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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPark and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes 04-09-1998Minutes of the Park and Recreation Advisory Commission Meeting April 9, 1998 Page 12 Present: Chair Anderson, Commissioners Musliner, Priebe, Thompson, Wahl and Willegalle; staff Bisek, Blank, Busch and Pederson; summer intern Gross; resident Jim Carpenter Absent: Commissioner Fiemann 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Anderson called the April meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. in the Council Chambers. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A motion was made by Commissioner Willegalle and seconded by Commissioner Musliner to approve the minutes of the March meeting as presented. The motion carried with all ayes. 3. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS a. Athletic Associations. b. Staff. Mary reminded everyone of the Primavera event, and she handed out a flyer about it. There will be a fairly large display of student art this time. She also had exciting news regarding our touch tone registration. The biggest demand of the year was Tuesday April 7, and unfortunately, there was a problem with the process, so people were being hung up on. That day we did about $10,000 in mail -in registrations and $10,500 in touch tone registrations. Hennepin Parks staff came in to look at the TTR system to see if it would work for them. Eden Prairie Parks & Recreation will be coming in to look at it, too. Mary introduced Kevin Gross, our intern from St. Cloud State. He'll be with us until the end of May. He will be working on several different projects. c. Others. Jim Carpenter, 1425 Shadyview Lane, representing adult soccer attended the meeting. He is the President of the Men's Soccer League, and VP of the American Soccer Association. He has lived in Plymouth for nine years, played soccer for 22 years and coached soccer for three years. There are 100 teams in the league he is in and 2,000 players. There are two more soccer leagues in state, doubling the number playing soccer. Unlike youth, the adults are organized through many affiliations, i.e., college, work, etc. They have reached the point where they can no longer accept teams into league, because there is no place for them to play. The first question asked when they try to find place to play is how many players live or work in the particular city they have called. They get turned down, because they don't have enough players from that particular city. He wants cities to consider a method of granting field usage that is fair and equitable to all age groups, not just youth. He is asking Plymouth to reconsider how it grants fields to user groups. He understands our 50% resident policy, but feels that we already allow outsiders to play on our facilities. He thinks the adults are being discriminated against. Last year, 61 Plymouth players were in his league, alone. They pay taxes, many are professionals. PRAC Minutes/April 1998 Page 13 The average age on his team is 34. They play for the love of the sport, fitness, social reasons. They have an over 30 division and are planning to have an over 40 division soon. Some players in the league are 60 years old. He understands an indoor facility is being planned. He would like to get behind that, but he doesn't like being charged a fee to use facilities. Commissioner Thompson wanted to know how many players from his team work in Plymouth. He could not answer that. Commissioner Wahl wanted to know more about our policy. Director Blank said at least 50% of a team's roster has to live or work in Plymouth before we grant field use to them. This policy has been in place since 1980 and was approved by the City Council. Director Blank suggested a meeting between Mr. Carpenter and the Minnesota Recreation and Parks Association to address the issue on a metro -wide basis. Director Blank stated that the six new soccer fields at Elm Creek are not ready to play on. We have 300 youth soccer teams ready to play summer soccer with limited fields. We will provide fields for teams that meet the 50% criteria. Director Blank said he would like cities to work together to come up with a solution. St. Paul has only one field on which to play soccer. Plymouth has 40 fields. Mr. Carpenter said he recently attended a meeting in Nashville and found that adult soccer is organized the same way all across the country. Commissioner Priebe asked if they are totally dependent on cities providing fields, as opposed to county fields, etc. Mr. Carpenter said yes, they rely entirely on city fields. Director Blank agrees with Mr. Carpenter that adult soccer is going to continue to grow. For every kid playing baseball, two are playing soccer. Soccer is a lifetime sport, unlike football. Director Blank informed Mr. Carpenter that Plymouth would provide fields for at least five teams based on his league having 60 Plymouth players, if other cities would do the same. Commissioner Priebe asked where they play now? They play all over and are matched against teams of like ability. Mr. Carpenter said he plays in Eagan, the National Sports Center, basically all over the metro area. Commissioner Priebe suggested that the west metro teams get together and attempt to play in the west metro area. Mr. Carpenter said they have a 14 game season and he enjoys meeting these different teams from all over the metro area. The league is willing to be flexible to a certain degree and is willing to play later at night if more fields were lighted. Commissioner Willegalle discussed the popularity of all sports amongst the 30, 40 and 50 year old age brackets and how we will probably never be able to meet everyone's needs. Mr. Carpenter intends to approach other cities and keep at it until some kind of solution is reached. Chair Anderson thanked Mr. Carpenter and said that this issue would continue to be researched by city staff. Director Blank discussed our lights out policy of 10:30 p.m. in order to keep the residents happy. He is concerned that if we went much later, we would get into trouble with our neighbors. All of our facilities are surrounded by homes. Rick Busch said playing more than two games per night on a field really adds to the wear and tear of the fields. Rick has had many conversations with Mr. Carpenter. He agrees that it is a problem and hopes we can come up with a solution. In the summer there are three different organizations running youth soccer. The Plymouth Soccer Association is our major house league and they have now added a travel division. There are 196 house league teams, and 70-80% are Plymouth residents. The Wings Soccer League serves Dist. 281 and their enrollment from Plymouth is around 60%. Our fall program has 150 teams. If you total all the teams playing soccer it comes to over 500 teams year round, or about PRAC Minutes/April 1998 Page 14 6,000 kids and adults playing soccer. We will be redoing some of the fields at the old high school, etc. Adult softball operates entirely differently. Numbers are declining and doing so rather rapidly. In other communities softball is declining, also, but soccer continues to rise. There are a number of bars adding softball fields and volleyball courts. We are trying to do what we can to accommodate these adult soccer teams. We consider full time Plymouth company employees the same as residents. We do not verify rosters when teams claim they have 50% Plymouth residents. Rick agrees with Director Blank that we should get something going through MRPA on a metro -wide basis. Commissioner Priebe asked if we could convert softball fields to soccer fields, if softball is declining. Rick said we have done that in some cases. Rick said the new softball fields at Elm Creek will accommodate all of our adult softball teams. We will be using 40 fields of various sizes for soccer this summer. This is the equivalent of about 18 full size fields. Most of these are Plymouth facilities. Some are school district facilities that we maintain. Commissioner Priebe thinks we should start trying to even up field usage. Increase the number of fields for soccer by converting some softball fields, if demand is decreasing for softball. Director Blank said that youth baseball numbers are increasing, so even though we have moved adult softball to Elm Creek freeing up Zachary, it will be used by youth. There are some facilities in neighborhood parks for sports. Chair Anderson thanked everyone for their presentations. 4. PAST COUNCIL ACTION Council approved election on May 19 for fieldhouse/activity center. 5. UNFINISHED BUSINESS a. West Medicine Lake Park update. We will be the first to get sod when fields start being cut. Some signs need to be installed as well as lifeguard towers. The beach will open in June. We are not opening on Memorial Day weekend anymore. Weather is iffy and guards are hard to get. Some time in June on a Saturday morning we will schedule a ribbon cutting for this new park, said Director Blank. b. Elm Creek Playfield update. Staff is having a meeting there tomorrow to go over punch list with all the contractors. Adult softball will begin there in three weeks. Some trails still need to be paved. c. East Medicine Lake Regional Trail. As soon as asphalt plants open, the trail will be paved. d. Activity center/fieldhouse. There were three options to consider for bonding, $3.5, $4.5, and $5 million. The Council settled on $4.5 million level. Bond interest rates are so favorable right now that we can bond for under 5%, around 4.9 or 4.7. These will probably be 15 year bonds. The communications coordinator is working on a brochure that will go out with the May city newsletter informing citizens of the election. e. Develop rental policy for mobile stage. A draft policy was included in the PRAC packet. One addition is that the insurance representative wants an insurance binder put in the PRAC Minutes/April 1998 Page 15 policy. Renters of the showmobile will need a $750,000 policy naming the City as co- insured. Some organizations may have difficulty getting an insurance rider. Director Blank thinks our risk manager might be able to come up with some type of written guidelines for how to go about getting a rider. Commissioner Priebe thinks the policy needs to specify which groups may use it, so there will be no question as to who may NOT use it. Planning Commissioner Koehnen wondered why we weren't asking $700 for rent, like Robbinsdale. Director Blank believes $700 is too high for renting the showmobile. Commissioner Wahl agreed that Robbinsdale's rate is a little out of line. Commissioner Koehnen asked if we plan to have a recripocal use policy? Director Blank said we probably would not. Staff will update the draft policy with the recommended changes before PRAC gives final approval next month. 6. NEW BUSINESS a. Select date for annual park tour. Director Blank suggested having the tour the same night as a regular meeting in place of the regular meeting. June I I is the regular meeting night in June. The tour would be in lieu of the meeting. 7. COMMISSION PRESENTATION Commissioner Wahl gave a brief overview of the Open Space Committee and the work they accomplished over the course of four years. Several sites were purchased and now a plan of action for managing the open space needs to be developed. What kind of usage and how to manage/maintain these open spaces are questions that need to be resolved. All sites could stand some improvements. Mark Peterson will help define these improvements. It was agreed that the sites all need some form of management rather than being allowed to just "sit idle." Possible uses are more challenging matters to decide. It has been requested by the new high school that the site over there be improved to include trails through the woods for the track team to use, etc. Commissioner Thompson asked if this was initially presented to the residents with the understanding that no one would be "using" the open space? No replied the commission. Commissioner Priebe said he understood that the open spaces would be preserved and would not be considered the same as a typical park; no paved trails, no fences, etc. Commissioner Wahl believes that each site will probably have its own unique plan for use and management. He stated that the citizens of Plymouth paid a big chunk of money to purchase these sites and therefore they have a right to use them. He believes that woodchip trails would be appropriate and that it's okay to limit access somewhat by manipulating where people go by the placement of these woodchip trails. The high school has planted some prairie grass on the high school site but not near the open space. Director Blank explained that when the open space comes up with a use/maintenance policy, it will be forwarded to PRAC for their review. Commissioner Thompson wanted to know why we have a policy of charging adult groups to use facilities, but not youth, and would like this issue discussed at the next meeting. 8. STAFF COMM[_]NICATION PRAC Minutes/April 1998 Page 16 Director Blank said that PRAC will visit the open space sites on their park tour. Kim Koehnen wants to also visit the Little Peninsula. Director Blank said that the extended stay hotel developer has submitted a new plan, so PRAC will be discussing this again at fiiture meetings. 9. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 8:35 p.m.