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PRC 1989 02 28 3 PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING """"'FEBRUARY 28, 1989 Chairman Mady called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Ed Hasek, Jim Mady, Carol Watson, Curt Robinson, Sue Boyt, Dawne Erhart, and Larry Schroers STAFF PRESENT: Lori Sietsema, Park and Rec Coordinator and Todd Hoffman, Recreation Supervisor Mady: First item of business, first off, I'd like to welcome Dawne Erhart to the Park Commission. This is her first meeting. Congratulations on your appointment. Good luck. APPOINT ACTING CHAIR, ED HASEK. Hasek moved, Boyt seconded to appoint Ed Hasek as Acting Chair to the Park and Recreation Commission meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. APPROVAL OF MINUTES. ~Robinson moved, Watson seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated February 14, 1989 as amended by Jim Mady on page 8 to strike the word "condemn"in the first paragraph, last sentence; page 11 about two-thirds down the page, last line, should be "80 feet" instead of 8 feet; and on page 54, strike the word "polynesian". All voted in favor of the Minutes as amended and the motion carried. PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF 1989 ADULT SOFTBALL ELIGIBILITY RULES. Hasek: I know we've got a lot of people here tonight to talk that issue over. Can I just see a show of hands please who's here to respond to that issue? I would ask that you please, if you have not done so, take the time to sign in if you want to get any further information that comes out of the meetings. That's the vehicle in which you can get it. If your address is complete and full in there, you should receive information from us. If it's not on there or it's incomplete, chances are you probably won't get it so please take the time to do that. The Minutes from our last meeting, discussion of which we adjusted the rules for the adult softball league are available at City Hall. Have been available at City Hall and I would hope that some of you have taken the time to read those so you understand exactly where we as a commission are coming from. I think the way I would like to handle this meeting is kind of anywhere from an open discussion with some very specific rules along the order of a public hearing although this is really not a public hearing. Just to try "'and keep some control over it. I think what I'd like to do, since our position is fairly well known, is to take your discussion and your comments and we'll take notes and respond to them after you've completed your statements. I would ask please that you come to the podium. State Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 2 --,. your name and address and place of employment if you're outside of the City. If you're from outside of the City so we're aware of that so we get sort of an idea of who's here and who's not. I would ask that you please refrain from discussing things between yourself in the audience aloud so that we do get a record of what's going on and also any back and forth discussions between people. Please refrain from using foul language. I'd like to limit the discussion to about an hour and a half. We have a full agenda tonight and we do have a public hearing on another issue so we're going to try and call the meeting about 9:00. If we get to that point and the discussion is going on, then we'll obviously try to field your questions after that. We'll just have to see how long this thing goes. Hoffman: Ed, one correction I had on the memorandum that was sent out. It was incorrectly stated on there that the meetings occurred on January 31st. That meeting was January 24th. The 31st meeting was the interviewing of candidates. Hasek: I think staff's comments are fairly well known. What I'd like to do I think is get some of their comments and that might kick up some discussion on our behalf. Obviously if something has been said, it's on the record and it need not be repeated again. Hearing it once, we'll probably do it. If you agree with the issue or disagree with the issue, simply you can restate it by saying you agree with what Bob said regarding blah...rather than going with a long dissertation. All it's going to do is take time. I please ask that again that you'd come to the microphone. ~ I'd like to hear from everybody once before we start hearing from people a second and third time so let's just get started. By the way, for your information, we have a councilmember with us tonight. Jay and Mayor Don Chmiel's in the back over here too. John Seamans: My name is John Seamans and do you want the full address, street address or just short? Hasek: Well, street address are not necessary. John Seamans: Okay, I'm from Shorewood, Minnesota and I'm a member of the Over 35 League. I have been since the second year of it's foundation. How I got into the league was ironic in a way because the league started here with 4 teams. The following year Chanhassen came up to 5 teams so Bruce Carmichael and a few other people, we were approached, could we find a bunch of older guys to put into this league to get 6 teams so we could have an even Steven number of teams. So we scrouged around and we got some older guys and we got into the league with the understanding that it would be fun to play some ball but we were never allowed to play in any league playoffs for the first few years. That was one of the restrictions. We said, alright. We really don't care. We just want to play ball with some of our older friends. So this went on for I don't know how many years. Now this was before you people were on board that this thing had gotten started. Todd came along a year before we expanded. Todd mentioned that there were going to be lights put on the field. If anybody has any ideas about some other ball players wanting to play, let us know. So I approached Todd and said geez, maybe next year I'll find some older guys. Now in the meantime this league has gone from an over 30 ...""" Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - page 3 ,... league to an over 35 league. The average age on my team is 47 years old. We love playing ball. It's one night a week. We sit around and talk about how good we used to be after every game. It's the highlight of our summer. It is. That's what we talk about all winter at basketball. We're going to go out and kill them next year. So I told Todd, I said we'll pump, I'll get my brothers. I've got 5 or 6 guys from Chanhassen. I've got some guys from Shorewood. There are 3 other guys that are in Shorewood but can stand in their front yards and throw rocks into Chanhassen, which they'd like to do right now. The problem that we have is we were asked to do this. I put a team in with this list. We played two years and we had a 500 record. I think there are some people that thought, you Seamans was going to come in there with a bunch of big clubers and win the league and so on and it never happened. This league has been set up from the start. It's an over 35 league that 47 year olds can play in and win half of their games, lose half of their games. It was set up intentionally this way. Our team, and probably anybody else in this league and if you talk to anybody else in this league and see how they did in the State tournaments, they probably all got clobbered. I don't know the final results but I'll guarantee you they got clobbered. Our league was not set up that way. It was set up to be a fun league. Very low keyed and a very enjoyable league. Then all of a sudden, after all these years, I get a letter saying point blank, was done right to my face, if you don't have all your players eligible, you can not have a team """"'in this league. So I immediately said, well I've got to keep these guys together somewhere and I'm Shorewood and I'm Chanhassen but I've got 6 and you're allowed 4 players. That gives me 10 but I've got to tell 7 guys that I've been playing ball with for years, they can't play. I went to Minnetonka. I don't know if you know Don Shorts. You're probably better off if you don't know him but he said John, he says, you're in Shorewood. If you're Excelsior, if you're Greenwood, if you're Tonka Bay, you are not tax paying members of Hopkins/Minnetonka Rec and we don't want you. Plain and simple. So I got these over 47 guys with no place to go. I went to the City of Shorewood and I said you know you guys, maybe you've been free loading for a while here. Maybe i,t's time to start putting together some kind of a program so that these guys have got someplace to go. We want to play ball someplace. So they told me that they probably could have some facilities ready in a year. So I came back to Todd and Lori and I suggested that geez, if we could just buy a years time with these guys, that maybe I could put together a team in Shorewood or a league in Shorewood. Put something together. Very cool, I was told, well, the decision's made and you're not going to be allowed to play. I've heard some grumblings about some fields being made available at DataServ or whatever the name of that company is and I'd think that'd be fine. We'll play anywhere just to play ball but I think the teams that are 100% Chanhassen, they're not going to want to play there. At one time we did talk about two divisions. I think there's enough teams that are on the outside that would probably form a division that would play on DataServ and the Chan teams, if they don't want to play there, could play on those ~fields. If we could just get another year out of you people, maybe I can ?ut something together. We can play somewhere. I question sometimes the, I'm the at large member from Shorewood for the Minnetonka Community Services and we're represented here with a Shorewood Park Board member is here tonight also and also the Shorewood representative from Minnetonka Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 4 -' Community Services are here and they're all kind of anxious to hear how this is going to come out. Wouldn't you know the day that I get ready to come to this meeting, I got a flyer from my son for Little League baseball. South Tonka Little League baseball sign up. If I could read this to you. South Tonka Little League boundaries include Shorewood, Tonka Bay, Excelsior and Chanhassen. Now why, if Chanhassen kids are playing in Freeman field in my community, can a bunch of old geezers play one night a week of softball over here? I'm speaking just for my over 35 bunch. If you want to have the gals come up here, I'm not familiar with their set up here at all. The same thing with any of the other nights. What I'm talking about is my night. I just don't think it's really fair that we have been kind of thrown out so to speak. And nobody really ever said why or anything. The letter I thought was very cold. It just said you're done. You're history. You're out of here. There was no room for any kind of maybe sitting down and talking about making some adjustments. Maybe giving a little. Geez, I can play on the corner of the street if there's enough traffic. There are some things that can be done but everything was so final. I'll get out of here and let somebody else. I know the girls, there's a girls representative that want to talk for sure. I don't know what their nights are. Thank you. Hasek: We're going to have to try to limit this I guess to about 5 minutes if everybody is going to want their piece. Brigette Smith: I'm Brigette Smith and I live in Shorewood. I don't mean ~ to be repetitive on what John said but I am really angry. I attended a Little League meeting the other night and there was the President of your Little League out there encouraging the kids in Excelsior and Tonka Bay and Shorewood to get into the program out here. They wanted our kids but most of all he said they wanted the parents. They had no parent involvement out here. They wanted us to come out here and take over the Babe Ruth League. They needed our fathers and mothers to coach and generally straighten out their league. I sat through that meeting getting more angry and more angry at the fact that my son lives in Shorewood. It's not a problem for him to come over and play and yet I can't. It's okay if I come over and coach the Chanhassen kids. It's okay that the Chanhassen kids play on our fields and are coached by our parents but it's a problem if I play here. I have a real problem with that. I'm all for the kids. I've got two little boys. My husband and I are very involved in Little League but I hear at this meeting that they've been promised all this money to work on the field with the lights, to put a batting machine in and fix the pitchers mound. I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is that it does leave the parents the one night that they want to get out, it leaves us in the cold and that annoys me a lot. That's all I have to say. Sue Winchell: My name is Sue Winchell and I'm with DataServ. One of the things that DataServ doesn't understand is we have a facility here in the Chanhassen area which we pay taxes but we also have a facility in Eden prairie and we would like to combine teams. The girls from Eden prairie . and Chanhassen and yet we're not able to do that and we would like to know'~ why we're not able to if we do pay taxes in Chanhassen and we're willing Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 5 ",.... to let the fields, once it passes, are legal, for our fields to be used too? Jeff Tolle: My name is Jeff Tolle. I'm a coach for the Minnetonka Garage Door, it will soon be a different name but that doesn't matter. We've been out here for 4 years. Our team has represented Chan two times in Districts. We went to State last year and we've even got girls that will take a job in the City of Chanhassen to play in here. I hope it never gets to that extent. I sure wouldn't but last year Todd pointed out to us that sooner or later down the road we would have to be booted when the Chanhassen teams wanting to play. People living and working in Chanhassen. We understood that and he's been a great league director. I just didn't think that we'd be bumped by T-ball or Babe Ruth or something on that line. And boy, if my kid wants to play ball, I'm all for it. I'm gung ho but where do we go? We have nowhere to go. Minnetonka won't take us. Mound, who wants to play in Mound? Excelsior, they've got a good program, they just don't have the fields to back it up. Chanhassen is the place to play. It is a very nice area but like I said, the directors is great and your fields are excellent. We just don't want to leave. Period. Hasek: Excuse me Jeff. Are you with the Minnetonka team? """'Jeff Tolle: No, that's the name of our, Minnetonka Garage Door. We could ~all it Chanhassen Garage Door. Hasek: Where do you live? Jeff Tolle: I'm from Tonka Bay. Colleen Klingelhutz: I'm Colleen Klingelhutz and I live in Chanhassen and I've played in the women's league for 2 years now. My one question is, my understanding of Chanhassen ordinances is that this is purely an advisory board to the City Council and I'm wondering if this has gone by the City Council and if it hasn't, why it hasn't. If that's my understanding, I don't feel like we should have been given this cut and dry thing when it hasn't gone by City Council yet so that's all I'm asking. Gordon Lindstrom: My name is Gordon Linstrom and I'm a resident of Shorewood. I used to coach bantam hockey for the Shorewood team for years. During that time, between 25% and 30% of those kids were from Chanhassen. I'm also a member of the Shorewood Park Board. I have been for the past 11 years and we realize we have strick policies. There's just not enough facilities and we have to provide more. Shorewood has built 3 softball fields through the park... Those fields still need some more work. They won't be ready for another year. I've also been playing in the men's over 35 league out here and certainly enjoy it. It's a great way to get together with people that don't live just in your own ~articular community. I'd like to see Chanhassen to continue to allow )ther people than just Chanhassen residents to use the fields just the way Excelsior does with their mens and womens softball league in Excelsior. We allow Chanhassen residents to play there. Thank you. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 6 -' Jeff Atkins: My name is Jeff Atkins. I live at 220 West 78th Street in Chanhassen here and first of all I'd like to say that softball is the highlight of my summer and also my wife's. She plays in the womens league and we'd like to know if they can't get enough teams together with these rules in effect for women's softball, if that will effectively dismantle the league for womens softball. My wife's lived here for her entire life and is that fair that she can't play ball but that's the effect of this rule. Thanks. Bruce Carmichael: I'm Bruce Carmichael and I'm a resident of Shorewood. For about 20 years I ran Excelsior Mens League and in those 20 years we ran across kind of the same problem you're having here. A lot of outside players playing in our league and we also made our boundaries and our laws but what we did do is we grand fathered in all of the players that were playing in our league at that time because it was on teams that have been playing together for 10 years. They went to school together. They played together. Some of them played all the way through grade school and everything together. Some of those people moved away from the area. We felt that they should be able to come back to their home town and play softball. Now this isn't an over 35. This is just an open league. Also, we made a rule at the time we passed our boundaries that players that went to school in Minnetonka, moved away from the area, if they wanted to come back and play in our league because they knew all the players, went to school with all the players, we let them play there just because they lived there. Even though they didn't work there anymore and they didn't live there anymore but they used to live there. That has worked out real good for our league. Another thing, our team came to this league at the same time that John did. Well, we were on the same team. They asked for another team so we got a team together and then we split up. John went his way and we picked up a few more players and kept our team. We got the Legion from Chan here to sponsor us and they have been a very good sponsor. We've taken them a couple trophies and our team has tried to put something back into Chan. We've helped a little bit in the league. We've played in quite a few tournaments out here in Chan because we enjoy playing out here. It was quite a shock when we found out that we no longer would be able to play out here after playing out here for, well it's got to be 10 years. Now all of a sudden, bang, there's no where else to go like John said. There's no other 35 and over league in this area. I guess there's one down in Chaska but that's a long ways away and I guess there's one in St. Louis Park possibly but a lot of our players have been playing together for 10 years and I don't think they will go that far away from home. Most of our players live in Shorewood and I guess we have 5 players from Chanhassen. So I guess that's all. Thank you. .....", John VonWalter: John VonWalter. I live in Chanhassen and I guess it's going on about 14 years. It's I think about 10 years that I've played in the over 35. Used to be an over 30 league and I think it's tough to get a good league of over 35 players without going outside. Most of the leagues that are in existence around the state are mixed community leagues because generally in one community you can't get that many over 35 players to put together 8, 10, 12, 14 team league. I think Chanhassen should allow all the teams that are in there now to be grandfathered in with their rosters. They should have that. My team is okay. We can put together a Chanhassen --' Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 7 ,..., team that will be legal by your guidelines but I don't think it will be as fun or as good a league as we've had before without bringing in some outside teams. The teams that we already have. I'd like to see last year's rosters be grandfathered in for all teams and in the future drop teams by attrition and require that all new players on all teams live or work in Chanhassen from next year on. This year goes by last year's roster. I think it will be perhaps the end of the over 35 league in Chanhassen if you go forward with your new proposals. I question too that, I think we do have enough fields in Chanhassen if we used them wisely or used them differently. You can corne by almost any weekend where there's not a tournament and there are softball fields open. Every day during the day, one of the youth leagues could be playing. There are fields open and empty. Nobody using them. If it's a problem with adult coaching, there's plenty of college kids. They could be hired to coach. Even if it meant each team in the league had to pay a little bit towards those coaches or adult supervision. I don't know, I guess trying to get together an over 35 league is something special that the adults, many of whom aren't Chanhassen taxpayers are just as important as the kids. That by us playing in an over 35 league, our kids can look up and say, hey, I'd like to be doing that like my dad did when I'm over 35. Chanhassen has the special kind of league. We have a comeradery, not only amongst our team members but amonst the players from other teams and I think your rule is going to split up the league and I think breaking up a team or breaking ~lP teams wi thin a league is tantamount to breaking up a family. Thank jOu. Carol Pike: My name is Carol Pike. I live in Chaska. I'm from the Sullivan's womens team and we've been here for 4 years since you started the womens league and I think it's a real disservice that you put these restrictions on because it's going to cancel out women's ball all together. Probably you'll never have it again. You know, we do contribute and we bring in revenue. We go to your restaurants...and I know it's repetitive but I've heard, you know, Chanhassen kids use Shorewood. They use Chaska. I know soccer's real big and you use Chaska fields and I hate to see the end of the league because the womens, a lot of them work. A lot of them have kids. It's their only chance to go out half the time and do something just for theirselves and they have no where else to go. Just like the men have said, I've checked and there isn't anywhere else to go. We just want to have fun. Have a good time and I noticed that half of that has been mentioned and I realize that Chanhassen residents pay taxes but so do Shorewood and so do Chaska and your kids are using ours. I think we need to pull together here instead of trying to separate. Any Tolle: My name is Amy Tolle. I live in Wayzata/Minnetonka. I play on the Minnetonka Garage Door team. I've played since the beginning of the first year of the womens league and we went to Districts and we represented Chanhassen and a lot of our friends and family corne out to ~ake Ann. I really think that grandfathering should be thought about. ;randfathering the teams in because I really don't think it is fair to, right now there is only two teams on the womens league that are mostly Chanhassen residents and I think that it will do away with womens softball altogether. I really don't think that's real fair. I think the... Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 8 """'" restriction that you have is very restrictive. I mean 30 to 40 hours a week must work in Chan. I'm one of the ones that said to my husband, oh I'll get a part time job in Chan. That's how much I want to play baIlout here. Even that's restrictive. Ron Harvieux: I'm Ron Harvieux. I live at 6605 Horseshore Curve in Chanhassen. I play for the MGM team or I participate on the MGM team. I guess I have a question on your objective of this very abrupt rule. I can see two I guess. One would be that indeed demand has outstriken supply in Chanhassen for those fields. I don'~ know where that comes from because as was mentioned earlier, it appears that we're building new fields and that indeed what we're talking about are fields in the evening when the adults have no other choice but to play in the evening versus fields that are open in the daytime for kids. I'm not sure who's bringing the excess demand if indeed that's what is causing this proposal to come forward. The other kind of clause might be just kind of what I call a political purist kind of motions and I hope that's not what's happening. I think it sends awfully bad signals from Chanhassen to any other community. It kind of says that only the taxpayers can use our stuff and I think that's politically an interesting issue and it's kind of an issue of purism but I think it's kind of wrong. Are we big enough? Is that what we're saying? We've already arrived at something? Do we not even want people to come to our park and pay the user fee at the park? People from outside of Chanhassen. I don't believe that's the thing that we want to be showing so I guess I can only believe that demand for these parks must have really, must be outstriping the supply of parks and I'd sure like to see a clarification. As was mentioned earlier, there seemed to be an awful lot of parks that are sitting unused at times of the day when certainly school age children are not in school. If it were a matter of trying to find I guess coaches or something, kids don't play ball on their own without coaches so I guess if the issue is to try to find coaches that could let those kids utilize those fields during the daytime, I know the people on our team would be willing to chip in some more money to help fund that kind of effort if that's what's needed. My main objective, I've asked about yours, mine is to insure a strong over 35 league. I've been over 35 for about 7 years and I've been playing in this league for that time and I don't want the league to be, unselfishly as a taxpayer, I don't want the league to diminish in terms of quality. I think it's a good league right now. I don't want a 6 team league or 5 team league or whatever it could end up having with these fairly restrictive covenants. I think the net answer in my way of thinking, possibly with this grandfathering issue and let attrition fix the league and let's police it properly. With that other restrictive covenants like ages in this league, that probably needed to be policed better. Once we decide what we're going to do, let's make sure we police it but I think attrition will fix it. Thank you. ......, Jim O'Brien: My name is Jim O'Brien and I'm from New Hope. If it's starting to sound like an awful lot of us are from out of town, I wasn't going to speak but as everyone was talking I remembered that when I first moved out here to Chanhassen, I lived in Chanhassen. My kids went to the Minnetonka schools and we had an Excelsior mailing address. We've been kind of a treated back and forth community around here ever since I've lived out here and that was up until 2 years ago. We've gone through a ....", lot of changes. Minnetonka has given up some of the postal services and so forth over our way, or Excelsior has and we recaptured our boundaries and as we grow as a community, I think there are a lot of changes that go along with that growth. I agree that some of the changes that you're proposing here are things that we need perhaps now but like Ron was talking about, I have some selfish things that are involved with wanting to continue to play on the 35 and over team here in Chanhassen. I remember as recently as 3 years ago when we grandfathered in 3 teams. Two from Excelsior and 1 from Shakopee because we didn't have enough teams to play in the league. I remember about 6 years ago when our MGM team was not going to be able to field a team because we didn't have any ball players and I went door to door from TH 101 along Pleasant View Road and I recruited ball players from the Chanhassen area and we did have a team that year. So my suggestion is that all of the things that have happened, that have come about that present the circumstance that we are experiencing today, wherein we don't have 75% or 85% or 95% of the players still residents or employed within Chanhassen, that wasn't done by design. I think that happened through a natural process. Some of us have moved out. I mean I was divorced and sold my home and I don't live in Chanhassen anymore and I don't think I should be punished for that and not be allowed to play in the City of Chanhassen. I have a lot of friends that I've played with over the years here and I'd like to continue those "....,associations. I don't hunt and fish...nor are they with me. We don't have a lot of other things in common but softball has been a common meeting ground for many of us and we've enjoyed the arguing back and forth on the field and the competitiveness that are league has enjoyed. The teams that have been playing. A couple of years ago the MGM team that I'm a member of, fielded 13 guys at the last moment to drive up to Ely and represent the City of Chanhassen in the State Tournament. We got the... beat out of us just like everybody else that's part of the State Tournament from our league but that shows the kind of spirit that we have. We're willing to go up and represent the league. Drive all the way to Ely and stay overnight and everything that's involved with that sort of thing. Members of my team have been instrumental in trying to help the firemen. We've come out and had meetings and so forth to try and help them make the firemen's tournament on the 4th of July a more successful endeavor. It didn't work out last year. We had aspirations of making it a 35 and over tournament and we wound up with roughly no tournament. We have put as much into the community as anyone who has lived here, whether I moved out or whatever has been the circumstance and to have what's happening now said to me after everything that we have done for the community, everything that we've done for sports and so forth, have it turn around and said well we don't want you guys around, I think is real cold. Dick Lash: My name is Dick Lash. I play for Greenwood Shores on Wednesday nights. You guys don't know what it's like to get beat. First of all I don't understand exactly why this is being done. It hasn't been explained to me all that great but if we do have to cut back, this is not ,....a new rule the way I understand it. I started playing on this league under these rules. They just weren't enforced. I don't know about the rest of the leagues but the over 35 league, I've always understood that you were supposed to live or work in Chanhassen. And in answer to some of the comments that were made up here about people moving out of the area Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 10 ...."., and wanting to come back and play, if I moved out of Chanhassen, I don't think I'd want my kids to come back and go to school here. I wouldn't want to use the bank here. I wouldn't want to use anything here. That's part of moving is you move everything. I believe the league will be more equal. My team, I don't speak for my whole team by the way. My team is not only live in Chanhassen, they live in one neighborhood. That's probably why we lose a lot of games. Also the grandfathering here, it hasn't been mentioned yet but I believe, the letter I have, they are grandfathering 4 players which I think is real fair. If there has to be a cut back. If there doesn't have to be a cut back, I don't see the reason for cutting back at all here but if there's one Chanhassen resident that was turned down to play softball on our fields, I would rather see 399 booted out before 1 turned down for Chanhassen. Kent Budford: I'm Kent Budford. I own Merlin's Hardware Inc. in Chanhassen. I also own Merlin's Rental Center in Chanhassen. I'm rostered on a team but I do not play or haven't yet played on a team here in Chanhassen. I'm a sponsor and from that I'm looking for or to develop a team that plays well, has fun but can advertise my name. I've got ways of advertising locally. These guys and by girls team get out in the metro area and help produce my name farther out that I can't do through normal advertising. Couldn't pay for the advertising these guys can give me. That's all I want to say. Jeff Bros: I'm Jeff Bros from Chanhassen. .....,., Hasek: Just one quick question please Jeff. Is your team legal or illegal? Can you give us a feel for that? Kent Budford: Last year we were very legal. change. It will be difficult to comply with As of last year yes because of people moving year. With the new ordinance, we'll have to This new ordinance will the team that we have now. out. Yes, we were legal last recruit new people. Jeff Bros: Jeff Bros from Chanhassen. I'm also President of the Chanhassen Athletic Association. I guess I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear to everybody here is that the CAA is not funded by the City of Chanhassen. The Park and Rec Board has nothing to do with us. We create our own funds from our fees from the sports. We buy our own equipment. We do not hire coaches to teach the kids. We're an adult supervised program. We can't do it during the day because we have a hard enough time getting parents to do it in the evening when they're home. There aren't any parents home during the day. I don't think anybody wants to pay $40.00 or $50.00 to have their kindergarten aged girl being coached by a high school kid. That's what we'd have to raise the fees to if we were to hire coaches for these programs. Last year our Little League program in conjunction with the South Tonka group had 4 Little League teams out of Chanhassen kids. We also fit into two big group teams. I don't think we're going to be kicking anybody off of any fields to take up these 6 teams. This year we're anticipating some growth but it's just not going to, I don't see where the kids are getting blamed for these problems that you're getting kicked off of these fields so I'd appreciate it if everybody would leave the kids out of it. We're running our own programs. --' Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 11 """ Yes, we need the fields. We've got kids coming over from Shorewood and Excelsior and everything else because we do have fields. The Bennett Park people won't let the South Shore people use Freeman Field this year. They've been told they can't. Where else are those kids supposed to go? We've been in conjunction with these people for several years. South Tonka. We're going to continue this. We're trying to build a bigger program for our kids but again, it has to be done in the evenings and times when parents are there because these are parent supervised programs. It just doesn't work for us to do it during the day. It just doesn't work here. We don't have the number of adults that are willing to get involved during the day when the people that can get involved during the day to supervise these activities for our kids. I just wanted to make those points. Thank you. Jim O'Brien: Can I ask you a question? Jeff Bros: Yes. Jim O'Brien: I'm just wondering, are you kind of insinuating that the Little Leaguers need to use Lake Ann Park? Jeff Bros: No, I'm not. ~Jim O'Brien: Okay, that's all I wanted to know. Jeff Bros: There is, Field lout there is a baseball field so one field out of the whole field that is a baseball field, we don't think that's asking too much. Jim O'Brien: I don't either. Public: Can I ask a question though then? Who is kicking us off the fields? What is kicking us off the fields? I was the first one to mention something about why we're being restricted with our eligibility and there's been about 4 or 5 people that have said something but nobody's come back with anything. Why are we being booted off those fields? Can somebody answer my question? Hasek: Yes, I think we can. What I'd like to do is to finish taking comments if you don't mind. Public: Okay, but I think that's what everybody is thinking about right now. With this last gentlemen that came up here, it definitely... Brad Johnson: I'm Brad Johnson. I live at 7425 Frontier Trail and the CAA, Babe Ruth and Little League program. One of the problems that we have, which probably it doesn't hurt to have a lot of people get together and talk about this is that we have about 400 kids coming along that would ~like to be like you guys someday. What's happening is that they reach 10, 11 and 12 years old and we don't have any fields where they can play on so they drop out of baseball. That's basically what's happening. Last I coached, I've been particpating in Babe Ruth for 2 years and I'd say each year it's been close to disaster from the kids of the parent's point of Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 12 .....", view. We have kids just get totally upset with baseball. We have no fields to play on. We have no coaches and all this kind of stuff so this year we said, we'll try to get a little bit better organized recognizing that you have control, or somebody had control over what we perceived to be a baseball field over there. So we requested that the City provide us, we have 2 to 3 Little League teams that play here. The kids don't want to play all the way over in Tonka Bay all the time. I might add one other thing that I've heard here that's of interest in that the same people, or a good share of the people that I hear are playing softball are from Tonka Bay, Shorewood, Excelsior, victoria. We're in the process of forming a Little League that's called South Tonka/Chanhassen. Same cities. We're in the process of trying to organize a Babe Ruth program which is going to be like Chanhassen/South Tonka. But the point being is that there appears to be a need not only from the adult level but also from the kids level for the same type of things. It turns out that in our city, the only field that we can play Babe Ruth on and keep the kids there that could possibly have a pitchers mound and keep Field 1 at Lake Ann. In the past we have not been able to use it. We have at the most this year, 3 Babe Ruth teams, 2 of which are from Shorewood, Excelsior and Tonka Bay so your own kids because they have no field to play either. Boyt: Brad, what night does Babe Ruth play on? Brad Johnson: I think we could control that. Some of this stuff is probably more discussion. The real life is, we're in a league that likes -" to play Monday and Thursday nights. I too wander around over at Babe Ruth and Little League. I think when a field stays open on Saturday all day long and possibly Sunday all day long and neither the adults or the parents want to take the time off to play on that day, because we have a real restricted period of time. I know over in the Minnetonka, the youth play on Saturdays once in a while and maybe some of those things can get worked out but we're in a different, our league is the Southern League or the Southern River Valley League and so I think the issue probably is that we need to figure out from our end of it how we can provide 4 teams a place to play Little League on a field that's set up for baseball and we need to find this year. This is just this year's problem, a place to field 3 Babe Ruth programs or we'll go through one more year. We have now 60 kids potentially on a Babe Ruth program and 4 years ago we had 13. Public: Are they all Chanhassen kids? Brad Johnson: No. They're coming from Excelsior, I'd say a third to a half of them are coming here because there are no fields over there. Public: It's all the same issue though isn't it? Brad Johnson: I said, it's the same kind of problem. Maybe one issue is that we have some kind of coordination as to what fields are being developed by all the communities. Certainly you guys are voters. The kids aren't and you can put pressure on your own communities and maybe out of this whole discussion will come some kind of program. It turns out, Little League, I didn't know this and I think you told me that, it takes 40,000 people, a community of 40,000 people to field a Little League ...,., Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 13 .,..... program. Boyt: Except Chaska has their own? Brad Johnson: They don't have Little League. Boyt: It's not sanctioned Little League. Brad Johnson: To get enough, like you guys are saying, to get enough teams together so you can playa league, that's what you're really saying. It just takes a lot of people and it takes a little organization so next year you don't find out you don't have a field and that's kind of what we're going through. I would recommend that, I don't know, I don't think we caused the rule change in total by our request and sometimes you ask for something and you get something you don't really want. Like you play softball and that kind of stuff so I'm just saying, that's our problem. I don't know if we're not speaking for what's happening relative to the break up of the other leagues here. It's just that we're looking for a solution of our own and probably created a problem but that problem was going to come along anyway and I know we've got some other fields coming along. I think the CAA, right Jeff, we're willing to work through the process and even try to structure our league games so we can maybe play some games on Saturdays. We do need some adults to help us out on ~?rograms. Otherwise, nobody gets to play. We have the same problem with girls softball with the programs coming out so the kids are coming along and we just have to figure out how to work it all out as I see it. Scheduling can't be that rigid either from your part or our part. There's got to be some way of working this whole thing out. John Denardo: My name is John Denardo. I live in Chanhassen. I've lived here about 6 years. I've paid taxes for 6 years... The people that signed me up from MGM lived here or has lived here part of their life. I also played for Merlin's Hardware and the same thing goes there. The thing I'm trying to figure out is why these people and one fellow said that once you leave this area who wants to come back. Well, I lived in Minneapolis half my life. I don't mind going back there. I've lived down south. I like it down there and I like Chanhassen and I'll come back here. Your kids will. My kids will. The Mayors kids will. Everyone will and I think that's the way it should be. Thank you. Don Knight: My name is Don Knight and I'm from Shorewood and I'm probably the reason that John Seaman's team is pretty old. I've lived here all my life in Excelsior and Shorewood and I've been on the Community Services for 9 years out there. I've been involved in problems like this with baseball, soccer 2 years ago and it always come down to the same problem. Everybody wants the same facilities but the thing we found out that works the best is that before you write letters, before you call all these people together and take their fields away, you sit down and talk. We ~ave a coordinating committee over there that we identify the fields that 3re available and then you sit down and talk about when you want them. I really can't believe that it had to go to a Council. The Council had a letter written telling somebody to get off the field. I just don't understand that. It seems to me that if this Babe Ruth sounds like a real Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 14 ......" problem. We had that problem in Excelsior not too long ago, Minnetonka Babe Ruth was fighting for Bennett Field. High School was fighting with Bennett Field and when it come down to talk, everybody said here's what our problem is, there was no problem. There really is not a problem. There are fields. There are people available. There's Saturdays that we're talking about is wide open. I think there's still time to solve this problem if there's just a field problem. If you're talking about the Excelsior, Tonka Bay and them coming over here to play, I can remember a couple of years ago I was coaching on the girls softball team in Excelsior. Bennett Field said we couldn't play on their field. We went over there and talked to them and within a couple months we were playing over there. It just doesn't make sense to me that we write a letter and tell somebody they're out. I would like to see the Council sit down and say, here's a committee. You figure it out and fight over it and find out what you've got and I'll bet you 10 to 1 that it will come back everybody will still be where they are. You'll all be happy. In fact, when the soccer people came to me, 2 years ago I did a study, I found 4 fields available for soccer that nobody knew was there. Yet we had a big fight. I also found out there's 2 soccer organizations that didn't talk to each other in the same area. I found out when I went to baseball studies, there are fields sitting empty. I found out when it came to hockey, there are a couple of hockey fields not identified. We have in the community services in Minnetonka, we have what they call a coordinator that coordinates all of the fields, all the gyms, everything else for anybody that wants to for 7 villages. I do agree you have the right of your ~ facility as to whether you want to use them or not but I do think this town needs a coordinating committee to identify your facilities. Identify the time they're available and sit down and talk. I don't even think you need new fields. I really don't. I don't think you need'money. I don't think that's the problem. Being here all my life, I really don't understand why it had to come to the Council writing a letter telling somebody to get out officially in one year. That's all I've got to say and thanks. I think it can be solved. Stan Hacker: I'm Stan Hacker and I presently live in Minneapolis but I had been a resident of Chanhassen. I play in the over 35 league. I guess I've got a couple of questions to the Board. Maybe I'll get answers now or maybe at 9:00, that maybe I'm either ignorant of what has happened or maybe no one knows and one is a question already addressed. Why did this come to be? Who came to you and said we have a problem here? The second is, the solution for, if the problem is Little League doesn't have enough fields, I don't know that your solution is going to solve that because I heard a number of managers saying we'll just go out and get more legal ball players so we don't have the same teams but you may have just as many teams as you do now. You may not solve that space problem at all. On the other hand, a lot of teams may leave and you may not have any teams so the solution may not address what the problem is and I'm not even sure what the problem is. I've been told it's a political thing. Chanhassen people don't want people like me who don't live here anymore playing here and I've heard it's the Little League baseball team. I guess my other ~ question is, what is the process? The letter that I saw today that our manager showed us from Todd, it really seemed to me like the decision is already made and we're kind of wasting our time here tonight. It looks Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 15 ,..... like we've already talked to people and we already know so I guess I'm curious what is the process? Have you already made the decision? Does it go to the City Council? What do the citizens of Chanhassen have that we can make new at this point? I guess as for coming back, I really do enjoy the league even though I live in Minneapolis and the employment thing is too, I work for...centers and I service families in Chanhassen but I also service families in Edina and Eden prairie so I don't know about the employment thing either. Maybe I'm legal that way. There's a lot of questions. My other question is, how are you going to deal with, I mean I hear players saying, we're going to need illegal players and all that kind of stuff that you've opened yourself up to. I don't know, it seems like a real mess and also that it happened so fast. All of a sudden here it is February and now all of the teams can't come back so I guess I've got a lot of questions that I'd like the Board to address before the evening is over. Don Chmiel: I'm Don Chmiel, Mayor of Chanhassen. I'd just like to make one clarification to Don. The letters that you received were not sent from the City Council. That's the point I wanted to make. Thank you. Public: Why not? Don Chmiel: It didn't come to the City Council. II"""' Steve Workman: My name is Steve Workman and I live on Carver Beach Road in Chanhassen. I spent 12 years out of state and so forth and came back about 3 years ago....because it seems like kind of panic situation. This letter pops out here and 2 or 3 months before the teams are supposed to take the fields and there isn't any, no discussion or no what do you think we should do about this and really no problem defined or no cause for this problem has been defined. Now for many years, and I'm still wondering, who in the hell are they because that's what, well they said this. Through college. Through the service and everything else. I for one would like to know who they is and what it is that caused this problem so that we can go back and maybe say, well this could be fixed. Thanks. Tom Metz: My name's Tom Metz. I live in Western Hills. I've been in Chanhassen now for 21 years, 20 years. I've been in the league ever since it star ted back when it was 4 teams. Played for Brown's Standard. I think the change probably won't affect our team to any great extent but I think just a couple years ago that we were in here discussing a problem of the Rec Committee bringing in 2 more teams to our league and kind of us old timers kind of resented it. We were assured that there were a lot of facilities. They would put lights on the field. That there would be a lot of more time, we could play 3 games in an evening and we aren't going to have trouble with accommodating the extra teams. I think there were some discussions about grandfathering people in and I think we did, thought there was a rule passed at that time that none of the teams would ~bring in any more outsiders and basically as attrition goes on, they . either drop out or all become Chanhassen teams and those decisions were made. I think that decision had some of the same flavor of this discussion. It was kind of like a surprise to everybody. No discussion to the managers to any great extent. I think maybe there was a letter Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 16 ...."", sent or something and some expectations that they'd understand the ramifications of that was. It's kind of near sighted vision to think that that's going to happen. So we got over that crisis and now we're in this crisis and it appears also, as I understand, that we're going to expand Lake Ann. We're going to build some more softball fields out there 1 year away or something. If we get rid of some teams and get rid of some players this year, what are we going to do? Then go around looking for players again a year from now, 2 years from now? I would challenge the Board to have some foresight, some vision and meet the needs of these growing teams and supply them with facilities instead of just unilaterally increasing the size of the league and then making the decision which decreases the size of the league just within months before the league play starts. If we are going to make decisions like this and we have to make, at least give them a phase out plan. Say in 3 years this has got to happen. That's what I've got to say. Jay Johnson: I'm Jay Johnson. I don't play softball. I'm on the City Council. I've been listening to all of this tonight and it sounds like we've got some opportunities here. Finding some more fields, I think we have to open our minds up and look outside of Chanhassen. We've got Shorewood, Tonka Bay, all kinds of residents that want to play in a league. A league doesn't have to be a Lake Ann league. I'm hearing that there may be fields in Shorewood. Some of the league games may rotate to Shorewood. Our Little Leaguers play at different fields every weekend or every time they play they may go to a different field depending upon which -' field their opponents are at. Babe Ruth travel allover the Minnesota River Valley. We could possibly work with the neighboring cities and solve the problem that way if there are fields available. It sounds like Shorewood's going to have 2 more fields available in 1 year and we'll have a couple more in 2 years. So it seems, I think that you could have had a better letter maybe and I think a lot of things have been accomplished tonight. I think that something's going to change here. Thanks for the opportunity. Mark York: My name is Mark York. I work in Minnetonka but live in Chanhassen. I've lived in Chanhassen for 27 years. I have participated on the Thursday night mens open league. Been actively a player, coach and sponsor of a team. We've changed sponsors over the last 4 years a few times but the team has remained intact. Basically my team is comprised of people that I have been raised with and lived in Chanhassen over my entire life but my beef with the program was the work rule. Most of my players are carpenters and they work in Chanhassen maybe half to three-quarters of the year building houses but they don't meet the requirement listed within your guidelines. I think that's a little too strict being these are the people who are actually building Chanhassen and making it a better place for everyone. I think they should be allowed- to play in this league. When you put a team together, it's not an easy thing as all the coaches here will know. Trying to find the right blend of people and compatible personalities is important. What I have basically is people who have been raised together and now we have a borderline situation where we're -' borderline on the eligibility so how do we determine among l~ people, a real tight group, who's the one to go and who do we pull in? We don't want to bust up the team. If one guy goes, everybody goes and we don't Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 17 ".... want to do that. It's just a very enlightening thing that really improves our quality of life here in Chanhassen and we don't meet eligibility requirements in Excelsior. We have 2 from Excelsior and 1 from victoria so we're within a very short radius of the fields and we bring our business into Chanhassen. We really like to play. We like to see the teams that have played here remain eligible under a grandfather clause. Possibly relax the work restriction. Hasek: Anyone else? Okay. I don't know where to begin this. Maybe give it to staff first. Are you prepared to kind of address some of the concerns? Let's start with the basics. Let's start with the demand. The overriding question. Why we did what we did. Why we felt it was necessary. The fact that we're running out of fields and the fields aren't going to be on line in time to meet the demand. The growth figures... Hoffman: To answer the question on why this came about in the first place. In my letter I stated that there's an increase demand by youth leagues. That is correct. That can be substantiated through increase in teams. I've had requests for fields to be available for Little League, Babe Ruth, Girls softball. Fields that just aren't available with the system that we presently have in place but again, that is not the only reason. This rule would be a good rule. A good guideline in order for us """to prepare for the growth which is occurring now and in the future growth which is occurring in Chanhassen. Our Park and Recreation Department needs a guideline, an order in which to operate our adult softball leagues. Presently we have a guideline which basically addresses eliminating extra teams that we do not have positions for by a percentage basis which is very cumbersome. Does not work out. Does not make the people who get cut very happy. Leads to people falsifying documents as was stated that may occur if this rule goes into effect. So it will help us in the fact that now if this rule is instated, the teams that are playing, that are fielded this year, will be able to corne back next year as a team which was legal the year before and they'll have a spot available. Under the guideline that we ran last year, that is not the case. Each year the number of teams who would wish to play in a certain league, sign up. We go through the percentage process of trying to figure out the team's with the greatest number of people who live or work in Chanhassen and then draw a line and cut the bottom teams out. An example of that is in our last year's open league. We had 21 teams interested in playing and 14 positions. 18 of those teams turned in a league roster. We had to cut out the bottom 4. That leaves no room for additional teams to come in as the city grows. The new fields at Lake Ann which will come on line in 1991 will help that some but basically we will be adding 1 field that will be available for adult softball. The other two fields will be used as a Babe Ruth and a Little League field. In our over 35 league last year, we had 15 teams register. That's 1 team over the maximum limit of 14. If we grandfather all teams in, that leaves no room ~for anybody, any new players that would like to play or any new teams, new Chanhassen based teams that would like to play. It leaves a no option to be involved. It does not give them an option. 15 teams, we're lover the maximum limit as it is. The problem occurs that we then speak of our womens league in that it affects them to the greatest extent. However, in Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 18 ...."" dealing with all softball players, you have to try to remain as fair and as equal as possible for the reasons being that if we make exceptions in one league, all the other leagues would want that exception as well so whether you instate the ruling for the first place, we feel it needs to be fair and equal across the board. Public: A question Todd. The growth in the youth league was mentioned. Are those Chanhassen youth? Hoffman: The Chanhassen Athletic Association does not discriminate on who they invite in or who they accept for their leagues. That's Eden Prairie. A percentage of Eden prairie youth. Excelsior. Minnetonka. Public: Obviously that portion, we're asking to purify one league to make room for another, it doesn't make sense. If they were all Chanhassen youth, I think that maybe we'd feel differently. But we're saying is, the pressure put on this over 35 league and the other leagues in here because of a league that is impure doesn't make sense to us. The other question I have is, I'm not aware and perhaps you are, about more over 35 players. It sounds like there are people, someone mentioned if there's one player in Chanhassen who can't play, he should go over to the Streeter team because they forfeited 3 games last year. There are slots right now in our league for players. We could use players on our team. Where are they? We can add a couple ourselves and I'm sure everyone, I don't know who the people are because we can't find them and we have tried. So again ~ I come back to the question of demand. I just don't understand the rationale I'm hearing. Now if there's more, I'll stop and shut up. If that's it, I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. Hasek: Can you respond to him any further? Hoffman: Certainly. I'm just looking for where I jotted those things down as I went through. There's been a lot of mention about we have fields available. They are empty at certain times. I went through the field scheduling book that I go ahead and schedule fields with as people call them in as we schedule leagues, play-offs, etc.. Lake Ann was used last year from about April 20th to August 15th, Monday thru Friday from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.. 85% of the time there was a game taking place there. The 15% that is available is available on Friday nights. There's been a lot of discussion that people would be willing to make exceptions, play on a Friday evening. Play on a weekend. However, I am hard pressed to believe that anyone of our adult leagues would vote to play on a weekend or a Friday evening or a Saturday evening. Public: My question to you is, when I heard they have a park at DataServ, it sounds like their fields are available to us. Now if you take those two fields, that's 8 more teams per night and then the other thing is, you've got the Chan Legion. There's a field back there. I don't know if that's baseball or softball but I agree with anybody in here who's been saying that you can work this out. If you've got 2 more fields from ~ DataServ, you can probably accommodate everybody and there is no more problem. If there still would be, I play on the mens open and I know that's your biggest problem but 10:00 at the Legion, I've never seen Park and Rec Commission Meeting ~February 28, 1989 - Page 19 anybody on that field. Hasek: We can get a ton of questions going here and we're never going to get an answer to a single one so if you take your questions to the microphone please. Sietsema: My problem is, my speaker's right here so unless you talk into the microphone, this speaker is not going to pick you up and this is all verbatim tapes so I have to have you come up to the podium. Hasek: Todd, can this one be addressed? We have some question about DataServ, a couple fields and the Legion fields and we had a little bit of discussion about that. Hoffman: The DataServ fields are, the possible use of those are still being investigated. I've been in contact with them. They have not gotten back to me. They're still working it through to see if all the people in their various departments will approve that. The DataServ fields, if they were approved, mayor may not lead to some relief of the field scheduling. If we put it back to the managers on if they would like to playa portion of their games down there, the managers that are not here tonight, that do not have a problem with the new eligibility rule, would probably not go "'""tor playing on DataServ fields which are located in an industrial park. Are subgrade fields to the fields at Lake Ann. Those mayor may not provide some relief. Hasek: Todd, how do those fields compare to Chaparral's fields? Hoffman: Meadow Green? Hasek: Or excuse me, Meadow Green. Hoffman: They compare more in the line to City Center and they've been ignored up until this last year of any maintenance so they are in basically really rough condition. Hasek: You're talking about maintenance through the City and insurance through the City...being discussed at DataServ right? Hoffman: Correct. The field at the Legion is as well, in very deteriorating condition. It was used as the home field for the Babe Ruth team last year. They about got laughed off the field when they had visiting teams come up to that field for the Babe Ruth team to host them there. The dugouts are a hazard area. You don't even want to send your children in there for fear that they'll fall over. We need to negotiate the use of that field with the Legion. They have no problem with that but they schedule their legion ball there as well so that field is used. It's ~ot used during the day. People drive by all our fields during the day lnd notice they're not being used. Nobody wants to use those fields during the day. There's just not the time when people want to use their fields for recreation. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 20 ~o Public: I don't know about anybody else in this room but I'm not willing to quit playing softball and if I personally have to get my team over to DataServ to help fix the fields, I'd make them go. It's 8 more teams and you've got 14 and 8 is 22. That covers you right? And you maintain Lake Ann good, I don't know anything about DataServ. I just recently have been pointed out to where the fields are. I don't know what kind of condition they're in or anything but I don't know if they'd be willing to help maintain them a little better or if it would take league participation but whatever it takes, but the outcome of this meeting, I will say that nobody in here wants to quit playing ball and that's the end of it. Public: I just wanted to say, last year the womens league decided to leave the registration open to get more teams in and no one applied. Public: I've played in Minneapolis leagues and we played on fields that nobody would play on but we enjoyed playing on the fields and if it takes going to Chaparral and playing and not having perfect fields, not chalked and everything, there are fields available where we can play. I think that's what everybody wants is to play in a league. It's not, we don't want perfect fields. We just want a field to play on. Public: I'm still wainting for an answer from this man's question over here about why I'm paying taxes and have no children and I'm going to get tossed out of this league for some kid who lives in the next town down that's coming over here to play ball. I'd like an answer for that. .."", Hasek: You said that you were paying taxes. Where are you paying taxes? Public: Chanhassen. Hasek: I think part of the problem that we have is, at least by my perception of the reason why, at least in my mind, we did what we did, was to try and get things in line to meet a demand that's going to be coming on line next year. The question, perhaps we could squeak by this year. Maybe that could be done. Next year it won't be able to be done. There's no question about that. Public: The demand... Hasek: The demand is from the two people who came up here with the children that want to play on the fields that live in this city or that play in reciprosity with other cities who won't allow, at this time, eligibility for our teams to play in their communities. We can't go to Excelsior and play. We can't go to Eden prairie and play. I'm speaking from an over 35 league player now. We can't go to Eden prairie and play. We can't go to Minnetonka and play. If we could do that. If we could find fields to do that, that would sove our problem but we're not eligible there. We aren't and they're not going to allow us to because their programs are full. That's why their children are playing on our fields over here is because their demand is full. We have now reached that same -' position on the fields that we have within Chanhassen. The question is, now who do we allow to play on those fields? Do I say, I give up my right as an adult so that the kids can play? Because I live here, I should be Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 21 ".... able to play? Or is it the people who aren't paying taxes here, even though they are playing on teams and we thank them for helping us along. They've helped over cities and every city around is growing. Minneapolis I'm sure, Eden prairie at one time allowed everybody in. They no longer do that. It's not an uncommon problem at all and we have reached the demand for it from the City of Chanhassen. Public: I understand again the issue. If Chanhassen has arrived and we really can insulate ourselves and should, then the least the Planning Commission should do is plan on also restricting those youth leagues. And I hate to say this. I hate to say this but I've got 4 kids, boys, and they're all playing ball. They have been. A couple of them played a couple years in Chanhassen and the rest of the early years, and the other 2 kids have played in Bennett Park. I live in Chanhassen. My kids go to Minnetonka schools and they play at Minnetonka. It's a strange world but to be fair, if you're going to talk about purism here, then this demand, the gentleman came up and talked about the youth league, they better be just Chanhassen kids because they can't be Shoreview kids mixed in with Chanhassen kids. You're not allowing the over 35 league and I guess this other league to have a mixed community league. Hasek: But I think you're jumping one of the important issues here and that is that the kids are allowed to cross those boundaries. They are ~ligible in Shorewood. Cathcart Park is in Shorewood. It's in Chanhassen Jut it's a Shorewood park so we do play, our kids do play in Shorewood. Our kids do play in Minnetonka. That's the system and that's the way it's set up so the reciprosity is there. In this particular league, there is no reciprosity. We haven't the right to play anyplace else. We don't have the eligibility. Public: So we haven't the right, on youth baseball and I really hate to talk about youth baseball. That's a tough deal. We're talking about apple pie and mother here but on youth baseball, we have the right to say that Chanhassen has found it's own youth baseball league. Hasek: We haven't the right to do that? Public: Correct. Hasek: Sure we can. We simply have the demand for it. Public: Well we don't have the demand but we'll wait until we get it. That's the question that's the problem right now. Hasek: So the issue would be the same. The issue would still be the same. If we run it across everything, these people still wouldn't be able to play. Public: It appears that we can't play anyway. I'm just saying, if we do ~t, let's do it fairly. If we're really going to try to insulate ourselves and make the open league, the womens league, the over 35 and all these leagues, be just Chanhassen residents and that's what we're going to try to do, then let's make sure the other leagues that are competing for Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 22 -' those fields, either youth leagues or whatever they are, let's make sure they're just Chanhassen residents too and that might mean we have to sever our relationships with the current baseball organization with those other youth fields, but if that's what it means, I guess that seems fair. I don't want to do that. I want to do what everybody else in this room wants to do I think which is let's open this thing up and try to find a solution. I hear what you folks are saying. Here's why we did what we did but that's scary. That sounds like a done deal. If it's a done deal, I think it's a quite unfair done deal. If the question is, what are we going to do, different issue. I think everyone here seems to think that we can work this thing out. It just boggles me to, I think I'm hearing... Hasek: them? Todd, have you got any figures that you can throw back at Fields? Teams? Jay Johnson: I'd just like to mention one thing on the youth. Last year was the first year the Little League had a field here in Chanhassen. We've been playing with South Tonka for 6 or 7 years, if I remember right. South Tonka Little League can not survive without the City of Chanhassen kids. About half of their Little League is our kids. If we pulled out and created our own Little League, we started to do that last year and South Tonka came and said, hey, you can't do that or you will destroy Little League baseball in Shorewood, in Tonka Bay, in all these communities so we as an Athletic Association, the Chanhassen Athletic Association I'm talking now as a member of the Chanhassen Athletic Association not the City Council, we are separate from the City. We're a parent run organization that has nothing to do with the City of Chanhassen. They happen to loan us fields for our youths and we have members from, we don't restrict our eligibility. If some kid wants to come and play from St. Paul, he can. We have soccer players coming from Mound because Mound doesn't have a soccer league. We have soccer players coming from Hopkins because Hopkins doesn't have a soccer league. But anyway, we're growing. We had 353, I believe, new single family building permits issued this year. In this town the average family is 3 people. That's 1 kid so we're talking another 300 new kids came into town this last year and that doesn't even count the apartments. ...,., Public: How many of those are over 35? Jay Johnson: The same thing. We need them both. Shorewood's opening fields. We're opening fields. We're coming to a crunch this year and next year it's going to be a real crunch. Hasek: Next year it's going to be a crunch and if those 2 fields don't come on line in 2 years, if we have another summer like we had this year, it will be another year before those fields are on line because they have to sit in good weather for at least 2 years. Jay Johnson: You've got more agenda items tonight too. Hasek: I'm going to go, please if I may, please just pass you by and get to Jeff because he's got an issue that's related... """'" Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 23 " Jeff Bros: The Little Leagues and such are not, again, are not run by the City. They are charters that are set up and they cover specific neighborhoods. South Tonka Little League covers Shorewood, Greenwood, Excelsior, Tonka Bay and Chanhassen. That's the Charter for that group. It's got nothing to do with softball. It's got nothing to do with the City of Chanhassen. Public: Jeff, you understand that the basic issue is fields in Chanhassen. Chanhassen people trying to get a variety of fields. Jeff Bros: Right. Again, I want you to forget the adult leagues, all of them, and Little League because they're two separate groups. The restrictions for softball have got nothing to do with Little League. Our charters are set up and they cover those communities. Public: That's not the issue. It's the fields. Hasek: The issue is the resident, the real issue is the residents of Chanhassen and their ability to use their own fields to the max. That is the issue. For your own information, real quick, I don't know how many of you had a chance to take a look at this little chart that we put together on adult softball leagues for 1988. Monday night industrial league, 12 teams. 10 teams... Tuesday night, womens open league. There are 9 ~teams. 72% are non-residents. Don't live or work in the city. Wednesday night, mens over 35. 46% of 15 teams are non-residents. Thursday night, mens open. 14 teams. 44% are non-residents. Friday night, co-rec. 6 teams. 40% are non-residents. Of the 56 teams, 555 people live or work in Chanhassen. 399 are non-residents. That's 72% of the people in the adult softball leagues are being supported by the people of Chanhassen and those people don't live and work here. That's a pretty significant amount of people. Public: That's live in or work in? Hasek: That's live or work in this city anymore. Now, the gentleman said that I live I Minneapolis and I go back there all the time. I do that too. I've lived in Mound. Let's start at the beginning. I started in Hopkins. I played in Hopkins when I lived in Hopkins. When I moved to Mound, I grew up there in Hopkins... (A tape change occurred at this point in the meeting.) Public: ...and I think the rest of the guys are getting the shaft. I think that you guys should be putting more energy into how you can take these other parks, these other facilities, these city parkland, and get those fields already up there a little bit better condition so that they can be used by the people in Chanhassen and not figure out how you can get rid of some of the people from the leagues. It seems to me that we're not ~in a position right now where, in today's world that we don't have enough facilities. We've got facilities that aren't being used because the park has not invested the money to get these facilities into the shape that they can be used for league play. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 24 ....." Public: Has this been finalized? Hasek: It's been voted on. Obviously the letter's been sent out. A good question, do we have to go through City Council? Sietsema: Typically this is not the type of thing that would go to City Council because it is a policy. The Commission is directed to provide recreation opportunities for the City of Chanhassen. If the Council gives us direction in doing that by giving us a budget and giving us the Comprehensive Plan and this is typically the type of thing that the Commission would make the decision on and we would not typically send that onto Council. Hoffman: This is not an ordinance. It's a Park and Recreation policy. Hasek: So it does not demand Planning Commission or City Council action? Sietsema: If it required the expenditure of money other than what is in the budget or something different, it would then go up to City Council. The Park and Recreation Commission made a decision. They did vote on it. You have the opportunity to change your mind, reconsider your motion, your decision. You were aware when you made the decision that it was going to be hard on the people that it affected. However, that doesn't mean that it's written in stone if you would like to change anything or modify it but that would be up to you. That would have to be a reconsideration. -' We'd have to look in the Minutes to see if the person making the motion wanted to reconsider. Public: My question then would be, before it is finalized, and that's got to be up to you people to finalize this issue right? Hasek: As of right now it is finalized. Public: It is finalized? Hasek: Yes, unless we reverse it. PUblic: But you can reverse it? Hasek: Absolutely. Public: I'd like to make a suggestion then before we leave tonight. Before we leave tonight I would like to see that this gentleman, one member of the softball league, the 2 members of the athletic department and the members of the womens league get together and work out a program for the summer and then corne back next year with a plan that's a lot better. I think, from what I hear tonight, this thing could work out for this year and use for the fields for one year before this thing. Then during the next year you could corne up with a very logical decision. This thing tonight sounds like maybe it was put together too fast and there are some good people here and I sure don't want anybody to get hurt. I think you can work with them. I really do. We've got those two other fields. The athletic department, I've worked with many athletic departments, you -' Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 25 "'" can always work it out. I do think that one thing to consider is that instead of starting the softball league at 6:00, maybe the baseball team could have it from 6:00 to 7:00 and things like that could be worked out. The girls could play maybe the other game alternate nights so everybody takes advantage of the same fields. It isn't that big a problem so I would suggest that you do that. Hasek: Yes, we're going to go through the Commission. Boyt: A couple of questions. Right now it runs 6:00 to 9:00 in the evening. Is there any flexibility in that? Can they play later or can they start earlier? Hoffman: Adult softball plays from about 6:15 until approximately games end at 10:00 p.m.. I just took the example of the 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. for the study of when they're used so they do play until 10:00. The ordinance states that the park is closed at 10:00 and I hear expressions from many team players and managers that it would not be their desire to play later than 10:00. They just don't want to play any later. We have one field that's available. Field #1 that's lighted to go ahead and play later than 10:00 but, that's an option but it's a small option. Hasek: ,.... Hoffman: If it's used, the Babe Ruth team has requested use of that field, that would greatly restrict it's use for softball. It's an issue that needs to be decided. Instating this policy is one way in effectively addressing that situation. Field #1 is used, the most heavily used field for adult softball because it is lighted. If it was used two evenings, Babe Ruth games and practices are approximately 2 hours long. That would take out the availability of 6 softball teams playing on those particular nights so the request by the Babe Ruth to use that field, which was originally developed as a baseball/softball field, really does have some effect on how our leagues would be operated, adult softball leagues would be operated. Is that field going to receive a mound this year? Boyt: What time does Babe Ruth play? Brad Johnson: 6:00 to 8:00 roughly. Boyt: And how about Little League. What time do you play? Jeff Bros: Normally the game would start at 5:30 and we go until 8:00 or 7:00. Little League is not using, or the South Tonka League is not going to be using any Lake Ann facilities. I told Todd that we could get by without using any Lake Ann facilities this year. Hasek: How I""'" Jeff Bros: If we have need it. about next year? It really depends on the growth that we experience this year. growth this year similiar to what we had last year, we will Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 26 ......", Boyt: There is a group of parents who are trying to get Little League started in Chanhassen, like this man said, Chanhassen kids in Chanhassen so that's something to look into. I think Jay had a legitimate suggestion of does Shorewood have baseball diamonds right now? Softball diamonds? Public: Shorewood does not have the softball fields available. There are 3 that were constructed last fall but they're not going to be ready for another year. These are Freeman Park. Shorewood has a Babe Ruth field and 2 Little League fields that are used by the South Tonka Little League. Boyt: So they're not available for mens leagues? Public: Not for mens softball. Boyt: I thought it was a good suggestion that our mens leagues try and work with some other communities when we have eligibility... Public: Oh sure that'd be great. Boyt: And I don't know what that is besides Shorewood. Watson: What about Tonka Bay and Greenwood? Public: There are 5 lake communities that are not accepted by the Hopkins-Minnetonka Rec. They're Tonka Bay, Cottagewood, Shorewood, Excelsior and Greenwood. ....". Boyt: But Excelsior is exclusive. You have to live in Excelsior to play on their fields? Public: No. Watson: Of those communities, how many could provide you with facilities to play softball? Public: None. Not this next summer. Watson: The thing in one more year we're going to have 2 fields? Public: Three. Watson: And Tonka Bay doesn't provide any fields and Greenwood has nothing and Cottagewood has nothing so basically if we were to form a coalition of these communities, at this point, Chanhassen would be providing the fields regardless. Public: For this year. Tonka Bay has two new softball fields coming but they won't be ready until next year also. Watson: So that would include, then next year we'd have 5 more fields? ....,I Public: Yes. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 27 '" Public: I'd like to point out, the Excelsior softball league, the mens league, that allows players from Chanhassen to play. I think you are under the conception that it didn't. It allows people from west of 494, north of TH 5, south of TH 55 and it goes as far west as you want to go. The problem is there are more teams applying than the league has space for. Boyt: The only other thing I see is Friday nights and Saturday play and I guess that's something that would have to be approached by the whole league, by all the leagues. Sietsema: One thing to consider before we get into weekend play, and I don't want to throw another damper on but we have typically left our weekends open because people do reserve that park for the use of the facilities in that park. People pay money on weekends, and during the week as well, to go to Lake Ann Park and use the facilities there. If we start scheduling league play and organize that, we've already got all of the neighborhood parks filled up in the evenings with youth. There isn't much out there left for pick-up games for the person who's not involved in the organized league sports and that may be something you want to consider. Public: That's a good point Lori because my family, even though we live ~in Shorewood, we have the sticker and we corne over on the weekends qui te a oit and I just as soon not have the softball players out there on the weekend. We like to go out and play with a couple of my kids and stuff. That's a very good point. The Friday night, if it were to be an intermingling of game. For instance, let's say once every 3 or 4 weeks, depending on the leagues, to be rotated in to play games on Friday night. I see no problem there. Friday nights are kind of fun to play. For instance let's say on one field the first game you would have an over 35 game and the second game might be Thursday night open league and maybe the night game or the last game may be one of the gals playing the last game on one field and rotate it around on Friday nights. You're not doing it all the time. Boyt: Are there games available Tuesday evenings? Hoffman: Tuesday evening, Field 1 and Field 2 is used by the womens league and Field 3 was Little League. Schroers: I'm getting the impression tonight that everyone here seems to think that we are against everyone playing softball in Chanhassen and I want to go on record as saying that is not the fact at all. We don't want to see anyone not be able to play. I think what's happening here is that we have been asked by staff and other residents of Chanhassen and corne up with a workable solution because of our facilities are and it looks like in the near future will be severely overtaxed. And the reason for this I ~think is because there's a pattern that develops from the urban sprawl )ut. What happens as development happens faster than we can obtain the revenue from it to build facilities and keep up so we've been sort of overwhelmed and we're a little bit behind. In following, the trim, if you look from here towards the city, if you go to Eden prairie, if you go to Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 28 .......", Hopkins and further in, they have absolutely no one outside of the City that lives or works can play in their facilities. In their leagues. So we thought that by limiting it to 4, we were still trying to keep as many people playing as we could and keep our facilities going as well as we could until we have new facilities coming on line and hopefully then we'll be able to accommodate everyone. That is what we were hoping to accomplish with the proposal that we made. Public: Given the figures for all the leagues, how many people are currently...while that sounds like a good compromise, I think it's pretty obvious that it's going to really decimate some of the leagues. Schroers: We realize that and we may lose. I played here in Chanhassen for 15 years. I am on the over 35 adult league and our team, most of the players are legal but we may stand to lose 1 or 2. We're just like brothers. Do I want to tell one of my team mates that they can't play here? Believe me, this is not something that we want to do. This is something that we felt in fairness to all the residents of Chanhassen, this was our solution. However, we don't want to be closed minded and say that this is this. I am more than willing to work on any equitable solution that we can come up with to keep everyone playing here. We don't want to eliminate anyone, even the girls. Public: We're gone. We're history. ...,., Robinson: When we discussed this issue 2 or 3 weeks ago or a month ago, or whenever it was, I've got to admit that I was one that was opposed to non-residents playing on Chanhassen fields. I've backed off from that tonight. I think it can be worked. I really do. I think forming a committee with Todd, the CAA, the over 35 league and the womens and I don't think it can be worked this year but I think in the future years, with the new fields we've got coming up. The one thing I regret now, that I overlooked, it happened so fast, you can't possibly respond and find another field this year or do anything so I think you really would be out this year. I think it can be worked and I would propose I guess that we grandfather the teams in this year and look for a solution for the future. Watson: I want the same group to take the ferver you came here with and go to Shorewood and Tonka Bay and Greenwood and tell those people that you need softball fields. Public: We'll have 5 more next year. Watson: I know but you know, it will be 5 more next year. We've had fields for years now. You all talk about how long you've been playing here and they're finally going to have 5 fields in another year or so. I think that the only way that this is ever going to work is if the adults play it like the kids do. We form a coalition of communities and we rotate. You play in Chanhassen. You play in Shorewood. You play in Greenwood. You play at all different parks. The only way that's going to -' work however, is for all the communities to begin to supply the services necessary for you guys to play. Chanhassen is never going to be able to virtually, by itself, provide fields for this entire group and certainly Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 29 ,..... not with the growth that's occurring out here and Shorewood and Tonka Bay and in Chanhassen and in Chaska. Chaska has quite a few facilities of their own but of the groups up here, all the communities are going to have to begin to take a look at what they're doing with their resources and start providing so this group would do well to organize and start to talk to the other communities about providing more facilities because Chanhassen's not going to ever be able to keep up but I'm with you. If we could keep it together for one more year and give it a year to work it through. Boyt: Making room for the Babe Ruth... Watson: We've got to work it out so they can play too but we can't eliminate the womens softball. Mady: A month ago when we reviewed this item we knew a lot of this was coming. It's not unexpected. There were 3 of us who play in the over 35 league. I've played for 5 years now, it will be 6 years this year. I recognize all you guys. Softball is not a sport as much as a social gathering. My concern has been always...with these youth sports and I've been screamed at more than once by a youth sport coaches about why don't we have something to play on. They look at Lake Ann, Lake Ann has been an adult field really. My aim in this whole matter is to get something ~vailable for the kids. In that, Li ttle League, Babe Ruth set up. I'm ~ind of disappointed that a couple of the coaches that have been hitting on me the hardest aren't here tonight. It seems like the Legion field really isn't an alternative to them. At least that's what they keep telling us. The DataServ fields, that Commission asked staff to look into them. Nobody really knew they were there. Unless you look for the, you don't see them. I'm not sure what they look like. I agree that we'll play almost anyplace. If you've played in Minneapolis, you do... Public: Another possibility for a solution. I know... Hasek: Please. Mady: One thing to keep in mind, Chanhassen neighborhood parks, if we were to open those up for league play, adult league play, we'll fill this chamber up with residents, neighbors who are going to be screaming at us. We've already had them coming to complain about the practices taking place there so there's the other side of the issue. It's always been our goal to leave the neighborhood parks open to kids and the residents who live right there. That's what they're for. The community parks are open to the community. I believe we've heard a lot of good suggestions tonight. I don't think this issue is finished by any way. I guess we got everybody's attention. Now we're going to work on it. Work on a solution but Carol's right in that this isn't going to be Chanhassen's solution. Almost every person who came up here tonight, I would guess 75% of the ~eople that came up here tonight are from Shorewood, Excelsior, Tonka Bay. . rhat side. Why don't they provide something for them. We're trying. We're a struggling little community trying to provide for our own residents and in the past when our program wasn't developed very well, we pulled other people in but now we're 10,000 people strong and we're Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 30 ......., growing, it seems like 1,000 people every year and we've got to find solutions to our new parks. Yes, we're going to have 2 or 3 more fields at Lake Ann in about 2 years. Hopefully in the southern part of Chanhassen we're going to have another community park but that's probably at least 5 years away before that's going to be developed. We don't have the money to do it so we're going to need to find a solution. I don't know if grandfathering you is a solution because we're going to have to work with the youth people too. Public: I've got one other suggestion that I never heard mentioned. Hasek: I might suggest that you take your suggestions to the Park Board. Now we've got people here for another issue tonight and our normal closing time is 10:00. We've got a full agenda. Boyt: Not the people wanting to take it to the Park Board. We are the Park Board. Mady: Staff. Hasek: I think the place to take it and I think the issue, and if I may just continue with Jim here, I think the issue, maybe there's one, the availability of the fields. The economics are killing us right now. We haven't got the funds available to build to the demand that's being expressed to us. I guess the suggestion that I would have is that we try and work together with the abutting communities to get some kind of reciprosity so that we can all play on the fields. Even if it means that we have to travel a little bit to do that. That would be fantastic. But, the problem is, if that isn't a solution this year, then I strongly want, the kids that are out there and the demand that's been expressed, to be able to play on the fields in our town. If there's an alternate solution to that and a way to work that out, that would be fantastic but I don't know what that is right now. I don't know if it's even possible. What kind of a time line are we working on? Do we have time this year to even do that? Sit down with other communities and try and figure out if we can put together a program? How about scheduling games? ....""" Hoffman: An this issue. lot of other has suffered of. They've enormous amount of staff time has already been devoted to There are a lot of other items. A lot of other issues. A programs. Program development. Program implementation that because of this issue. Those things need to be taken care been ignored a great deal. Public: How do you know how many softball teams you're going to have at 'this point? You have no idea so how can you... Hasek: That's true. That's absolutely true. Public: The solution is... """" Hasek: There might be more room after we get done with this than we absolute need. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 31 ",....., Public: You may not need any more room. Hasek: Exactly but it's a place for us to begin at least to clean it up so we can pull back our horns and say okay listen, now this is the first thing we've done. What's next? What's our next option after this one? This is a good first option for all of the residents of Chanhassen. A very good first option to find out exactly where we stand and that's why, basically why we chose the route that we did. We want to provide services to the people that live here. For the people that pay taxes here. Public: And you live in Shorewood? Hasek: No, no, no, no. Because our children are playing there. There is a reciprosity and I wish you would keep that issue separate. Public: I wish you would keep that issue separate Ed. We're talking about fields in Chanhassen and Chanhassen people. That's what you're talking about. You guys raised the issue. Someone did. Chanhassen people using the fields in Chanhassen. If you have to restruct your Little League teams and get a new Charter so it's only Chanhassen, then we're on apples and apples. Hasek: That might be a possibility. ",....., Public: Well maybe that's what you've got to do because right now what you're talking about is you've got reciprosity on the youth league and we don't have it on the adult leagues... Hasek: Is there anything else by the Commission? Boyt: I have just one quick thing to say. I'm really disappointed that Steve has volunteered the Little League to give up their night on the field. That's their one night in Chanhassen. Otherwise they're allover the place. I'm disappointed. My 10 year old son doesn't want to play because he has to go to Minnetonka to play. He'd like to play in Chanhassen but he can't. We don't have our own Little League. Mady: One thing we've heard tonight is the pride that you guys have in going out of state defending your title for Chanhassen. Our kids in this town don't have a home field. They really don't. We play on make shift fields at best for Little League. Public: I don't hear anybody saying that we have to play on Lake Ann fields and polished fields. I hear people saying... Mady: We don't have anything. DataServ is not available right now to us. That has to be worked out. We're trying to work that out. We don't know if that's available. If it does become available, we don't know if the ".....leagues are going to be willing to play there. It's an option we're trying to investigate right now. Public: Why don't you ask the leagues instead of letting Todd make that decision. I got real tired of Todd talking for the leagues tonight. I Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 32 ...,;" don't know that he's talked the managers because all the managers I talked to are upset with what's happening and Todd keeps talking about the leagues and the managers. That's Todd talking. Not the leagues and the managers. Talk to leagues and managers and see if they'll play there or Friday night. Mady: The last point I want to make. I've heard a lot of selfishness out here. I really have. There's been no one. No one is worried about the kids in this town. It's where am I going to play? Where am I going to play? Where am I going to play? Well, by golly when you guys are 75 years old and not playing anymore, the kids who should be playing now aren't going to have a place to play. Public: I play in the afternoon with a bunch of kids and I think it's a lot healthier than all the leagues...adults setting up league kids, it stinks. It gets into the parents. Let the kids go out and play in the afternoon. Don't shame me about the issue. Hasek: Any other comments from the Commission? Schroers: I think there's something else that hasn't been brought up. The industrial development that's going on in Chanhassen. We've got a corporation such as Rosemount moving in that has I don't know how many employees. Lots and lots of employees. Rosemount Corporation, right now their Eden prairie company sponsors I don't know how many softball teams. When they come in here and may be paying a million dollars a year for taxes, they're going to want to play some ball too. We have to take a look at that. Not just right now. -" Hasek: I'd like to move onto the next item on the agenda. Final review of Chan Park Master Plan. Let's take, how about Lake Lucy public access? REVIEW POTENTIAL SITES FOR LAKE LUCY PUBLIC ACCESS. Sietsema: I don't think I'll go through too much of the staff report right now. As you may recall, the Watershed District, the cities of Eden prairie and the City of Chanhassen was approved for a Lake Riley Chain of Lakes clean-up project. The grant funds for that were contingent upon getting public access on each of the lakes involved in that project. It goes Lake Lucy, Lake Ann, Lake Susan and Lake Riley. There is currently access on Lake Riley and on Lake Ann. We are pursuing access and have been funded for access on Lake Susan and Lake Lucy is still remaining. At the last meeting that we held, we covered a number of points. Basically it was an information gathering session and as the outcome of that meeting, staff went out into the field to look at the different vacant pieces of property to see what would support a public access. The second issue that was discussed, there were questions as what this project... (A tape change occurred during staff's presentation.) ....""" Mark Koegler: ...there really are two reasons why this is being brought to the Commission now. First of all, back in 1980 when the City's Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 33 ,..... Comprehensive Plan was adopted, the Council at that time adopted a policy to provide public access on each of the City's lakes. Over the last 9 years, I think relatively systematically, this body and the Planning Commission and the Council have been working towards and achieving that goal. The thing that really is driving this at this time is the item that Lori mentioned. That through the EPA funding for the Chain of Lakes clean-up project, there's a proposal to do significant clean-up in the area that's shown on the map there now Lake Riley watershed. Lake Riley has been the subject of numerous studies over at least the last 10 plus years. All of them really coming to the same conclusion that significant changes need to be made in water quality. The thrust of this study is, in order to do that, all of the lakes within the watershed need some clean-up effort and that extends literally, as you see, from Lake Riley all the way up to Lake Lucy. The federal and state guidelines that Lori referenced, being the DNR and the EPA guidelines, do state that an access is a portion of the requirement for funding of the project and that's why again, this really is before you now. In looking at alternatives on that site, we looked at a number of options and let me throw another exhibit up. One of the first items that was really looked at was kind of a composition of the parcels that surround Lake Lucy and the lake, I'm sure you're all aware is primarily privately owned. There are 24 different land owners according to the most recent city records in and around the body of water. Of those sites, two of those are public. One being Greenwood Shores neighborhood ~ark, which is item 1 on that map. The other is a small parcel, number 19, which is owned by basically an off shoot, a sister relationship to the DNR. The DNR has the fee title of that particular property. The ownership pattern around the lake obviously creates some opportunities in terms of acquisition but it also creates some constraints. I think probably the biggest constraint is one that everybody is aware of. Again, the property 24 that's shown on that map is owned by one individual and that individual being Prince. That represents only about one-third of the lakeshore on Lake Lucy and the assumption, and I would underline that right now, the assumption of the study is that given his privacy and security concerns, that that property is going to be virtually impossible to obtain. Now there is still ongoing efforts to make sure that that indeed is fact and that will be entered into as this process goes forward. Now that is an underlying assumption that is a part of this. There's also the environmental problems around Lake Lucy in that there is significant areas of wetlands, particularly on the northern portion of the lake. Many of those areas are designated under Chanhassen's wetland ordinances and rightfully so are protected in many instances. What it boils down to is we essentially in looking at owneship records and looking at aerial photos and walking many of the properties, came up with four potential sites that are being looked at and discussed further this evening for consideration by you. Let me stick those up for reference for everybody. The four parcels, the ones that are identified on that map as items A through D. Now I'll run through each of those briefly and give you a few comments on some of the pluses and minuses that were reviewed as a part of this. The first site that was looked at, was one that I referenced before and that's ~tem A which is the Greenwood Shores neighborhood park presently under vwnership of the City as property being used as a neighborhood park. It's about a 3 1/2 acre site. As such, the acreage is adequate. The topography is adequate. You could design and you could get an access in Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 34 ...."I there if you so desired. The problem you immediately run into is that the park is heavily used right now as a neighborhood park facility and from our judgment, if you were to turn it into an access, you'd have to exclude and remove all of the neighborhood functions. There just is not enough land area there the way it's configured to accommodate both uses. The bottom line conclusion is that if you do that, some other traffic concerns for the residential neighborhood, that that site should not be considered seriously as a potential access site for Lake Lucy. The second parcel is B on that map up on the north end. If you look at some plans and information be it, plats, aerial photos or whatever, that parcel looks great. Many of you are fami~iar with the field. It's this very large hump that rises seemingly out of nowhere that's covered with a good stand of tree cover. Complicating that site also is the access to it which potentially is available...access road there which is a platted strip. A great deal of the property we do have to go through to get to this parcel B is very heavily a wetland area. Property C has somewhat the same story and that's the piece that I referenced as being presently owned by the DNR. It's about an acre and a half. It's virtually all wetland. Virtually all Class A wetlands and again, getting to it is a major obstacle and obviously these things have an impact first of all on the wetland itself and then certainly on construction costs you may desire to actually implement a plan on both of those sites. Parcel D, further onto the west end, is about a 7 acre lot. That parcel does have potential. It has kind of a southwestern side of it if you will. It's higher in elevation. The northeastern portion of the site is designated wetlands. .....,,; We're not ignoring the fact that there are wetlands along the shoreline there. I think the report indicates that those are a factor in Parcel D but of the available parcels right now, it seems to me that is the one that has the highest potential for development to serve as an access site. There's enough property there that if some fill had to be done to some of wetland areas, that some new wetland areas potentially could be created to mitigate some of that so there may be some trade-offs there. There's still an underlying concern that the report notes in that we really do not have at this point in time a good bottom contour information on Lake Lucy, particularly in the north end. We do have a significant concern about how much dredging would be required to put an access into that location. Not only to get from the land, if you will, through the wetlands into the water area but when we get into the water, how deep is it? Seemingly it's fairly shallow on that end and you would have to dredge out to an area where you could get actually get more open water situation. There's one other option that was looked at which was one of not looking at acquiring necessarily large scale property and that is down of just west of Parcel A where there's a natural creek connection between Lake Lucy and Lake Ann. I think the concept surfaced a couple of years ago and that was put a channel, essentially be constructed between those two bodies of water allowing the Lake Ann access to serve as access for Lake Lucy. preliminarily and again I'd underscore that term, that idea really has been found not to have a great deal of merit for a couple of primary reasons. The first is environmental in that the water quality of Lake Ann is of a higher level than it is in Lake Lucy and unfortunately the water .....,,; elevation of the two, Lake Lucy is about a foot higher than Lake Ann which would obviously impart some drainage down into Lake Ann. There is operational and ordinance problems as well which seemingly those may be Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 35 ,...,. remedied but they're difficult in that Lake Ann presently has an electric motor only restriction and is it very realistic to allow boat launching on Lake Ann, do you paddle across or electric motor across to get into Lake Lucy which has riparian owners and I doubt that any riparian owners would want to give up their power boat rights so there are some operational concerns that come into play in that item also. The bottom line out of all of this in looking at the sites, if the City is interested in pursuing access for the sites that seem somewhat available at the present time, Site D really is the only one that has realistic potential. If indeed it is a requirement of the Chain of Lakes act, as it does, and the State indicated it is, that that site should be looked at as further investigation on whether or not it could supply the access to meet the requirements of the program. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Schroers: When we addressed this earlier Mark, I was wondering if it wouldn't be possible to have an overland portage as an access from Ann to Lucy. If the City could obtain an easement or a right-of-way over that narrow portion of land in the area that adjoins the two. Since Lake Ann is basically a quiet lake and for all practical, non-motorized light craft, couldn't people access Lake Lucy just by a short overland portage? Would that be acceptable? ~Mark Koegler: Lori could probably clarify that better than I can. My Jnderstanding is that the access has to be the access tha_t meets the DNR's guidelines which you're familiar with. You've been through it a number of times and the City has argued with them from time to time on that there has to have a normal boat access...draft level. It has to be 5 parking spaces. In this case it has to have 20. I don't know how that works in a portage situation. That's something we would have to look at. Sietsema: The biggest obstacle in that would be that we would then have to make Lake Lucy a quiet lake as well. Schroers: I would be in favor of that. I'd seriously like to look at that versus putting in a standard public access. Mark Koegler: That is a wrinkle that again, there are any number of underlying assumptions one makes when you go into this kind of endeavor and the assumption has been that the property owners on Lake Lucy are not probably willing to give up their ability to use power boats on that lake. If the City determines that that was in the best interest of the lake or the property owners said that's fine with us, that changes the circumstances potentially and that makes that concept more feasible. I would question how realistic that assumption would be that anybody would give up those rights. Schroers: I think we've discussed it earlier and found out that there were 3 people that they currently use motorized or larger motorized I~~atercraft on Lake Lucy. I sure would be interested in talking to them to see if something could be worked out rather than take that nice pristine area and put in a public access and open it wide open. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 36 ....".", Mark Koegler: It's certainly an option. It certainly can be looked at. Hasek: Did you ask about parking spaces if that option was looked at? Schroers: No, basically what we would be doing would be utilizing the access that is now intact at Lake Ann. That would be the access and if you wanted to go to Lucy, you would just access Lucy by a short overland portage. Hasek: I guess the question I have is if you connect the two, are they now one water body and do we have to provide additional parking at Lake Ann or can we get away with what's there? Mark Koegler: Well seemingly, there's enough parking at Lake Ann that could be identified, particularly with the expansion, that you could stripe some additional spaces to handle more trailers in the lot by the beach or in the lot down by the lake. The more I think that could be accomodated, that's a new wrinkle. Again, if there is the ability to remove owners on the lake or if there's some kind of grandfathering provision that can be worked out or if some compromise can be worked out with the State, that would be viable. Mady: Mark, one other parcel, did you look at the parcel that's directly south of the parcel where the 0 appears? The one that Prince owns that has access onto CR 117? ~ Mark Koegler: Reference if you would the ownership map. Is it the one you're talking about between 23 and 24? It's on page 5. Mady: Yes. Between 23 and 24. It's directly south of that. We know that 24 Prince owns. Mark Koegler: Okay, so we're talking about the parcel immediately north of 24 that Prince owns. Hasek: There are two 24's. Sietsema: There are three 24's. Mady: The northern most 24. Mark Koegler: We did look at that and we did not include that as a part of this study because according to the plat records, it does not have any shoreline on Lake Lucy. The property line comes down... Hasek: NO, the northern most 24 parcel. Mark Koegler: Okay, that is again under the ownership of Prince and that would fall in line with the statement I made earlier that the assumption right now is that that's virtually unapproachable. However, contacts are being made to see if that is accurate. --' Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 37 JfiII"""o.. Mady: Because it's a long ways from his house. It puts the access over on 17 instead of on Lake Lucy Road. Maybe it's an option and possibly... Maybe concentrate closer to that area. Schroers: There is also a very swampy, boggy shore along that end too. Hasek: It's still another option. Mady: It's just another option that might develop. You know that B has also got those same problems so that's just another option. One might be better than the other by a minor degree. Maybe Prince will donate it to the City. Sietsema: I do have one more comment. I did talk to Steve Dirks who owns the outlot, Parcel D, and they live in Olivia right now. They purchased the property to build a home sometime in the future. He said that that doesn't look like that's going to happen for about 10 years. 10 to 15 years now. I asked him if he would be willing to sell the property. He said that he would not go so far as to say that he was a willing seller but he said that he was open to negotiations. He would definitely be willing to sit down and talk to us. Jay Johnson: Do you know what the EPA's requirements for public access ,JfiII"""o..i.s? Mark Koegler: My knowledge of this Jay comes from reviewing the City's records. As I've seen all of the written documentation, I have not seen definitively what they define access as. The real kicker on access comes down to the DNR and what they require and the City's had a lot of dialogue with them before. That's really the more critical criteria right now. Jay Johnson: Supposed...the DNR, the DNR said at one point that we won't kill any fish, or we'll kill the fish but we won't restock your lake if you don't have public access and still be allowed to participate in the program so what does EPA say public access is? Sietsema: My conversations with EPA have stated that they would not be willing to fund the project if all of the lakes were not included in the project and have public access. Jay Johnson: What do they define as public access? Sietsema: Public access is equal to, they recently sent me a letter. I should have brought it down here but it stated that they would consider the access the same as what the DNR's general standards are as well. I don't have the letter down here with me but it's a trailerable access with 7 parking spaces that would be able to launch a boat equal to whatever is on the lake. "'" Jay Johnson: So it makes no difference? Sietsema: No. It's the same. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 38 --' Hasek: Again, I guess we'd like to get the comment on the record because this is important stuff to us and eventually... It's open to public comment. Jeff Farmakes: My name is Jeff Farmakes. I live in the parcel that's number 2 next to, it would be on the east side of the lake. I think if you review the Minutes from the past meeting you'll find that the residents in the area that live along the lake there, I think may have surprised some of you by not objecting and in fact being in favor of this proposal. Unlike the issue at the time, the Christmas Lake issue had just been resolved and there was a lot of neighborhood opposition to the access, we saw it as a significant way to improve the quality of that lake which has deteriorated considerably over the last few years. particularly since the runoff from the large storm we had a few years ago. There's been a great deal of additional aquatic growth. Fishing has been poor. There has been significant fish kills since then. I know because I shoveled out hundreds of pounds of fish off of my property. This lake, as noted in that report, has a significant water quality difference between that and Lake Ann. A couple of observations in reading that report is, how will the items that are listed in there that will be done with this money, affect Lake Lucy and the water quality issue of improving that area? Now this doesn't address the exact problem of how you access it but I'd like to bring up a few things while we're talking about this because I really think that you would get support on any of these situations from the landowners if there would be some response as to how ....." you would approach improving the quality of that lake. I'm willing to back any of these issues and try and help this lake because it is going downhill. It's going downhill fast. Very significantly. You can just see it in the last few years. If something isn't done soon, you're talking about it being pristine, it's not pristine. If you put a boat and actually boat in the lake, you will pull your boat out of there and find sludge allover the side of your boat. You will have a great deal of difficulty in accessing it because you have to walk through rotting muck. It smells bad and I'm not sure what the waterline intercept on the other side is going to do to improve that but there is a significant difference in the quality of that lake since we moved in. When I hear this entire issue sort of started with the Lake Riley improvement. My question is, if there's a noticeable difference between Lake Ann water quality and Lake Lucy water quality, if all the same things in these lakes, where will that improvement occur? With that money that you're spending, will that money be spent 80% in Lake Riley and 20% in the other lakes? Some lakes obviously need more attention than others if you're going to improve this area. So my question again revolves on some of these issues that were brought up there. When and where will we be informed of some of these issues as to how that money will be spent so we can make an educated report issue on how we would like to contact our representatives and so on as to how this thing should be voted. Thank you. Sietsema: I can't tell you how much money or percentage of money is to spent on each lake. I do understand that a good portion of it is to be done on Riley because it needs the most work and a lot of the problems that are upstream are coming from Riley in that area but what Mr. Obermeyer did indicate to me was the benefits that Lake Lucy will see going going ....", Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 39 '" will be an improved water quality once we remove the rough fish, a stabilization of the lake bottom and a decrease in algae. Mady: Just to let you know some of the information I have on what they're planning on doing. With fish kills, the reason for fish kills is to get rid of the rough fish, simply the carp and bullheads that are bottom churners. They keep on getting that bottom all churned up which allows for everything else that takes place. By getting rid of the rough fish, you stabilize the bottom. One of the other things they're planning on is runoff control which will help, hopefully, in some of the nutrients that are corning into the lake which will cut out a lot of the, hope to cut off the algae problem that we have. I have some knowledge on Lake Riley. A guy I used to work with lives on Lake Riley and I've been down to Lake Riley even 6 years ago, you wouldn't go back. If you were there in July, you wouldn't go back to Lake Riley. I've got the feeling Lake Lucy now is getting to that point so Lake Riley kind of drove this thing. Now the watershed is telling us it has to go all the way back to the top waters to really clean up Riley so we're benefitting but I think all these things are happening because Riley wants something done so Chanhassen's going to benefit with it's lakes getting their water cleared up but you've got some legitimate questions and I believe the work plan is being designed now and hopefully when that's completed, we'll have some of those answers. ,..... Jeff Farmakes: One of the things you may note, the average depth of that lake now, except for the central area up here, a majority of all this and from here and a shelf up in here, is less than a couple of feet. Between 5 and 2 feet deep. If you allow heavy duty power boating to go on here, an 80 horse power motor in that depth of water is certainly going to churn up a lot more than a carp will. Mady: You're right. I guess one of the questions we're going to have to have answered by the residents is their view on boating restrictions. I don't think it's any of our intention to restrict the lake. Lake Lucy Resident: I have the property just north of Lot C and I have a dock that came out into the lake there and I had 16 foot posts at that point. I can push them down with my hand so there are some deep holes in the lake but along that northwest shore, it gets pretty shallow as you say. Jim Schluck: I'm Jim Schluck. I live on Lot 13 on Lake Lucy. In reading through this packet, I think there's a mistake that probably should be corrected just in case. That would be on page 11 where it states Lake Ann has a normal water elevation approximatley 1 foot above Lake LUcy and I think that is the reverse. Secondly, there are more than 3 boat owners on Lake Lucy as also was previously stated. There are probably about 10. ~Eric Rivkin: My name is Eric Rivkin. I have Lot 22 next to D and C and 3lmost B. Right in the middle of it all and I'd like to say, I'm a very well informed resident about wetlands. About what it takes to clean up the lake. I've been through 2 years of discussions with the DNR trying to get a channel dug through my lot so my riparian rights to get access to Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 4e ....." the lake to the open water. I do have a permit from the DNR as of now, today, to dig a channel through but I've held off because the lake water is so low that I don't think that if it would fill with water in the channel so it would be detrimental to the wildlife and the fish or the wetland. Especially the wetland to dig it so I've asked for an extension and they gave it to me. I have to get this through Council but hopefully they will also grant me the extension but I believe that the issue tonight is trying to get, I am here to try and help progres made toward a solution to the access problem because we need a show of progress. I want to see that lake cleaned up and we need it cleaned up. I don't want to go through all the arguments why we need it cleaned up. I know we've all been through it and I won't take up our time with that because I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is trying to decide on a site for the public access and I want to concentrate on that. I would be in favor of either A or D. A, I like the portage idea. I know the DNR is flexible. They're not as stick in the mud as some people thing. They are, if you explain to them that it would have equal access for everybody and make both Lake Ann and Lake Lucy quiet lakes, that's fine. If we have a portaging type of thing, we have quiet boats like canoes and small boats and small crafts like that, a portage idea would be quite feasible. ...so it's not any strange thing. The problem with the traffic to A is a concern to the residents there and I can empathize with them on that but I think that would be alleviated by having, you've already got access to Lake Ann so a portage idea, I think you eliminate that problem. The issue, would they have to have a b~at launch to even have a quiet lake? 1-, don't know what the answer is to that. They may require that. If they do, you can't do much I guess because of the traffic problem. D, last July I stood up here and without talking to the Church first, I just threw out that they will...and here I see that a local gentleman here with the organization has pursued that idea and came up with the most feasible one. It's just kind of luck and I'm glad you finally looked into it. I border the property. I might even consider, just from a personal point of view, giving up the right to the channel if I could get access to the lake through this public access from my own property. The DNR stipulated or the City stipulated I had to do was, if I were to dig a channel, I would have to border my neighbor's property so that if they, and when they want access, they don't have to disturb minimal surface of the wetland. The same with me. Minimal disturbance of the wetland. Just if you're digging up the lake and you want about a third of the lot closest to the lake is wetland, you've got about lee feet there of wetland and from there it's very shallow...DNR requirements for prop access is like 4 feet deep. It's only about a foot deep there and the muck keeps accumulating every year so you've got to worry about that. Now I worry about the desicration from litter and stuff. Gasoline. Pollution. I think the restrictions that you have now on Lake Ann I think would apply more to Lake Lucy. I like that idea. That's the kind of lake that demands it. I'm sorry about the power boaters. You can't grandfather them in because you've got to have an equal...but I think as a lake, it is going to be filling in. It's less desirable to have a power boat on the lake. I've been out there, last summer I've been out there every single day contracting to build my own house. The power boaters, there's 12 of them power boats but I don't see -' them used very much. I was out there every day, every Saturday, every Sunday. Weekdays there is no traffic. No boat traffic. I have not seen, Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 41 ,... probably 1 or 2. Small boats, fishermen, 1 or 2 but there again that's the small crafts, small boat type thing. If we have a public access that allows trailers, trailer access to the lake, I really don't see that it's going to be a problem with over population of boaters on this lake. This is not the kind of lake that, you're going to get muck on the bottom like this gentleman said, of your boat and not catch much fish and it's just not a neat place to hang around. It's quiet. It's a wildlife lake but I don't think it's going to be a draw like flies for people like Christmas Lake. Christmas Lake, which is right across the road. They'd have a better time over there. Some people like to see it quiet no matter what so if it's... I worry about the boat wake and the prop wash on Lot D. If you have props...to disturb the wetland. What I would require, if this is going to go through Council, that they install, if the lot that is chosen, that they require that they install things to keep the shore from eroding. As you mentioned, the stirring up of sediment. That will be detrimental to the fish stirring up the sediment but the aeration of the lake is very important. It won't help eliminate sediment in the first place. Fish kill is one thing. I don't think the biological chemicals were mentioned here but there are biodegradeable type chemistry that can be used to start the process of making the lake come alive again and reacts to it naturally but you need to have support game fish. If you're going to restock game fish, you've got to clean up the water first. I like D because it's on the trail. You've got a deer trail system going through Chanhassen and .~1 love that. I can't wait for that thing to have a safe road. To change Lake Lucy Road to be a safe trail. It's just, as I indicated at the last meeting at the Council, that it's really nothing more than a piece of the road with a line dividing it. It's not really a trail. If it were made a trail, you could even make a neighborhood park out of D on the other side of the lake. You've already got one in A. There's enough room to have access and parking in D. The people in the neighborhood I know. We had a neighborhood meeting a couple weeks ago. I think it would be a very positive thing to have neighborhood functions there. picnic tables. Maybe a canoe rack with locks for the people who walk down. Not have to drive. We force people to drive all the time. People in Lake Lucy Highlands, Pheasant Hills wanting to use the lake and a lot of people there don't have access to it so it'd be a nice thing to do...minimize the traffic going through. Thank you. Mady: When you were looking into your channel, did the. DNR say anything about sea walls to help prevent some of the fill in? I don't know if it's an option. Eric Rivkin: Bob Obermeyer was going to require it but he pulled back on that because it was 450 feet long and that's just totally unfeasible. But on Lot 3, the distance of the wetland is much shorter. Again, even if you do put sea walls in, you're going to dig a long, it's going to be a long ways out because that's the most shallow part of the lake. You'll probably get out 200 feet before you get to put a boat in but I don't know, the DNR '-pas done it in the past. I would say A is my favorite. D is my second Eavor i te. Boyt: Where does the funding for the boat access come from? Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 42 ---' Sietsema: To build it? Boyt: Yes. Sietsema: The development of that hopefully we would be granted a LAWCON grant. I would recommend that we pursue a LAWCON grant through the application process. That is what I've indicated to EPA and ONR that we would probably be doing. Then the matching funds of that would come out of the park development and acquisition fund. That would be in a 1990 or 1991 timeframe. We would apply for a grant. If we were to find a spot for the access this year by probably May is usually when the applications have to be in, and we made application, we could be funded for the 1990 year. Boyt: This sounds pretty expensive. Hasek: I was just going to say, have you got a projection on what the overall cost of land acquisition and installation of facility might be? Sietsema: No. I would recommend that you authorize staff to do some kind of a feasibility to determine those things. What needs to be done and what costs would be involved. Hasek: Are we looking for some sort of direction to vote on one or more of these sites tonight? ~ Sietsema: Yes. What I would like to see happen tonight is that there's been some good information that has come back and forth and if you would want to direct staff to check with the ONR. To check on the portage idea. See if that would be a workable solution and what would be involved and what they would require with that as far as parking and what kind of accomodations that would take. Also to pursue a purchase price for Outlot o and to contact the homeowners on the lake to see if they are willing to give up their boat rights, if it were to come down to that. Then also to direct staff to do some kind of a rough feasibility of a cost and what would need to be done to actually put in a boat access on Outlot o. If that is what you want to pursue. Hasek: So actually you've got to contact with the ONR on the feasibility.. . Sietsema: The only thing that would really cost us money is to have some kind of a preliminary feasibility study done. Boyt: On A and O? Sietsema: On O. I've written to Prince. I have not received an answer. I've asked him to either dedicate or be willing to sell. Hasek: Is there any other discussion? ......, Jeff Farmakes: I have a question, Larry's idea of dealing with a carry over to the lake that's made not motorized. The creek right now is Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 43 ,.... totally on Prince's property. Does the State have a setback or does the State have an easement? Because that's a creek, I assume it belongs to the state and they have easement rights to create such a thing within his property? Hasek: I would doubt that. I think that there's probably a setback for construction but he would own all the rights right up to the water's edge. Eric Rivkin: The water itself is public waterway. Jeff Farmakes: But the high water mark may vary a great deal on that creek, that's why I asked. Hasek: The high water mark would be probably just the line between the high water mark and... Jeff Farmakes: If it varies perhaps as much as 3 or 4 feet, depending on fast it's been raining, that's why I asked. Hasek: What they do is they take into account what they call the ordinary high water level. The OHWL and that's the number. There's a flood stage for it too. Normal Ordinary High and an Ordinary High... Are you looking ~for a recommendation from us? Sietsema: Yes. Hasek: I guess I have just a general question I'd like to throw out. I've heard some comments about specific sites and we'd like to kind of maybe keep this thing moving a little bit. Did you hear the recommendation that was made by the staff as to what direction they would like? Did that make some sense to you? Did you understand what she was saying? I guess I'm addressing it to the neighborhood here because you are the ones. Resident: In regards to D? Hasek: In regards to D. In regards to the portage. In regards to pursuing the possibility of acquisition of a piece of Prince's property. She had a couple of things that she talked about. The feasibility study to see what it might cost. Jim Schluck: I think that you will find that a lot of the people that live around the lake, whether it's...owners or whatever, if they had to give up the boat or give up the lake, I'm sure they would take giving up their boat to save that lake. The lake, I think there's a lot of knowledge on this lake that is superficial. You have to boat on it and see it over a period of time, it's like anything else. I guess once you go and look at it and form an opinion but when you see it over and over ~nd over and have to clean up the mess sometimes that it leaves or try to put your boat out onto it and so on, you get a pretty good feeling for what's happening and there's a significant difference in the lake in the last few years and it's getting worse. It's dying. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 44 .......", Eric Rivkin: Technical question. Who is responsible for maintaining the access, the DNR or the City? Hasek: The question was, who is responsible for maintaining the access, the DNR or the City. Sietsema: My initial response would be the City. If it takes some kind of dredging there may be some kind of agreement that we can corne up with but typically it would be the City's responsibility to keep that maintained and open. Hasek: And is a public access owned by the City? Sietsema: That's correct and I don't know of any instance where they would do a joint maintenance. That would be something I could check into. If we go with something that's going to require 21313 feet of dredging, they may be, I just don't know. Schroers: I was just going to say that I think it's worthy to note that there is a lot of wildlife other than fish around Lake Lucy and in the adjoining wetlands. There are deer. There are pheasants and any number of other wildlife in that area and we need to keep that in mind and take that into consideration. Morris Phillips: I'm Morris Philips. I live at 15713 Lake Lucy Road. I think I've lived there longer than anyone else here and I've kind of looked at that area and that wetland for 27 years I guess. If you're going to have to buy some property, I really think the city should look at Parcel B. That is a beautiful piece of property that probably shouldn't be developed. It would be ideal for parkland for the city to have. I guess I wouldn't like to see it kind of turned into a parking lot for a boat launch but if something could be worked out with some kind of a land access, a portage access across, hey, we've been carrying canoes across there ever since my kids were small. It's an easy portage as far as portages is concerned. And DNR has approved that road going out to the point. The only restriction was they had to provide a culvert under the road connecting the little neck on the north with the west side of the lake. If you have to build a road to do it, the hill would be an ideal source of fill for constructing the road. There is a road going there already but it's been built, kind of logs and rip rapping and it would have to be dredged out and really replaced with some good fill in the bottom but if you're thinking long range and you're going to have to spend some money for property, it seems that that would be a good long term investment for the City. And there is a lot of wildlife there. There aren't many pheasants because we've got fox running around this year but there are still a few. The deer run through there all the time and I think it would be nice if we could keep it a quiet lake. If the people at Greenwood Shores, I realize would have to agree to that. Also, the other thing is, if you're really thinking of trails, the ideal thing would be if you could kind of corne out of Greenwood Shores at Utica, put your trail ,., right around on the land, I'd give you land across my property and I'll bet if you talked to some others, they would too. A trail on that road is kind of ridiculous. That road is curvy. -' Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 45 ,.... Mady: Which parcel were you talking about? B? Morris Phillips: I was talking about B as in baker. I think if you're going to buy, that would be a real fortunate acquisition. My understanding is that they haven't paid the taxes on it for quite a few years. Maybe if you wrote to...she'd give it to you. I don't know. Schroers: It would be a shame to cut a road through B though wouldn't it? Watson: There was a road back there. Morris Phillips: It isn't driveable for a car but they ride motorcycles back there. Watson: Right. When I was a kid, we rode our horses back there and there used to be a Boy Scout camp out there on that island. Part of the time it was a little tough to get back and forth but most of the time if we got the horse going fast enough, you made it across. Morris Phillips: They did haul in a lot of fill on that road to build it up so that they could ride horses out there and they built kind of a ~little bridge across out at the the edge so they could keep a channel through there and so forth. It would be an ideal piece of property for the city to have if they could work out some deal for it. Hasek: Any other quick discussion? If not, I'd like to make a motion here. Joe Moran: Joe Moran. I live on that Parcel 15 I think it is where the pond is. I don't live there yet. I'll be moving in there in April. We're building a home there now but I did see by far the best proposal that I've seen is the talking about a carryover from Lake Ann to Lake Lucy and that would be the one that I would certainly vote for. I've carried by canoe over there in the past and it's not that difficult. Hasek: If A wasn't a possibility, is D? Joe Moran: Not A. I think A should be kept as is. Hasek: I'm talking about the carryover. I refer to it as A only because it's next to there but I wouldn't want it at A either if there was a possiblity of a portage across there, that's your first choice? Joe Moran: Yes. I boat on Lake Lucy. will be if we clean ,....there and enjoy the have a 100 horse power boat and I'd never put that It's just not that kind of a lake. It's pristine, or it up but it's a beautiful lake with wildlife. You go fishing and the birds. Hasek: If alternate A isn't possible, just can't be worked out, is alternate D your second choice then? Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 46 ..""" Joe Moran: I guess what I'd propose to be that we try to get a carryover and not necessarily through A but perhaps alongside the stream. Buy an easement from Prince's property and buy Parcel B and use that as a parkland. Hasek: I think that is on our plans but I guess what I'm asking you is if the possibility of a carryover just isn't workable, we just can't do it. We are then left with a1ternate Band 0 if we can't purchase land from Prince. Do you have a second alternative? Joe Moran: No. Hasek: So if we came back and it was something else, you would probably vote against anything else? It's just a rhetorical question I know. Joe Moran: Yes, I could say I like the carryover and then I'm indifferent to whether B or 0 is picked but it makes a lot of sense to buy B because it's a much more beautiful piece of property. Although the access would be considered more difficult. Hasek: Personally I think I like them all. Joe Moran: My main point in coming up here is that I am a resident and I do have a power boat and I would certainly want to give up my rights to stir up the bottom of the lake if that's an issue for you. .-, Mady: Somebody indicated that on Parcel B that taxes hadn't been paid. On Parcel B, Dodd's property, the taxes aren't being paid. I guess I'd like to see staff investigate that because my understanding of back taxes, the way it happens, if they don't go for a period of time, it just goes to tax forfeiture and the City has first... Resident: I don't think it's in forfeiture yet. Sietsema: It's 3 years, I believe it's 3 years. years, it goes up for tax forfeiture and the City acquire property at that time so I can check into indeed what's taking place. If you're delinquent 3 does have the option to it and see if that is Boyt: Contact Ms. Dodd if it's close or if it's not close and see if she's interested in donating it. Nancy Tichy: I'm Nancy Tichy and I live at 1471 Lake Lucy Road. Lot 16 and I really like the Plan A if that could be worked out. that's the best way to go as far as we're concerned. And again, a canoe over that portage area is real easy. . Sietsema: Just a point of clarification. You mean Site A as a portage. Not Site A as a boat access with a regular boat access or did you mean both? We have I think carrying ....." Nancy Tichy: Site A as a portage access. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 47 '""" Lake Lucy Resident: Is the portage access, is that going to be referred to as E because it's confusing? Because it's confusing. A is an option as a replacement for the neighborhood park with a trailerable boat access and the portage is not really listed on the options. Hasek: The question, just for the record was, how are we going to refer to the portage? I'm going to refer to it as the point adjacent to... Lake Lucy Resident: I understand that the accompanying literature refers to 40ptions and we now have 5. Or Al and A2. Hasek: Or we could mark the official documents I guess too. be the easiest thing to do. That might Watson: Make the portage E. Sietsema: That can easily be done. I so will do. Morris Phillip: If you were just going to do a portage at A, could you not talk to the people in Greenwood Shores and see if the portage could be incorporated within the area A so you don't have to deal with Prince because I don't think there are going to be that many people carrying "........canoes across there so that it would be a great imposition for the people in Greenwood Shores. Now you call that a neighborhood park. You would have to have a canoe rack wouldn't you? Hasek: There's already a trail going back there. It's just not very conducive for picking up... Watson: And frankly, Prince wouldn't even know he gave it up because it's maybe l~ feet from the city park? 10 to 15 feet right at the edge of the city park at the end of property. Hasek: I think the question of the portage, the location doesn't really matter so it's a matter of whether we can or can't do it. If we can't get E, if we can't get it outside the park, then maybe we'll put it inside the park. I'd like to make a motion so we can maybe get done with this tonight. I don't know how much more we have to do. If there any other public input? Watson: You need direction for staff to look into how the DNR feels about a portage site from Lake Ann to Lake Lucy? And all the possibilities of contacting... Hasek: I might as well just make it a motion and then if there's any quetsions. Lake Lucy Resident: One note before you stop, on the portage issue that ",",you're talking about, that is a dry stream bed except for in the spring so you sort of have a ready made path except for the spring. Hasek: Yes. I guess I'd like to make a motion and all of this I guess is directed to staff. To contact DNR and check on the feasibility of a Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 48 ...". portage from Lake Ann into Lake Lucy and we called it Site E on the graphic, Figure 3 in the literature. The second point would be, to contact homeowners about relinquishing their boat rights in the Greenwood Shores, I guess it would be everybody around the lake. Their motorized boats. The third thing would be to recommend the induction of a cost feasibility study for an access, I think particularly at D. That's going to give us our highest cost option I think at this point out of the three options. The last one would be to contact Ms. Dodd on the potential of acquiring her parcel, Parcel B perhaps not as an access point on the lake. Watson: I'll second that. Hasek moved, Watson seconded to direct staff to contact the DNR regarding the feasibility of the portage option from Lake Ann to Lake Lucy, Site E on Figure 3. Secondly, to contact homeowners around Lake Lucy about relinquishing their rights for motorized boats on Lake Lucy. Third, to authorize a preliminary feasibility study to be done on the Site E and Site D. Finally, to contact Ms. Dodd on the potential of acquiring Site B. All voted in favor and the motion carried. FINAL REVIEW OF CHANHASSEN POND PARK MASTER PLAN. Sietsema: Last fall you may recall that we went over the Chanhassen Pond ~ Park and ideas with audience and the people who lived in the area as to how we want to see that park developed. The only thing that was not settled at that point in time was the issue on the parking along Kerber Blvd.. There was discussion as to whether there should be two parking pads or one and if one, which one would be better. The final outcome of that was that staff should contact the engineering department and determine which site would be the best for the parking. I went out there with Al and he indicated that the area...if we absolutely needed parking the picnic areas, he could see 1, 2, maybe 3 spots but he wouldn't recommend it because the sight line's toward the Chan vista, north, are not optimal so he would recommend that we keep the parking at the sliding area. Schroers: That was Mark's recommendation? Sietsema: That was the engineering department's recommendation. Watson: So as far as getting on and off on Kerber Blvd. into the lane would be safer? Sietsema: Right. Because the hill comes up right at that point and they're real close to you as you would pullout if you didn't see them. Mark, did you have anything else to add? Otherwise, the park pretty much stays intact. This would be the master park plan and the next step in this process would then be to come up with a landscape plan. ..."", Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 49 ,.... Mady moved, Schroers seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to approve the Master Park Plan for Chanhassen Pond Park with the parking as shown. All voted in favor and the motion carried. . Hasek: I kind of sort of apologize for sending you back with this one but I really thought that maybe there would be a good chance that it might be better to the north and I think I'm the one that pushed for that. Sietsema: It's 6 months later and we're now just finally dealing with it and it's all your fault. Mark Koegler: I think if you looked at the Minutes, you could pass the blame around. Jay Johnson: One thing I'd like to note, I mentioned this to Lori late last night. When Chan vista was developed, the little pond that's a settling pond before, was only half built because the other half of the pond was on somebody elses property and the other half of the pond was going to be"built when the other property got developed. You now own the other property so I think in planning this park we have to finish that pond. Boyt: We don't build it. Chan vista builds it right? It's there ~jrainage? Jay Johnson: No. It's also drainage coming off of Kerber Blvd. and the drainage is coming in from the west. If I remember right, Chan vista built enough to support themselves and the rest of the pond was going to be when more development happened to the west of there. That development happened and we ended up owning the park. The other items, when they built that pond, they didn't build it to the DNR specs. They didn't put your 1:4, 1:10 sides on there. They put those sides nice and steep. You go up there and there's not much chance. The whole pond really needs to be looked at for redesign in that park as a nature pond and still provide the settling so I think we need to talk to our engineering department. The next step in this park development is to make sure that settling pond is working properly to protect the main problem. There's a lot of silt coming in on the west end of that main pond that's really been filling up over the years and that little pond... Sietsema: I definitely will check with engineering to make sure that that was built the way it was supposed to and it's done. What's supposed to be done gets done. Jay Johnson: I don't know if the previous council required the DNR's six steps on that pond but it's pretty much now we own the whole thing. Sietsema: Yes, I'll check with engineering. -"'" . 3chroers: I think that because there are no longer going to be cattle in there, that a lot of the erosion and sediment that has gotten in the past, won't now because those are the areas that were exposed earth will more than likely grow up with grass and it will eliminate a lot of that runoff. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 50 ....,,/ Jay Johnson: Another thing that has eliminated it, just an observation, since the cattle have left, the grass has grown up. With the grass grown up, the geese don't like it. Everybody else who don't like geese because they get on their docks and everything else, well this area was an area that geese came to and the people, they didn't affect the people because... Boyt: What we need to do is have freshly mowed grass for them. Watson: I'll mow it for them. Hasek: Jay, I'm going to say this tongue in check. I don't come to your meetings to make trouble. Why do you come to our meetings? REVIEW REQUEST FOR BASKETBALL COURT AT NORTH LOTUS LAKE PARK. Hasek: I think it's a great idea but I think we ought to think about taking one of the nets out and putting the courts on one side or the other. The thing is, if somebody wants to get down there and playa game, they're not going to be able to, a game from end to end, they're not going to be able to do it if we put it on one side of the nets. So if we take a net out, we can put a post on either end. Eventually, if you want to put the net back up and still leave the posts in there, the people can, it ....",/ just seems like a more logical way to do it to me than to throw them on one side. Watson: Because you're actually messing up both courts. Mady: You still have the option of practing tennis on the other one. Boyt: As long as we're going to do that, let's put up a rebound board. Mady: Oh you mean a tennis rebound board? Boyt: Yes, a tennis rebound board on that open court. Hasek: Certainly. A back board for hitting balls against. Hoffman: Put one on either end if you wanted. Hasek: I think it should go behind one of them. Mady moved, Hasek seconded to design a basketball court on one court and to have a rebound board installed for tennis. All voted in favor and the motion carried. """"" Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 51 "" RECONSIDER MOTION TO REVISE THE 1989 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM. Sietsema: We have the funding availability for Carver Beach Road. I would like on number 9. That's the one that I really would like to discuss real quickly. If you recall, at the last meeting we talked about the funding of the Laredo and the Carver Beach Road sidewalks and we looked at deleting some of our Capital Improvement Program and shoving things around to do that. The day after we did that. They were closing out the 1988 budget or working on that and found that we took in $59,000.00 more in 1988 than we thought that we were going to so we have the $21,000.00 that's unallocated. The $59,000.00 in park dedication fees that we did not except and we also have $40,000.00 in trail dedication fees that we did not expect. We would like to keep the $100,000.00 that we have on reserve in that reserve fund. Use the $59,000.00 for the Carrico property and use the $40,000.00 and the $20,000.00 for the trails instead of cutting up our Capital Improvement Program. Boyt: $21,000.00 was unallocated? Schroers: That's $61,000.00 right? Boyt: Yes, but we had $25,000.00 before. ""Sietsema: And we had $25,000.00 before so that pretty much covers it. Boyt: I have a question about that. What will be maybe the next step to take. It's not in our budget for next year but we need to do a feasibility study done for our next trail project. That's Minnewashta Parkway or... Sietsema: We will be doing the 1990 budget in April this year rather than August and September because it has to be into the State. The rules changed this year so we have to have our budget done in April. Boyt: We need to let those people know that we're thinking about them, especially when they see the trails going in around. We have a priority list and Minnewashta Parkway was on there. I don't know what number it was. Mady: In the top 3. Boyt: Yes, that's what I thought. Sietsema: So do you recall who made the motion? Schroers: Yes, I did I think. Sietsema: So do you want to reconsider your motion? ,.... 3chroers: Yes, I'll reconsider my motion and amend it to staff's recommendation. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 52 """"" Sietsema: To do this properly you need to move to reconsider your motion and we need a second and approve that and then to redo your motion. Hasek: Okay, motion to reconsider? Schroers: So moved. Boyt: Second. Schroers moved, Boyt seconded to reconsider the motion on the 1989 Capital Improvement Program. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Schroers moved, Boyt seconded to accept staff's recommendation regarding the 1989 Capital Improvement Program. All voted in favor and the motion carried. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. Mady: I have a question on the packet. Just on Don's memo or Lori, your memo to Don on rotating chair. Can I have the background on it? Sietsema: The Mayor is not pleased that we're rotating the chair. He feels that it's inconsistent and that it's confusing to an audience if an .....,., item is brought back and that we should stick with Robert's Rules of Order and keep one chairperson. He addressed that to me and then Don talked to me about it. I explained to Don Ashworth why the Commission chose using the different personalities and giving a learning opportunity to everybody and that we felt it was a positive thing. I wrote the memo to that effect to Don and evidentally Mr. Ashworth didn't talk to Mr. Chmiel because Mr. Chmiel was not happy that we were rotating tonight. Mady: I guess my understanding of Robert's Rules of Order, we were allowed to set our procedure. Now the Council tells us we can't do it that way, I guess they have that option. Sietsema: The Ordinance also allows you to set the rules to do your business. Boyt: I think it's beneficial, especially for evenings like tonight where we had a crowd that could be emotional. If they see someone different, they might stop and think, oh, how is this person going to react rather than, oh I know what Sue Boyt's going to say. She's going to say, this, this and this. Schroers: What you're saying is you like the rotation? Boyt: I like the rotation. Mady: It works fine. I know Planning does it. They do it to the extent --' but. . . Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 53 J1l""". Sietsema: Well, Planning was going to do it and the Mayor told them that he did not think it was a good idea. Mady: I remember last year Ladd was here and Steve ran one of the meetings. It seemed really nice. Hasek: I guess I would be in favor of us still rotating the chair. The advantage that I see is that it gets all of us into the position of improving ourselves sitting up here for one thing. Everybody comes up for judgment if you will every so often and the ability to be able to take a meeting just makes them more qualified I guess to return. We have the ability to set the rules and I think we've chosen to do that. I supposed if the Council feels that it's inappropriate, they should probably make a motion to change our rules I guess. Mady: I don't think they can. Hasek: They would have to change the ordinance then. Schroers: I agree with what you're saying in regards to the rotating chair. I think it's good and healthy for the commission. On the other hand, I hate to get in a little bickering or spats back and forth with the Council. I hope that this isn't something that will... ,-. Sietsema: It probably will come up at the joint meeting. I think that's one way we can just resolve it right there. I put it in your packet so you were aware that there was a problem. I don't know if Mr. Chmiel read that part of the packet. He does get a packet but I don't know if he reads the adminstrative section so I don't know if he understands the reasons or if he does understand the reasons but still feels that it's inappropriate. I just don't know. But he did express to me that he didn't think that it was a good idea. He did express that to me again tonight. Watson: Last night I was reappointed to the Board of Adjustment and Appeals. I've been on that since 1980. It has been suggested that no one resident be on two commissions so I will have to resign. Jay Johnson: Has it been suggested or has it been passed as an ordinance? Watson: It's been suggested that we give as many citizens opportunities to be commissions and for one person to be on two. I will resign from my position on the Park and Recreation Commission. It has been suggested that it would be best if no one resident were on more than one commission and the Board of Adjustment and Appeals is something I've been doing for many, many years and I feel very strongly about that position and wish to continue there. So as of tonight, I am submitting my resignation. ~Sietsema: As a point of clarification, will that be until someone else fills your position or are you not coming anymore? Watson: I can see this can get complicated. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 54 ..-' Boyt: We need you here. Watson: The process, the interview process has just occurred. I don't know that it would be all that difficult to find a replacement for me. Jay Johnson: Council has to accept the resignation so it goes to March 13th. It will be on our agenda to accept the resignation. I think she should continue like Planning Commission has and everybody else has continued until a replacement has been made. Sietsema: Unless there's circumstances, like Mike did. What I was going to suggest, since we did just go through and you know what a lengthy process it is, is perhaps consider recommending to the Council that they just appoint the next person on the list rather than going through that whole process. Watson: That's why I thought that it might be easy at this point since the process has just begun and you have recommended 3 people I believe. Sietsema: Even if they went through that process, it would still take a month before that person would be here so we would need you in the next two meetings if you would choose to stay. Watson: I will continue to come until a person has been appointed in my .......", place. Hasek: I would like it if that process could happen but I don't know necessarily that it can. Maybe because it's been so short, I recall the conversation you had after the appointment of the Planning Commission members where the suggestion was made that perhaps the next several people they felt were qualified should be informed that they might be next in line and they should stay close and keep in contact and decided that that was inappropriate to do. I would hate to have to go through the interview process again but perhaps because it's been so close. Watson: That's what I'm thinking. It's a couple of weeks. This is Dawne's first time with us so it isn't an old process at all. Hasek: And they still have 2people that they could choose from out of the top 4 that we had given them. Sietsema: I don't know if you want to make a recommendation to that effect. Hasek: I guess I would like to make the recommendation to Council to consider the other two people who had not been selected out of the top four that were sent to them by the Park Board for consideration for the opening position of Carol Watson. Schroers: Second. .....", Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 55 JIll"" Jay Johnson: Actually we had a split vote on Dawne so I think there was a number 2 candidate. Hasek: Yes, a very qualified candidate. Hasek moved, Schroers seconded to make the recommendation to Council to consider the other two people who had not been selected out of the top four that were sent to them by the Park Board for consideration for the opening position of Carol Watson. All voted in favor except Carol Watson who abstained and the motion carried. Sietsema: Could staff just make a couple of announcements quick before we adjourn? I just wanted to bring you up to date on what the City Council did last night. They acted to approve the increase in the park dedication fees as recommended, The City Council also acted to authorize staff to proceed with negotiations on the Carrico property and they acted to table action on the trail and parking issue along Lake Lucy Road pending the review of the Park and Recreation Commission. That will be scheduled for the March 14th meeting and I will be meeting with engineering before that time to bring back as many alternatives as we can to come up with the best solution and hopefully a compromise. I""'- Watson: Let's get some publicity out on that too so people who use those trails and stuff who don't necessarily know that the process is going ahead and have an opportunity to now step forward. Hasek: The newspaper was there last night and I don't know what kind of article will come out of that. Watson: ...we found that there were a lot of people who didn't even know that that was happening. That the trail was threatened and were very surprised by it so just so that nobody's surprised. Sietsema: They also acted to approve the joint meeting date which is March 13th before the City Council meeting at 6:30 p.m.. It will be just short of 1 hour long so come with your thoughts on what you want. Mady: Do you have any thoughts on items that we don't have an agenda for? Sietsema: Yes. To talk about the ideas as far as how the Chanhassen trail system should be pursued. Talk about park deficient areas and discussion of philosphies and policies is really the general agenda that I came up with in a quick hurry. Now if you want to think on your own on how you want that to happen, I encourage you to do that and anything else that you might want to bring up. ~Boyt: We're interested in hearing more from them than us. Mady: Most of us have been here for a couple years so we kind of know what we are looking to do. We need to know what they want us to be doing. We don't have to necessarily agree but we have to at least know. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 56 ..",,; Schroers: There is one thing I would like to see added and that is, I would like to see us try and work on improving the relations between the Commission and the Council so that we work together instead of against each other. We might get a little more accomplished that way. Watson: I'll second that motion. Sietsema: Other than that, I don't have anything else. Hoffman: Point of direction on softball eligibility discussion. Mady: My thoughts are, we need to hear more from the youth side. Boyt: I can't believe Steve Berquist did that. Mady: I was kind of disappointed in Jeff too. Neither one of them really stood up and said we need fields. I expected somebody to come up here and tell us, we need Number 1 at Lake Ann. I was surprised. Which is totally in disagreement with what I've been told by other coaches. Jay Johnson: The Babe Ruth people said they wanted it. Okay. The Little League people say they don't necessarily need it. After all the problems they had at Lake Ann, primarily that one night, they don't want to mess with that. -' Boyt: My concern is, Steve at registration, he was telling parents your kids will be, he named four parks and one of them was Lake Ann. Hasek: Where were the other four parks that he named? Boyt: Cathcart and I don't know the others. I had never heard of them. Hasek: They aren't in the city? Jay Johnson: No. Hasek: So is Cathcart the one that they use that's in Chanhassen? Watson: Yes. Shorewood runs it. Hasek: The only thing we do is own the land? That's it. It's not our park. Sietsema: We don't own the land. Jay Johnson: land. We don't own the land. The City of Shorewood owns the Hasek: That's something else, I think that park should be taken off of our plan. We have nothing to do with it. I don't know why it's even on there. -' Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 57 ~ Sietsema: It does serve some people. Hasek: It might but there's also other parks outside the City like the one that's right across from Minnewashta there that serves people within the city that's not on the map. Boyt: Do you have down contacting DataServ and continuing with that sounded like the most reasonable alternative. If that comes through, that you could contact the leagues and discuss options. Mady: I would like to see us move the leagues over there and let the kids play on the baseball field. Boyt: And I don't want just the women to go over there. They volunteered to take the crappy field. Mady: The practical matter, the womens night is no problem. They use two fields and the other field is open all night. Right now anyway. Hasek: I don't know what the direction should be. Schroers: I think all 3 of us that play in that over 35 league are aware enough to realize that these people sit here and say fine. We'll play in """a cow pasture but when it comes time to do it. Mady: These aren't the teams that are doing most of the yelling and screaming either. The Chanhassen teams, from my understanding... Sietsema: If you tell Lowell Vetter and Gary Brown and the guys that weren't here that they've got to play on a cow pasture, you're going to hear some screaming. Schroers: That just supports exactly what I said. I think it would be helpful Todd to know exactly where you're at with the schedule and how much flexibility do we have? How much time do we have? Sietsema: How much time do you want Todd to spend on this? Todd has not done one other thing for 2 weeks except he's made a couple of posters and some flyers but I mean, this is taking a tremendous amount of time and he has got a lot to do. Hasek: Can we do two things? Let's assume that things are the way that they are and they're going to remain that way. Let's pursue two avenues. One, let's talk with DataServ to see if we can work that out. That should be pretty much a matter of a phone call. Hoffman: The phone calls have been made. We're just waiting for their response. ~Hasek: Maybe we can push that a little bit. Hoffman: I've pushed it. Park and Rec Commission Meeting February 28, 1989 - Page 58 ....." Hasek: There's going to be some insurance involved with that so there might be some costs that have to be figured out too and that's an issue of whether we do want them to charge ourselves on other people's property. There are some things that go along with that. The second thing is, have you contacted other communities to find out if the possibility of a traveling type of league is possible? Chaska? Hoffman: Again, the over 35 league is available but it's not an option. These people here tonight said they are very open and willing to as many options as possible. They're doing that in the face of that they have no choice but as I stated, when you're dealing with nearly 1,000 softball players, whatever organizational structure we decide on, there's always going to be complainers. I try to speak for the league and again, the one gentleman said, I should not do that. I feel I should do that. I try to represent the leagues and all those people as fairly as possible and if we go ahead and make some change and try to make some modifications for the individuals that were here tonight, we're going to hear problems again. Jay Johnson: What's the effect of phasing in 6 players this year, 4 players next year? Hasek: We're looking at 4 players this year and maybe no players next year. That's what we talked about. In fact 4 was a compromise. We compromised between 3 and 5 and we finally voted, we voted 3 times on this. We finally came up with 4. I figured roughly Jay, we looked at a -' roster, the potential for a roster is what, 20 players? The average roster must be around 16 so we're allowing 25% of each of the teams, one quarter of the team to be outside of the city. I think that's completely fair myself and we've moved from the numbers, from 75% down to 50%. If they can qualify, if they can get a team together, the womens league I think is the one that's in the dire jeopardy because most of their players are from outside the area but I think if they really got their stuff together. Well, we're doing it in our church league. We had two teams last year that were in the co-rec from Mt. Calvary in Excelsior. We had about 50% of both of those teams was from Chanhassen so what we now realize that we have to do, and we've talked about it already in the church, is that we have to restructure and it's going to have to be, rather than just having everybody show up and kind of choose sides, the people in Chanhassen will have to put together a league. The people that live in Orono will have to put together a league and the people who live in Chanhassen, Chanhassen. The church will support it but the residents have to come up with the players. We think we can get around it but there's a possibility that Orono might not survive. Mady moved, Hasek seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Lori Sietsema Park and Rec Coordinator -'" Prepared by Nann Opheim