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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParks and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes 09-08-2022 1 Approved Minutes September 08, 2022 Approved Minutes Park & Recreation Advisory Commission Thursday, September 8, 2022 MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Tricia DeBleeckere, Vice Chair Vita Wilson, Commissioners: Ann Hoekstra, Marilyn Sunseri, Hannah Wegner MEMBERS ABSENT: Commissioner: James Kuznia STAFF PRESENT: Director Jennifer Tomlinson, Project Coordinator Sonya Rippe, Parks & Forestry Manager Jason Goehring, Parks & Forestry Supervisor Brian Swartzer, Office Support Specialist Genny Layne COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVES: Planning Commissioner Julie Olson CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair Vita Wilson called the meeting to order at 6:03. PUBLIC FORUM PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLIC INFORMATION ANNOUNCEMENTS (3.1) French Regional Park Master Plan Three Rivers Park District Principal Planner Ann Rexine presented the French Regional Park Master Plan. This specific project is the French Regional Park Master Plan. We started this project in March of 2020. We really got up and going in earnest fall of 2020 with some COVID friendly outdoor engagements starting Labor Day weekend of 2020. We've moved through 2021 with some focus community engagement stakeholder check ins and we spent last winter really developing the plan.The plan was issued for 30 Day public comments in August, and it will be up until September 22. Then we will solicit a resolution of support so you might see me again or you might hear from me again asking for a resolution of support that would move through your planning commission and probably your council to provide as an appendix to our plan because we do submit them to my council for approval. And we'll do that in fall after the public comment period. We recently put some infrastructure investment into the park. So, we really call this a park refresh for us. This is trying to apply our recent system plan directives which is our comp plan per se, to really better serve targeted populations within French's service area, which includes the BIPOC community members, new immigrants and refugees’ households with incomes less than $50,000, seniors over the age of 75, and folks with a range of abilities. We also really were looking to apply the Try-it Learn-it visitor experience model. That means come to our park, try something new. Maybe it inspires you to come back again or have a new experience or try a bigger Park, a state park or National Park. So, it leads to further exploration beyond French. We also wanted to make minor modifications to existing recreation offerings and infrastructure enhancements so that we can remain relevant to future generations. We do these mapping exercises with our research department at Three Rivers. This is based on real data. The core service area for French folks, half of folks are willing to drive nine miles or less to come to the park, which includes most of the city of Plymouth. And then the primary service area is 75% of the visitors that will drive up to 12 miles. That would include the whole city of Plymouth. But you see our ideal primary service area is a 15-minute drive and we currently are not meeting that expectation right now. So that tells us we need to do something a little bit different at French. We went through some significant engagement throughout the whole process, and we really looked at these buckets. Who do we want to engage, what we want to do to engage them, where we want to engage and at what points in the process do we want to engage them. We were really guided by these goals. To develop and expand partnerships and mitigate existing racial, ethnic, cultural, or linguistic barriers. We wanted to make it easy, convenient, interactive, thoughtful and valuable. And we were doing this during COVID restrictions, so we found some unique ways to engage folks. We did some virtual and in person focus group meetings. We get pop 2 Approved Minutes September 08, 2022 ups for every table, and we did this exercise that you can see with the pom-pom balls, and they put them in a bucket to tell us what they wanted to try at the park. We wanted to make sure that we're getting folks that were existing users and non-users alike. We did intercept surveys, we did three online surveys, individual conversations, we did these display boards that had QR codes that did a feedback loop to one of our surveys or you can write your message on the on the board itself. And then flyers and activities in multiple languages. So, this is what we heard. Specifically, we had two separate themes, one about offerings and the second is about park facilities. Our offerings mean a combination of all nature based educational programs, recreation opportunities and events and facilities provided by the park district. That's really what we say what we mean when we say offerings. Folks really are desiring to participate. But they just might not know about us yet. They're looking for new and relevant programming to their specific needs and wants. And our traditional communication loop to folks, we have our website, we have our fliers, that's not working for underrepresented population groups, and they're not getting the message. So, we're trying to rethink through community trusted community messengers, and just different ways of communicating our message to people and maybe our programming is different. Maybe we have more drop-in programming, maybe it's something that you don't have to register for. There are these new and innovative ways that we're trying to sort of retool and rethink the level of service that we provide. We also heard specific to infrastructure that folks are looking for Medicine Lake Beach area updates, to refresh to the visitor center, and small-scale picnic shelter needs. Folks are looking for non-reservable spaces. They're looking for those drop in spaces where they can accommodate up to 10 or 12 people or less but have shelter over them from the elements. We have those programmed into our plan, along with signage and wayfinding in multiple languages, as well as winter-based recreation. I think we all heard during COVID People are willing to embrace winter and the four seasons more so than perhaps they have before. We've really tried to think long term about winter-based sports. We have a nature exploration area. It's a 30-acre little piece of French that is completely off trail that you can go with your children and families and explore, and most people didn't even know about it. And the last two, flexible outdoor open spaces, people are looking for spaces for pickup games, places to gather, maybe kick a soccer ball around. We're not in the business of providing active play fields, but we certainly can provide open spaces for people to do those drop-in active sports. We have three goals. This first goal of the plan is really trying to focus on that, Try-it Learn-it, visitor model that I talked about at the beginning. We want to deliver an introductory programming Education and Recreation offerings for those that may be unaware, curious or beginners. We want to introduce them to nature; we want to get them exposed to nature and build their confidence so that they can grow their experiences. We want to have better communication and awareness. We want to pilot new programming and continue to improve our underrepresented community member participation in those programs. We want to hire staff that's reflective of the surrounding community and better coordinate with our external park and rec providers like you so that we do not duplicate services. The second goal is about resource protection. We spent a great deal of time talking with our natural resources management division. And we wanted to better understand how French fits into the regional system. When we think about Natural Resources Preservation. We had an opportunity to talk with the Plymouth Historical Society and the first recommendation is to establish a land acknowledgement with indigenous people. We were going to incorporate it into this plan, and it just didn't feel authentic, and it felt rushed. And we just said we will make it a goal of the plan that we will take that on as a separate initiative to really establish those authentic relationships. Our second goal is to continue the water quality best management practices. I know that we work with you folks at the City of Plymouth to monitor water quality within Medicine Lake and we do the sampling together and we manage the invasive species on the lake together with the watershed districts in the DNR. We want to manage those natural resources within the nature exploration area. And we want to continue to monitor and research wildlife species. And then the last one is a very, very long goal. What infrastructure improvements do we want to make? We want to update Park signage updates to the trail network and picnic areas that include the small scale, non-reservable shelters, the beach area, the visitor center, nature exploration area and winter area. The capital investments that we're proposing are $2.8 million and our operating budget is slated to increase by $360,000 to total over just $2 million per year operating budget. The next steps right now we have this located on our Let’s Talk. We use Let's Talk as our media engagement website. You can go there today you can go look at the plan and comment. Later this fall we're looking to submit to council for review and approval. And again, that resolution of support, and then 3 Approved Minutes September 08, 2022 subsequent board adoption, most likely before the end of the year. So just very excited about this opportunity to present to you guys tonight. This is almost three years of work that we're glad that we're at a place that we can finally put it back in front of the public for feedback. Vice Chair Wilson asks if there will be snow removal down by the lake in the winter on the walking trail? Planner Rexine stated she can't say it's going to happen this winter. It gets to a pinch point where the ski trail eventually crosses over. So, there's a there's a crossover point that we have to figure out operationally and to this point, we haven't, but we've heard from folks that want to access the beach area. Vice Chair Wilson states she did notice on the Three Rivers side that it would be helpful if mile markers were included, which encourages people to walk. Because we've been stopped at least half a dozen times by visitors to the area asking if they can walk all the way around the lake? So, I would really encourage signage, very clear signage. And my third question is, how do you monitor the BIPOC community coming into the park? Planner Rexine states that we have our own internal research department. And we do visitor intercept surveys. And we also hire at a five-year cycle, a research company who comes in and does their own independent study. We gather age, gender, race, ethnicity, and annual household income. We can determine whether we need or if we're on goal if we're overrepresented or underrepresented. So that comes from internal statistics. Vice Chair Wilson asks about the bench memorial program. Do you do anything else where you involve the public in participating in building the park, like Memorial trees or anything? I never see click here to memorialize information, or anything about it. Planner Rexine states she does feel like that is a missed opportunity. That's a good point. We do benches and memorial trees. Each month our Board recognizes all the donations. It's the first thing they do. And they say the name of the person who donated. Commissioner Hoekstra asks about the land acknowledgement. What would that look like? A formal agreement or what does that look like? Planner Rexine states we explored what that would look like on a real surface level with the Historical Society. We were talking about doing it with this project and then the Park District, who have a park district wide land acknowledgment committee and are looking at it from a park district wide approach. We have 26,000 acres that we manage, and so we didn't want to do anything that was not in step with what we would do for the park district. So, we sort of put the brakes on what that might look like, for that reason. And the fact that this project was already chugging along, and that kind of came in mid-point and it didn't feel authentic. It felt like the right thing to do, but it just didn't feel like the right time to do it. And so that's why it's a recommendation of the plan in that part of the plan. With no other questions, Chair DeBleeckere called item 3.2. (3.2) Parks & Forestry Operations Presentation Parks & Forestry Manager Jason Goehring advised that he was going to do a kind of a brief overview of our operations. Immediately following this meeting, we'll be going out to the shop for a shop tour for anybody who's interested. Parks and Forestry were responsible for operations, maintenance, and repair of over 1800 acres of parkland with over 174 miles of trails. We have over 55 parks. We have 23 full time staff seven days a week during the summer. During the summer months staff work 16 1/2 hours a day. Our seasonal fleet of employees they are the backbone to a lot of things. Full seasonal crew would be 24 employees. We didn't quite reach that this year. We are mowing 330 acres of turf. That covers 17 rectangle fields, which is a soccer field. 28 what I call triangle fields, which is either a softball field or baseball field. For those fields, we're doing things like painting the lines on or mowing. We are grooming them daily, depending on the season in the spring and early summer. We have games 4 Approved Minutes September 08, 2022 every day and we have tournaments on the weekends and ball fields are super busy. You have chalk in the lines painting the fall. It's cutting the grass doing turf management, irrigation, and drainage. We have three beaches. They're groomed twice a week. We have beaches at East Med, West Med and Parkers. This year was a great year for beaches. We had very limited geese on the beaches. At Parker's Lake, in the past, we've had a lot of weed problems out there. This year we decided to try something new. Instead of using herbicides, we had a crew come in and do a weed harvest or weed and pull and they were certified scuba guys. They came in for three days and they pulled out trailer loads of weeds out of Parkers Lake. In our parks, of course, we have shelters. When we build a playground, we make sure that we have some type of drop in shelter. St. Mary's will pop in one in there as part of the renovation this season and of course we have our rental facilities like Northwest Greenway, East Med and Parkers North Picnic Shelter. Those are little more maintenance heavy. Some of them have plumbing, electrical mechanical systems, things like that. So that's on our daily to-do lists, getting them cleaned, stocked, making sure that that they're in proper working order. So that way people who are renting them, enjoy them, and they come back. They're our customers. Speaking of our athletic spaces, not only is it just soccer and baseball, we also have football, lacrosse, tennis, pickleball, bocce ball, volleyball, and ice rinks. Both pleasure and hockey rinks are up during the winter months. Some of our projects this summer include St. Mary's and Shenandoah, the playground renovation projects. So those two playgrounds have been built for a while. They were constructed very early on in the season. At St. Mary's, we have some trail work to do and parking lot work. We'll finish up along the edges of the trails and that will be done. Shenandoah is pretty much punch list at this point. It's got some touch up seeding to do. Some other real quick projects we did, we raised some of the infield at Zachary baseball, five and six. We stripped those out, added some fill in there, and graded. That way, the water sheds off the infield. Plymouth Creek Disc Golf was a hot topic for so many people and glad to report that today the signs have all been installed. So, we've put in new baskets, half the tee boxes are new, and all new signage. We've done a lot of ash tree removals in there, a lot of tree trimming, and we recruited the disc golf league to assist us throughout this project. They were always reaching out to me looking for things to do out there, so we had them help. There's a set of timber stairs out there that needed to be backfilled. We dropped them off the material and they got to work. Plymouth Creek parking lot is pretty much wrapped up at this point it's been paved striped. The grass seed has come in pretty good. We really do so many repairs to all of our infrastructure. Whether that's the living or nonliving work maintaining all the horticulture throughout the city. That's designing beds, maintaining the beds, watering them fertilizing, weed control, and irrigation. Forestry is busy with so many trees I the City of Plymouth. Including our emerald ash borer problem, which we are tackling head on with preemptive removals. And that program has been going well. We remove a tree, we grind off the stump, and we backfill it. We keep records of how many trees we're treating. The ultimate goal is healthy urban forest in the park system. So, that is just a brief overview of what we do. I welcome any questions that you have at this time. Chair DeBleeckere asks how are the trails holding up? Manager Goehring states we are actually right in the middle of a trail inspection program. We are rating all the trails in house. We have started with the worst trails, and we have completed that section of it. We are moving to the trails that we know are better and inspecting all of them. Then we'll be able to prioritize which trails need we need to pay attention to first. APPROVE AGENDA (4.1) Approve Agenda Motion by Commissioner Hoekstra and seconded by Commissioner Sunseri recommending approval of the 5 Approved Minutes September 08, 2022 September 8 Park and Recreation Advisory Commission. With all members voting in favor, the motion carried. Consent Agenda (5.1) Adopt proposed Park and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes Motion by Commissioner Sunseri, and seconded by Vice Chair Wilson recommending approval of the June 2, 2022 Park and Recreation Advisory Commission meeting minutes as written. With all members voting in favor, the motion carried. General Business Reports and Staff Recommendations (7.1) Upcoming Events Parks & Recreation Director Jennifer Tomlinson gave a run through of upcoming events We will have a new Parks and Recreation Commissioner that will be appointed next week by the City Council. His name's John McCulloch. He's been wonderful through the interview process and is a smart guy. He's got a couple of little kiddos, so he brings a wonderful perspective to the to the commission. He will be officially appointed next week and then he'll be at our November meeting. In addition to that, this weekend, we have the Good Vibes Country Music Festival. So that's on September 11. We have sold 2500 tickets. On Monday, we're doing our Fall Plant Swap in the parking lot of the maintenance facility. On September 17, we have Plymouth on Parade. September 24 is a Public Safety 5k and Fun Run at the Northwest Greenway. And then September 25, we have Brushes on the Boardwalk, which is an event that will be at the Northwest Greenway pavilion and it's an opportunity for residents to enjoy a hands-on interactive art experience. Adjournment Motion by Vice Chair Wilson, seconded by Commissioner Sunseri, recommending adjournment of the Park and Recreation Advisory Commission meeting. With no objection, Chair DeBleeckere adjourned the meeting at 7:02 p.m.