Loading...
PRC 2006 06 27 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JUNE 27, 2006 Chairman Stolar called the meeting to order. MEMBERS PRESENT: Glenn Stolar, Jack Spizale, Anne Murphy, Paula Atkins, and Steve Scharfenberg MEMBERS ABSENT: Tom Kelly and Jeff Daniel STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent; Nate Rosa, Recreation Supervisor; Dale Gregory, Park Superintendent; and Susan Bill, Senior Center Manager APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Scharfenberg moved, Spizale seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: rdth Hoffman: I’m pleased to announce that Monday and Tuesday will be the 23 Annual 4 of July celebration in town and it will start on Monday with the evening’s events. The Rotary Beer Garden, street dance and the Casablanca Orchestra, and that starts at 5:00 p.m. that afternoon and, Monday afternoon behind City Hall. And then on Sunday we start the events off at Lake Ann Park with the fishing contest, the kids fishing contest, and then move uptown for the parade, sponsored again by the Rotary at 2:30 and then we move from there to the fireworks that evening. Taste of Chanhassen is before the parade down here at City Center Park so, and invite the public to come on out and participate in the event. Stolar: Any other public announcements? Alright. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Bruce Johansson: Hello. My name is Bruce Johansson and I’m a resident of Chanhassen. I live at 6711 Mohawk Drive in Carver Beach, and I also own the house right next door to 6701 Mohawk Drive in Carver Beach, and the reason I’m here tonight is, I’d like to make a proposal and see whatever the procedure would be but what I am proposing is that bordering my property and a couple other of my neighbors, we have a road that was never built and it’s called Tamarack Road. And by my property 6701 uses really that public easement of part of my driveway to get into my property. But along side that along all my property and then down to Lotus Trail, I’m on Mohawk and it goes down to Lotus Trail, and I have a map here but I’m sure you do too. I would like to, I don’t know what the wordage would be but try to get it designated pedestrian trail going along there and the reason is that really since that part of Carver Beach neighborhood has existed, we always used that access down to the swimming beach at Lotus Trail. And I’ve Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 thth owned the property for I guess this will be my 13, 14 year. Second year for 6711 Mohawk, and a lot of the neighborhood kids use it. Some adults but they’ve been kind of, they don’t use it as much because it isn’t designated and now we have a lot of new people in the neighborhood and a lot of little families with young kids, and if you’re familiar with coming down by that, it’s a very steep road and then it turns into Mohawk and then another steep road and you have to go around about, about a half a mile to get to the swimming beach. If you were to be able to go through on this pedestrian walkway along my property, down to the lake, you’d save that amount of walking which could be correlated to convenience and safety and so on and so forth. I’ve picked a couple kids up off the road over the years that have like wiped out coming down on their skateboards and stuff and anyway we’ve had a, worked very good as a community pathway for many, many years and now it’s been kind of choked down to about 2 feet down to the last 80 feet, my last, my neighbor on Lotus Trail. I just think it’d be a benefit to the neighborhood. To the community and I’m willing to give up some driveway and would like to put that forth. Hoffman: Do you have a copy of the map that they could look at? Bruce Johansson: Yep. And I’ve gone around the neighborhood and I’ve gotten really unanimous support. A lot of signatures and that’s just from the folks that were at home. I also have some pictures of what it looks like now, parts of it. And the bottom portion of that Lotus Trail, the homeowner is Mr. Loren Veltkamp and he’s kind of keeps, it keeps getting littler every year, that pathway and it’s getting kind of dangerous because there’s chicken wire and there’s some electrical cords he’s got there now and you know I don’t want, someone’s going to get hurt and it doesn’t really need to be. Stolar: Todd, any comments or points? Bruce Johansson: These are my surveys. Hoffman: Mr. Johansson and commissioners, I think the timing is pretty good. The neighborhood has raised a couple of other questions as well at a council meeting in the first part of June and so we’ll be holding an informal neighborhood meeting down there on Thursday, July th 7. I think it’s going to be at 5:30 to talk about the park in general, and so that would be a great time to talk as a neighborhood about the proposed pedestrian access. A mailers going to go out yet this week for that meeting and it doesn’t have a formal agenda, but we’re just talking about the neighborhood park issues in general, from tree planting and we can talk about this item. We’re going to meet right down on Lotus Trail, right down near the beach so if you’re available I’d encourage you to come down and we can talk about it at that point, and then I can make a report back to the commission at their July meeting. Bruce Johansson: One thing I’d like to add please is that the path that I’m proposing, or the type of path is similar to the one that you built a few years ago along Napa Trail and then along Lotus, and also you have that one on Bighorn going down to Carver. And I talked to the neighbors that are along that trail, in fact one of the fellas, he signed. He was happy to sign. He said it just wasn’t a problem. He didn’t experience any you know, vandalism or you know any worries that people might have so I thought that was nice. 2 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Hoffman: Would you propose that we stairway or just straight down asphalt? Bruce Johansson: Well really it’s fairly gradual all, pretty much all along but when you get down to about the last 80 feet, it starts to get into about a 30 degree dive and you know if it’s, yeah a few steps. You know a few steps. Not a lot of steps but a few. I don’t know what kids with strollers, I don’t know how that works but there’s a lot of moms with strollers. Kids in them. Stolar: So will you join us then at that meeting? th Bruce Johansson: I’m supposed to be out of town on the 7, but I might stick around to be there. thth Stolar: Actually Todd, is it the 6? Thursday would be the 6. th Hoffman: 6, correct. th Stolar: 6, okay. What we can do is, regardless we’ll get back to you. Todd do you, we have information, address information so we’ll have the discussion. Talk to your neighbors who might attend and ask them to talk about this. We’ll bring it up also because I plan on being at the meeting with Todd. Bruce Johansson: Are you going to send out like one of those postcards? Hoffman: Note cards, yep. Bruce Johansson: Alright. Stolar: And I think, yeah first of all I appreciate you coming forward to propose something to help the community. That I think is great and we really appreciate you taking the time. Bruce Johansson: People would really like it you know, and I think it’s a, my feeling is when you have people out, it’s the best thing you can have for a neighborhood. You get to talking and watching, you know everybody’s looking out for each other when you know each other and. Stolar: So you should, I would assume Todd he’ll hear from us as far as after the meeting we’re going to send out some summary and then at that point you’ll know what the next steps may be. Bruce Johansson: Alright, great. Hoffman: It would be planned as a future CIP item. It’s not a part of our comprehensive plan so it would be, instead of road right-of-way, so there would be some issues to resolve regarding usage of the road right-of-way as a trail. Some exploration to take place. Bruce Johansson: Okay, great. Stolar: Thank you very much. 3 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Bruce Johansson: Can I get those back or do you need them? Stolar: So thank you. Hoffman: Thanks for stopping by. Again we apologize we were late. Stolar: We’ll look forward I guess, this commission will see a write up of the meeting at our August meeting. July meeting. Okay. Great. Any other? I think that’s all we have for visitors. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Scharfenberg moved, Murphy seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated May 23, 2006 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. DISCUSSION REGARDING BASEBALL FACILITIES. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar, members of the commission. If you recall at your last meeting we had a group of individuals here interested in seeing a ball stadium or baseball stadium constructed in Chanhassen and it’s a topic of conversation that’s been around for quite some time. Take a few moments to take a look at the past and research and talk and write about the first baseball field that was developed here in town. Quite a colorful group of individuals. Reubon Bongard was the first coach. They wanted a field in town. I’m not quite sure what conversations they had with the parish before they went out and tore down their woods but I assume they talked to somebody about that, so interesting story and that’s what, really these fields that exist currently in Glencoe, Arlington, Jordan, Chaska, Shakopee, that’s how each one has an individual story about how it came about. Shakopee has many of the seats from the old Met Stadium when they tore down that and they brought those out to Shakopee so lots of hard work, sweat and labor goes into these facilities when they’re constructed. I think what you saw, and you probably recognized, it was a team that is frustrated with their current facility and they were anxious and hopeful that this could happen for next spring’s tournament, or next spring’s season and that’s just not the case. We’re not going to be able to construct a facility or modify an existing facility within town so they can come play next spring. But nevertheless I think the initiation of the conversation is timely because we have a school bond referendum that will be voted on in this community and in all of District 112 coming this November, which will most likely include a new high school in Chanhassen. We have had initial conversations with the district staff and they will need a baseball stadium. A football stadium. Most likely an ice arena and a variety of other athletic venues that go along with a high school when they move into town. So there will be a baseball stadium somewhere in the community that can host high school baseball, if that all comes to pass, and that in my mind is the time that we should discuss a joint facility with town baseball. Legion baseball. High school baseball. Interestingly enough one of the biggest, you know or one topic that comes up is if you have a facility on district property you cannot consume or serve alcohol and that would be an issue for town baseball so, as you move forward with the thought process, you may want to build this on city property and then have the high school participate at that. If you want to have a town baseball team type tournaments in the future because that is obviously an issue. Mr. Lund did visit me after receiving the report. He 4 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 was not happy. He wanted a baseball field next year, next spring but he understood and so you could toss all the Villager article following up on the presentation by the gentlemen that were here last meeting and so. I’ve not received any correspondence from the general community since that time. I have visited some baseball parks. I watched a team in Victoria here last Thursday night for a little while and people were talking about baseball and we talked about this potential facility and they were excited about it and they would be glad to see a field built here in Chanhassen so. Interested to hear what commissioners have heard since last week, and then take your direction as to a recommendation for the council for the future. Stolar: Okay, thank you. Any thoughts? Paula, start with you. Atkins: Well I went home immediately and reported it to my father actually played for the Chanhassen Red Birds at some point. Both of my parents went to ball games in Chan all the time as young people and they think it’s a swell idea. They would love it. I told dad, because he sees these gentlemen a lot at the Legion for breakfast and things like that, that they really need to talk it up and they, I thought they should try and get a table at the Chamber of Commerce there th on the 4 of July, just to stand there and talk to people and talk about the history of baseball in Chanhassen. Something like that I think would be garner a lot of interest and you know they need to make themselves visible I think. I think it will fly. Stolar: Steve. Scharfenberg: No comments other than I was curious as to what their reaction was in terms of moving out of Victoria. Were they still interested in coming here? And if so, just playing at Lake Ann next year. Not Lake Ann. At Lake Susan next year or. Hoffman: Probably not possible without lights. Without lights and dugouts. So even, as disappointed as they are with Victoria, they’re still miles ahead of what we have to offer here right now. Spizale: …I think it’s a good idea. I think it’d be a lot of fun for the community. Murphy: Same here. I’ve just heard a lot of positive feedback from neighbors that they would be interested in having a baseball team so. Stolar: So as it relates to the recommendation that we work within the school district, is that consistent with people’s thoughts or is it, should we be pursuing outside of that? Scharfenberg: Well I think a lot’s going to depend on what the school, what happens with the high school and what their property is going to be able to hold and what the school district’s thought process is on ballfields. You know in terms of football fields. It’s the thought that they’re not going to build a new field and they’re just going to play at Chaska. They’ve got one field and have to share that field for the time being. Is there a thought that that’s the same with baseball? That we’re going to have some shared use facilities here. I think a lot of that’s going to depend on what the district’s goals are and what our goals are for our ballfields and what we put a priority on and are willing to maybe develop with the school district. Would it be nice to 5 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 have an additional ballfields, and certainly and if it’s softball or baseball and the demand that we have already, I think we do need more ballfields. As Todd mentioned, you’re probably going to have a problem with liquor sales and then you’re looking at okay, so now what do we do? Are we back to the Lake Susan and doing something with that or property somewhere else? Who knows. So I think a lot of it’s going to be driven by the conversations with the school district and what our priorities are in terms of what types of ballfields we need. Hoffman: In response to that same line of thought or discussion, the initial conversations of the district, they’re looking to have independent facilities for all sports with the exception of th swimming, and I think their plan right now is to develop a pool at the 9 grade center that would service both high schools if they were built. But beyond that, they would like to look for independent facilities for hockey, baseball, softball, football and then it may not all happen on the piece of ground that they currently own in Chanhassen. There may be facilities developed at other locations within the community. Stolar: Would we have even a venue outside of Lake Susan that we could even consider? Hoffman: Lake Ann. Stolar: What about, wasn’t there that piece of property that we used for storage for like the bark and all that stuff? Hoffman: Yeah, that’s going to be a future public works facility. Garage facility and it probably wouldn’t be, but there’s other lands in Chanhassen still that would be. Stolar: That you could buy but not that we own? Hoffman: Nothing we own. Stolar: Right. Hoffman: Our discussion is, we need to expand our, if we go and modify a facility we go backwards. We cut some things out to build a baseball stadium and we’re going backwards where right now we could expand additional facilities and so, I think it would be a goal that we initially could go ahead and work with the district on some of those expansion plans. Stolar: So if I look at this more holistically, what the options exist will be dependent upon whether that referendum passes for the school, because that changes, if it doesn’t pass right, that changes the discussion altogether? Hoffman: Absolutely. No school. No need for fields. Stolar: Right. So, and that’s this fall or November? I believe. Hoffman: Correct, this November, yeah. And obviously if it fails it will be coming back, so it’s not like the conversations will end. The referendum will have to come back. 6 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Stolar: Part of my questioning is, if we’re looking at venues outside of there, we would have to make our own discussions of referendum, and maybe even with the school referendum passing, we might have our own referendum discussions given the costs involved of either land acquisition. If we have to go to a different area, correct? Hoffman: Yeah. Part of the discussion is going to be how are you going to pay for it? Whether that’s a referendum or not. But this conversation, this conversation community wide is going to speed up very rapidly here so, it’s not like you’re premature in making recommendation to the council to get on board with the school district and stir up some conversations about athletic th facilities because they’re going to start to gear up their publicity here very rapidly after the 4 of July and people in this community are going to be well aware of what’s going on with the referendum and with the future high school and proposed new pool. People are going to be asking questions about where are they going to play football, hockey, baseball? Stolar: And we had a couple meetings ago with the whole discussion of the pool. Was another aspect of this. So when I see here about recommending we initiate joint efforts for just the baseball stadium, I understand that addresses this, but in some way conveying to them that there are a series of facilities, opportunities for co, working with the district to get some additional recreational capabilities and capacity. Hoffman: Yeah, you’d have to modify the recommendation. It is a broader conversation. Stolar: I was just thinking that at some point, once they’re, and we’ve talked about this before with the pool discussion. Once the referendum, let’s say it passes. We ought to then start looking as a commission. What are the things we want to recommend the City pursue jointly? Whether it’s you know baseball and pool or baseball, ice rink and pool. And then figure out what does that mean? How do we approach it and then how do we pay for it? Hoffman: Yeah even, those discussions need to happen pre-referendum because the referendum’s going to identify what they’re going to build. People are going to vote for it. Stolar: Well I thought they had outlined already the dollar amounts. Hoffman: They have an estimate but not final. The school’s going to build a pool. So the school’s going to build a pool. It’s going to be part of this, well school’s planning on proposing a question to build a pool. If it’s approved, they’re going to build… Stolar: The question is, what info we can give as far as like in the pool, we received recommendations of the types of things they’d like to see in a pool. Is one input and we did refer them to the district, so is this something we should get together with them soon to talk with them about some of our ideas or should we, we had talked at one point about having a working session where we just talk through some of the ideas and prioritize them. Is that something that we should still do? Rather soon then? Hoffman: That’d be great, yeah. If you want to do that. 7 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Stolar: Alright, we’ll leave that as an open item but not necessarily related to this. So related to the baseball recommendation that that is a specific area where we do want to enter into joint discussions with the district, do we have any changes to the recommendation or amendment? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the recommendation that the Park and Rec Commission recommend that the City Council initiate a joint effort with School District 112 and other interested parties to explore future construction of a baseball stadium within the City of Chanhassen. Motion to approve? Scharfenberg: So moved. Stolar: Moved by Commissioner Scharfenberg. Spizale: Second. Stolar: Seconded by Commissioner Spizale. Any other points? Scharfenberg moved, Spizale seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council initiate a joint effort with School District 112 and other interested parties to explore future construction of a baseball stadium within the City of Chanhassen. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Stolar: And then we’ll set up some other meeting, or working session for us to talk about some other opportunities and prioritize. Hoffman: Working session with the commission? Stolar: Right. Just the commission, yeah. DEVELOPMENT PLAN REVIEW, LAKESIDE. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar, members of the commission. The Lakeside development is currently the Lake Riley apartments. The apartments are planned to be demolished over the next summer months and then the redevelopment of apartment units and townhouses be built on the property. The applicant, Sienna Corporation is the same company that has developed and manages Bearpath. It’s 26.34 acres. They’re looking at building 234 residential developments. 2, 3, and 4 unit condominiums. They’ve acquired the property and they plan on initiating construction again later this fall. Comprehensive park plan and trail plan, after we reviewed the proposal, comprehensive park plan talks about developing a park to go within one half mile of every residence in the city. This property lies at the eastern border of Chanhassen, right up against Eden Prairie. Developing a park at this location is not recommended because you have, essentially if you put a park at this property you’d have a service area which is half of Eden Prairie and half in Chanhassen. If you refer to the map, the overview map in here that shows the Lake Riley North neighborhood park service area, the area photo, the proposed neighborhood park site is actually quite a bit to the east on property currently owned by John Klingelhutz and so you would take these neighborhood and centrally locate a 5 or 7 acre park site to 8 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 accommodate all the new residents in that particular location. And then in addition to the other future public amenities that are planned, this development will also be incorporating a beachlot with a variety of amenities on the property, including a boat access, gazebo, a grill, picnic area, fire pit. They’ll have a dock with 6 slips that will mostly likely just have association type recreational boats and then they would be reserved on a per time basis. There would not be any private facilities or private boats at that location. Trails in the area. The Lakeside committed to complete a very important section of the trail. It’s located directly north of Lyman Boulevard, th and then it will connect on the north side of Lyman. It will connect to Eden Prairie along the 15 green or fairway of the Bearpath golf course and it will travel north underneath Highway 212 at a future underpass, or an underpass which is currently being constructed. So this will allow residents who want to be a few underpass opportunities in the eastern sections of Chanhassen to get underneath Highway 212. The trails north of there are yet to be constructed but if you’ve ever been in the Marsh Glen trail, that currently dead ends. That’s where this trail would connect at some time in the future. So it’s a very important connection. The Sienna Corporation per their development contract with the City of Chanhassen is required to construct that trail along th the 15 green and fairway and that also requires to construct a trail from the corporate boundaries of Eden Prairie and Chanhassen east into Eden Prairie to connect up to their trail system. So by the end of next summer, people in this area will be able to travel both on Lyman Boulevard, east and west, in and out of Chanhassen and Eden Prairie to Lake Riley Park or other destinations via the LRT trail. And then they’ll also be able to travel north under Highway 212, which will be quite a relief because if you have to cross at the bridge, you can go all the way back to Highway 101 at that location. You probably all saw Commissioner Daniel’s comments. He has a desire to see us put some public park in this location…talk to him in person. I didn’t really understand all of his thoughts completely but I did respond in an e-mail that I copied all of you on… Our recommendation, staff’s recommendation, they have three items. It’s recommended that you recommend that City Council require 3 conditions of approval concerning parks and trails for the Lakeside PUD. Number one, the payment of full park dedication fees at the rate in force upon final plat in lieu of parkland dedication. Two, the applicant shall provide all design, engineering, construction, and testing services required of the Lyman Boulevard trail. They will construct that trail. The trail shall be 10 feet in width and then we will reimburse the applicant for that construction of that section of our comprehensive trail plan, and that is consistent with how we have developed the remainder of our comp trail plan within the city. And then number three. The trail connection at the northeast corner of the site connecting the Lakeside area to the future 212 trail underpass, as depicted on the applicant’s Deleted: constru plans be completed. So you want to make that a condition so we make sure that that does occur at some point in the future. Stolar: Okay. Hoffman: They are having neighborhood meetings down here. I know they’re working on relocation. That’s one of the concerns of our community is that this is impacting a great number of people, and the elementary school here in Chanhassen is being affected by it because of their relocations with folks, so they are meeting as a neighborhood. Meeting with the developer and working on relocation assistance for these people, along with Carver County and the City of Chanhassen. 9 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Stolar: Ann, any questions? Murphy: I guess with Chanhassen Elementary, I didn’t understand that. Hoffman: They’ll be affected because of the loss of many of the kids that currently reside here will not be able to, may not be able to find other places in town to live and so if they, I’m not sure how many students they had but let’s say 30. Some of those kids might not be coming back to school here in Chanhassen next year. Stolar: Jack. Spizale: This trail is on, one thing I didn’t quite understand is this trail goes on their property around the lake? Hoffman: That’s their private trail. Let’s see, if you go to Plan Sheet 5 of 9. They have it labeled as a 8 foot bituminous. It will actually be a 10 foot bituminous trail. 8 foot is their old standard. 10 foot in their new standard. You see it there Jack on the north side. Sheet 5 of 9. It’s on the north side of Lyman Boulevard. They’ve got a trail construction called out. And then they’ll have a private trail on the small section on their side of, when I say their side, on the lake side, there’ll be a trail, a walking path as it’s called out for their beachlot association. Spizale: Okay. Hoffman: They also have many private trails, pathways within their development itself. Stolar: Steve. Scharfenberg: So I’m trying to envision that, there’ll be, on that area on the north side of that road, is that still called Lyman Boulevard back there? Okay. And there’ll be a path on that north side going all the way into Eden Prairie, all the way up to Lake Riley? Hoffman: Correct. The trail stops, Bearpath built an urban section of road and then it stops. There’s a trail on that road. I’m not sure if it’s on the north or south of that location at Eden Prairie. But they will build this trail on the north side, all the way down into Eden Prairie. Currently the trail in Chanhassen terminates at Lake Riley Road East. It’s on the south side. It stops at the road and then it has a pedestrian crosswalk over to the Rottlund development. And so that’s where they’ll pick it up from that location and continue on east. Stolar: Paula. Atkins: No questions. Stolar: Just one quick question. How far is the Lake Riley Park from this development area in Eden Prairie? Scharfenberg: I’d say at the most three quarters of a mile. 10 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Stolar: So it’s not very far. Scharfenberg: No. Stolar: So they still have, with the trails and all these, they still have access to quite within the half mile discussion but a half mile, but three quarter mile access to a park facility until we get this acquisition and this other development. Hoffman: And Lake Riley’s a nice park. It might even be a little bit a closer to the north side of the park there at that location. Half mile, three quarters of a mile. Stolar: I mean the question of what are they going to do to get to this. Well they do have the opportunity in Eden Prairie for a park, so it’s not like they’re left out in the cold. Hoffman: It’s nearby. Stolar: Yeah. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve staff recommendation? I’m not going to re-read it… Murphy: Motion to approve staff’s recommendation. Stolar: Moved by Commissioner Murphy. Can I have a second? Scharfenberg: Second. Stolar: Seconded by Commissioner Scharfenberg. Murphy moved, Scharfenberg seconded that the Park & Recreation Commission recommend the City Council require the following conditions of approval concerning parks and trails for the Lakeside PUD. 1. The payment of full park dedication fees at the rate in force upon final plat approval in lieu of parkland dedication. 2. The applicant shall provide all design, engineering, construction and testing services required of the “Lyman Boulevard Trail.” All construction documents shall be delivered to the Park and Recreation Director and City Engineer for approval prior to the initiation of each phase of construction. The trail shall be 10 feet in width, surfaced with bituminous material, and constructed to meet all city specifications. The applicant shall be reimbursed for the actual cost of construction materials for the Lyman Boulevard Trail. This reimbursement payment shall be made upon completion and acceptance of the trail and receipt of an invoice documenting the actual costs for the construction materials utilized in its construction. 11 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 3. The trail connection at the northeast corner of the site connecting the Lakeside area to the future Highway 212 trail and underpass, as depicted in the applicant’s plans, is completed. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. RECOMMENDATION TO AMEND PARK AND TRAIL CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP). Hoffman: Thanks Chair Stolar, members of the commission. We reviewed this this evening as a part of our tour. This is a recommendation to modify the 2006 park and trail CIP to accomplish construction of two trails. One at Lake Ann and one at Curry Farms Park. Staff is proposing to th extend an existing internal trail at Lake Ann, inbetween Fields 1 and 6. South to West 78 Street. It’s a trail that we’ve been thinking about for a number of years. We started with the construction from the concession stand heading to the south. It’s been a very popular trail and we’ve received many comments from the park users that have parked their vehicles in those lots between the frontage road and the ballfields, that it would be nice to have a pedestrian access point to those athletic fields at that location. It’s 370 feet, or excuse me, 780 feet of new trail and then 370 feet of existing trail overlay. Or overlaying the existing trail. And there is a diagram in your packet. Curry Farms trail, we are proposing to reconstruct 250 feet of an existing internal park trail. We looked at that this evening as well. Overlay 470, the remaining 470 feet and then the brand new trail, 330 feet to connect to a new neighborhood, the Knob Hill Lane cul-de-sac at the top of the hill. We received quotes from two qualified contractors. Plehal and Midwest Asphalt. And the sub-total on the Lake Ann trail on the low bid is $23,000 from Plehal and then the Curry Farms sub-total, $23,000 for a grand total of $46,295 for the two projects, compared to $115,000 from Midwest Asphalt quote. Now the funding, these projects are currently not identified in the CIP and we are proposing that we delete two planned improvements from the 2006 CIP to free up the dollars to accomplish these projects. Those two, or excuse me, two trail projects and then the off leash dog area commitment. So review those deletions. We have $50,000 currently proposed for off leash dog areas. Our commitment to Carver County parks is $30,000 so that frees up 20, and then the other 30’s coming from two park projects, trail projects. One at Rice Marsh Lake. $15,000 for that trail and then one at South Lotus Lake. Again we reviewed those this evening with the commission on our site tours for an additional $15,000. Total of those deletions would total $50,000 and would accomplish the projects at the other locations. This is not an unusual budget format. We do this from time to time when certain projects rise to the front and other projects tend to lose favor over time, throughout the year. Sometimes we don’t complete projects and then they just don’t happen and other times we modify the budget as we go through the year. So it’s recommended by staff that the commission recommend the City Council modified the 2006 park and trail capital improvement program CIP by adding the Lake Ann Park and Curry Farms Park trail improvements in a not to exceed amount of $49,999 and deleting the Rice Marsh Lake Park trail, South Lotus Lake Park trail, and a portion of the funding designated for off leash dog area to over the cost of these new projects. I’ll be happy to answer any questions. We also have Dale who is working this process with me here and he can answer questions as well. Spizale: What portions, how would this be divided up? How much from the Lotus Lake Park trail and how much from the off leash dog area? 12 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Hoffman: $20,000 off leash dog. 15 from each of the park trails. So the park trails would totally be deleted at South Lotus and Rice Marsh. Spizale: Okay. Scharfenberg: And the primary purpose Todd for doing this and escalating this project ahead of the others is what again? Hoffman: Well the Curry Farms project is spawned out of the fact that we were down there doing all that work and then we had the large rain event that caused the drainage problems so we started that work at that location. Lake Ann has been identified, working through the Miracles for Mitch race, with the re-route and trying to get vehicles in and out of the park, and we’ve always wanted to do that trail and so 2 months ago I probably walked the site with Sergeant Olson, or yeah. Sergeant Jim Olson, Tony Schiller and I walked the property and we talked about how we can improve that site and I said well let’s see if we can work on this trail project, so we got an estimate to see what the cost would be and then we started to look for a funding process. The trail at South Lotus has been identified for a number of years but there’s a private road that is on the east side of the property. Excuse me, west side of the property and they are still not willing to connect to that public trail. So if you look at that overhead you can see the private streets where the townhouses are, and so we do not have a, we do not have a touch down point for that trail. So it would be nice to complete the trail. It makes a great neighborhood connector but the neighboring association is not interested in having that public connection to their private street. So that effectively blocks that trail and then down at Rice Marsh, this trail design came out of the neighborhood process last year to rebuild the playground. We identified in the CIP, Dale and his crew took a look at it and started to bring some questions or some concerns about drainage and blocking up the drainage pattern. Dale, I don’t know if you want to talk any more about that but. Gregory: Well we look at it and everything pretty much drains to the south there. We get high water and everything else, we’re going to be blocking the water in the park, instead of actually letting it out. We’ve looked at different ways of doing the trail. Keeping it down at that ground level. We’re going to have nothing but water out of it all the time and if we raise it up, we’re going to be blocking the water into that park. So we sat down, we talked with Todd. We walked through the whole thing and that and we really looked at, there isn’t a good situation for a trail down there. Scharfenberg: We’re not going to do that. I mean yeah, it makes sense because it’s very…back there. Hoffman: …the design of the trail, if we did go ahead with it, one would be to put the gravel sub-grade below, below grade and then have the trail flush, but it’s kind of constantly be wet and slippery doing that. So and then if we built it up we’re effectively building a dike and blocking that water so we didn’t have a good plan either way. And you just can’t put enough drain tile in there because there’s no positive drainage in the property so. As much as we would like to complete that trail, we’re starting to do these internal trails more and more and they’re, the 13 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 neighborhoods respond very positively to them and as much as I’d like to do this one, I just can’t recommend that we do it. And then the dog park allocation, I think initially the commission had some ideas about doing something else with the other 20 but we have not identified a plan of action for that so we’re suggesting that we go ahead and make a commitment of the $30,000 this year to the County and then take the other 20 and put it towards this project. Atkins: That was my question was about the dog trail money going to this instead. It looks good. Murphy: So then the funding is 49, isn’t that going to pretty much preclude the Midwest bid? Is that the total funding for that? Hoffman: Yeah, the bid would be Plehal. Murphy: Okay. Hoffman: The accepted project bid would be a total from Plehal, which is $46,295. Anything over $50,000, $50,000 or over we have to go to a bid project. This is a…process. We’re happy with Plehal. They’ve done a lot of work in the city over the last 15 to 20 years. Stolar: Okay, anything else? Do I have a motion to approve staff recommendation to make the proposed changes on the capital improvement program? Scharfenberg: Motion to approve modify the 2006 Park and Trail Capital Improvement projects for Lake Ann and Curry Farms Park. Stolar: Thank you. Do I have a second? Atkins: Second. Stolar: Moved and seconded. Scharfenberg moved, Atkins seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends the City Council modify the 2006 Park and Trail Capital Improvement Program by adding the Lake Ann Park and Curry Farms Park trail improvements at a not to exceed amount of $49,999 and deleting the Rice Marsh Lake Park trail and South Lotus Lake Park trail, and a portion of the funding designated for an off-leash dog area to cover the costs of these new projects. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. th Hoffman: This will be on the July 10 City Council agenda. Stolar: I actually have one follow up question. So regardless though we would, let’s say for whatever reason City Council chooses not to do this, we still want to probably do the adjustment for the Curry Farms because it just doesn’t make sense to keep that out there if we can’t have a feasible way of doing it. 14 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Hoffman: Yeah, if the council doesn’t want to, well they’ll have to deal with that. We’ll talk about it that evening. If they’re not interested in this CIP, we have to find some, we’ll have to make another recommendation to move that project. Stolar: Okay, yep. Okay, great. Any other new business? No? RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2006 FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION. rdth Rosa: Thanks Chair Stolar, commissioners. As you all know July 3, July 4 is approaching rdth rapidly. Most of the activities will take place on July 3 at City Center Park. July 4 will be here at City Center and over at Lake Ann Park, like it has been the last, I don’t know, 20 some years before I was even here so with that, we added on a few more food vendors this year. We’ve also not deleted anything but we’ve taken the current activities and we’ve added to them. Doubled up like our Water Wars thing. We’ve put in some more inflatable games and over in the tennis courts, through the help of someone out in the community we’re going to add a whiffle ball home run derby. A snag golf shoot out and a football toss. With that all family oriented. All free so we’re keeping more activities for the families into this, but also keeping the cost th down for us. The parade will begin Tuesday, July 4 at 2:30 p.m.. The parade route is identical to last year. Promotional materials have gone out 2 weeks ago. This flyer was entered in the paper. Most of you’ve probably already gotten one. I did bring more just in case you guys need a new one. Last week we had a colored flyer go out into the paper and actually two articles were done up in the paper too. One on the last 20 some years of the shirts, and also done on, they did a full page article and everything laid out for what the activities are for the day, and pictures from last year’s events. This week there’s a black and white ad going in the paper, identical to last week’s colored one, and the following week we’ll actually have a thank you ad going into the paper that goes to all of our sponsors, which predominantly pay for most of these events here. th July 4 t-shirts went on sale and I do have a copy of one, or actually one for all of you tonight, along with another shirt that we hope to give to you. And then as the event draws closer, we’re just waiting to finalize some details. About 95% of everything we’ve done. Just got to work up on a few prizes to go with all of our treasure hunt, our chalk it up and then our drawings that we have up here so. Other than that, just ready to roll. Stolar: Great. Looking forward to it. Does anyone have any questions for Nate? Murphy: Are we doing a booth at the business fair? Rosa: Park and Rec is not, that isn’t brought up and that’s something actually I talked with my playground director today that I might throw in there just so we can probably promote some of our activities internally so. I’m hoping to see if that’s something that he can handle, because I’ll be detained elsewhere with everything else so. Stolar: In prior years we’ve volunteered to help staff the booth there but, so if something comes up, send us an e-mail. Rosa: Okay. 15 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Stolar: But I think, I got the feeling after last year was that it didn’t, it wasn’t necessary for Park and Rec to have it’s own booth there. Rosa: It wasn’t, that was brought up to me early on and I asked Dave, my playground director and he’s like, you know it might be something we want to do to promote some of our activities. That’s something we’ll discuss and decide kind of last minute thing so. Stolar: Because last year we used it just to show what we were building with the new playgrounds. Hoffman: I think we can do a booth anywhere. You guys can set a booth up to… It’s our tent. We can do it anyhow. Stolar: Sounds like a plan. Okay, thank you very much. Looking forward to it. Should be very exciting. RECREATION CENTER REPORT. Stolar: Next, Rec Center. I think Jerry, are you going to cover this one or should we just submit it and. Hoffman: Just want to say a word about Tom’s condition. We’re hopeful that he has a successful third surgery and that he regains his vision in this eye so it’s been a difficult time for Tom and his family and for us here as a staff. And it just goes to show you that just one little baseball hit to the eye can really change the course of action so. Staff has responded and picked up his time. He’s in about 20 hours per week, and the Recreation Center has not missed a beat due to the injury so. We’re glad he’s back on a part time basis but we’re hoping for a full recovery. Stolar: And then I’m sure I speak for the commission, we also wish a speedy recovery and thanks to everybody, I mentioned to Jerry from reading this, that everybody seems to be pulling together so that Tom can just work on getting better so we wish him the best. SENIOR CENTER REPORT. Bill: Thank you. Couple things I wanted to highlight. May is Senior Awareness Month and we have a lot of activities that occurred during that month. Probably the highlight is Breakfast with the Mayor. Mayor Furlong comes and gives up a good portion of his morning and the last two years he’s gotten technologically advanced. He does a power point presentation, and they really enjoy that because he can talk about a lot of maps and the road and it just have visual impact that people can understand, and he is so open and receptive to questions and answers. They really, really do appreciate that. So this year we had 45, probably 48 people that attended that, and like I said, that was the highlight. Also had the Lake Ann picnic. 85 plus people. Once again the Lions Club hosted it. They, I think they have as much fun as the seniors do. They prepare all the food. Grill it. Do the games. Everything do it’s really, really a nice event. I think I mentioned 16 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 last time, one quarter, or every quarter I’m trying to offer a technological class to update seniors on technology. Got one coming up in a few weeks on digital cameras. I’ve got someone from Ritz and National Camera coming to bring different cameras. Talk about mega pixels. How to download different programs. And I think I have 13 people signed up for that. They’re more informational and they really seem to enjoy it. One I have proposed for the fall, going to call it Gadgets, Gadgets and More Gadgets. It’s going to be on Ipods, MP3’s, Blackberries. When I talk about this everyone looks at me but they’ve all heard about that. I’m going to offer it in November where a lot of people, their grandkids want this stuff and they have no idea what it is so, they’re real excited and those have been going really, really well. They really seem to enjoy that. I mentioned last time also one time a month we have a special event, a lunch or a dinner. This summer we’re going to have a chicken barbeque dinner before the Concert in the Park on th July 27 to try to tie in for that. People are excited about that. In August I have, it’s my second annual Ladies Tea Luncheon and Fashion Show. Got dresses from late 1800’s and 1900’s coming in and I think last year I had to cut it off with 60 women. No men are invited too but I don’t think many men want to walk about in vintage hats and dresses. So that’s a few things that are going on in the summer. In the fall I’m going to be doing more like luncheon, learning lunches with different educational speakers. And I have to admit I’m kind of embarrassed on this so I got a call and a letter from Governor Al Quie? Hoffman: Quie. Bill: Not being a native Minnesotan, I’ve never heard of him. If it were Tommy Thompson or somebody like that. But anyway, yeah. Apparently we don’t want Tommy’s brother. He’s been busted how many times for illegal gambling, but anyway I’m doing different educational events and I think they’ll be a real nice draw. Apparently he’s got a love of horses and for 8 years he rode horseback along the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico, so I don’t know how he’s going to watch but anyway, so I’m going to do a different focus like educational lunch and learn. Kind of prepping people to move into exploring with Augsburg College. They have something called the College of the Third Age. Looking to bring some of those classes out here and so this is kind of a precursor to that, just to gear and gauge interest so. All and all things are going well. Attendance is great. The new variety of programs really seems to draw. Seems to attract a ring of different people which is wonderful so, that’s all I have to offer. Stolar: Thank you. Any questions? Spizale: I like your technology. I think that’s, I know my parents and they are just so confused with cameras and all that stuff and I think that’s great. Good idea. Stolar: Yeah, I do too. I think it helps them figuring out, especially if you do the fall one on gadgets. That’s right before the holidays. They get a better feel, probably if you can get someone like Best Buy to come in and do the discussion, right? Yeah. Bill: Well actually I think Rick Rice, and I might do it and I might get Radio Shack…of those gadgets and a lot so, I’m going to try and keep it local and the three of us will do it. Stolar: It will be fun. 17 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Scharfenberg: …consider too having the school district come in light of the referendum that’s up, and just kind of talk about the referendum and especially with the seniors and kind of a hard people to ever try to convince in our community that vote for increasing your taxes and what the opportunities will be available for them maybe with you know a new building here. Bill: Good idea, thank you. Wonderful. Stolar: Any other comments? Alright, thank you. Hoffman: It’s Sue’s birthday today by the way. PARK AND TRAIL MAINTENANCE REPORT. Gregory: Thank you. Well this spring started out pretty busy as every other spring and that, with all of the set up’s. The basic set up’s for getting the park buildings, shelters, drinking fountains, ball fields. Everything set up and that and ready for the spring. Things have let up a little bit for us. The seasonals are all here and so we have, currently we have 14 seasonals on board working. Three senior citizens and that that are running our lawnmowers and the rest are all high school and college kids, so they’ve taken a big load off of us doing what all the ballfield maintenance. All the mowing and weed whipping of ballfields and shelter clean-up. Garbage pick-up and all that stuff so they’ve taken a big load off of our guys now and have, so we can go about some of other stuff. This summer and that we got into a couple of projects of some planting some trees. The Rec Center, I think I mentioned it to you last time when we were here and that. We did plant 48 trees out there, oak trees. Down at, on the north side of the school along the sidewalk. And they’re doing real well. We also planted 41 flowering crab out at Lake Ann, and they were the results of left over trees from the Arbor Day and that so, they were planted out there and they’re doing pretty good too. The downtown crew and that, they’ve put in 15 trees down in the main center islands and stuff this year, replacements. I didn’t realize they put this many flowers in but I was talking to Charlie last week and that, and every year and that they put in on an average of like 60 to 70 flats of flowers downtown, so they do do a lot of sprucing up as far as flowers down there. Give you just a quick background on our playground replacement, where everything is at. North Lotus Lake and Chanhassen Hills are completely finished with sod and everything around them. The Lake Susan, both playgrounds are completed. We’ve got sod around the large one and that one’s in use and ready to go. The smaller one is not sodded around and we’ve got too much construction that’s got to be done around that playground yet so we’re holding off with that and we’re leaving it fenced in yet for now until we get the trails and everything else done around that area. We just don’t want the kids down working when we’re working down there. Or playing when we’re working down there. Let’s see. Carver Beach, Minnewashta Heights, Rice Marsh, Curry Farms. They are all completed. The kids can use them and everything fine. We have not done any sodding around them and I mentioned it to Todd the other day and that. I’m really holding off, I don’t want to put any sod down because right now the sod that we do have down earlier, we’re having a tough time just trying to stay ahead watering all of that. And so I don’t foresee the sod going down for at least a while until the weather cools down and…Todd talked to you guys evidently tonight about the Curry Farms and everything. I don’t know if he mentioned that we had a little bit of a 18 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 hold up down there. Our dozer broke down so that’s out for 6 to 8 weeks. We will be renting th another one. We will be getting back into it right after, it won’t be right after the 4 of July. I’ve th got half my crew is on vacation for the whole week of the 4 of July so, but right after that we will be renting one and we will be getting back down there and getting going on that again. I also got price quotes for tennis courts. South Lotus Lake, Meadow Green, Lake Susan and also basketball court at Lake Susan. We came in under budget on all of that stuff so they will all be done. I talked to the guy here about a week or two weeks ago and he’s planning on starting the th beginning of July sometime, so probably after the 4 of July and that he hopes to get in and still working on that. Also we had the benefit of using the STS again this spring. We’ve become one of their better customers the way it sounds and that in the springtime and that for clean-up up here. We had 3 days of those going. We had 6 each day. So they did do our whole clean-up of the downtown. Blowing, cleaning and raking and everything else. We also use them out at the Pioneer Cemetery. They clean that all up for us before Memorial Day weekend. And then they also, we had one extra day that we knew we were doing the resurfacing of tennis courts at South Lotus so we had them go in there and they cleaned that. A lot of all the vines and everything we have on the inside. They cleaned all that out for us so, we did get a lot of benefit out of them this year. And then another one that we’ve never had before and that but Todd got a call on the Minnetonka Seniors for their Senior Service Day project and that. We ended up with 29 seniors that came out to the rec center and we had them doing the wood chipping around all our trees, the bushes and everything else and that so they actually went through 13 dump truck loads of wood chips and that and they did a lot of work out there and basically got all, pretty much everything out there wood chipped except the trees out closer to Highway 5 and that but they did do a real good job and I was a little leery about having that many high school kids around at a time but they did, it did work out very well. And currently right now we’re basically all we’re th concentrating right now this week and that is going to be 4 of July. The guys are in that mode. They’re getting everything set up and everything they can right now to get that set up and that so. Everything else is really going pretty good. Stolar: Just a quick question on the Minnetonka High School Senior Service Day project. Is that something we can send a quick thank you to the superintendent so that it becomes a part of a regular activity? Hoffman: Absolutely. Stolar: That’s great, and when we saw your e-mail it’s like wow. That’s fantastic. Hoffman: Lead program. Scharfenberg: I had a question for Dale. Noticed on some of the small trees around town that there’s some green plastic around them. What is that all about? Gregory: Those are some newer trees that we’ve been finding in the last couple years that have had a little bit of trouble growing. Jill, that’s part of Jill’s program. They’re a plastic bag that they go around them and that and then they fill those up. It holds 20 gallons of water and then that leaks out real slow. It takes about 10 hours for that water to leak out. So that’s what they’ve been doing with it to try to get those going. I was out watering the other day at Lake Ann and a 19 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 fellow I know who runs Clearwater Irrigation, Steve Billsky, stopped and he gave me some samples of some, it’s really different. It’s a little plastic tube you put down on each, you put it down lead free and it’s got a package of gelpack about this big. You take it off and you put it in there and he said that’s, they advertise that that will water that tree for 30 days with no water at all in those 30 days. It will keep that tree just fine, and actually the drier the dirt gets, the better off it does, this product works. So he gave me a couple of them and I’m going to try them out and see how they work and that. He said they’re really inexpensive. He said they’re like a buck or a buck and a half for one of these things and he bought them and that with his irrigation business. He’s talking to people that have got great big planters and stuff and using them for that. They can water their plants and that for a long time. So I thought I would give them a try and that. Seeing how it actually works and if it does keep them moist like that, but he said they’re really supposed to work good. It’s a real slimy material that’s in there and that, and it just, it holds, like I say, it doesn’t hold water. The moisture’s already there so we’ll see how that works. Stolar: Any other questions for Dale? Murphy: That Lake Susan tot structure, the smaller playground. Is that probably not going to open this summer? Gregory: I guess I haven’t got an honest answer on that. Murphy: Oh okay. Gregory: I mean we were going to move into that area and that and then we, Todd decided we wanted to do, as long as it was dry, we’d get down to Curry Farms. We got down there and again we broke down. But I guess as soon as we can get out of Curry Farms is we’re going to be over there working on that. We need to enlarge that parking lot yet. I think we’re going to make that about twice as big just about. We’ve got to move the sand volleyball court and then start laying out where the trails are going in there. Hoffman: Yeah, whatever commissioners feel. It’s in the middle of a dirt area and so, if you take the fence down tomorrow, they’re going to play on it. And if we get rain storms, there’s going to be a real mud condition that we’re going to have to deal with so from our viewpoint, it’s difficult not to have it open but we’ve been down these roads many times before where if we opened it, we could have complaints on the other side as well so. They’d say why did you open that thing without finishing it up? I can’t believe you’ve got no grass there and no trail so, it’s a tough situation for us. But I guess when we first opened the big playground they said, everybody’s waited so long for that big playground, at least we’re giving them that one and then we’re going to try to finish up this other project before we open it up so, I know it’s difficult. I take calls on it each week. I’ll work with Dale. We’ll take a look at it. Maybe there’s an interim or temporary condition that we could try to implement. Stolar: That’s what I was thinking. If there’s some real quick…that we can put in just to allow people. It’s almost like, the problem is to tease, it’s teasing the little kids right because they go there with their parents and they’re like, I want to go there, right? Jack knows. 20 Park and Rec Meeting – June 27, 2006 Spizale: Half the fun is to play with the fence. I thought that was part of it. The kids all get in there and can’t get out and then you leave. Stolar: It keeps them protected, that’s right. Yeah, the protection area for the kids. Hoffman: It might be a while before we’re completely done so we’ll investigate and see if we can find an interim measure. Stolar: Okay, thanks. Anything else? Alright. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. Stolar: Are there any comments or questions about the correspondence section? Hoffman: Nice to see a lot of good comments about the picnic reservations. Stolar: How are the reservations going? Ruegemer: They really did pick up. It was pretty, I wouldn’t say slow but, a little bit slow in the spring time and now it seems like when we start getting kind of nicer, it did start to pick up. I think I only have 2 more days at Lake Susan and now I’m going to start opening more. Pretty much the weekends are, there’s a few openings here and there but for the most part the weekends are booked at both shelters. Stolar: Okay. Ruegemer: We seemed to be doing a little bit more during the week as well too. …last weekend at Lake Ann. So a few of those types of reservations are starting to come in a little bit more now too. Stolar: Okay, great. Any more questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion for adjournment? Spizale moved, Scharfenberg seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The Park and Recreation Commission meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 21