The park and recreation board uh it's been properly noticed and we'll show that uh right now
members Dan Ross and Wayne Cruciella aren't here but that we do have a quorum with the three
members that we have. First order of business is to approve minutes of the previous meeting.
I'll make the motion to approve.
In the motion do we have a second?
Okay any questions about the motion? All in favor please say aye.
Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. The minutes are approved. Uh public comments and appearances.
We don't have any anyone in the public right now uh so we'll let that go. We'll move on to
chairperson's business. I do have a couple of things I want to say but I think I will
I would like to hold those until the end of the meeting. Um so we'll move on to members liaisons
business uh do either of you have something that you would like to mention or bring up at this time.
It's not required but it's an opportunity.
Okay so we'll move on to the director of parks, recreation and forestry. John you're on.
Yes we did.
Okay um first off I do want to thank Patrick for his service
with the park and rec for how long have you been on? Yeah
Well we're going to miss you and we really hope you come back as a citizen.
It looks like that may be in the work so um so but I just wanted to say thank you I always
appreciate your support over the years and your ideas. Um okay so uh we got a few things on here
that I'd like to go through. I'm connected here I don't know why I'm not.
It's uh it's coming up. It's just not I'm there we go. Okay.
Um okay um starting off with uh we'll go through the recreation update.
Our spring gymnastics have started. There will be starting in mid-April.
We do have a lot of registration that's been happening with that. It's always been a successful
program. Baseball um we've I think we are at one um one player pitch for sling pitch
and um a lot of T-ball. So we've got a lot of T-ball has been very popular. Our registration
opened up this morning um had over 7500 in revenue on registration on the first day so that's
exciting. People are catching on and um paying attention when we when we post this stuff.
Um on the pool pool update um opening day will be June 12th um we'll be filling the pool beginning
of May. That's always tricky. I can't give a date on that. Every year we do have a restoration
done on the pool basin but prior to that the groundwater has to settle enough that it's not
seeping through the cracks. Um one of the things with that pool is every winter depending on
what type of winter we have. If we have a really a lot of extreme cold and temperature changes
we often end up with um cracks in the pool and we have to bring in. It's budgeted every year that
we have uh restoration company come in and and do tuck pointing and uh fill in a lot of the cracks
and unfortunately this past year was pretty rough on it. Um pool passes did open up. I'm not sure
where we're at on those yet. Um the theater update we do have Madagascar coming up on May 1st and
2nd and then our summer production is going to be the hunchback of Notre Notre Dame and
that is going to be the last production under the recreation department. Um I'm not sure if I brought
this up in the past that we were in talks with the school. The way that it operates
um we use the school facilities. There's staff um from the school that works on our
there's a lot of overlap and back and forth so we started discussing with the school
could this be an opportunity to keep theater going and they're better suited with their staff
to keep it running and and run it with their um fund 80 to help support it. So after the summer
production theater will be shifting under the school system. Um and I'm gonna say you know that's
one of the things that we're trying to work on more is more collaboration with the school and
um I've had talks with um there I'm not sure his title but um that that runs all the outside
programs to make sure that we're not overlapping and that we're running programs you know because
we're a small community it doesn't make sense for us to compete. So that's one of the things that
you know we've looked at um it's going to be better suited to run under the school. So it's
not going away it's it's still here for the community it's just going to be run under the
school and that same goes with um the safety town program um that was also under recreation
but what it is is you're preparing kids a lot you know to be in the school so we would operate
the safety town in the school with the school resource officer. So again it's you know it's
it's better shifted under the school. Um moving on to our our park and forestry update
we um we had a very successful year on our pruning um and and removals were just wrapping up.
And the nice thing is um we were able to secure a grant this last year a DNR urban
forestry grant that helps cover a lot of the operating costs that just got done submitting
that grant um we pruned over a thousand trees um we did a lot of training in there we had some
new guys from the street department um it was really well exciting for me probably not exciting
as much for them with the pruning but um they're starting to really see the effects of of what
we're doing um you know a good case and point was that windstorm we were just talking about came
through and we had nearly 70 mile an hour winds we really only had three trees that
caused major damage and I and I think back to when I had first started here we we would when
we got storms we would get a lot of uh you're really starting to see a turn with a lot less
damage um when things are properly taken care of um so we are out stump grinding right now and
the um we'll start digging holes next week and the planting um our spring planting trees for the
street trees will be planting roughly a hundred street trees we did have some some photos of the
guys we did some pruning up at Colbach Park I mean a lot of overgrown invasives in there
um this is uh the middle pictures I'm not showing up no am I
yeah shouldn't this just be sharing my screen though
okay yeah I guess I assumed this was coming off your computer but it is but it's not actually
what you wanted right at this point well I'll see if I can I'll see if I can pull those
those up later
okay well I can I can pull up the pictures after I go through um
staff hiring update um summer staff we're getting a lot of positions coming in
um as I and I were just kind of working through the the pool staff and um where we are
where we're at on that um so I'm gonna start interviewing the seasonal positions for the pool
as early as next week the rec supervisor position to replace um Beth who has been gone for a few weeks
now we're down to two very strong candidates very happy with both it's a tough decision
but we'll be narrowing that down this week we do have an aquatics coordinator
slash head guard that's just more of a management position to help with the pool so
the good news is we're in we're in a good position with the pool it was
um you know it's a it's a very uh labor intensive uh program I guess um throughout the whole
summer so I think we have almost 40's um seasonal staff there so um the confident we're going to
have a good year there will be some some new faces but they have backgrounds in pool and um we do
have a lot of returning staff um then I can go into I'd like to go into a little bit of that
could I just I wanted to ask a couple of questions about these before we move maybe move on into
those things uh one thing on on the pool update and I'm kind of passing on a concern or a question
that was asked me by a constituent are we do we go when we before we put the stuff out the the
chairs and this kind of thing do we kind of go over those and maybe get rid of ones that are not
or maybe test them to make sure that they're yeah going to be able to carry weight and
everything like that and get rid of any that are torn and yeah we we go through and may um
I'm probably going to get a little bit more involved with that this year um I noticed last
year we did have some chairs that ended up and we did go through and we had to remove a lot of
the chairs but um we we have an opening day or a pool cleaning day with the entire staff
mid-May where we put everything out go through everything wash everything down
house all that um and then get everything set prior to our opening okay that's good and then
do we periodically kind of review I mean our staff like told you know keep an eye out for
something that might happen so you know just so that we don't have something out there that
somebody might sit down on and just yeah right to the ground or something so particularly if
they're grandparents or something like that no anyone could get you know yeah we do and I did I'll
be honest I did notice that um last year there was a few instances that I had to bring that back
to attention that you can be a little bit more stern with that for that reason so that'll be
definitely um close eye on and uh something that uh when you were talking about the pruning and
this type of thing I wanted to ask uh is that is the reason is part of that the fact that you
we get rid of all the dead stuff that's on there but also maybe thin out the canopy a little so
it doesn't catch as much wind yeah you're structurally pruning to some part of the main
thing is a lot of times they'll develop uh codominant stems um weak stems that can cause
ultimately cause failure on the tree um in wind storms whatnot um yeah it does reduce wind load
as well but um and then on top of that because of where the trees are we have to clear or raise
them clearance pruning so there's there's several approaches um and the way we went out at this year
is we in the beginning of the season we focused on structural pruning where we were able to spend
a lot of the time and we did uh about 250 trees structurally pruned then we had to shift our
focus more to clearance pruning into a lot more clearance pruning because you're not going through
the whole trees but in this instance it's finding that balance to make sure we're getting both
things done okay good thank you yes i have two questions how freak i don't know anything
of relay about pool cleaning but how frequently is the bottom of the pool cleaned especially in
the lap lanes so that should be done weekly where we have uh we've got a robot that goes in there and
is that runs at night throughout the night and okay scrubs it um and then you know depending on
um you know if there's need it is scrub too okay so i did notice last year that there was algae
build up and again that was i'll take the blame for it but that was part of what the aquatics
coordinator i was kind of leaning on they were returning it was my first time going through a
season of the pool so i need to be more involved to make sure these things are getting done because
once it gets beyond it's hard to go back right so it's something that really needs to be kept up
on and it did get a little bit too far last year and it was hard to hard to get rid of
once it's there okay the other question i have is we talked about um evaluations after like
a soccer program or swimming lessons did we ever follow up with that at all so i did i did ask and
what what i was told is that we were putting those out and getting little to no returns
um so i don't i don't know it's something i can talk with zia about if we can add that in you know
maybe um you know something that i work with with the last program manager and um she said that
you know they try to this but it failed but i i think with this new it's it's going to be community
activity supervisor is the title now um i would like to open that back up because i think
there's ways to probably do it now that are automated and a little bit easier that you
could get the feedback or maybe it was maybe it was just a form or something that people didn't
right and i don't know if it was sent by how it was managed but i think it's important that we do
that yeah i'm i'm very open to that so i i will um i will talk with the new community activity
supervisor to yeah i know now and a lot of things kind of isn't just this but i i get a text that
will ask me to evaluate something i get an email and and then i'll get reminders so i think you know
that yeah it would be a maybe i think there's probably much easier ways now that we'll get um
probably a much stronger response if it's easy for people
and is it anonymous do you know that because some people if people have a concern or
complaint they may not want i mean it's just human nature but they may not want their name
associated with yeah negative comment or constructive i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know
whenever somebody brings it up to me i i i really try to
because i mean i'll get them a lot where it's just trees and um you know things like that or
things in the park and the most part you know people are respectful about it and it's
we can't see everything so right right um yeah i'm i'm open and i want to know so yeah i i think
that's a great idea to have it um have it sent anonymous and then and then we'll we'll see and
we can evaluate what kind of returns we're getting if we're getting people we'll keep it
it i i don't think it's going to take much to do
okay um what's that i'll i'll um i'll get a little bit of a overview of the
uh let's see why okay okay that's what's going on is the presentation was overriding
everything like you said down um so uh the valley creek corridor um we've been working
with stan tech on this um this just kind of an overview and a bit of a presentation that they
gave us so i'll piece through some of this um
i'm not directly involved with all of it but i i do know a lot about it um and you know i've i've
seen actions of this creek you know from from just from working for the city for the 15 years of of
how flashy it can get in heavy rainstorms um we have made attempts over the years to to try and
you know just open these things up but with our staff i i can recall a few years back we
went in there when it was frozen with an excavator and a a crew of five for
almost a month and we cleared it out but um i think with a couple of heavy rains by the next year
you couldn't even tell we we touched anything um so it it was going to take something bigger um
and you know we we have had you know a few flooding issues um so so valley creek stems all the way
this is just a picture of uh this is about halfway between jacks and inhales trails of showing you
what happens with that um bank it you know what happens here is it just keeps undercutting and
what you're end up seeing in the future is as that keeps undercutting you're going to start having
more major events where major collapses come in and then that starts changing the whole landscape
um so um valley creek stems all the way up from birchwood hills um you know comes down through
where areas that are affected that we have i mean other than we do have sanitary sewer and and
you know other drains that come through there um but we have birchwood hills where it starts we
have anton park our community gardens whitefish park upper lake park um gunther park
and then north beach which isn't really effective but it just kind of give you a um relevance of
where this is so um some of the things that you know is happening through here is different photos
um you know they've tried with the heavy stone um heavy blocks um there it's nothing can stop
if if you've ever seen what this creek looks like after a heavy rain it's it's continuously
undercutting um the stabilization and then on top of it we've had all the
ash trees that have went down there's several willow trees that have went in there
you know it's just it's a recipe for just continued um failure on those those banks
so the main focus is going to be the ecology
funding primarily through grants um they're they're going to talk more about this at council
um you know as i said this is um i'm not i'm not leading this but um there has been
um 1.4 million so far in uh in grants um and working on the um stream design and i believe
the final stream design is is coming up um in april
so again um some of the goals uh restoration of the watershed improve water quality
better public access um and resilient to two floods
um give you an idea like um you know our culvert um we were talking about that earlier
it's there's there's no way that that that culvert can handle the amount of water that comes through
that that creek so um you know we are looking at opening that up and i've got some slides down
further um in veterans park
so there has been a lot of uh communication about this um we've we've had several uh input
from from different avenues on this um again stantex is really leading the design on it
but agencies involved um coastal management program the dnr um senator baldwin was here
um visited and was very supportive of the project
so we're always looking for different avenues and partnerships to to work with and i think
this will really open it up if it's more accessible because right now it's it's it's not very accessible
we do have the trails that go through there and the mountain bike trails but um there's a lot of
steep banks and um it's just it's not i think there's an area of opportunity for it
um it's all going to be nature based so when you look at what's down there's there's ways to
there's ways to move and utilize a lot of that down down wood and um once you you find the the
natural flow of that stream you're not going to have things as flashy and you're not going to have
as much undercutting and um you you can create that that uh the banks to withstand those heavy
heavy rain flows by opening up that um basin
this kind of gives um you know a few ideas of of how that is you recreate um
the basin that that it's not going to be is is sharp of banks
just a few more slides on that um here's some examples of you know what we have and it's a lot
a lot more aesthetic um and and healthier that you're not going to have uh these exposed pipes
for drainage um this is the Walter Street ravine probably not you can see this if you look for it
when you're when you're walking um up the creek that's that's to the west looking west i'm going
towards Walter Street um these are just some bridge ideas these are again our concept designs
um up by up by ant one you go with culvert or single span bridges
but yeah to kind of give you an example you know just the pictures on the right of it's just a
lot more attractive of
i think i have a few other pictures that i can
you should mention that we when during that open house we did have a pretty good turnout
here with a lot i thought a lot of positive comments and and some good questions you know some it was
i think in my opinion was one of the better uh presentations like that that we've had
with good feedback and um yeah um there's been a lot of planning going into this so there's just
you know a few more um slides of of the proposed areas that we're looking at um
and then you know on top of it this all kind of stems from the agricultural land at the north of
of bertuit hills and i was concerned when i first heard about that development that is starting to
gain traction um in just north of bertuit hills i can't think of the the name of it right now but
um they do have once that development goes in there's going to be a stormwater management
plan that's really going to help reduce the water feeding into valley creek
now this is you know nearly a two-mile span from there so you're still going to be collecting a
lot of water coming in um throughout here so it's still important that this gets done but
reducing a lot of water from the from the headwater um is going to really help too
i'll show i've got some other larger pictures of proposed plans down at um veterans park that i
can share with you can i interrupt for one moment so the edge of the stream where it goes into the
lake if the houses are built and they have a stormwater management plan is there any chance
that at the end there it goes into the lake it becomes more of a dry bed or more of a trickle
depending on rain so are you saying like like down when it hits the lake well in that in veterans
park where we plan on having it exposed yeah i i don't think that it's going to be a heavy flow
and it right now i mean it isn't either right if you go look at it right now like
so but if it's even reduced more because of the length of the stream might it diminish the issue
i would say that there's still there's still going to be it's more that stormwater management
is going to kick in when you have a heavy heavy rain flow that it's that you're not going to get
hit you're still getting all the same water collecting during normal periods it's during those
high storms high flashy events that it's going to reduce heavy rain but um you know how i don't know
how much water is moving through there on a regular basis okay just because it's closed and
um but i i would say that it's it's not going to be like a deep river going through there it'll be
it'll be low so to give you um an idea here um this is one of the the concept ideas of
veterans park it would be so right now if you can see my cursor over here um right now we have
this whole parking lot you know with we've got the slanted stalls here
and then we've got two-sided parking coming over here this would be reduced to a walking path
going through those two red lines would be the walking path and then we would have parking coming
out onto Lake Street at the base of the hill there would be a small gap there
um and i think this you know they're still working on this then where we do have the asphalt pad
over here that would be increased in size um because this would be opened up over here where we have
the playground um we would remove the playground then we'd be looking at adding a smaller footprint
of a playground um i've been looking at some different options for that they have some
taller slide options um it would be a smaller but you would you would still have you know close to
the same amount of amenities it would just be more of an upright piece there's some ash trees that
over here that we've been treating but they're not they're not in great shape um so we would put
them over right now they have this placed on the on top of the tent um but this is still
you know concept um plans and not a hundred percent but that's that's where i would look at
moving shifting that that playground over to um so that still allow the tents to go up um you still
have parking over here um and i think the way they had it you were at close to even or um
maybe a couple of spots lost with the change
there wouldn't be an ability or a reason why they couldn't put it like on the that top parking
map by the striped tent to the right of that where there's that big opening between the two
buildings you you couldn't put it in there about right right above there keep going a little bit
right in there yes the playground yes because the bathrooms are right there people with children
they would be away from the road they'd be away from the stream they would be away from in front of
the yacht club they would be yeah i can say i mean we have those we do have those
trees all in there um but i don't think they're i'll take a look at that um i know we have those
those conifer trees in there but um there might be a way for for that to work too
um it just seems like a safer place yeah where's the ban shell
yeah the ban shell wait oh is this the no i'm confused um
right here yeah it is yeah this is the ban shell and then we shift to the right these are the
evergreens this is the spot you're talking about yeah i'm sorry that that looked like open space
just from the the grainy sorry all of the parking um currently right through there that's all
going to be gone is that what you're saying this so this red double red line would be the new walking
path right this would all be regraded because right now you have the walking path and then you've
got a steep cut off right that goes down here so this would all be removed okay and regraded
to a gentle slope and then you'd have your walking path so then you would have
one row of parking okay all the way through that you would access from lake street got it
my understanding is that same number of parking spaces what has changed is that those 10
15 spaces that were extra long for yeah trailers that's what we will lose okay and i think they
might have said now that we might actually have two fewer parking spaces or something like that
because they were yeah there were a couple that were they were concerned about and then right where if
it comes somebody's coming down the hill and from my understanding there may be an opportunity to do
trailer parking behind the in the county parking lot which would be the same distance
because that parking lot is generally empty yeah all we can for sure it was actually i think we
counted it was like 180 feet they were both about the same distance to the marina but i'll take a
look at that space between there and see if there would be enough room
to put that in there and the reason you're doing the relocation of playground is that
I bred that yeah because that that is pretty much right over the the playground is right over the
culvert right now okay or just to the south of it okay
so what did you when you that was open yeah oh okay
okay
so yeah and you know as a yeah when do you hope to have it completed
that's going to depend on on the funding okay and where are we with funding like 50 percent
that's a good question now it's i know they're i think it's going to council next
next week i came through came through public works last didn't yeah i was voted on at public
works so i i believe it's on the agenda for for next week okay and i know i know you said
tami baldwin supports that how just like with yay good job or behind you or something yeah i don't
as i said i you know when they they came they visited i don't know yeah as far as i know that's
how it started i'm not gonna sugar going no that's okay i'm just wondering i mean is there funding
that she's working on yeah there was there were some grants that she was kind of she helped us with
yeah i think okay rob might have the rob rob rob was going to lead on this i just i wanted to bring
it to the attention of the park or just because you know it's going to be affecting one of our
parks so that's that's where i came in but um you know i'll likely be a little bit more involved
now is the park um the playground equipment able to be reused or is it seen better days it's
it's over 20 years old now oh wow okay all right so there is and once you i did we did an
inspection on it um we do full inspections we do a full inspection with our insurance every three
years but we also do staff inspections annually and um there's it's it's getting to the point where
you know some of those plastic pieces they're not replaceable either and you can't
you can't make any adjustments to playground equipment like they're very strict about that
like if uh swing fails i can't go it has to be that specific swing for that um we've had some
issues with that where i've had to take just swing sets down because i can't replace the swing
because they stop making it and you know oftentimes you know that'll be the case when something's
20 years old okay so yeah i don't think there's there's much that can be done with the playground
um and they're buried in really heavy footings so by the time you
start trying to move it you're you're almost you're better off and and they do have um the
technology with these um playgrounds is really increased so you can do a much smaller footprint
um you know and since then possibly playground has went in so this playground really doesn't get
used that heavy the main the main time that it's used is when we do have festivals or music
bring their kids down and give them a chance to play and it's it's almost i guess it's just my
opinion you know if you are watching an event at the band shell if you could have the playground
in front of you instead of behind you you know because the kids are playing back here as my
experience do remember going there and i'm like oh my god where's my kid and i find him like he's
in the slide but you need a thought is you know are they by the lake um so yeah but not over
yeah good yeah so i mean there there may be i'll look into um because i'm always open
and suggestions for these things and this is you know this has been very fluid so a lot of this is
is you know just kind of coming with these concept designs
so any other questions with with this um again this will be going to discuss more at council that
they might have a little bit more information to answer to if you come to the council but jane i
think i think that's a good question i'll make sure we get an answer to we'll ask that question at
council about uh what percentage of the funding we have now and maybe a timeline
are you done with your presentation can i do a couple follow up questions on this yeah okay
well it just it's what the things we've talked about um so you talked about a community activity
director that's a new position it's replacing a position but a new title yes okay it's replacing
the recreation program manager and has that been posted filled what's this that posted
interviewed that's the one that we're down to two candidates for okay sorry i missed that yeah
that's right i said we've narrowed down to two candidates we'll be making a decision by the
end of the week okay and then i agree with jane about the follow up on the evaluations if it's
electronic and it was previously done in paper form statistically you always get a
low response in paper yeah um and my my guess is that may have been what was going on in the past
yeah um how has i noticed that you talked about like lots of t-ball registration now that we've
gone to electronic registration they're finding the site no one's been calling about not being
able to find it because i know you gave us a demonstration on that there everyone seems to be
okay with that yeah i i don't know maybe zia i can lean on you a little bit if you've gotten
feedback um but from my gathering i haven't gotten um calls or concerns as much i was wanting and i
think that you helped me out with it but i was trying to get on the site just to gather information
about gymnastics for three-year-olds and i couldn't do it it was you just it one not pop up i couldn't
i'm just like so i finally called you um then when i went back on because it's you know you get
this message and it says click here for registration while though i couldn't even find the gymnastics
for little people i i i'm thinking i'm thinking that the website's not super easy to navigate
i i i just don't think it is maybe it was just that particular time because it won't even come up
gymnastics it went right to use sports and then there was no category for for gymnastics and younger
kids um but then when i went on it like a number of days later i was able to find it so i don't
know if it was just glitchy that day or what but but it's it's a touch frustrating yeah i i don't know
if it's i know when you you google it and we kind of went through that
once you're out of once you're in direct desk which is that do we do this as a committee or did
you do that when when did we do this we did it here yeah it was right before you came up oh okay okay
and we added some tabs to try to make it but it it's a little bit and we're a little bit limited
because rec desk is the software that we use for and we've searched all avenues of how we can make
that as user-friendly okay unless we are to change the whole platform which i could certainly look
into but that would be a process and um i i don't know we i don't think we've been getting a lot of
complaints on it from that's great or you know maybe people are stopping in too to register i
don't know if people stopping in person or we don't have a zombie site out there yet do we i mean
because i know sometimes it's hard to take old sites down no i've had i haven't had it with the
port thing but i've had a couple things where i was looking for something i found myself on a site that
wasn't really operating anymore but it's it still shows up on your searches we shouldn't and i don't
know if you've been getting any kind of because we had she said roughly $7,500 worth of registration
comes through on the first day and i don't know if you've been getting feedback on complaints or
can you maybe use the mic just in case yeah
we had two calls today but they were new they've never worked the program before so they were new
to the program and after walking them through that it was pretty simple i think they just missed a
tab or two for that and then the about the old websites that weren't active anymore we do have
a parks and rec website that is still that is still active but it's not city it's not run through the
city it was from the last time it was active for probably 2016 and because we don't have any
management rights over it we can't kill it ask them to take it down if it was obviously yeah
yeah okay but overall you feel like it's worked out better and because no are you full time with
park and recs because there's another position that's halftime or is that you i'm full time with it
so i'm here money through friday eight to four i do most of the registrations i'm at city hall so
when people do come in for in-person registrations i take them in as well okay and then but there is
another part time that's shared with senior center that's the that's the position the pool
that's the position that we're hiring for that was the program manager oh okay so the program
manager's position which is now community activity supervisor is is the title um we'll oversee the
pool um we'll be Zai's role is administrative assistant so she's handling you know all the
registration everything feedback like that program manager is going to be more involved with running
the programs um overseeing the pool and then also working with the senior center outside of the
pool hours so that that's where that and that's a part-time position that's also full time oh that's
full time but it's split among different departments got it yeah split between the senior center and
the so i have another pool question sorry to be that's okay i'm a tevby downer but when the pool
when people want to do lap swimming like i know many people like to go early in the morning and
they get there and it's closed and it's like how can we get the word out when the when the pool is
closed um i understand of course with weather that's just common sense but there've been times
where you know it's not we had two times last year that a kid overslapped that
i can see that happening in part and part of the and trust me because i used to swim a lot in the
mornings and if you build up enough courage to get yourself up and go swimming before work and you
get there so i agree with the frustration on that um we do if the temperature is below i i think
we were gonna post it that we're in conjunction with all the other area pools it's auto is
67 degrees and it was a recommendation by the by the state then we close but we'll post that
on where on our website okay on the park and back or on the website it's usually we usually
post it on social media so if you follow us on facebook and instagram we do have a pirate's
hollow page and we usually update it there do you know about that but i think for many people
they are not on you know people aren't on social media i think we need to have it in another
location as well was there i mean if they're not on social media usually this decision
happens right away so i don't know how you could get it to them i i don't i don't i mean so you
post it on i mean can you just post it on the website not part of social media that people
i don't know i'm just saying yeah you know what you know how frustrating it is no i know but i mean
it's just like how can we improve the ability to if it's if it's if it's a reason for being
too cold that we close i i don't know yeah i guess if you look on
i think social media is is probably your best bet i think we're going to get the strongest
for instant results so social media pirates hollow okay i'm trying i can't get it to come up
okay well
well anyway i so now i got it okay so now i have a couple more questions so i had asked for a budget
line it's still not included but i noticed that's still part of the charter that we're supposed to be
monitoring the budget but if we don't ever see the budget how are we to monitor so i i did talk with
mark the finance director about that and i will include that in our next one because it'll be
he doesn't he hasn't put out the first quarter budget yet i would have brought it to this one but
he posted the quarterly budget so he doesn't ever do monthly no he does it quarterly
okay okay so at the next meeting i'll i'll have it on there okay and last question for me hopefully
tonight update on the elephant slide slash sign
elephant park elephant park the slide was taken away
yeah it's done it's been refurbished it's at the shop um we'll put it we have to put our trees in
first because they'll die if i don't get them in um the elephant will forever live you know so
we will be putting it up this spring
yep
i did find pyretala wallop water park on on instagram i didn't look on i didn't look on facebook yet but
i did find it on instagram yeah and i don't know i mean maybe um
um maybe maybe we make some kind of of post that just letting letting people know in advance like
just so you know if we reach this temperature you know be prepared we'll we'll be closing the pool
especially if you know like this week is going to be especially cold reminder we close about 67
degrees yeah we could even maybe post that right the way of the lap lanes
i mean as a sign just at the entrance to the pool yeah yeah yeah and i obviously if someone
oversleep you know yeah yeah i yeah well part of the thing that
well it's it's the kids but part of the part of the um new full-time position is they're they're
going to be coming in in the mornings too so that should correct that because that was one of the
things that really bothered me i didn't like the fact that we're relying on because it was it was
tricky for me because parks opens up six thirty so i get that crew going and then i come over to the
pool so um you know i get i get all the park staff going and i come over to the pool and that happened
twice last year where i come over and oh my god nobody's here and there was some very unhappy
lap swimmers um so that's uh those are all things i'm glad that i i like really like the feedback
because it helps it helps us um adjust things um
and then lastly um we have the our our charter that will be presented at not this upcoming it's
the next council meeting um so last year i i or um no alderman gasper yeah he's sorry they
would like to have um the chair read it you will be i should be out of office by then i i could come
to that meeting just as the former chair of the but i don't know if that i i'd i'd want to run
that by the mayor and yeah i don't i don't think you can read it so
so we'd be looking for someone to read the the charter at council not actually read the whole
charter right highlight the highlights of it these were the pictures i was looking for before
it was just the forestry crew um that was part of the windstorm jackson street
and then again taking down larger ash tree with our spider lift
since since you're showing that and i promised no more questions i was mistaken
so the area in our triangle park is where we have our christmas tree our holiday tree oh yes
so that property that's just to the west of that is that private property or is that city-owned
property little of both because i was wondering all those down trees in there are we ever going to
if that's our property are we ever going to do anything we go through there on
well it's it's every every few years where it builds up we'll take stuff out of there i did have
the guys there was two larger down trees in there um and they they've got them down to the
ground at least they were both hung up maybe that's what you were seeing like there was
two that were hung up they're pretty bad we did get those on the ground time permits we'll get
those out of there um but i i would say probably every two years we go through because a lot of
those you know just end up falling but um our property kind of down by the christmas tree that's
all ours going up that hillside but then as you go up the hill it shifts into the apartments
and then everything on jacks and street side we only own about 15 feet from the sidewalks so
that's all um theirs but i did meet with a couple of residents last week and they're going to be
doing some work there to um remove some of the down trees so going up the hill to upper lake park
those the integrity of those trees it's scary because they are just really leaning yeah so
i think about three years ago we went through and and took out some of the larger cottonwoods
there's two more in there that i have scheduled to take out oh to take out yeah i've been watching
them i think your husband actually um sent me an email oh um a while back okay
yeah so subconsciously he might have said something yeah i don't know what i mean
like we um i drove up there and it's like oh my gosh a big windstorm is that actually they haven't
moved there's there's two cottonwoods that i left in there and i really like the canopy i know it's
goes over so you want but they are getting to a point where i don't it's not i wouldn't say it's
at a level of risk that i'm concerned about right now because i do watch and see if there's any
movement on that root plate behind there and they're they're solid um but i can't say nothing you
know you never know if you had three heavy days of rain and then a heavy windstorm like anything
can happen so um those are slated i've got them on the board to take down okay well i'll tell
my house back yeah so he'll he'll see they'll they'll come down i think there's there's two more
possibly a third that we'll we'll take out of there and just to just a point of interest on that is
when we did take those down a few years back there were numerous complaints i may i just you know
you can't win i i understand that and they clearly needed to come down they were dangerous yeah
yeah i was trying to find anytime we cut a tree it's like oh yeah end of the world you're trying to
find a balance and i'm definitely one obviously that um tries to preserve the the trees the best
we can and oh that's good so but but those um when it becomes a level of risk that we don't want to
take we'll we'll take them down yeah and i was just wondering what that level of risk was
you think it's pretty good pretty good yet for the most part it's not it doesn't even have me
concerned right now okay it's just the size of them okay i do have one words the question what does
concern you i have another question i want to know like the planters on the streets when do those
get planted and who i know yvonne right does she plant them is is she the person who chooses
everything to go in the planters or how does that work she we have been shifting more and more that
she's doing a little bit more of the designing she works with a nursery okay so some of them
are a little bit more shade so um yeah i just uh i think we have the designs laid out um
i think that was just wrapping up this last week so those will go in not for a little while yeah
right in right in bold yeah but once weather permits they'll okay all right
so yeah this is um i just have to have the charter up but um and it goes through the highlights
and everything so i can um provide that before the the next let me we should discuss that mary
lou would you be willing to do that to be you're the only alderman on the uh on this
committee other me so i'd be happy to be you'd be the natural one i think unless you come back as
uh well then i'm still not the chairman i'm not
is jim mccarle still on that um this his name's not listed he stepped down oh okay well that's
too which is too bad because he was very yeah very good for many years many years many years
can i just include in there that so we'll need a secretary as well for the board
because he did step down so think about that before the next meeting
do you want me out what do we need to get some people
why do we need a secretary for jim carls was a secretary oh so our board has an official
secretary compared to other boards so we need that spot needs to be filled in in addition to
the chairperson so we need a chairperson and a secretary yes correct we have and i will say jim
jim did probably the best job on minutes i mean the most thorough job on minutes of
of any committee that i've ever been involved with he was he was really very thorough he was
i used to be amazed by the amount of detail he got into those
not that i think anyone who gets the job has to be quite as thorough as he was
let's say don't count on me because i did part minutes and there there's nothing in there
okay do you want anything else john you want to go over or with us what's that so mary lu's going
to do the uh she'll do the presentation for the council at the council and but do you want to
kind of go over any other highlights or yeah i've seen this somewhat before um well this is the
same that i presented um i think uh an last meeting was was at the last meeting so i haven't changed
anything on here um prior to the council if you want to talk with me about it if you
okay we can we can go over anything but it's pretty straightforward um my understanding
the council is just looking for an overview of this and
um so what's that i i don't have anything more okay yes there's any more questions
okay so if you have any more questions here's a good time to ask just and the questions are
all fine i never feel like you have to as far as i'm concerned the the old idea the only stupid
question is the one you didn't ask you know so there's two alderman on the committee will that
will another alderman be replaced i don't know there's a it the if you look at the charter it
only requires one alderman okay but i we've i think we've had two for quite a number of years
no maybe maybe it does now position was was coming to to park and rain i don't that's you know that's
that's called and okay i haven't talked with him about it but it's you mean the person who's going
yeah i thought i i guess maybe i'm mistaken but i thought that they were automatically coming
to this you may be you may be right but it is it is Ted's call so you know he's
everyone serves it his be his um okay so we'll go to public comments and appearances and this is
your one shot and i did want to just say that i you know this is my last meeting uh with this
committee and i wanted to thank you know mary lu and jane and wane and uh dan and also uh and
we just talked about him on gem because uh for the help that they've given me over the years
i wanted to thank john for uh his uh you know his leadership and filling me in on a lot of things
in zai i think you've done a great job since you came on board and it really helped us out uh
this is a this has been kind it's kind of a fun committee to be on i am hoping that maybe i
will be able to come back to it as a citizen number but uh thanks you all and uh and like uh in the
park and recreate and the friends of park and recreation too for uh their support and uh guess
that's really all i had um any you know thank you pat for your service we really do appreciate
everything that you've given to the community and to this group here thank you thank you
all right so i guess we will look for a motion to adjourn
a motion to adjourn have a motion do i have a second
motion and seconded to adjourn all in favor say aye aye opposed