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PRC 2006 10 24 CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 24, 2006 Chairman Stolar called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Glenn Stolar, Jack Spizale, Jeff Daniel, Anne Murphy, Steve Scharfenberg and Paula Atkins MEMBERS ABSENT: Tom Kelly STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; and Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Superintendent Stolar: Real quick just on the approval of the agenda. Want to thank Todd and Jerry for showing us such a great tour. Appreciate it. Saw a lot of great sites. Thank you. Hoffman: You're welcome. Stolar: Are there any items to add or delete from the agenda? APPROVAL OF AGENDA:Murphy moved, Spizale seconded to approve the agenda as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: th Hoffman: Halloween party is on Saturday night, October 28. This Saturday. Stolar: So is Nate going to send us the email just saying the times we should be there? Ruegemer: Yep, he can do that. th Stolar: Great. Then the 4 of November is when they're doing the Carver Beach, the Eagle Scout project, is that correct? Hoffman: It's on, yep. Stolar: What time? Hoffman: I would think they're going to be starting around 8:00 that morning. Stolar: So anybody who wants to help out there, that's the Eagle Scout project to put mulch down on the path between the two beaches over up by Lotus Lake. Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Hoffman: He just received final authorization on his project yesterday so he has worked very hard. I think he will put in, he'll be happy to get the wood chipping because getting the authorization for the project from the Boy Scout Council was very difficult so. Stolar: Why was that? Hoffman: Challenging the reviewer does not like wood chip projects and she put him to the test and he called me back and I said well I would classify this as a wood chip project. This is a trail construction project where you're having to use wood chips as construction material but she didn't buy that so he went back to the drawing board on a couple of occasions. He's still going to be wood chipping the trail but then he's going to be doing some plantings as well. th Stolar: Okay, great. So November 4 and meet at which beach, do you know? Hoffman: Either one. He's going to have a pile on each. There's a work crew at each site. Stolar: Any other announcements from any commission members? Okay. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Scharfenberg moved, Murphy seconded to approve the verbatim and summary minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated September 26, 2006 as presented. REVIEW DRAFT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF CHANHASSEN, CITY OF SHOREWOOD, SHOREWOOD PARK FOUNDATION AND CARVER COUNTY FOR AN OFF LEASH DOG AREA AT LAKE MINNEWASHTA REGIONAL PARK. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Stolar, members of the commission. Marty Walsh and Carver County forwarded this draft agreement as prepared by the Carver County Attorney to our office for presentation to the commission and to the City Council. I had this draft reviewed by our legal counsel and the one change that they recommended was that under indemnification, that we add the language, the City of Chanhassen's duty to indemnify and hold harmless is subject to the limitations and immunities in Minnesota State Statute Chapter 466 which are not waived and so that was forwarded to the County. Other than that, on a legal perspective, the attorney saw no necessary changes. We did start a conversation earlier this evening that I think the commission should continue and talking about some different things other than some legal issues that might be included in the agreement. So it talks about some basic things. Who's obligated to do what. How will the reimbursements be paid back to the, or how will the payments be paid back to the County. And basically as the County sees it, they'll be operating like this, like anyone of their Met Council projects. They'll document their costs. Send us the documentation and billing for our portion of it and depending on how the agreements are signed, or how we 2 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 move through the process, that agreement may change a little bit. They may, Shorewood Park Foundation for example said they don't want to be billed. They just want to send their $5,000 in and so some of these things might be amended. But I want to present this to the commission. Interested to hear any recommendations you have and then if you formalize those in a motion, I'll be sending them onto the County for inclusion or consideration prior to them sending us back a final copy for submittal to the City Council. Stolar: Great, thank you. Anne, we'll start with you. Any points? Comments? Murphy: Are these, on the last page are these helpful tips and safety, are those proposed signage? Or is that just included for. Hoffman: Just included for information on basically the map. So these are, that's a ROMP document that was put together back in '04-'05. So that's not the recommended rules for this park. Murphy: Do they say, they don't say, give us the details on signage then? Of what, but they are planning to do signage? Hoffman: (Yes). Murphy: So we're just going to have those detailed, like detailed recommendations. Those would come later to Carver? Are they going to open it back up to the public for recommendations do we know? Hoffman: I don't know exactly how they're going to talk about, or how they're going to come up with their signage. It doesn't talk about it in the agreement and I don't see it on the web page information either. Stolar: I think that goes to some of the points, or might fall in the scope of some of the things you were talking about at dinner tonight which was potentially asking that an advisory committee be included in this charter. Murphy: Oh, okay. Stolar: And then that could be one of their activities is to give, help formulate some of the things, where you need signage. Scharfenberg: Signage is on page 1 of the document. Carver County's List of Deliverables and the first line, that's, last word of that first line. Hoffman: Right, thank you. Stolar: Any other questions? 3 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Murphy: We had discussed an advisory council to kind of help with some of the more detailed specifications. I would agree with that. Stolar: That is something we might have to formally bring up in a little while. Why don't we take questions first and then we'll talk about the comment. Jeff, you have anything? Daniel: I don't have any questions. Stolar: Jack? Spizale: Just one. As I looked at this map, where are the open areas? On the top left? In the center are probably open areas? Hoffman: Are you looking at Concept B? Spizale: Yep. Hoffman: Those two white areas. In the center. Yep, those would be the open areas. Stolar: And then it looks like in the northwest, yeah northwest corner there. Is that an open area there? Hoffman: That's a marsh. Those two blobs right in the center Jack. Spizale: No, it looks like a great spot. That's all I got. Stolar: Steve. Scharfenberg: I don't have anything specifically about the draft. The one thing I did, we talked about earlier was, you know what potentially happens with a dog park like this, or off-leash dog area if you know 10 years from now we've put in this money and the County decides that they don't want this anymore. I was just curious as to, do we have any say in that or does that again to Carver County say as to what happens with the park? Hoffman: Not under this agreement we do not, and I would, my sense is that for a $30,000 contribution we would have limited leverage to say we're going to want to have any guarantee that this thing is going to continue. You know part of the reason it might, it might need more money in the future so they're going to say we're either going to close it down or take more money. So in 10 years they say hey, we need to refurbish this. It takes $30,000 or $40,000. We don't have it. We're either going to close it down so that might happen. But again that $30,000 contribution I don't think is going to buy us, it's good to, I think it's a good conversation topic and it's something I hadn't thought about. Maybe we run that into the advisory council that there should be, what do you call that? A clause about whether the thing is going to be abandoned or dissolution clause or what's the word they use? Something like that. 4 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: Paula. Atkins: Is it going to be open year round? Hoffman: (Yes). Atkins: So in the summer when you need a permit to go in there, but then in the winter you won't? Or will it. Hoffman: You still need a permit. Atkins: Yeah, how will that be enforced? Hoffman: It would cost to drive in. Check your car. Atkins: Give you tickets? Daniel: Is that enforced by Carver County? Okay. Atkins: Okay, and that, I was wondering who would be there to, if there was problems. It would be the sheriff I presume. Hoffman: Yeah, it's not going to be a patrolled area. If there's a problem there, it's just going to be, just like anything else. The people, the attendees are going to have to solve their own problems. If there's an emergency, it's going to be a 911 call. And then Carver County does patrol the park. It is a county facility and they patrol it, both as a location in Chanhassen, which is part of their responsibility under our contract, and then they also patrol it as a Carver County park which is a responsibility as Carver County Deputies and a county facility. So there's double coverage there. At the park. Atkins: That's all I had. Stolar: Okay. Well then again we took a tour of it and it looks like a great area. I think this is going to really be exciting for the city. The only thing I guess I would amend to the agreement, I'd like to see us have, ask for an advisory committee where Chan and you know, I don't know how we want to word this. I was thinking it'd be something that some member of this commission would serve on that advisory committee. And then we had talked at dinner also of opening it up to just general citizen representation and obviously any other contributors. That would be my only suggestion. I don't know what commission members think. Spizale: Good idea. Atkins: I think it's a good idea. Stolar: But I think this is exciting. 5 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Hoffman: Yeah, they've been working with an advisory citizen group all the way along so I don't think they're going to have any problem with continuing that. Whether they're going to want to have that make up be a member of this commission or not, I'm not sure. So we'll talk about that. But that would not preclude one of you, or if you had, it's not the official capacity because when you form this thing it's either going to have to say, you know 7 members at large or 5 members at large or 1 member of the City of Chanhassen Park Commission and 1 member of the Shorewood Park Commission so I'll discuss that with Marty and see which way he'd like to go on that. Stolar: The more important thing to me is that they have an advisory committee as part of this agreement and that representation from Chanhassen occurs. I'm not, you know I'd like to see someone from this commission but that's really the more important thing is, I don't know do you guys, is that okay? Murphy: Yeah. Stolar: Do you need a formal motion on this? Hoffman: I do not. Stolar: Okay. And for Anne's benefit, the meeting yesterday went really well with the City Council so. Hoffman: They're on board and we want to get the agreement in, signed so the money is secure for the next year. They have, as part of the agreement they've committed that they'll finish this by the end of 2007. But I want to head into 2007 without an agreement not signed because we don't have this in our 2007 budget. 2006 budget. Stolar: Are we allowed to carry that over then once this agreement is signed or are we actually just. Hoffman: Nope, it will carry over. That's what the auditor's want to see as long as you have some council recognition that that money's going to be carried over in a future year, then they're fine with that. Stolar: Okay, good. Great. Hoffman: They don't like floaters. Floaters. Stolar: Great. Well thank you. Hoffman: Thank you. Give the credit, a lot of the credit to the commission for continuing that. I think it's probably coming up on 2 years. 2 years so thanks again for all your. 6 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: Anne and I think Jack, you guys were the kind of sub-committee on that right? Spizale: Yeah. Stolar: And Anne, you did a lot of the leg work with ROMP Council. Thank you. RECREATION PROGRAM REPORTS: 2006 PICNIC SITE EVALUATION. Ruegemer: Thank you Chair Stolar. Just wanted to kind of go through this real quick for the 2006 picnic site evaluations. We did do over 90 picnics again this year compared to 92 last year but there is one thing with this program. We are consistent…over the last 3 or 4 years, we've been in that low to mid 90's with roughly about the same dollar amount for revenue on that $9,300 so that seems to be kind of where we have been at. Hopefully with the addition of the new Parkview pavilion that we can increase that in 2008. Something like that, we can certainly look forward to. We did increase our total number of participants visiting our picnic sites from around 7,000 to 7,800 this past year so it looks like we were booking you know picnics that had larger amounts of people coming too. We had some larger company picnics this year that did multiple picnic sites at Lake Ann, and this did include like Miracles of Mitch Triathlon that was kind of in house type of reservation so we put those types of reservations on. This year we had the higher capacity but these are the paying customers at this point. Staff did break down again kind of the categories by classification. Whether it's a resident, non-resident. Resident school. Non-resident school. That sort of thing later in the report. As well many customers now are coming into, checking on our city web site. Looking at the picnic categories and looking at prices before they call which is very helpful. It seems like 8 out of 10 people have already looked on the web site and are informed, now just kind of looking for kind of the final information so maybe we can get people in…in the system in 2 to 5 minutes, depending on questions. So that helps. Hoffman: It also helps them to figure out how to get around the non-resident fees when they do their research. Well I've got a friend in Chanhassen. Ruegemer: But, so that did help. As to just general comments again, we certainly did pay a little attention more to cleaning. Having people come in on the weekends, that sort of thing. Sometimes we do get comments that people have to do a little bit more cleaning than they thought they should, which is certainly a service that we should be providing out there, so we'll certainly strive to improve on those areas as well. Lake Susan in particular, the bathrooms really need to be updated. Whether that's a fresh coat of paint. Just some lighting updates and that's something that we certainly could do in house or over the winter time as well. To get that. We're also going to be changing the lighting. I think we're going to get rid of the four type of style for the lights to be turned on. Just go back to regular on-off switches. …traditional switches with people. We really try to simplify things. Get rid of keys for people and make it a little easier for people to, when they do get out there, that it's not confusing for people as well so. With the addition of 7 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 the Parkview area is certainly something that we're going to plan for in the future so we'll take a look at you know, reviewing those picnic fees and that sort of thing. Once that shelter does come into the system. We still get a few comments that the prices are too high and you certainly saw that through some of the evaluations that I included with the…packet throughout the course of the summer so. You know for the most part I think people are used to the fees and that sort of things and we have a pretty good customer base. We get a lot of repeat customers. A lot of family reunions that keep coming back as well so. So just for the future when we come back and review the picnic fees, you know I'm not sure what the commission feels but you know it seems like the picnic fees are going to be kind of where they should be. One thing I would like to talk to the commission about possibly is doing like a lunch hour type of a reservation fee possibly. There's been a lot of increase phone calls for Rosemount's, a lot of the corporations in town that want to go down and have a business meeting over the lunch hour. They don't want to you know rent the site all day long. Want to go for 2-3 hours over the lunch time. Have team building type of situation and so maybe we can discuss what, maybe doing some type of special fee for that to increase the usage over that lunch hour timeframe as well so just wanted to kind of plant the seed a little early here and have you guys start to think about that. Talk about that when we review fees around here before the first of the year. Hoffman: But up until now we're just letting them go? Ruegemer: Well no. It's a regular business, Chanhassen business rates. Hoffman: Alright, so we're charging them. Ruegemer: Yep. And some people have been balking at that so I'm thinking it might be an easier sell if we lower the price a little bit and you know if we make that up over quantity, if they go spread the word back to Rosemount, we could possibly get some more so. Stolar: It makes a lot of sense. Hoffman: Yeah. Really what they're looking for, you're a business and you're running your business, you want that security that you have a reservation. You don't want to say I'm going to show up. Stolar: I think right now the timing of it is that you pay for the whole day if you rent it, right? Ruegemer: Yeah. Yeah, we haven't gotten into the kind of the system of block time. A lot of park operations go you know, you have it for a 4 hour block at this price. If you want to go the whole 8 hour it's this price and you know. For the most part that really hasn't worked out for us. You pay for the day. It's your's. Certainly during graduation type of seasons, you know that might have been beneficial to have hour blocks of some sort but this worked out pretty good actually. 8 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: For the businesses it makes sense to kind of give them a business day rate that they can use. Ruegemer: Possibly, and we certainly could advertise that even more by sending out information to the corporations and come on out, and you know a lot of people love to get out to the parks to get out of their cubicles and enjoy the lake views and…just kind of get out and be out so that's something we certainly can talk about in the future. Future meeting but I think it certainly has some merit. So just, you know on the back side, I did include 2006, kind of reservation categories and also the group reservation categories for 2005…as to where we were so. Hoffman: I think something to note is the commission's aware that in 2007 you have a new picnic shelter at Lake Ann Parkview. If you look at 2005 where you had a single reservation of that space. This year we got 4. Once a shelter is constructed there, you can expect that that will go up into the 30's and 40's, just like the other categories, or the other pavilions. Ruegemer: People love to have a cover. Atkins: I was wondering about the bathrooms at Lake Susan. You get a key now when you rent it? I've never seen the inside of one of those bathrooms. Ruegemer: We used to open up those bathrooms on a daily basis when we had a gate attendant program. So we would go in the morning before the gate attendants would open up for their shift at Lake Ann. Go over to Lake Susan, open them up. Then on the tail end of the day they would go lock them up so they would be open for the course of the day and you know at times we did certainly have vandalism problems with that. Whether it was during the course of the day or if they were, someone forgot to lock them up at the end of the day so we've kind of gone to this system now where you know Steve has a picnic down there. I'll give you a call 2, 3, 4 days ahead of time just a reminder phone call to come by city hall and pick up your key. We don't charge a deposit for that key. Just come by pick it up. Drop it off when you're done and that has worked out pretty well. Daniel: Any interest at all in having a timing lock on there? Where you could literally it could be unattended. And it wouldn't be that expensive. For about less than a thousand bucks. Ruegemer: I guess… Daniel: I mean literally you can program. I mean there are lock systems out there now that would allow you to, they're all automatic so that at 8:00 a.m. it pops open and allows you to you know whatever. You can actually program it for Saturday, Sunday, Monday difference as well. But the dates that you want. They're certainly available. 9 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Atkins: Are there any plans to, for expansion of those bathrooms or just fixing them up? Ruegemer: I think just general cosmetic. Hoffman: They're perfectly fine. Atkins: Are they? Ruegemer: They're very functional. Just a little, new coat of paint and some updating. Atkins: Is there Satellites out there also in the summer? Scharfenberg: I like Jeff's idea though of the, if you could put a lock on there. I know probably…but now with that site expanded and we're going to see more use out there, that people would really enjoy that. To have that facility open. That would be a great thing to do if you could. Daniel: Yeah, and again there's a lot of functional style locks that are relatively inexpensive now. The nice thing about it too, there's already power brought to this location so it's not going to operate on a battery. Hoffman: Yeah. I don't think the lock is the big thing, but it's supervision. Making sure that somebody goes and opens in the morning and makes sure it's available for use. It's clean. Ready to go. Stocked. In the evening the same thing. If we just have a door that all of a sudden locks. Daniel: Oh, I mean there certainly would be some… Hoffman: Yeah, you have to send somebody there anyway. Either that night or the next morning to provide a service to it so, my preference would be to see an employee. But then you have an employee that you have to put on staff as a roamer and comes in and cleans these restrooms. Shuts them down and so that gets to be, there's just some increased responsibility. Stolar: Are there services that could be used to do that? Hoffman: You sure could hire that, absolutely. Daniel: But I do know like for example at…that the building there is open during the day. I've used it walking around…so it certainly is available and I don't see any reason why we couldn't do something like that, similar…Lake Susan. You know…the difference is that that park's heavily traffic. You'd certainly have more traffic than you would, but I suppose with the increase of families now with the brand new playground, you might see similar numbers. It's going to be much more of a family atmosphere I assume than just leaving it wide open for a few fishing people. 10 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Hoffman: Absolutely. Well let's, staff will look into seeing how we can have those restrooms open on a full time basis and we'll come back with some recommendations. Daniel: Okay. Jerry, also I got a question here. Is, and I noticed based off some of the patterns here, there's a flat fee correct based off of each one, whether you're a resident, non-resident. Is there any interest at all in trying to, I don't know, price certainly is an issue but create some incentive for, I don't know if setting price is a deterrent but maybe changing Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, you starting out with a fee. Ruegemer: We do that. Daniel: Okay, is that the case or? Ruegemer: We have done that. We do have a Monday through Thursday rate and then a Friday through Sunday. Daniel: Okay. That answers that question then. Ruegemer: We did that probably 2-3 years ago. Stolar: Same question was brought up… Has it panned out really though? It really hasn't done that much difference. Ruegemer: I think people are conditioned to it now. Hoffman: There hasn't been that much difference in revenue. Ruegemer: No. Stolar: Or usage Monday. I mean we were trying to tier the difference to encourage people to go Monday through Thursday and fill up the open capacity but it sounds like your idea of maybe even having a lunch rate for businesses, that's really where we can maybe increase the capacity of it, or the usage of it. Daniel: I think that'd be fantastic because I think Monday through Thursday you would start to see a lot more corporate opportunities. Ruegemer: A few people are going out there anyway already. Stolar: Do we want to maybe talk to the Chamber and maybe do some deal with them? Hoffman: What kind of deal? Stolar: I don't know. …Chamber members that use it might get a different rate. Work closer with them for those businesses. You know Monday through Thursday that they 11 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 would get a different rate. Okay. I guess Jerry are you filling in, any other questions on the shelter? Are you filling in for Nathan on the tree lighting? Ruegemer: I will. Stolar: Okay. 2006 TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY REPORT. Ruegemer: Just kind of an informational piece for the commission tonight. That the tree nd lighting ceremony's going to be Saturday, December 2. 5:00 at City Center Park. Certainly will be working with the Chamber again as a co-sponsor with the City on that. We're, I think we found a Santa Claus for that already this year. I think Brian Beniek is done now with that. We found his replacement so. Hoffman: Did you name Santa? Ruegemer: I'm sorry. Stolar: Please remove that from the record. It was Santa there. Ruegemer: But you know very similar to last year. It's a great event to get people out there and kind of kick off the holiday season with that. We'll certainly have refreshments and cookies and a nice big roaring bonfire for the chilled bones that night and it's a fun event. Nice and quick and we'll light up the downtown with lights and kick off the season. Stolar: Okay, thank you. Any questions on that? COMMISSION MEMBER COMMITTEE REPORTS. COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS. ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET. (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Hoffman: …so each time there's a Park and Rec Commission item on a City Council agenda, you will be mailed a copy of the agenda item. A copy of the agenda, and then if you can come down to the work session and/or the City Council meeting that evening and represent the commission, that's what this is all about and then we'll update this for, well this is 2006, excuse me. We'll update this for 2007. Stolar: Also Todd, I think my work number's wrong on there. It's actually 6566. Hoffman: 6566, thank you. Anything else that people had a chance to check? 12 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: These dates though are the, this is the 2007. Hoffman: Are they 7? Stolar: Yeah. Hoffman: Okay, thanks. Stolar: The one thing, you know I'd like to, and again it's kind of confusing because sometimes we have to go. Sometimes we don't but what I'd like to do is next year, starting next year or maybe even in the November meeting, try and have that we come back, if we are at a meeting, or were scheduled for a meeting, that we go ahead during the committee reports and provide a brief update, if we could to the commission. I think it helps us when the City Council sees that we're there in attendance at the meetings. Hoffman: Okay. There's a, if you continue flipping through the packet, there's an item on, or there's an item that Jerry put together. Talks about all fall dates of sports, so it's a good indicator of what we had going on on our fields this fall. CAA Soccer, CC United Soccer, Chapel Hill Soccer, St. Hubert's Soccer, City and YMCA Soccer, Chaska Area Football, adult softball, CAA Baseball, District 112, Hawks Baseball and Tonka Baseball so those activities were all taking place this fall and then he has the wrap up dates and that's a scheduled that's maintained to assist our park maintenance people for their take down and winterizing of those facilities so lots of activities. Chaska's talking about a water park. If you didn't notice that in the Chaska Herald and so there's at least some conversation going on in Chaska about a water park. The Highway 101 scoping study. This is, if you look at the first page which has the big Highway 101 sign. That shows you the corridor and this is a cooperative project between the County, the City and the State on studying 101 from new Highway 212 down to the Y and into Shakopee. Very complicated section of road. Tight turns. A lot of problems and it goes into discussing all the different issues. Public meetings and, that are being held and will continue to be held. These are difficult, difficult issues because you are going to affect certain homeowners and neighborhoods and they're just going to, understandably, not appreciate that. Become very vocal and it's very difficult to you know come to some sort of agreement on how you're going to improve these roadways. Daniel: What is the reasoning behind improving them? Is it because of the concern traffic? Hoffman: Yeah. Once you take Highway 212 and you put all that traffic onto that little windy road, it doesn't meet current safety standards for curves. This way or this way and you're just going to have increased traffic. Increased accidents and so you need to improve that road section to get a reasonable section of roadway that can meet a 45 or 40 miles per hour speedway limits and get some improvements into it. All the way down the hill. 13 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Daniel: Boy, that's too bad. Stolar: So when I was at the City Council meeting on this, what are the impacts that you see potentially on some of the proposals on parks and open space in that area? Hoffman: Well Bandimere will most likely end up with a large wall. They'll have a large retaining wall there on the bottom of the, it's either that or you grade back and lose a ballfield and part of your parking lot. So those will be talked about. Beyond that, there'll be some impact down in the Y on state and federal lands, down on the bottom part. And then trail planning will be affected because there might be some section of trails that are currently in place that will be abandoned and another section of trails that are constructed along with the new roadway. So it's something we want to keep the commission involved in, or at least up to date on. And if you're at all interested in those meetings, let me know and I'll get you on the mailing list. Then Lori Haak and I attended carp school for a day and this is a direct result of the University of Minnesota and a gentleman called Peter Sorenson is doing a study. Multi-year study on Lake Susan, Riley Marsh and Lake, excuse me, Lake Riley, Rice Marsh Lake and Lake Susan on how carp operate in our ecosystems in our lakes. Where they spawn. Where they go in the winter. What can you do to effectively control them because up until now nothing has worked. You remove a whole lot of carp by netting them, or you poison the whole lake and they come right back. They spawn profusely. 2 million, millions of eggs. Millions of little baby carp and they're 5 inches long by the end of the summer and nothing can eat them. And then they're very fast growers. They very effective at their feeding mechanisms. They went into carp, all the way back where they things split off from another fish species 29 million years ago and they have been evolving to be the strongest aquatic animal for 29 million years and they're tough to get rid of. They're very strong. Very adaptable and it's their feeding mechanism that makes them so just resilient. When they suck in that big mouth full of mud, they pin it all against the roof of their mouth and they have a whole series of taste buds which then, the rest of the muscle relaxes except for where the food is at. Those muscles retain. Then they blow out the mud and eat the food. And they just keep going. Sucking in mud. Pin it up against the roof of their mouth. Blow out the mud and eat their food. And then their teeth are behind these organs and that's what grinds it up and eats it. Very highly effective feeders, so when they're going into the mud, they're not after the plants but they're up rooting the plants and so they just muck up the bottom. And so they're one aquatic animal that takes a relatively nice environment. Turns it into a mud hole, which they happen to enjoy. This is great. But then the rest of the fish don't enjoy it. You know, you don't enjoy it as a lake or lake users because now you have a mud hole, and so what they're thinking they're going to do is either create a pheromone that attracts the females into a trap so you can take the females out of the population. If you take 10% of the females out of the population on an annual basis, you drive the population down very rapidly. Or create or you have daughterless spawning and so, you again work with these carp when they're spawning. They don't have any females and you drive the population down. So that's what they're looking at doing, and they're studying it right here in Minnesota and they just had this carp symposium where people came from all over the world to study Chanhassen carp. 14 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: Is this the one on page 6 where it says 450,000 pounds of carp from Lake Ann. Is that our? Hoffman: That's not our Lake Ann. Stolar: I was going to say. That's a lot of carp. Daniel: How big is Lake Ann? Hoffman: 110 acres. Scharfenberg: Can you explain electrofishing to us? Hoffman: Yeah, electrofishing, they just put the electrodes in and turn the power on. And they net them, and they do come back alive. That's a big one but they've got lots of tagged carp out there that they can take with their radio and transmitter and find where they're at so they'll be out there on the ice this winter walking around, finding out, and these carp, they all congregate in the center of the lake each winter so they just all go out into the deep water and they lay there. Hibernate all winter long and then spring comes and they head off. They travel up and down the creek way and as a part of the 101 GAP project they're going to put in some highly specialized carp barriers. Some, hopefully some imaging systems where they can videotape these migrations and where these carp are going. And again, these people are convinced, they now isolated some of the pheromones that these carp are attracted to for spawning and feeding and all these other things and they’re convinced that's the only way you're going to get to these populations. You can physically remove them. It creates this large void in the ecosystem which they sense and they say oh, look it. A large void in our ecosystem. We're going to create a bunch more carp to fill it up and they do it very effectively. When the ecosystem is full, they say oh. Our ecosystem is full. We don't need a lot more carp and so they create less offspring and they have less carp so these are smart animals. Common carp school. But the feeding mechanism, that's the key. Stolar: Thank you. Hoffman: It's a lot for it. It's been in our local paper. These people are highly specialized in what they do and they'd be happy to come in and give their presentation. Maybe some time next summer they could give a presentation. Stolar: That'd be good. Is their study going to be done then? Hoffman: 2-3 years. Stolar: 2-3 years? So yeah, maybe we meet them out at one of the lakes. Hoffman: Meet their out at Lake Susan. 15 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: Good. Anything else? Atkins: I have one question. I was just curious what happened with the stage at City Center Park. Hoffman: It was postponed. Atkins: Yeah. Hoffman: Bids came in too high and so we're going to combine it with the, we wanted originally to combine it with the Veterans Memorial. Our veterans monument and the veterans monument kind of stalled out for some financing reasons and donations that needed to be secured. Now that's been taken care of and so we will open that project up again in the spring. Take bids on both of the projects at once so we only have to tear the park up one more time. th Atkins: It won't be ready by the 4 of July will it? Hoffman: I hope so. Daniel: Is that right out here Todd? Hoffman: Yep, right out here. Scharfenberg: I had one other thing too. Todd, could you just give us, just a brief summary of how it went this year at the skate park with the attendant, and is it our intention to hire an attendant back for next year? Hoffman: We had a single attendant there this year and it seemed to help, at least on an antidotal evidence type of format. We did still have some minor incidents at the park, even after the attendant was on duty, but he wasn't there at those times. But we did talk to a lot of kids that said oh, now you're baby sitting us and so you know we can't show up and for this reason or that reason. So they seem to be a sense out there that now the park was being watched and so we had to watch what we were doing. Next year we have it funded for $17,000 for 540 or 524 hours of attendants time. Three different attendants and so the council reviewed that last night at the budget meeting and they seemed to be in support of the program. This year it was unbudgeted and I think we probably invested about $4,000-$5,000 in salaries. It's one of the largest increases in our budget for next year is that $17,000 for that skate park attendant program. Daniel: Did you see a decrease in attendance at all? I mean I saw, I know that we have the reports that came through based off of their. Hoffman: I think we saw a decrease. The skate park fluctuates and there is quiet…close at quiet times and times when it's busier but overall I don't think we saw a significant decrease. 16 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: Okay. Any other questions? Comments? Hoffman: The one last thing I forgot about carp is, these carp are nothing compared to the flying carp that are coming. Have you watched this? They're coming. Up the river system and if those flying carp get to Minnesota, and get to the river systems, it's a dramatic, dramatic impact. You can, all recreational traffic stops. Stolar: Really? Hoffman: Unless you want to get hit in the head by a fish. You can't water ski. You can't jet ski. Recreational boating is a problem. Scharfenberg: Well aren't they in the Mississippi already? Hoffman: Yep, they're in the Mississippi and they're coming up, yeah. Dozens of people have been killed by these fish in the southern U.S., so you're boating along at 30-40 miles an hour and a 20 pound fish jumps up in the air and smacks you in the head. Murphy: Because I've seen flying fish in Florida, is that? Hoffman: These are grass carp. That's what they are. They're grass carp and they believe that the motor, the vibration from the motor closely resembles the hum or the vibration of their predators, seals in their native lands and so when these motors go through, the fish just start jumping. And they are very nasty fish and removal is again just, there's no, in their home countries they're, people eat them. They eat them all the time. They're constantly out there fishing for them. In the United States, people won't eat these things. And so they're trying to net them and trap them and they've got nothing to do with them and they can't turn them into fertilizer. They're trying to come up with machinery or a factory that will take care of them, and so they're really problematic and so watch for it. You'll see it in the news. Fish Up Minnesota. It's a major economic factor, on the down side. Flying carp. Daniel: Takes out the St. Croix. Hoffman: It will take out the St. Croix. Daniel: I mean as far as recreational. That's a shame. Hoffman: Shut it down. Yeah, they're an unbelievable animal. They had footage, and there was a gentleman there who, is now almost a small business starting out of this. They're shooting these things out of the air and so they take bows and they shoot these things out of the air, and they shot in a 4 hour video sequence, they shot 500 of them but 500 more landed in the boat. 500 fish jumping in your boat. They wear helmets as they're motoring along shooting these fish. That's a significant issue if it shows up. That's all I have on carp. 17 Park and Rec Commission - October 24, 2006 Stolar: Can I have a motion for adjournment. Scharfenberg moved, Spizale seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Rec Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 18