Library Board - Regular Meeting

SPEAKER Wednesday, 02/04/2026. And please rise and join me with Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you so much. And may I have roll call, please?

Frank Schoenbeck.

Here.

D. Alkine. Here. Here.

Thank you. The commission may, at this time, take single action on any or all items listed as consent agenda items. These include acceptance of agenda and acceptance of minutes. Any member of the commission may remove any item from the consent agenda for discussion and cause a separate vote on the matter later in the agenda. May I have a motion for the approval acceptance of the agenda and minute meetings?

I'll second.

Go ahead. Oh, no.

Taking a Oh.

I move that the Parks and Recreation Commission accept the agenda as presented and approve the minutes from the 02/04/2026 regular meeting.

I'll second that.

All

right. May I have a roll call, please?

D. Alkine? Yes. Lamont Klepper?

Yes.

Felicia Madrid?

Yes. Judy Borey? Yes. Manny Vega?

Yes.

Frank Schoenbeck?

Yes.

And Heather Moeller? Yes. And the motion passes. Thank you.

All right. So we're going to have if there's any information that you would like to report on in regards to any activities, festivities that you've taken part in since December, Parks and Recreation,

no pressure.

I'll talk. I got a couple.

Bring it on.

So I attended in December, December 10, I attended the Superstition Area Land Trust dark sky meeting. I've been following that organization before I even moved to Apache Junction,

so it was really

cool to attend one of their meetings. The dark sky one was is what they were talking about was super important to me and my wife because we're from Flagstaff, and that's a huge dark sky city. So it was really interesting just kind of hearing what Apache Junction, the Parks and Rec program, is doing for the dark sky. I know we have some obstacles regarding Mesa and Phoenix being so close and it's bright. But the important thing is we look east and we see the mountain and we can see all the stars and it's dark. So I think we're doing some really cool stuff. And I'm glad to see the city's moving forward with that. I attended a local business event, the cows and coffee thing. Yes. I know everyone knew about that. That was a crazy turnout

Yes.

About our family, and they really got a sense of what the AGA community is like, for sure, real quick. It was really cool. So I just kind of gathered that maybe we'd just seen a few cows at our events,

and that will bring

a lot of

yeah.

And yeah. Then finally, I just, I spent some time at some of the parks, some mornings at Silly Mountain. I saw the Blue Star Memorial. I think that was super cool and just kind of added to the walkability of Silly Mountain. And seeing people kind of stop and read it, it's really cool. That's pretty much all I got. Yeah.

Nice.

I'd like to share I have not forgotten about the Christmas tree. And I love it, and I miss it already. So I really liked I know this is probably just me that noticed it, but I felt like the flowers match because it alternated the red and the white. And I'm not sure if it was intentional. If it wasn't intentional, we're gonna say it was. And thank you, because it just aesthetically I I found myself driving that way. And, like, if anyone was in the car, they're like, why are we going the really long way? And I'm like, I just gotta see the

tree. So

So that was absolutely intentional. Our guys, like, really thought through. Let's make it look like a candy cane. So that's why they went red and white this year.

JULIE Right.

JULIE But

I was literally like, either I'm putting too much thought into this, or there was intentionality. So I loved it.

JULIE I think the event was great for the the lighting of the tree and all that day. You know, just so many activities for families and it was great to see so many families out there enjoying. So good job, you guys.

Yep. The girls and I also attended the holiday event and got to see Santa and see the tree lighting and do the parade. So it was really fun. And I also got to get to Silly Mountain a couple times as well. So it looks good out there.

I've been going to the gym, I want to see the remodel. The repainting in there really looks great. Brightened up the place. Today, they're finishing up a countertop. And that's all a very nice upgrade. Adds to the ambiance.

I did some rock painting the first Friday of the month at the MultiGen Center. Join us. It's fabulous. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it. All right. So we're going to do the presentation and update on projects and opportunities in the parks and other service areas. And Dave Butler will start us out.

Okay. Good evening, everyone. It's been about a month, So two we have quite a few updates to go over tonight. So we're going to start at Prospector Park, where first photo is the new shade that we got installed. This is the Phase 3 playground just closest to the tennis courts. And it's massive. It is about 3,500 square feet of shade. And they look great. The color scheme kind of matches the playground equipment, and this is done, open, ready for use. This is on the north side up in phase two.

So, again, we tried to match the color scheme of the shade to the color scheme of the play equipment. And this one is slightly larger. It's like 37, 38 ish square feet of shade in two separate structures. And I mixed the photos here, so good job, Dave. So you can see there's two separate structures on the north side that actually provide all of that shade.

The cool thing is that when we did this, the company that did it actually did a study of what direction the shade should go to block the sun at the most opportune times of the day. And it's actually kind of an art piece out there too because it's not just your standard square shade structure. This is the irrigation refurbishment at Prospector Park, which is also finished. So all four of the ball fields got brand new irrigation all the way through. That irrigation system had been in place since the park was first built in the late '70s, early '80s, and had not been updated since.

We had a ton of irrigation breaks, issues, things didn't work right. And so this was one of our big capital projects this year to go in and completely retrofit all of the irrigation on the ball fields. This aerial is just of the fields one and four. We I'm sorry, two and three. And so you can kind of see all of the trenching before they move on to the next set of fields. It's a pretty big project. It did take several months, but it is now up and running and everything in that project is done as well. As Frank had mentioned, these are the new countertops at the MGC. I'm sure everybody remembered the old ones. I did not have befores of the old ones.

But this is on the senior side. This is, you know, just kind of give you an idea how big it is. And then this is the new front desk on the rec side. The old ones were just, again, twenty years old. They went in with the building. They were falling apart. And it was a better idea to replace them than it was to try to refinish them. There was no way that we could save those desks. I don't have a picture of it because it's the sewer lines at the MGC, I didn't really want to bring a picture of the sewer lines

up here.

We also have now completed recoating of our sewer lines. So we had issues in the past with breaks and holes and problems with the sewer lines. Everything except for the commercial kitchen is now either lined with epoxy or has all new PVC sewer line installed. So that was finished up just last week. The countertops, I forgot to mention, they're there today, but they are done. Hopefully by now they should be done, and we will get them back to normal tomorrow morning. The concession stand at Little League is also completed. Things are moving so fast that I can't get pictures that last me more than a day or two. But you can see that they've completely redone the exterior. There's all new roof on the building.

The interior has been completely remodeled, all new paint, all new cabinetry. There's actually cabinets next to that baseball sign now that weren't there in the past, All new fixtures, all new sinks. The entire storage area has been cleaned out and completely redone. And then also the roll up doors on both the front of the building and the rear of the building have been replaced.

Dave, is that dry rot up at the top of that, or is that stucco?

That is stucco that has fallen off. It was part of the project to replace it. Again, I try to get pictures at, like, good times. That has been fixed since we took this photo. So all of that lintel above the door has been replaced as well.

And the other thing that I have tonight that I wanted to bring was a short video of some of our larger projects. It's kind of hard to get through the size and scope of some of the things we do with just photos, so we put together a short video of some of the projects that we have been working on and where we're at in them. So I'm going start that now, then I'll obviously take questions after. And so just kind of keeping with that theme of not being able to get photos fast enough for reporting anything, that is where we're at with the pool right now. So you can see the deck has already been coated.

All of the shades are in with the exception of the existing structures. The fence has been painted. All the turf is back in place. And then they were out there this morning putting all the rest of the shades on. So those are all of the shades that were missing from the aerial. And then at the playground, all of those shades are already in. So they've been moving pretty quick down there. So that entire playground is now covered with shade. It's about 7,500 square feet of shade that covers almost the entire play area at Supervision Shadows. And that was the last thing that I had, and I'm ready to answer any questions you may have.

Well, it's just nice we have the money to do all this stuff.

It very nice, yes.

It's nice we have the leadership to get it done, too.

It is.

Well, I just want to remind everybody, we're really fortunate to be able to do the CDBG grants this year. So every bit of shade that was brought in, plus a little extra. So our bids came in underbid for once, both of them. So we had to spend every dime of it. So the city chipped in a little bit, and we were able to do other shade that wasn't planned. So all the new shade was done through grant projects. So that's pretty awesome. The

play equipment here was also

part of

So that all of the play equipment and all of the shade at SSP was done through a grant.

Fantastic. It's beautiful. It looks amazing.

Who did the video?

My team and I put the video together.

That's really a nice job. It's nice to have that perspective because

It is.

We're so used to being earthbound, we only want to be birds.

Yeah. It gives you a chance to see the full size and scope of the things that we're doing out there instead of hearing about it or even seeing a picture. It's just nice to be able to see the whole thing at once.

Well done.

In general, what's the lifespan for one of the shade structures?

So the ones that we get are, UV coated. So I think about eight years on average. Some of them at the pool we've been able to get ten years out of. It it just depends. I'd say eight to ten years.

But of the shade itself?

Shade

itself? The itself? Those structures of the pool have been there for twenty years.

The structure will last the lifetime of the park.

And so replacing the shade itself is not inexpensive, but it's not, know, I always hundreds think of thousands

of Arizona is brutal. And I feel like every as I get older, every summer is hotter than the previous ones.

So I was like,

I can't handle it. How long can you be out there? They look fantastic alone. I love the way that the pool looks, too. Yeah. Yeah. That's

nice. Nice color scheme on the pool. It looks really nice. Doesn't look as old as it is, that's for sure. Yeah. Is that a new structure, the small structure at the Superstition Shadows? The one to the right there?

To the right, that is the new two to five structure. Oh, Yep, brand new.

And then just a question about aquatics. Because I know we had a few trees within the fencing, and I know whatever happened to them, they just didn't survive. Are there plans with Tree City USA to put any trees on the perimeter of the pool?

Inside the fencing, no, because as we convert it to artificial

Not on the inside. Yeah, I'm asking. Yeah.

On on the exterior, yeah, there is some spots that we've picked for trees. It'd just be where they would fit in around the exterior of the pool.

Got it. Okay.

Yeah. Not sure if right at the pool itself, But Arizona Sustainability Alliance actually is a project right now that we're partnering on. And we'll be adding 29 trees to Super Shadows Park and Cactus Canyon. So that project will be happening in March. So it might not be right by the pool, but it will be in that general vicinity property. Yeah. Nice.

A couple of comments from me. Just everything looks really good. The shade structures look amazing. And I was curious, like, is the grant that was used to get these shade structures up, is that something we're trying to get every year? Or what does that look like?

So the CDBG grant, one of those grants is allocated funds that the city gets, but it competes with a lot of projects in the city. Sometimes it's for sidewalks. Sometimes it's for lighting. It could be used for different things. This particular year, we chose to use it for shade. The second one so everything at Superstition Shadows was a competitive grant through CDBG also. So both of those are Arizona Department of Housing funds. Our city qualifies for that kind of a grant. So we can't count on that funding every year. And so really, the short answer is no.

We can't count on that funding every year. It is a competitive process, not just throughout the state, but within our own city. We have a lot of needs and projects. And we just haven't done one in Parks and Rec in a while. We were really fortunate to get the SSP project funding. So they really liked our project, and we're very, very fortunate to get it.

Yeah. Looks really awesome. And then on the rodeo grounds, I'm excited to obviously go to the rodeo. Know, coming up here looks, you know, absolutely amazing out there. Can you touch base on, like, the next phases? And then the one thing that really stood out to me on that video was the press box. Looks pretty old, so I'm not sure if there's anything that we can do with

that. So the the current phase one, we broke into two phases, one a and one b is what we've been calling them. So one b in March well, actually, I'm sorry, probably closer to April now, the Ramada final electro connections and then some few light poles and few other things that are going in. Hopefully, we wrap that up mid May to mid June time frame. Phase II, we actually have a section on later this evening as well. So that will be for the RCIP discussion later tonight.

At UNIDENTIFIED

the Rodeo Grounds, the sidewalks, so the vendors will be on the outside of those sidewalks, correct?

Yes. The intent was that it gives an ADA accessible path all the way around and then the vendor is set up on you said the outside of the sidewalk.

Previously, ADA was only from that east side, correct?

From the Southeast corner, yes.

Oh, southeast. Yeah. Behind, like, the pens

or whatever. Yeah. Yep.

And That's nice.

Is there a gate for ADA to go into the rodeo grounds themselves?

There is. The gate moves slightly forty, fifty feet to the south. It'll be south of that ramada pad. It's in the same general vicinity as it used to be. It just moved about 40 feet south.

Thought I saw the word grubbing. What does that mean? Did I see it? Okay.

JULIE You did, yeah, sorry. Grubbing is the process of going in and essentially just clearing the land. That's when we pull all of the native vegetation out. It's just called grubbing. It's a trade term, sorry.

I said, no, don't be sorry. I was just like, what does

that mean?

What does that mean? Okay.

I was like, what is that?

Grab a snack.

Okay. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. All right. So we're going do a presentation. And I really appreciate the pictures and the videos to compete against Jamie, because sometimes she's been

sitting here.

Looks like she brought it tonight, though. So presentation, discussion, and update on upcoming events and activities from Jamie.

I knew that there was no way to compete. And I am a competitor, but I can tell you when I know I would lose. So I have no pictures

for you tonight. She just gave you great gifts.

I just gave it all to Dave. So with all of that that we're doing, there's just no way. So good evening, Parks and Rec Commission. I am not going to take up as much time because I know that we have a lot to cover tonight. So I will briefly go through some of our how we have started off 2026.

You guys covered the 2025 pretty well with the holiday event and parade. But I will tell you and I don't know if you caught us on the news or not but Fox ten News did come out and cover our Santa Pause event that we had at Painted Sky Park. So it was any time and we didn't reach out to them. A lot of times we do. But in this event, they reached out to us.

And they wanted to come down. And so we got some great coverage of Painted Sky Park and Santa was out there taking pictures with the pups. And it was a great time. We did have a great beginning to 2026. Our most popular program, or I will say our most popular place in January, is the Multigen Center.

We welcomed all of the New Year's resolutionists back to the gym as everybody tries to get fit for one month out of the year all at the same time. Just to give you a little number of comparison, in January we saw 2,000 more entries. That's membership holders and day pass users only. We saw 2,000 more entries in the month of January compared to the month of December. I'll bring you back that February number, and we'll see where we're still trickling.

But we are hoping to keep people motivated. We do have a campaign running right now where if you attend 10 fitness classes, then you get a t shirt. You only get it. Staff won't have one. Nobody will have that shirt unless you earned it by attending 10 fitness classes during the month of February.

I think we also gave you maybe the March to get that in, too. We are also our fishing program, our full moon hikes, all completely at capacity, having to take registration now for those programs. And we will be starting off our 2026 event season. We've had some small events, but this Saturday, we kick off our Prospector Play Day featuring our annual borough run. So if you want to bring your families out to Prospector Park, we will we've done like our kite day.

So it's kind of meshed in with our kite day. We call it our Prospector Play Day. We'll have like a family bag for Frisbees and kites and things for families to be able to enjoy while they're out there. We will have a food truck. We'll have a coffee truck. And we will have donkeys out there as well. You can see them off. I believe if you really want to run and you know somebody who has a donkey that you can borrow, you can still get in on the action. If you haven't checked out our Facebook or social media lately, Polly is our new staff member. She's been great to interview, so I encourage you to go check out Jared and Polly's latest clips on our social media.

We are February 14, Valentine's Day. What better way to celebrate it than with a little two mile fun run with your favorite person and then strolling through the MultiGen Center for the wellness event. We have about 30 vendors that will be there from around the community. It also serves as our runner's pack at pickup as well. And if you don't have that membership yet maybe you're a late bloomer and you want to wait till it calms down we'll have 15% off all of our memberships on that day as well.

And then on the fifteenth is the full marathon, half marathon, eight ks and 10 ks. So we will be out in full force throughout the entire weekend down at Prospector Park working, volunteering, and all that good stuff. So if you feel left out, let me know, and I will find you either a race to run or a place to volunteer, whichever you prefer. We will catch our breath the weekend of the twenty first and relax with Tangled if you would like to come out to the movie in the park. So we just get a short breather that weekend.

And then we head into Lost Dutchman Days. While Lost Dutchman Days is ran and operated by the Superstition Mountain Promotional Corporation, we heavily support that event. And so we will be out there. The city will have a tent giving out information. But if you will go, if you happen to be there, you might see our staff out in the parking lot. Please don't run them over. And be kind. Always be kind. And great weather this month. So get out there and enjoy it.

If you know anyone who is interested in lifeguarding, it's not just for teenagers. But if you know of anybody who is interested in lifeguarding or teaching swim lessons this summer, those recruitments have opened. They are open online. Lifeguards can start at 15. And like I said, there is no age limit. If you don't know how to lifeguard but you want to learn, we offer classes. Those classes start March 16, and you can enroll through our Parks and Rec catalog. So this concludes my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

The lifeguard, you do CPR and all of that?

It's required of their part of their certification. They get a higher level training in CPR.

Right. Thank Thank you, you. All right. There's no old business for this evening. So next, we have new business and the presentation and discussion on the upcoming parks and recreation fee study. Jamie will present.

We're just going to keep right on going. So you guys do have a copy of Article four-one. This is homework, not optional homework. It is real homework. So it is time for our fee study. Now normally, Riley would be presenting this as our analyst. This will be her project. But we also have a marathon meeting tonight. We can't all be in the same place at the same time. So I'm filling in for her.

So just to give you a little bit of background information, our fees were last addressed in 2021. Chapter four-one-one, this is city code. And just to give you all newbies a little information, the city code can be found on the city's website. I'm not going to take you right to the website. I'm going to take you right to the code so you can see what it looks like.

But if you go to the city's main page, even if just you put in city code, it will take you right to all of the city code. This one in particular is Four-eleven-one, and that is parks and recs specific. And this is what you have in your hands. So this is the official code. However, we like to dress it up and make it look pretty.

And so if you go to our parks and rec web page and you were to look under our recreation fees, you will see essentially the same content. But this is more user friendly for our citizens. And it breaks down the cost a little bit more user friendly. So I did not print you guys a copy of this, but you'll know where to find it should you want to look at it. So about every five years, we review these to ensure that they're aligned with our local markets, meaning our local neighbors, what our community needs are, and if there are changes in other laws.

These fees will include our program fees, membership fees, day pass fees, reservations. If there's a dollar sign attached to it's covered under this fee research. So in 2021, just to give you a little background information of what came out of that fee study, is we added in commercial and non resident fees to our facility reservations. We slightly adjusted our activity fee ranges. So when you see a special interest program and that special interest program is set at $35 for that program, there's a range in which we can actually charge.

So if somebody came in and they said, I want to offer Julien Art Ballet at $300 a month, I can come back and say, that's out of our fee range. We can't offer it at that. So we actually adjusted our fee range to start at zero because we have a lot of free programs. That was the biggest adjustment last year. And then we really wanted to bring our field preps and our personnel fees closer to market.

They were way under market, and we wanted to make sure that they were fair. Those were the biggest points for the last fee study. They weren't all of them. Things that we are primarily looking at to concentrate for the next fee implementation, of course, is comparing our fees to our neighbors, looking at the new amenities that we will have at the rodeo grounds that we currently have never had, and how can we charge for those fees. And then also for special events, as we're getting more promoters and more usage of our parks, they are being asked to be used in ways that they haven't been asked before.

And we want to make sure that we can address those as well. Just to give you a little idea of who our neighbors are, who we look at comparatively. So we look at neighbors that are close to us and neighbors that are comparable in size. So these are our market cities. So the next steps is, in March, when I come back, we will bring back to you what we find from those market cities.

We will bring back averages. We will bring back data. Riley will definitely present that information. We're going to let you guys take that information, let it resonate with you. And then in April this is when your homework is due in April, we are asking you to share your feedback on what we presented. So if you can't be at the April Commission, you can certainly email us your homework in advance, Okay? There's you know, pass for not coming. This is your opportunity. Or maybe you think we're spot on and you don't have feedback. That's an A plus in our book.

No, I'm just joking. So please bring your feedback to us because we'd like to come back in May and present what we would like to submit to counsel for approval. So we would like to be able to come back and say, we all agree. We all think that these are fair market prices. Let's or fair market fees.

Let's move forward. We're looking not to go to counsel in the fall. It does require a public hearing, so we want to make sure that we have enough time to take it to counsel, have it posted thirty or sixty days one of those sixty days, have a public hearing, and then have it ready to be implemented with January 2027. Any questions?

Just where is it required for us to post publicly?

It's part of

So the city clerk handles all of that. So they have to post it in a paper. I mean, will be print, but it will also be online, however the paper posts it. And then we also have to post it at all of the posting locations throughout city hall. So all of those you see paper stuck in all of those display cases?

It has

to be posted there as well, and then on our website.

And it's because it's a change to the code.

Yes? JULIE Say that again. Yeah. Any public hearing has to be posted. And so, yes. And fees have to be posted with a certain amount of time frame per Arizona state law. In addition, just to give you guys also a little bit of reasoning, we have reasons sometimes that we want to look at fees. But this go around, we are required by state law to look at our fees every five years. And so 2026, this is we're required by law right now. So it's not like the city is like, oh, we want to increase our fees.

We're going to get that. And we need you guys to be educated and know that when people say, oh, the city just built a rodeo grounds, and oh, they just built new pickleball courts, we knew it. Now they want to raise our taxes or our fees. That's not the case. We are required by law to go every five years. So that's the other thing about this. And then just think about the code as our policy. And that handbook that Jamie is referring to is our administrative procedure. So that doesn't get voted on by you or counsel. That is the thing that lets us know in our office, these are all of our little guidelines. These are the things that we do. And they're not part of the code, is the main thing.

Got it. And so these will be in the 2027 budget, the fees, if they're increased, will be?

It's not really about the budget. It's about in 2027, they'll be in programs. So whenever we release new classes, they'd be a part of that. When Riley does a brand new rental starting January 1, they'd show up on somebody's receipt as a new fee. Next year, not this summer's swim lessons, if that were to happen and I'm not saying they will it'd be next summer's classes or whatever if there was a change down or up.

So it will not be happening anytime in 2026. These are fees that will change, as Jamie said, in 2027, if they change at all. And then like Jamie said, so she shared with you what are those three things. Will you just go back to those things that these are the things that we've identified that are important for us to look at. If there are some other things that you so the things that we're concentrating on, because we know we need to look at them, we have some really amazing amenities.

We have to be able to bring in some money at the rodeo grounds. We're also hearing from other folks. There might be other things we need to look at. We will also be going to city council just like this and asking them. There might be things they want us to look into. What do our market cities do in x, y, z situation? So this is that time to be able to do that, if you have other ideas.

When we get the information on the market cities, could we get their per capita income too as part of that, please?

Yeah. We can bring that to you.

Thank you.

And then do any of our neighbor cities have like a rodeo similar to ours?

They do. And we might have to stretch for that one, because not all of them. But Queen Creek has a center. Payson has I mean, Payson is not a market city, but we know that they have an active center, equestrian center. So we might have to go beyond that market just because they might not all have one. Yes, that's a great question.

Like 99.9% sure Riley's already has a so when we did the market study in the past, rodeo grounds, because there was only one, we had you'll be able to see when we share that data that there's only one market city that has it. But here are all the other ones, just so that you can see. So Scottsdale's Westworld and all of

those JULIE one down south. Yeah.

I mean, know it was five years ago, but

I remember talking a little bit.

Yeah. A good point. JULIE It used to be that nobody had a swimming pool. Like, half of them didn't have a swimming pool, almost all of them now have a swimming pool, which is exciting to be able to compare.

And like Liz said, it doesn't mean that our fees are going up. We didn't raise our membership fees last time. We didn't raise a lot of our program fees. It just gives us the ability to see where we're at and if we need to. So I don't want, again, to Liz's point, everybody coming and saying, oh, now you guys are going to charge.

We might find that we're still right at market in most of our things. But we're really under market in something. So this just gets us to get to a level playing field and say, yep, we're right where we need to be, or this is where we need to change. And in some cases, some things might go down. If the state comes and says, you can no longer charge for this type of event or this type of program, that trumps what we want to do.

JULIE: Two questions. Is that law typically put on that public when we let the public know that there's going be a public hearing, usually, I think it's on there, right?

JULIE So

again, I'm 99% sure that part of so there's an ordinance and a resolution that goes as part of the public hearing. And I'm pretty certain that Joel has as part of the whereas clause that the state requires, blah, blah, blah, some of those types of things.

Not that it's read,

but No. It's there.

And it usually will direct. It may not list it, but it will direct reference to article sections.

That's what I JULIE Yeah. Okay. I will double check,

but I'm pretty sure that it does.

And then the other thing is, what can we expect to see from the research? Like, what are some of the things that are typically covered?

So you will see lots of tables. And you'll see them broken down by the individual areas. So for example, you'll see the multi gen center memberships. And you'll see every monthly membership, six month membership, yearly membership, day pass. And you're going to see Apache Junction fees. And then you'll see the market comparator, what they charge. Then you'll see an average benchmark fee. And so you will get that data. And you will have one for each of those program areas. That makes sense.

So sometimes it's hard to put it in a table to make it make sense. But it will be in a grid form. You'll get to see what we were able to find price wise from those other marketable cities. And then you'll see an average.

Okay. And then

And then you'll also see notes. Like, so if somebody doesn't offer a six month pass, but they offer a four month like, you might see a zero, but there might be a note there as to why that they don't have that. Some cities did not offer sports, and so they would have a zero because they contract out their sports programs or whatnot. But it should be pretty clear.

Cool. And then do we know if anyone has pickleball in the market?

As in like

JULIE Because we have the pickleball courts, and we're expanding.

JULIE They all have pickleball. They all have pickleball lessons. They have beginner lessons, private lessons, intermediate lessons.

They all rent courts. They all So those reserve courts. JAMIE are one of the items that we check. So we have basketball and pickleball and tennis courts. And those will be a line item of what we charge for them. And you'll be able to see, if that city has them, what they charge for them. Same as, like Jamie JAMIE said, the softball or ball fields with

a prep, without a prep, lights, all those

See kinds lights. Anything that we charge for that we can find a comparable city that is also you'll see that. And if for some reason somebody else isn't, we'd bring that up to you and say, we're the only one that charges four. And then we could decide if I've never seen that.

So in fact, look at that list that you have. And you can pretty much assume that most of those things will be on that list. And then for the programs, it's a little tougher, because we're not going to list every program that we do. But like Jamie said, they'll usually try to pick some categories. So that way, our most popular classes are the things that are really easy to find that are most common with other cities. Everybody that has a pool does a swim lesson. It's a pretty simple thing to compare.

It's very common in parks and recreation for the catch all to be called special interest. And that could be your art classes, educational classes, health classes. Like, that's the catch all. And so we're not going to piece all that out. You're going to see probably three categories under programming. And then the catch all is special interest. And it's going to be a range. And it's going to start at zero. And it will go on up to an amount. And then we'll compare that. Is

there any

way to get shared out on the 2021 fees?

For If the you go to Legislature and look at our old meetings, it would be there, right? Or can get that to them?

We can pull the agenda item and share it with you.

Yeah. So city council member meetings and all commission meetings are stored on the city web page under their registrar. So you can go back to

But we can find it.

Yeah, we can see if we can find it.

Of like what it was. So there'll be a document that was the final adopted item. And it'll be redlined to show what the old one was and what the new one was. But those are also part of the conversation. So we had a very lengthy conversation on swim lessons, remember? And that was one of Frank's points of wanting to keep things really low. And so we'll have conversations of, we haven't changed this particular fee in twenty years, or something like that. So yeah, that would be a great thing that we

Is it the PowerPoint you're looking like, I'm sorry, I should have asked specifically what you're looking for.

Yeah, just the fees, just to have a comparison.

JAMIE Okay. So that red line document will probably be the best one for you. The other thing I just wanted to mention really quickly is that code Jamie, was that an actual So really quickly, it's all of 4.1 that is what we are looking at, though, just because there are some things and I wanted to mention it that happen in here. So how we do refunds is the counsel and you tell us. And so we also have fee categories.

So the way we treat nonprofits versus commercial versus for profit entities, the way we treat youth serving agencies, there was a time when counsel wanted us to look at that. They wanted to know why we did certain things that we did, why we treat Little League versus a different nonprofit, those kinds of things. So we'll definitely make sure that you have that as well. The main point of this is that this is our opportunity to look at all of this code. And we will also be asking counsel, are there things that they want to look at?

And so this is just our opportunity to take a look at it and determine what parts of this is policy. So these are the things that counsel makes the final decision on policy wise, and you guys get an opportunity to advise on that.

And your sheet does include all the way through fourseven, and your printed one. All

right. Thank you very much. Okay. So we're going do the discussion on the Parks and Recreation Department's CIP, which is a capital improvement plan, the proposed budget. It will be Liz and then Dave.

So we're just sharing kind of an overview of budget right now. So we are at the beginning well, we've been working on next year's budget since about October. So unfortunately, we get our budget in July to start this budget year. So our budget year is July 1 through June 30. We start our new budget year.

And then beginning in October, we have to start thinking about next budget year Because we have to submit all of our stuff in December to finance. There's a whole timeline so that we can start working on the process because it takes a long time to vet what all the departments need, what revenues we're bringing in at that point in time, what are some of the other outside factors that we have no control over are going to be on the city budget. And then we take a couple of months where all of those things are starting to get figured out. And then not until March will we start having meetings with city manager, maybe with councils one on one to ask questions, to decide what their priorities are. So we just wanted to give you just a high level view of our capital improvement projects.

So we have three categories in our budget personnel, operating budget so personnel, obviously the people that are in Parks and Rec operating budget. So it's everything we do in our day to day supplies, all of our maintenance supplies, all of the day to day stuff to make things work. And then there's the capital budget, which is all of our big projects. Dave is going to go into detail on a few of the big ones that we are going to be asking for this year. And it's important for you to go away today knowing that this doesn't mean that it's in our budget.

These are things that we have prioritized and that we, as a group, have prioritized through our strategic plan, that counsel has said is an important thing, they're part of master plans, those kinds of things. So we just wanted to add this layer that we really haven't done a lot of in the past years. This year when we did strategic plan, Frank and others had shared, what happens to phase two of things? When are we ever going to talk about what we're going do at Flatiron or what we're going do at these places? And we promised we would bring those discussions back. And so that's really what today is. I'm not going

to spend a lot of

time on this because Dave is going to talk about the bigger projects. I just wanted to share really quickly that please always try to go back to this document. I'm not going to be able to get there quickly. Hold on. Sorry.

Try to remember that this part, the facilities plan, does have a lot to do with some of the capital projects. This column are the things that, for the most part, we know we're funded for, unless they come in way over budget. So again, there's reasons why it might not happen, and we'll certainly go through those as we get closer to the end. Maybe they came in so high over budget we couldn't do it, or something changed. But pretty much all of these things are happening.

This column are the things that as of last year, or as of the beginning of this year this is next year's budget. These are the things we think we're going to do or that we wanted to do. But now we're here today. And these are what we know we have money for or that I'm sorry we think we have money for by our direction as of December. So we're going to share a few of those.

And then this future column is kind of the things that we know are coming eventually. We just don't know where they are in our five year plan. This year, for the first time, we really are working on a five year plan that our CIP program manager, Trina, she really wants departments to try to get we're trying to nail down a true five year plan that counsel sees, that they look at to adopt. You will be part of that so that you'll see more than two years. Again, try not to get too caught up on which year that's in. It's just a planning document. It's fluid. It depends on money coming in. And sometimes priorities change based on grants. All of our shade changed dramatically.

All of our lighting projects changed because we got a grant to do it all at once. So those are important things. So you might look through this at some point in time, and if you have questions on what didn't get funded. Some of these projects are not in the capital projects. I just want to share that with you. And as we get closer in March, we'll share with you what is getting funded. You're going to learn through the stages what is getting funded. And you'll start to see what in 2027 we're going to get a green light on. And so we just wanted to share the process with you. And I'm going to turn it over.

Oh, there's a couple of things there that Dave's not going to go on, but some of the other capital items. So capital is like big items, big replacement items. We have in there a couple of big ticket items like the fitness. We did cardio equipment a couple years ago. It had ran its course in life. We have selectorized equipment. So that's all the cable equipment, strength equipment that's on cabling. We've never replaced that since we opened. I think we did a fantastic job of maintaining that. We've stretched it to its limit that a city could expect.

But it's time. It's due. And so it's on the replacement list for next year. So our direction is that things that need to be replaced for safety, for the time that a warranty is done, we can put those on the list. We can put things on the list that are already part of a priority. Rodeo grounds we're going to talk about that in a little bit. Things that are wish list items, somebody can talk about it, but it might not get on the list. So those are just some of our directions right now, because there's a lot of things happening in the city right now. We have a lot of really unknowns with funds and things like that. So I just want to give you that. And I'm going to turn it over to Dave, and then you guys can ask any questions you have.

So like Liz said, we pulled some of the

sorry. My bad. My bad. I'm done.

We pulled some of the larger projects that we wanted to go over tonight that are what we're proposing for next year. So we'll start at the Rodeo Ground, so kind of touching, Manny, on what you had said earlier. And all of the pieces I'm going show you tonight, I want to remind everybody, they're the original master plan for that facility. So the master plan is the big idea, what we want to do, how we do it. But when we get into designing and actually constructing these things, they change.

So I think we shared a document where the layout of the bleachers here have already changed because of the floodplain and a few other issues. But the master plan is the overall big picture idea of what's gonna happen at these locations. So this year, phase one was all of the, you know, we went over the sidewalks, the ADA parking, a lot of the site improvement itself. Phase two for next year right now includes the announcers booth is in for next year. The check-in building, the maintenance building, and then the bleachers are the biggest items that we have proposed for next year.

The rest of what you see in here will be in a future phase three, the parking improvements, some of the warm up arena and then everything to the east of the sidewalk. So the stage and the event space is all in a future phase three. So just for next year, phase two is the bleachers, the buildings, and the announcer's booth.

Before you leave that, can you explain, though, that next year they're not going to see those things?

Yeah. So because we have so many Lost Session Days is such a marquee event for the city and then the marathon that we use out there, we won't be able to start construction until probably March. So it'll be broken up so we can still have those events, still have smaller events. It'll be just like it was this year where we had phase 1A and then paused all construction, had our big signature events, resumed construction after those events are done. So whatever we end up getting funded for at the Rodeo Grounds, we'll have a break in it to be able to have all of those events and still use the facility while we're doing construction.

Yes. And so phase two of everything everything Dave described is finishing design. This year, we will have full 100% construction drawings for all of those items. And then depending on funding and timing, we will break those up however we can do them that makes sense for the city.

JULIE And of course, department has roles to fill out there, like as far as things to do to get ready for Los Dutchman and then things to break it down after. Right?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We have we do a lot for for Los Dutchman days. It's a it's a big lift. It's a very, very big lift.

Pre and post prep. Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's that's why we need that time both before and after.

Yeah.

Because there's just so much prep and cleanup that goes into those events that we we need to have time before we open it back up to construction. The next one that's on the list is the Superstition Basin Master Plan. You might remember from earlier meetings that this is the overall master plan for the site right there on Idaho and 88. Next year, we're proposing to get full design plan. So we have a master plan.

That's what we got this year, which is what you see on screen now. And then this year, we're proposing to do the full construction documents for the site. Just to kind of zoom in, just to remind you, there's what we're calling a feature splash pad. So big marquee splash pad, restroom, Ramada. When I go back to the overall, the soccer field is on there just for a size reference.

It doesn't mean that it's going to be a soccer field. It's just there to give you an idea how big the space is. There's some few other things. There's a basketball court, putting green, disc golf course, connected walkways. It's a pretty pretty ambitious plan. The site is just over 18 acres, so it's it's pretty ambitious to try to get all of that in there. Also, considering it's a retention basin, so we have to design around that as well. I brought no. I should have done this before. Give me a second.

This, I brought just to kinda touch on some of the things. The the master plans of the rodeo grounds and the basin, they're great because they're pretty, and then you can see this amazing development after construction is done. I brought this up because this is our master irrigation plan at Prospector Park, and we're proposing Phase two of the irrigation refurbishment next year. All of what we did this year was just here in the ball fields. Everything that we are proposing next year is everything east of the ball fields.

So all of the multipurpose fields, all of Phase III, all of this big chunk of irrigation that's on this side of the park is what we're looking at next year. We have a lot of projects like this in our proposed budget, and you don't see a tangible asset afterwards, but it's things that we have to do to continue to operate the parks like we do. If we don't replace the irrigation system, we're going to continue to have issues with water. Don't want to waste water. It's just it was one of the things that we just have to do to be able to operate the park.

And I just wanted to add for Prospector. So it is one of our first parks. And as Dave was saying, so there's still debate of if there was one field here originally or two. But they were there for a little bit of time and you build irrigation. And then we did something else and added two fields.

And irrigation was added to that. And then we added some other area and added irrigation. It's all very piecemeal out here. And so this was a great opportunity to have a contract and get it all connected in two pieces in this whole thing and make sure that everything is functioning and with new, today's world irrigation components that we haven't piece milled together. So it's an ambitious project, but very, very important out there.

And just to kind of piggyback on that, like Liz was saying, some of it's 30 years old, some of it's 25 years old, some of it's 15 years old. So you just start mixing components and things like that, and that's where we run into a lot of those issues. So to be able to do two big projects and get everything up to today's standards and unified system, it's just what we need to do at this point.

Yeah. We were a much smaller city for a long time and slower growing. So we probably had to piece it together that way.

For sure. And then the last one that I have tonight is the Flatiron Park master plan, and I know that this touches on some of the things we've talked in previous meetings. Again, master plans are the big pie in the sky. They're really awesome. Like, let's put all the cool stuff on there.

We have proposed phase two of Flatiron Park for next year. And phase two generally consists of this walkway, the tree planting here, and then connecting the concrete walkway all the way around the park. As you can see just from this master plan to what's actually out in the field, the splash pad's a little bit different. The Ramada over here is a little different. So it's a good example of what starts and then what you can actually get in design and actually construct.

So this year, we're like I said, we're talking about phase two, which is, again, connecting the walkways, some minor electrical stuff on here, and then looking at possible shades and things like that. That was the last one that I had, and then we wanted to get your input if there was anything else that you wanted us to be looking at as we get these ready.

Dave, halogen, you know, the complex that's going in on the other side of Flatiron there.

Yep, just to this Right.

Is there going to be a gate from there into the park? Or is there going to be any access from halogen into Flatiron?

You know, I'm not sure. I haven't seen the plan set for that development. So I'm not sure if there's a gate that would give them access to the park.

There's really no way to get access because of the wash. So there's really no way to cut across. Is that what you're saying? But the sidewalk connects everybody. So they would just get on the sidewalk and walk right over to the park. It's literally like is that what you mean? Do you think so? Yeah. Yeah. The side you'd be surprised. The wash is pretty It's not yeah, you wouldn't want to walk through the wash. And it is a major wash way during flooding and things like that. I don't think we could do anything there. But this sidewalk is fully connected. It goes all the way down there. They're excited about having the park there. And we're excited to have them as a partner in that area. It's going to clean up and make that whole area completely different.

These pavilionstage so right now, I know the West is like a ramada, right? So what's the thought behind those two?

So I think originally, they thought we would have we'd put a permanent stage at one of these. So they always were listed as maybe being a stage or shade, whatever end up happening. But we use our stage everywhere. And we invest a lot of money in the stage we pull out. So as we started talking with our event staff, we really feel that that's functional. To build a stage is I mean, I don't think I've heard anybody say that they could do for less than 1,000,000 you know, they're like millions of dollars a million dollars. It's crazy.

And these are our original renderings of Flatiron?

These are the original ones. Yeah. And we've never gotten a new so again, the conceptual drawings, you don't go and get new conceptual drawings just because we just I mean, we just don't waste money on it, is really our real reason. And so these are just the originals. So that was the original intent. But that whole little area of Think Water, which is that little triangle by that East Pavilion stage, it was designed as an outdoor classroom or an outdoor space. So there's two huge trees there. And then it's seating so that you could have little presentations and other things there.

Anna and Elsa were there for the

whole time. Yeah. And so we really have asked the event staff, if we put a tint there I mean, or a shade, does it take away from the space that we need for all the events we're doing? We are maxing our space now. And so that's also what we're asking you. So we put in money for, if we wanted to have some type of shade, and the sidewalk connectivity. Because we think that is very important. That's what phase two is. And so we'd love your input on it. This is the time to talk about flat iron.

Those are the things that we're in phase two. That big observation deck, I'm just going to be honest with you. I wish nobody would have ever put that on there. Somebody said it was $1,000,000 at the time. It's probably $5,000,000 Wow. It's literally something that goes out across the road. That has to be $5,000,000 don't you think?

Would Maybe be surprised.

Maybe three.

JULIE It's so cool on this It is cool. But

JULIE I'd be shocked if we could build that for $5,000,000 at this And

thing is, we just have so many other needs. Yeah. I mean, if somebody wanted to give us money WOODRUFF: to build it, we would definitely not turn it away. But so that's just not on our radar, is the honest truth. And you don't even see it

in the strategic plan at all.

Yeah. I think the idea behind it is cool, just something 100%. A view of the mountain.

We think so, too. But, yeah.

It could look differently and maybe more affordable.

Maybe. Yeah.

Has there been any discussion of a playground? I'm just thinking with the residential coming in, I think that might be a need or a want.

I'm going to show you so we're going to talk in another item. I'm going to bring up the Google Map real quick. Let me zoom out of this picture. So I'll just show you on this map where Superstition Basin Park is. Dave?

Yep, I get it.

Can you do it?

Yep. Okay. When I give them the big map, I just can't

Let me

get my drop on the

Oh, dang it. You have

me too. Yeah. So

Just in relation, this is Flatiron here.

JAMES I was like, we're right

there. And then this is the Superposition Basin Park right here. So it's about BROOK: a quarter to a half mile.

Yeah. So Flatiron is supposed to be the event park. It's our downtown event center to have festivals and things. So really, the purpose of it with counsel and everybody was to have open space so that we could have Blues and Brews, our holiday event, bring things to that. So there's really not space for a playground. I'd have to look at that development. If it was designed for families, they'll have a playground in there. I don't think it did. But the proximity to this other one and I know you have to cross a couple of crosswalks. But this park JULIE is less than I mean, it's a quarter of a mile.

Give take,

Yeah. So there would be a splash pad and an amazing playground whenever all is said and done, right across the street from them.

JULIE And depending on where they live, I mean, it's not going to

be And that's the thing. So supposedly, would be lots of homes. That's where all the downtown growth is supposed to be, is that whole area wrapping around it kind of thing. So but it's a great question.

This is the enlargement of the Superposition Basin plan. So there's splash pad, playgrounds, slides, play structures planned for that park.

Do we have any idea of the total cost of our proposal here?

Are you talking about this conceptual one?

Yeah, correct.

So we're going to go to design this next year. We would use development fund money for the design, and then we will get some estimates at 30% design, 60%. Can you say what you think it is?

Just conceptually, on what we have, it's probably $10 to $12,000,000 to build the full master plan.

So think about phase stuff. So we have talked a lot about a loop around it. Maybe it's doing one portion of it or something. Maybe with all of the growth that's happening on this side of town, there'll be enough development fund money to pair it with regular city money. We don't know the answers to all of those things. But this is the next north area, because we have talked about having a splash pad someplace. And this is an area where we don't have to go and buy property. And it is central to where a lot of people live. And they can walk to it. They can get to it a little bit easier.

General guideline for constructing a full amenity park is about $1,000,000 an acre. This is slightly less because there's a lot of natural it's a retention basis, there's still a lot of natural landscaping, a lot of things that won't be fully amenitized. But the guideline is about $1,000,000 an acre to build a park.

And going back to something like we talked about, even though it doesn't seem that big, you know, all that growth that's happening east of where that retention basin is, We talked about the ten minute walk program just as But an yeah, it gives all of that over there, that growth we're having access to a park, where Flatiron does the same from the other side. I think it's nice.

And so we use that diagram at every neighborhood meeting we go to. So we're not really doing the ten minute, because that's a little hard for people. But we're doing like the one mile radius. That's a little bit more in people's mind of what they can walk. And so that's on all of our existing parks. And then we have a different one for all of our proposed facilities. And so we're really trying to share with people where we already have parks. Because I think some people think we're doing all of our efforts down south. And we do have some great efforts down south. But we have some amazing amenities, central and north.

And there's a lot of attention being put into investing and improving things that are up north as well. So that component really is what we've been trying to emphasize.

And the whole idea was just that people have close access to green space, not even just playground equipment, but just green space, right? Also, I had thought about this earlier and kind of thinking about it for Flatiron. Has there been an idea to clarify with the name that it's an event space?

I'm sorry. Can you get to that again? I messed you up. Did I close it?

No. You can. Okay. Good.

Say that again. I'm sorry.

Just said Flatiron because it has been kind of one of those things where there's a lot of push and pull there. Just maybe making it a little clearer with the name. Hey, this is Flatiron Event Park. You know what I mean? So that would

have been a really good idea, I think, at the time. We really have been conscious about that with the rodeo event center, that it's for more than just rodeos. But Flatiron was a naming thing with our Youth Advisory Council. And then council was super important. It was important to them that this was the first property in their mind that was city property. And they wanted I guess they just really wanted it to be named that because it would be a place where people could go. But that's a great point. And I think it's good to share. Keep telling people that it really is an event. We do have a lot of people that come there all throughout the day, though.

We have bikers that stop there. We have a ton of dog walkers all day long, and especially during this time of year when it's so nice out.

Yeah, I visited otherwise outside of the holiday event and kind of saw the things But that were happening I was thinking the same thing for Prospector as how it's shaping up. It's such a large park, and there's growth happening there. What defines a regional park? Because we have such a large adventure park and it's kind of like a regional space down south, is there some rebranding or thoughts on

which JULIE in our master plan, we share what we define as a regional park. And so I would just suggest going back and looking at that part. And it talks about kind of our categories of community park versus regional park. It really is size that it's kind of the bigger one for each region. So Superstune Shadows is the regional park at the time for down south, but it'll be kind of more central. That's the last of your big projects.

That's the last of the big.

I wanted just to mention so again, mentioned a little bit about CIP five year plan. Manny, I know you mentioned a little bit about landfill project. And I did look that up of when that could be happening. So the landfill, the contract for that is that they have to close by 2035. And then leading up to that, they have money that they have to give to the city a certain amount every year.

They have a contribution to basically converting it. Not all the way to the park, because it's not a lot of money. But it's a certain amount every year leading up to that date. And so we're still a ways out from that. But it is on the plan. And I haven't heard anything that it's changing. But I think in the next three or four years, we would need to be really looking at Brownsfield grants and some other things that help cities to convert those kinds of facilities. Because it's not going to take I mean, it's going to take money to convert that into something that is really a great usable space to revegetate it and all the things that would have to happen.

Yeah, I know Chandler has one.

Yeah, there's a ton of great examples out there.

Going to have a great view from up there.

There will be an amazing view.

Yes. They could do an observation the observation park.

You go. On our active transportation plan, so as development happens, there's an entire connectivity from our multiuse trail all the way around. And it connects from Silly Mountain down to the landfill, down to a siphon draw, Future Park, and wraps around. And so, I mean, it has a lot of great possibilities for anybody who's here twenty years from now. You guys get to plan those things.

You never know.

Any other questions on that? And Frank, does that kind of fulfill a little bit about what you wanted to talk about? Was there anything else that you guys wanted to talk about here? Yes, Manny?

I do have a question on the going back to Flatiron, since it's still up here. Is there any need for, like, indoor space? You know, we're looking to make it like an event center, like, first of all, is there space for it? But has anybody brought that up at all?

Jamie, have you guys heard anything like that?

I would say that we have a lot of venues, right, that are around us. But we don't get often a big need for we have the multi gen center. We've used it for large scale events. But it's not on our radar. It hasn't been, you know, heavily pressed or needed that we've heard.

Jamie and her team and some of the other people who use it, Riley, she got a great corporate sponsor, Chase, actually, who's doing our rodeo grounds. They sponsored the whole tent that was at our holiday is that right? Holiday event? Yep. At holiday event. And so sometimes we don't want to build so like it'd be millions of dollars to build a building. But if we were to rent that tent, how much was it when we rented it? $2,500

I want to say it was close to yeah, almost 3,000

About $3,000 just to rent an indoor space occasionally. So because it's more of an event space and we're not there that often, I do think the city is looking at more space as they build their expansion project. Here at City Hall Campus, they're looking at other places for indoor space. And again, we just have such small funds.

And we do have a great relationship with the school for shared facilities. So when we needed the PAC for a recital program, we could use their facilities if we needed an extra gym for our summer programs or whatnot. So we have a great IGA that we can share facility resources with them. I know it's hot in Arizona in the summer, but really nine months out of the year, our programming is outdoors and we have great spaces that we can use. And so far, the MGC has been sufficient for those larger indoor programs.

Just from a space perspective, Flatiron is a three acres three, three and a half acre site total. The whole southern section here is all retention. It really comes down to a push and pull of we would have to put a building and all of those things that we would need to do. We'd lose something else in the park as well.

Way to be practical, Dave.

Just a tight space.

And then other question. I know with the new park, it's going to be awesome. But just looking at traffic, right? Like, I'm sure this could come up down the road, but maybe like a pedestrian bridge, looking into something like that, make access a lot easier by foot? I'm not sure if that's something that's been explored.

So we are working with our Public Works Department. They are doing some road improvements for sidewalks and things like that adjacent on a couple of different sides. The city has a lot of things in the works with the state on Idaho. I think they are working on another signal light down on another section, that is adjacent to here. So I just think in that next five years, there's going to be a lot of changes to this area that we'll be working on with them.

So I think everybody's sort of looking at this whole area down here and trying to make sure that it is walkable. A lot of the residents in this area do want to be able to walk to the library or walk to the multi gen center. It is going to be challenging. Mean, there is going to be traffic there. So looking at how do people use crosswalks or are there signalized there is a signalized light pretty close to here that you can get to easily without crossing the road at a crosswalk with a signal. And so that's very GREENE: encouraging.

And then every time we do designs like this or go to design, vehicular and pedestrian access is something that we spend a lot of time on. There's circulation routes that come. With the design, have circulation patterns. How do we attract people to come the way we want them to come? How do we get cars to go the way we want them to go? So that's all part of that design process is where's the traffic going to come from and how do we get it in and out as best we can.

Is the road

let's see,

I guess it's East Of Idaho there. Is that scenic? Is that road scenic or is that Is that Winchester?

Winchester. Yeah, this road here is Winchester.

That's And it would jet end into

the But what is the road going across Winchester?

This is scenic.

That is scenic. And it won't come out to Idaho then?

It won't

It will not. Because of this large drainage structure here, we cannot go any further than we

have. Okay.

One more question for me on the Prospector Park. I know you mentioned a few times like the irrigation issues. A lot of newer parks are going to artificial turf. Has that been explored?

It is. And that's part of one of the, I'm going say, smaller projects is we are looking at removing nonfunctional turf, so things that aren't used for sports, used for play, used for those things. Artificial is kind of a hard sell in some cases just because it takes some amount of maintenance. It's extremely costly to put in. But we are looking at removing turf, possibly doing artificial in some spots, possibly doing some granite and plants and trees, just reducing the amount of square footage of turf that we do have there.

Yeah, I think gravel and trees covered is so nice and probably far less to maintain overall, like for walking paths, things Even like though it's not green space, I'd still consider it's nature. It's green space.

JAMIE You know, and I think I would just encourage you guys while you're out, if you're out at an event or whatever, to look at how people are using the space, though. So we were talking about doing it in front of the aquatic center. I think it was a great point. Jamie was bringing up, well, the kids, while they're waiting for their rides, they're sitting in the grass. And so again, if we're not going to have that, then do we have benches? Just thinking about how people use spaces when they're in our parks. And sometimes grass is really the only place they're going to get that is in a park. But is that at the cost of what is that at the And cost so I would encourage you guys all to look at that. And as we make those decisions, we just don't want to lose sight of some of that. Additionally, that artificial turf is very hot.

It is amazingly better than it ever used to be. But we have found that you still have to be conscientious of, is it going to be toddlers, Or is it going to be people who have shoes on? So if it's people with shoes and clothes on, it's probably not a big deal. But if it's toddlers, it's just thinking through some of those things. So keep those kinds of things in your mind, too. We're definitely looking through some of those things as well. But great question, because that's exactly what they're all looking for and looking at every space in that way. Anything else? All right. Thanks, you guys. We'll keep you posted on the budget and keep you informed as we go.

All right. Thank you very much. Moving along to discussion on memorial dedications in parks, including a site for former Parks and Recreation Commissioner Wayne Standage. Liz.

So I don't want to minimize this conversation, but I will this is a brief conversation. We just wanted to bring this to you guys. So those of you who didn't know Wayne Standidge, he was one of our former Parks and Rec Commission members. He was also our chair for a very long time. But he had passed away recently.

And so I just wanted to talk briefly and get some of your guys' perspective on where we might put. Judy had brought up a tree or a bench or something like that. I wanted to share a few thoughts and ideas and get your input. I wanted also to take this time so we tried to make it broad so that I could also share a couple of other things about what we are doing in general for memorial opportunities for the public overall. Thank you, Dave.

And then I want to share I'll end by sharing a little bit about our Jeff Bell. He was our former director who passed away. And next fall, we hope that that will be the time when all of our improvements at the softball complex are done, that we would be dedicating the softball complex and renaming, putting all that stuff there at the softball complex. So we'll talk a little bit more about that here in a second. So Wayne Standage, he was very involved with the multi use trail, really with anything related to BLM.

He was on a lot of our open space boards with Pinal County. He drew us many wonderful maps. He went and met with lots of people to kind of get historical map data.

I love it already.

So he was very involved with our multi use trail system. And I would say if we had some really great trailhead already, in the future we will have some. But probably our best location where most of our equestrian groups, you know, trailer and everything is here at our staging area. We have events here. I was going to let me see if I can put this guy on here.

Now, because she's looking for that, that's where the borough derby starts. So

if you

need to know directionally Yeah,

you really can't see it. Let me exit it again. There you go. So like this horse crossover is where tons of people enter here, whether it's equestrian users or hikers. And so thinking about, is there something that we could do in this area with a really nice memorial plaque? Maybe it's a tree. We just heard from the mayor that benches are a little challenging for horses and things there because people use them as a step up. So we just would have to be cautious of what kind of a bench to put there. But that could be something. So I was just curious of your guys' thoughts.

JULIE Well, this actually ties into something I was going to talk about for a future meeting. But I know we've done it in the past, but it feels like I haven't heard about it in a while. So working with our AJ Art Commission to bring art into our rodeo event center, I think that'd be amazing to have something as a focal point when you come in. So maybe the memorials can tie into that as well. And maybe we can do something that still mimics nature so the horses are scared.

JULIE So at the rodeo grounds. So yeah, we can put that on a list for future PAC stuff. They're always looking for projects and ideas. So we can certainly ask them. Actually, when we do phase two, we have to do art. It's part of the 1% or whatever. So so that'll be a great idea for that. And I think memorial stuff might be a good idea. I think our equestrian community will have a lot of ideas of who that should be.

Wayne had a really collection of saddles. He mentioned that to me at one time. And I don't know how we could tie that into memorial, but being as we are talking with horses and horse trails, just throw that into the mix. Wayne always made me feel like I sure could do a whole lot more because he did.

Right.

He did a lot more than just park and rec.

Yeah, for sure.

And his family goes way back in the community. They're some of the original settlers, I think.

Yeah, so he has shared so I think he's kind of the main reason why it's called Sheep Drive Trail, because he said that that's where they drove the sheep, through that area kind of thing. I think he's the one who started all of that with Jeff.

Yeah, I think it'd be great if something for his memorial to speak to what was his heart and soul for being so involved.

I can definitely talk to his wife about if she has some ideas in that regard.

I don't know if it's a concern for you, but for the department. Just having something that's not drawing in, I guess, someone vandalizing. That's my only concern about some of these areas. I know our rangers and public works, they're out there.

JULIE Well, mainly, that's why we kind of stick to plaques and monument signage. So again, we probably wouldn't put his saddle out there, but maybe it's incorporating it into

using JULIE It's saddle product with it.

Or using it as a model for art. There's a lot of ways you can do that. People are pretty respectful of all the art that's been installed. Like plaques, again, while they're kind of expensive to start off with, they're replaceable. Christie's done a lot of work to help us to inventory all the we had no inventory of all the things that were there before. And so she's done a ton of work to inventory everything that we have that was done before us. And so we just replace it if we have had people take something. And so, yeah, it is a concern, but it's pretty minor, minimal.

And we experience vandalism, obviously, the park. Things get broken. But generally speaking, memorials are fairly safe from vandalism. Just doesn't we don't see a lot of it.

Good idea. So like at the beginning of the staging area, like maybe like an entryway, like an arch, you know, supply that.

Yeah, That's certainly a thought. Yeah. So I will bring back some of these ideas to his wife and just kind of see what her thoughts are. And just wanted to get some of your guys' input on it and see what we could do sooner rather than later. Something that isn't as big as what we were kind of talking about with Jeff, because it feels like it's dragged on forever.

Well, even a plaque at the front of the Rodeo Event Center. Mean, just because but I don't know you

You know, it's just so hard because there's a lot of people involved with the Rodeo Center. And so, again, it's just like thinking of things that he was and he was involved with that, too. Know, there's just a lot of people that are involved with that. And so once you recognize one, it's like you have to go and recognize others. So we have folks that are very involved with the Lost Dutchman days that are memorialized there already.

Could be controversial.

Well, don't know if it's controversial, but it's maybe thinking about maybe how do

we

memorialize maybe there is a memorial at the rodeo grounds, and we put the people who, in the past or in the future past, that we want to memorialize. So I mean, that's certainly something we can think about in that entrance way.

JAMIE also think the idea is, too, like with Jeff Bell's love of sports and love of baseball, love of softball, the idea to memorialize him in the place

that he was the most incremental. And

Wayne, you know, with the Sheep Drive Trail, that was his biggest single thing.

JULIE Yeah. So then that kind of moves me to Jeff's. So as I zoom out a little bit, we were waiting on our lights to be done. And then because we were doing the irrigation project, we did not oversee this year. And obviously we're doing the irrigation, so, I didn't really want to have a major event or something like that.

We didn't want to do a major thing for Jeff in the middle of all of that. And so our thought is, right now, we've been talking with our sign guy who knows Jeff well, putting signage on the main building there for I think we're leaning towards like a Jeff Bell ball Field, Jeff Bell Softball Complex. It can't be very long because it needs to be able to fit on this sign. So we'll be working with his family to kind of decide that. But using his whole name was kind of what was suggested to me because over time, while it might be meaningful to us, there'll be people who will never know really who he is until they read maybe something that's there.

Or there's other bells, and people wouldn't know it was him versus somebody different. There's also this area here that is the flagpole. And oh, I think I can put my guy. I love that this Google image is these girls So showing up for a softball awesome. So right now, we have like a rule sign here. Maybe we'll have actual we don't have to put our rule sign there. It could be our sign for it's the Jeff. So this is still Prospector Park. And we would not be renaming the entire park. That's not part of our Jeff was very big on this commission and Jeff decided that we don't do that, that there's stipulations.

We have an entire ordinance dictating how we do that. But naming an amenity, naming a part of the park, that is different. And we voted, and our commission voted to name a part of the park after Jeff and took that to the council. And the council voted to name this part of the complex after Jeff. So in this little vicinity is where we would be doing the signage and then as well as some type of story board that shows the history of our Parks Department, starting with I mean, he was the one man show.

He literally developed he started our parks from absolutely nothing. So when we talk about our irrigation being pieced together, I'm not saying that derogatory. I'm saying he pieced it together so that way we would have these amazing facilities. And we honor that by getting it to the next step. So that storyboard would talk about his history through the thirty five years he's there. So that's kind of the update on Jeff.

That's a perfect spot there, though, I think.

Great. And you guys already kind of decided on all of that before. I just know it's been sitting without a lot of movements. I wanted to update you on that. And then the last thing I wanted to update you on is that Christie is also working on we talked about the only two memorials that we have that the public can do without bringing it and having an entire process is benches and trees.

And it has to be the process is that when they ask us, Christy starts the conversation with our parks maintenance supervisors and Dave about usually a person has a place they want it to be, and we determine whether or not it's possible. So is a bench even possible at the park that they want it to be? Is a tree even possible at the place they want it to be? Sometimes it's not. And then she works with those folks to coordinate if it's possible and then how much it costs and then the install and all of that.

So we're working on a brochure right now, just so that way all of that information is together. It is much more costly than it ever used to be. So I just want to share that in case we have been funding all of this on our own for a lot of it, like probably covering about half of what it costs. Things have just really increased. And we get a lot more requests, I think, than I ever imagined that we would be getting over the last couple of years. So that's a great thing. And then BRICS at the focal point is through the CDC. They have a spot on their website. We're adding that to this brochure as well, so that way people would know how to get there to that. So any questions in general on memorials?

I know this is a really long meeting. It's not usual that we go this long. So other questions that you might have on this?

Are the fees for memorials in this fee?

They're not. So they are so that's an excellent question. We don't do them as a fee. It does not come to the city. We do memorials through the Friends of Apache Junction. It is a donation to the department. And then try to fund it through we fund it through Friends of AJ actually cuts the check for the amenity that's getting purchased.

JULIE So my question is, say someone decides they want a tree and a plaque to go, just to explain what this memorial is, the cost is the tree. They pay for

that tree and they pay for that plaque. They do. So we're trying to really work on a pretty standard fee. It's just tough right now. So again, it kind of depends on the tree, the type of tree that we're doing. They're paying for that and the care of the tree. So like, you know, we're going to round it to $300 or $350 or whatever it's going to be that is the plaque and the tree and the install of all those things. Because a plaque might be being installed with cement or a post or whatever. So yeah.

I just wondered if we could offer, with Tree City USA and the relocation of trees, if we have an inventory of trees that we can say, this is already us to maintain. But we get to choose where it goes. You don't necessarily get to choose. But you can put a plaque there.

JULIE I don't know what you mean. Like, they don't no, the point is that they want to JULIE buy a tree to

donate in the memory of a

They want to donate it in the memory of one of their Okay. Loved ones. So yeah. No, Tree City, you say I mean, like, all of our donated trees or other things are a separate thing. This is their chance to have a living memory.

Yeah. And do we have, like, a list of what they're allowed to plant, too?

JULIE: It is really reliant on the site. So whether there's irrigation there, what else is around it. Is it by a ramada? Is it going to shed?

Are there other trees in that same area? Like, what can we get in there? We're not going to put a palm tree in the middle of something. We like to give them options and then say which of these work best.

Okay. And that's what Christy will really work on with that individual. She'll reach out, and then they'll say, yep, they can have these choices. And then she'll work with that individual. And I don't think we've ever had anybody that was unhappy with the choices.

It needs

to be native. Native. Most of the time, it's native or drought tolerant.

All

right, thank you. Thank you. All right, I don't see anyone for call public, unless you Okay, all right. Just double checking. All right. So call for future agenda items. Commissioners, if you have anything to suggest or recommend being added to the next agenda that we haven't already discussed, go ahead and throw it out there. We're not going to talk about it now, but if you want more information in the future. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I would love when, Christie, when you finish that brochure for memorials, just to bring it back. I think that'd be nice to see, especially if the public ever asks that we know a little more. Sure.

And it

will probably not be next month.

On the What? Definitely. All

right. Perfect. Thank you very much. Moving along. We're going do a selection of meeting dates, times, location, and the purpose. May I have a motion, please?

I move that the Parks and Recreation Commission hold a regular meeting on 03/04/2026, at six p. M. In the City Council Chambers located at 300 East Superstition Boulevard.

May I have a second? I second. May I have roll call, please?

Lamont Klepper?

Yes.

Felicia Madrid?

Yes. Judy Borey? Yes. Manny Vega?

Yes.

Frank Schoenbeck?

Yes.

Bill Kine? Yes. And Heather Moeller? Yes. And that motion passes.

Thank you.

All right. So it looks like we're going to adjourn this meeting at 07:41. Thank you very much for attending.