Library Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, looks like we're good.

We're rolling.

I'm getting eye contact. Eye contact. Here we go. All right. Hello, and welcome to the Apache Junction Parks and Recreation Commission meeting for Wednesday, 11/05/2025. It is now 6PM. We're going to start our meeting. And please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America Thank you. May I have I'm sorry.

Dehydrated, I think. May I have roll call, please?

Felicia Madrid.

Here.

Lamont Klepler. Here. Judy Vory. Here. Frank Schoenbeck.

Here.

ZL Kine is excused. Manny Vega is excused. Heather Moeller.

Here. Thank you. All right. The commission at this time may 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 and acceptance of the agenda meetings?

Go ahead.

No, you can

go. I move the Parks and Recreation Commission accept the agenda as presented and approve the minutes from the 10/01/2025, regular meeting.

And may I have a second? I second. And may I have roll call, please?

Lamont Kleppler?

Yes.

Judy Borey?

Yes.

Frank Schoenbeck?

Yes.

DL Kine is excused. Manny Vega is excused. Felicia Madrid?

Yes.

Heather Moeller?

Yes.

And that motion passes.

All right, thank you. All right, commissioners, if you have anything to share that you've attended or volunteered with Parks and Recreation, now is your time.

Well, I guess I'll start down at this end. I wasn't able to attend anything this month. So next month, or this month, I hope to get out there and back into the swing of things.

I really wanted to attend the Halloween thing, but I wasn't able to make it. But I'm going to be here, so I'm going attend it next year for sure. And then I'm really excited. I wasn't able to go this month, but I'm really excited to volunteer at Silly Mountain, pull some invasive weeds. That's been a big thing I've wanted to do since I've been here. So I'm really, really excited for that. I'm going to be there next month.

I had a lot of fun at

the Halloween festival. Yeah. I

was Gray Beard the pirate.

JULIE Yay. Why don't you go, Heather?

I got nothing.

JULIE You got nothing. JULIE I got nothing. JULIE I didn't go to any events, but I did go to I attempted to go to Supercision Shadows, but it's under construction, which is exciting. And the park has got some fencing. I think they're doing mulch or something. Still cool to see progress. And then we went to Prospector instead. So we got to see the bathrooms. And it's been a long time. And I also actually went to the MGC and worked out. And it's also under construction. But that's Okay. That's Okay. So it was nice to be back.

Thank you very much for sharing. All right. We're going go to the staff report and presentation of newly appointed and reappointed commission members by Liz Langenbach.

Thank you. All right. So tonight we're super excited. City Council appointed commissioners in October. And so we're excited that Heather Moeller was renewed for a new three year term in that meeting. We also are very happy to have Lamont Klepper was appointed for a three year term with us. And so we'd love for Lamont to give us a little background of himself and just say a few things.

Yeah. I'm ecstatic to be here. So thanks, you guys, for welcoming me. I'm a newer resident of Apache Junction, but long term for sure. And I moved out here for recreational activities. One of the things that impressed me was Parks and Rec when I got here, and I think everyone's been doing a great job. And then I spend most of my weekends hiking in the superstitions. That's been my biggest interest, in this area. So besides that and a little golf here and there and focusing on family and work, I'm excited to be here. So thank you guys.

Welcome. Welcome.

May I ask where you moved from?

So originally from Oregon, lived in Flagstaff for a few years. And I bounced around Gilbert a little bit. Nothing really felt like home until I got here.

AJ's awesome.

It's awesome out here. Where in Oregon? Salem, Oregon.

Yeah. So we're very happy to have you here. And definitely welcome. You're coming out at a great time. And thank you for the commission appointments are always in October. And so there's not a lot of time before our meetings are always so quick. So we appreciate you being able to be here with us today. The council also appointed one other new member, Manny Vega. He's not able to join us today. He was appointed for the two year term that was for the vacancy that was created whenever Terrell stepped down.

So we'll introduce you to Manny at the next meeting. And so I had the opportunity, as did our staff, to meet both Lamont and Manny. They came into the office to get a little bit oriented ahead of time. So that they were able to go through the strategic plan ahead of time. And I know that was you guys did a whole lot of work ahead of time. We tried to get them a little bit of information so that they would come ready to this meeting.

Thank you. Thank you. A presentation and update on projects and opportunities in the Parks and Other Service Areas from Dave.

All right. Good evening, everyone. And to Lamont, our new commissioner,

I just

want say this is the cool portion of the evening. The other staff reports aren't as cool as this one.

Dave actually has pictures this time.

I do have pictures. So we do have a lot going on. These first set of pictures you're going to see are progress pictures from the NGC painting project that's currently underway. The staff offices and our classrooms are done. And as you can see, there's just a huge improvement in the overall look of those areas. This is right outside the staff offices, and it's just so much brighter once you get to see that new paint in there. They're finishing the gym this week, probably Thursday, Friday. And then we move on to all after hours work. So there will be no more closures of anything. Everything after this week is after hours from 8PM until about 4AM in the morning.

Again, it's just a huge improvement. These next set of photos are all of the Prospector Park irrigation replacement on the ball fields. They've already trenched all of fields two and three. They're currently in the middle of laying new mainline and lateral lines in there. And then as we move on to this next set of photos, these are all from SSP, and there's a multitude of projects happening at SSP and the pool at one time.

The fence around the pool has been completely demoed, so all of the fence is down. We're currently working on forming some concrete to go back in spot of the old masonry fence. They're also working some of these big holes that we see on this. I put that water bottle out to give you a little bit of size reference. That is the footing for one of the shade sails that are going in up there.

So they're about eight feet deep and about three feet across. So it's a pretty massive shade sail that's going in. This is the southeast ish side of the play pool. So all of that turf has been pulled back. Those big these sort of table looking things are all footings for new shade sales.

The few things that you can't see that are happening in these photos And I didn't put them in here. I had photos of the playground. So the playground is shut down as well because they are about to start. They've dug footings for shade over there. They've removed the old two to five playground that's being replaced. So all of that's fenced off. That entire project should wrap up the December. We're waiting on one final piece of playground equipment to come in, and that is what's kind of delayed us a little bit down there. But we hope that finishes up in mid December. We get into November, and Ramadas are all being replaced down there.

So that starts, we hope, the November 15. And then we also are replacing the second set of phase two of the lighting that's all going to the dark skylighting. And that we hope starts the December in those parts. I have another slideshow that I did separately just because it's its own massive project, and that is the Rodeo Grounds. So at the Rodeo Grounds, construction phase one is underway.

At this point, there are some befores in here just to try to give you a scale of the size of the project. Right now, we are and all of these progress pics are actually outdated because we're pouring concrete. It's just moving so fast out there, it's hard to get real up to date photos. But underground wet utility, underground dry utility, a good portion of grading is done. We're moving into mass grading and concrete right now.

So the first area that we're going to pour concrete is that strip on the outside of the fence for all of the ADA parking stalls. Once those are in, we will move to the interior sidewalks and the Ramada pad, which is what looks like a giant swimming pool right now in that picture. Once concrete is done, we'll come back and do some final above grade electrical, above grade wet utilities. And then we paused construction early January to allow all the events to come through, so the marathon, the rodeo, there's a few other events that are scheduled out there. And then we hope to get back in there March 16 to be able to set the Ramada itself, install some light poles, and do final electrical connections to lighting, Ramada, those kinds of things.

The overall scale of the project is just massive because it's a 20 acre site. And while we're only doing a portion of it, that big trench you see on the left side of the screen, that's about 1,800 feet long. And there's multiple utilities in there. There's water. There's electric. It's just trying to show how big of a project it is is hard. So that's why we went and got some of these aerial photos. And just that alone, even what we're doing is still pretty small compared to the overall size of that site. So it's a huge project and we're moving along pretty well. We feel good about our dates and think that everything by the summertime, phase one should be complete.

So that is all I have for this evening, unless you have questions for me.

You are really busy all over the place.

Yeah. We've a lot of irons in the fire right now. Yeah.

Wow. And this is phase one, correct?

This is phase one.

So SSP aquatics, the shade cells, you kind of showed them. There's how many total are going in?

At the Aquatic Center? I thought I I don't have a great picture of it. I want to say, I think it's four, because one of them is a pretty massive structure by the volleyball courts. And then there's three structures that wrap the arch on the play pool. So I'm going to say it's four.

Over on the It's basically the play pool. Of the artificial grass.

A good portion of the artificial Okay.

Are they various sizes or based on the area they're going to?

It's based on the area they're going

to.

The one by the volleyball, I want to say, is 40 by 80 ish. The other ones are, you know, similar size but different shapes.

Okay. And then just as a reminder, we've been sharing this for over a year. This is the grant funded shade and playground at Superstition Shadows. I think I shared the last couple of meetings that November was the timeframe that that whole area would be done. And so we're right on schedule for that one, all of that construction happening. So I think we shared that the last couple of meetings. We needed to wrap up Halloween carnival and then get us through some of those last major events and swim stuff and all that. Then we could get started on these. So looking great.

Jamie's Halloween event got in the way of my construction.

The brother and sister are fighting. The playground equipment, is it new or refurbished?

It's brand new.

Brand new? Okay, perfect. And then the mulch, is it being replaced or just putting the existing back in?

It's hard to say at this point. The contract calls for it to be put back in the pre existing conditions. If we can use what's there, we'll use it. If not, they'll bring new mulch in. Because there are certain depths they have to meet for CPSI guidelines. So we will make sure that they're at the right depth. It just depends on if we use what was there, we've got to bring all new in.

Okay. And then I had a couple of questions for I think I just had one question for the rodeo grounds, the drainage phase, or the drainage that's getting done.

Yep.

What phase is that in?

Right now. That's so what that big kind of the overall picture, there's a sorry. I got rid of it. The center drainage swale is actually what they're digging out right now.

That one that you can see that Yeah, water has already cut

so that is actually where they're currently grading.

Okay.

So that is in this phase.

Okay. And there very likely will be additional drainage in Phase II, Phase III as we work through other parts of the But this should handle a lot of the stuff that we want to take care of right now.

Yeah. This will take care of what affects the events that happen out there.

Perfect. Thanks.

And congratulations on the newspaper article. It was great.

Yeah. I don't think I saw that.

Or the monthly paper that comes out.

I will have to take a look. Don't believe I saw

an article. Nice picture of you in your work outfit. Okay.

Where was that at? What is that on? The Age Ankle Canyon.

I don't know what it Independent.

It's the

free newspaper that comes to them.

All right.

Yeah, but I didn't know if yeah.

I'll have to look

at it.

I did not see that.

He's like, oh,

thanks. Thanks. Yes.

Thank you very much, Dave Butler. And the presentation, discussion, and update on upcoming events and activities from Jamie Sullivan.

Well, thank you, Parks Department, for all of our fabulous places to us in or put us in pen, so it's there forever, for all of twenty twenty six. So in October, we hosted Pretty in Pink, which you can see here, which raised over $1,300 for breast cancer awareness. And we had over 120 participants that came out. Pretty in Pink is really embraced by our group fitness instructors and our staff who go out into the community who get hundreds and hundreds of dollars in raffle items that help bring in those donations. We also posted the MUD Run, which

you can see a lovely

picture there, which we had three forty two participants in our MUD Run. This number is higher than the previous year, but does not still reach our match year of four seventy five participants. So it's not five zero nine. I only have four years. Five zero nine is our highest.

Very proud of you.

As you should be.

And then we had lots of programs in October. But then to finish off the month was our big Halloween event, where we did see some changes. We moved some things around. We tried to keep the event moving and all in one place, so we didn't use the ball fields like we had done before. One of my favorites, and thank you to Frank and his crew, is our pirate graveyard.

We also had Little League who went out there and donated 500 pumpkins in our pumpkin patch, which only lasted an hour and a half before they were all given out. And then Last Dutchman Realty, who really puts on the front for a tree. They do work with JJ, but they really help us with provide and pay for at least half of the candy that's given out at this event, as well as help get the businesses involved for the trunk or treat. At our peak, we believe we had 3,500 people. And we believe throughout the evening, we had roughly around 5,500 attendees.

We are using new technology. We are also dabbling in placer.ai or placer.ai, the ID placer.ai. We are still just learning how to use it, but we are hoping that it will give us some technology and some data for us to be able to use for events and enhancement at our events. So give us a couple of months. I'm sure you'll ask us about it, but let us kind of figure it out first.

November is not any slower than October. So if you felt locked out in October, let me give you the rundown of some of the opportunities we have coming up you. Some more of the stories on November 7 is happening out at Prospector Park. We already have 101 registered, and we are only taking, I believe, 140. So if you are not registered, please get registered. We partner with the library. They come out and tell scary stories. And we provide the marshmallows and chocolate. We do have a paint and sips coming up also on Friday. We are partnering with Mesa Parks and Recreation.

That is an adaptive recreation evening where they'll be on our deck, and they'll be painting whatever it is that they have scheduled for that night. So we have one of those on the seventh and another one on the eleventh. We also have a paint and pints on Thursday. That class is full. So if you're really excited, make sure you guys register for those classes early. We have a not so full moon hike on Saturday, November 8. So tonight is the fullest of the moons. It's actually at a 100% illumination. It is known as the beaver move because this is when beavers are most active. It is also the second largest move of the year.

So back to recreation. We have our youth fly. Football date started, and we have parent talk football starting on November 15. We have fairytale. They are fair. So if you would like to meet some princesses, we're gonna be hosting that on the fifteenth. We would you can find us on also on the fifteenth down at Pavement Sky. Blossom Rock is hosting their Gold Rush event, and we will be out there with our youth advisory council and with an information table as well. And this is one you guys should all really go to.

I don't know if you've seen

the marketing on it, but the turkey trap. So our turkey has been working out, been lifting weights, been running laps. I encourage you guys to come out and see if you can at least keep a little bit of pace with our turkey. So registration is happening right now, and you can a shirt with your registration. For adult sports, we also have adult softball starting this month. Registration is full. I'm sorry, guys. Too late. Also, is full. Too late. You waited too long. So, yeah, better luck next season. And Friday, we have a paint night. That's free. So you can come paint rocks, but you have to bring your own rocks.

The first Saturday so, Loma, I'll give you a little bit of education here. The first Saturday of every month is concerts in the park. Sometimes they get moved because of other activities, or when it's too hot, we we don't don't have have them. Them. The second Saturday of the month is generally movies and bark, and they're all family movies. And then Hainte and Pines, like I mentioned, is always the first Thursday of the month and requires registration. The third Friday of every month, we have free fishing Fridays down at Human Sky. It's the one time you do not need a fishing license, then it'll be with Elliot. Otherwise, make sure you get a fishing license if you wanna go down there and fish. We had a couple of cool new classes this month.

We have a firearms class, and we have a couple of STEM classes being offered. So that's just November. So I don't wanna keep us here all night, so I'm just gonna tell you a little bit about summer. First, Saturday of December is always the holiday event where we have crafters and arts and crafts, and we have Santa, and we like Christmas tree, and we have a grape. And we're always looking for volunteers.

So if you happen to have that evening free and you would like to come, you know, tap out candy canes, we would love to tap. You can let me know. We also have our golf class football tournament. So if you guys wanna all put together a team, we'll make sure that Christy puts out there, that we have all of you guys together in the same spot. We don't mess up the open meeting loss, but you guys can put in a whole team to play in the flag football tournament that happens this Saturday before And that concludes my recreation report.

Other than your questions?

Is it Placer AI?

Placer AI.

And is that something through your phone?

So it is not through it's a technology company that tracks data through cell phones that are at RMS. Isn't that super cool? Interesting.

And that's how we're getting numbers now, or we're attempting.

Some events will have flickers at the beginning of the events. Sometimes we do point in time counts with staff. So we have various different methods, and that's why we're just kinda learning how place for AI works. And so it won't immediately take the place of those other methods. It will be in conjunction with those methods.

I was wondering, for the RC boat days, are boats provided, or is it bring your own?

We do have some loaner boats because we know that not everybody's going to go out and buy a boat if they don't know they're going to actually like it or know how to use it. So yes, we will have boats,

Oh, I see. That's in conjunction. The RC Boat Day is with that event. We don't do we know how many we have? And then oh, the turkey trot. I know we talked about it a little before, but how much does it cost? And what's the length of the run?

$15 and I believe it is a two mile.

Two mile, yeah. Cool. Thank you. Oh, golf. Is that just adults? Yes. Okay.

That's it for me.

Well, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Next we'll have some old business discussion and consideration of approval of the final draft of the Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan with Larry Pinkham.

All right. Now it's my turn. We put together the strategic plan to make sure these two exceed this year, next year. So this is the strategic plan that we started, oh goodness, back in August. We started talking about it, looking at some drafts, having discussions with you guys, getting some feedback, adding some of your feedback and ideas and thoughts into this.

And I believe we've come to the culmination of it. This should be our final take a look and see, make sure everything is good. One thing I do want to point out, in your packet, we unfortunately were a little bit early in printing before we caught on our map a saving error from PDF to JPEG. It didn't save. Very pretty.

So you'll see a couple things that are different in yours than what's up here. Those errors have been corrected now, and the map is should be good to go. And the only other change I think I think Frank had alluded to earlier that our staff picture, we were too wide, too much side by side. So while we were at the MUD Run, we tried to stack folks, make it a little bit more square of a photo. So we were able to accomplish that, Frank.

Well, actually, that picture, the whole staff at Halloween, it was the the faces were in the shadows. Yeah. Other than that, I thought it was fine. And it happens. It happens in photography. It's really easy.

Sometimes. And I still think there's room for improvement. But that's just me. But are there any questions at this point on our strategic plan?

You caught that on the last page, the scroll up. Yep. Never mind. You got it.

Yeah, think I just want to thank all of you. We've seen this, got all your feedback in August. September, October was kind of your guys' last changes. I think you had some minor things that you gave us. And as we talked about, we've also taken it to staff so they had their opportunity.

I think each of your suggested ideas, STEM programs, all of those different last things have made their way in here one way or another. So we are very hopeful that you guys will be ready to vote on this tonight. But we certainly sent this to you last week, so you'd have time to look through it. And so we'd like to hear your guys' thoughts before we move on to the voting portion of the evening.

I think it's ready to go. Yeah. It really looks professional.

Yeah. It looks really good.

Which gives a lot of credibility to it. It doesn't look right, no matter what you have inside of it doesn't mean much. But the fact it does look professional will get it the attention it deserves.

Yeah. And, you know, this is an important document to us. You know, I think following the city's general plan and the important goals, we also use this document in our budget document that goes out, it's utilized by our auditors. It has the key strategies that are also emphasized in the budget each year. So they pull those directly from this. And so I think it's really important. So thank you very much for all of your guidance on this.

Madam Chair, I move that the Parks and Recreation Commission approve the final draft of the 2026 Park and Recreation Strategic Plan.

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

Judy Borey.

Yes.

Sorry, had to make sure that was on. Frank Schoenbeck?

Yes.

Diel Kine is excused. Manny Vega is excused. Felicia Madrid? Yes. Lamont Kleppler?

Yes.

And Heather Moeller? Yes. Okay, that motion passes.

Thank you. Next we have some new business report and discussion on year round aquatics programming from Jamie.

So I did my homework. And I brought back my presentation. So before Cheryl had left, she had also mentioned and asked about more opportunities for water aerobics. So if you guys remember, Julia came towards the end of the season or after the pool season and kind of gave you guys the stats and the update on how things went at the pool. And I just want to share with you what or remind you all what a week at our swimming pool looks like.

So this is a typical week during the summer. And our number one priority is always going to be swim lessons and education, right? And then secondary, it is that open swim time so that families and individuals have an opportunity to swim, to get out of well, or to get in the heat or whatever it may be. But to be able to have that time. And then we have very we have events.

We save some time where people can reserve the pool, either exclusively or as a community to be able to have birthday parties or reunions, anniversaries, anniversaries, gatherings. So that's what you'll see those private reservations are on there. You'll see when we have water aerobics or is that kind of that late evening time frame. What you don't see on there is we also work with the school district when they start to allow their if they have a swim team to start to practice. And so they will have practice for their swim team, which gets built into this as well.

So there and then we have staff training, which we have to have that staff training. So we have a little bit of staff training on every Friday morning, actually. We have it in service every Friday morning for staff. And we will be also adding some staff training on Monday mornings when we have for our water safety instructors. So as you can see from this schedule, there is not a lot of opportunities left for programming.

We also have to have some time for maintenance. And Dave's crew does a really great job of working around us, but we do have to give them a little bit of time. So I'm not saying that there isn't any time that we couldn't. We have tried some Saturday. So you can see we have a little bit of a break on Saturday mornings. We've done some water Zumba classes. But then it's only once a week, and people really want more than once a week when it comes to fitness. And it also is dependent on instructor availability. So continue to look at these programs. And if there's a program that's not working or struggling or doesn't have a lot of participants, we might consider swapping it out with a new program.

But that is not happening with any of these programs. So even our water aerobics in the evenings, they are full with waiting lists. Our events are all well attended that we wouldn't consider getting rid of itty bitty Olympics or teen night or dive in movies. So this is what a week at our pool looks like. So any questions about this before I move on to the next slide?

Well, maybe I should just let you finish, and then I'll hold question.

Jamie, is this it for not? Is this it for swim, though?

Nope. I'm going to the next slide. So Felicia had asked about one too many kind of about year round programming at the pool. So I'm going to walk you through some of the things that we have recently done to expand the programming at the pool. So we have expanded our swim lessons.

So we've gone to Saturday swim lessons. And being that in the last two years we've had healthy recruitments and we're able to get more instructors, we have added kids in the water. I think Julia had mentioned that we were able to add 30 kids per swim less like, we opened 30 swim spots per hour of swim lessons. I'd have to go back and look, because I didn't rehearse that. I didn't remember it. But we were able to add because we were able to add instructors. We have added lap swim. So we had lots of folks asking. And so you'll see those early morning lap swim times. We don't get a ton of people.

But if we don't have those lap swim times, then we have a ton of requests. And it's not a heavily used time. Most people aren't wanting to be at the pool at 7AM with their kids. So it kind of fills that purpose. We've added aerobics through September. We have also been able to keep our swim season from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We had done that very long ago, and then the season had to get cut shorter. Then we had COVID. Then we had staffing issues. So we're really, really excited that we have our pool open at least on the weekends from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

We did add a pumpkin plunge in October. And we couldn't do it this year because we're doing amazing maintenance and adding some great stuff down at the pool. So we weren't able to do it this year. But it will be back next year. And we are looking to add a polar plunge type of event in December.

So that is on the possibilities. So some of the challenges of expanding program more beyond that is there's lots. This is in no particular order by all means. But consider our staffing, that most of our staff are young and they are returning to college or they are returning to high school where they are heavily involved in lots of extracurricular activities. And then once they start school, there are lots of labor laws that must be met, rightfully so, so that those kids aren't working more than they're going to school.

As we hit August and September, we start to have attendance and call out issues. Those kids are burnt out. They've worked ten weeks. And so we have to even incentivize them. If you come in, if you get called in, we'll give you we put your name into a raffle. We have to beg and plead. Please don't call out. We need you for those swim lessons. We need to get through these weekends. So we struggle to staff through those very later weeks of the year.

There is uncertainty with the swim team. So we can't go and add a bunch of programs one year, knowing that those programs will have to be cut because we have a swim team for the school and they do get priority. Just remember that is on their property. So we share use of that pool. And we do work with the school schedules as well.

And then we do need to have some time for maintenance and repairs. These are generally scheduled in our off season. And also going back to staff, we don't operate and fully staff the pool, even maintenance wise, once the season ends. Should we have to program that pool year round, then you're having to add year round maintenance staff to maintain that pool. So Felicia had asked about a year round swim team.

So I am just going to be very honest to say that we don't do any sport year round. Recreation, our intent is to expose kids to different types of activities and programs. And once they get really good or their parents think that they're going to make it to the World Series or to the Super Bowl, then they start looking at putting them in year round teams such as club teams. So it would be probably not the best use of funds to fund a program year round that might only meet the needs of a dozen to 20 kids. Our job is to introduce them to the sport, get them excited about it, and then give them the confidence to be able to go do it at a higher level.

Participant numbers and the cost that it would take to cover that program year round just is not a financially responsible would not be a financially responsible decision. So just to kind of bring out what some of those costs are, the monthly cost to heat the pool is between $1,500 and $2,000 That's why we also don't do a lot of programming November through March, because it would be expensive to heat that pool on a regular basis. The chemical consumption, once you put people and bodies in the water, goes up drastically. And I mean, we all know why for lots of reasons. And then as I mentioned before, the staff cost of having a parks division that is maintaining a year round pool every single day, those costs would also go up.

So we are extending it little by little every year. And then also, what's not on this slide, come March, we almost use that pool for at least three weeks minimum just to train the staff and get them ready. So even if we had or could do year round programming, we'd have to shut the pool down at one point just to be able to get our staff trained for the next season. And

Jamie, isn't it also liability and insurance, I would think, year round would be pretty expensive?

I don't know that it would be any as long as the activities we're still doing, I don't know that that would be any more of a cost. But I've not asked that question.

Well, thank you for looking into it and giving answers. I mean, we're partial to AJ programming. So if we get to participate in swim, we'd love to do it here. And it stemmed from parent requests, not just personal. But the team really it was a really good team this year, they really bonded. And so one question I have, though, is what's the AJUSD? Do we know their month like, schedule they run?

So when they start practice, they start looking at August through November if they make state.

Okay.

But like this year, they didn't even tell us if they were going to field a team until July. Because they're still trying to get kids. Their kids are coming back to school because it's they start school in July, but their practice that AI starts to allow them is literally just then as well. So again, we don't want to offer programs only to have to turn around and cancel and tell 30 people that, hey, your aerobics class is canceled because we've got swimmers coming in. And it really is overlap.

So we still have swim lessons that we try to figure in in there. We'll do reservations. So we still do overlap with the swim team because they don't take up the whole pool. But we don't want to go in full blown program. And then we also don't want to give the school the impression that we don't think that they're going to ever field a teen. Like, that's not good.

This is actually the first year they haven't in a really long time. So it's just tough to program that time frame. The other thing is not to say that we couldn't figure out if there was a club team or somebody that wanted to come there. Again, the problem is that there will be times that they couldn't rely on using that pool. So right now we have some really significant changes and maintenance things that have to happen.

And so would they be willing, you know, to not be there for a whole year almost? I mean, we're going to have ongoing things that happen all throughout this year that take priority over anything else because that pool is the only pool we have. If we had two pools, you know, then these problems probably wouldn't exist. We would be able to balance a lot of these things. But we're really not there yet.

When we grow in size, when we're double our size in the next five to ten years, you know, maybe that will be something that helps us solve that problem. But until then, we're going to struggle with being able to fit all of these things there. And so we appreciate that people want more and we love that. It's definitely a balancing act. And we hear it from every single area, so we definitely appreciate where you and other parents are coming from. But I think it's good to know that these are all the things. It's not just a, you know, we don't care about it or anything like that. I think it's a great question to ask. And it's good to know all the facts that go into a decision.

Yeah, for sure. I really appreciate it. And I mean, you guys know I'm a big fan of all the programs And you guys Julie is looking at

I don't know where, because I just showed you her schedule. But she is also looking at possibly adding a dive team this summer. Yes. So Julie is our aquatics coordinator.

Yes. Thanks. Okay. Thank you so much.

Any other questions on aquatics?

Okay. Thank you very much. All right. And it looks like we have a report and discussion on recreation programming demographics also from Jamie.

Okay. This is my biggest homework. Felicia asked me to do math. If I understood the homework assignment, it was what percentage of our programming is done for different age groups. So I took the liberty of making up my own age groups.

And you can see that over on the right it's on my right hand side. So I broke it down into prekindergartener prekindergartners, youth, teens this is kind of weird, but youth and adults, because we have some programs that start at eight or nine our adult programs. But also keep in mind, sometimes that really means 16 and older. Our seniors, which is mostly those 55 and older, but we wouldn't turn any adult away. And then we have all ages, and we have our families.

And the difference between the all ages is it's really not meant for a specific age group. So like rock painting, for example, we have families, but we also have some seniors that come. It's not really programmed or meant for one age group. And then you have our family events, which really are meant for families. So Mad Science, Halloween event.

Like, we don't usually see people come without kids sometimes, but that's not really the intent of them. So this was very complicated because we offer lots of different kinds of programming drop in program, free program, registered program, online program, show up in your jammy program. Like, we have all kinds of different variations of programming. So what this included is registered classes, drop in special interest classes, such as free craft classes, and our special events. What it does not include is drop in fitness.

So this doesn't include yoga. It doesn't include any drop in sports, like volleyball or pickleball. It doesn't include our individual Youth Advisory Council events because they have events as well. But it's usually meant for that group of Youth Advisory Council kids. It doesn't include senior lunches, doesn't include the kids that come or adults that frequent the skate park, it doesn't include the people who use our trails or our parks, because all those numbers are really hard to get.

So now you know what I focused on. And you can see so 11% of our programming that I just talked about and I gave you examples of what those programs are are pre K, so five and younger. And also take into consideration for this age group, the library does a lot of programming for this age group. And tonight, I will claim the library as an extension of recreation programming. I didn't add their numbers into here, but they also do a lot of pre K programming.

So our youth is our highest percentage at 30%. That is our sports, swim lessons, winter, summer, breaks, cooking classes, art classes. All of that falls under that youth programming. Our teens are one of our smallest percentage, along with youth and adults, which if you split that either way, it's still pretty small. But teens are they want passive recreation.

They don't want a lot of organized recreation. That's where you'll find them probably down at the skate park. Or if you come by on a Friday night or a volleyball night at the MultiGen Center, that's where you'll see a lot of our teens. But we do some teen programming with teen nights. We have skateboard lessons. We have our lifeguard and our junior program trainings. We consider those to be heavily taken by teens. Again, not on here is the free Friday nights that are at the MultiGen Center. Every Friday night is teen night at the MultiGen Center. Adults, 21% along with our seniors.

So the seniors is kind of another tricky one because we have lots of social programs that fall right before lunch or right after lunch. They have about 10 different social programs offered every single month. And some of them are twice a month. So you're knit and crocheting, your dementia support group. That kind of is what makes up those senior programs.

We also have Televita, which is where we stream it. So they are eating lunch, and we stream in brain teasers and bingo classes and stuff like that. And then our all ages and our families. Now when I did play with some numbers, I don't know if they're accurate enough to actually share with you. But I can tell you participant wise, the biggest number of this group is going to be our family events or our families, because those are Halloween at 5,500 people.

They are fourth of July at 4,000 people. The holiday event those are very high numbered events. Dino days, 1,200 people. So while it's only 7% of our programming, it is the largest target population that I feel like we reach. So that's all my numbers. That's what I got for you guys.

You're eternally grateful.

So I don't know if this is what you thought you'd see or if you thought you would see something different. No, this covers it.

I think it's just nice to see, like, what you know, and for anyone who's watching in the community of, like, what is it that we offer? And I think it's also showing how much is offered and how well rounded it is.

And this equates to about 700 different programs last year. These numbers were taken I should have put that on here because that'd been a better graph to put that this was 2024.

Did you gain any insight from this?

You know, I love to see it, but it's actually exactly what I thought it would be, families being the largest target area. I did think the 7% would be a little bit higher, But it's simply because, like I said, those numbers are driven by a lot of participants. And also, a lot of it is just cross. Like I said, you could put your all ages with your families, your youth and adults. You could split like, it just made me realize we do a lot of programming across a lot of different ages that also blend together.

I think it's an indication that we serve the entire community.

JULIE Yeah. I mean, it's honestly very inspiring that this is what we have out here. Multi generational. Multi generational. Yeah. JULIE is. It really is. Yeah. And that's what makes Apache Junction so great. I mean, Parks and Rec really is the heart, I feel like, of this city. And so, yeah, I mean, that was the reason I joined the commission in the first place is because it did so much for me, you know? And then my kids now and still me. So, yeah.

Any other questions?

It looks great. It does. Thanks. Okay.

Thank you very much. We have discussion and upcoming election of officers process from Liz.

All right. So we just wanted to take a minute to talk about December and kind of how the election of officers work. So next meeting, you will have a script that will help you to remember the process for electing officers. Yeah, it's so fun.

It's so fun.

Feel free to go online and maybe even watch last year's. It's always the December meeting. And that kind of helps to remember the process. But what will happen is that Heather will call for nomination of chair nominations. She has to call it once. And you'll just ask to be recognized. And you'll give your nomination. She has to call for that three times, even if nobody else is nominated.

We have to have a motion

to Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. We will do our motion to even open that up, which is why you'll have a script so that I don't have to remember it, and neither does Heather. So we'll call for the motion. You'll have to get a second. And we will vote on that motion. And then once it's open, then she'll call for nominations. She has to call for that three different times. So if we get one nomination, then she'll call for another other nominations. We might get a second.

Even if we don't get any, she has to call for three nominations. When that is done, then we do a motion to close the nominations, a second. And we have to vote to close the nominations. And then we vote on the first person nominated. So that's really the key is that the very first person nominated is the very first person that is voted on.

And that's really important. And so we'll go through the vote. And if that person gets, four or more votes, they are the chair. When that one is done, then we will go through the entire process for the vice chair. If the chair is somebody different than Heather, we turn over the gavel at the end of this entire process in that day.

We don't do it before the vice chair. We do it as soon as this entire agenda item is done at the end of that section. What I'd like to tell all of you is that you should really think about who wants to do different things. And, you know, make sure that you're nominating people who really want to be nominated. And if you want to be nominated for something, be honest with people about sharing that outside of here.

You cannot talk to three or more people about that. You can't talk in a group. Know, there are open meeting laws and those kinds of things. But I would definitely if you think somebody would make a great whatever, vice chair or chair, make sure you ask before you nominate them. Because some of you will remember the year that I don't know, something like three people were nominated and every single one of them voted no for themselves. They didn't want to be nominated. And we were like, okay, what do we do now? So we just want you to be prepared for the process. Did I leave anything out, Christie, do you think?

I just will be calling roll. Yeah.

Oh, and we want to try to go during roll, we'll go a little bit slower. We might have to back up. Or even in motions, might have to back up a little bit.

Well, if anybody would like to be nominated, and you you don't want to have to nominate yourself, please let somebody else on the commission know that you'd like to be nominated and you'd appreciate your name being brought up.

Yeah. I think in past, because we have each other's emails through what you sent out, Christie, I know we cannot reach out to more than one person, right? So I just individually, the people that I don't have personal information for, use the email and reach out. I've just

yeah. For instance, if you run one for a chair, you just let one of us know to nominate you and you get nominated.

Well, I'm not interested in chairs.

And I think key

is too. You know, think about the commitment and, you know, the time that you have to be able to do each of those roles is really important. Anything else from those of you that have been here that we're leaving out?

Well, I think anybody who would like to be chair, please do ask to be nominated. Because I think, you know, nothing we do here is deadly critical.

It's all critical.

But it is important.

Can we take that off the record?

So I think anybody who would like a chance at being a chair and would like to be in that position and get a feel for it, I know I think this is Heather's first chairman. Yeah. So she's done really well

with it.

And how many terms did you do, Frank? Because you I were a fearless leader when I came

think just a couple.

He did. And mainly because he wanted to spread the wealth around.

Yeah, think people should have a chance

to He was very see encouraging to somebody else

doing it. I just want to say, I think we did. We all held our breath for the voting last year. But I think we actually it went pretty smoothly.

Guys did a great job. There was one year so I'll just say this. My very first year and to be fair, there were many years I shouldn't say this on the record. Didn't It's do it right. Fine.

They didn't

do it every year.

Let's just

say that. So my first year, we did it wrong, very wrong. I think I did a ballot. Somebody told me.

And she's traumatized. Am. Do it right.

Do it right every year now, so that's why we talk about it. But we're going to be ready. Guys are ready.

All right.

We are. We are.

Secret ballet. I like that. All right. So Call to the Public. Go ahead and read that or no?

Do we have anybody wanting to do call to the public?

Okay. All

right, thank you. All right, commissioners, if there is anything to suggest or recommend being added to the next agenda, now is call for future agenda items. Anything you would like to add? A follow-up? A little additional information?

We're busy.

We got elections already.

Okay. Well, you guys are busy.

All right. Moving along. We've got the selection of meeting dates, times, location, and purpose. So I'll need a motion, please.

I move that the Parks and Recreation Commission hold a regular meeting on 12/03/2025, at six p. M. In the City Council Chambers located at 300 East Supercision Boulevard.

And may I have a second?

I'll second that.

And may I have roll call, please.

Frank Schoenbeck? Yes. D. L. Kine is excused. Manny Vega is excused. Felicia Madrid? Yes. Lamont Clefler?

Yes.

Judy Borey? Yes. Heather Moeller?

Yes.

And that motion passes.

Thank you. All right. Then it looks like at 07:01, we're going to go ahead and adjure the meeting.

Thank you for the stickers. They're so cute. And do you

have

does anyone have an

extra