Library Board - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Apache Junction Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. It is now 6PM on Wednesday, October 1. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. May I please have roll call?

Frank Schoenbeck.

Here.

DL Kine. Here. Cheryl Bigelow. Here. Felicia Madrid.

Here.

And Judy Bory is excused. Heather Moeller.

Here. Okay. 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 may I have yeah. I'll call for a motion for approval or acceptance of the agenda meeting minutes.

I move that the Parks and Rec Commission accept the agenda as presented and approve the minutes from the 09/03/2025 regular meeting.

Second.

May I have a roll call, please?

Judy Borey is excused. Frank Schoenbeck?

Yes.

D'Al Kine? Yes. Cheryl Bigelow?

Yes.

Felicia Madrid? Yes. Heather Moeller?

Yes.

And that motion passes.

Thank you. And now this is your time to announce any information regarding activities involving Parks and Recreation matters that you participated in.

I forgot to bring my rock.

JULIE Your painted rock?

JULIE Oh, my gosh. Yes. And Liz even told me to bring it, and I forgot. It was at the birthday bash. I painted it. That was a really cool event. And of course, my senior senator bingo. You should have messed this message. I should have. Dammit.

I was really sad I had to miss the birthday bash because it only happens once. I wasn't feeling Yeah. The twentieth, I guess,

only happens.

But yeah, I wasn't feeling good. So I was there in spirit cheering you guys on. Yeah. I don't know if I I don't think I did any activities. I've been a busy month. So

I made the birthday, Beth. I briefly meant I was going to go to the power wheels. I was really looking forward to

that. No.

Ahead. So were we.

I got cancer.

I managed to stay inside and stay warm and dry. So it wasn't too bad. And I've been haunting the gym three days a week. Other than that, I haven't put down anything.

Haunting the gym. I like that.

This is the lunch.

Nice. Did you all get anything done?

JULIE: I did not.

I've got a lot of stuff come up, but I'll get out there one day.

I, too, painted a rock at the birthday bash.

Did you use the stencil? JULIE: No. JULIE: So there was a stencil on how to make a dinosaur.

JULIE: Oh.

JULIE: mine ended up coming looking like a turtle.

JULIE: Hey, we like turtles.

JULIE: But I still wouldn't have been able to make it if there was no stencil.

JULIE: Well, all right. Thank you very much for sharing. May I have oh. The presentation and update on projects and opportunities in the Parks and Recreation and other service areas. And Dave Butler will please present.

I will. So I have a couple really big updates. And we're going to start with this one. So just last week, we started construction on phase one of the improvements to the rodeo grounds. So these are not really great pictures because it's only been a week and we had some rain and a few other little hurdles, but we have started grading.

So as we move through the next five to six months out there, you'll see a lot of construction. Again, I just want to remind everybody that it's really ADA improvements, utilities, underground stuff. So this first phase will be all flat work. A lot of stuff that you're not going to see, a lot of underground, things like that. We then break in January for all of the events that are kind of centered at the rodeo grounds, from the rodeo itself, the marathon, Ben Johnson days, all of the big events that happen in the springtime out there.

And then March is when we come back for part two of phase one. And that's when we'll actually start to set electrical SES panels. And the biggest change that you're going see out there is the Ramada. So the Ramada will go up. We're hopeful that we have the Ramada up in May to June.

So that is the biggest probably the biggest project right now. The other thing I wanted to update you on was that we are under contract for the pickleball courts at Prospector Park. So this is our master plan, and we are currently under contract for the 10 courts that you see in the center. Those lighter colored areas are actually for a future phase. The project came in much higher than we had anticipated and much higher than we had budgeted for.

So at this time, we're going to move forward with those 10 courts, the shade, and then we're going to phase out the other six courts that you see on the screen there. This is slated to start November 17, and this runs through, I believe, May. We just got an updated schedule this week. November 17 is the start, but I'm thinking May was the the end date on this one. So we're excited to get that going.

And then the last thing I wanted to update everybody on was that we next week, we start the interior paint at the MGC. So for the first time in twenty years, we're going to repaint the interior of the building. And that is also in a phased sort of approach. We're starting on the offices next week, and then we move into a lot of after hours work. So the painters will be in as the building shut down working on rooms overnight.

The only closure is going to be in the gym because there's just no way to really block off the gym in a way that's able to have people in and out of there while they're painting. So the gym will be shut down for two weeks. I believe that starts October 20. But then everything else happens overnight. So the rest of the facility and programming will not be impacted. And that is actually all I have for you tonight, unless you have any questions for me.

What color are you painting?

There's a seven there's seven colors in the palette. Nine colors in the palette. Seven or nine. So there's a base color and then there's accent walls. It's really going to brighten up. There's a lot of older, darker earth tones in there. So we went with a brighter, I don't want to say cleaner, but a more modern palette. So it's going to look awesome.

Thank you very much. Presentation and discussion and update on upcoming events and activities from Jamie.

Good evening. Some of those color palettes also match the new addition site. So if you've been in and you've seen some of our accent walls in our offices, and so we mirrored those colors. So that'll give you an idea.

You didn't want to stick with the 42 greens?

I love green. So yes, I would do 42 greens, but they didn't give me the choice.

I'm glad it wasn't various grays. So

tonight, I want to share a few highlights from last month and share some upcoming events and programs for October. I don't have pictures to show tonight, so I apologize for that. We've just been uber busy. And most of them are all on Facebook anyway. So if you're really wanting to capture last month, just go troll our Facebook pages.

The birthday bash had a turnout that none of us ever imagined. We've done some other celebratory years, and we've had an uptick in some visitors. But this year, JJ's team and the marketing team really outdid themselves. And we had over 400 visitors throughout the course of that evening. And I know that not because I made that number up, but we actually had a clicker in one of the rooms.

And so based on just the people who went into that room, we know that we had close to 400 people. And if you stayed for the pinata, then you would definitely have felt that there were 400 people in that building. So twenty years, and we are still going really strong. We had some past mayors. And the cool thing for me was I got to see some of my staff that started working in that building as teenagers coming back with their kids.

And I was really excited. And that means that my workforce is still coming in cycle, so I just need to wait. And we're going to have some really great staff coming through. We hosted our first remote control boat event out at Painted Sky Park. We had about 12 different kiddos come out, so it wasn't a huge number, but that is not what we wanted. We had a very small number of boats. It's more about us learning how to program that lake and how to expose our customers to the different things that we can do out there. They had a ton of fun. None of our boats drowned. They didn't sink.

They didn't get stuck. So overall, all the boats came back. We were very happy about that. Also, for the first time event, we hosted our Cops and Bobbers. And we had about 45 participants come out. We had almost a dozen officers come out. And again, if you haven't seen some of the videos on Facebook, you've got to go check it out. I was out there. It was a little warm and got warmer throughout the day. But it was a really great event. Not only did we teach kids how to fish, but we also taught officers how to fish. And that was just as fun as teaching the kids. We're like, no, you can't shoot the fish. You have to catch the fish. And I have included a bobber in your guys' little basket.

So if you guys need some help fishing, if you have your fishing license, you can go out and give that bobber a whirl. And as I mentioned before, we are getting ready to partner with Game and Fish on some fishing events. And they're going to be giving us about 24 more poles to add because we have 12. And every fishing event that we do, they are all gone within the first ten to fifteen minutes. They're also going to be working on us where we can designate our Learn to Fish Days as no license is needed as it is a partnered event with them.

So people can actually truly come out and not risk getting in trouble because they don't have their fishing license yet. And then we will have opportunities for them to sign up and get their fishing license. So we're really excited. Let's see. Oh, we did get some feedback because the cops and bobbers, we hosted the first week of AJ's fall break.

So we did get some feedback that a lot of other schools were still in session. And they really wished we would have done it when they were not in session. And since it was also so hot, we are considering next year that we'll do it the second week of fall break, or we'll move it entirely to winter break. So because we know lots of people are not in school during winter break. In the middle, we are in the last week of fall break camp. So we do have lots of kiddos at the MultiGen Center this week. They had visits from the PD. They had the fire department. They also went fishing down at Painted Sky. This week, they went on a hike outside of the multi gen center.

So Jody has definitely been keeping those kids busy. And then we had mad science. So very big event. We ended our month with that because our power wheels did get rained out. But we had over 30 scientists all over the multi gen center exploring.

And while that is the highlight and the most important thing, but I will tell you that Parks and Rec, for the second year in a row, won the watermelon explosion. So that's not the most important thing, but it is definitely a highlight to keep in mind. So coming up in October, we are kicking off the month with over well, throughout the whole month, not including the multi gen center and the fitness programs that they have. But we have over 30 different programs not sessions 30 different programs that we are offering throughout the month of October for the community to participate in, from art to stretch and grow, archery, special events. Line dancing is coming back.

It's tonight. We're missing it. So we have a ton of stuff going on with the fall. It usually gears up our busy time of the year. Starting off this Saturday, we have the Ross Raiders for our concert in the park. On the eleventh, we have activities all day. So you can go to Pretty In Pink. You can go to the Pioneer Gold Rush down at Painted Sky where we'll be participating in that event with Blossom Rock. And then in the evening, we have a movie in the park. On the eighteenth, we have the Mud Run.

So if you want to come get muddy, you can. Or if you just want to volunteer and not get muddy, no promises, no guarantees, but we can find something for you to do. And then lastly, we will be ending with our Halloween event. So we are expecting large turnout. We are not having the wristbands.

The event is completely free, with the exception of food trucks. If you guys are looking for something to do that evening and you don't want to come as a participant, we also need lots of volunteers. You can reach out to myself or to Jared if you're free that evening. And then I do want to point out, while it's not in October, new in November, we are bringing you a turkey trot on November 22. We would love to have all of you guys come out and trot with us.

You do need to register in advance. We unless you want to volunteer. I can get you in for free if you want to volunteer. But we are going to have a t shirt this year, and we are taking up to 100 trotters. So it will be the Saturday before Thanksgiving. So at this time, I can answer any questions you might have, but that concludes my report.

I got a question. So with the fishing poles, is there a limit of time?

So when we do our events, they're only about two hours long. If we see that we have people waiting, then we will gently we encourage them to go play at park or to go take a walk around. And then if they've been waiting for like thirty minutes, we might start to gently nudge. It looks like you guys are about finishing up. We have another family. But we've been able to pretty much manage it. But those 25 extra pulls mean that for everybody can the entire time. And if you've ever tried to teach a kid to fish, you spend more time putting the worm on the hook than they actually get to fish. So it would be it's kind of hard to say, oh, you get twenty minutes. That means they might have put their pole in the water maybe three times.

But we did have experimented with the worms. And Game and Fish taught us a couple tricks because the worms just weren't staying on the hooves. But we've learned a few things.

Amy, do is there a standardized pole that they provide?

I just think they're just bottom of the line poles. And once a pole either gets messed up or broken, we just take it back to Game and Fish, and they give us a new pole.

So would you be open at all if finding a good pole and reel at a garage sale as a donation?

We would always I've been looking. And so if they are decent poles, we'll take them in. We'll add them to our collection, absolutely.

Thank you.

How many did we have in our collection? Or personal currently?

Right now, have a dozen poles.

12, Okay.

For the turkey trot, how much trotting are we doing? Is a five ks, 10 ks? It's a five ks, but you could go one k out and turn around and come back. Nobody will judge you.

Is it behind the MGC?

It will be at the multi gen center. And we will have a turkey that we would like you to trot with.

It's going to trot. Yes. Is it Elliot? Just wondering. JULIE:

It's a turkey.

It's a turkey.

It's a turkey. And it's not no, it's not my staff. No, my staff are not no, no.

Do you know what time?

It's in the morning, but I don't know But it is in the morning, But not like super early, not like 6AM. It's not like a run Disney event that I went to at 4AM?

Any

other questions? All right.

Before we leave the staff report, I just wanted to briefly mention that this is one of our members' last meeting. So Ms. Cheryl Bigelow, she did not put in her application again. So this will be Cheryl's last meeting. And I just wanted to tell you thank you for the time that you've served on the commission. And we will miss you on this team. But we're very happy that you're still one of our volunteers at our senior center. So we'll still see

her around. JULIE You'll still see me. I might not be here once a month.

JULIE You can do the call to the public.

JULIE You can do your

senior report for call to the public.

JULIE No, I'm not running for a reason. I don't have time,

so I wouldn't be able to do the call about me. So thank you, Cheryl, for all your help with us.

JULIET I appreciate that, Liz.

JULIET J.

Thank you very much. We've got some old business. And Larry is going to present that voice. Sorry, my voice went out.

My turn. My turn. All right. Let me pull this up. And we'll start with the very cover page. We did do some graphic design changes with the font. What do you guys think?

I like it.

Awesome. That's what I like to hear. All right. And then the next page is Liz's wonderful introduction. Follow that again with our staff picture and a new modified organization chart. It looks a little different. It's kind of unorthodox, but we think it really does a good job visually of capturing and kind of creating a little bit of a balance in it image as well. And then the phenomenal Christmas tree. We just needed to find a place to put it in here because it's amazing.

I think the organizational chart looks great. I like that you used the different colors too. It shows up maybe I don't know. I'm here a little different, but Mhmm. It's nice to see that.

Thank you. Alright. And then we'll start with some general plan stuff. Mhmm. And both Dave, Jamie well, all three of us will take turns kinda putting in some highlights on these. Dave go first.

Before we begin, just a question because I know it's gonna come up. Any typos, would you prefer to just be emailed, or do you wanna hear it today?

You can mention it today. And if you catch something later, that's fine too. You can send us a quick email. We're also gonna send it through to our folks, and, they'll do one more quick look through it. So absolutely let us know here today. And kind of the idea today too is this is your chance to say, you know, I think this is another achievement we should mention or here's something we've been talking about. Should it be something we talk about as a something we want to reach? We're not going to go through every single item in here. We're just going to kind of pick on the highlights or some of the new things. But this is your chance on each page just to kind of throw out what are some other things that you think.

And then just remember, though, that we only have limited space. So there's so much that we do. We're just kind of trying to pick out the things that really stuck out to us in the year.

So just on this page, a couple of things that I just wanted to highlight were the working with Brookfield on the Central Park design at Blossom Rock. So we're right now in the middle of design for that. And that's, you know, just a huge park down there north of Painted Sky. Another big highlight is working with Pinal County on the CAP Trail and the Superposition Basin. So we have that master plan that we've shared for Superposition Basin, and next year, we plan to budget for the actual construction documents for the park at Superposition Basin.

And then we did start showing the ten minute walk on our city park map just for future park planning and just show where we do have that ten minute quick walk access to the parks. Okay. And then a big one for, I know both Liz and I, is the proposed process for the Parks and Recreation master plan for fiscal 'twenty seven, 'twenty eight. And that would be in addition to the strategic plan. So we have an overall Parks and rec master plan. Moving on to the next page, the 2.2.

Which can I that would be new because normally we do the city master plan? And then am I understating that right?

Yes. So sorry, as I get closer to Yeah. So one of the goals in the city's general plan was that we would have our own standalone Parks and Rec master plan. It would be much more intense than this short one year strategic plan. It is a major process. And most cities have one that keeps in mind all of those park master plans prioritizing. You know, so we talked about this a little bit last time. When are we going to do the Flatiron, you know, stuff? When are we going do the Silly Mountain master plan? It prioritizes all of those things and puts them in a big structure.

And then the commission and the council kind of votes on those prioritizations. And so it's a great it's a ten year visioning process, not a one to two year visioning type of thing.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Sorry. Any other thing on this page before Dave moves on to the next page?

Okay.

All right. So then in goals and part of expansion improvements, the big ones for me are, last year, we completed $5,300,000 in capital improvement expansion projects. And this year, we're budgeted 6,210,000.00 in capital improvement projects. So that's a huge number. And I'm actually happy to say that out of that $6,200,000 we're already started on all but $300,000 of those projects.

So we have a ton of stuff that's already in the works and already moving for this year. The next couple of big highlights were that we did complete Ridgeline Linear Park distribution vistas. So the park that runs north of the dog Park is all now open. And then we did take over maintenance of Idaho median from US 60 to baseline. So that stretch of new median South Of The 60 is now under Parks and Recreation maintenance. So that goes along with the Apache Trail and other right of way maintenance areas that we maintain in Parks and Rec.

What stretch is that?

The median on Idaho from US 60 South to baseline.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Looks good?

Yeah. It looks great down there.

Yeah, it's all been rebuilt.

Yep, it looks amazing down there.

Thank you. I was wondering, actually.

Yeah, that's us. Good.

All right.

So was there anything else on the park expansion or improvements that you guys wanted to touch on?

I did meet the new Ranger that we hired. He was a nice young man, seemed pretty impressive.

Nice. Yeah, we're fully staffed on the Ranger team now and have the two assistant night Rangers doing their two shifts now. Great.

JULIE: He was with Christy that day. She introduced him.

Oh, good. Perfect. Oh, perfect. Yeah, he's a great guy. All right.

All right. Part or in 2.3, mostly recreation affiliated types of stuff. So in the first block, just want to point out that our volunteer numbers increased by almost nine hundred hours this past year, so that's super exciting. I know you're asking, where did those numbers come from? How are they so high?

Well, we had a fully extended pool season, which meant more use of junior guards. We've been doing lots of invasive polls and using volunteers for those numbers as well. And then I'm sure that most of those numbers are from all of you guys coming out and volunteering at our event. So thank you so much for that. Moving on down to 2.32, this is another really great number for us.

Our program surveys are up four eighty one. And that is largely due to Civic Rec now has the ability to automatically send surveys to participants after a program has ended. So we don't have to remember to collect them or catch people after their program has been over. So that's definitely helped us collect more information. And when you do more programming and more events, you're naturally going to have more survey results.

JULIE Will that work at Halloween then, too?

JULIE No, not for Halloween because that's not a registered event. But you'll see at our events, we always have paper copies. And then we also have QR codes throughout the event asking people to complete surveys. I know this also is going to amaze you, but more people still fill out paper surveys than we actually get QR responses. So it's still important. Paper's still a little relevant. Also in that section, I just want to point out the new programs. Most of all of this stuff you guys have heard every single month. But really bringing on outdoor programming why wouldn't we? We have a new outdoor coordinator.

So full moon hikes. The fishing program has been blowing up. Our dark skies programming. So a lot of all of that is new programming. And we're kind of learning as we go which ones are popular and which ones we still need to work on. Moving down to the next one, we did add an ICS team for Easter. That event is growing. We added additional parking to help accommodate getting people in and getting to their egg hunts on time. And we did this last year, we had a full year of a collaboration with the Catwagon for our paint and pints, which almost sold out every single month. So it was a great partnership.

Moving on down, most of well, with an intern this year, we were able to add sensory areas to several of our large events. And those are going to we're going to maintain those as much as we can. They were very well received. It's a very important part of our programming now. So as we move forward into the new year, we're going to keep those and possibly add more to other events.

So we're really excited about that. And then finishing out with the last block, a lot of that really hasn't changed. It's just what we continue to do. We continue to work with our nonprofits to either make sure that our local nonprofits are getting those discounted rates and getting first use of fields, to partnering with CAFA and New Leaf not to have duplicated events, and working with our businesses to be at wellness event and promote them and all of those different ways. So not much is changing in that last block. We're just going to keep continuing doing good work.

Does the Little League field ever get used for anything else but Little League games?

From time to time, it does.

It does, but it's pretty That's

what I thought.

Yeah, you

just can't put big kids on there. It's just too small. It's mostly Little League. But there are club teams that use it. And then just other little not Little League organizations, but practices and things like that that happen out there.

Well, people could call up Park and Rec and say, hey, I'd like to use a little league field to have my softball team work out? Or would it have to be for kids?

Yeah, because it doesn't have to be for kids. Just like a grown man's going to just hit dingers all day in So that it's mostly size for kids.

And long, long ago, we used to have our soccer program over there. So it could be used. I mean, now we have great multi purpose fields at other parks. But it could be used for other purposes if we needed it.

And the school just opened up there. So, you know, it might become something that they use it when we're not doing maintenance for their PE classes and things like that. So

Okay. Thank you.

What does the ICS stand for again?

That's an incident command system, station, depends on who you ask. But that's where we have an off-site with our staff, police, and fire. And there might be other folks, depending on the nature of the event, where we are running command off-site to be able to troubleshoot anything that should come up.

Thank you.

We have drones and all kinds of cool stuff in there.

Any other questions? Oh, are you all done, Jamie? I'm done. Oh, we're done. We're moving around to layer again. Flip the page.

My turn. Moving on to 2.4. I'm going bump this up just a little bit. My eyes ain't what they used to be. This is a of data, a lot of numbers. But a couple of things that I want to point out, what we've done accomplished over this last year. Our Facebook oh, Jamie, you got

me all messed up.

Our Facebook followers rose from 12,000 to almost 13,005 So that's a pretty decent milestone. Unfortunately, somehow we went from 471,000 to 428,000 in our reach. So that's gonna be a focus this year to get that back up. But the flip side is we went from just under 2,000 followers in Instagram to over 2,500. So that's a pretty sizable jump.

And not only that, we went from about 17,000 in our reach to 38,000. So that more than doubled. So I think we know where the Facebook people went. We just found them on Instagram. But the goal is to really kind of build on that momentum on Instagram and get Facebook back and really bolster our outreach through our social media.

We've added a couple more members to the team that are really excited about pumping out a bunch of reels and videos and stuff. So looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish with that as well. Continuing on, we will be assisting the city manager's office with their welcome bags. I we've we we like to put out a lot of our stuff too with that, so that's going to be an ongoing thing as well. Are there any questions on this page?

Easy enough. All right. From two point four to two point five.

All right. On this one, we really just talk about kind of how we're funded. One of the really key numbers there is grant utilization. So don't too don't think we're going to get that 2.4 every year million dollars of grants. So a big reason for that is because of the ARPA funds this last year.

We had the opportunity to use that extra money that we had for the lights for Prospector Park and Supervision Shadows. Other departments didn't utilize it. So we had a great opportunity of projects that were shovel ready, contracts already ready, and we were able to use that. So we moved projects of ours that were spread over several years and got them all done in one year, which is amazing for us. So big kudos to Dave and our Parks team for being able to crunch out those projects right away.

But still, you know, with all the different grants that we get between the recreation department and then all of the Parks department, we still almost $2,500,000 worth of projects through grant funding is pretty amazing. So that's a lot of capital things that didn't come out of tax dollars that we were able to do. The other one of those numbers that I wanted to point out, the $20,000 in corporate partnerships. So Jamie and her team, they handle all of our sponsorship stuff. Now that used to be handled by, another department that handled them citywide.

That has moved over to each department handling. And so Jamie and her team, they've always really kind of handled a lot of the main things in that. Riley King, I think we've already shared that before. She's going to be handling corporate partnerships for our department. So they'll continue to handle sponsorships. But bringing in 20,000 to offset costs for our special events and some of our programs, I think that's really a great number there.

Does that make for easier? Does it give you more freedom to move as far as being inventive and as far as how you want to pursue your goals?

So that's exactly what it does. So a lot of the times, we're not dependent on those dollars to make things happen. We're dependent on those dollars to enhance the things we already have. But sometimes, like a business who sponsors a free day at the pool, that's new and something we normally wouldn't do. And we had two agencies do that this year. So that's exactly what they do. They give me a bigger skeleton at Halloween sometimes, or a little bit more candy to pass out. So point on.

The other thing we wanted to point out was just development fees in general. We are this year, the city is looking at development fees. We're doing we have to look at our development fee study periodically. Our rate is pretty low for those new residents coming in. We will be looking at what do we offer already in our community. We'll be assessing those fees, looking to make sure that we're getting enough to be able to put new future amenities out there. So that's being looked at right now.

Yeah, because when there's no more developments, there ain't no more money.

Yep. And then I wanted to point out, because this will be coming back to you guys I know Jamie has shared this before but this coming up calendar year will be the year we'll start our fee study. So every five years, we have to look at our chapter four I think it's chapter four that has our recreation program fees and facility fees in it. And so we'll start doing that research. Larry and Riley will tag team that one. But you guys will to look at a lot of that, and then counsel will do the final approval on that.

I'm impressed with the $6,100 in scholarships.

I love could really point out in all of our things, we could point out so many things that are really great things, but we could be here all night.

That's a nice

I think it is. That's a nice job to see. Where does

money come from?

Largely, it's Los Marathon. I would say probably 95% of it is from Los Estesham Marathon. They could fully fund our scholarship program. But then we get a lot of other smaller events, like Tractor Show, I think, still donates to it.

Tractor Show, SRP Oh, was a sponsor for swim lessons. At those Saturday swim lessons. We're fully funded by SRP. And then DPCA, Drowning Prevention Coalition, put $500 towards swim lessons. So there's a few smaller pots. Yeah, But, definitely is used. Yeah, and appreciated.

I just have one typo. It's under the general plan up at the top. The subheading multiple has got an extra L in it. Utilize multiple funding sources. Thank you.

Yeah.

Perfect. I also wanted to point out I caught this, too that the third bullet in the middle box, I just didn't complete my thought. So we're updating the city's development fees, I think is what I'm trying to say. But we'll make that correction as well before we finalize. And then these next few pages, I don't think we really want to go through every single facility one by one.

There's a so lot here to we've done our best. And it's always so the version you have today has a handful of changes from the version that we emailed you last week minor changes. What we're always trying to do is to share what we know we're doing right now with what we think we're going to do next year and what we know is in the future and kind of move things around. So we have just been given our timeline for the budget for next year. We've been told it's a flat line budget.

Don't plan on spending any more money than what we've spent this year operationally. We're going to know, Santan Valley just incorporated.

Oh, did they incorporate it?

They did. So that vote won. They just elected their counsel. They announced them last I think they swore them in last week. So there's a lot of really unknowns. And so we're being very cautious and conservative as a city. So those are some things that we're trying to be careful of. But just kind of keep in mind, there's a lot of things in here that sometimes they don't go where we think they're going to go for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's budgetary. But also sometimes it might be that we were talking about flat iron in the fence one time.

Arrangers came up with the other idea of the sign. And instead of we solved part of our problem by if we don't turn on the splash pad isn't on all the time. People can text, and they'll turn it on when that family is there. That way it's not getting turned on by anybody else. They can actually look on the camera. Yes, it's a family. I'm turning on this moment. And then it's turned off when they're done. That's actually worked really well for us. And so it really doesn't need a fence around it.

We don't want to spend maybe $15,000 $20,000 because it's getting into concrete. It's doing some different things. So we took it off the list. And so those are some of the things that I think we definitely want you guys to be able to ask us, why are you doing that? And we can kind of go through and explain them.

So if there are things you guys want us to talk about, you're wondering why it didn't go from one section to the next, we are happy to go over it and talk about it. But that's just kind of the method to our madness. The last time, we sort of quickly tried to throw these in here. And Dave will have 15 projects for every single park. We try to pick the ones that might be the most meaningful to the public, like that they're going to see. I mean, is irrigation even on here for Prospector Park?

It is.

It is?

Yep.

Okay. Like there might be things that they won't even know or see, and we didn't put it on here. So we tried to put things that might be either really big, costly projects or that they might be able to see and left off the other 15 that were in here just because we don't have enough space.

And to just kind of tag on to what Liz is saying, dollars 6,210,000.00 of projects, these are kind like the highlights. These are trying to condense $6,000,000 onto however many few lines and spaces we have here. So really think like the bigger 30,000 foot elevation look at what we're doing over this year, next year, and then what we know we have coming in the distant future.

Going back, I just wanted to clear up because you had mentioned the incorporation of San Tan Valley. So does that now create a similar sized community that we're competing for federal funds?

Lose Gosh, it's not. We lose all counties. It's actually state shared revenue county. So it's not necessarily well, her funding is state?

GREGORY State.

GREGORY Okay. So like our street funds, those kinds of things. So it is going to be a competition of those types of things. So it will be challenging in the next two to three years.

So they're dipping in now as a community who's Correct. Incorporated. JULIE Okay.

Any questions on the parks stuff before we move on to recreation? And don't feel like this is your last chance. So we are going to be voting on this at the November meeting. But this isn't your last chance to call or email me and ask me a question of why is that there that way? Or hey, do you think we should add this in or we should take this out? You can certainly do that between now and then. Moving on to recreation. Again, we're not going to go through every one of these. We did our best. Even Jamie put some in, and then I went back.

We actually met at our team meeting with our staff. We asked them, what are the things that you're most proud of? What are the things that you have on the list for next year that you want to make sure gets listed? And so it might not have been on our list, but if it was on their list, we want them to feel like they got something in here as well. And so surprise, I added something that maybe Jamie didn't put in there that maybe Dave didn't put in there. And I did. Not recently. It was before. You've got to look at it since. I haven't done it recently.

I don't remember seeing research field trips for seniors.

Jamie JAMIE added that one. Don't

Yeah. Add that. Jodi has been asking to get our seniors out and How exciting. JAMIE DAVIS: Our first year, of course, we didn't budget for it. So this year, we'll be researching what does it cost, what does it look like, risk management, all that fun stuff, with the hopes of building it into a flat budget for next year.

So what kind of field are you thinking, like going to the museums and stuff like that?

Museums, arboretum.

They used to go to Canyon Lake and have a picnic. And I mean, was a lot of neat things that they used to do.

JULIE I mean, some of them would just be happy to go up to Painted Sky Park and have a picnic. Because there's lots of things mobility things Oh, yeah. Take into consideration.

That's sweet. Oh, gosh. That can change so many people's day to have a field trip.

JULIE So we'll be researching that, looking into options of what we can do, and hopefully building it into a budget for next fiscal year.

So we'll see some senior maybe some senior field trips in 2026, are we thinking? Okay.

Sometimes we make magic happen. And maybe there'll be a small one next year. I don't

know. Cross our fingers, we get a grant.

JULIET

But

we'll be looking at those options. And I just want to mention that I only had to squeeze all my stuff into one page. So

yeah, try not to hold that against

one I got it all in one page.

I had to squeeze $6,000,000 into 2,000,000 Oh, gosh.

JULIE You guys are having some family moments. Some family moments. Are you the big

Yes. Okay. Any other questions or changes or things that you have for recreation programming?

I just want to say when I went through it all, I noticed you guys did. You guys do an awesome job of exceeding what you put on the strategic plan. And then I feel like you listened to us and put in. Like you said, it's good to hear that the department, even just record leaders, whatever, got to give input. Yeah, you can see that you guys really included a lot of things that were discussed. Cool.

One thing I would suggest is continue to work on providing STEM programs, STEM education programs, because we need it.

JULIE Like in probably in the youth programs or special interests.

JULIE Right, that sort of thing. The youth especially, keep them interested in science.

Well, I love the continued work with the library. I mean, that's huge. I've seen a difference over the past couple of years since Parks and Rec and the library collaborate together.

Agreed. We might be able to incorporate those together. And because there's a lot of things we can collaborate with them on that. We've increased so many astronomy classes, some other things like that. So I think we are. But we can certainly word that in there so that it's something I think that was the other thing. As we started going through it, we do so many different things. Trying to give some specific examples was the piece in here to kind of capture what you're talking about so that we know we're intentionally doing those things.

And we did start a STEM program in September. And we didn't have anybody register, but that doesn't stop us from keeping on it. And we did have a STEM area at the science night. So they had about three to four different projects all related to STEM. So it's definitely easy enough to incorporate and look into. And it could be something simple as how can we add it to events that was something like the sensory areas and adding some components. So we can definitely add that we can research and look into how we can do more of those. And I know the library does some, too. So it could simply be partnering with the library to gain that exposure of those programs.

Thank you.

I think Frank and I are on the same wavelength because I thought about when you were talking about this is just an idea, not for strategic plan, but just pond science at the lake or, you know, like, lake science, like scooping the water out. I just that idea popped up for programming. So

I don't follow you.

Oh, okay. Like, it's a STEM thing where you can like, if they have a microscope to

Oh, to look at our lake water.

And just pond science. Yeah. Like, the life cycle, that kind of thing. So

the right angle.

So yeah, anyway.

I mean, we have lots of late programming. It probably wouldn't be difficult. Yeah. Well, we might want to know what's

I wrote it down as a no.

I'll note that. Yeah. Nice.

Good idea. Anything else? We do have a couple of changes. Are we thought we weren't making changes to the strategic plan map, and then we realized that the Central District Park isn't on there. The South Campus, with the police department and the library, there's going to be a park there. That's not on this map. I think those are the two.

So the map hasn't changed on the

This one hasn't, but it will. So we will be adding those two items to this map. Is that it?

And then is this the map, or is it going to be somewhere else where we'll see the ten minute walk begin to

JULIE So that's on our big map that we take to events where we've been asking people where they want parks. And the main purpose for that is, where do you live? Where do you want to see amenities? So we've taken that to all of our events. Whenever we do our polling where we share with them the strategic plan, it's on all of our big stuff. To put it on this is really challenging because we do put it around what our parks are. And I don't know if you guys remember seeing it, but that's the big map that I would have out at all of the major events where they put the little where you guys put the little pins on.

Yeah, I think I've seen it

at It was at Blossom Rock and then later at Halloween, maybe fourth of July.

I think just because of how big they're so like, with all the circles, I think that would be overwhelming. The purpose of this is We tried to put it on this. Now.

And it was really getting big.

And this is already hard sometimes.

Yes. I just wasn't sure if it was on that digital map we have, which I is it GSI?

I don't GIS, close. Yeah. I'm not sure. Really, it's there for our planning purposes. So we're starting to use it with our city manager's office. So we've started talking about, you can see really easily now, we don't have a park in the Northwest. We don't have a park, other than Silly Mountain, in the East really at all. But right now, they're starting to do some planning for the state trust land that's in the like, almost to Gold Canyon, but it's, like, South of the 60, but like at the 60. And so that's not all the way down south. It's in the traditional part of Apache Junction.

And so that ten minute walk map is actually very helpful because it shows where there's some really good potential opportunities. And so I think putting that together is actually very helpful for us. And it will help us for future planning. The other thing it will help us with is so this Parks and Rec master plan is going to be a 40 page, a 50 page document. It's going to have some of these consultants and people that we're working with will be able to put something like that. We created that with our GIS team. And you know, a consultant will be able to do it in a way that might have some other benefits to it.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. And then

Woah. I

know. It's hard to forget to lean in, not to lean in.

So this is the back page, and obviously our mud run hasn't happened yet. Horrible. So shame on me for not having a DeLorean to go get it. But we will be putting this year's MUD Run staff picture in there. And that is the end of the strategic plan. Any other comments, questions?

Nice job. Good job.

Nice team effort.

Thank you very much. All right. It looks like there is no business no new business to discuss. No call to public. So commissioners, if you have anything to suggest or recommend being added to the next agenda, now is the time to state that.

Yes, I would like to. Yes, I would like to just going to get my wording right. So I just wanted to know more about, like, demographics. For example, what percentage of programming is available for our senior citizens, teens, adolescents, and so on? So however we look at it as however the department looks at it as a categorization, then that's kind of what I was wanting to know. So out of our 100% programs, what do we how many are for seniors? I just hope that comes off later.

Yeah. Okay. Yep. We can add that.

And then the other thing was excuse me just discussing adding more swim team sessions year round. It was something I was a swim team parent, of course, but also other people echoed that. Even the coaches, they just a lot of passion there. And so it would be something I'd love to discuss what our barriers and stuff for that is.

I'll piggyback on that one, because I've always wanted afternoon

water

aerobics. Those 07:30 classes, I can never make.

So maybe so it's hard to do like an agenda item on like one little tiny one program. Because, I mean, everybody wants their own program. But maybe we could bring back we can sit down and talk with Julia. I know Larry, when he was the aquatic coordinator, he did a session on he came and presented on different programs. So we'll brainstorm an idea of how we could bring back how we do programs.

You could do a pool Why? Or a

Pros and cons throughout the year, pros and cons of the times of the day. We'll figure out a

way to bring something Even just some like, was nice hearing from Julia, but it's some insight maybe more on how yeah. How we the aquatics firm.

Because it's Yeah. Like JULIE

JULIE so quickly.

JULIE How we schedule and how we're able to offer programming. And then we'll just open that up to discussion. You can ask what questions you need, that kind of thing.

JULIE: And if it's realistic to What add.

Bottlenecks are there to progress?

Yes.

That's what

we're looking for.

Perfect. Thank you. No problem.

Anyone else? All right. Thank you. So may I have a motion for the selection of meeting dates, times, location?

I move that the Parks and Recreation Commission hold a regular meeting on 11/05/2025 at 6PM in the City Council Chambers located at 300 East Superstition Boulevard.

Second. May I have a second, please?

Second.

And may I have roll call, please?

Felicia Madrid?

Yes.

Judy Borey is excused. Frank Schoenbeck?

Yes.

Diel Kine? Yes. Cheryl Bigelow? Yes. And Heather Moeller?

Yes.

And that motion passes.

Thank you. All right. Then it looks like we're going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 06:56.