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PRC 2019 12 10CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 10, 2019 Chairman Boettcher called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Boettcher, Meredith Petouvis, Joe Scanlon, Karl Tsuchiya, Matt Kutz, Sandy Sweetser, and Haley Pemrick STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Priya Tandon, Recreation Supervisor; Jodi Sarles, Rec Center Manager; Adam Beers, Park Superintendent; and Mary Blazanin, Senior Center Coordinator APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Kutz moved, Petouvis seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Tsuchiya: I don’t know if it’s here but Saturday’s light ceremony was awesome. That was a lot of fun. Hoffman: Yeah. Doesn’t it look great out there? Tsuchiya: It was good. Boettcher: Was Santa Clause in the hut again? Tsuchiya: I don’t think he was in the hut was he? No. Hoffman: He was there. Tsuchiya: He was there but I don’t think he was in the hut. I think he was out in the open right. Boettcher: All the kids know that’s a trick now. They figured out. Hoffman: We can share good news. Really great news that last night the City Council did approve the 2020 budget and it does include another full time maintenance staff person. Boettcher: Oh good. Hoffman: We’ll be advertising shortly. Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 2 Tsuchiya: Someone else for Adam to boss around. Boettcher: Somebody new to get lunch for you every day Adam. Beers: They’ll be rowing the boat. 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 November 26, 2019 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. YEAR IN REVIEW PRESENTATION. Boettcher: Oh what is this? Pictures. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Boettcher and commissioners. We will, just wanted to put together a power point here and kind of go through kind of a start to finish of 2019. All departments. All divisions participated in this event so we have kind of a fun way to kind of look back and give you a snapshot of 2019 so without further ado I’d like to present. Jerry Ruegemer showed a power point presentation at this point in the meeting. Ruegemer: Just to thank all the staff that did a lot of hard work this summer and I guess all seasons of the year so congrats to everybody else. Just wanted to share successes with you tonight so. Boettcher: Alright. OLD BUSINESS. Boettcher: You want to talk about the trail? Hoffman: Yeah acknowledge that the Arboretum trail is currently on hold. The bids have been rescinded because of the design challenges and the DNR’s failure to acknowledge that they’ll approve it so the County will attempt, they’re going to look at every possible redesign. If the redesign is established and identified then it could be rebid probably between now and March. In order for the federal funding to be secured a pay request has to be submitted by June so you would have to have a design, a bid, award the bid and then have the first pay request by June in order for the million dollar federal grant to be secured. If not it goes away and then the whole process will have to start over again so I’m hopeful they can identify a redesign in that one particular area. When you enter the Arboretum it’s off to the right. That’s the location that has Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 3 the challenging design. The Arboretum is obviously very interested in having the project completed so they will work side by side with the County to try to identify. Obviously they have a master plan as well and so you just can’t move things anywhere because then that you know presents some challenges with the future design for the Arboretum. There’s also a deer fence as part of the project so wherever the trail goes the deer fence has to go so the deer fence is on inside of the trail towards the Arboretum and they have to go hand in hand so there’s a lot of moving parts. Very difficult project. It’s been about oh 3 years to this point and so we’re hopeful that a few more months the redesign can happen. Marty has made a lot of phone calls to me over the years. I could tell when that one, when I picked up that one that I could tell exactly what the news was going to be just by the tone of his voice so he was very distressed and he’s going to go back and work with SRF to see I they can’t find a new design and then get that back to bid. And you know we were all at the point where we were just wondering if the bids was going to be low enough to fulfill the project. Now we’re off to a location where redesign’s typically aren’t cheaper. You typically go to the cheapest in the design first so we’ll see. There is that, you know there is that chance that somebody will just cut through and say you know sometimes you have to, for example this would be the Arboretum. They would just have to say well let’s just make it simpler and let’s do something we really didn’t want to do design wise or location wise just to get the project underway so I’m hopeful that that might be the case. It might not be the case. And I’m sure we’ll hear probably in the first 30 to 45 days of January or the first of the year from the County on what’s going on. Boettcher: So would they have, did Marty indicate would there be just one revised plan? Would they have a back up on top of the revised one? Hoffman: Well they’re going to look at all alternatives and then they would sit down with the DNR and identify those alternatives and see if they would approve one of those so they’re going to look at a variety of alternatives, which they already have. It’s not like they’re starting from scratch. They’ve looked at a lot of different designs over the time. Boettcher: If the price was to go up does the federal money stay the same? Hoffman: Absolutely yes. Always been the same. Boettcher: Well there went that idea. No it’s just, I mean we discussed a few months ago it was a shock to everybody when the our contribution rate doubled and that was bad enough and then this happened. You know we want it to happen even though it was going to be a bigger bite out of our budget but to have it come down to this and all of a sudden it’s not going to happen because the chance of it, if they don’t have a bid that’s approved by June another 3 years. 4 years? Hoffman: Oh yeah at least. Boettcher: At least. Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 4 Kutz: I’m a little late to the conversation but do we have any input to say well if we can’t go through that spot can we just go up to that spot and stop and enter the Arboretum from one side only instead of connecting the two and then, I mean and still secure the money because you don’t want to lose out on money. I mean is that, I’m sure they’ve thought of that maybe or I don’t know if we have input to say well we want it done. Our money’s here. Hoffman: Yeah we really don’t. So we’re a silent partner. A cash silent partner. The land owner is the Arboretum and the contractor is the County or the owner is the County so, and the Arboretum is likely not going to just want people just dropped at their street so they’re going to want to see but they’re very interested. The Arboretum, the current management, administration there really sees this as an attribute to actually reduce some car parking in their facility. Having people arrive by bike or other means. Other pedestrian means so they see it as a real benefit to the Arboretum. They want to get it done. They were just as shocked when their contribution went from $625,000 to a million two five and you need to remember that the Arboretum is not charging for that land which is unusual. Traditionally they charge for that land for public improvements for, you know that are being completed by outside agencies like the County. That would put the project completely out of sight and so the fact that they’re cooperating. Allowing this trail to be built on their property and then also paying the million two five, we’re a long ways down towards getting a positive project. And of course this design is all to replace what would be on Highway 5 so our Comprehensive Plan, the City’s Comprehensive Plan shows a trail along Highway 5. Again which I indicated tonight if that was to be the case, if you were to build it right you’d have to build that on a bridge. You’d just have to completely build a bridge and the State knowing that it would likely be upgraded to a four lane highway what they would say at some point in the future, they’d say you can build it. It’s not going to stay there. It’s going to be taken out and a four lane highway’s going to be put in at some point so that’s really not an option but that was, you know that’s why this seemed like such a good plan is to go off line. Off the highway. Into the Arboretum and make the trail you know a much more pleasant experience going through the Arboretum than right adjacent to Highway 5. Boettcher: Anybody else have any discussion? Questions? Sit and wait. Alright. REPORTS: REC CENTER QUARTERLY UPDATE. Boettcher: Jodi looks like your’s. Sarles: Thank you Chair Boettcher, commissioners. Good evening. Just give you kind of some brief updates of what’s going on at the Rec Center right now. I just left then, we are training a bunch of new Super Heroes so there were 10 kids and little ones, 3 and 4 year olds out in the gym practicing all their tumbling and throwing and running skills so in a week they will graduate to Super Heroes so hopefully protecting us. Then we’re also running some track and field for little bit older kids. Those programs continue on and are successful. Our next stop will be floor hockey so that will be fun in January. We had a few, a couple activities here. We just finished Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 5 up the Artisan Fair so that’s the 11th one we’ve had. That’s all hand crafted items that we have the vendors come in and they pay for their table. A nominal fee. We had about 350 people and we collected, we collect food for the Food Shelf here so the Artisan Fair we usually donate one to PROP and then with the Holiday Boutique we’ll donate some food there to Bountiful Basket. And so that was 174 pounds of food was collected for PROP and this past weekend, writing these reports it’s always interesting when you don’t have any significant information beyond it but we did, we had 40, I think we actually had 41 vendors and again we collected that food and it was 129 pounds this past weekend and then a $ cash donation as well so it was very appreciated from the folks at Bountiful Baskets. I dropped that off yesterday. Again another successful event and very steady throughout the day so probably about 350-400 people again. A little update we’ve done with the, we’re modernizing our facility rental reservations so we’re kind of into the almost 2000’s now that we have an online system where you can submit for indoor reservations there so we’ve had about 4 so far since it started about 3 weeks ago so it’s just another way people can get that process going on their time and not waiting for me so it’s kind of a nice little addition. As far as some adult activities, our Fit for Life program is really a popular one. Very positive for the folks that participate so we tend to get less reservations and more drop in’s so I think it says here 47 people registered throughout the year and then we had 542 drop in visits for all those sessions so our instructor Kay Benson, she does really a fantastic job and we really appreciate what she does to keep folks active, moving and busy here. The personal training this year is again been very successful. We’re down to just one trainer for the most part, Julie and she also works the front desk. She’s done 166 one hour sessions this year so it’s a pretty good, good amount for one person to be putting in there so on a part time, part time part time basis. Again we just, yoga is offered every Tuesday night. We have two different classes. We get about 17 people that participate in that and then pickleball. Pickleball, pickleball. Can hear more than I do so we have a time every day where somebody can come and play pickleball so we are trying to meet the needs of our very vocal community. We offer beginning lessons and then we’re also having another tournament this January that we do with Chaska and Victoria park and rec departments. They have 6 courts over in Victoria so we typically hold it there so it’s kind of a fun little tournament for the folks to participate in. And then as far as we, with the addition of Silver Sneakers and Renew Active this year we’ve had about 1,000 visits throughout those two companies there that provide it for free. For seniors to come in and use the Rec Center so it’s been a nice partnership. And then we did have a free happiness seminar that Silver Sneakers provided for us as well so a few things. We’re in the punch card sale right now so if you buy a 40 punch card you get a 10 punch card free. That’s very popular. And then the last one is we have our winter showcase is going to be in February so I think that’s Feb Fest day. It always is so I am not going to be, I’d encourage you to come to that so that you can be at Feb Fest to volunteer. I can get you a recording so, but thank you commissioners. Anybody have any questions for me? Boettcher: Anything for Jodi? I was over there Friday for the Senior Center, the Christmas lunch and the pickleballers were, I think one of them chased the other one off the court. I don’t know what was happening there. I didn’t want to. Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 6 Sarles: Take a day off and then. Boettcher: It sounds like you’ve always got stuff going on over there. It’s really pretty amazing. Sarles: Yeah. Boettcher: So great job, thank you. Sarles Thank you. PARK MAINTENANCE QUARTERLY UPDATE. Boettcher: So next up Adam, park maintenance. Beers: Thank you Chair Boettcher and commissioners. I’m going to be short and sweet so we can get to our other meeting. So staff right now has been working really hard to get ready for hockey. Tonight’s going to be our first night with our new flood truck. We have two staff members going from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. so this is our first night of making ice. Been getting a lot of calls from I don’t know coming to Jodi and Jerry and Priya about when and why we don’t have ice already even though it’s been 40 degrees. So now we’re optimistic that this will all stay and it won’t warm up enough to lose it so we’re just going to go when we can and that will be that so we’ve been kind of just switching gears. We’ve had a few snow events under our belt now so we’re kind of getting used to getting everyone back into that mode and starting in the middle of the night to get everything cleaned off. I think we’ve done a pretty good job so far with our first few snowfalls to get everything open in a reasonable amount of time for everybody to kind of get to work and use the trails in the morning so it’s been good. Like Todd said we have another staff member coming on board. We’re going to advertise for that so that’s kind of a, it’s the first employee in 21 years to be added to our division so it’s kind of a big deal for us. Other than that we’re just kind of getting ready for Feb Fest now. Now that the tree lighting’s over we’ll kind of be cleaning up and we’ll be starting our preparations for the ice fishing contest so that’s a little bit of what we’ve got going on. Boettcher: I know you’ve said this in the past Adam and just for some of our newer commissioners. What is the time, we have a 6 inch snow and you guys get out there cleaning trails because we always used to hear it, well the trail and the sidewalk in front of my house is not cleaned until 3:00. What is the time if you started at 7:00 in the morning to clear everything? Beers: So the last few, as an example our last event we had 2 ½ inches and that typically requires you know 6 to 7 guys going from, I think we started at 4:30 and then we worked until about 5:00-5:30. A couple guys kind of petered out because they had obligations to get their kids so it’s a full day and that’s not including rinks so that’s when we throw that in the mix it becomes you know, we’re either starting earlier if we can, if the snow has stopped or we’re Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 7 working late or some things don’t get done so it typically would take you know 12-13 hours with 6 or 7 staff members going. Hoffman: And that’s more than a full day. 4:00 to 5:00. Beers: Yeah. Hoffman: So last year, well this year I believe our overtime is going to be about $100,000 in all divisions in public works so that’s one of the reasons you’re seeing those two positions. There’s a position coming into street maintenance as well. Full time position and full time position coming in at park so when you have $100,000 in overtime you know you have a staff shortage and that should help with that. Beers: Yeah absolutely. Boettcher: Sandy you had a question? I saw you playing with the button there. Sweetser: No I just moved it over… Boettcher: Well and like I said I know in a couple years past you had talked about it so if you get a request, if somebody calls in at 10:00 and they say my kids are out there and there’s snow on the sidewalk, on the trail or whatever, do you then will you prioritize that neighborhood the next time? How do you, because you can’t be everywhere at 7:00 in the morning. Beers: Yeah it’s kind of a delicate balance. We don’t do that. We try not to grease the squeaky wheel as much as we can. We prioritize all of the, you know public safety. Jodi’s school, Rec Center and all the school walking grounds so the stuff around the high school. The stuff going down Kerber and the elementary school here is priority one. 78th. The sidewalks. We want to try to have them all open by business hours, by 8:00 so that alone will, I mean we barely make that as it is so having another person is going to be a huge benefit to trying to reach those goals at a reasonable time. So we try not to you know bounce around too much. People are pretty understanding if I can get on the phone with them and explain the process. A lot of times they just don’t know and a little education goes a long way. Kutz: Adam do we send out an email when the rinks are ready to be used? I think I thought I saw somewhere it’s like December 15th through the end of February where it’s like the standard hours but if we’re going to open it early do you have anything, notifications out there? Beers: Yeah typically Jerry and I will, you know we’re communicating with Priya and trying to make sure we’re getting out as much information as we can about you know when the process starts because we’re kind of handcuffed by the weather and frozen ground so Jerry’s actually got a little. Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 8 Kutz: A social media post. Ruegemer: Kind of ready to go. Kutz: Okay perfect. Beers: Just to kind of keep everybody up to speed. Boettcher: Have you gotten any feedback from Pioneer Pass? Are they thankful that it’s coming? Beers: I haven’t heard anything. Boettcher: Haven’t heard anything? Because we had what two parents or three or whatever it was that were here back in September or something. Beers: Yeah it’s already to go. We moved a few tables around and pushed all the snow off of the ballfields so we’re, it should go in nice. Boettcher: Anything else for Adam? Great job Adam. Thank you very much. Hoffman: I’m going to have Adam talk a little bit about flooding grass versus flooding asphalt so everyone understands the difference and where we’re at with the current frost cycle and just how that works. Beers: Yep so typically in a perfect world we would wait until you know in the ballpark of 6 inches or more of frost in the grass to start because a lot of times what will happen is when we’re putting that room temperature water down, if there’s less than that it will start to pull the frost out and then the water will just leech through so it’s a real kind of a, when we’re starting it’s a delicate balance of flirting with starting too early and we’re kind of at that point right now so for sure staff’s going to be out flooding the bituminous rinks. All the asphalt. Those are, they’re all kind of shaped like a pool, like a bowl and we plug the drain so that you know the water can’t leave so it’s just a matter of time. It’s going to be 9 below tonight so that with little short of bursts of water will, that will start so when they get out there at 11:00 they’re going to go probe around and check and see if we can go and if we can great, we’re going to do it but if we have to wait it’s better to do that in the long run so that we don’t go backwards so. Yeah right now, you know as of yesterday we didn’t have any frost in the ground. You could stick a finger right in so with it being super cold the last couple night it goes fast. There’s a lot of moisture in the ground so it’s not going to take long to freeze so. Kutz: I’m not advocating for this but have you ever used liners in the past on any of rinks that you’ve tried? Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 9 Beers: Not in this situation. The facility I used to work for we did that and it’s a completely different animal to tackle I think with the number of rinks we have and the size of the rinks that we have, it’s not really a feasible option. I don’t think you get a, there’s a lot more headaches that go into it. A lot of things that can go wrong. We were, the place I came from we were doing, they were pond hockey sized rinks so they were probably you know about a quarter of the size and we would fill them like a pool up to 16 inches and that would take 2 weeks to freeze so it’s, I think the system we have in place is the right option. It’s just you know we’ve just got to have the right conditions to get going. Kutz: Good. Hoffman: And the new truck adds to the other trucks so there’s two trucks going. Beers: Yep. Hoffman: They fill up at public works with water and they head out. Beers: You know when it’s 9 below or anything below zero they can, I mean just turn and burn and keep going so by the time the get the first one on there you know they split the city kind of north and south of Highway 5 and then just, they just keep going. Going, going, going all day long so a lot of coffee and radio time. Tsuchiya: Adam what is the scientific instrument used to determine the frost level? Is it a spade shovel or? Beers: Screwdriver. That’s kind of our go to. Tsuchiya: Okay. Alright, Beers: We do have a frost probe. Just a, never mind. It’s a piece of rebar but pretty high tech. Boettcher: Hammer and chisel. Tsuchiya: Alright. Boettcher: How many rinks total in the city? Beers: Let’s see, 8. 9. Boettcher: Alright, thank you Adam. Beers: Absolutely. Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 10 SENIOR CENTER QUARTERLY UPDATE. Boettcher: Next we have senior center. Mary. Looks like you’ve got a bunch of updates. Blazanin: Thank you Chair Boettcher and commissioners. So we are wrapping up our winter, our early winter programs with seniors here and we continue to see many new folks coming in as well as regular attendees and actually now I’m seeing some folks who hadn’t been coming in a while and now are starting to come back so that’s been fun to get to know some new folks. A lot of stuff going on. So a lot of holidays, a lot of parties happening in the last few months. We’ve had our Octoberfest. We’ve had our Crazy Hat Day which was on Halloween. Our annual pancake breakfast where this year for the first time I offered the breakfast for free to veterans who signed up so that was a big hit. We had 65 folks show up for that and staff was cooking up pancakes for me. It was a really fun day. It was a good morning. Our annual holiday party was just this last Friday. We had quite a few. Jim was there. Great lunch. It was really good. Boettcher: Real good. Blazanin: And then for the first time this year we’re going to have a New Year’s Eve party. I promised I’d have everybody get home by 2:00 so they could, so we have a New Year’s Eve party and it’s filling up nicely so that will be fun. We partnered again this fall with Chaska. With Chaska Lodge on a number of trip and play outings. It just really helped us to be able to fill up a bus so we kind of split the cost on the transportation. Purchase tickets together and then show up. It’s also a really great way to build community between the two cities which I really enjoy. We did a walking tour of Mankato and driving and dining down there last October. We’d like to go up to St. Cloud to their Paramount Theater which is a beautiful venue. They have a lot of variety of shows up there. We’d like to go to Bloomington. There’s a new Ives Theater connected to the Masonic Home. They offer a lot of kind of home grown plays which are fun to see and then of course the annual Church Basement Ladies show. Got to hit that one so that was actually coming up next week. Just a few highlights from this year. Still strong on educational and informational classes. I’ve discovered that Chanhassen seniors really love to learn so I’ve found a number of speakers who could come in and do historical presentations. We had someone come in to talk about the 1936 Olympics. The Queen’s Gardens in England. Our Veterans Day pancake breakfast I had a woman come in from the Rosie the Riveter Foundation and talk about the Rosie’s of World War II. We’ve also done some health care informational kinds of things. Group of folks came in and did a discussion on how to have care conversations with your loved ones so those are just some samples. We continue to host AARP Safe Driving classes for seniors and those are popular. We do at least once a month for those classes. Our in- house dining is still growing. We’re still seeing new folks coming in for meals and they have increased their home deliveries as well and I suspect that will go up even more this winter as people are more homebound so still trying to just partner with them and have events that will, that will allow people to stay afterward and have a meal with CAP Agency. Our creativity groups are still thriving. We’ve got book clubs and wood carving and all kinds of card games. Our Chan-o-Laires is going strong. Diane who was the long term director there moved out of Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 11 town. We have a new director now, Carol who is just doing a fabulous job and she’s agreed to stay on for the year and then she’s going to decide what she’ll be doing next after that but hopefully she’ll decide to stay. She’s really been doing a fabulous job on that. During the month of November we highlighted National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month with a variety of speakers and events. It was a pretty full calendar but one of the best ones was we went over, we partnered with the Chanhassen Cinema. They hosted our group and allowed us to show a movie called Glen Campbell. The Story of Glen Campbell called I’ll Be Me. It was a documentary on his life. He was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease and had, already had a series of concerts that he had booked and the family chose to continue to allow him to perform and it was just a really wonderful movie documenting this progression through the disease and how the family dealt with that and how his fans dealt with that and it was very informational too. A lot of information about just what does that disease look like. We had close to 80 people attend that. A lot of local businesses helped provide food so that they could sit through the movie and just enjoy it. Cub Foods, Lunds and Byerlys, Chick-fil-A all provided food and then we did a, we had afterwards a panel discussion to talk. To give people a chance to kind of talk about what they learned or what they knew and to give them information about where to go if they’ve got some family members that are struggling with memory loss. Our most exciting project however of the year was remodeling the Maple Room. Remodeling that maple corner and I know you all knew about that and heard about that. It was really quite a flurry of activity for a few short months but it looks beautiful. If you have a chance walk down there and take a look at it and already starting to see some coffee groups show up. Some seniors who are just looking for a place to bring their laptop and do a little work. Small groups. Book clubs. Discussion groups are all starting to kind of pop up and I’ll be promoting that more and more into next year. Along with that a remake of the maple corner we also have kicked off our new Memory Café program. That started in November. We also will have another one this Thursday. Be our second one and we’re partnering with a lot of community programs to make that happen and that’s just an outreach for folks who are caregivers and have a loved one at home that they’re dealing with who has some memory loss. It’s a place for them to come and hang out and have fun. We have artists coming in. Musicians coming in. All kinds of fun things to do while people are coming in to hang out with us in our Memory Café. In all of this throughout the year we’ve just been gaining some strong partnerships with many community organizations and businesses. Especially Carver County Health and Human Services, the CAP Agency, Chaska Lodge, Eastern Carver County Schools. I’m actually working with a young man now who wants to start a tech training program. He wants to teach seniors how to use those Smartphones that their children give them and they don’t know how to use. So I’m excited that he’ll be starting that up after the first of the year and be able to meet with folks and work with them one on one to teach them how to do tech stuff so that will be fun. We’ve also been working with Southwest Prime on getting information out about transportation services that they offer. They’ve just started a new program called Prime MD which will help people get to and from medical appointments as well so we’re just helping them get the word out on that. Also people have been using it to come to the senior center so that’s great so a lot of stuff going on. We’re going to keep them busy. We’re going to keep them active. Keep them coming. Do you have any questions? Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 12 Boettcher: I don’t know if any of the seniors can get a nap anymore with all that stuff. You’ve got so much going on. Blazanin: We can put a murphy bed in that maple corner room. Boettcher: So I was, as Mary stated I was at the Holiday lunch at the Rec Center on Friday. Who was the caterer because that was really, that was a great meal. Blazanin: It was Greg’s Catering. Yeah they do a fabulous job. They’ve been catering that event for about 6 years now for us. Boettcher: Okay, and they had cookies. I was sitting right near Mary by the table and the cookies were right here and Councilor Coleman and I were sitting there. We were taking turns. I had her grabbing some for me so. I might have had a couple in my pocket when I left, or not. Blazanin: I’m glad you enjoyed them. Boettcher: Anyone have any other questions for Mary? Any discussion? Alright great job. Thank you. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Boettcher: Administrative packet, we didn’t have one. Hoffman: I’ve got a few notes for the commission. Boettcher: Good. Hoffman: I think some of the stuff I’ve shared by email but By-laws will be reviewed in January so you can anticipate to see those. Zoey our youth commissioner, thanks to Sandy for coordinating that, will be appointed by this commission so you’ll appoint her in January when she’s here and she’ll start that evening so welcome Zoey. Probably have her sit over here I’m thinking right? So we’ll have Zoey here. If you’re not aware public works, our public works labor is unionized and we are in the middle of union negotiations again for 2020 so if you’re not aware we are a union shop and we’re negotiating that contract. Sweetser: What union is that Todd? Hoffman: What union are they? Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 13 Ruegemer: The 49er’s. Hoffman: 40er’s yep. And that’s relatively new. This is the third contract I’m thinking. The Rec Center, so when, as a cooperative with the school they lead most of the capital projects so they pay 76 percent of the bills, we pay 24 percent of the bills at the Rec Center. That’s how the agreement, the lease agreement is written and so they’re going to do a recommissioning of the whole HVAC, so that will cost us $10,000 to $15,000. Something like that or 24 percent and so those type of expenditures are not always programmed. They contact us. They say hey we’re doing this project. Are you onboard with that? We’ll be sending 24 percent to you and so administratively we talk that over and that was approved today by city management to allow that to happen. They’re doing all their schools so everybody, each school gets a break and it’s basically taking a look at your current system and recommissioning it to make it work much more effectively. Efficiently. Find out if there’s any deficiencies that can be repaired and so that’s a pretty big deal. Let’s see, oh and the Arboretum trail. So this is something I encourage commissioners to do and so you can, as commissioners always take the opportunity to have a desire to do that to advocate on behalf of the trail project. And so if you know any county commissioners, if you know somebody at the Arboretum, just find their email. Send them a note. Say hey this is you know so and so from the park board. We know that the trail project has got a little bit of a hiccup right now. We just want to make sure, let you know that we continue to be in support of this. You know just one or two emails from one or two of you to any kind of people that have a future decision in that kind of a project, that plays a big different and so if there’s nothing that anybody hears then often times as they’re working through these things they say you know what, we’ve hit a snag. We haven’t heard from anybody. We’re just going to let this thing you know go by the wayside so it’s always good to advocate on behalf of these projects as park board commissioners and then they hear from you they appreciate hearing from you. Really proud of the commission and all of your dedication to the 2019 so we appreciate that. Thank you for always being here and always being a good advocate for parks. And then obviously I want to say that I’m so proud of our staff. We’re small but mighty and as you can see from the slide show just really put a lot of smiles on people’s face. We do a lot of things that maybe don’t get always noticed and so police, fire, streets, a lot of those hard things get recognized really highly. Parks also get recognized but it’s kind of on the softer side. People are like yeah parks. That’s really nice but is that really an essential service and obviously we believe it’s an essential service. Our community believes it’s an essential service and it’s one of the things that really designates who we are as a community. Our parks and our recreation program so proud of the small but mighty staff that puts all that stuff onto the streets each and every day and really appreciate all they do. Boettcher: Good. It looks like is this our future youth commissioner? No? Hoffman: Student probably. Boettcher: Just a student, okay. You’re always welcomed. Anything else? Park and Recreation Commission – December 10, 2019 14 Kutz: Just a quick question. Wondering how many registrations we got for, I hear Santa’s calling on Thursday. Hoffman: Oh yeah. Tandon: Oh yeah, we have 17. Kutz: 17 excellent. Tandon: We’ve got 2 Santas. Both are in the woodworking Club. Tsuchiya: There’s only one Santa. Tandon: Santa’s helper. Kutz: Can they still register or is registration over? Tandon: What’s that? Kutz: Is registration closed for that? Tandon: Registration is now closed but we’re not full. I just need to get the Santa’s helpers their call list. Kutz: Excellent. In case anybody’s out there is watching. Boettcher: Alright if there’s nothing else I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn. Tsuchiya moved, Kutz seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned at 7:15 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim