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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPark and Recreation Advisory Commission Minutes 04-13-2000MINUTES OF THE PARK AND RECREATION ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING April 13, 2000 Page 15 Present: Chair Anderson, Commissioners Fiemann, Singer, Musliner, Meyer, Thompson, Wahl; staff Bisek, Blank and Pederson 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Anderson called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. in the Medicine Lake Room. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Commissioner Singer moved and Commissioner Meyer seconded a motion to approve the March minutes. Motion carried. 3. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS a. Athletic Associations. None were present. b. Staff Mary talked about the Primavera art fair event, which is Friday evening, April 14 and Saturday, April 15. She invited everyone to attend, but if they weren't able to, she encouraged them to spend a few minutes viewing the art pieces this evening, as they have already been put on display in the hallway of city hall. Cindy Anderson has returned to work from her maternity leave. Patrice Atkinson, who was Cindy's temporary replacement, will be leaving April 14. The Senior Premiere is May 15 at the Plymouth Creek Center. Three hundred seats have been reserved for the luncheon. Another luncheon is scheduled for June 15th, and registrations are already coming in for that. Mary stated that summer registration has been very heavy, with over 900 hits to the Touch Tone System the first day it was available. Some programs filled by 8 a.m. We are at a point where we need more part-time staff, because of the increasing interest in our programs. We have the History Fest coming up in mid—May. A school flyer advertising the History Fest is going out to the schools next week. Over 1,600 kids are registered for the first two days of the History Fest, which is the Voyager Encampment. Staff is still waiting to move into Plymouth Creek Center. The building is very near completion, and staff hopes to move in the first part of next week. The first wedding reception is scheduled there for May 5th Staff is struggling with finding enough lifeguards for our beaches. We've bumped up our salary range for lifeguards and water safety instructors by almost $2. We have enough staff right now to do a bare bones beach schedule. Wayzata will get their lifeguards this year from Minnetonka Community Education. At least one 18 yr. old guard must be on PRAC Minutes/April 2000 Page 16 duty with guards who are under age 18. We're only serving about 30% of the people needing swimming lessons during the school year, due to limited staff This has caused frustration for the residents, as well as for staff Commissioner Musliner asked about the status of the youth coffee house. Mary said we've been hoping that the youth council would take the lead on that. Regina Callies, our intern, will come and speak at the May meeting on that topic. One of the first events at the Plymouth Creek Center will be a town forum run by area teens. It's scheduled for April 27. Some of our staff will attend the youth town forum. They will talk about the coffee house at that time. The ice center is busier than it's ever been, also, said Director Blank. This weekend is a major tournament that goes for four days. The figure skating show is May 12-14. The reigning National Junior Pairs Champions from Michigan will be in the show. c. Others. There were no other presentations. 4. PAST COUNCIL ACTION a. Plymouth Creek Center rental rates. Approved. b. Approved crossing agreements between City and Soo Line Railroad. Three Ponds Park crossing will be put in by the Railroad and will be in the same location that people are currently using to access that park. c. Approved Ice Center rental rates. The new rates become effective Sept. 1, 2000. The rate will go from $130 to $140 per hour during primetime. For rentals after 10 p.m., rates will go to $120 per hour. Summer rate will stay at $110 per hour. These rates are being increased due to additional staff being hired and salary increases. d. Reject bid for Ice Center dehumidification system. Engineers estimated this work at 175,000. Bid came in at $250,000. In the meantime, some of the mold problems will be taken care of by removing contaminated drywall. The brown and black in the ice is coming up from the sand base underneath. The Olympic rink will be shut down next month to fix this problem. 5. UNFINISHED BUSINESS a. Comprehensive Plan update. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on the comprehensive plan. Director Blank said that about 30 people attended. Some were from the housing coalition asking for additional low income housing. The CIP budget was also approved by the Planning Commission. This is moving forward to the City Council on April 25. The City Manager added $750,000 to open space in the years 2001, 2002, and 2003. The Council is still talking about a November election for more money for open space. PRAC Minutes/April 2000 Page 17 Director Blank talked about the implementation strategies of the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Chapter (Chapter 8) of the Comprehensive Plan. He briefly discussed each of the strategies: Reviewing park regulations will be on an upcoming agenda and may involve a number of meetings. Examples of regulations include: alcohol in the parks, leash laws for dogs, bonfires, docks on Medicine Lake, closing times for parks, whether or not golfing in parks is permitted, driving vehicles on trails, etc. Implementing improvements to neighborhood parks as outlined in Table 8-4 of the Parks and Recreation chapter. Monitoring and responding to the need for ball fields, sand volleyball courts, gyms and hockey rinks. Developing the 10th playfield. Two sites have been identified. The Begin farmstead might be a possibility. It lies north of the RR tracks, west of Vicksburg. Expansion of the Elm Creek Playfield. This would involve the purchase of additional land. The protection of natural areas using a variety of means. Managing city owned open spaces by developing a management plan, e.g., Ferndale North. Staff will be drafting ideas for this. Identifying and acquiring property for an ecological and recreational trail corridor running from the Wayzata High School over to Mud Lake Park and the fiiture North Hennepin Regional Trail. This will be called the Northwest Greenway. Development of a living farm. Staff has met with the owners of a piece of property that could be considered for this. Consider special use parks, i.e., bark park, miniature golf, outdoor pool, art in the park, etc. Continue to monitor the golf course situation and take action if necessary to preserve at least one public 18—hole facility. Completing gaps in some of the major trails, such as Northwest Boulevard/Xenium Lane trail, North Hennepin Regional trail, Vicksburg Lane trail, County Road 101 trail, Luce Line/South Medicine Lake trail, County Road 9/County Road 24 trail, and Plymouth Creek trail. Trail crossing improvements — across Hwy. 55 at three or four key locations is an example of this. Pavement management study. We have 75 miles of trail. Staff will earmark some of the worst trails for repair. We will contract with our own engineering dept. to do this. Determine locations where two sided trails would be appropriate. Recreation programs. There will be major growth in senior programs. Continue to offer special events. The Rotary Club is interested in working with the City on Plymouth on Parade. They want to bring in lots more groups to participate. Volunteers. This program will continue to grow. Historical preservation of some key sites as determined by the City with the help of the Plymouth Historical Society. Continue to collaborate with other agencies to provide a wide variety of programs to the residents. PRAC Minutes/April 2000 Page 18 Director Blank stated that these implementation strategies will be the new working guide for the park commission. b. Plymouth Creek Center update. The contract date for completion is April 14, but facility will not be ready by then. The building passed electrical inspection today and Director Blank expects that it will pass the fire inspection as well. We expect to open the week of April 24. Some furniture is arriving tomorrow, and phones are being installed tomorrow. Early next week, staff should be able to move over there. The last 5% of project is causing 25% of the pain. The Grand Opening is Saturday, June -1 . The bubble is coming down on April 29. Draft schedule of staff and who will be doing what for the grand opening was distributed. During the six months that the bubble was up it turned a profit for the City, with revenues exceeding expenses. A variety of groups used the facility: rugby, soccer, lacrosse, softball, baseball, walkers and a marching band. Commissioner Wahl asked if the high winds recently had caused any problems. Director Blank said no, but that heavy wet snow and high winds could cause major problems if the inside pressure wasn't adjusted for it. On the top of the dome is a wind sensor that gives information to a computer, however, we go on manual mode during high wind situations. In the future, if we know the winds will be 50 mph or more, we will call off any event going on in the dome as a safety precaution. Our dome is lower in the landscape, also, which helps protect it somewhat from high winds. c. Millennium Garden update. We had three designs submitted by Brauer, Energy Scapes, and Clausen & Assoc. Each firm was interviewed for an hour and each plan contained different features. One plan was finally chosen for its use of natural features, with some aspects of another plan to be included. Commissioner Musliner said it was difficult to narrow it down, because there were things about each plan that she liked. One plan included a labyrinth, one included a maze. The plan that was chosen includes a waterfall, which will be nice because people standing on the deck at the Plymouth Creek Center will be able to hear it, as well as see it. We now need to put together a picture and written description of what we want, so a consultant can come up with specifications for bidding purposes. We've sold somewhere between 50 and 60 bricks. An ad was placed in the Plymouth News for someone to be a fundraiser for the garden. A gentleman who's been doing this for 35 years volunteered for the job. He will be the coach for the fund raisers. He will lay out the campaign, but won't actually do any fundraising himself In June we will begin the corporate giving campaign. There will be a sign on site that will designate that it's the future site of the Millennium Garden. Kathleen Thompson taped a segment that will be on cable 12 about the garden. The City received a call a few weeks ago from Hedberg Aggregate. They do a training every year on building waterfalls. They approached us about using our amphitheater as the training site, They will provide all the materials and build a waterfall that will become a permanent feature in the amphitheater. PRAC Minutes/April 2000 Page 19 6. NEW BUSINESS a. Discuss annual park tour. This is usually a kickoff for deciding what parks need attention. This helps when planning the capital improvement program. Director Blank is interested in visiting some other cities and seeing what they have. Maple Grove and Brooklyn Park will have some skate parks opening this summer. Commissioner Singer and Commissioner Meyer would like to see Plymouth parks. A water park is one of the special use parks listed in the comprehensive plan. This is something that probably will be requested in the future. If the water quality at our beaches cannot be improved, residents may want something else, like a water park. Commissioner Fiemann and Chair Anderson would like to tour outside the city. June and August were mentioned as possible months for going on a tour. Staff will put together a list of some possible places to visit and possible dates. Director Blank will get together with Commissioners Singer and Meyer to take them on a more comprehensive tour of Plymouth parks. 7. COMMISSION PRESENTATION None. 8. STAFF COMMUNICATION The City Council and staff will be meeting with the anonymous donor about the stage at the amphitheater. The donor will give the money to the Civic League and the Civic League will then meet with a sound engineer. The donor has indicated he's willing to give $1,000,000 toward this facility. We'd like the donor to consider giving $200,000 to an arts trust fiind, rather than putting all of it into the stage stricture. Director Blank said we may want to consider giving our amphitheater a new name, because the term amphitheater gives the impression of a much larger facility than what we have. Director Blank said that two 75 foot fields were proposed for Greenwood School, but the athletic association wants three smaller fields. The entire project was estimated at $400,000 to $500,000. We'll have to do it in phases. The school district will go 50/50 on the cost of a nerp pond. The athletic association has some money to contribute. Director Blank hopes that this project will move forward in the next 30 days. We can probably break ground in July. The Elm Creek Playfield building is nearing completion. We changed to a green metal roof in an attempt to prevent vandalism, plus the metal roof looks better and will last longer. Our adult softball leagues start there in May. Stadium bleachers are also up for the football field. This field will have artificial turf. Mighty Kicks money may be available for building soccer fields. This is a program similar to Mighty Ducks, which is used to fiend hockey rinks. Plymouth Soccer Association has volunteered money to help maintain Plymouth Creek fields, which are their home fields. Commissioner Thompson stated that the Plymouth Wayzata Youth Baseball Association has indicated that they will be paying to have maintenance work done on baseball fields during their tournaments. PRAC Minutes/April 2000 Page 20 Director Blank was searching the Internet and discovered some information about Bellevue, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, and decided to do a comparison of their operations vs. Plymouth's. Their population is 105,700; ours is 63,000. Their city covers 31 square miles, Plymouth is 36 square miles. Their total park acreage is 1,711; ours is 1,228, including French Park. They have six multi—use combination soccer/football fields, we have 19, plus an indoor facility. They have 23 multi—use combination softball/baseball fields, we have 31. They don't have any ice skating facilities, we have two indoor ice sheets, plus the one at Wayzata Central Middle School. They have 40 miles of trails, we have 75. They have six beaches, we have five if you also count French Park and Wayata. Per capita, Bellevue spends 55.91 on its residents; Plymouth spends $50.90. Commissioner Fiemann asked about the Hopkins Arts Center. Director Blank said that it was built with city money, private money, foundations, school contributions, etc. The May meeting will be at the Plymouth Creek Center, with Mary presiding, because Director Blank will be on vacation in England. 9. ADJOURN The meeting adjourned at 8:35 p.m.