hoffman: Just the playground will be.
Stolar: Playground’s it so that won’t impact anything. Okay. So then, that’d be my one
question is that one really needs a footnote that it really doesn’t need to be on here because to me
that’s 2005 spending, the Lake Minnewashta. If they come up with the matching funds, which
we said they need to come up with, then that’s going to, then we might consider whether in 2006
we want to do any dog park area. Off leash area. If they don’t come up with it, then I would just
do Lake Susan and not keep that $20,000 in. Well we haven’t decided Lake Susan or Lake Ann,
but I think even Ann had mentioned briefly we thought Lake Susan might be the better one.
Hoffman: No, she didn’t say.
Stolar: She didn’t say it in her e-mail but she and I have talked.
Hoffman: Yeah, it’s an interesting conversation. You’re talking about $600,000 in
improvements. What’s your highest priority? A dog park seems to be very high priority and so
if that moves to number 1, well which one is it or is it both? At $600,000, can you send $40,000
Carver Park’s way and then have that park done? You don’t know an exact price on Lake Susan
yet but would have to determine that. And then what amount is that?
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: I think the issue I had with the Minnewashta was, we were willing to contribute to a
multi city facility and we would pay a greater share than the other’s because it is in our city. I
would be against, I would vote against our paying for one in total. If we’re going to do that, I’d
rather have it more centrally located within our city to serve more of our city population if we’re
footing the entire bill.
Hoffman: One thing to consider, you’re going to get about an acre at Lake Susan and like 15 at
Minnewashta.
Stolar: Understood.
Scharfenberg: And I think the other consideration that this commission has to take is that you’re
putting, you’re going to be putting another amenity in a park that’s already highly used and I like
the site. It’s a nice site but I think you’re putting it in a concentrate may too many in that area.
That’s my feeling is that you’ve got, you know you’ve got a park already on the weekends full
with group picnics and stuff like that. Baseball. I mean you go by there every weekend there’s
games going on there. I just think there’s going to be too big of a concentration for dog owners
who want to use that facility and people who also want to use the facility, whereas you’ve got, as
Todd said, you’ve got this 10 to 15 acre area where people you know as we had heard previously
who are already using it, love to use it. They can run off leash. Stuff like that. I just think that
that’s the best site. To put in a dog park for the city. I know it’s not centrally located for
everybody, but it’s free land and. I mean I’d like to have it happen sooner than later too. I’d like
to put a time table on it but I think we need to push the County if we’re going to do that and
make a decision and try to push these other groups and try to get some money if we can to lower
our cost if we can do that.
Kelly: Yeah, I would just, I mean for the past 5 years we’ve been looking for land for a dog
park. That’s always been the big fire. Where can we put a dog park and it just seems looking at
two pieces of land that Minnewashta would be a better facility for the dogs and I would be fine
upping our contribution $20-25,000 just to get it done. To put it, to have a quality park. I mean
it may not be centrally located but dog owners I believe will go there with their dogs. So I do
agree with Steve. I would like to, I would prefer to put our money into Lake Minnewashta. If
we’ve got to pay for the whole thing, we pay for the whole thing as opposed to one at Lake
Susan.
Spizale: I disagree. I agree with Glenn. As I’ve been observing people with their dogs in the
city for probably the last 2 years since I’ve been interested in it and if you look around the
community, most people that are walking their dogs are walking in this area. And the other thing
is it’s not just having space for the dogs, it’s for the people to get together with the dogs. And I
just think Minnewashta is way too far away. I think there are a very few select type of people. I
would use it but I would just rather use something that was closer. I mean it’s a great spot for
big dogs and hunting dogs but I think most of the people that I see walking in this area would
have a destination place to walk to. It’d be close to the area that it get themselves out walking
and there’d be a point they could let their dogs run and play and then they can walk back to
where they live. So I think the park that’s centrally located would get used much more.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Scharfenberg: You know the other option too and I think Glenn you’ve mentioned this. We’ve
talked about it, is just why do they go off leash in some of our parks? I mean it’s closer to
people. It’s no cost whatsoever to do it. Wouldn’t necessarily have to be every park. But I
mean we’ve mentioned that, talked about that before. I mean that’s one option where I mean is it
Minnetonka.
Hoffman: Minnetonka is off leash in their natural areas.
Scharfenberg: Natural areas, okay.
Stolar: And Eden Prairie does some fields. During off season.
Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah, one thing I have not seen anybody do yet but you could off leash before
noon every day in the city park system.
Stolar: And I think I’m in favor of something like that. I’m going to actually throw another
wrench in this discussion. I thought our priority as a commission was we were going to do
something this year, which would mean none of these expenditures would fall in 2006. Changes
our balance going into the year but it’s not a CIP thing. But I still want to see something this
year. Now maybe it ends up being what you just mentioned Steve, is our action for this year and
we put these in the CIP so I guess I’d almost like to footnote those once we discuss the dog park
resolution, we may find that this goes away. But I guess from what I’m hearing from the
commission though, we probably would like to potentially bucket in one bucket off leash dog
area funding. And whether it’s by vote of the commission and the recommendation from with
Jack and Ann put together, whether we say we’re putting 40 grand towards Minnewashta or
we’re doing the split as recommended here for 55 grand. It sounds like we want one bucket and
how much do we want to put in the bucket I guess is the question. And I can see capping it at
40. And saying you know we’re going to make choices here and it’s going to be tough choices
but we’re going to make choices and if it turns out that we give 20 to Carver because they find
everything else that they need to get that going, then we put another 20 out there for something
else, great. Whether that 20 is signage or a smaller option, whatever. Are people comfortable
with that and then the off leash dog area decision, drive it and potentially maybe all of it gets
done this year.
Hoffman: Yeah something, talking about Glenn you’ve been talking about it as well. I know
Steve brought it up. …dog parks are going through this growth cycle and now you’re starting to
see a little bit of the repercussions. You know more incidents of the larger dogs getting in
trouble with the little dogs. So you concentrate, it’s just like a skate park. You concentrate that
activity so we’re going to concentrate these dogs and these owners where it’s very interesting
and I hadn’t thought about it until tonight. Liz and I walked both our dogs this morning. 5:30 to
7:00 and the parks are very quiet and we kept them on leash. Walked through the parks. Went
to Susan. Around, but just to say to the community that before noon each day you can go off
leash. It happens on a very common basis already in our park system and just tell the
th
community, make a recommendation on August 8 to the council. If this is something you want
to investigate. Have the City Attorney take a look at it. See if he would support it. If it turns out
this is…and put it out to the community. It’d be very innovative and to see, then you have 36
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
parks sites where people can take their dogs off leash every morning or before noon. Some
people don’t have that, it may not work in their schedule but you can’t please everybody.
Dillon: Would you have to change the city ordinance for that?
Hoffman: You would.
Kelly: Put all new signs.
Atkins: Yeah. How much would it cost?
Scharfenberg: We’d have to put up new signs like Tom said.
Hoffman: It’d be a policy change, and Minnetonka does it in their natural areas. It’d include all
sorts of things. Not at the beaches. Not at the playgrounds. Not in the ballfields, those sort of
things, but people are going to pick an area. They’re typically going to pick out the field or area
next to a pond or a lake where they can let their dog swim.
Stolar: And I don’t know how complex this would get but it my question would be, the only
concern would be runners and bikers in the morning who use parks. They would probably object
to it so there might be some need in some parks to have designated areas. That we say, and that
goes to your point of maybe not on the path. Depending on the situation but I think once we
work through all that, the concept that allows what we’ve been trying to achieve which is people
can have a place to run their dogs.
Hoffman: The attractiveness of Minnewashta is that it’s going to be it’s own designated area.
There’s going to be adequate parking for wide use. Whereas weekends at Lake Susan, there may
be times when certain users are just going to have to stay away because they’re not going to be
able to parking, and the dog park would be located at the west end of the parking lot which is
where everybody parks for the picnics. Group picnics and the playground and the ballfield, and
so everybody driven to that corner and it would be a very lively park because you’ve got a brand
new, big playground with people going to that. People going to the archery range which is a
unique use. People going to the dog park which is a unique use. People going to the ballfields
and then if you have a group picnic going on with 150-200 people in the pavilion, you’re not
going to fit them all in that parking lot. It’s just not going to happen, so certain people are going
to have to stay away. And so now you’ve developed…that during certain times of the year or
week you’re just not going to get the people there to use it. It’s a busy location now. It is a good
dog park location but for the only dog park, I’m not sure that it would be, any thoughts on that
Jerry?
Ruegemer: I would agree with everything you said. That park is at capacity right now. Then
you add boating to that as well. People using the swimming beach. Coming down and using the
canoe racks. Fishing pier. There’s a lot of different uses for that park and to add, and I don’t
know what the daily numbers would be for that but you know just on, I only schedule practices
from about, everything is done by 11:00 on Saturday mornings. So beyond that, that’s just pick
up games. I know that there’s a large population that are there every Sunday playing baseball
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
and having picnics and that sort of thing beyond the normal picnics that I schedule. Pretty much
every Saturday and Sunday at Lake Susan it’s booked throughout the summer and also during
the week now. We’re having a lot of use at both pavilions at Lake Susan and Lake Ann. And
we’re going through a lot of that right now at Lake Ann. There is no more capacity for really
any other types of activities beyond expanding parking lots. Maybe there’s ways that we can
improve parking. Have pull out parking on the driveways coming in or off street somewhere
else. I don’t know but right now we are at capacity. Because Todd’s right. We have a lot of
picnics that are 75 to 150 people. That’s pretty routine throughout the course of the summer and
everybody is arriving at 11:00 or noon and staying til 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 at night on the weekends
so you are going to have a lot of use in that area.
Hoffman: The other way to look at these capital improvements and often times in our business
it’s discussed is that if you can give somebody something, and then they have to maintain it over
it’s life, you’re better off giving them whatever they’re getting and they maintain it because it
will cost tem more to maintain it and operate it than what you’re initial investment is. So if our
initial investment at Lake Susan is $40,000 and we average it for 10 years, our aggregate
investment’s going to be 100 grand plus 10 years of aggravation of operating a dog park. If we
give $20,000 to the regional park, that’s $40,000 period and then they have to operate the thing
for 10 years. You lose some control but you also don’t have to deal with the headaches and the
maintenance cost over that time period.
Stolar: Bringing that discussion back here, it seems to me like we will have an item that we will
have to give direction to staff regarding off leash dog areas tonight, I think that would be helpful.
But for the budgeting purposes, are there changes you want to make in the city off leash dog area
or Lake Minnewashta off leash dog area, any suggested changes?
Hoffman: You may also want to wait for the report right? From the committee.
Stolar: We were supposed to have the report in July. I don’t think we can wait. Quite honestly.
This group has to make a decision, for the guidance for the CIP. Guidance. It’s not finalizing
what we’re doing in, I’m saying we need to define the CIP today. The off leash dog area
recommendation was supposed to have been on the agenda for 3 months now. Three successive
months. I think we have a sense of opinion here that we probably could advance the CIP the way
we need to. To make a decision there. Nothing’s final in this or in that. But we should make a
statement here I think in the CIP.
Hoffman: Yeah, in your August meeting we should move closer to finalizing your CIP.
Stolar: So, I don’t know Steve, did you want to make any changes or Tom? If not, we can leave
it as is and then bring it.
Scharfenberg: Well you know I like your suggestion earlier Glenn that we just put one item and
if that’s $40,000, I’m fine with that.
Stolar: You may make the motion to, or how do you want to do this Todd? Just collect all these
and then come back?
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Hoffman: Yep. Yeah, you would want to just start to make changes and then make the final
motion.
Stolar: What do people think? Let’s just do a quick poll.
Kelly: I’d just want one item for dog parks.
Atkins: I think everything Todd and Jerry said made an awful lot of sense.
Stolar: So shall we go with one line item for off leash dog areas? And a budget amount of 40.
Hoffman: $40,000.
Stolar: Any objection? Concern?
Kelly: Was $40,000 the total amount that they needed at Minnewashta was the $40,000 in
addition to the $20,000 that we promised?
Hoffman: No. It was 40.
Kelly: Okay.
Stolar: That doesn’t mean we’re committing $40,000 to Minnewashta at this time but, and if it
turns out we decide to just go with these just these free standing areas, that $20,000…
Kelly: …of maybe opening up our neighborhood parks to dogs and would require signage.
Would that cost come out of that? I’m just wondering if you up it to $25,000, throw a couple
thousand extra in for potentially some new signs.
Spizale: I like the idea of the combination. You know having an off leash park and changing the
ordinance at all or certain parks, which I think would really relieve the pressure.
Dillon: I don’t know why it’s just, there’s $55,000 kind of like allocated here or thought about
here. Why don’t you just leave it at 55? It doesn’t say you have to use it all. And that way you
just kind of maintain some flexibility. I mean that’s the way it was laid out at the beginning.
Why not just keep it that way. And you can put it on one line. Two lines doesn’t really matter.
Spizale: You’re right. You know if the $20,000 doesn’t come about, we still have plenty of
money for the sign. We don’t have to spend it.
Dillon: Yeah and if we get, you know.
Stolar: If you’re going to put it there, your intention is to spend it. I think there’s got to be more
logic behind this. You know some of the place holders we have no control over. This one we
have control over.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Spizale: But see the $20,000 we don’t have control.
Stolar: Well what I meant is we know numbers. We know $20,000 for Carver for $40,000.
$5,000 roughly has been in the past signage. Don’t know. I also think $55,000 is a lot. The city
scoffed at 20,000 for us, slating for dog parks. Then you go back to the 55. I mean…go back to
45 and are they going to balk at 45 any less than they’d balk at 55, I don’t know.
Dillon: Yeah. I just, I think, I mean I’d wait for the push back when you get it. If you start
working and you need more, it’s going to be hard to get it.
Hoffman: 50’s a nice round number.
Stolar: Anything else for 2006? Other than things we may talk about later.
Hoffman: Okay, 2007. The Arboretum Business Park, Lot 12 trail is the last segment of the trail
out of the Chanhassen Nature Preserve. So last year we built the trail section down at the
Holiday Inn Express, and then this section is the last lot which is directly south of the Holiday
Inn Express. If you imagine you look out there past Lifetime Fitness, on the left there’s a big
wooded area there and a field. When they sell that lot then they have to build that final segment
of trail. We have to pay for it so we can anticipate that perhaps in 2007 with the increased
activity at Lifetime, that this lot is going to become marketable. Someone’s going to pick it up
and we’re going to have to pay for that last section of trail.
Kelly: How long do you think that trail will be?
Hoffman: Just estimates based on a lineal foot I don’t recall what that is. It’s, I don’t recall the
lineal feet of it. They have a bridge in as well so there’s a bridge that goes across the wetland
area. Very nice trail. Out of all the segments, there’s four quadrants. Of all the quadrants this is
going to be the nicest piece of trail. In my way of thinking, trails are valued in two very different
ways. These wooded nature trails have a much higher value to the consumer than a trail which I
call utilitarian trail along a road. You have to have both in your trail system but these trails are
highly valued. People love to walk on those. Then on the way home they got to walk down the
trails down Galpin Boulevard, not nearly the same experience but at least it gets them home.
The Highway 101 north connection trail from Pleasant View to Townline. When Highway 101
north was built it was stopped at Pleasant View Road. It was not completed to Townline. I don’t
know exactly why but it was something that we need to finish so get all of our residents going
back and forth to the Minnetonka trail system as well. It’s very easy to see. You go from
Pleasant View to Townline and there’s a trail connection at either end and we have a cost
estimate, this is a hard cost estimate based on a consultant’s review of $114,000. A variety of
Phase II play structures and these are included at Sugarbush, Roundhouse and Power Hill. Those
are all playgrounds that have a Phase I from at least, they’re all 5 years old or older. And some
of them are up to 7 or 8 years old and so these Phase II would fill in the play container. The
container was sized large enough for both Phase I and Phase II and they would come back and do
the Phase II play structures.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: And all of these Phase II are the 2 to 5?
Hoffman: 2 to 5. And then you continue on with the picnic tables and benches, receptacles
contribution of $6,000 and trees to $5,000. Many times that tree contribution purchases trees
and maybe times it purchases a combination and then tree spading services. As a growing
community we often find ourselves in the need of moving trees to, usable trees from construction
locations to another park location so we invest those dollars. So that comes out to $405,000.
The commission, Chair Stolar I’ll just continue through so we can get the conversation moving.
$300,000 in ballfield lightings. Four fields. Generally and that number will fluctuate depending
on if it’s one location, two locations. What size are the towers. Different variables. Power Hill
Park trail. There is a trail that is not completed in Power Hill Park, running all the way from the
north to Bluebill and I believe it’s Mallard Court, all the way up north. And then down south, up
the big hill. Up to the playground area. That’s a turf trail currently and there’s some what you
would call connection points. One on Bluebill, one on Mallard and then there’s an alignment
that goes through that green space.
Scharfenberg: Where is that park?
Hoffman: Power Hill Park is located down off of Flamingo.
Scharfenberg: Never been there.
Dillon: It’s, what do I want to say? It’s east of Lyman Boulevard so it’s a big sledding hill. So
it’s, if you took Powers Boulevard off of Highway 5 to Lake Susan Hills Drive. Took a right and
went up the hill to Lake Susan Hills Drive to Flamingo. Took a right on Flamingo and it’s up on
top of the park and right now it abuts up against farmland.
Hoffman: Straight up. That green, yep. That long green area right there. Very unique park.
It’s very long. North to south. We apologize, we’d put a map up here but we have a new system
that we’re not able to operate this evening. So it’s a long park north to south. Big hill in the
middle. Very interesting views and contours.
Scharfenberg: So that trail will go behind the houses on Flamingo down, is that where it will go?
Hoffman: Yep. If you haven’t walked there now, there’s kind of a turf alignment that goes
through there. The trail would go east of the pond and then up the hill. Connect up to the trail at
Bluebill and keep on going. And all at the top of… The playground is located in a section where
a lot of people have to travel through those other connection points but then it’s a difficult walk.
This trail will make it much more pleasant experience. And the hill would be exciting on the
way down now wouldn’t it? An asphalt trail. Lake Ann Park, new picnic shelter. We have
additional needs for.
Stolar: You went past the tennis courts?
Hoffman: Oh excuse me, yep. I did. So those are two big items in 2008 with the picnic tables,
trees, benches. ’09, Roundhouse Park. We’ve received requests for tennis courts. We have a
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
location on the park master plan for a tennis court. At the present time there’s a basketball court
that’s located on that site. Basketball court obviously much more economical to build. Served a
need but they have requested a tennis court. I know some of the commissioners are aware, in the
original park, neighborhood plans for the city, just about every park had a tennis court in. In fact
it was back when a time when a tennis court was very popular. You saw tennis courts in all
neighborhood parks. Fortunately we matured slow enough that that didn’t come to occur
because those things are very expensive to maintain so the city took a new policy. Off of these
park master plans we erased all the tennis courts out of neighboring parks and said we will build
tennis courts in community facilities and congregated locations. Hopefully with lighting and
good parking so at City Center Park, the Rec Center, there’s one at Lake Susan which is a
community park. There’s one at Lake Ann, which is a community park. And then we have two
at North Lotus, which is a large neighborhood park. Two at Meadow Green, large
neighborhood park with parking, and then Roundhouse again is isolated, acting as a large
neighborhood park and it would be a double tennis court located at that facility. With lights.
Same thing, the Roundhouse Park hockey boards and lights. Yeah, Lake Ann Park, the picnic
shelter $95,000 in the middle there for those two and then Roundhouse Park. Two things at
Roundhouse, the tennis court and the hockey boards and lights. The hockey board and lights is
something that was on the master plan. It was discussed at the parks development. It will be
highly controversial, as will the lights for the tennis court. There’s also lights either the tennis
court or at the hockey rink. They’re a must need, less valid reasoning to put those in. So it’s
going to have to be a neighborhood conversation at some point in the future that we should
revisit that. And let’s take a look. Bring the neighborhood in. We have a master plan from 10
years ago. Hockey rink. Tennis court with lights. Do you still think those are valid? But based
on our current park master plans that included, so we would not that they’re out there. Then at
Lake Ann, the Parkview picnic area is the large hill just behind the beach, or up the hill from the
beach, and we have an increased, we have an unmet capacity for group picnics. This would be a
concrete with shelter over the top. More of a traditional picnic shelter, not something like Lake
Susan or Lake Ann pavilions but a more traditional barn style type roof and picnic shelter.
$95,000. Moving to 2010, the final year in this 5 year CIP we have City Center Park warming
house, which we continue to push out. Would be a building located in this property but the
eventual use of this property behind city hall is still up in the air. And so we are not putting this
item on, even though it’s on a master plan, we’re not putting…current year. There may be
additional carpet needs for city hall. There may be additional street needs for the downtown in
this area so we…present day CIP. The building would be located just out on the corner of, north
corner. Northwest corner of that hockey rink, and that hockey rink may not be there in the
future. That may be more parking. That open skating rink may not be there in the future so until
those issues are settled we just don’t need, including that present day CIP. Highway 41,
pedestrian underpass. Trail grant match. Last night the council approved a county grant
application. Our match contribution would be $115,000. It may, if approved, it would be a
2009-2010 funding cycle. We may move that up and if it was approved, the grant was approved
and we did move it up, we’d just slide it up next year. And so those are the items 2007 through
2010. Obviously you’re going to spend most of your time fine tuning ’06 because that’s what
we’re going to be dealing with but then you want to set the stage for ’07 through ’10 and that’s
what I attempted to do today and…
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: Couple of thoughts procedurally here. Why don’t we look through it for a second.
Think about things that are important and then what I’d like to, part of this is…and part of it is
thinking of overall themes that we want to achieve. That we’ve talked about. We want to
achieve an off leash dog area. That’s been the theme. You know last year and the year before
we talked about playground safety was a theme. If there are overriding themes or strategic
initiatives that you think are most important that might adjust the timing’s of these while we talk
through some of those.
Dillon: I think the, getting all the trails hitched up is important. I’m finding myself using them a
lot more lately. I guess it’s just like a real asset to the area, the ones that we’ve got and just to
kind of complete them all and tie them all together would be icing on the cake. I think they’re a
resource that the community has that we need to bring to completion.
Stolar: Okay. Other thoughts.
Scharfenberg: Well we’ve obviously had discussions over this past year about ballfields and
doing ballfield improvements so that would be one area.
Hoffman: And that, we also know that we’re, we don’t have any new ballfields on the docket
other than the new school site and we’re unclear on what that will be. So we have some known
there.
Kelly: I know I receive constant questions from my neighbors regarding an ice rink at
Bandimere Park. I know we talked about that potentially whenever 212 became the reality and
Bandimere Park became more accessible. I was wondering if that’s something we can consider
on the CIP for, in the later years.
Scharfenberg: So you’re talking Tom about boards? Hockey boards and at least one rink at
Bandimere with lights?
Kelly: Yep. Make it like the third, make it like the fifth main hockey rink in the city.
Hoffman: The challenge there is we just don’t have a site.
Kelly: Right, and I think we talked about the parking lot. I don’t know if that’s right for this
kind of, not the most level ground over there.
Scharfenberg: You’d have to take away a soccer field.
Hoffman: Yeah, the first soccer field inside the door area.
Kelly: That’d be a permanent take away or just take it away in the winter?
Hoffman: For hockey boards it’d be permanent with lights.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Scharfenberg: I guess you could play inside kind of like you know…kind of indoor soccer.
Unless you put it down below and again on that area down below where they’re going to, there is
that flat surface. But then there’s no parking. You’d have to hike to getting them down below
there. Is that technically Bandimere Heights Park?
Kelly: Yeah, I think so that’s…
Dillon: I think one other kind of like strategic thing here too is, there’s mention of a couple
expenditures in the City Center area and I think that that’s something that we need to keep a
focus on. As this complex gets built up a little bit more and there’s more businesses and more
stuff going on in downtown Chanhassen, I think it’s good to keep improvements and things like
that flowing to this area to some extent too.
Atkins: I know that this Bandimere athletic field netting’s been talked about since I’ve been on
the Park and Rec Commission. I hear a lot about those balls going everywhere. I know that is
really something that needs to be done. And I’m wondering if there’s any way to split up that
athletic field lighting thing over a few years rather than waiting til 2008 and just putting that big
chunk of money on it. I know there’s demonstrated a huge need for this and they’re really trying
hard to work with us. And I don’t know, is there any way to move any money up for that
purpose.
Scharfenberg: What you’d probably do, if you’re going to do it you would put money to Lake
Ann probably initially and do those fields first and then Bandimere second, right? I mean those
would be the two areas that we’d be doing.
Hoffman: Yeah. The economics, the scale of it when you split the project up. It’d be like one
ballfield at Lake Ann is going to cost you more than like 2 to 3 or 4. But if you’re going to do 1
or 2 additional fields, Lake Ann’s the place to do it because you have the basic infrastructure
there. It needs to be expanded upon in some cases. You won’t have the capacity but, so you
could split those lightings up. Lake Ann, the first field, Lake Ann #1 was a single project with a
LAWCON grant. Back in ’89 and that was about $90,000. And then we had one of the light
standards vandalized. They took the nuts off of the back two standards and dropped flat on it’s
face on the ballfield and that was about $14,000… That was a big pipe wrench.
Stolar: If we look at the aggressive schedule we already have in 2006, and let’s just talk about
capacity for the park staff and how much involvement even if someone else is doing it. That
seems to be quite a bit and so I’m concerned about that, but I would echo a theme here which my
big theme is, let’s get Lake Ann athletic fields to the point where they can handle, optimize their
capacity and safety. That to me is a theme that I’d like to see at 2006. At the latest 2007. That
means lighting where it makes sense and all at once. Obviously using the economics, both of the
cost of doing it as well as the economics of the timing for the staff. Across the board if we can
get the things we need to get done at Lake Ann done for the capacity, whether it be lighting.
And I want to include, make sure we don’t forget soccer fields. I don’t know if it can be lit or
not. I don’t know if they need shelter from the sun or not. But that would be the thing that I
would say is my number one priority is to, from a theme is to try to get Lake Ann situated as a
very prominent place where we have the best capacity we can make from it because we have
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
nowhere else to go. I mean you have to have other parks we can light eventually but we have the
infrastructure there. It seems state ready to do this next level of movement. And that doesn’t
take away from some of the little things that we talked about is important, such as the lighting at
Bandimere or at the City Center stage as an example, but if I had to big a grand theme in my
opinion, and I’m just speaking for myself as we all were here, that would be my big thing is can
we get to the level of efficiency and effectiveness of Lake Ann ballfields.
Hoffman: Riding on the theme of ballfield improvements, and.
Stolar: Just adding the lighting to it to say, and athletic. I want to say athletic because I don’t
want to make it just seem like it’s not including soccer. If we can get that, I think that would
benefit the community quite a bit.
Hoffman: The capacity issue is not a non-issue for staff. We are doing more hands on work this
year than you would do next year. These type of projects are something that I work with a
consultant on. We get the plan inspected. We get it approved and we hire a contractor and it’s
done. This year we’re working many, many, many days, hours and weeks with our staff. That
would not be the case on this next year’s proposal.
Stolar: So even if we did some of the lighting and moved that up forward, they would consider it
a breather over the playground work that they’ve been doing a tremendous job on. Okay. Well
that would be, if I looked at this, and you know finagle it as we need to, I would love to see
pulling forward some money into 2006. That makes sense economically and capacity wise to get
the ball, the athletic fields at Lake Ann.
Hoffman: But if you, there’s some variables and Paula talked about it. If you don’t move
forward with the parking lot expansion at Lake Susan would be beneficial to the park without the
dog park. But if you don’t do the dog park there, you can sit on that. Let people, you know live
with what they’ve got today and that $90,000 can be tagged off for at least an initial allocation
and you can add to it if you like. We’d want to get some, we’d want to get the commission some
cost estimates before your next meeting to say okay, let’s take that 90 and add to it if need to
light 2 ballfields at Lake Susan.
Stolar: Isn’t that a different fund though?
Hoffman: Yep, it’s proposed out of a different fund, correct.
Stolar: Some of the things I was looking at don’t quite add up to that amount but we took, part
of the reason, Kevin to your point, why I was trying to take some money off of the dog leash
area. That was part of the reason. I didn’t want to jump ahead of the thing but we might have to
whittle it down to get it to a more reasonable amount for the year so the City Council and the
City Manager don’t choke on how much we want to do. I don’t know that we can without taking
a big thing.
Kelly: One other thing that jumps out, I understand what Kevin said about linking the trails but I
can see delaying the 101 north connection and replace that with some lights. I mean that’s a very
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
small stretch of land I believe where the trail will be done. I believe most of the cost probably is
coming from just trying to engineer the thing. Put the thing in there. I think it’s a very small
parcel I mean.
Hoffman: That’s a long block long.
Kelly: Yeah, I bike to work and I do go on that and it stinks that it doesn’t connect. That’d be
one thing that I could see that maybe that can be moved out a year and move the lights up, at
least some of the lights up to at least 2007 if we’re looking to swap line items.
Stolar: And I actually would, if it’s not 2006, I would agree with Tom. That’s what I’d look at
for 2007. To see if we could do that. And that was taking the same thing. I mean it’s by my
area. It’s a pain in the butt that people have to come up on Pleasant View and then cut across
and gerry rig their way around, but part of my thought on that also Tom was that, was it 2 years
ago now? We spent $1.1 million on that.
Hoffman: Less than that.
Stolar: Well it was 800 something thousand. I mean certainly I agree with Kevin that it’s kind
of silly it stops right there. You just kind of stop. You’re in the middle of nowhere but I just
think the capacity issue and trying to get those ballfields set at Lake Ann is, athletic fields,
excuse me, is just very important.
Spizale: One question on the trail thing, was that a safety issue?
Hoffman: Oh yeah.
Spizale: That’s quite a consideration too. If you’ve got all of a sudden a trail ending and you’ve
got people trying to find their way to the next segment of trail, I would think that you’ve got a lot
of bikers and walkers safety wise are going to have a problem.
Stolar: Actually I have a question. Is it any cheaper or easier to go down Pleasant View on the
trail and make that trip, because there’s another trail that stops like about a block and a half away
on Pleasant View also that comes up from Lotus Lake. North Lotus Lake Park. I was wondering
about connecting those, if that’s any cheaper or better from a safety perspective Jack, because
then they can just continue on and then go down to North Lotus Lake. We also, I mean it’s two
trails that stop in like 2 blocks of each other. I don’t know if that’s any easier.
Hoffman: I’d have to review. This cost may include that connection because that was a natural
connection to go on the north side of Pleasant View there down to the Near Mountain trail. I’ll
check. The theme is, theme’s is helping very good. I would suggest that the commission
identify some of these priorities and then allow staff to go through the numbering the costs so
you don’t have to spend your time trying to come up with an exact dollar amount. The
discussion we’re having is very helpful for me to go back and bring you back another proposal at
the August meeting.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: And, even playing on Kevin’s theme, an example, not to pick on them but Rice Marsh
Lake Park trail. That’s an added trail. That’s not a safety issue. It’s not the trail stops to
nowhere. Continues on. It would be to give them the circle around the park. That’s one I could
push off for a couple years. It’s not a lot of money.
Kelly: There’s still...
Stolar: Yeah, I mean and I understand what they’re saying because when we were putting the
playground in, a lot of people were riding through it and it was a very well used trail so I can see
them adding that value to it, but if we thought thematically it doesn’t necessarily connect the
trails. It would add to the trails so I would give staff guidance, even if we use the connection on
the trail, extend the theme, that one might not fall in. I think, definitely for safety and frustration
reasons, where a trail ends and it just, I mean we talked about this what, a couple years ago
where we were talking about, what was it? Was it the Highway 41 trail over there that there
were a couple that just ended. Really you’ve got to finish those because it just frustrates the heck
out of people to have to double back.
Hoffman: Or they’re bailing up onto the highway.
Stolar: Yeah, exactly and that was a safety issue too. So I think for safety and those type of
things we do need a, do we agree that that’s a high priority? From a trail’s perspective.
Connecting those trails so that people don’t have to go onto highways or public roadways. Is
that what you’re pointing to? Yeah, I think that probably still, this commission has historically
thought that was a very high priority.
Spizale: And I do agree with you. I’m starting to use the trails more too because it’s starting to
get to be fun now that they’re connected. When I first moved here, I was like everybody else.
All of a sudden the trail would end and the fun kind of go along with it. Now you can start to get
around the city and it’s really neat. Really fun.
Hoffman: You can use it on your bicycle. You can get a long ways without having to cross
roads.
Stolar: So would people say, taken the onesie twosie things out, is that a top theme for us?
Dillon: Top theme being?
Hoffman: Taking onesie, twosies out. The one thing I’d like to consider though, some of those
things, once they get to 10,000 and under, I can, I try to look at the bang for the buck. And so
there’s some of that too. You do 4 or 5, 2 or 3 big items but then if you’ve 4 or 5 that are going
to be 10 grand and you’re going to have 40,000, you get a lot of bang for your buck so some of
those I like to try to keep in. And $15,000 are rough estimates. I’ll get you an actual cost and so
if it is $15,000, it’s significant.
Stolar: I’m sorry. I’m not saying we don’t do those. I’m saying, we’re just trying to give you
guidance of a priority, because there are things, the netting we need to do. We just need to do
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
the netting. We’ve talked about, well Paula, you and I are doing the certain time, Jack, we’ve
been talking about that forever. The Bandimere netting. That just seems to be something that
from a community service standpoint.
Atkins: Right, and then if we add the half court basketball court, then you are doing something
at Bandimere that’s visible this year and then you can talk more about them next year and the
next year.
Stolar: Different parts is important so that would be we’re at Bandimere doing some of those
things are important. And then we talked about the athletic fields. Any other thoughts? So
those are the three that I heard us mention here. It doesn’t mean you don’t do some of these
other ones such as the Bluff Creek trail plan, right. That you’re giving money to someone else to
plan it out for you.
Atkins: With the dog park thing, wouldn’t it, would it be a good idea to propose the ordinance
change and keep that $20,000 pledge to the Minnewashta project and give them a deadline for
other funding so we know whether we have to fund it. I mean there’s still a possibility that other
communities are going to put some money in the pot, isn’t there?
Hoffman: I don’t think a deadline’s going to do anything to your.
Atkins: No? Get tough.
Hoffman: Yeah, I think you put a deadline on it they’re going to say well.
Atkins: Too bad.
Stolar: I’m sorry, the reason I proposed a deadline was just not to try to force them to make a
decision, but to not have us have this liability dangling out there forever. We made a
commitment to them but we needed to put a timeframe on that commitment so that we aren’t, we
aren’t locked in to having our other choices not be available if we’re limited in funds.
Hoffman: Yeah. Something always to consider in capital improvements is take…the $20,000
away, or the $40,000 away, if the Carver County Parks Director walked in the office tomorrow
and said if you write a check for $20,000 or $40,000 we’ll build that playground, you can, at that
moment, the next day take it up under a commission agenda and make a recommendation to the
council. I don’t care if it’s not in the budget or not. They could say good deal, let’s go. Just like
anything in life, when you know, when a good value is put in front of you, you know it’s a good
value and you can make a decision to act on it so.
Stolar: …mentioned was keeping momentum going on the City Center Park as a center of town
facility so in that regard the funding for the performance stage would fall under that theme. I
think we had talked about that before. That it’s a great gathering place and we want to keep the
momentum going. So to summarize, we’ve got those themes. Todd, I said you’d be able to
participate in the discussion. I don’t know if you have any comments you want to make at this
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
time. We’ve heard what you said and I think we presented staff with some ideas of where we sit
with that.
Todd Neils: Thank you.
Stolar: No, don’t reintroduce yourself.
Todd Neils: Alright, fine. I guess you know, I appreciate you making what seems to be a
priority. I guess as I look at it, my first thought was what Commissioner Atkins was saying, that
okay is there any way to leg into it? Do one field. I also take into consideration what Mr.
Hoffman said and said you know from a cost basis it’s cheaper to do a multiple number of fields.
I can’t help but wonder as I sit here and think about this, and think about the economy, etc, etc,
and wonder is $300,000 going to be too low in 2008? If it’s a $300,000 number in 2006, I can’t
help but anticipate it’s going to be a $350,000 or $400,000 number in 2008 based on inflation,
etc, etc. And so to push it all up to 2006, and then let City Council push it back if they need to,
I’d love to see that happen.
Stolar: Thank you.
Dillon: You might need to sell some advertising then.
Stolar: We won’t go there. I guess just to, one commissioner’s opinion. If we could, what is it 2
and 3 that are not lit right now, correct?
Hoffman: 2, 3 and 6.
Stolar: 2, 3 and 6. And how staff looks at this, I personally would like to see that, and if I
understand the process correctly, if we do it in 2006, it will be available for use in 2007.
Hoffman: Yes.
Stolar: And that’s why I want to push for 2006 to make it available in 2007. Just a preference.
And then, I think to your point Todd, will the numbers be the same 3 years from now? Well
maybe, maybe not but if we can get Lake Ann done earlier, we’ll deal with that in our future
CIP’s as it relates to, I guess Bandimere would be the only one left that we would want to light,
correct?
Hoffman: Potentially the Lake Susan ballfield.
Stolar: Potentially Lake Susan. I want to keep that on the radar and like anything else here, the
future has a lot of unknowns in it. But I don’t want to make it seem like I’m thinking we need to
do everything right now. I just would like to see Lake Ann kind of finalized as a hub.
Spizale: So Lake Ann, it’s just, would that be getting additional fields or just lighting?
Hoffman: Lighting.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: Just lighting. But that increases capacity and my understanding is they have the
infrastructure already so correct me if I’m wrong but that would be the easiest one to continue.
Hoffman: Yeah, the power’s there.
Stolar: The power’s there. It’s all there ready to go and I think buys a lot of additional capacity.
They have a lower cost than building new fields. …implementing infrastructure and power at
other fields.
Hoffman: Lake Ann has continually been improved as the city’s matured and Lake Ann was 3
ballfields and a beach and a boat access and that, those improvements did not come easy. They
were scratched for and fought for and funded through LAWCON’s and grants. Then the
expansion at Lake Ann, add additional 3 fields. Then they wanted them modernized so we, very
expensive water project to run water into the park. All the way from Highway 5. All the way
from the south side of Highway 5. We had water into the park and the ballfields and the
concession stand. Then a very expensive force main to take the sanitary sewer from the pavilion
all the way around Lake Ann Park to Greenwood Shores, so those were improvements. And then
with that came the electricity and the transformers into the park to run the lift stations, to run the
lights and run the buildings so now you have that stuff. If you want to build a bathroom, a
concession stand with bathrooms, modern restrooms and a concession stand, you can do that
now. Before it would have been a really big expense. Now you can do that. If you want to add
additional lights, you can do that because you have the power’s right there. When we first
started it was, wow. We’ve got to go to the south side of Highway 5 to get power and get into
the park and…to do that so it was a stretch.
Scharfenberg: Just to follow up on that Todd, what do we have out there for concession and
restroom facilities right now?
Hoffman: We have a very small concession building which basically acts as a storage shed and a
lighting structure. All the components for the lights are inside that little building and then we use
it a couple times a year for some tournaments. These folks use it a couple times a year so it’s
serviceable, but in the future there will be, I can see a larger building with restrooms and.
Atkins: Restrooms would be nice.
Hoffman: Yeah. We use portables there as well.
Stolar: It seems to me that’s you know, going to the City Center theme, it’s also going to be a
theme I think over a number of years to keep improving Lake Ann as we started this to make it
the showcase center park. This will be City Center, which makes the downtown feel that will be
our main park.
Hoffman: Yeah, Lake Ann Park.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: And if there’s anything that I guess I’ll speak again for me but please jump in. If there
anything we’re saying that you think we’re misreading the dynamics of what’s going on, please
do let us know. We aren’t doing this day to day like you guys are so, if it’s not going to add as
much capacity as I’m thinking, I’d appreciate knowing that so we don’t spend the money
otherwise.
Scharfenberg: I mean the only other option you have is going back and using neighborhood
parks, which we have indicated in the past was that we wouldn’t do that, right?
Hoffman: Well it doesn’t make good policy.
Stolar: Much higher maintenance cost too to do that.
Hoffman: Well it’s higher. Public relations cost. You know we talk about City Center. It’s an
interesting piece of art that was just produced by an artist that lives out of Edina of City Center
Park. These are going to be offered as Christmas cards at Byerly’s. The is City Center Park so
you know you’ve arrived when your work is the topic of art. So City Center Park has now been
drawn into a piece of art.
Stolar: Actually regarding the stage, I do agree we should have it there but that is one of those
things that I’m thinking one year slide. Thank you Todd. One year slide if it’s needed to have
balance the funds, I’m not against. You know we just started the concert series there. Having it
2 years without the stage may not be a bad thing. The other question I had on that was, would
the library be willing to join in?
Hoffman: We paid for the library.
Stolar: We paid for the library and we paid for the park for the library.
Scharfenberg: Which can barely keep themselves open.
Hoffman: Yeah, we do some of that. Some of it but the stage is a…opportunity also in the
community so somebody may be willing to build the Rotary stage or the Lion’s stage.
Scharfenberg: Oh, that’s a great idea.
Hoffman: And then also operate the concert series that goes on there on an annual basis.
Stolar: Anything else?
Spizale: I really like the idea of the theme. I think it kind of pulls things together to do one
certain thing and gets us focused. I think that’s a good idea.
Hoffman: Can you identify the gentleman on the steps?
Kelly: Jerry.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Hoffman: A person forever connected with Chanhassen.
Ruegemer: Last October.
Atkins: It isn’t like Herb Bloomberg.
Hoffman: Even higher.
Ruegemer: Look at the boots.
Dillon: Oh, it’s the President.
Hoffman: Yes. A likeness.
Stolar: That’s funny. Seeing no other question, Todd that will be back then in August?
Hoffman: Yes.
Stolar: And if there’s questions that come up during the timeframe, if you want to send us e-
mails or whatever. Alright, now you wanted an action though on this.
Hoffman: Table it.
Stolar: Okay. Do I have a motion to table this until the August meeting?
Kelly: So moved.
Stolar: Moved by Commissioner Kelly.
Dillon: Second.
Stolar: Seconded by Commissioner Dillon.
Kelly moved, Dillon seconded to table the 2006 Park and Trail Acquisition and
Development CIP. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6
to 0.
Kelly: Do we want to make a motion about amending the, whatever for the dog park?
Stolar: Do we want to do that now or do we want to put that as part of our August meeting
agenda for a September discussion? It’s up to you guys. If someone wants to make a motion
now, I’d be happy to entertain it.
Hoffman: It wouldn’t be bad to introduce it in the fall and winter.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: I mean it is, it’s imperative we get this dog, off leash dog area resolution on the agenda
and if it’s a blank piece of paper, that’s fine. We’ll have a motion. We’ll just do it from the
floor. But it has to be in August. By the way, I’m not going to be at the August meeting so Jack
you’re chairing.
Spizale: It’ll be a good meeting.
Ruegemer: It will go quick.
Stolar: It will go a lot quicker than this one.
Hoffman: I sense the caged dog park scenario is kind of growing old across the country.
There’s been enough incidences, you know the story.
Stolar: In Park and Rec.
Hoffman: Yeah. And you get that feeling in talking to people and I think this type of concept is
going to become more acceptable over time because I don’t know how you can quantify it but on
a daily basis there are hundreds of dogs off leash in our park system today. And there are many
people that make it a practice to go to our parks on a daily basis and run their dogs off leash and
there’s discussions that everybody wants to be treated fairly in any given setting. Not just
municipal, and so many law abiding people say, look at that. Every day that happens and I’m
not going to do it because I want to follow the rules. And so I think this council has been very
supportive of things that say hey, if it’s reasonable. Let’s do it. And so.
Kelly: I can’t see other, any other reason for Chanhassen Pond Park other than letting, other than
training hunting dogs because it’s so low. It’s down there. It has a pond and I see people out
there all the time with the decoys and things like that.
Hoffman: Yeah. Training.
Stolar: And the thing, since I won’t be at the meeting, the key to me is if we identify areas
and/or times. So it can be both areas and times. It can be just times. And put it out there and put
signage on. We’ll get a few complaints right from someone who happens to run through that
marsh at that point in time, but in general that seems to me to be an easy way to get the off leash
area for people. It’s easy. It’s simple. And you’re right, it’s done anyway.
Hoffman: Okay.
Spizale: Is there a legal problem?
Stolar: A recommendation would be for city attorney to look at it right? And Todd there’s I
guess from a consensus viewpoint, if you want to look at it, have the City Attorney look at it
now, I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t do that as input to our discussion in August.
Hoffman: Yeah, we’re going to do some background, I’ll do some background.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
TH
2005 4 OF JULY CELEBRATION REPORT.
Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Stolar. I think it’d probably be wise. I don’t know if I’ll go
through every event. Just kind of give an overview. 2005 was record, a record year for just
about everything. From the parade to the street dance to virtually everything. A lot of people in
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town whether it happen to be the day the 4 was on. People went away for a long weekend came
back and enjoyed a lot of the activities here. Beautiful weather for the most part. Just record
capacities. Heard a lot of positive comments on everything. We’ll just kind of go down and
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break it down kind of event by event of both the 3 and the 4, and we certainly will entertain
any feedback that the commission would have tonight for the event. Kind of our theme for ’06 is
kind of more, more, more. More tables. More chairs. More bathrooms. More, more, more so
that’s kind of, we’ll address some of those budgetary items looking forward to 2006, which
we’re certainly going through right now but if there’s any other suggestions that the commission
would like to pass on to staff, we certainly would welcome those tonight.
Dillon: What was the feedback on the coordinating the music with the fireworks?
Ruegemer: Mixed reviews. I think the people that were there, you know I think some people
liked it. I think other people, in the Villager, I think more people viewed it as kind of annoyance.
That the music wasn’t coordinated with the fireworks itself. I guess the approach I’m probably
taking from this point forward is not something that we would pay for. But if they’re interested
in coming back again next year we certainly can make improvements upon that. There were
some comments that there wasn’t kind of more patriotic type of music along with the music and
the choreographed show. But the group said it added $25,000 to the show and I find that hard to
believe. But the sponsors, you know was it nice? I certainly think the system, sound system
certainly had more capacity down at Lake Ann. It wasn’t at full volume. They did test it when I
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was coming back from about 6:30 and I heard it when the power on West 78 Street from Lake
Ann so.
Hoffman: They couldn’t play it that loud because…
Dillon: Well we still heard it up on top of the hill on Lake Susan Hills Drive so. During the
fireworks.
Hoffman: South, but you could not hear it across the lake at Greenwood Shores beach. So the
sound was south. If we get it for nothing again we can do something to look into. There’s a
certain element of people that if you can’t hear it through simulcast, there’s a certain element that
they feel they’re getting cheating and there’s other people that…different then you’re not a part
of that. So kind of like treating everybody the same and everybody can be treated the same, let’s
do it. That simulcast thing is something that many communities, Willmar has that simulcast and
don’t care where you’re at. You can be 10 miles apart and watch the fireworks and everybody
hears the music at the same time. But they just didn’t have that opportunity.
Ruegemer: And we don’t have a local radio station.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Atkins: I would much rather see the simulcast. I liked the choice of music. I’m glad it wasn’t
all patriotic stuff. I think it was nice choices but I think I would prefer to have a choice whether I
listened to it or not. Because I like the crowd noise. I love having, I loved having music before
hand. That lent a really festive atmosphere.
Ruegemer: I did hear comments on that too. I think people enjoyed that leading up to the event
but once the show got started they wished it’d be quiet.
Atkins: Yeah. They like to hear the oohs and aahs. And I noticed there’s no comment on the
melodrama which was probably attended by about maybe 200 people.
Hoffman: More than that.
Atkins: Yeah?
Hoffman: More than that.
Atkins: And it was very well received and it was a lot of fun.
Hoffman: Absolutely. I was there for most of it and it was a great performance and I counted
300. The chairs were full.
Stolar: Do we amend that and get it for the record.
Hoffman: Absolutely.
Ruegemer: I imagine Corey…comment because he wasn’t there.
Stolar: Well but it’s in the minutes but you guys don’t have to do anything but note that that also
was an event.
Hoffman: It was wonderful. How did their other performances go? Or have you not had those
yet?
Atkins: No, they’re doing 6 performances at the Carver County Fair in Waconia. And then one
in Norwood-Young America at their festival. So try and catch it.
Kelly: I enjoyed the music both before. I think it was…they were playing basically so they
spinned through their entire album. I think that’s what it was, and during, I thought the music
just, I enjoyed it but I was at Lake Ann. The only question I had is for the games, has there been
any thought to adding some games for some older kids like your teenagers? I mean I think, I
don’t know what are all teenagers.
Hoffman: At City Center?
Kelly: Yeah, at City Center.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Hoffman: Yeah, we want to add more entertainment. More games, yeah.
Kelly: And I thought because all the games are now kind of geared towards the younger kids
which is great because my kids are young but I know I talked to a lot of teenagers and not a lot
for them to do. And does the senior center have any activities that go along with 4th of July or
has it been thought about adding some activities that would be geared towards seniors. I don’t
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know maybe like some type of a bridge tournament, or some 4 of July kind of activity that the
seniors can get involved.
Hoffman: They have some years and this year they chose not to have an open house.
Intentionally.
Kelly: Okay. That was my, besides that I thought it was, I had a lot of fun.
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Dillon: Thought you guys did a great job. It was like a high water mark I think for the 4 of
July celebrations that I’ve been to. And the band that you had at that thing on Sunday night, they
were quite good. I mean I heard you talk about them before hand but I was actually, they were
very talented. They were good. And you commented in the minutes about trying to get them
back for next year. I would endorse that but it’s a very well run event.
Hoffman: Thank you. Biggest party of the year.
Stolar: Any comments even though you missed it.
Spizale: I was out of town unfortunately for the first time. The only thing I saw was the
fireworks. We got in home in time to see that which were spectacular. As always. Even more
so I think this year. The only comment I heard from somebody, the only negative comment I
heard about the fireworks from one of my neighbors is that there’s too many happy faces.
Stolar: Well my kids liked those happy faces. That’s funny.
Kelly: Only incident I saw there was at the raffle table at the end of the night. Some guy took
his time claiming his prize and by the time he went to claim his prize, his number had been
erased and his number hadn’t been written and he showed me his ticket for the old number.
Hoffman: And there wasn’t a prize.
Kelly: Exactly. And there was a woman that was walking away with...she didn’t want it so that
probably can’t be changed because of the signs and everything.
Hoffman: Claim your prize within.
Stolar: There’s a sign up there that says at certain times.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Kelly: Right, but I understand and I saw the guy, the guy would have, you know it’s kind of
nice. I’ve been there for a while. I could see someone kind of going over the edge a little bit
when they see someone walking away with their CD player because it was a decent gift.
Stolar: I think going along that theme, a couple things. One, during the breaks of the orchestra
maybe we can get some announcements going. Because if you look, our t-shirt sales, and I
actually went to look at it because I worked the t-shirt booth this year. Our t-shirt sales have
plummeted each year over the past few years. And some of it, you know who knows why but I
think if we can get more, because there was so, what was surprising was there was so many more
people there than we actually sold quite a big less this year than we did previous when it was
rainy and ugly, so I would think we could do maybe is try to figure out how to get some
announcements going so at the breaks announce, you know please be sure to claim your prizes.
Go to the prize board. Raffle tickets are still on sale. T-shirt sales are going on. That might help
in all of those instances. The food vendors, I mean our take there has gone up tremendously. I
mean it was a record take. I thought it was nice having the other food booths on Sunday on the
other side. And then I wasn’t there the fourth but I assume the Taste of Chan went very well
also.
Hoffman: Went very well.
Stolar: So I mean I just think that, I agree with Corey said that we had a good variety. I thought
it went really well with that, and it was nice having the two different settings. The only
complaints I heard, not complaints. Suggestions. One was clearly more port-a-potties. Hear
that every time but if it continues to grow we might actually have to do that.
Hoffman: Yeah. We did it this year.
Stolar: Did it this year and we still needed more. The second thing was, and I don’t know that I
agree with this but it was suggested to me that maybe it’s time to start looking for a different
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band for the 4 of July. We’ve had the same one for 10 years. I love them. I disagree with that.
I thought they were great. Again, I thought they were so entertaining and get that crowd riled
that I’d be all for just keeping them.
Scharfenberg: I think you’d be lynched if you changed them.
Stolar: I think you’d have a lot of explaining to do.
Scharfenberg: To do what Todd had suggested is two nights so you have a different band on a
different night.
Stolar: Yeah, just the crowd was so excited and I thought they did a great job. But we also
might want to consider potentially not selling t-shirts. I don’t know if that’s an option because.
Hoffman: Absolutely. They spent $3,000 and they take in $600.
Stolar: Exactly.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Atkins: I think that sizes, he orders too many large ones. Every year. Women want shirts that
fit and generally we don’t have smaller sizes. I think that children’s shirts would sell like crazy.
Stolar: Those are a couple suggestions. The other one, was it you talking when we were talking
about maybe putting a raffle ticket or two with the t-shirt. If you could buy a t-shirt, they get 3
tickets to the board.
Spizale: You know I was thinking that. Maybe you need a gimmick. People love to bet and
love to do the raffle thing. Maybe you should tie that into the t-shirts and maybe if you’re
wearing a t-shirt you get double something. Like a sticker that you get at the St. Paul Carnival.
If you’ve got a carnival badge on, you get some kind of a special thing. Maybe with a t-shirt you
get 10, I don’t know. Something.
Stolar: Something to cross sell.
Spizale: You get something for wearing, if you’re wearing the t-shirt you get some kind of a free
thing or you get some kind of a discount thing or a raffle thing or something to help move the t-
shirts.
Hoffman: I guarantee you we can sell more t-shirts. It’s just not a priority for staff. We’re
already pressed doing lots of other things so we just have to come up with a plan that we can
execute, because you have a very limited point of sale. Very limited time frame for a product.
Stolar: Right, and that’d be like when we’re staffing the t-shirt booth, if we say you know, right
then we make a quick announcement. Buy a t-shirt, you get 3 free raffle tickets or something
like that. We could it right there since we’re standing right there.
Spizale: Or maybe the t-shirt should be more general.
Atkins: That’s what I think. I think we should go back to like a Chanhassen t-shirt rather than
the patriotic thing every year. Something we can sell all year round.
Dillon: …on that eagle but I felt like I’ve got the trucker or something like that.
Kelly: How was the material? This material is great. I mean can we make it, I mean they have
those dry fit t-shirts. You’d think we would sell more. People are buying something other than
just a white cotton shirt.
Hoffman: We’d spend more too.
Kelly: We’d spend more yep, but maybe under.
Stolar: Jerry, what was the suggestion for those shirts? Someone wanted tank top ones?
Ruegemer: Which? The gray headed eagle?
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: No, these.
Ruegemer: Oh those?
Stolar: You remember that. Someone came by and they wanted to know if we sold those and
sold them in tank tops.
Hoffman; We’ll come up with a plan to sell more.
Stolar: Yeah, I mean either that or, I mean again it’s no big deal. We’re investing in this
activity. I don’t want to make a big deal out of a couple thousand.
Hoffman: We use them for promotion. We give a lot of them away.
Ruegemer: That really has been kind of a focus.
Hoffman: We give them to our sponsors and our prize people. The fishing contest people get
them.
Dillon: Well like a lot of people at Byerly’s were buying them.
Ruegemer: Like if there’s different levels of sponsorships get different amounts of t-shirts.
Stolar: So that’s fine. If that’s the main purpose of them, that’s fine. I was just noticing that the
sales were really slower.
Ruegemer: 75% of them are given away.
Dillon: They were moving pretty good when I was there.
Stolar: There you go, sales person. 11:00 p.m. shift so not many people wanted t-shirts. Todd,
was this within budget? So about $40,000 is right about where we thought we’d be?
Hoffman: It was within budget but we have to increase our budget next year and to increase,
under the current budget scenario…struggling to do that. The capacity, we have to increase the
capacity, there’s no doubt. We’ve reached the point where we will turn people away because
they’ll have an experience that’s not satisfactory and to do that, and a whole community
celebration…now you get this negative product going which right now it’s a very positive thing.
And we just don’t want to see that happen so. So we need more bathrooms. More games. More
chairs. More food. More entertainment. There’s a lot of teenagers there and they love to get
together and talk but they also need something to do and we need to just continue to fill up that
space. That was a huge crowd. Huge crowd.
Stolar: I think a couple other things to think about. I was surprised with the Water Wars that we
only got $100 from them given the lines that were there.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Hoffman: That’s just our contact take.
Stolar: Right, that’s our 20% and the other question I have is, is this big enough to start thinking
about another way to increase our revenue from the people who are there because they are
getting more revenue.
Hoffman: Yeah, we’re doing that. We keep upping the ante.
Ruegemer: We’ll take a look at the vendor contacts. We’re currently getting $250 per food
vendor for electricity and that sort of thing but we want to take a look at increasing that or
increasing the percentage.
Stolar: I’m not going to do your, tell you but I was just wondering, because of the capacity
needs, as the demand goes up.
Hoffman: Absolutely.
Stolar: Part of it being, if we, were the food lines that long? I don’t know.
Hoffman: 20-25 each on average which was tolerable for an event like this. We’ve had it much,
much worst.
Dillon: Hopkins charged for their street dance this year for the Raspberry Festival.
Hoffman: To get in? Yeah we’re a free festival. We’re not a huge festival.
Stolar: Which is, I mean that’s where the vendors get the extra crowd and so that’s where that
money should come from instead of charging a fee, it’s a trade off, right? We can either say we
don’t charge a fee. You get all those extra people so we can get a little bit more money from
you. Anything else? But it was a tremendous event again. And please congratulate Corey for
another job well done.
Kelly: He just bouncing. He’s just got to go crazy that night. He’s just doesn’t stop moving.
Spizale: He can’t.
Ruegemer: If he keeps moving you can’t find him. No, Corey does a great job…staff and
concession stand from Lake Ann come up and help out and the commission, I mean everybody’s
got their part and their role in that.
Stolar: Dale’s crew is out there cleaning up like crazy.
Ruegemer: Dale of course. Jerry and Rob and a lot of those staff that we couldn’t do without.
It’s fantastic.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: And you guys were busy.
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Ruegemer: And we were busy. Everything comes together. That night and on the 4.
Hoffman: You can have a significant impact on a lot of people if you’re performing obviously at
a high level. We’ve got a lot of things to do, a lot of things to coordinate but you’re improving
the experience of 4,000 or 5,000 people at any one time so.
Stolar: And I think going along with this idea of themes, I’ll speak for me and commission
members put in. If I have to prioritize one thing we do, it’d be major events. I mean that thing
is, that’s.
FALL ADULT SOFTBALL LEAGUE REPORT.
Ruegemer: Just an informational item for the commission. Thursday night is already full and
Tuesday night is 2 teams away from being full so we’ll be at capacity again for the fall league.
We’ll be starting at about the middle part of August for that for 6 weeks through about the third
week in September. Not having any rain out’s, that sort of thing so it’s a great area for our adult
teams just to get a little more softball and we were having trouble filling up with the current
capacity. I limited them a little bit because we’re multi purposing the fields to play football on
so if we didn’t have football then I probably would expand this but that certainly has, comes into
play when we’re talking about athletic fields. Lighting and certain things. If we can shift around
to help out with other things, but right now I’ve been for the most part kind of sitting on the
boiling pot with adult sports and really kind of gearing more towards the kids right now to take
care of that need at this point so.
Stolar: So you’re saying if we had extra lighting we might be able to add more capacity on this
area too? Football.
Hoffman: Those crazy softball players playing fall ball.
Dillon: I’m sensing a theme.
Stolar: There you go. Anything else? Todd, you wanted to give us a quick update on City
Council.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Hoffman: The council meeting last night included just a note, National Night Out. I think 31
locations in our community and so that’s a wonderful program sponsored by public safety folks.
And if you’d ever like to tag along, you’re certainly welcome to be involved. They meet as a
group and I think they send out 4 different groups of police officers, firemen, council members,
elected, appointed officials and off they go. They meet with these neighborhoods. Let’s see.
County grant application, Highway 41 pedestrian underpass. The specifics of the grant, the grant
is a million dollar application. The local match is $250,000 for a total of $1,250,000. The city’s
contribution is that $115,000. The County’s contribution, 135 and then this would construction,
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
if approved, that underpass on Highway 41. The last piece of trail in the east ditch, 41 running
from Longacres to the Middle School in the Minnetonka School District, and then a trail system,
$350,000 trail system into the park. So a million 250 and if approved it’s a T-21 grant. Federal
grant application. The grant application is by Carver County. We are a supporter through a
letter of support and resolution of support which the Council approved last night. So that’s the
big thing. And then they approved the plans and specifications for Lake Susan playground
which went to bid today and so award that bid in 4 weeks.
Stolar: Is that one just the lowest bidder pretty much gets it?
Hoffman: The lowest qualified bidder. If you want to bid against the product, you match or you
select and they have to match that and that can be a different process. But they match it with a
like product and then we consider their bid.
Scharfenberg: And when would you anticipate that construction on that would start?
Hoffman: Mid-September. But that’s installation of the new equipment. Take that a month
back so mid-August we’ll be ripping and tearing up. Cleaning up, get the site prepped for the
concrete before they put this down because this is a surface mounted playground on top of the
concrete. That’s it.
Stolar: Okay. Any questions on the Administrative packet? Or I’m sorry, City Council.
Kelly: Yeah quick question, not on this but what was it when Todd said he got a lukewarm
response from the City Council regarding signage? I mean what exactly did that mean?
Hoffman: Some of the council members weren’t interested in putting advertising signage in the
public spaces to finance improvements. They liken it to well why don’t we just well a sign to
Target for $130,000 or $50,000 a year.
Kelly: Okay.
Scharfenberg: If we as a park and rec felt that these were significant enough improvements we
should put them in the CIP. That way as opposed to selling signage.
Stolar: Okay. Anything else?
Kelly: On administrative. I wonder which family member of your’s works for Q Logic.
Ruegemer: That was probably one of the most difficult reservations I’ve had in 5 years. Very,
very demanding. Very question oriented. I spent more time on multiple phone calls on that.
Hoffman: Yeah, you only got a 2 on the procedure. But they loved the facility.
Stolar: And they loved you.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Ruegemer: If they can clone a sheep, I don’t know why they can’t clone me.
Stolar: Maybe they did. That’s why you appear all over town.
Ruegemer: But no, that was nice to hear because it was very unexpected because I didn’t charge
them for a ballfield rental on the picnic reservation. But they loved the facility.
Kelly: Yeah, I just saw that. I wanted to say.
Stolar: Todd, you and I have talked about this before. This whole question of park dedication
fees matching our costs. I don’t know if you want to put this on a future item where we talk
about how park dedication fees are collected. Because I did some quick math based on what I
saw in the Admin packet and we basically are getting not barely half of what we need to service
the guidelines in the ordinance. If the guidelines are for every 75 people, they should, we should
have an acre of parkland. If you look at some of these developments, I’m not sure I have all the
components figured out, and what I also know is that we still have business contribute park
dedication in a different manner that also covers part of that gap. So I know it’s not.
Hoffman: …calculation of that, that’s…how much land we should gain?
Stolar: Well how much fees we should be getting. The way I did it was you know, a park acre
for 75 residents. It’s $200,000 an acre we’re saying, is what I’m hearing at City Council
meetings and such and if you have let’s say 25 buildings per 75 residents on average, so it’s 3,
that works out to $8,000 a building and we’re only collecting $4,000, correct?
Hoffman: Yes.
Stolar: Per single family home.
Hoffman: Absolutely, and that’s because we base our current park fee off of $100,000 per acre
land charge when in reality the $200…
Stolar: Okay, so I went the long way about getting the quick answer you could have given me.
But the same concept that if we can’t even charge the fees to equal our guidelines and I realize
they probably aren’t rules that we have to have an acre per 75. That’s just a plan. Guideline.
One has to question how are we going to make that?
Hoffman: Well they have to factor back in… We have 85 or 90 or 95 percent of our parks
acquired. And so it’s like fixing the problem for the last 5 or 10 percent is that really fair to the
last 5 or 10% of developments that’s going to come through the door so.
Stolar: That’s certainly fair because they’re getting that money back on how high they’re selling
the prices to their customers. I mean the question being, do we want to also, let me reverse the
question. Do you want to absorb the balances we’ve built over times where there wasn’t
exorbitant, really high prices for land and take money out of things like a Bandimere net or half
court basketball. Pay for the gap that someone’s making money on in the rising prices, so. It
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
works both ways you know. Do we want to unfairly take from what other people have put in to
the dedication fees? That would go to their parks to just buy land. I mean we aren’t even talking
equipment yet. So that was other parks. So that’s just a question I have. I don’t know if it’s
something that this commission should even be looking at. I know the City Council’s talked
about it but in the memo’s that you included and the fact that I just did the quick math, it’s tough.
Very difficult.
Hoffman: Chanhassen has been one of the most aggressive cities in raising our fees, and it talks
about the day we can have an $8,000 fee. We’re at the top of the metro area and we’re also at
the top of land prices so you have to continue to push that fringe out, but at some point, the…
they get together and they talk about it and they say okay, we can absorb, they keep raising these
fees on us. We can absorb that. We can absorb that. There has to be a nexus, an essential
nexus, connection between…and so if they say hey, if we do 100 houses and they charge us 4.
$4,000, that’s $400,000. But when they go to $800,000, that’s getting to be just too much.
We’re going to challenge that and…we’re trying to keep under the radar and keep pushing the
bubble. I don’t want to jump from 4 to 8 and the next highest park dedication fee is back at 4.
People are going to be looking at us and going what?
Stolar: So the other variable in there is our guidelines.
Hoffman: Well yeah, it’s similar to other communities.
Stolar: What I’m saying is though then we need to admit that that guideline probably won’t fall
into place as a possibility because we can’t afford to do that.
Hoffman: Well, when it’s all said and done this community will have an acre of…parkland for
every 75 people. It’s just where.
Stolar: Where is it, right. It may not be in the neighborhood itself. Exactly. And some of that’s
alluded to here when we talk about we combined these and we’re trying to get some synergies
and so what we’re, I guess what I’m saying is, what we’re doing is the right things, which is a
little different than what the straight guideline says. I just want to be cautious of not taking too
much money from other parks also given this unique situation that the whole country’s facing of
land prices just sky rocketing. Okay.
th
Hoffman: Did you read your comments from your 4 of July?
Stolar: They want a dog park. Or off leash dog area.
Hoffman: Most do.
Stolar: There was only a couple that were not in favor.
Hoffman: One person called it a slippery slope.
Dillon: Motion to adjourn.
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Park and Rec Commission – July 26, 2005
Stolar: Commissioner Dillon motions to adjourn.
Atkins: I second.
Stolar: Commissioner Atkins seconds. All in favor.
Dillon moved, Atkins seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission meeting adjourn.
All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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