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01-28-20-prcCHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 28, 2020 Chairman Boettcher called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Boettcher, Meredith Petouvis, Joe Scanlon, Karl Tsuchiya, Matt Kutz, Haley Pemrick, and Zoe Erpelding MEMBERS ABSENT: Sandy Sweetser STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; and Priya Tandon, Recreation Supervisor PUBLIC PRESENT: Cathy Erpelding 9061 Springfield Drive APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Boettcher: Moving onto approval of the agenda. Any changes, updates, deletions? Hoffman: None. Boettcher: Hearing none motion to approve. Tsuchiya moved, Pemrick 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: 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 December 10, 2018 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. MOVE FEBRUARY PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION MEETING DATE. Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 2 Boettcher: Based on the fact that we have caucus night on Tuesday the 25th the plan is to move the meeting to Wednesday, February 26th. Any thoughts? Any discussion? Commissioners conflicts? Pemrick: Works for me. Boettcher: Works for you. Scanlon: I can do it. Boettcher: You can do it? Commissioner Petouvis. Petouvis: I imagine I can come. Boettcher: Can you? Okay. Commissioner Tsuchiya. Tsuchiya: I’ll have to find alternate transportation for my kids but I should be able to make it. Boettcher: Okay. Commissioner Kutz? Kutz: I don’t see an issue but I have some kid issues to work through but I think it shouldn’t be an issue now that I have enough notice. Boettcher: And I think are we looking for a motion on this or just? Hoffman: Yeah we attempted to keep it on the Tuesday but our attorney, City Attorney said we should move it. Boettcher: Alright then I’ll look for a motion to move the meeting from Tuesday the 25th to Wednesday the 26th. Tsuchiya: Would that be the same time? Boettcher: Same time. 7:30 p.m. Hoffman: 7:30 which by the way we didn’t have a time on your agenda, we apologize. 7:30. Tsuchiya: I’ll make that motion. Boettcher: Alright we have a motion. Do we have a second? Pemrick: I’ll second. Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 3 Tsuchiya moved, Pemrick seconded to approve changing the February Park and Recreation Commission meeting date from Tuesday, February 25th to Wednesday, February 26th. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. APPOINT ZOE ERPELDING AS YOUTH COMMISSIONER. Boettcher: Now we have our new youth commissioner Zoe. You want to do, Todd would you like to do an introduction and then we’ll ask Zoe to introduce herself. Hoffman: Yep. So your proposed motion is that the Park and Recreation Commission appoints Zoe Erpelding as the Park and Recreation Youth Commissioner with a term of one year term. 1/28/20 to 4/28/20. Boettcher: Should that be 21? Hoffman: Correct 21, thank you. So commission bylaws allow for the appointment of one or two youth commissioners. This past go around we had no youth candidates come forward but Commissioner Sandy Sweetser worked with the Chanhassen High School and Ms. Erpelding came forward so we’re happy about that. Zoe’s a junior at Chanhassen High School. She worked for the park and recreation department this past summer as a playground leader. We hope she’s coming back. Are you coming back do we know yet? Don’t know yet. Yeah you can press your button. Erpelding: Yeah I need to email you back. Hoffman: Fantastic. That was intentional to put her on the spot and get her hired and she also volunteered in the City’s teen volunteer program and she’s expressed interest in becoming more involved in local park and recreation issues so we’re happy to have her here and I’ll allow Zoe to introduce herself a little bit more to the commission. Erpelding: Yeah I’m a junior at Chanhassen High School. I’m on the cross country team so I use a lot of paths in the city and I’m on the Nordic team right now and I’ll be on the track team again this spring. I don’t really know what else. Yeah I did the, I worked this summer for the City and I really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed working in the parks with the kids and stuff. It was really fun just to be outside all summer and enjoy the nice weather and. Boettcher: So are you a life long member, residents of Chanhassen or? Erpelding: I moved when I was 2 yeah Boettcher: That’s close enough. Erpelding: Lived here for all I can remember. Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 4 Hoffman: And you can introduce your mom. Erpelding: That’s my mom. Hoffman: Her name. Erpelding: Her name’s Cathy Erpelding. Hoffman: Hi Cathy, welcome. Boettcher: And she’ll be responsible for getting you to the meetings? Is that right? Erpelding: Ah no I can drive myself. She just wanted to come to this one. Boettcher: Well before we officially vote I’d like to welcome you. I think it’s great. I think it’s been, has it been 2 years since we had a youth commissioner? Ruegemer: Well probably Lauren Dale. Boettcher: Yeah Lauren Dale was the last one. That’s at least 18 months wasn’t it? Ruegemer: Yeah. Tsuchiya: Wasn’t Grant at the same time? Petouvis: Yeah. Tsuchiya: Okay. Hoffman: Sounds right and so you’re a voting, full voting member and so you have the same debate rights that the other commissioners too. You can talk the subjects. You can introduce your thoughts and then you’re a full voting member so now there’s a vote of 7 and with you they’re a vote of 8 so we get a 4-4 tie then you would have to go back and re-argue your point and hopefully get the vote switched to your side. Many votes are unanimous but there are some issues where we have split votes so just be aware of that but as a youth commissioner you are a fully vested voting member of the commission. Boettcher: The pay is not great but it’s a good time. Hoffman: Cake and sodas. Petouvis: Some t-shirts too. Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 5 Boettcher: So does someone want to make the motion. We’ll have to make the change to the motion that the end term is 4/28/2021 instead of 2020 as written. Would someone like to make that a motion? Pemrick: So moved. Boettcher: And a second. Tsuchiya: Second. Boettcher: We have a motion and a second. Pemrick moved, Tsuchiya seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission appoints Zoe Erpelding as the Park and Recreation Youth Commissioner with a term of one year term from 1/28/20 to 4/28/21. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Boettcher: Welcome Zoe really. We appreciate you taking your time out. OLD BUSINESS. Boettcher: Old Business, anything here Todd? You had this key financial strategy is that? Hoffman: Yeah we can briefly talk about that. So this was voted on last night by the City Council and this strategy for discussion was approved by the City Council. It will be scheduled on a calendar later on this week or next week so at some point here in the year we’ll be talking about the possibility of building refrigerated ice in the city. Permanent restrooms at Lake Ann. That would be near the ballfields. Bandimere Park, that would be a new building and then City Center Park that would be a new building. One of the things we get quite a bit of discussion on, especially when people come from outside the community. They come to our events they’re like you know great parks and everything but Port-a-Potties. You know everyplace else we go has modern restrooms. Or at least a lot of the tournament type setting places have modern restrooms. Build a community splash pad attraction at Bandimere Park. It’s kind of the same thought process. Many new families move into Chanhassen. They kind of get settled and they go oh, well where’s the water facility? Where’s the outdoor pool? There’s nothing here so same kind of conversation. A lot of new families would enjoy that kind of a feature. You remember we have some concept plans for the splash pad. We have some concept plans for these park shelter buildings already so we can bring those back. Update the numbers. I’d like to bring this information to the commission just prior to taking it to the City Council to a work session and then members of the commission can attend that as well and listen to the conversation. And then identify funding source and timeline for the Lake Ann Park Preserve trail expansion. If you remember the feasibility study identified the cost. Proposed cost and now it’s just identify a Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 6 funding source. Right now the best topic of conversation is around bonding for it so go ahead and issue bonds to build that trail and those improvements at some point in the near future. The thought process is as new houses are continuing to be built in the Park that you want to get these trail improvements in so when new residents are moving in the trails are there and ready to go. They’ll be discussed individually but as a package and so the council could opt for one, none or all and so we’ll keep you informed as we schedule this and then get to the City Council but just prior to that we’d like to get it back here in front of the commission so you can have some conversation about it and then prepare that presentation at the City Council at one of their work sessions. Boettcher: So anticipation of the council’s discussion, are we looking March timeframe? Hoffman: City Manager will set that schedule and we haven’t discussed that yet since yesterday. He was busy with a variety of other issues today. He couldn’t do some calendar work so maybe tomorrow or the next day. Boettcher: Because this may be something we meet with the council, is it like the first or second week in April? Hoffman: Yep. Boettcher: Our meeting… Hoffman: You can definitely have some conversation about that. Whether it’s formalized to the point of having some cost estimates and some renderings we don’t know that but yeah this would definitely be a probably your entire conversation that night. Boettcher: I mean, and you know it as well as I do that splash pad, I think that was 6 years ago that that first was brought up with all the stuff we wanted to do at Bandimere. I know it was always, I mean it would be great. I hear the same thing. People always say why don’t you have anything, you don’t have a pool in Chanhassen? But I mean I think that would be a great attraction with everything that’s over there. This is good I like that. Anyone else have any discussion on it? Any points of view? Hoffman: Yeah and the ideas all started here so thank you for that and when we forward them to the council and it looks like you’ve got some, their attention so that’s good news. Kutz: Well I’d just like to say talking about the covered outdoor ice you know with the weather we’ve had the last month, I mean I think you know with climates changing and 40 degree weather and you know this is an opportunity to make our statements like our surrounding communities all have covered ice facilities. This is our chance to you know build on our experience of what hockey or recreational ice time should be like and I think we can come up with really cool ideas that the other communities don’t have and I really think we could make it a Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 7 center, what do you call it? A center stone point of our winter sporting experience here and also our summer time experience too where we could really do something special at the recreational center and lots of ideas so I mean I don’t know if this is the right time to talk about them but we can definitely go through that in the coming meetings. Boettcher: Well and I think you’re right. I mean the covered outdoor rink, Jerry was telling me a couple weeks ago about flooding the rink and the north wall, the ice just doesn’t, it’s there for 2 days and it’s gone. People complain about it and you go over and look at it and you flood it and flood it and flood it but with the little sunlight that we have it just takes it away. Kutz: I mean Adam and crew they do a great job. I mean I’d just to build on what they’ve got and I think they’d be excited to work on something like that as well so we do have a large contingent of hockey families in the area. I mean our association’s growing. I think it’s probably like the fourth or fifth biggest association in the state so it’s a priority sport in this area and I think we can use it for recreation as well as other sporting events so. Boettcher: Anything else on Old Business Todd? That’s it? Alright moving on. REPORTS: 2019 TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY REVIEW. Boettcher: First is the 2019 tree lighting ceremony review. That looks like Priya. Tandon: Well thank you Chair Boettcher and thank you commissioners. Just summarize the 2019 tree lighting ceremony was held on Saturday, December 7th of 2019 from 5:00 too 6:00 p.m. Deputy Mayor Dan Campion was the one, it was his son who flipped the switch to illuminate City Center Park at about 5:15 that day. The weather was really great and there was an excellent turnout. We estimated that there 600 people in attendance in our City Center Park. It’s a wonderful holiday celebration that many people enjoy. So going through the different components. Refreshments were coordinated by Buy Chanhassen representative Vernelle Clayton coordinated the food and drink donations from business community so Lunds and Byerlys, Caribou Coffee, Cub Foods and Americana Community Bank all contributed to the refreshments provided. S’mores were provided by the Southwest Chamber of Commerce representative Kelly Darcourt. She brought 200 S’mores for attendees to roast over the fires. The fires were set up by park maintenance who did a great job with the windy and chilly conditions. It was a great place for kids to warm up and enjoy some S’mores. The visit from Santa Claus was coordinated by the Mustard Seed Landscaping and Garden Center. Kelly Lorenz of the Mustard Seed Landscaping and Garden Center has been a great sponsor and they’re excited to coordinate Santa’s visit again next year. The live reindeer, we had two live reindeer at the event from Kendallville Farms in Excelsior. This was really popular especially with the kids and families as a whole. You know the could take pictures. They could pet the reindeer so it was a really great interactive part of the event. Carolers came from Living Christ Lutheran Church of Chanhassen. They provided about 20 carolers and were excited to be there and again excited to be there next year. And the gingerbread display. So we had 5 entries for the Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 8 11th Annual Gingerbread House decorating contest. There were 3, there were 2 winners. Most creative, most difficult and then we had an honorable mention as well. And then looking ahead for next year, in the past we’ve done a Toys for Tots donation station. Southwest Metro Transit has kind of coordinated this and they brought their Christmas Trolley and so I’m hoping next year we should look in having that back. We did run out of cookies and S’mores very quickly and I think that had a lot to do with the weather because it was so nice. We had so many people come so maybe having some more of that next year but otherwise I think the event went really well and people really enjoy it. Boettcher: For the number, 600 because of the weather, was that an increase from last year do you know? Tandon: I wasn’t here but I would say so because last year 2018 there was a lot of snow so from what I understand it was a pretty big increase. Ruegemer: Probably double. Boettcher: Really? Wow. Pemrick: I drove by because I wanted to stop by and I could not find parking for about 4 blocks so I just kept driving. But it looked packed and it looked awesome so yeah. Tsuchiya: I was there and wonderful. I brought 2 kids and 2 not my kids so I was, it was busy. The loved the reindeer. They liked the sugar and they also liked all the, once the lights were on the snowflake. The big snowflakes ones on the tiered so those were fascinating to them. But yeah it was a good time. Hoffman: And the lights stay on til January 15th each year as part of our schedule. Tsuchiya: Yeah and they looked beautiful. Adam and crew did a great job setting that up. Boettcher: Alright. Great job. Thank you everybody. 2020 FEBRUARY FESTIVAL PREVIEW. Boettcher: And looks like still for the Feb Festival, Priya you’re still here. Tandon: Yeah well thank you Chair Boettcher and thank you commissioners again. So I’ll just do a quick preview and then we have a power point presentation for you. The City of Chanhassen’s 27th Annual February Festival will be held this Saturday, February 1st at Lake Ann Park. The event runs from 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. and has winter activities, horse drawn wagon rides, ice skating, sledding, bonfires, kick sledding. We’ll kind of go through all of that. Door prizes as well and the ice fishing contest is a big component of those events and that runs from Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 9 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. with over $6,000 in top fish prizes so that’s very exciting. To promote this event we had event flyers and registration forms and rules mailed to past participants. There were about 4,000 of those went out. We also advertised with the schedule of events insert in the Chanhassen Villager twice so once on January 16th and once on January 30th and then once in the Chaska Herald as well on the 30th coming up. …made on the City Facebook page to promote the event every few days at least there’s something about Feb Fest going up on the Facebook page and then we do have a Facebook event as well which over 800 people have RSVP’d that they’re either going to or interested in the event so then they’ll all see posts in that event page which we’re doing as well to kind of encourage people to buy their tickets and make sure it stays relevant. And a fun thing that happened today was I was contacted by a representative of WCCO looking to do a feature on Feb Fest on Saturday morning so that was a fun surprise and hopefully we’ll have a feature Saturday morning to encourage people to come stop by our event. And then before we go on the slideshow I just wanted to mention again that February Festival would not be possible without the support of all of our local businesses and service organizations. The Chanhassen Rotary has been great. They’re providing concessions again this year and coordinating volunteers to drill 1,000 holes which obviously we can’t drill 1,000 holes by ourselves and won’t go through all the other organizations that are involved in this event. And then we also have a Feb Fest flyer at all of your seats for you to take a look at and let me know after the meeting if you’d like some more to bring with you as well. So we’ll look at the slide show. So like I said here’s our schedule of events starting on Monday, so that would have been yesterday our medallion hunt started so kind of preceding Feb Fest. One clue goes out per day at 9:00 a.m. Then on the day of the event, February 1st starting at 10:30 a.m. we have door prize tickets available and fishing tickets available so people can come, purchase their tickets. Be around and then be ready for the start of the event at noon where we have our free winter activities and concessions. So a kick sled demo’s. Fat tire bike demo’s. Dog sled rides. Snowshoeing, that’s all free. The boy scouts are selling live bait and S’mores and the Rotary will be coordinating the concessions and beer garden which are all for purchase and then we also have bonfires, music just free. Fun winter activities and then the ice fishing contest from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Here’s some photos of the ticket sales and I have some…with this as well. We’re doing really well on ticket sales I think this year so we really are pushing the pre-registration so online, in person and mail in. We have the highest that I can find at least since 2017 so as of now we have 193 tickets purchased which is great. 61 of those are two ticket purchases and then 71 are one ticket purchases so we estimate that’s about 132 people who have already bought their tickets which is key to keeping the lines down at the event and just you know so we know kind of how many people are coming. And to incentivize people pre-registering online we also are offering $100 gift card to Cabin Fever Sporting Goods in Victoria just again to encourage the online registration. The Rotary Club of Chanhassen again is coordinating the hole drilling. They drill over 1,000 holes for the event. And they also coordinate the concessions so this year we’re doing new beer, spiked hot cocoa and cider. Non-spiked hot cocoa and cider. Pop, candy, and we’re very appreciative of all they do to make this event a success. Chanhassen Boy Scout Troop 330 will be selling bait and S’mores again. They’re selling crappie minnows, suckers, minnows and wax worms if you know much about bait. That’s what they will have. Bonfire warmth. This is great for kids, families, fisher people, whoever to come roast marshmallows Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 10 over the fire. Warm up a little bit. One on each end of the fishing contest area. Kick sleds will be provided by Carver County Parks. This is a popular fun activity. It’s free. Horse drawn wagon rides provided by Kenmar Farms which they’ve been doing this event for many years. 12 years. Free activity. Ice skating, free activity although it is bring your own skates. We have dog sled rides provided by Silent Land Adventures. This is also a free activity. We have snow shoeing provided by Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek watershed district. Free activity. Alright so moving into our medallion hunt. So we’re offering a $500 prize pack for the winners. That includes like gift cards and merchandise and what not donated from various community event sponsors. The first clue went out Monday, January 27th and if you want to just take a look at the clues here. There’s day one and day two. I can’t give you day three and beyond because they haven’t come out yet but these are on the website if you’d like to take a look. Hoffman: And we know that man’s looking right now. Ruegemer: Repeat winner. Tandon: Oh yes this is coming a little bit later but to kind of go over it now. This year we do have a new sponsor for our medallion hunt. It’s Charter Bank in Chanhassen. They’re excited about finding new and unique ways for then to get involved. They’re already a new sponsor for this year and so they wanted to go above and beyond I guess just their cash donation and so they wrote the clues. They’re posting clues on their front door. They’re sharing our medallion hunt Facebook post to promote the hunt so they’re very excited about it and I think it’s a great partnership that we hope to continue. Moving forward to the ice fishing contest. So like I said this is 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. This year there are over $6,500 in total fish prizes. I think there are a lot of great prizes. They’re listed on your flyer if you’d like to take a look many of which are donated again by community event sponsors. Just to recap in 2019 664 tickets were sold so at $10 per ticket that’s $6,640 in ticket revenue. And we have a max of 2 tickets per person. Door prizes donated by community event sponsors. Over $3,400 in total prizes this year. Door prize tickets are free. You get one per person and you don’t have to have purchased a fishing ticket to do this. It’s just anyone who comes to the event gets a door prize ticket and then drawings start at 1:00 p.m. And new for 2020 the Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek watershed district is doing a kids winter scavenger hunt. They’re another one that when I asked them about the snow shoeing they wanted to find another way to get involved so they came up with this activity. And then like I was mentioning earlier we do have our new sponsor for the medallion hunt which is Charter Bank in Chanhassen. Some fun Feb Fest memories. And just because this is our first community event of 2020 I’ll just do a brief overview of where we’re at for our community event sponsor program. So we currently have 51 committed sponsors and 27 of them are local sponsors which means that they have $1,000 or over in contributions. Total value of pledged contributions we have right now is about $43,000. $35,000 of that is in so we’re waiting on $8,000 but it has been pledged or confirmed. I also currently have new sponsors or current sponsors that want to do more or are interested in getting involved in this so hopefully this number will grow over the coming months and this number is higher than it has been in recent previous years, at least through 2016 is as far back as I went so very excited about that. And I’ve Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 11 said it a few times but we have many thanks to give to put on this event. Event partners, community sponsors, volunteers, staff, service organizations so Chanhassen Rotary for concessions and… The Chanhassen Lions are going to return as event marshals this year. Boy Scout Troop 330 for selling bait and S’mores. Carver County Sheriff’s Department and Chanhassen Fire will both be at the event making sure everything goes smoothly or they’re there in case of any incidents or injuries. Park maintenance, thanks to them for all of their hard work to set up for this event. Again we couldn’t do it without them. They do a lot to get the event set up and ready. And all of our event partners, sponsors, volunteers, and staff. And that is all. Boettcher: Looks good. I think it will be a fun day. Weather is supposed to be pretty good? Tandon: It’s supposed to be warm. 37 degrees was the last I heard. Pemrick: High of 33, low of 30. Tandon: That’s pretty good. Boettcher: As long as there’s not wind coming in too intense. And I’ve never asked this Todd, there’s always a story behind the story. How did this start? Were there 2 guys ice fishing out there 27 years ago and they said we ought to make this an event? Or what was the start of Feb Fest? Hoffman: So Lori Sietsema who hired me challenged me to start a winter festival and so we started Feb Fest. Boettcher: There you go. Pemrick: Do you guys have enough volunteers for hole drilling? Hoffman: No. Pemrick: Or how is that coming along? Hoffman: We need more. Sign up. Sign up is at? Ruegemer: We have another list here tonight. We can put your name down so we’re looking…that volunteer. Tandon: Yeah I’m looking for more volunteers across the board so hole drilling, ticket sales. We pull a lot from the high schools and so they just finished their finals week and so a lot of advisors are re-posting the opportunity now but specifically we’re looking with you guys for door prize distribution and fish weighing. If you guys are interested in volunteering in those Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 12 capacities please let me know. I have the sign up genius all printed out so I can get your name and information down. We’d really appreciate the help and love to have you there. Ruegemer: We had live trout the first year or two. Boettcher: Is that like in a separate tank. Ruegemer: Separate tanks and. Hoffman: Well they were released and if you caught one you got $1,000 but nobody caught one. It was insured by Rich Larson at MGM. Ruegemer: MGM, he put up the money. Hoffman: He put up the money yeah. Ruegemer: He was nervous. Nobody ever caught one. Hoffman: And then the second year we caught one fish or no fish for the third year so we moved it to Lake Ann. We started at Susan because Ann gets so many events already so thought we’d try Susan but the lake didn’t produce for the fishing people so we moved it to Lake Ann and they’ve been catching fish ever since. Boettcher: Kind of a big change in attendance from. Hoffman: Oh gosh yeah. Oh yeah. We’ve had all sorts of conditions but never cancelled all 27 have gone on. Ruegemer: We set fireworks on the lake that first year too, yeah. Hoffman: Oh lots of different events the first years yeah. If you recall we just came out of one of the coldest stretches of weather in the past few years. It was historic cold just before Feb Fest and it was 37 degrees… Tsuchiya: Weren’t we talking last year about how thick the ice was? Hoffman: Yeah it was really thick yeah. Tsuchiya: Yeah. Hoffman: Because it was 27 below for 5 days. Just before that event school was cancelled for 4 days in a row and then…just broke. It was a beautiful day. We got lucky and the event was always around mid February but we get a lot of melt, ice melt that time of year so it got moved Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 13 up to the first Saturday. And the real push is just to expand things outside of the, for people that don’t want to fish just to continue to make it a winter festival. I foresee the day when there’ll be events up town maybe on different day or a different evening. You could start the event on Friday downtown and Saturday just to make it more of a winter carnival festival type of event and I think as the community grows you’ll see some of those kind of changes. Boettcher: It could. It could change into the winter version of the 4th of July. Three day event. I was at a watershed district meeting last night and they were talking about the snow shoe event and two of the people that worked there, they’re not snow shoers but they’re going to go out there and lead people so bring your cell phones. Take plenty of pictures. Shame publicly but I appreciate their enthusiasm but I will not be one of them. It sounds like a good thing. Really looking forward to it. Anyone else that can volunteer definitely do sign up. Any other questions? No, thank you very much. Tandon: Yeah thank you. Boettcher: One thing I wanted to add, this is report related or I guess things are going on. We’re talking about commissioner applications. There are 3 commissioners whose terms expire in April and that would be Commissioner now Schubert, Petouvis and Tsuchiya, is that correct? Those 3 so. Hoffman: Applications are open right now. Boettcher: They’re open until, what’s the date? Tsuchiya: Friday. I think it says Friday yeah. Hoffman: So reapply and take your old application. Reapply. Boettcher: Recycle it. Tsuchiya: If I can find it. Hoffman: And you’ll be interviewing and the council will be interviewing here shortly. Boettcher: Interviews will be in late March probably? Hoffman: Yep. Boettcher: Okay. COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. None. Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 14 COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Boettcher: In the administrative packet there was something that was not good and someone is retiring. We had an early discussion before the meeting started that we were going to boycott that and not let it happen. Hoffman: You can try. Boettcher: We knew it was coming but it’s something you never, it’s anticipated but it’s not, it’s probably dreaded more than anything but at least you can move on. Petouvis: Well we should clarify. Dreaded by us. Hopefully celebrated. Hoffman: Celebrated yeah. Petouvis: Congratulations. Hoffman: Thank you. Boettcher: At the Hoffman household I’m sure there’s happy, happy, joy, joy dances. Hoffman: There’s a lot going on. I’ll share a few comments if I could and I’ll pass out a couple of documents you’ll enjoy those. Those are both originals. As you go down those so it is, it’s really a celebration of just a great time here working in the City of Chanhassen. I’m always inspired by our citizens and I’m always inspired by our commissions and then I really rely on our staff to make it all come together. We are a small group, all of us that do a lot in this community and so I’m going to share a few comments just tonight. I want to let you know what I told, you saw my retirement letter obviously. I want to share what I told my staff and so I said good morning Jerry, Jodi, Adam, Mary and Priya. As we enter my final 6 months of employment with the City please let me know if there’s anything you need or would like to know about this transition. I have attached my approximate work calendar through July 31st. Over the past 33 years I have been humbled by the tremendous value that citizens place on the public services we provide and the associated responsibilities we earned in that relationship. Thanks for being great friends, co-workers and division leaders in our department. Our time together in Chanhassen will always stand out as one of the most impactful chapters of my life and so that’s one of the points of inspiration that I thought and since Priya’s arrived I’ve been taking some time and just having conversations with her about things like the 4th of July. When you have 60,000 people in your town you’re responsible for that you can have a tremendous impact on the quality of the experience that they enjoy that particular day and you know that will all tie back and so we’re humbled by how much people value what we do. The commission I know some days it seems a little bit monotonous maybe with all of the formal motions and the structure but you know if you Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 15 keep your eye on that end result what it can really turn into in the end some of the things that I can, we all can look back that have happened in this room and then have been implemented in our community in physical features, parks, structures, events and then just really shaping and affecting people’s lives, it’s pretty tremendous. The second thing just some comments about tonight. About commissioners. Dear Commissioners, serving with you for these past 30 years, plus years have been tremendously satisfying. Chanhassen is blessed with a remarkable group of park and recreation staff that are extremely dedicated. I know I will be leaving the department and the City in capable hands. During this change in leadership I encourage all commissioners to take extra steps to ensure that the transition is a smoot one and so this is where I’m really going to lean on you guys as commissioners to have some extra conversations. And so this is a transition. It’s a change in leadership. Step up to that opportunity. Have some conversations. Keep in touch with Mayor Ryan. Keep in touch with the City Council members. Obviously they’re wondering what the future holds. And then City Manager Gerhardt will be naming a new department leader in the future and I anticipate that you will be kept informed about that change and about that announcement. Thank you for all you do as volunteer park and recreation commissioners. It has just truly been an honor, a joy to serve with all of you these past years. And then again going back to the citizens. And so I find my energy and you know what they value in our community. This magazine is a new one. It’s been around for a little while. Chanhassen Neighbors and so it comes into our mailbox and really warms my heart when you read things. So this is the Miller family. Been around Chanhassen but when they talk about what is it that you really value. What do you like about the community? One of the Miller’s favorite community traditions is the Chanhassen 4th of July celebration. Where they love to participate in the kids parade and the fun carnival rides and then they watch the sky light up at night with fireworks at Lake Ann. They also participated in the Halloween event this past year at the Chanhassen Rec Center and are looking forward to attending February Fest again at Lake Ann. This time they’re going to have the boys try ice fishing and enjoy the S’mores cookout. And so that’s just the social engineering, the social network of our community. I’ve always said baseball games, softball games, yeah that’s why you go there so your kids and everybody can be out in the, on the field learning these sports but what’s happening on the sidelines. Community’s being built. Relationships are being forged and so parks and recreation sometimes doesn’t get the same credit as a lot of other public services. I can tell you that. It’s just one of those little things where oh yeah that’s all really good stuff but we’re just not going to talk about how much money we want to invest in that. We really probably shouldn’t invest as much money as we do in parks and recreation. There’s these other real you know maybe more important services but I can tell you it’s an essential service. Once it’s all said and done, once you’ve gotten home. Once your family has gathered what are the activities that are going to bond you as a family. It’s all those park and recreation services. The lakes. The trails. The community events and so it’s really been a joy for me to be a part of that. 1987 to 2020 we’ve grown from 6,000 people when I came here to 26,000 people today so I’ve served with mothers and now daughters on the park commission so really just humbled to have had the opportunity and I look forward to the last 6 months. Once we get a new leader in here I look forward to transition that person. I can guarantee they’ll be here running these meetings before I’m done and so that’s just my pledge. That’s part of the transition. I will be here on my last meeting in July to say goodbye but that Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 16 person will be here once they’re named taking over and being the new leader of the department. We’ve got big things to do. This community’s got big things to do. We have Lake Ann acquired but we’ve got to build one of the most magnificent trails probably in the metro area and so that’s going to be a great opportunity for somebody in the future so that’s the news and thanks for accepting my resignation. I can’t be talked out of it. Boettcher: We can only try. We don’t accept it but we will. We’ll live with it. I was going to ask. I looked at the, I always like the old stuff like that but the letter where you’re notified that you got the position and your pay was going to be $4.50 an hour. Are you up to $5.00 now? Hoffman: I was up to $6 .50 before the end of my first 3 months because I was hiring people for a higher wage than I was getting paid so that was my first discussion with management. Ruegemer: You had to bring your own desk and you had to get your own phone. Hoffman: I did…desk down the hall yep. Pemrick: I think my favorite Todd Hoffman story is on your way, well on your way home from the hospital. Hoffman: With a kid. Pemrick: With a kid. Hoffman: We stopped to get 4th of July t-shirts. Pemrick: Stopped to get 4th of July t-shirts. Hoffman: Liz was not happy. That was Claire. Baby Claire yep. Yeah absolutely. Claire was crying. My mom was in the car and we were in a Honda Civic and I stopped to buys 4 boxes of 4th of July t-shirts for my mom, and Liz and the baby. Boettcher: Well you w ill definitely be missed I can tell you that. So you didn’t have a 30 year celebration for you 3 years ago so this year we’re going to have some kind of celebration. We don’t know what and you will be able to go fishing every week after July 31st. Hoffman: I will be. Boettcher: Alright, alright. My schedule is clear. No definitely Todd I mean I see a lot of people, I see a lot of people what they do in cities and I mean you’ve, I’ve lived in 5 cities around 5 different states and I mean what you do is exemplary definitely so thank you. Hoffman: Great team. Great team. Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 17 Boettcher: Anyone else have anything? And the one other item on the administrative packet I wanted to look at or just mention briefly was the capital improvement program looking at the existing park equipment that is scheduled to be replaced now and for the next 5 years. What is the dollar amount we have? Is it $250,000? Hoffman: $250,000 a year and that is yep, that’s in the park replacement program that you worked on as a part of the master plan with the council. Boettcher: There is a lot of stuff there. A lot of parks are being affected and updated which is really good so. And with that anyone have anything else to add? Tsuchiya: I actually just thought of, Todd if you could enlighten us. Is there anything with the Arboretum trail that you can report on? Hoffman: Sure can. So it’s in redesign and, there was a meeting here at city hall 2 weeks ago. There was over 18, maybe 20 people in that room all to talk about wetland permitting and there was probably 7 agencies, maybe 8 represented and the DNR is just really pushing this project for on their wetland permitting issues and so it will continue to go forward if they get a design that’s approved by the DNR then it needs to get bid and there has to be a contract in place and a pay request by June or the federal money goes away. Tsuchiya: June, okay. Hoffman: Everybody’s in favor. The DNR was there. The conference call. They got the message loud and clear. They don’t want this trail to go away. They want to get something approved. Get a contract but then again you still have to bid it and get a successful contract as well so there’s still ground to be made up. Last night at the City Council there was even a much larger project, the Highway 5 corridor study in the Arboretum area so from 41 to Rolling Acres Road and then beyond the west side of Victoria and so the entire project is Highway 41 to the west side of Victoria and that, the trail was talked about as a part of that and one of the council just asked, could we just move the trail. They asked the County could we move the trail up onto the bridge. Well that’s a $4 million dollar addition to that bridge because in the causeway between the Arboretum and Lake Minnewashta that will all be coming out. That soil will all come out so that lake will be restored and so that’s what the County was telling the DNR at this trail meeting. You know in the future we’re going to be doing a lot of really good things in this area. We’re going to be taking all that soil out that was put into the lake and then building a bridge and so there’s going to be a lot of restoration into the future so there’s dual projects now going on. The trail is pending and then this Highway 5 corridor study is you know maybe 5 years out. Maybe 10 years out. Lots of funding but take a look. It’s, you can watch a video. Go to the County website. Probably even the City website. You can take a look at a study. Really some tremendous work going on in getting that corridor expanded for traffic capacity and the County’s committed to the trail project. The County’s committed to the corridor study and so Park and Recreation Commission – January 28, 2020 18 there’s lots of good work going on but we’re going to know shortly. It was an important meeting. It was right here at city hall. Went on for 2 ½ hours just over wetlands and you know not going to say it’s, it is what it is but wetland issues have become the lynchpin of most projects and so where it was much easier years and years ago. Now it’s very difficult. If there’s any way you can stay out of a wetland, it doesn’t matter what the cost is, you almost have to do it and so it’s really, really challenging. Tsuchiya: Okay. Boettcher: And last month at our Carver County Park Commission meeting Marty Walsh went over I think there were 9 options for the trail routing so, I think number 3 was the one that was initially planned and hopefully they’ll keep it away from the highway. I don’t want, you know because one of the layouts is where the trail would go right up along the side of Highway 5 for a hundred and some yards but I mean you’ve got a family, you’ve got kids, you got dogs and whatever, I’d like to keep people away from Highway 5 especially with the expansion of it so. Tsuchiya: Yeah it doesn’t make any sense to build it just to have it torn up 5-10 years. Hoffman: The whole conversation was going off the rails because they didn’t want a trail on a berm and so I spoke up once in that meeting of 20 people and I just said once in 30 years of building trails we’ve built dozens on top of berms. They work very well. When you build them on top of berms over utilities that provide a very convenient access to those utilities so if you have to repair or improve them into the future you don’t tear up along alignment and so we got that conversation back on track and again leaving in a really good place to put that trail on top of that berm. There’s a little berm. If you drive west from the Arboretum and you’re looking just towards the learning center, that’s where you can see a little berm in the middle of those wetlands. That’s where the trail’s going to be. It’s going to cut from the south to the north along that little berm and then turn west again and continue over to the underpass and that’s what this whole conversation is about is that little berm that’s in there and it’s for utilities so it’s built so some utility lines could go in there. But now when you have a berm inside a wetland it exhibits wetland vegetation and so then they say it’s a wetland. You can’t put a trail on top of that wetland. You need to build a boardwalk and you could go 15 feet over and build a boardwalk on top of that and so we got to the conversation where that would just be more impactful doing that than building the trail on top of this little earthen berm so I think they’re going to approve that but you can never tell. Boettcher: Alright any other business? Hearing none 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 meeting was adjourned at 8:10 p.m. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim