Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah, just before we start, just ask if more people want to. Yes.

Could I remind everyone to sign in, please? You know, we can see who's on here. Thank you.

I've done that a lot. Trust me. Okay.

All right. Hello, everyone. We're starting the meeting. Welcome to June's Parks and Recreation Commission meeting falling to order. So we next have the approval of the agenda for the members. Do you look at the agenda?

I'll make a motion to approve tonight's agenda as proposed. Second the motion.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. And now HAB-Masyn Moyer- The public comment. HAB-Masyn Moyer- No minutes. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed that number three should approval of the minutes.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I'm sorry. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yeah.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- All right, now we have approval of the minutes from the main meaning, you know, that to be able to read that.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yeah. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Everyone agree. HAB-Danny Teodoru- Yes, I'm good. or did you move? No, go ahead. Okay, yeah. I move that we approve the minutes from the May meeting. Thank you.

I'll second that.

Thank you.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Now, public comment.

So the list disappeared. They're still signing up.

Okay. Is everyone on there now? So this is for... Most of you are probably new to this process. So if you are here to listen to one of the presentations, great. You don't need to get up and speak. But the time right now would be as if anybody has a general comment, concern, something they'd like to bring to the attention of the commission, you'd have up to three minutes to be able to speak to that item. Again, if you're here just in support of one of the presentations, great. You don't have to speak, but everybody has an opportunity at this point.

So we need the list. So who's first on the list for public comments?

I think those are just people that signed in for being here. And if you want to speak, just stand up. if someone wants to make any comment.

We do have one online.

Okay.

We'll take another one first. Cool. Kenny Billivong here. I'm here. I represent . And I'm just here to support what So it's got the presents. All in for supporting a contract as well as all surface for sports sitting on our club and Derby and Yeah, thank you for being here.

Yes. So there's some online. Yeah, we have online.

Mr. Camacho?

We're turning up our volume, Mr. Camacho. Thanks, John.

I'm sorry.

There you are. We had you for a second.

Can you unmute?

OK, I'm hoping you can hear me. Yeah, I'll try to turn it up.

Yeah, a little bit.

OK, I'm going to proceed. We can hear you. Hopefully you can hear me. I just realized I do not have my mic plugged in. If you will bear with me for one second. I'm sorry for this. This is not what I typically do. Hopefully that's a little bit better.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Okay. Thank you for your patience. I'm Jose Camacho, friend of Smith's Cove, rock to block. My public comment is hopefully two things. The last time I was there, I think I mentioned the Chevron Tank Farm cleanup site in Evergreen Park. Ecology is having a public meeting at our request. So I'm kind of letting the Parks Commission know that this public meeting, it still does not have a date, would actually be a great opportunity for parks commissioners, the parks director, and anyone in the public who would like to see what the issues are surrounding Ecology's cleanup of a particular section of Evergreen Park. And the reason why that it's really, fruitful for everyone to look into it is because Evergreen Park, particularly Smith's Cove, is a really fascinating convergence of ecological stewardship, of law that's intended to protect the shores, and actually of ecology's efforts. They fund a lot of projects throughout the city, including related to parks. The way ecology protects our environment overlaps with parks administration and my engagement as a citizen because i do not i've never done this before which i've been doing for the past two and a half years is so intertwined with my love of smith cove and my old love of law as an old paralegal it's kind of been resurrected um It's what led me to engage with city council, the city as a governmental body. And what I've discovered is that many people, my partner has been a Bremertonian since the 90s. And she actually was not aware that that section of Evergreen Park, it's around the memorial at Evergreen Park, was toxic from its old history as a petrochemical plant. site. So there's actually benzene in the soil, but it's been contained and remediated as much as that's possible. So the public meeting is about what is going on. Does the public have to be concerned? And the public meeting has actually widened in scope to allow people like me, you know, low income people, people who have experienced homelessness chime in on, for me, one of the issues is the massive difficulty in getting information from the city about the things I just mentioned. The Department of Ecology is a reliable source of scientific data. And what unfortunately I discovered was that the city simply was not. So this public meeting, everyone there, probably there to support the skate park should come because the issue is how we take care of our parks, how it's administered in a legal way, how the environment overlaps with our parks administration. So I'm here as a person who is, I describe myself as a nobody, right? as even a person who's a nobody can engage civically with their government and contribute to something that is really an ideal. Parks are a public space. This is an ideal. It's why so many people are showing up here. It's a place for sanctuary, for peace, for relaxation. It allows us to be human. Sometimes we're stuck in a rat race. So that's what parks are for. And when I try to engage about spinach, yes, sir.

You're over your three minutes. If you want to just summarize, if you have anything else.

That, that was it. I appreciate it. Ecology is having a public meeting. They don't have a date yet. Um, they have actually said they would like city representatives to be there so the public is invited you can zoom in you can go in in person so that's on the horizon for everybody thank you thank you thank you all right so now we have our staff reports and updates on our agenda next it should be though

which would be the wheels part concept. So, Phil, Mr. Babcock?

Yeah.

Hello. Is that us?

Yeah, let me get this up and going. Where should I stand? You can roam.

I can roam?

You can play the room.

All right. Work the room. Excellent. Well, hi. I'm Phil Babcock. Thank you for joining me. I also want to call Kenny, Cypher. If you guys want to talk and you don't mind awkwardly standing up here while I do my part. Yeah, come on up. So my name's Phil. I have kind of, for lack of a better term, have put together this coalition of cyclists, Bremerton parents, roller derby folks, roller skaters, bike polo enthusiasts. And we are here to make a proposal for a wheels park in Bremerton. I just want to let Cypher and Kenny introduce themselves really briefly. But yeah, this is our coalition. And yeah.

My name is, my legal name is Kendra, aka Cypher. That's what I go by in the derby world. And I am the treasurer for West Sound Roller Derby and have been part of it since 2017. Ooh. Welcome.

My name is Kenny. I was built by Cayman. I am the president of South Black Polo. I've been there for over two years. So here at the Cane Polo, we're going to start with you. Your activities. My polo go around without any, I guess, it kicked out of your surface. That's being split. Yeah. And then just for clarity.

We did make one quick typo, but Kids App Rollers is a group of recreational roller skaters that meet up about every two weeks at the Refuge Church. And they are also like a really awesome community-led roller skating initiative that we have a few folks from the group here as well supporting.

And the Refuge Church is where?

It used to be called Chico Alliance Church.

All right.

Next slide. So what are we looking for? Very simply, we're looking for an all season facility for all wheeled users featuring a pump track, a covered skate and other wheeled sports court. We want this facility to have easy access with or without a car. And we would like this facility to have proximity to existing facilities so the city doesn't have to invest additional capital for bathrooms, other supporting facilities for something like this. I will start talking about a pump track because it's a bell that I've been ringing with the city since about 2021 now. But a pump track is a skills park For bicycles, roller skates, rollerblades, scooters, and skateboards. It consists of a series of rollers, these smooth bumps, and berms, the banked turns, that can be ridden without pedaling, literally by pumping your skateboard or bike or legs up and down. It is fun. for all ages and all skill levels. As you can see from this photo, there's a wide mix of folks using the facility, and that is a pretty common site at any pump track you're likely to visit. This pump track, which is in Leavenworth, is the ideal, it's asphalt, and asphalt isn't the ideal surface for a pump track around here, because once you have it built, it is the lowest maintenance. Dirt pump tracks require very constant maintenance, and an asphalt pump track is, there's modular pump tracks too, which Tim and I have talked about a little bit, but as a permanent installation, an asphalt pump track is the best investment from the city's perspective. The benefits of pump tracks. So pump tracks promote a development of skills and confidence for all wheeled sports enthusiasts that want to use it. Pump tracks bring in regional tourism. They can host competitions. And yeah, that brings in revenue to local businesses, other local establishments. Pump tracks get people active and exercising. And physical activity, as we know, has both physical and mental health benefits. Pump tracks build an engaged community. If you want to go back to that last slide, I mean, look at all the people just hanging out around the pump track. It becomes the third place, which are pretty rare in our society today. Pump tracks are a great way to utilize underused or vacant space, which makes communities safer. The spot that we would like to propose for this, the Sheridan Park directly across the street, is what Tim has mentioned is an underutilized area that the tow-off lot and the park don't really have much features that draw community right now. So this would be an excellent way to utilize those. Ramerton area really needs a pump track because it just lost a huge resource for cyclists last year. Peninsula Indoor BMX was a staple of the cycling community down in Port Orchard. That closed down in April of 2025. This Indoor BMX track had been around since the 1970s with the sites being redeveloped. But with that closing of Peninsula Indoor BMX, this area... region even, lacks a youth accessible weather resistant riding area. What will the pump track feature bring to Bremerton? It will bring a resource to our kids and other people who enjoy cycling or other wheeled sports. Since PIBMX closed, BMX riders specifically do not have a facility nearby where they can practice pumping and berm turns essential skills. for BMX and mountain biking. It's a safe place to ride in the city. Right now there's, you know, there's a few city parks with good loops for kids to practice riding their bikes or scooters or skateboards, but there's not really any advanced features or, you know, medium advanced features. There's the Bremerton Skate Park, but yeah, this would add to that, this would, Yeah, add to that existing facility by opening up to more users. It will build confidence and skills in wheeled sports users and promote interest in cycling and other wheeled sports. In terms of community value, it is a free in-town outdoor recreation area for both youth and adults. Based on the popularity of other tracks in the regions, we could expect 150 plus users on peak weekends, which is a pretty awesome draw for the region. It is an accessible and equitable resource for users in all wheels, and not just a local attraction, but a regional one. It takes wheel activity into authorized areas. So, you know, if you've got folks in the streets doing their thing, it kind of takes them away from a place that they need to think about sharing with cars. So that's an advantage as well. Long story short, we want to provide a safe space for our kids to develop skills in a place that is easily accessible by foot, bike, skates, scooter, skateboarding. Nice.

All right.

Well, thank you.

So, um, for those of you who, uh, might or might not be familiar with roller derby. So just super quick intro. It's a full contact sport on roller skates with our full protective gear. There is actually over, I think we've actually hit over 400 leagues worldwide that play under one rule set. And there are multiple. Some really good examples that are local. We have Rat City Roller Derby in Seattle and then also Rose City Rollers in Portland who are our current world champions. We'll see if they can continue to defend that. That's coming up in November. But the big thing is that almost every league that exists are run by the members. They're all members of the community and all entirely volunteers making it happen. So for us, West Sound Roller Derby, we've been around actually in the region since 2015. We used to be called Northwest Derby Company and rebranded in about 2021. Um, I mean, I believe you guys can all kind of read, but really like what we're all about is we're trying to empower and inspire members of the community to bring your authentic themselves through rollery, um, while providing a really fun and athletic, compassionate and safe space for people to thrive. Um, one of the really big things is, um, we host our, we host our new skater program that welcomes anybody over the age of 18, um, to come and develop their skills. We take on people that had played derby 20 years ago and brand new folks that, um, come up to kids at pride table and say, I can't do roller derby. I'm too plexy. And now she's our secretary. Um, and, um, And also like roller derby also is, can be a junior sport as well. We don't have it here locally anymore, which is something that we're trying to bring back. And it really just builds confidence community and also gives our members leadership opportunities and experience. Benefits of roller skating in general, right? Because like I said, it's not just us that's here. We have our kids up roller friends. And it's really, it's just, it's a movement that's going to bring people together and strengthen our communities. You know, and It's a full-body workout, very similar to what Phil was saying. It just gives us a really good workout, aerobic exercise. It can reduce stress, release endorphins, help your mental health, and social connection. So this is talking about rinks, but I mean, I'm sure everybody has some memory of going to the skating rink when you were a kid with your glass or whatever, and you meet some random kid. And you're like, hey, look at this cool thing I can do, right? Roller skating brings people together and creates friendships and provides a really safe recreational space. And there's lots of different types, right? We have artistic skating, speed skating, hockey, roller hockey, roller derby, and everything in between. It offers something for everyone. And it's inclusive. I don't know how many folks have seen, you have kids that you're surprised can even walk on roller skates. All the way to people that you're like, man, if I can move like that when I'm like whatever age that person is, it's impressive. So like this is a sport for all people. So, you know, we had a rink here in Bremerton and it closed in 2019. Not only did the Kitsap County lose its last roller skating rink, it lost the home for both our adult and our youth leagues. our artistic skating, which were medal winners, speed skating, roller hockey, which was coached by a World USA hockey player, and they were winning medals, and then obviously all of our recreational skating opportunities. So what is the kind of requirements for the space that we would need? We would need at ideally 108 foot long, 75 foot wide space, ideally smooth concrete, no cracks. And it can be a little bit smaller if they have walls around it that are 30 inches, 36 inches tall.

All right.

Thank you.

Yes, welcome. Hello, everyone. I'm Kenny.

Bye, Polo.

A little bit of history. I know that some of the mission members have seen me go through one of these videos before.

Can you speak up so your voice can carry to the back?

Yeah.

Yeah, please. Thank you.

It is warm in here. I just want to thank everyone for showing up. It's appreciated. I like the support. Bike polo is kind of what you see here in the picture. We're on bikes. And we're not on horses. We're playing polo. So hardcore bike polo. Kind of started in the 90s, this kind of version. But even prior to that, Bipolo was done even in Europe, church style. And I think it was debuted in one of the world fairs as an activity that did it. But it got popular again in the 90s. And now there are a bunch of neighboring clubs that have people playing bipolar, including Portland, Bellingham, Seattle, Vancouver, and now Bremerton. It's all bipolar. So it's something cool and something to be welcomed because it invites people in, not only from outside the area, but hopefully we can grow our numbers for then Bremerton. This is another activity to do. Keeps the city interesting. And we just like doing the activity. What else do we need? We need a similar court surface as roller skating, 150 feet at least, and walks. Kind of keep that ball within the perimeter. We've been playing in parking lots and flat services, and it's about time we get something more permanent, more situated, and that's approved for us to do our activities. Also, it's ideal. We live in Seattle. It's raining all the time. It's drizzling. We're subject to weather, and we would like to play more often. But we can't. We need something that's more covered. I've played bike polo in other areas in other countries, in Europe as well. There are just so many facilities that are just covered. They just know it's going to be wet. It's going to be snowing. Let's keep these people active. And I propose that you have something like that here. Roof covered. Um, and again, we're here to support, uh, early Jersey, uh, persons and, uh, lower skating because you've seen. Yeah. Um, again, um, a lot of court surfaces facilitate other sports. I know in Seattle, Jenkins park, they sport futsal, soccer, roller hockey, street hockey. and roller skating. So again, it promotes balance and athleticism and also skills within a bike. Kind of second hands that pump track. If you're gonna pump and really grow technically on a bike, you can do well in a bike home. And then establishing regional communities in the neighboring sister cities and assisted parks. strengthen the Northwest bike polo scene and build opportunities. And again, we like to host tournaments and events, but we kind of can't do that unless we have a tournament. That's what we hope to find here. Again, this is a spectator-friendly sport. Even though you feel like you may not be able to contribute by playing, man, it's interesting to watch. If you're ever seeing bipolar, maybe at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle or anywhere else, it is crazy to see what people can do on them. So, thank you guys.

Yeah, I'll take it back over.

This is, as Kendra said, these are examples of covered pavilions, outdoor skate courts, uh, throughout the, um, throughout the country. Um, uh, yeah. What do they all have in common? A flat surface and a roof. Uh, and yeah, that's, that's really at this, at this point, that's what our concept is. A flat surface and a roof. Um, that's, uh, about 110 by 75. Uh, Where do we want to put it? As I mentioned at the top of this presentation, directly across the street from here. This park would need quite a bit of flat surface and that the Sheridan Park and the adjacent utility lot provides quite a bit of flat surface or levelable surface to put a pump track and a pavilion. And this is just kind of Jake, thank you for putting this conceptual drawing together. But that orientation is just to kind of show you guys what it could look like. It could be in any kind of orientation. This space is great because it also has ample parking. And it's across the street from this facility. You don't have to build extra bathrooms. You don't have to find room for extra parking. And yeah, it brings a community center to the parks and rec center. It's kind of cool that this is also, you know, parks and rec offices. It's like, you know, you got home base here. And yeah, I've spoken to Tim many times about this and I hope I'm not misrepresenting his enthusiasm on this slide. Yeah, you could have deleted it.

I've got questions.

So what's our proposal to the city? Here's what we'd like to see for next steps. Our coalition will raise and donate an amount to cover a site-specific design fee from American Ramp, the US leader in asphalt, pump tracks, and skate parks. This total is about $20,000. With that donation to the city, we would like the city to put in writing a commitment to redevelop Sheridan Park as a Bremerton Wheels Park and set timeline goals for the construction of the park. With that done, our coalition will continue to work with the city to identify and pursue grants and raise funds to help the park construction costs. So yeah, we're ready to get going on fundraising for this design fee. And the design fee would basically give you a very fancy site-specific conceptual drawing for Sheridan Park. It would involve somebody from American Ramp coming here, actually studying the site, talking to our community groups figuring out exactly what kind of services uh um like you know what's the court going to be made up not as straightforward an answer that would be those answers would be provided in that survey so it wouldn't quite be like a dig ready build scheme but it would be uh very far along the way so yeah that's that's it uh let's let's get rolling

Something I forgot to mention just I wanted to plug it really quickly is the results from the last survey that parks and recs did didn't include roller skating and bikes as one of their highest demands for for for from our community, so the demand is also there. For something like this in our just even in our smaller community, let alone the greater fits up area.

Are there any questions you guys and the commission have any questions. Or comments.

I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to kick us out. Take us really sideways. But let me just say to start out with. I'm delighted to see this. I have I worked with Bremerton school district for 13 years.

150 years ago.

And what we kept hearing from children is there's nothing to do here. There's nothing to do here. And that was the common complaint all the time. So to see something like this is tremendous. And the community really needs it. I'll go one step further. I don't want to take us all too sideways on this, but I want to throw out a different idea as well. I think there's an alternate site that could be considered if we can get our government agencies working together. And that is the site that is currently the Armanjar Elementary portable campus. It is the school district's intent when Armanjar moves into its permanent house, that they're going to dismantle that. They are going to take out the portables and return that to now a flat developed site. And there's no particular plans for that. And I bring it up just for one reason, wherever this site lands or whatever this project lands, I think it's great. But I think we as a community do need to think about our property tax base because Bremerton is suffering. Bremerton residents carry a big property tax load because there is so much tax exempt property in this community, starting with 141 acres of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. And then there's all the churches, the schools, the parks, the everything. When you think of how much property is tax exempt. And I think one thing that we could Think about, Tim and I have talked about this, how schools and parks can work together because they are both big property techs. They both own big properties. And if we can start sharing that eventually, and then you could do something. Now, some people might be upset by this, but if we were to be able to put this facility at the current Armand Jar site, You could actually sell Sheridan Park and put it on to the property tax record, sell it and have it developed as something other than public space. We're going to need to think about that as a community going forward because we struggle. We struggle. It's hard. So however that works, and that would be a prime developable property, But wherever this lands, I think it'll be a delightful project.

Thank you, Joan. Good idea. Ben?

Rough estimate. What kind of money are we talking about?

So basically, all in, it's a $900,000 to $1 million budget.

I'd probably say double that.

Tim and I had a meeting with American Ram Company yesterday, and based on the size and current price it is, what we're looking at for the pump track is probably a $400,000 to $500,000 pump track. It'd be bigger. It would fill this space. The pavilion itself is probably just the roof. uh, is, uh, like I think 250, he quoted around 250. Um, the, the court itself is highly dependent on like what we actually want to do. Like, do we want to have no seams in the concrete? It gets considerably more expensive if you do that. If you're okay with saw cut concrete, um, which would have to be a conversation with the roller, the Yeah, I can't remember what those estimates were off the top of my head. But all in around with a pretty thorough accounting feature by feature, it was between 900,000 and a million.

Collette, are you familiar with any grants that the city could apply for this kind of facility?

Yeah, certainly a local parks grant will be a good one. I don't know if it would be a good candidate for the youth athletic facility grant because that's really for competitive youth sports and I don't know what the level of competition for youth would be with these facilities as to what they cater towards. The permitting will be a little bit of an issue because it is on the shoreline. There'll be some extra permitting costs associated, but it is doable.

I think about the slope down to that park as well. I mean, we're huge on ADA compliant things, as we should be. And so I just imagine we're going to see some costs in making that ADA compliant.

Making the site ADA, for sure.

Yes.

And I think even though this building does have a restroom, we're not open all the time.

We're not.

So I think for a facility like this, it's going to have to have its own restroom.

We can't bank on Sheridan Park being open. Weekdays, sure. Weekends, it's going to depend on. Or events. Sure. But just as a concept in general and being born and raised in this town and missing skate land dearly, growing up riding my bike everywhere in this town, I completely support this endeavor. I would love to see Across the Street revitalized. I used to, I used to play over there as a kid. Well, the playground is about non-existent anymore. Maybe there's a swing over there and a little, like a, is there anything anymore? You know, formerly the parks. I mean, we had a more of a presence down there in the maintenance. We had, you know, there's own rundown building that was down there. We used it as a kind of a lay down area. That's probably probably what you guys are using it for now.

We actually last year decided that we'd start cleaning up that area. And so there's really not a lot over there just for the potential use of that park in the future. Yeah.

If you build it, they will come.

If this was in our town, it would be the Mecca. It would be packed. And, you know, we're revitalizing Sheridan Park, just even just cruising down the road. I mean, you can see the roads got redone not too long ago. I mean, the new parking across from there. I think this would be absolutely amazing. Can we get the money? yeah that's that's my big you know um yeah this isn't our we've we've talked about we've been talking about pump tracks for been on this mission for years it's in our pros plan we talked about it it's there it's captured um i'm here for it but finding that money is gonna yeah it's it's easier said than done

I believe this part would be eligible for an RCO grant. Is that what you were talking about?

Yeah, that's $500,000. Okay. There's also some USA Skating grants that I was looking into as well.

I didn't get super far deep into it just because a lot of the cycles had closed, so a lot of the information was off the website, but Um, I know USA skating has some grants and stuff as well.

And I think it would be also important to acknowledge that there's, um, you know, at least a little bit of income opportunity in the sense of like renting it out, like, you know, skate parties. And I know, um, from the roller derby stance, we would rent it for practices and, um, and that kind of thing. So I think there's also that, you know, that factor as well, but, um, I'm not sure, um, I'm not sure about because that might pull a little bit, um, Westtown roller derby is a registered 501c3 as well. And we have done, I mean, not, this is not, I wouldn't say we haven't done this amount of fundraising, but we have, we've had, we've pulled off some pretty impressive fees, um, for such a small group, like funding our, how many people went? Was it like 25? Yeah. 25 people to go to Iceland so that we could play in Iceland. So we're, uh, we're, We're a bunch of people, and I know our kids have roller friends too, and so are our cycling friends.

Yeah, we're ready to get after it.

Great. All right. Thank you all. Tim, what's next in this process? That's a great question. We're just a small piece of the pie here. Yeah, and we have

priorities. And like you said, this is a project that's been discussed for a while, but I would think getting a initial design and estimates costs would be helpful for us to be able to grasp and figure out how much we're actually going to have to come up with and finding a location. As we've mentioned, we've I mean, I've only been here a year and a half, but I'd love to see something over there. We can't guarantee Sheridan Park Community Center is always going to be here, is the other thing. You know, good point as far as the potential for redevelopment of that lot. You know, there's a lot of senior housing area in this and nursing centers. So is that the highest and best use of that site for one of those? But yeah. a partnership with the school district would be great, but, and it's stuff is on our own properties right now. We don't have a lot of flat surfaces that are open. You know, East Park is something we'd looked at at one time, but multiple facilities wouldn't be able to fit there the way it currently sits. So I think the pump track was looked at as a potential site there, which could work, but not both of these. I do like the kind of concept and Props to the group for getting together and you can outside the box to work together. But yeah so so kind of getting our costs and some potential designs, and then we know what kind of space, we need and then looking at what facilities might be available partnerships.

That's me. So next on our. Report is the NAD Restoration Project, Chris Pendleton.

So before Chris comes up, you guys are all welcome to stick around. You're not required by any means. It might be cool or outside. It's actually really cool in the hall.

Just a quick question. As a part of the community, I'm very interested in seeing progress on this project. I understand what your next step is. What can we expect or what do you need from us to help develop

Oh, yeah.

Get a concrete timeline of that next step.

So, yeah, and I saw the request, and the request is that, especially at a million-dollar price tag, hard for us to commit to saying, oh, yeah, we're going to do this in 2028, because we don't know where the funding is going to come from. Majority of our projects, we don't utilize any... property tax dollars for. So their grants, their donations, that's how we get projects done. So it's not like the city is going to be able to come to the table with a lot of money. And so I think the biggest thing would be for maybe that group that presented to meet with me and we can kind of lay out a game plan, especially with the design aspect of it. I think that's probably... the next piece, because there's going to be a lot of involvement that will need your assistance. And when someone does get hired and comes out and does that community survey and speaks with the, and has the open houses. So I think that's really kind of will be a, probably to me, the first focus is to get that community feedback, figure out where some potential sites are and what our costs and what the design might look like.

So stay in contact with you about deciding the site and getting estimates.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously the fundraising is important right now to be able to pay for that initial design work. I think that's probably one of the top pieces.

Yeah, you know, I say in potential, you know, as this really starts to get rolling, I mean, you, you probably would be coming back to this commission for like a true letter of endorsement from the, from this commission. You know, once once we get to see the proposals and see all that, so we can actually start moving forward with things. And then. I mean, city council, of course, is going to have to be involved with this. I mean, that's.

Yeah, especially so every grant that we apply for, we put in front of this commission to get letter of support from, but we're required to go to city council in time we apply for a grant. And so they can decide yes or no, even if we put in for the grant.

Is the grant after the design is figured out, or if you pursue a grant, does the idea of we want to have this here, we don't know what it looks like, but we know.

Our grant, our applications are much more attractive if we can show them a design and cost estimates as opposed to a wish. Because then we give them pretty accurate true costs.

Yeah, fortunately, the Parks has an amazing grant writer that is sitting at this table that has secured millions of dollars for this facility.

Any more questions or comments?

Definitely speak to your groups, come up with questions, send them my way. I'd be happy to correspond.

I'm not even here for this, actually. I'm here for the nest. I have a roller skater that goes to Preston like every weekend because I have to go to a roller skate. And that's where I spend my dollars. And I would just say for tourist purposes, this site would be pretty ideal. It would draw people to fall over, especially to the fast ferry. So it is, it is something that's been severely lacking. And I know that, There were a bunch of kids that skated there that I haven't seen at the rink I go to now in several ways, but they can't get there. And, you know, they really do need a place to skate.

Thank you.

Thank you folks for being here.

Yes, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Now on to the NAAD Restoration Project. Chris?

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Come on up, Chris.

HAB-Danny Teodoru, I'll just introduce Chris real briefly new Commission members Chris has been working with the city for a number of years now. HAB-Danny Teodoru, And we're excited. He's HAB-Danny Teodoru, Boots on the ground and you'll learn from what he has to say today, just the amount of work that they're doing up at mad. This is kind of a follow-up a little bit to the West Sound Dispatch Group, given their annual report. And so this is Chris providing his own annual report on the work that he's doing with this group.

So I wanted, before we start, thank you, Tim, for that introduction. I appreciate it. We are boots on the ground. We do a lot of work. And I am, like, humbled. With the amount of turnout you guys have today for your effort, keep that vibe. So impressed. It's tough to get volunteers in this town. It's tough to get volunteers anywhere right now and see the amount of people turning out for your functions. It's awesome. Keep that up. I want to thank Tim for going back to what you were saying about last month's presentation. The WSDGA has come together because of Um, your efforts to organize this. So I appreciate that. So we're meeting monthly. And, um, I also want to thank what, and parks too, for, um, it sounds like we're going to get 65 Oregon grape before the park. Which will disappear quickly, but will be vital to revitalizing and reforesting our park. Um, and one last request before we start, uh, I know I got 15 minutes, but I have, um, four of my favorite people here, my wife, uh, super supportive Kirsten. Brandon, Ty, and Jen are all crew members of the project, and so thankful that you guys could show up today. The rest of them couldn't make it, and Scott, who shattered his ankle falling off his roof. He's 70 years old. He's one of our hardest workers, and we call him the beast. You'll see in this presentation, he's got a log over his shoulder that's probably twice as tall as he is. And he's like bringing it into location. He's guys insane. Um, if Tim, you could start the video at the very beginning, recording those birds was took forever. Um,

That was a nice touch. So just so everybody knows, I gave him 15 minutes. So he decided to make a video, which is great because if you've been on the commission before, Chris likes to talk a little bit. I got the video today. I was like, oh, he's finally figured it out.

And I knew the

PowerPoint presentations, you probably see a thousand of them every month. So this is a nice change up for that. I just got to get there. Oh, please.

I asked for a reader's digest here.

Yeah.

Oh.

Looking for the workers in Washington, any of these are up to the spark has been a distal destination for more than 20 years. A lot of people love this place. Everybody loves movies. You start to see what that love looks like when it shows up every single day. Not just for tournaments, not just for the big moments, but on the Tuesday morning EJ morning when nobody's watching and the teapads need clearing and there's a downed limb across the fairway. This video is a record of what it takes to care for a place like this. What it actually takes. and what it looks like when care is applied with attention. My name is Chris Pendleton, and I'm the founder and project lead of the NAAD Restoration Project. And over the next few minutes, I want to show you what 12 months of that care has produced and where we're headed and why we believe NAAD Park is becoming something genuinely rare, a national model for what thoughtful, ecologically grounded, restorative design can produce for a municipal disc golf course. Let's go.

Thank you very much.

Here's something about disc golf in a forested municipal park that most people don't think about. Disc golf has become popular enough now that there can be real ecological pressure on our courses. The average municipal disc golf course in the United States gets about 40,000 rounds played on it each year. In that sense, NAD Park is just about average That's a lot of foot traffic moving through a living forest system, and over time, that traffic results in soil erosion, compaction, and cumulative stress on the understory that hosts the course. The NAD restoration project was formed to be the on-the-ground ecological stewardship restorative design organization for this course. And to look at NAD Park, not just as a disc golf course, but as a living for a system that happens to have a disc golf course running through it. And to ask, what does this place need to be healthy, safe, beautifully considered, and sustainable for the next 22 years? Our response from the beginning has been a restorative design philosophy built on one core principle, smallest possible change for the greatest possible impact. We've set out to focus and define what was already here to improve the safety and experience of playing disc golf at NAD Park and to enhance the ecological health of the forest system that hosted it simultaneously, not as competing priorities, as a single integrated design problem whose solutions make both better at once. We've grounded that restoration-focused thinking in personal experience, applied education, and real expertise. We read the internationally recognized Dysvel course designers who specialize in environmentally sensitive work, designers like Mike Plansky and Ben Smith. And through those conversations, we sharpened our thinking and improved the design of our course modifications in ways that wouldn't have been possible in isolation. Course design isn't simply the length of a fairway or the shape of a shot. It's knowledge of place. It's understanding how a horse interacts with its environment, how it flows, how players move through it, how it ages, and how it will be maintained. Designed resilience isn't an accident. It's the result of asking all those questions before a single shovel goes in the ground. Through this work, we've connected with the PBG's Thoroughbred Environmental Committee and begun to bring NAB Park into a national conversation about what design-led disc golf horse stewardship actually looks like. Because the goal was never to just make any of the park disc golf course better. The goal was to make any of the approval concept, a case study that other municipalities can look to and say, this is what it looks like when a community takes its disc golf course seriously as an ecological and design asset. Every project we've undertaken here is both a local improvement and a data point in a larger ongoing conversation about the future of resilient disc golf course design. So let's talk about what we've actually done. Since November of 2024, about 19 months, the NAD restoration project has logged over 2,000 volunteer hours in this park. 1,500 of those hours since August of 2025 and 415 hours since April 2026. And none of that counts the design work, specialist consultations, volunteer coordination, and offsite planning that happens every single week. Through community donations and tournaments like this year's Rise of the Sleeping Dragon Tournament hosted by Washington Cedar Disc Golf Series, we've raised $6,535 specifically for park improvements. We've spent $1,950 of that with another $2,000 of in-kind material donations from our volunteers and community members on path barriers, native plants, gravel, bench repairs, signage, and retaining blocks. Every dollar going directly into improving the park. With the help of our core volunteers and immeasurable support from the cadets of the Washingtonian Challenge Academy, we spread over 600 yards of wood chip mulch sourced straight from local arborists and delivered weekly to targeted drop sites across the course. Mulch shows players where to walk, prevents soil compaction, and gives the course a finished aesthetic that signals care. It's doing five things at once, which is exactly what good design asks of every material. Plus, to reiterate, it's free. Alongside that work, we've removed 150 50-gallon bags of invasive species, English ivy in particular, to give our native plantings the space they need to establish and to do their ecological work. Since March of 2025, we've partnered with Project Seawolf to put 300 individual plants of eight native species in the ground. Ninebark, Twinberry, Western Cedar, Douglas Spirea, Red Osier Dogwood, Red Huckleberry, and Native Crabapple, as well as Peebers. Each species chosen to stabilize hillsides, improve soil health, and rebuild the forest understory where foot traffic and errant discs have left bare earth.

But replanting alone isn't a design solution.

What makes this work designed is the intentionality behind the arrangement. We position densely branched shrubs and evergreens as botanical barriers that intercept air discs before they can carry deeper into the sensitive understory. The plants are doing ecological and design work simultaneously. The smallest, well-considered change for the greatest possible impact. Players will go off-trail to retrieve their discs. That's the nature of the game, so rather than fighting that behavior with restriction, we've designed around it. We've defined and redirected pathways across the course, blocking rogue trails through sensitive soils, creating durable lines of travel that feel natural to follow. We've introduced what we believe is a genuinely novel concept in disc golf course management. Free relief out of bounds. Rather than marking sensitive areas strictly out of bounds, which frustrates newer players and often gets ignored, free relief allows a player to retrieve their disc from a sensitive zone and throw from the nearest point on the fairway no closer to the basket with no penalty stroke. Experienced players can choose to add a stroke for the additional challenge and treat it as out of bounds, but it protects sensitive areas. a multi-skill level course experience without altering a single fairway. An elegant design solution that works with how people actually play, and as far as we know, a concept without precedent in disc golf course design. But our most notable work and signature design aesthetic is possibly our tee pad reinforcements. We've reinforced four tee pads, each chosen because it was actively eroding its foundation material and becoming unsafe. We started with hole one and refined our design approach with every iteration since. The most recent and the one we're most proud of is hole 13. Hole 13 was a layered design problem. The hillside behind the pad was eroding the concrete slab's foundation towards the access road. The hillside from the fairway was sloughing onto the front of the pad where the player plants their throwing foot, which is genuinely a safety hazard. And the pad had no drainage, so every rain event quietly compounded the damage. Our design solution addressed all of it as a single integrated response. A series of steps retains the hillside while creating a safe, defined approach from the road to the fairway. Improved drainage protects the pad surface and the gravel base beneath it. And the front of the pad is stabilized by a retaining structure that doubles as a stairway connecting the road, the pad, and the fairway into one continuous design sequence. Native plantings and mulch will finish the work, logging in the erosion control and carrying the design language we've established throughout the park into this corner of the course. One layered problem, one integrated design response. Our group squad volunteers clear teapads of debris multiple times a week, year-round. Consistent maintenance is itself a design decision. The choice to treat this course as a place that deserves ongoing attention, not just periodic intervention. It's the difference between a course that is cared for and one that slowly unravels between work parties. The Kitsap Sun, Smokestack, and the Intentional Disc Golfer podcasts have all covered the work at NAD. Our Kitsap Sun feature resulted in a $5,000 donation now held by the City of Bremerton Parks and Recreation Department in a designated park improvement account. But what means most to us is what people say when they're actually in the park. The players just stop and volunteer to say thank you. The comments from people who've watched this place change. The community response has been overwhelmingly clear. This work matters and it's changing how people see NAD Park. So that's where we've been, and here's where we're going. This summer, we're building footbridges over sensitive soil areas on Bowl 1 and 2, a design solution that solves the ecological problem and improves the aesthetic experience simultaneously. We have two large-scale fairway improvement work parties scheduled with the Washington Youth Challenge Academy on August 22nd and September 5th. And we're reinforcing the whole 10 team pad with blocks remaining from the whole 13 project. And the boundary system of hazards and out of bounds. Thoughtfully designed boundary layout published on UDIS and printed on the new course map changes how this course is played immediately. No construction, no new fairways, just design thinking applied to what already exists. playing experience following directly from it.

This fall through next spring, we're hoping to finalize designs and build a new three-panel welcome kiosk with the WNCGA and the Parks Department.

the natural and human history of NAD Park on the left, course maps, rules, etiquette, and environmental guidance in the center, and an events billboard on the right featuring both tournaments, work parties, and ongoing course improvement projects. Not just information, an intentionally designed statement about how this community cares for this place. As we have the important and much needed conversation about expanding disc golf in Bremerton, we believe the most important work is right here in creating thoughtful, vertically integrated ecological design considerations that should be instrumental in any future projects. We are building maintenance program guidelines robust enough that all of our courses can receive consistent, intentional care that can be replicated and easily applied. A well-maintained, ecologically resilient, thoughtfully designed course is the proof of concept that earns the next one. We'd rather move with that intention than move fast. I want to close with something a little bigger than a project list. When we started the NAD restoration project, the mission was local. Take care of this park for this community with the resources we have. But the work has taken us somewhere we didn't entirely anticipate. In going deep on the ecology, the restoration science, the hydrology, and above all, the resilient course design thinking required to hold all of that together, We've developed something really cool, a practiced, integrated expertise in the intersection of disc golf course design and ecological restoration. The kind of expertise that doesn't come from a single discipline. It comes from doing the work, from showing up, from seeking experts and asking harder questions than the project strictly requires. And that expertise is what this park is going to keep benefiting from. We're going to keep showing up. We're going to keep doing the work. NAD has been a gift to this community for 22 years. And what we're building now, the ecological infrastructure, the design thinking, the civic partnerships, is how to make sure it's a gift for 22 months.

Thank you.

Gareth J. later.

Gareth J. But. Gareth J.

Thanks to this legend here Derek help me out we got this done.

And, you know, it was good, man. Thank you for sticking around. Oh, it's awesome.

Yeah.

So, yeah, Derek's one of our volunteers. Why do you volunteer? Why? Yeah.

No, because I play so much disc golf. I got to give back, keep the course looking nice. You know, I got kids that like to play, and I want them to be able to play. So if there's something we can do to keep the course going strong and pretty and

Wow. I wanted to put that in there. Well done. Well, and I love the canine supervision.

Well, did you see the video that's linked? Oh, yeah. You haven't seen that one? No, I haven't. Oh, that's funny that you mentioned that because there's a video I just did a short on YouTube. I'll send it to the, Jim can send it to you, called The Supervisor.

Yeah.

And it's, Fozzie was watching me do some mulch spreading and stuff like that. So I made a little video out of it.

Thank you all for coming. Thank you.

Um, funny enough, while we were, um, talking or while this was, while I was talking, Oh, all the video was playing, um, the Washington challenge Academy got back to me and they're adding another day. So we'll have, um, that's September 12th. So we'll have a three days there.

Cool. That's great.

Yeah. So, um, Big thank you to Brandon again, and my wife, Kirsten. Brandon doesn't even play disc golf. Regularly, he can, but he doesn't do it regularly. He shows up and he helps out in the park because he's Brandon, because he cares about his community. And those are, ironically enough, I think some of our strongest community volunteers are the ones that just love the park. Yeah, which is really good. So anyway, are there any questions or anything? Yeah, Brandon.

So I would just like to say thank you very much for your commitment and your passion for what you do. It's awesome. Happy to support you along the way. Just want to say thanks.

Thanks, man. Yeah, it's a real pleasure to do. I was talking with Scott. Actually, Scott, you wanted me to read this. I think it's... I feel the same way. If you know Scott, he talks, he uses the word Primo a lot because he's an old school Southern California guy. What a Primo wonderful community that we have and it's growing, which benefits the beautiful park. It's the people that are so important. It's the young people that come out and throw the discs. You're so blessed to be able to offer another type of activity other than what we see on TV. And some of us experience violence. What a wonderful alternative. It's only our, if only our government and world governments could play around and just really go negotiate. Oh, yeah.

That creates quite a visual, doesn't it?

You know, now that you mention it, yeah. That would be a good video to make. So, yeah, you're welcome. I'm glad that we're working together and that we're making that park something amazing. It really is a beautiful community asset that we have. It's got incredible bones, and it's really nice to see it. people putting care into it and coming together.

Has it been busy out there, Chris?

In terms of players? People out there? It's picking up. It's picking up. I go out, if I do any filming out there, I go out at like 6.30, kind of roll an hour to either meet the wood chip guys and let them in or to do filming because in one of the early shots in this video, I didn't realize that I was kind of panning. It was literally 6.15. And there were three guys waiting on the tee pad.

AM?

Yeah.

So yeah. That's my dog walking hours. So that's why I was asking.

Yeah.

Any big tournaments or events coming up?

For us, the tournament was Rise of the Sleeping Dragon. WSDGA does have some tournaments coming up. None that are benefiting the park directly. I was going to do an AD out of bounds, which was going to highlight the new out of bounds layout. That was going to be brutal. The whole point of it was just disc golf flogging. But in terms of your score, by the end of it, it's very difficult out of bounds. And I think we're going to do that next year once we maybe hopefully celebrate the course map and the kiosk and get that going. But then for us, events-wise, we have our work parties.

Well, hey, thank you to you and your group. It never ceases to amaze me.

Well, great video.

Well done. Thank you. I'm very grateful to the relationship you have with this commission, to the relationship they have with the Parks and Recreation. Yes. We just, yeah, we keep building that and we have, I mean, we have a world-class course. Pretty much. I mean, it's getting there.

We do. We do. This is a world. People actually have met people from not just out of town. I've met people internationally that have come specifically from Seattle to play at AV Park.

I think that speaks volumes for what you and your folks have built out there.

Yeah. Well, credit to the WSUGA for getting the course started. We're tightening it up and giving it some love.

It needed some love, and it's getting it.

It did. Yeah. Thanks, man.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chris mentioned it at the beginning. We've been meeting kind of as a group between the NAB restoration group, WSDGA, and the city just to make sure that we're all on the same page. We're completing some MOAs, so memorandum of agreements between each organization, but just to try to keep this group as strong as possible and make sure that we're all here to help each other. Yeah, through this whole thing. Because we know how valuable volunteers can be. And we don't want to lose any of them. So the stronger we can build that bond, the better off we'll be.

Awesome.

Love it.

Next up on our agenda is a report from Brian, the Downtown Fountains.

So I don't mean to take over a little bit, but

We haven't really gotten there. It's been a while since we've had a really long meeting.

We need to use a restroom. We've gotten there. But otherwise, I think we're happy to kind of power through all of our items. Please ask questions.

I was just going to say, this is a pretty robust agenda, and I don't have anything as fancy as the wheels park or the navigation. I just have a couple of updates. Okay. So I'll keep this short and concise. Um, the kids have a conference center, uh, circle fountain. Uh, we have taken that to a study session and it was presented again in front of council last Wednesday. We did receive approval for that contract. So that contract will be getting routed with the anticipation of, uh, getting this fountain back up and running here late summer is what we're kind of looking at.

That's good.

So yeah, good step there. Uh, Memorial Plaza fountains, uh, we had to do a little, uh, contract work to get the fountains up and running. Uh, with that, um, We have to chlorinate and everything else, the water, otherwise algae and any stagnant water with temperatures like this is going to just breed algae. And so just got a new chlorinator pump in and that was installed yesterday. So, yeah, back up and running on Memorial Plaza and moving forward with Circle Felt. So I just wanted to follow up with that. Some good news there with what we've been working on in the last couple of weeks since we've met last month.

I was going to say, I guess we do have a national model of why you're doing the chlorination work.

there's that oh my goodness yes yes yeah this is not a reflection i know where you're going that's great to see those yeah so that's exciting that's some things that we're going to be working on oh you're next you're next up brian congratulations to me again yeah winner powering through so no we gave him something positive yeah threw him a bone so so we did have brendan perco uh from carl street last month i did a presentation yeah he did a fabulous job and with that we wanted to kind of give an update since uh Where we left off last month. Cool. And so with that, at our last meeting, we discussed that we had 65 site visits, 35 meaningful connections. Great. Connected to services were 15. Four of them were in shelter or housing. And then a weekly plan, there was 10 people. And we are averaging between 10 and 12 people a week. Wow. So real positive things that are happening there. And just want to highlight that as to all the good work Common Streets and all the other departments are in communicating and working together to address this issue. And just kind of a recap of what Brendan presented last month is since the inception of Common Street in the city, working in collaboration together. You can see how many site visits we have. And if you look down there in the bottom right in a planned weekly average, you're going to see that it's 11. So that's what I was talking about between that 10 and 12 people weekly that we're getting in a plan. And you can see, and I want to highlight this too, is 162 individuals have found shelter housing. So some good things there. not to undermine the 518 people that have been connected to services yeah that that's a big number so um yeah i just want to highlight some of the good work that they're doing there and uh i'd also like to take the opportunity to speak on uh with that in collaboration with other departments and things like that within this last meeting that we had we had a a trying time with a few individuals up by Forest Ridge. And the police have asked us for specific signage. We collaborated with Public Works, had the signs made and they were installed at the end of last week. I forwarded that information along to BPD to try to assist them with their job, so. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And um yeah some great work within the city and just want to kind of keep following up with that you know I didn't want it just to leave with that presentation and we may keep this on the agenda for a little bit just. HAB-Jacques Juilland, To keep everybody updated.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, yeah we just based on the response and then appreciation for brandon being joining us last month. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Whether we talk about it or we highlight maybe something in one of our parks each month thought it would be good to share with you the information, because a lot of the. HAB-Jacques Juilland, A lot of the connections are within our park system or within city right away, but a lot of them are in on property that we manage so. is of importance.

And it's really of importance from an operations side of things. It takes a lot of manpower, and it's unanticipated man hours. So that presents a challenge in and of itself. But yeah, staff are doing a great job. Everybody's doing a great job within the city.

I'm wondering when we contact the Common Street Do we do it via or through you or through the police or can we contact them as individuals?

So they have access through Bremerton One as well.

Okay, got it.

So once that is called in, there'll be a work order that's assigned and they have access to that.

They're super receptive and amazing.

Yeah, they are.

All right, thank you.

Absolutely. Yeah, Bremerton one's a great route because then we are tracking. Yes. Yes, you're right. And then we can utilize that in reporting. Okay. Unless you want to give them cookies, then bring them to our office.

Yeah.

Wink, wink.

Wink, wink. All right. Thank you, Brian.

Absolutely.

All right. Colette, we have Kitsap Lake. I'm so excited.

That's Friday. So Prue's been working hard to finish this park. We installed the plantings and trees last, or the week before last, and this week we're installing the site furniture and restroom partitions. However, Brian can speak to this a little bit more than I can, there was a the bottom right hand corner, you see that you see a photo that's pretty recent. So the pumps pump station at the park, there was a sewer repair that needed sewer line is so deep. How deep is it?

It's about 8-10 pp. Wow.

Yeah. And during that repair it hit our irrigation I think both the electrical lines and the piping. So now we have a zone that hasn't been on, and you can see some hardscape got destroyed as part of this repair. But thankfully, they've been great to work with. Brian can tell you, and they're trying to repair it before the concrete report. Is that tomorrow happening?

No, so quick update on that. The concrete was for today. Oh, great. Yay.

All right.

And with that that whole right there has been patched new concrete pathway has been for today. Tomorrow, the anticipation is to throw some topsoil some seeds and erosion control down on top of that there's a couple of spots within the within the park but staff been cool just kind of prepping and getting ready. Little glitch in it and you're just.

Getting it all done. Yeah. So it won't be perfectly green, but you'll know why when you go. Yeah. Some things we can't control. Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting.

I plan on being there.

I appreciated Colette's perspective on that because I came to her and I was like, you're not going to believe this, but there's a super leak and they're going to tear our stuff up. Now we have a big hole.

It's out of our control. Yeah. It's like it's out of our control.

I didn't think of it that way. That is a fresh perspective. Because I was just like, you're going to kill me. This is happening right now.

So thank you for that. Did that work shut down the playground or anything? It's not even by it. Yeah, it's not by it.

Right by the restroom.

Just think when we think we're some we're close to me. Keeps life interesting. I think we can move on. Awesome. So we just wanted Oh, I had that next. Okay. So the final application is due on the 15th of July, we had our initial application that was due earlier. It was mid April. in order for them to review all the applications, make sure that you're in the right category. So we did get some comments back on that. I'm wanting some more information on need of the project, which is really easy to explain and user groups. So the next slide, I actually went back to all the CIPs where Pendergast has been listed as a priority from 2007 to 2014. I mean, so like over four PROS plans and each of those plans has 12 to 18 months of public input to get to this CIP. And it was interesting to see what other projects have been on the CIP this long. Forest Ridge is one. Kitsap Lake is another, which we're finishing up. And then Dog Park. So we're getting that going. So, yeah, it was kind of interesting to go back and look at those projects. So, yeah, I think we're in good shape to present for that. But that's due July 15th. And city council approved the resolution last month or last week to allow us to apply.

So, yeah.

Oh, and I just wanted to know, we also had a meeting with the Kitsap Alliance FC group, who's looking to fund the second field. And we met with them along with a consultant to talk about this.

We had entered like an MOA with them or something, hadn't we too? I feel like you said that to us a while back, director. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. The mayor and I, and they're, I believe, signed off on their treasurer and president. Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

So this is a potential CDBG project. You know, we've talked about the Lions Court issue when we did our inventory of Lions Park. Not all of you are on the commission, but when we did our inventory of all the parks for the pros plan, we had this issue of the side slope around the court. And my understanding is the court was installed in 1974. That's what our records show. And in 2001, after the Nautilus Valley earthquake, it got, the whole thing cracked or, you know, it came up. And so the repair was to pave over it. and slope it back down to the perimeter curve, which the fence is sitting on. So the reason why this has never been done before or never been corrected is it's going to be a lot of work. We're kind of looking at it. It's going to require saw cutting the place where it starts to slope down, removing the fence to get to it. And we probably won't get that fence back up because it's 51 years old. And taking out the perimeter curving putting in a new curb at the right height, and so we're going to have to match the adjacent pathways back down with ramps, new paving where this sloped area got pulled out, and new acrylic surfacing just along this perimeter. And CDBG grants are great for accessible projects, so this would be a great candidate. The downside is there's not a lot of money in that fund. ask for between $130,000 and $160,000 for a project because we're competing with other agencies.

So is this a city CDBG or not? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, good. So we don't know how much yet it's going to cost. We're currently working on a cost estimate. It's a very tight turnaround because the CDBG grant is due like two days after the project is due. But if we can partner with Public Works and save some money by doing some of it in-house, it makes it a little bit more manageable. If not, we're going to talk about some other projects that are on our post-plan that are accessible issues. So just wanted to give you a heads up that this, we might be still discussing it.

Yeah. Was this identified before? Could we identify this ever before?

Yeah, yeah, it has been on this issue. Yeah, yeah. And the last CDBG grant that we got for accessible improvements were getting to the court. So there was no accessible parking. There was no pathway to get to the court. The gate was not accessible. There was no accessible bathrooms or the portable there was accessible. So there were improvements made to get to the court, but now actually doing the part. It's a bigger issue now with pickleball. Yeah. I was just going to say that. If we can, we'd like to use it.

I'm here for pickleball. I love pickleball, but it was never an issue prior to re-striping that and creating all these quarters for it.

It's really well used, Mike. It is crazy.

Every time I go by it.

And it's on there. Yeah. So depending on costs and whether or not we can partner with public works, if they have time in their schedule, we're looking at that.

Come play at Minette. We don't have that issue.

So when you play there, is there like a schedule that you sign up for? Is it first come, first serve? Okay. I didn't know because I don't play.

And what you're looking at, it is... you will roll an ankle back. It is dangerous. It is something that you definitely need to be mindful of when you are playing on specific courts there.

Specifically the ends of the courts, even the service areas, if you are to step back or to play... play a shot, and to step back, it drops. It's between a six and 12%. Slow and a four foot.

You could easily twist your ankle real quick.

Well, don't do that.

It is definitely something you need to be mindful of, and I'd love to see it corrected.

Yeah, looking at this picture here, we'll probably have to replace that halfway, too, just right along the fence line, which is right off the curb. So it's a bigger project than you think, just fixing this up. For sure.

Yeah, that'd be great to do it. Have there been any comments and people made saying that it's scary for them? So, okay.

They're coming in.

I'm sure they're calling.

I've heard about some injuries. Yeah. Some people falling, fits in an ankle. Yeah, so there definitely is.

Well, that's good. So now on to grant application. Oh, you already just did the Lions. New business. The biannual budget.

Okay. Well, starting tomorrow, I essentially start the budget process. Actually today, we received our, a copy of this year's fees and charges structured for the city. We changed essentially every fee in the department last year, which is a couple hundred. And so I'm going to, wait for some direction this time to see what council really wants to say. Didn't get a lot of feedback last year from them on that. A lot of work went into it. But tomorrow, this is really more to just kind of talk about that first item. And what I'll plan to do is I'll give an update every month for the next six months or so of how the budget process is going and whether there's assistance we need from the commission to support our requests The city is looking at a zero based budget this year. So essentially going into it with the same amount of money we have this year, really no new requests are supposed to be on the table. That doesn't mean that council can't decide to put funding and fund certain projects here and there. I'm going to be the test dummy tomorrow and I'll call it test dummy. Yeah. Yeah. So what's happening at the study session tomorrow is Mike Riley, our finance director, is going to kick off the budget season, kind of talk about where we're at and what we're looking forward to the work coming in the next few months. And then council will be meeting with individual departments. And so Parks and Rec is the first department. And so Mike will talk about how our budget's structured. where our funding essentially comes from for our operations. And then I'll speak to, we are, you know, this isn't technically what we're submitting for the budget. So I'm allowed to talk about what needs we have. And so what I'm really going to utilize is information we received from the PROS plan, information that I've gathered from what we call the park metrics. And so what that is, is through, the National Recreation and Park Association, I can submit all of our local information, number of parks, our budget, all sorts of data related to our community. And then it throws it into a system with a thousand other communities around the country. And so I can break it up by nationally and then Northwest nationally. and by communities our size that can do comparables. Council always speaks to the fact that they know that they're short of staff on our park side. And so I'll share that data with them to verify that what they say is right. And so what they may, you know, what the report might say is for a community our size or a community in general, you should have, you know, I'm just going to throw a number out, eight full-time staff for every thousand people in your community. And so I'll share what our numbers are, which are lower than what the national average is, and really just kind of show and paint the picture that we have a lot of things that we oversee and manage, and we're really hurting on the maintenance side of things. And you'll see it around the community this spring for sure. My drive, by a Baton Park every day. And I know it's only getting mowed once every two or three weeks right now. That's because this spring downtown has been a big focus for tourism with the fan zone. And so when we have 30 people between Parks and Rec and Public Works downtown, Public Works is a lot of project-based and regular things. Anytime our staff is somewhere other than where their regular routine is, something's going to have to get done later. And we're getting those calls here and there, and people understand. And I remind them that we'll get back to it. We make notes if there's something that's really bad that we need to take care of. Obviously, we'll call somebody. But we're just really limited on our numbers to get around. And if we're If we're assisting in another area, something's going to get missed or dropped for the time being and get picked back up. But we're doing as much as we can. I'll talk in terms a little bit too about future facilities and I'll talk a little bit about some equipment needs we have, but just more in general about just the overall structure of our department and what we need to do to be able to get up to where we should be to be able to keep up with our workload. Funding as well. Funding is another thing I'll make mention of related to capital. So this last year, we budgeted about $700,000 per capital. And some of that was pre-existing projects. The standard nationally is typically more in the $2 to $3 million range. And a lot of that is to avoid deferred maintenance. And so when you look at the deferred maintenance side, we are on the high end of where deferred maintenance is. And we're at about 15 million in deferred maintenance. And kind of the national standard is closer to three to four million, depending on agency size. And so I kind of compare it to what I used to hear and learn with streets is to properly maintain your streets and keep them up to a certain standard. Let's say a city needs you know, $3 million a year to do that. Well, if they get cut down to $2 million, now your streets are going to start seeing more wear over time. We've felt busy having two park projects in the last year, and these aren't new parks. These are upgrades to existing parks. Well, that's two parks. We have 26 others. And it's like we can't, we've got to pay a little more attention than once every 26 to 28 years for these parks. So In a perfect world, we'd have a pretty robust capital program. And there's some options out there for funding for various things. And I think that's something else that the council is going to be looking at this year. Just a couple examples would be development fees. So like a particular fee that goes towards parks. So when a developer develops a site, a certain amount of the value of what they're developing would go into a parks fund to be able to help maintain or build a new park within that development or that area. It's very common in a lot of other areas. And even in the state, it's just something we've never done here. And so those are developers and those purchasing properties who are paying that fee, not necessarily being passed on to current property taxpayers. There's a number of different things I think that we'll look at and probably present maybe more when we're doing our individual budget departments as far as different types of structures that we could come up with and utilize. Council's really hesitant and wants to stay away from increasing property, local property homeowners, property taxes. And I can understand that. And so these are some of those ways that we're kind of looking at alternative rate of funding mechanisms. So.

What a challenge. Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right. Now we're on to Commissioner's comments. Nothing today.

I was down at Lions Field this Sunday. Saw something I hadn't seen in the city in a long time. Men playing fast pitch. There was a tournament down there. It was pretty neat. We used to have a... When I was growing up, Roosevelt Field there, the OC parking lot, there was a men's fast pitch league up there, and I remember watching it, and you just don't see it. You just don't see it anymore. So there were some teams from Seattle over here, Lacey, just a neat event. The park looked great. I was really happy to see people playing on field number two at Lions Field. If we don't use it, it's going to – It's going to be heard. So I was happy to see people down there. The employee was out trimming bushes in the sun, sweating out there. Yeah, the park looked great. There's a lot of uneven surfaces. Not a lot, but the uneven surfaces on the walking path are marked. They're spray painted over, so you see them coming. You're not tripping over. I appreciated that. Yeah. What else? I had something else. What's it been like for the Fan Fest? Has Parks and Rec been involved in anything with the Fan Fest?

Yeah, I would say, and Brian can probably speak to it too, more on an on-call basis. This weekend we came in, there was a lot of trash that was picked up prior to the Beer Fest on Sunday in various areas, so we sent someone in Saturday night. I think we had to call somebody in, so it was a call out over time for but picked up a bunch of garbage bags. So that's really been our... Yeah, and I kind of tend to be a contact, and so there were two, Friday and Sunday, they were both electrical issues on Quincy Square. I think it was underbuilt for what the demand and want was for electricity. We didn't expect to be hanging a 20-foot screen. Sure. You know, in there and having full sound systems. And so that's been. Oh, I got you. We're asking for too much power. Fire have been on site, especially for the bigger days. Yeah. So Juneteenth, the first match. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. I mean, a lot of great positive comments from the community. And that's what we want to hear. Yeah. There's definitely been a lot of juggling on the back end, but as long as people aren't seeing that,

Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I was down there on the very first game, the first US game was on a Friday night. And man, it was rocking and rolling down there. I was thankful that the Roxy was open. They had AC going in there. That's where I was.

Yeah, and it's been great because Roxy now has that. little concession stand.

I got popcorn.

They invested money in to be able to provide another opportunity. There's cool little pop-up things that business owners are doing.

It definitely feels weird to be standing on 4th Street with a beer in my hand.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong for sure.

Thank you. That's all I have.

Joan, do you have any?

I'll just add a little bit to the comments that I made earlier, which I wanted to make while the other folks were here. Tim and I have talked some about how we can combine forces with the school district. I've brought up in the past, I have a my own personal thing is relocating the senior center up to that same site where we're talking about the school district has property that could work very well. And then of course, as the library gets redeveloped, you know, a natural walking path, right. You know, from, from these things right up to the library would be fabulous. And I haven't heard what they're going to be doing with the old view Ridge elementary school.

But the news is going to stay open.

Oh, no, no, no, no. The new one. The new one is. Yeah, the new. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they'll tear it. So Armin jar is getting torn down already.

And they're only going to do the be rich.

If you have if you have driven by. I guess I need.

Oh, yeah. So it is.

It is. and enormous school that they are building there. They needed it. And it's really designed nicely there. I mean, I think while there's going to be some playground area that you would think of in terms of traditional playground, it's also broken up across the site to small learning communities, which is going to be really lovely. And I thought of this because this is where I walk my dogs too. they got down to one mower for the whole school district. Needless to say, the grass where I walk the dogs got very high. But the conversation about property taxes and the burden that Bremerton taxpayers carry is going to come more into focus. I will share that there's a map around now. They've been mapping Oh, tax exempt properties versus those properties that pay that pay taxes. And it is way out of balance for the city. So it's going to be a conversation that's going to.

Thank you for bringing that up. I never really thought about that.

You know, the military. Well, the military is one, but Bremerton Housing Authority has been gobbling up all kinds of property. And that takes those properties off the tax rolls. And, you know, and of course there's schools and there's all the churches and there's parks, you know, and we don't want to get in the crosshairs of that. Yes. And I don't think we would either because parks are so important to people. But it's, the conversation is coming. So we just kind of need to keep that in the back of our minds. Thank you. Thanks, Joan. Thank you.

So if you want to speak, you can grab the show to smoke before my name is up.

All right. Is that it? I don't have anything more.

So we're adjourned. All right. Thank you.

Thank you guys.