PRC 2018 09 25CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 25, 2018
Chairman Scharfenberg called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Steve Scharfenberg, Rick Echternacht, Jim Boettcher, Meredith
Petouvis, Karl Tsuchiya, Joe Scanlon, and Grant Schaeferle
MEMBERS ABSENT: Cole Kelly
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Superintendent; Katie Matthews, Recreation Supervisor; Adam Beer, Park Superintendent; Jodi
Sarles, Recreation Center Manager; and Mary Blazanin, Senior Center Coordinator
APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Chairman Scharfenberg approved the agenda as presented.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hoffman: Just like to let everybody know that Adam and I are happy to represent the City of
Chanhassen tomorrow night in Rochester as we receive the Award of Excellence in Community
Engagement for the last year’s Park System Master Plan so really quite a surprise. I think either
the Mayor, somewhere between the Mayor and the City Manager they sent the application
process. They said hey, we might as well apply. We did and that was this past April and we
were selected. If you remember it was because we had community engagement or response
levels 3 to 5 times higher in most, or all categories than most plan, system plans so that was
really quite a special acknowledgement. 10 percent of our community participated in some form
of response for our system plan and that just shows how much interest there is in parks and
recreation in Chanhassen so we’ll be there on stage. We’ll home a picture for you and probably
some kind of a plaque.
Scharfenberg: Alright, thank you Todd.
Ruegemer: Commissioner Scharfenberg real quick. Just want to let everybody know that
Chanhassen High School Homecoming parade is a week from this coming Friday, October 5th.
4:00 downtown so we’ve been working with the Chanhassen High School and the District to
make sure that we have traffic control and cones and barricades so everybody has a quality
experience so just wanted to let everybody know about that so if you guys are free make sure you
make it downtown for the annual event.
Tsuchiya: What time?
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Ruegemer: 4:00.
Tsuchiya: Okay.
Ruegemer: Thank you.
Scharfenberg: Do we need a permission slip to go? I think I forged one one time for that.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Echternacht moved, Boettcher seconded to approve the verbatim
and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated August 28, 2018
as presented.
2018-19 ICE SKATING RINK LOCATION RECOMMENDATIONS.
Matthews: Thank you Chair Scharfenberg and commissioners. On an annual basis the staff
closely monitors the outdoor skating rinks and then it identifies how to best serve the skating
needs of the Chanhassen residents. For the 2018-2019 season staff recommends to flood 10 ice
rinks at 5 locations and maintain 5 warming houses and this is the same number of ice rinks and
warming houses as the 2017-2018 season. So just in case you’re unaware of the locations of the
skating rinks they’re at City Center Park there’s one hockey rink and one open rink and then we
have a warming house brought in for those, for the people using the skating rinks. North Lotus
we’ve got one hockey rink and one open rink along with a, we bring in a warming house to use.
And then City Center Park is right out we’ve got one of those. And then at the Rec Center we’ve
got two hockey rinks, one open rink and a permanent warming house there. Bandimere Park
which is our newest skating rink, we’ve got one hockey rink and one open rink and we bring in
the trailer for the warming house similar to the one at City Center and the one at North Lotus.
And then Roundhouse is more of our, it’s a special location. It only has one open skating rink
with the round house that we actually open for a warming house and the round house is open on
special long weekends and special days like over winter break. Does anybody have any
questions about those?
Scharfenberg: Any questions for Katie relative to the skating rink recommendations? I would,
Katie and/or Todd and Jerry, have we had any requests in the last year or two years relative to
different locations?
Hoffman: Not that I’m aware of.
Scharfenberg: Yeah. I know the one time several well several years ago that somebody had
come in for the Lake Susan Hills area I think because they had a light in the park at one time but
okay. If we don’t have any further discussion can I get a motion relative to the skating rink
locations.
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
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Boettcher: I’ll make a motion just need a simple majority apparently for the ice skating rink
locations as stated by Katie and the warming houses be maintained for 2018-2019.
Scharfenberg: We have a motion. We do have a second?
Echternacht: I’ll second it.
Boettcher moved, Echternacht seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission
recommends that the following ice skating rink locations and warming houses be
maintained for the 2018-19 season:
Chanhassen Rec Center
1-Pleasure Rink
2-Hockey Rinks
North Lotus Lake Park
1-Pleasure Rink
1-Hockey Rink
City Center Park
1-Pleasure Rink
1-Hockey Rink
Bandimere Park
1-Pleasure Rink
1 –Hockey Rink
Roundhouse Park
1-Pleasure Rink
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0.
Scharfenberg: Thank you Katie.
Matthews: Thank you.
2018 LAKE ANN PARK CONCESSION/BOAT RENTAL EVALUATION.
Ruegemer: Thanks Chair Scharfenberg. Just wanted to go through the annual evaluation here
for Lake Ann. Lake Ann again was very popular again destination for beach use and also for the
watercraft rentals. Kind of a breakdown of our watercraft revenues. $20,653.49. Food revenues
were $9,789.49 so a total of about $30,433 in total revenue for both the food and the watercraft.
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
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Per our agreement with Twin Cities Paddleboard with a 30 percent that we owe them for their
supplying the equipment, us supplying the labor, that totaled out to be about $3,100 for the total
times that we rented out the paddleboats and the revenue this year for that. Sales tax deducted
from that so we had an overall revenue of just over $25,127 for that so again that’s been a great
revenue source for us. Having the watercraft have really increased in revenues down there with
the agreement with Twin Cities Paddleboard. Jeff Gibbon is the owner of Twin Cities
Paddleboards. He’s still thrilled with the agreement that we have down there to, for him to
supply the equipment and the paddleboards down there so he’s in again for 2019 so he’s very
happy with the arrangement and it’s been a wonderful arrangement for us as well. For that so
we’re all in for next year with the same terms of the agreement so that’s something to look
forward to. Certainly Lake Ann is a great destination that we certainly try to exceed customer
expectations down there as well so we really try to look at the little things that make a big
difference in helping people out with information or service generated type of requests for that so
you know again we continue to be very busy on the weekends. We seem to be a popular
destination for company picnics, family reunions, graduation parties. A lot of times the
companies will make arrangements for, to rent some boats. Kind of guaranteed revenue for us so
that takes time to get all the, to process the rental agreements and make sure that we keep
everybody kind of going in the right direction while maintaining the regular crowd that we have
down at the concession building as well so what we have been doing about the last 3-4 years of
kind of having kind of a crossover in shifts between the first and second shift so we’ve been
usually trying to go at least between 2 to 3-4 hours kind of overlap so we have dual people there
during kind of the peak of the day during kind of that mid-afternoon timeframe so we really try
to take care of our customers. It does get busy down there and so we ask our concession workers
to do a lot down there and juggle many things. Think on their feet with that so it’s a lot of you
know kind of juggling chainsaws at times here so but they do a great job down there so we’re
trying to, we’ll continue with that, kind of that overlap on the weekends for that to make sure
we’re taking a look at our customer base for that. So we continue to have the large group
calendars for everybody so the concession people know kind of who’s coming in and other
people do ask. Hey we’re from the ABC Company. Where’s our company picnic? You guys
are upstairs. You’re in the Klingelhutz Pavilion type of thing so just more information out there
to share. Certainly always look for additional healthy options, whether it’s you know granola
bars or pre-packaged fruit type of thing as far as other, and drink choices as well other than soda.
We’ve been trying to kind of introduce some other things as well with that. We’re going to look
into incorporate soft pretzels. We did have the Von Hansen kind of pretzels in a plastic container
this year. Those were supposed to be the hot seller. We did okay on those but I think people
really had hoped that we had soft pretzels instead of the flavored type of pretzels and that so
we’re going to try to look for a vendor that next year. If we can kind of pull that off I think that
would be a good option for us out there as well. I looked to purchase a two person kayak as
well. Seemed like a lot of people would like to have, be on the same kayak versus maybe going
out on two separate ones so to kind of enjoy their experience out there so we’re going to take a
look at that. If we can purchase another one. Seemed like our trolling motors are busy out there
so they get a little tired and a lot of the switches are plastic and they kind of break so there is
some maintenance that we need to do on those so I’ll, going to plan on purchasing another
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
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trolling motor or two to make sure that we’re up to date with all that. One new thing we did this
year was we completed probably the tail end of last year went into this year but we have all new
LED lighting down there in the bathrooms. The bathroom hallways. Inside the concession
building and that’s made a world of difference. It’s really a wonderful new thing. It’s so much
brighter down there now and there are a lot of, they’re really energy efficient as well so we’re
very happy we did that. And then also what we’re going to take a look at for next year is to have
some type of a reward program for repeat customers so if they, we’re going to maybe introduce
some type of punch card so if you rent you know 10 times you get the 11th free type of thing so
really try to reward people for coming out. Being repeat customers and hopefully we can pre-
sale those and increase revenues that way as well so we’re going to take a look at that. See what
we can come up with so we’re excited about that. And if we just go into the expenses and the
revenue so we kind of have the side by side comparisons, does everybody have that in their
packet? We can kind of look at the paddleboard numbers from 2018 and paddleboards,
paddleboats, canoes. So you kind of see kind of where we ended up. We are down just a little
bit of a tick this year. We’ve had probably 4 or 5 rain days this year that we were closed so I’m
confident had we been those that we would have exceeded our numbers from last year so as you
can see our revenue was very close with that so we’ve been pretty consistent in that number for
the last 3 or 4 years. We kind of look at our wage costs on that. The number of hours that we
had down there and wage costs with that and then our vendor costs with our Watson is our ice
cream vendor. Popcorn. Candy, that type of thing so you can see what we spend annually on
there. Great Lakes Coca Cola is where we get our beverages from and then Cub Foods is some
hotdogs when needed. Hotdog buns. Chips. Condiments. That type of thing. So you can see
our total expenses did go down from 2017 so kind of net profit. At the end of the day we’re just
almost $9,300 in profit after all the expenses are paid. With that so just the next attachment is
just the vendor expenses kind of broken down. We kind of just discussed and then also one of
the, the last attachment is the watercraft totals on a daily basis throughout the course of the
summer. Does anybody have any questions?
Boettcher: So is the rental day 3-4 hours?
Ruegemer: I’m sorry.
Boettcher: Does the rental day considered 4 hours or 8?
Ruegemer: The rental day?
Boettcher: So if I want to rent a boat for a day…
Ruegemer: Oh yeah, 4 hours.
Boettcher: It is 4.
Ruegemer: Yep.
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Boettcher: So you rent it twice. You get 2 days…
Scharfenberg: Any other questions for Jerry?
Tsuchiya: I was wondering on the supply side between ’17 and ’18. It’s you know $1,500 less
this year than it was last year. Is that just because they sold less?
Ruegemer: I would say we tried to stay on top of things a little bit more by different types of
supplies and just kind of keep an eye on things and really kind of start cutting back towards the
end of the summer.
Tsuchiya: So like inventory management and?
Ruegemer: (Yes).
Tsuchiya: Okay. I mean obviously I’m happy. I’m just you know $1,500 in the scheme of
things is quite a significant savings so I’m just wondering what was the explanation but yeah, it’s
inventory management and such that’s great.
Scharfenberg: Jerry I really like the idea of the punch card. Just seems like 10 might be a little
excessive for somebody, I mean because that would almost be almost the whole summer you’d
have to rent something every week to get it so maybe a little bit less would encourage people to
maybe do that.
Ruegemer: Okay.
Scharfenberg: And then the other thing I know from having somebody who worked there this
summer was that there were some complaints, not complaints but people expressed some
frustration when they wanted to rent something and everything was maybe rented out and then
they would come back and not be able to get something because the paddleboat went out again
and they thought maybe they would be able so I don’t know if there’s some way somebody can,
they can have a sign up sheet and say yeah you’re next in line and be able to come back and be
assured that they’re going to be able to get something.
Ruegemer: Okay. Sounds good, thank you.
Hoffman: Yeah with a cell phone or a text.
Scharfenberg: Yeah, right. Maybe they can text them and say hey it’s back and you can rent
that thing, that would be helpful yeah. Alright, thank you Jerry.
Ruegemer: Thank you.
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PARK MAINTENANCE QUARTERLY UPDATE.
Scharfenberg: We’re starting with park maintenance quarterly update. Adam.
Beer: Thank you Chair Scharfenberg and commissioners. Here tonight just to discuss kind of
what our maintenance staff has been working on through the tail end of the summer and what
we’re going to be moving into in the fall here so just to touch on a few construction projects.
The last year of the shelters is now complete so moving into the fall we’re going to be doing
some more over seeding and fertilizing to ensure that we get some good turf coverage for the
spring. Manchester Park is fairly close to completion. The playground structure is up and in
place. The park shelter was just finished today so my guys have been out adding the pea gravel
for proper drainage and they got all of the wood fiber in place so at this point we’re going to be
looking to start restoration and removing any extra swale plows that are there and plant some
seed so progressing is being made. Fox Woods trail is one of the stops we looked at through the
joint commission tour. We’ve hit obviously with the weather of a few stalls and bumps in the
road but the site is ready for rock and trail paving so Todd and I drove out there today. The
grading stakes were all in place and the new curb cuts are in so we’re making steps in the right
direction. Just a few kind of odds and end things for the trail maintenance. Each fall we go out
and address all of our aeration needs on the specifically the soccer fields which tend to get more
wear and tear at Bandimere and Lake Ann. So staff’s been out doing that over the last couple
weeks and we’ll continue to kind of peck away at more fields as the weather allows so Lake Ann
is going to be the field that is taken out of circulation this fall which gives us a little extra time to
add a few additional cultural practices that we typically won’t get to just in a normal year so
we’ll do more extensive aerification. Try to add a little more fertilizer and just give it a break so.
The last few weeks we’ve been really working hard to try to get in front of some trail trimming.
We’re getting close to plow season so with, you know around 100 miles it takes some time to
visit each area so the guys have been working a couple days a week to try to get ahead of the
curve and get eyes out in the field to see what has to be addressed so that’s a little bit about some
construction projects and just some general maintenance things. We’ve had over the last month,
2 months some big personnel changes. One of our long term, 30 year employees retired and we
just replaced with another staff member. Jason Koehnen so he’s been on now for a few weeks.
Pretty exciting to get somebody new in and start moving forward and Dean Schmeig our Park
Foreman after 35 years will be retiring this Friday so a lot of big changes in park maintenance.
We were able to promote one of our current staff up to the foreman role so I think next month I’ll
bring him in and introduce Gary Berg to you guys and let him kind of give a little background so
a lot of stuff changing. If you guys are around Friday and want to swing in you’re more than
welcomed. We’re doing a potluck lunch and that’s that.
Scharfenberg: Okay. Any questions at all for Adam? Adam again wonderful work that the staff
does to keep our parks up to the quality, you know the mowing that takes place on a daily basis
and the clean up that goes on. It’s a big task. You guys do a great job to you know set forth our
parks and kind of make them shine so thank you again and express our appreciation to Dean. I
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
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don’t know that we’ll be there. Be able to be there on Friday but express our, as a commission
our gratitude to Dean for his 35 years of service to the City of Chanhassen.
Beer: Absolutely. I certainly will.
Scharfenberg: Okay, thank you.
Beer: Yep.
RECREATION CENTER UPDATE.
Scharfenberg: Next up is Jodi.
Sarles: Thank you Chair Scharfenberg and commissioners. Good evening. You can certainly
tell it’s back to school time and people are coming back out to the Rec Center. We’ve had a
number of things going on there since summer. We shut down at, our gym this year and we fully
shut it down as they had the floors sanded, repainted which hasn’t happened since they opened
the building and so now we have permanent pickleball court lines in there. We have some things
so it will a lot, it’s a lot nicer. The floors if you look in there they’re light pine so they sanded it
all the way down so it’s pretty bright in there now so that’s great. As far as other facilities, the
facility rentals are going strong now. People are back inside and meetings are starting back up
and getting out of the, getting back into their full year after the summer routine. A few program
things, highlights here. The Dance for Fun program we’ve started our fall season. We’ve got
over 25 classes and we’re offering in a variety of styles and 179 dancers in the program. There’s
fewer competition dancers this year but there’s more recreational dancers so it’s kind of a toss up
there between that. Rec Center Sports, we’re just finishing out our session of soccer which I
think 50 percent of the time has been held inside the gym because it’s rained every Tuesday or
Wednesday I think on and off so the kids are getting their medals tonight. Jerry told me or
somebody, Jerry you told me everyone, Chick-fil-A with their medals on with their parents so
that was great to hear. So we had finished out a strong summer with 72 in the August t-ball
program and then started up with 71 in the fall Small Fry Soccer. And then our Lil Star Sports is
that’s the 4 to 6 year olds and they are, they’re going on and this is their last night as well. And
that one was a little light this year so we were only 41 youth in those two programs. And then up
next for our After School Kids are flag football and that will start next week so we’re kind of
rolling into the next season. As far as pickleball we’re always pretty busy with pickleball out
there. Throughout summer and fall we’ve offered the 4 beginner lessons. 46 participants which
is pretty much we filled everyone that we offered. We just did 12 more on Monday so it’s, we
just make sure that we have the space and if it rains they can be inside in the gym and all of that
so we max out our lessons at 12:00 and then we have 3 volunteers that come out and lead those
so it’s a great program that we do with the Southwest Metro and that’s very kind of them to
come and so those lessons for us. We held our annual Barnyard Boogie. This time we really, we
blew it out. We got, it was on September 14th. We co-sponsored with Victoria Park and Rec.
On top of the typical petting zoo, bounce house, Target contacted me and they wanted to do a big
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promotional to announce their store remodel and invite everybody back so every kid received a
little Target dog. Stuff animal. The parents got a coupon, cookies and I can’t remember what
else but all sorts of fun stuff. And then we have a new program Go Gymnastics and she set it
up. A station for gymnastics in our gym and so the kids were doing all sorts of flips and
tumbling and everything so it was fun. Weather was great so we had over 260 people and that’s
probably the most we’ve had in the past 5 years I think now so that was great. So that I just said
about the Go Gymnastics. They offer 3 different age groups. They’re mobile gymnastics so they
come in. They bring in all their equipment and they do it in the mornings and then they leave
with all their equipment and I don’t have to store anything so it’s a perfect set up for us. Another
new program we’re starting, we’ve had really successful Sale on our Own classes and then our
babysitting training is that same person is offering Polite Kids so I’m not sure the kids will be as
excited about those programs as the other ones but it’s teaching manners and how to be nice to
people and body language and communication so a few kids have signed up so far but we’ll see.
It’s next month. And then we try to throw out some free trial clinics and things so we just held
one for Fit for Life. We’re onto a free trial clinic for next week for Zumba so people can just try
it for a half hour. Kind of learn the moves and not be so scared when they come to their first
class so that one’s next week. And then we’re coming up to our annual Artisan Fair. It’s going
to be our 10th anniversary of that event so that’s Saturday, November 3rd. So we’re still taking
all sorts of vendors and information and then the next one is the Holiday Boutique and that one
we allow commercial vendors to come into as well so with that if you guys have any questions
please feel free to ask.
Boettcher: So what type of gymnastics participation do you see for the 18 month olds? Are they
out there going jumping jacks and.
Sarles: They’re tumbling. It’s basically tumbling.
Boettcher: I’m just not seeing them doing the crab walk and the…
Sarles: No. No, no, no, no, no, no. We’ll wait until they turn for 5 until that one right.
Scharfenberg: Any other questions for Jodi? Thank you Jodi.
Sarles: Thank you.
SENIOR CENTER QUARTERLY UPDATE.
Scharfenberg: Next up is Mary. I’d like to welcome Mary to her first Park and Recreation
Commission meeting and maybe you can give us a little bit of introduction and a little
background.
Blazanin: Sure yeah. Thank you Chair Scharfenberg and commissioners and yeah, thanks for
welcoming me. So I’ve been in the job for what, 3 months and things are going really well. I
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
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have to say Chanhassen has been an extremely welcoming community and I appreciate that.
Staff here are great and they’re not paying me to say that. Well no maybe they are. Anyway
staff has been great. Sue left me in fabulous hands and it really had set up a wonderful series of
programming that I just had to jump into and run so that was great. My background a little bit.
Been working with seniors pretty much my entire career. Worked for the Long Term Care
Omnibus program at the State of Minnesota for a number of years before taking a break to stay
home and raise my kids and do some part time work. Got back into working in senior housing
for the past 7 years running programs for a facility in Bloomington and now I’m here. So I’ve
kind of a wide variety of background working with seniors and more than anything I just enjoy
being with them so.
Scharfenberg: Well welcome.
Blazanin: Thank you. Thank you. So as I said Sue left me in good hands. We’ve been super
busy with a whirlwind of summer trips and activities that take advantage of the long, warm
summer days. We have very active seniors in Chanhassen and that’s fun to see. Speakers and
programs that have an educational component to them are very popular and also anything that
involves food. So we had dinner, I listed everything here and I know you have a copy of that.
Dinner with the Mayor was a full house. We had 56 people in attendance. Staff helped serve.
The Mayor spoke. A lot of positive feedback on that. We have done some Grandparent and Me
events. We did Bingo in the Park. We had youth volunteers. Katie had some volunteers for me
who actually ran the whole thing which was really fun and we had pretty high participation.
There were 26 people there. A combination of grandparents and even a great grandparent so that
was kind of fun. We went for the first time this year to a St. Paul Saints game and wonderful
stadium. We just wanted to get a feel for how it worked. Everyone had fun. They all want to go
back and they won so that’s good. Recently we hosted what we called a Cruise the World of
Senior Housing. We invited 6 or 7 senior living facilities to come in and do a short presentation
about their facility. A power point and then they fed us which was great and people could stay
around and ask questions. Got a lot of good feedback about that as well. Our annual Ladies Tea
Luncheon served 65 guests just last week. We had a style show. A lot of laughs. That was a lot
of fun for the ladies. Looking forward in November. November is Dementia and Aging
Awareness Month so we’re sponsoring a number of different events and speakers. Many of
those are listed there. A lot going on in November but I know that people don’t just focus or
think about dementia one month out of the year. That for many people it’s a daily struggle or a
daily issue so I’m going to continue these types of programs once a month we’ll have, at least
once a month we’ll have a program that will focus on helping caregivers understand dementia a
little bit better and find the resources that they need to keep their loved ones safe and cared for.
Upcoming events that I want you to know you’re welcomed to join us on. We have an
Octoberfest coming up on October 17th. Right now I have over 60 people signed up for that. I’m
sure we’re going to hit our 80 mark. You’re welcomed to come to that. It’s going to be over at
the Rec Center starting at noon on the 17th. A pancake breakfast November 15th. It’s going to be
cooked up by city staff so they tell me starting at 9:00 a.m. and then our annual Holiday Party
which is a really large event hosting up to 125, maybe more and that will also be at the Rec
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Center in December on December 6th. I’m working now on filling the calendar into next year. I
have several events already scheduled for January, February, March and beyond. One of the new
things that I’m developing is what I’m calling a Speaker or Song Soup and Salad event where
we’ll have a speaker or a singer or entertainer of some sort and then offer a luncheon of soup and
salad for our residents. My goal is, I’m sorry. I say residents. For our people in Chanhassen,
my goal really is to find ways to help people stay connected and know that they have a
community here at the senior center so, do you have any questions for me?
Scharfenberg: Any questions for Mary?
Boettcher: Well I’m looking around, I don’t see them. Did nobody tell her the new person
brings cookies?
Hoffman: You’re just one room away.
Blazanin: Yeah I might have a granola bar in my office.
Scharfenberg: Alright thank you Mary.
Blazanin: You’re welcome.
2018 HALLOWE4EN PARTY PREVIEW.
Scharfenberg: Next up is Katie for a preview of the Halloween Party.
Matthews: Thank you Chair Scharfenberg and Commissioners. The 34th Annual Halloween
Party will be held on Saturday, October 27th at the Chanhassen Rec Center. This is the final of
our four community events that we have throughout the year and it’s open to children ages 12
and under and their grandparents or parents or whoever wants to bring them. The participants
are invited to do a variety of activities. We’ve got hayrides. Trick or treating. A spooky room.
Carnival games. Bouncy house. Refreshments and all sorts of family fun. There will be a
magic show from Kevin Hall and the Hall of Magic performing from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. We’ve
got an event flyer that is already on the City’s website and that will be sent out to all the local
schools and through the Villager and then we just ask if people are going to want to pre-register
and the advantage to pre-registering is you can come in and you don’t have to register the day of
so you can go, grab your goody bag and head on into the fun right away without having to wait
in line to register but so you can pre-register by October 26th but we also do take registration at
the door. And we’re also looking for any volunteers if anybody wants to come help out with
trick or treating or if you know anybody who would be interested in doing any of the carnival
games or helping out in the spooky room, we do have a sign up that is on our City’s website that
has also been sent out to the surrounding schools. Key Clubs and volunteer organizations so.
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
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Scharfenberg: Will you send out an email like a week before just as a reminder to anybody
needs, because I know you’ve done that in the past.
Matthews: I’ve sent yes. A week before. A month before. A few days before. Sent out a few
in my time.
Scharfenberg: Yeah, any questions for Katie about the Halloween Party?
Echternacht: Katie we use the Key Club for this activity like we do with the fishing?
Matthews: Yep, yep so we use a Sign Up Genius has been, I think I’ve been using that now for
maybe 2 or 3 years for a lot of our events and it helps. It’s a link that I send out to all, I mean it
goes to the Chanhassen Key Club. The Chaska Key Club. Send it out to Southwest Christian
High School. Then I send it out to like our teen volunteers but through that you don’t have to
create an account or anything but if you put your email in it then it also send them a reminder out
where they signed up and a time so. That’s been really nice because we already have I think
maybe 10 people signed up but sometimes when you sign up a month early it’s nice to get a little
reminder so you don’t forget.
Scharfenberg: Alright thanks Katie.
Matthews: Thank you.
COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None.
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Scharfenberg: Next up is the administrative packet and Todd I’m going to turn it over to you to
address the watercraft rental boat storage issue.
Hoffman: Thank you Chair Scharfenberg and members of the commission. There’s a variety of
information in the Admin Packet but the first item is watercraft rental storage request. A resident
that lives near Carver Beach currently stores 2 kayaks across the street and is requesting that a
rack be put at the Carver Beach, at the main beach. There is a storage rack at the north side of
the beach but it’s often full and so we had a conversation back and forth and one of the things
that staff is thinking is that these residents adjacent to these parks are pretty sensitive about how
we operate those shoreland properties in our city and one thing we just want to be careful of is
that we don’t become the storage area for people’s personal watercrafts. There are dozens of
people that take paddleboards, kayaks, canoes, other small watercraft from their home. Down
the street. Into the park and you really, as an organization we can’t fulfill all the requests that we
would have for watercraft storage. Years ago there was a request for an all out marina at Carver
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
13
Beach Park and so there’s been a variety of requests over the years. They’re not very, it’s not
very often. We have racks currently at Lake Ann and then at, over at Carver Beach there on the
north side.
Scharfenberg: Is that one still at Lake Susan?
Hoffman: It was pulled out. Just not highly used because of the quality of the beach there.
Scharfenberg: Yeah.
Hoffman: So I just promised him that I would bring that to the attention of the commissioners
and if you felt differently, you wanted to explore. You know there’s all sorts of watercraft
properties. Roundhouse Park. Greenwood Shores Park. There’s others listed that we have. You
know even at Lake Riley we have property on Lake Riley as well so if the commission had an
interest in getting into the watercraft storage business and put in more racks we certainly could
do that. I just wanted to fulfill that promise that I would bring it to your attention.
Scharfenberg: I would just open that item up for any discussion. Anybody have any thoughts or
opinions?
Echternacht: The one Todd that you said on the north end, is that just first come first serve or as
far as…
Hoffman: Yeah first come first serve and we’re talking about having a lottery instead and so
we’ve now restricted it to residents go first and they’ve always filled now with residents and now
we can do a lottery so there’s an equal chance instead of first come first serve so we would put a
lottery out for those locations.
Tsuchiya: Is there a charge?
Hoffman: (Yes). It’s an annual charge.
Boettcher: Is it $60?
Ruegemer: It’s $60 for Chan residents and $70 for non-residents so, and we haven’t gotten to
the non-residents the last 2 or 3 years now so. Like Todd said they’re always filled with
residents.
Tsuchiya: And they would supply their own chain and lock or whatever.
Ruegemer: Correct.
Tsuchiya: For securing the craft themselves.
Park and Recreation Commission – September 25, 2018
14
Scharfenberg: Have we ever thought about adding them just at, like at Lake Ann more of them?
Because I know the ones at Lake Ann fill up right?
Hoffman: Yep there’s 3 of them there and that’s the challenge. We’re starting to use a lot of
real estate so there’s 3 there. We could probably add one more but it just starts to take away
from the appeal of the general look of the area. And so there is, there would be room for one
more there. And the term canoe rack is really not correct anymore. They’re mostly kayaks.
Kayak racks yeah.
Tsuchiya: Paddleboards.
Scharfenberg: Any other discussion or thoughts on that issue? Todd I thought your response
was an appropriate response to Mr. Reed was it? And you know I agree with you that I don’t
think we want to get into the business of people being, storing their boats and incurring that so
I’m fine keeping the policy as it is. Where we are status quo. Anything else from the packet that
you want to point out? I thought well I would just comment again, Jerry really good on the
picnic evaluations. You know 5’s across the board. I saw some feedback regarding Lake Susan
the bathrooms again. That’s nothing new. We hear that a lot about the bathrooms at Lake Susan
but again I think the evaluations you know show that we have great shelters and they’re in need
and people like to come back and enjoy using our parks and that’s clearly evident in the
evaluations that we see. Alright, if we don’t have anything else I would entertain a motion to
adjourn.
Echternacht moved, Boettcher seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the
motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission
was adjourned at 8:10 p.m.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim