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PRC 2019 11 26 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 26, 2019 Chairman Boettcher called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Boettcher, Meredith Petouvis, Joe Scanlon, Karl Tsuchiya, Matt Kutz, and Haley Pemrick MEMBERS ABSENT: Sandy Sweetser STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; and Priya Tandon, Recreation Supervisor APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Boettcher: Todd I was thinking somewhere in here since you and I and Meredith were at the work session last night maybe we could do a brief update for the other commissioners about what went on? Some of the discussion points and such. Would that be under? Hoffman: Old Business. Boettcher: Under Old Business, that’d be the best. Okay. Pemrick moved, Kutz seconded to approve the agenda with the addition of a City Council update under Old Business. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS. None. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS. None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Tsuchiya moved, Petouvis seconded to approve the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated October 22, 2019 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. ESTABLISH 2020 PICNIC RESERVATION FEES. Boettcher: Jerry is this you? Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Ruegemer: Yes it is Chair Boettcher. Thank you again. Good evening park and rec commissioners. Just wanted to go through the annual discussion related to our picnic fees for this upcoming season. We’re looking to take a look at those. We always look at the kind of the reservation categories and kind of the criteria that we have and information related to the annual I guess reservation season or picnic season that we have. We reviewed that last month at the Park and Recreation Commission meeting so we always take a look at and see how we can improve on things and kind of where we are in the area of picnic fees. As you can see in the report you have not raised picnic fees for 10 plus years. Staff has looked at a number of different areas with Three Rivers Park District, the City of Eden Prairie, some other neighboring areas and I feel at this point it is time to take a look at raising those slightly so we had kind of listed an illustration here that staff is recommending that the resident rate go up Monday through Thursday from $100 to $125. Friday through Sunday from $125 to $150. Non-resident will go up from $200 to $225 and then non-resident Friday through Sunday from $250 to $275 so just a slight $25 increase across the board. Everything else is recommended to stay the same with that so our large group fees of 100 persons or more in the picnic area would remain the same at $50 and $100 for resident and non-resident for that. Staff’s also recommending that the school rates remain the same for that so just really kind of focus on graduation parties, company picnics, birthday parties, that sort of thing here for that so. It is staff’s recommendation that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to the City Council to establish the 2020 picnic reservation fees with the following adjustments. The resident rate Monday through Thursday goes up to $125. Friday through Sunday the price is increased to $150 for non-resident. Monday through Thursday non-resident will go up to $225 and then $275 for the Friday through Sunday rate for the non-resident. As stated in previous conversations here all the reservation fees for the rest of the remaining with the school rates and large group fees will stay the same so, and then your th recommendation would be forwarded then to City Council for their approval at the January 13 meeting. Boettcher: Okay, any questions for Jerry? Tsuchiya: Jerry just approximately do you know what the increased revenue might be from the rate increase? Just over prior years. Ruegemer: You know roughly we have roughly about 125 reservations per year. I’d say 80-90 percent of those are resident rates so if I times that by say 100 times 25. Tsuchiya: Yeah okay, $2,500 so okay. That’s still nice. Boettcher: The one question I had when you said you compared to other cities in the area. Are we in the, does this put us now in the middle of the range? Top of the range? Lower range? Ruegemer: You know I’d say we’re kind of right in there Jim with the kind of the non-resident shelters. You know our shelters really have a higher capacity compared to a lot of the Three 2 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Rivers shelters. The Eden Prairie shelters. Eden Prairie number one only rents to Eden Prairie residents or Eden Prairie businesses. Boettcher: They don’t rent to? Ruegemer: They don’t do anything non-resident so a 40 person capacity shelter at Eden Prairie is $100. So for a resident shelter at the Lakeside Pavilion we go 125-150 person capacity there so it’s quite higher capacity. The Klingelhutz Pavilion is up to 300 to 400 people for that so for our residents so the fee I think is kind of right in. I think we’re still in a very competitive rate for that. Another shelter at Eden Prairie is $225 for 125 capacity shelter there so again I think we’re right, we’re very competitive. I think this rate increase isn’t going to hurt us at all. Boettcher: So it’s still, it keeps us very competitive more than anyone. I know we had a company function at Lake Riley which was in Eden Prairie probably about 12 or 13 years ago and we were still able to get in at that time. Our office was located in Edina but we were able to get in, but I remember it was 150 back then and they said well you get a barbeque grill. Wow. It sounded like it was maybe double what it should have been at that time but maybe because we were non-residents maybe that was their tag to get you in. I don’t remember but I just remember that dollar at that time was more than we’re charging right now for some. Good. No other questions for Jerry, anyone want to put it to a question? The proposed motion. Tsuchiya: I’ll make the motion. I’ll move that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends that the City Council approve the 2020 Picnic Reservation Fees for group picnics with the following adjustments: Residents Monday through Thursday $125, Friday through Sunday $150; Non-Residents Monday through Thursday $225, Friday through Sunday $275. All other reservation fees will remain the same as 2019. Petouvis: Second. Tsuchiya moved, Petouvis seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends that the City Council approve the 2020 Picnic Reservation Fees for group picnics with the following adjustments: Residents Monday through Thursday $125, Friday through Sunday $150; Non-Residents Monday through Thursday $225, Friday through Sunday $275. All other reservation fees will remain the same as 2019. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. OLD BUSINESS: UPDATE FROM CITY COUNCIL MEETING. Boettcher: The only thing which I had added earlier, as I said Todd and Meredith and I were at the work session last night and had a very informative presentation. I saw the Mayor and the City Council members, a lot of them doing the nodding in the affirmative which felt really good. Even when they talked about money. Talked about the two possibilities, Lake Ann by itself at $4.2 and the total package I think was $9.1 or something like that. About $5 million more so I’m 3 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 not sure which direction we’re going to go. The survey results will lead us in that direction but I think I heard some good stuff. I mean the questions that were asked by the mayor and a couple of the councilors really there was interest there. I mean there was no negativity that I noted. The one thing I guess I was kind of surprised, and it’s not a deal breaker by any means but was the parking at Greenwood Shores. I always thought in discussions that we’ve had in the past that was it a former park commission member way back when lived in the area and said there will never be any parking here and something was passed. I was kind of surprised to see that. I mean it’s necessary. It should have been there a long time ago but I hadn’t see that. I was kind of surprised to see that listed on the docket. Hoffman: Yeah the council requested that that be added in. Boettcher: Oh they did? Hoffman: At their work session when they took a look at the item. Boettcher: Okay. Hoffman: It’s currently the only park in the city that does not have some form of public parking at it. Carver Beach Park, if you’re familiar with that and Lotus Trail, that was probably back in the early 90’s that there was a plan for both parking at Greenwood Shores and the Carver Beach and then there was public meetings and the council at that time took out the plan for Greenwood Shores but they did go ahead with the plan at Carver Beach because there wasn’t any opposition there. It’s 6 stalls. As you heard Kevin Clarke talk about last night, it really would just get some cars off the street. It’s signed no parking but people do park on the street, both residents and non-residents. Visitors park on the street sometimes so at least having those 6 stalls, I think the budget item was $25,000 so it’s pretty nominal to add those. You take the gate, you pick it up. You move it down the hill a little bit. You add 6 stalls off to the side so I’m sure you’re going to hear something about it over time but it’s a good way to get those parking stalls in at that location. Boettcher: Now all the surveys were they mailed or were they? Hoffman: Mailed. Boettcher: And when was the anticipated arrival? I haven’t seen one yet. Hoffman: There’s a select group so everybody in the city doesn’t get them. It’s a select group that is mailed these surveys and then when you receive it there’s instructions. There’s a letter from the mayor and then it says the person with the birthday closest to the receipt I think, so it still takes some of that you know typically a 2 person household would get a survey and they’d say you know the more aggressive person might want to take the survey. This at least guides, 4 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 this is the selected person so you can at least take some of that bias out of it. And so there’s a lot of things, tricks that they do in making sure that the results are somewhat official. Boettcher: No I know there were questions last night and there was some discussion. Todd made some points about it was the boardwalk, because of the cost of it for two 400 foot boardwalks was $800,000 I believe and people were thinking well City Manager said was that the 3 by 3, 10 foot wide boards laid on the ground. He said no this is a little bit, you can drive on this one so it’s a little bit bigger. It’s got pilings and everything. I mean like I said the councilors and everyone at the meeting they were asking a lot of good questions which told me it peaked their interest and there wasn’t, they weren’t thinking in the negative. I didn’t hear any negative comments from them so we’re hopeful with what the survey says and then we’d make the determination and then the council. What our next step would be as far as how we get the money. Hoffman: Yeah and I think that’s a, it’s probably not just a referendum. You could you know cities can fund a $4.2 million dollar project. If it’s the desire of the park commission and the council to move forward you can find other. A referendum is fairly involved. It involves a lot of effort. Lots of leg work. Lots of meetings. Lots of emotion in the community and so yeah you can, there’s other ways to finance the project. You can raise the $4.2 million dollars and so, don’t know what the commission thoughts are as we move into the first quarter of next year but we’ll have those results probably back in February I’m thinking from the survey and then you can decide at that point. And there’s going to be a little bit of a timing, you know there’s some urgency to move ahead but there’s also, as you’re aware the land is coming in two chunks and so it’s giving us some time to kind of have these conversations about financing. We’re maybe a year to 18 months and so even though there is urgency you still have to wait til you get that second chunk of land until you can do the whole thing so you have some time there. So as you think through your schedule do you want to wait til April to your joint meeting and talk then. April or May when you typically have your joint meeting or do you want to have, you know you could ask the council to talk earlier as well. You can request some, it’s a pretty significant project. It’s not every day that the park commission and the City Council is talking about a project of this significance. One thing that I relayed to the council yesterday, and I really hadn’t thought about it until the start of this week is that, this is the largest public land acquisition in the City’s history and so it’s the largest piece of property acquired for public local park in our history. In our 52 year history and then to have such a nice plan for the trails and the open space preservation and I think everybody’s excited and you know would like to see it happen and then the real magic to this is just getting people into that space. For those of you who have been in there, once you’re in there it’s just pure magic. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful location and then to have all the neighborhood access points and the boardwalks. The boardwalks are actually I thought a heck of a value at $1,000 a foot. They’re an elaborate structure. It’s the only way you can get in there from two locations. Two of the sides and they’re really nicely done and so those boardwalks are a nice feature for the trails so the conversation will continue. I think this, obviously elected officials take, they lend a lot of credence to surveys and so you know if the survey is at least neutral, maybe even you know significantly positive based on would you 5 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 contribute $5 per month to make these things happen and that’s $9 million. So if you go lower than that then that contribution would be lower. So there’s still some ground work to be had and then a conversation in 2020. Boettcher: Yeah and the timing would probably be right if the survey is done in February. If we had the results for our March meeting and then usually about mid-April is our meeting with City Council so the timing there is for us to discuss it kind of our plan, our thoughts, our visions of it at our March meeting before we go to meet with council 2 or 3 weeks later would probably be perfect timing wise so. Hoffman: Yeah I got the feeling they wanted to be involved in that conversation and I think it’s obviously good that they are. Boettcher: Anything you wanted to add Meredith? You were a busy note taker last night. Petouvis: Oh I was just writing down what everybody’s comments and questions were. But just for those of us who weren’t there the presentation, correct me if I’m wrong Todd was essentially exactly the same as what we saw at our meeting last month so, so there’s nothing in there that I don’t think you all have seen so, but like Jim said mostly positive comments. Just questions about can we do this in there? Will public safety have access to the area? The answer is yes. And but really nothing, no significant concerns. Boettcher: There was a question from the mayor about a dog park and Todd explained that with access you would have to park way over here. Bring the dogs just it doesn’t lend itself to that type of facility at this location. Hoffman: Oh there’ll be plenty of dogs in there. Boettcher: Oh there will be. It just won’t be organized like at Lake Minnewashta. Hoffman: The current city code for dogs are dogs are allowed anywhere on a public trail on a leash, either in a park or outside of a park. Dogs are not permitted in parks per se but they are allowed on trails that are within parks. Boettcher: So you can’t even like on the softball fields over here at Lake Ann? Hoffman: No dogs off leash are not allowed at parks. Boettcher: Off leash but on leash? Hoffman: Nope, dogs if you’re in a park they have to be on a trail. 6 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Boettcher: I try to tell people that sometimes and they just glare at me so I say I’m on the park commission. My name’s Karl Tsuchiya. Hoffman: I’m an attorney. Boettcher: I’m here to help. Tsuchiya: I’m here to help, you stole my line. Boettcher: But anyways I thought it was great, at least what I saw. I thought the perception from the council members so. If there’s nothing else we can move onto reports. Pemrick: Sorry one other thing I forgot to bring up earlier. So I think it was in our first meeting in here I had noticed the by-laws had a date older than when they were supposed to be re-upped and Todd was going to look at that and I noticed the set of by-laws you sent out to us last week about the junior commissioner had the 2013 date on it. Hoffman: Okay. Pemrick: And they’re supposed to be updated every 5 years so we are a year behind on that so I’m thinking we should probably get that on the docket in the future here. Boettcher: We can do that. January would be a good time probably. Start of the new year. Hoffman: Absolutely yep. Boettcher: Take a look at it and see. Pemrick: Okay. Boettcher: I had thought of that and. Pemrick: I think about it when I’m not here and then I forget when I get here so. Boettcher: Yeah for a January meeting that should be great. If nothing else move onto reports. REPORTS: 2019 HALLOWEEN PARTY EVALUATION. Boettcher: First one, number one Halloween Party evaluation. And I believe Priya is that you? 7 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 th Tandon: Yes. Thank you Chair Boettcher and thank you park and rec commissioners. The 35 th Annual Halloween Party was held on Saturday, October 26 at the Chanhassen Recreation Center. We had 415 registrants this year which was great. Normally at least 2015 registrations have been somewhere between 300 and 350 so we were up I think significantly this year which was awesome. Registrants and their families enjoyed carnival games, door prizes, refreshments, indoor trick or treating, two spooky rooms, hay rides and a magic show so just kind of going through those each specifically. The entertainment was provided by Brian Richards. He did a half hour magic show which got pretty positive reviews by both kids and parents. Rooms 1 and 2 in the Rec Center were spooky rooms as had been in the past. The carnival games were held in the Bluff Creek Elementary gym, kind of spread out throughout the gym so I think it worked really well because it was a highly trafficked area. Refreshments were cookies and apple cider in Rooms 3 and 4 which were purchased from Cub Foods in Chanhassen. I think next year we should consider purchasing 55 or 56 dozen cookies as we kind of ran out by the end but it was almost perfect with that number. The hay rides were in kind of that front field area by the rec center which had high visibility as participants were walking into the event. We had 24 wonderful volunteers from the community from park and rec commission and Chanhassen, Chaska and Minnetonka Key Clubs and National Honor Societies and they assisted with carnival games, refreshments, some last minute set up, registrations and then cleaning up the event as well. So some things that went well, the event continuing to use that conference room until Monday morning for easier clean up. I think we could be more active in recruiting volunteers for the 2020 Halloween Party just because we did have to pull two carnival games and I think the more volunteers would provide just those two extra games and some more coverage. Additional props to the spooky rooms to keep things fresh and fun for guests who have attended multiple years. And then I think the last thing I would hope to add in 2020 was maybe a photo station somewhere at the event. Not only for parents to take photos of their kids but maybe have a volunteer there to assist with taking full family photos which I think would be a fun event for the kids as well hopefully they might post those photos to Facebook or share them with their friends which would also hopefully bring those friends into the event in future years. Boettcher: Very good. So what is the total time? Is it 2 ½ - 3 hours? Priya: Two hours. Boettcher: Two hours. So 415, yikes. Ruegemer: Kids plus parents. Priya: It’s busy. Boettcher: Now for the last several years there was a former park commissioner used to show up as Mr. Incredible. Did I see somebody in a red with, he didn’t show this year? Ruegemer: Mr. Incredible was not there. 8 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Hoffman: But 600 cookies Jim. Boettcher: Well see we were on our cruise. Well we actually had just gotten home but I like the fact that you’re go up a couple dozen more because that would fit for me next year. Some day I’ll have to tell you my whole cookie story and how I’ve been designated that. Commissioner Tsuchiya just really loves that whole thing that I do but it sounds like it was a great success. I mean it was from 300 last year you said? Tandon: Last year I believe the registration was 365. I’d have to double check. Boettcher: So it went up another 50. Tandon: Yep.. Boettcher: Okay. Tandon: Yeah it was great weather which I think had a lot to do with it and our Facebook event reached quite a few people as well so. Boettcher: Good. Ruegemer: Priya’s first week of work. At least she’s already done one. Boettcher: It took her a week Jerry. How long have you been doing it? Ruegemer: A few years. Boettcher: You’re pushing them away and she’s bringing them in, okay. Pemrick: Any thoughts or have you guys ever done paid marketing through Facebook ads in helping try, you know they can use all those algorithms and try and promote it to the people within different ranges. Tandon: You know not that I’m aware of but that would be something that would be really valuable I think to look into for next year. Pemrick: Cool. Kutz: What do you think your max capacity would be for that facility? I mean I’m assuming with potentially 800 people you had to be pretty full. I mean could you actually handle more than that? 9 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Tandon: You know I would say we were pretty close to max capacity but we could handle more if we used the space differently I think so I definitely think we could have more participants. Petouvis: What’s fire code say? Kutz: Good question. Boettcher: You want to run it by the Chanhassen Fire Department that could check that out. Kutz: Yeah Fire Marshal. Tandon: It’s something to look into for next year. Boettcher: Well sounds good. So since that was your first event you know what that means, we just keep expecting that bar, it’s just going to keep, the carrot’s going to be dangling a little bit higher every time so. Tandon: Okay sounds good. Boettcher: Great job thank you. 2019 TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY. Boettcher: And I think you’re for the tree lighting. This is your’s also Priya. Tandon: Yes that’s correct, thank you. So looking ahead we have our tree lighting ceremony that th will be held on the plaza in City Center Park on Saturday, December 7. The event starts at 5:00 p.m. and will run for approximately one hour with the holiday tree being lit around 5:15 p.m. by Deputy Mayor Dan Campion. So at the event we’ll of course have the official lighting of City Center Park as well as we have live reindeer coming. Refreshments. Bonfires. S’mores. We have carolers. Gingerbread house displays and a visit from Santa Claus. The event is free and open to all ages. The event is expected to draw approximately 300 to 400 attendees. To th advertise the event we have flyers going out in the Chanhassen Villager on December 5. We’ll have a Facebook event that hopefully will get us some publicity on social media. We have flyers at City Hall and Chanhassen Recreation Center. And then the last thing is the tree lighting ceremony is co-sponsored by the City of Chanhassen, Buy Chanhassen is providing some of the refreshments. Southwest Chamber of Commerce who is providing the S’mores and the Mustard Seed Landscape and Garden Center who is providing the visit from Santa Claus. Boettcher: Sounds good. Bring the kids Karl. Tsuchiya: They’re up for it. 10 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Boettcher: Okay. Alright thank you Priya. Very good. Tandon: Thank you. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Boettcher: I was looking through the administrative packet here. Anything Todd? I see a senior center has their Christmas Party coming up. Hoffman: They do. Boettcher: On Friday. Hoffman: And you’re all invited if you’d like to attend. Well you got two. Both an invitation and then just an invitation because of where’s at in life. Boettcher: Actually three. Tsuchiya: Tell you what I’ll forward it to you right now. th Boettcher: The 7 is the Holiday Boutique. This is something that’s really, I think it’s how many years has this one been going on Todd? Hoffman: A bunch. Boettcher: A bunch. I know my wife has gone over and bought stuff several years so. What do we do for the tree lighting in case of 14 inches of snow? Hoffman: Party goes on. Tsuchiya: It looks pretty. Ruegemer: There was a pretty good amount of snow last year. Boettcher: Oh that’s right. That was the first big one last year too wasn’t it? Ruegemer: Yeah we’ve had snow before but that was a pretty big one last year. 11 Park and Recreation Commission – November 26, 2019 Boettcher: Anyone have anything else? We don’t want to set a record for short meeting here. Oh do we? Alright with that being the case no more business I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn. Tsuchiya moved, Petouvis seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 12