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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParks and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes 02-10-20221 Approved Minutes February 10, 2022 Approved Minutes Park & Recreation Advisory Commission Thursday, February 10, 2022 MEMBERS PRESENT: Vice Chair Marilyn Sunseri, Commissioners: Hannah Wegner, Vita Wilson, Allie Storti, James Kuznia MEMBERS ABSENT: Chair Tricia DeBleeckere, Commissioner Ann Hoekstra STAFF PRESENT: Director Barb Northway, Deputy Director Jennifer Tomlinson, Recreation Manager Kari Hemp, Parks & Forestry Manager Jason Goehring, Office Support Specialist Genny Layne COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVES: Council Member Jim Willis, Planning Commissioner Michael Boo CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair Marilyn Sunseri called the meeting to order at 7:00 PUBLIC FORUM PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLIC INFORMATION ANNOUNCEMENTS (3.1) Welcome New Commission Members Recreation Manager Kari Hemp welcomed new Commissioner James Kuznia and asked him to introduce himself and let us know what interests him about being on PRAC. Commissioner Kuznia stated he wanted to do something for the community. He recently retired after working for 37 years. He used the parks with his kids as they grew up and continues to walk the trails, so thought it would be good to give back a little bit. Recreation Manager Hemp also pointed out that Commissioner Kuznia has been volunteering at the Plymouth Community Center and how much that is appreciated. Vice Chair Sunseri thanked Commissioner Kuznia for joining PRAC and noted that it is a wonderful group. (3.2) Introduction of New Parks & Recreation Deputy Director Parks and Recreation Director Barb Northway introduced the new Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation, Jennifer Tomlinson. Jennifer comes to us form the city of Boise, Idaho. Jennifer served in a variety of positions since 2006 in Boise from a comprehensive planner to a parks planner to the park superintendent So she had the perfect background as the new Deputy Director. Deputy Director Tomlinson stated she is excited to be here and has set a goal of being on every mile of trail and getting to every single park. Her background is in land use planning and then long-range planning as well as park planning, capital improvement funding and financing and construction. She worked on quite a few construction projects for the city of Boise, including building a bike skills park, skate parks, and whitewater parks. She has a lot of experience with some of those larger, more complicated projects, and love playgrounds, they're her favorite thing to do. Deputy Director Tomlinson also welcomed new Commissioner Kuznia and let the Commission know she was looking forward to working with all of them 2 Approved Minutes February 10, 2022 APPROVE AGENDA (4.1) Approve Agenda With nothing added to the agenda, Vice Chair Sunseri moved on to the Consent Agenda. Consent Agenda (5.1) Adopt proposed Park and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes Motion by Commissioner Wilson, and seconded by Commissioner Wagner recommending approval of the January 13 Park and Recreation Advisory Commission meeting minutes as written. Commissioner Kuznia abstained due to not being present at the meeting. With four other members voting in favor, the motion carried. General Business (6.1) Commissioner Information Manager Hemp presented some resources for Commissioners to review regarding PRAC, including PRAC at-a- glance, that shows meetings, duties, meeting format and contact information. Also included is an overview of voting procedures along with a card at each Commissioners place. The parliamentary cheat sheet and motions guide, along with Robert's Rules of Order were also included for reference. (6.2) Appointment of Parks and recreation Advisory Commission Chairperson and Vice Chairperson Manager Hemp stated that due to our regular Chair being absent, as well as Commissioner Hoekstra, we are going to delay our vote until the May meeting. (6.3) Approve Playground Renovation for St. Mary’s Park Director Northway introduced Jason Goehring, Parks and Forestry Manager. Manager Goehring stated that tonight staff is recommending that the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee approve the renovation plan to replace the playground at St. Mary's Park, located at 401 Forest View Lane North. We will review the process leading up to tonight, the renovation plans for the park, a few comments from our online survey, and then we're going to share the results of our neighborhood engagement process. We developed an RFP, request for proposal. We received five proposals and chose two companies to move forward after considering various things such as safety standards, play value, unique components, and then their ability to maximize the space that we have within our containers. Notifications of these renovations and invites for the open houses were mailed out to the residents who live within walking distance of the park. Invitations were also sent out on Next Door to target those who live in the neighborhood. We had a virtual open house, with an online survey where the residents could choose between their favorite colors and designs between February 1- 8th, and tonight was our in person open house from 6 to 7 p.m., and we did not have any attendees. Residents were able to choose between two colors and two designs. St. Mary's playground replacement is scheduled in the CIP, the capital improvement plan, for this coming summer 2022. We have a budget of $135,000 for that replacement. Other improvements include replacing drainage throughout the park ad culverts, we'll be doing significant asphalt work on the trails, the basketball court and the parking lot, and other improvements you can expect to see are things like additional picnic tables or benches. We've already gone through the park earlier this fall and trimmed all the trees. The playground replacement is also an opportunity for us to go through the park in its entirety and address any maintenance needs and dress the park up. Our improvements are scheduled to start June of 2022. In our comments, a lot of folks mentioned bringing their dogs to the park. They made mention of dog waystations and off leash dog areas. One interesting one was making the playground more usable in the colder months earlier in the spring. The solution to that was to make sure we have great drainage in the playground, so that way we can get 3 Approved Minutes February 10, 2022 out there right away in the spring. A lot of people mentioned the basketball court, and how there's so many basketball players in the area. We are renovating the court, will repaint the lines, touch up the hoops and the nets, so it will be nice and fresh when we're done. Here are the results from our Virtual Open House survey. We have two color schemes. And the first one was navy orange and gray, with 25 votes on our online survey. The second was paprika, tangerine, acorn, brick, brown and tan, with seven votes. So the neighborhood definitely favored the option of navy, orange and gray. The second part was the company design. We had 27 votes for the Burke playground design. So clearly a favorite throughout the neighborhood for both colors and design. I can answer any questions you may have about the project. Commissioner Vita Wilson asked if there were any notes from people when they voted? Yes, there were about 15 or so different responses. Commissioner Kuznia asked of the proposals submitted by vendors, what were the prices of each of those? Both came in at $135,000. They were identical. Director Northway stated that these vendors all are on either state contract or cooperative purchasing agreements. When they present them with a budget, they usually use the entire budget. It's not necessarily the lowest bid but instead they're under a state contract. Commissioner Wagner inquired with all the questions about dogs, if there is a dog waste site there that people refill? Manager Hemp stated when we do get the request for dog waste stations, those need to be adopted by a volunteer. So, if we had a volunteer in that neighborhood, then we would put one up there. Motion by Commissioner Wagner, and seconded by Commissioner Storti recommending approval of design option 1 and color option 1. With all members voting in favor, the motion carried. (6.4) Zachary Pickleball Construction Update Manager Goehring presented information on the new pickleball courts that will be constructed at Zachary Park. It’s in between field one and the blue picnic shelter that's just off the playground. A staff rendering was shown modeled after the Bass Lake courts, including six courts with athletic lights. We are at 30% with the construction documents, and we are working to get to the next step which would be 60%. Once we get the construction documents, then we'll be able to bid on all the different parts of this project and start construction. There are two different sections of trails coming into the pickleball courts. The one towards the north, the top trail, that's ADA accessible. The one to the south is not. There will be some elevation changes there, so we'll be looking at a small retaining wall on that side of the court between the court and the ball field fence. Another thing that we're looking at here, because we've seen the success of pickleball over at Bass Lake, is a plan for the expansion of this parking lot. And we included the construction documents for the parking lot and the expansion as part of the pickleball construction documents. It expands the parking lot to the north towards the water tower. We picked up almost 60 stalls, 59 parking spots, by adding on to the north there. Any questions on Zachary pickleball? Commissioner Kuznia asked how many trees will be removed as the parking lot is expanded and will it impact the disc golf course? One of the baskets at the disc golf course will be relocated. There are a few trees that will have to come down, but we will try to avoid that at all costs. In all, the impact will be minimal ad the effort will be well worth it. Commissioner Wilson asked if the City had ever considered a parking lot on the north side of the park? Not as part of this project. The parking lot in its current condition is very poor and needs to be reconstructed. With this project, we will be reconstructing the current parking lot and adding on to it. 4 Approved Minutes February 10, 2022 Commissioner Wagner asked if there were any concerns about traffic impacting the school across the street with adding 59 stalls? There will be some impact, but not much different from what is happening today because there is a lot of parking lot sharing between the two sites. Commissioner Wilson commended staff on remembering the parking issue because it is very busy during little league. (6.5) Plymouth Creek Playfield Parking Lot Reconstruction Update Manager Goehring presented an update on the Plymouth Creek Playfield parking lot located at 3625 Fernbrook Ln. N. The Plymouth Creek parking lot reconstruction is scheduled for this spring in the 2022 CIP. Bids just opened for the project. There are patches and cracking across the entire parking lot as it is one of our most popular parks. This project was scheduled for 2021 with a budget of 500,000. However, when we opened the bids, they came in at nearly $80,000 over our engineers estimate. Council authorized staff to reject bids and then rebid when the environment for bidding was more competitive and we could get more realistic prices. Council authorized us to do that last summer on July 27th. We did change the budget as well in the Capital Improvement Plan. It was adjusted to $800,000 for 2022. This will be funded through the Park Replacement Fund. The bid opening just happened this week on Tuesday, February 8. Final approval for this project will be on the agenda at the February 22 City Council meeting. Some of the improvements will be reconstructing the existing parking lot, reconstruct the driveway of the Historic Town Hall leading down to the Carriage House, reconstructing the trails around the Historic Town Hall, and there will be two rain gardens added as part of this project to provide drainage for the parking lot and the landscape. We have a ball field drainage plan to swale in front of one of the ball fields, as a lot of run off is happening from that ball field into the parking lot. There will also be new signs, new stripes, curb repairs, and we're also picking up some more stalls with this project. We'll add one additional handicap stall and 69 standard parking stalls. February 22 is when it goes to council and we're really hoping to start construction in May or in June this coming spring. Commissioner Kuznia commented that last time the bids came in roughly 16% over what was estimated and the City has increased the allocation this time by 60%. Is there a change of scope that goes along with it? When it was first budgeted, the scope of the project wasn't a full reconstruct like it is now. At this point we knew that we needed to budget for a full reconstruct, which means all the asphalt is totally replaced Director Northway added that the scope did change. We also added the ADA trails into historic town hall, which was not part of the scope originally but we realized since we were going to be there, the mobilization of that construction should include that and that did change the scope. So it's great improvements to the whole site. And that was one of the reasons why we rejected bids so that we could get the entire scope down there. Commissioner Wagner stated as a mom of baseball, softball players and kids who love that park she is so grateful to hear that this is coming down the pipeline. How's it going to look during the peak season for soccer, baseball, and softball. I envision construction happening when people are looking for places to park and play their game. What message can we share with others regarding that? We do have the Plymouth Community Center parking lot which connects behind the Fieldhouse to the park for additional parking. Jess Koch, our Facilities Supervisor, also works with the associations to be sure the fields are not all used at the same time during construction. Vice Chair Sunseri asked if there were a lot of bids from vendors? We got 10 bids, which was good. Commissioner Kuznia asks to see the improvements near the Historical Society. 5 Approved Minutes February 10, 2022 Per Director Northway, the trail that goes up to the front of the Historical Town Hall will be taking a different angle so that it is able to be ADA compliant. Commissioner Wagner asks how far along the PCC will be in terms of construction when this project is happening. We anticipate the building will be complete and that we will be able to get into the site in July. Commissioner Wilson asks if the disc golf course got sorted out? Last fall we went in there and analyzed the entire site, put a work plan together, and built a strategy with our team. We've started a lot of tree work in there, as we do have some trees that are infested with emerald ash borer. And we also have some other improvements to make where trimming trees and removing trees will give us a new fairway for Disc Golf. We've started that and then the plan is to really hit the ground running in the spring. (6.6) Draft 2021 Annual Report Manager Hemp presented a draft of the 2021 annual report and will present the final draft in May to review and approve. Financials are on the first page and are an estimate right now. Those will get finalized as soon as our auditors in the finance department end up closing off their books for the year. Some may have questions on our acres of land, our developed parks, and park shelter buildings. Those went down due to the Joint Powers Agreement and some of those sites that we lost this past year. That has been updated on this already. Even though we're still in COVID, we held 45 special events last year for over 31,000 participants. Public skating had almost 4000 visitors. Our volunteers is an amazing number at 2049 volunteers and a little over 25,000 hours. The Farmers Market brought in over 20,000 visitors. Our recreation programs had 2000 programs or 19,000 participants, while picnic shelter reservations increased, and we'll see a big increase in that this year with adding the Northwest Greenway site. PIC had 51 high school hockey games. We were looking at the year before and it was only 17 or 15, so that really shows a difference of when we were in COVID and now we're kind of starting to come out of that. The Yard waste site had 45,000 visitors and then the most amazing number is our city trail use. We gather this information from our trail counters, with over 454,000 trail users! Commissioner Kuznia asked about the trail counters. They are electronic trail counters on the sites that are digitally uploaded, and we can get the information on a daily or monthly basis. Vice Chair Sunseri stated she is terribly impressed with the numbers, considering COVID and with the Joint Powers Agreement. Manager Hemp sated that the next PRAC meeting is May 12 and there are several upcoming events. We have the Historical Society virtual open houses that are run on Zoom, Wednesdays from three to four. We have one each month so there's one on March 9, April 13 and May 11. We also have Primavera coming up April 22 to the 24th at the Plymouth Community Center. They're going to have a juried art exhibit, performances, and are partnering with the Plymouth Arts Council. Discover Plymouth is set for April 23 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Community Center. We'll have local businesses, community groups, and nonprofits that will be there. You can learn about city services, connect with city council, and then we'll also have a marketplace that you can shop for homemade goods and explore health and wellness opportunities. We have Kids Garage Sale May 1, when the kids come out and sell their items. And then we will have our Walk with the Mayor May 2, from 6 to 7 out at the Greenway, and that'll be our kickoff to Step To It Challenge. Ongoing, we always have K.U.B.E birthday parties, we have open skate at PIC, open gym at the PCC and then we started this year our indoor theme pool parties. I also have an update on Fire and Ice. We had almost 3000 participants there. Even though we did not have some of our vendors that we anticipated, there still was a good crowd. We found out that it worked well to have it self-directed. We had volunteers there as well, and all our staff, so it was very successful. 6 Approved Minutes February 10, 2022 Director Northway added that the PCC had some fantastic numbers in January and February. We had just short of 40,000 visitors in January. So 40,000 People came through the doors to use it as well as the field house and we had 5500 paid admissions into the K.U.B.E playground. That doesn't account for the adults that didn't pay. Our biggest day was the last Sunday of the month with 2900 people through the door. It speaks to the need that that is being fulfilled at that building. Vice Chair Sunseri stated it's just unbelievable the numbers that you're putting out there in one day. Commissioner Wagner asked for the link for the Historical Society open house. The link will be sent to Commissioners this week. Reports and Staff Recommendations Adjournment Motion by Vice Chair Sunseri, seconded by Commissioner Wagner, recommending adjournment of the Park and Recreation Advisory Commission meeting. With no objection, Vice Chair Sunseri adjourned the meeting at 7:45 p.m.