Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, I'd like to call this meeting to uh order and welcome everyone to the city of Breton Parks and Recreation Commission. This is our regular monthly meeting. Today is Tuesday, July 22nd. Thank you everyone for being here. Um first up, we have our approval of our minutes from our last meeting, which was June 24th. So hopefully my fellow commissioners have had a chance to look over the minutes and I'll accept any motions if I make a motion to approve. All right, I will second that motion. Uh all in favor of approving the minutes as presented, please say I. I.

All right, that will pass unanimously. Thank you. Uh next up, we have approval of tonight's agenda. Commissioners have had a chance to look over that. I will make a motion to approve uh tonight's agenda. I second it. All right. All in favor of approving tonight's agenda, please say I. I. All right. And that will pass unanimously as well. Cool. Moving right along. Uh next up we have public comment. So this is uh the public's chance. If anyone would like to uh address the um commission, now's your chance. Chris, I know we have you on the agenda, so you'll be up. But Mr. Kerber, if if you would Yeah, please, if you could just identify yourself again, please.

Patrick Kerber, I was here last month. Yeah, please. Some issues concerning the signage. Yeah,

we haven't heard any heard back or or seen any signs go up. So, I'm just curious what the status is on that, whether we're going to get a park closed from dust to dawn sign. And um that that's the main issue. Then the other one is the trees whether the the big holly trees are going to be addressed at some point. And um just like to comment also that the park is uh this forest rage park is um as bad as it's I mean it's worse than even last month. It's it's just, you know, the drug use um I'd say about probably about 80% of the park use is by drug users. And um at this point, I'd recommend just shutting the park down uh just at least to vehicle traffic, you know, until we can get a handle on the situation. Um, it's trash every day all over the park. Um, paraphernalia. It is just becoming such a hassle. Those of us that clean it up are getting tired of it. And yes, there's places to park outside the park where people can walk in and but uh but shutting it down to vehicle traffic would uh would definitely make a big difference I think in um in the illicit use that's going on in the park. That's all I have. Thank you. Director, is the signage anything you can speak to right now?

Yeah, I thought we had put up a sign at the entrance and no camping and I know that um Carlos has signs on his desk that came in yesterday which I believe are no camping signs. Uh we've been uh researching and looked at um a couple options for and have measured out uh for putting up a gate. And so I guess that would be something that we would want to look at. Is is the gate just going to be there for um from dusk till dawn or do we want to consider uh shutting it down for the time being? Um I I trust you, but I'd like to see too to make sure that there's suitable on street parking for those that want to hike in the park, but that could be an option.

Yeah. And want to obviously coordinate that with the mayor and council. Yeah. There is no sign up. There is a Okay. There is a couple of no camping signs by the main parking lot and I think maybe down at the far end also at the culdeac. Uhhuh. But there is no sign at the entrance. Okay. Says park closed to do like the other point said. Okay. Like Lions Park has you know that would be Yeah. I know we were working with I believe it was

streets. I believe it's July uh 9th that there's a park roll sign and a no camping sign parked at the or plate at the entrance to Forest Ridge just below the no outlet sign that the city installed. Um so that was new. Uh we did do a little uh research on easements and things like that. We have done some research on some gates and options and things of that nature. Um, unfortunately there's we have other um folks that have an interest uh in that park that would need access in there. It could be fire, could be police. So, it's not like we can just drop rocks off. There's going to need to be a coordinated effort with whatever we do. So, um, we have been looking into those and addressing those. So, please don't think that you're, uh, your voice was unheard.

Yes, Mr. Kerber. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Oh, thank we're at public comment right now. Thank you for being here. You don't need to say anything, but yeah. Thank you for being here. As she goes to the background, do you want to introduce yourself? Thank you for being here. Yeah, sure. All right. Anybody in digital world? Any anybody out there? I don't see anybody. Okay,

cool. Well, we will move right along then. Uh, next up we have staff reports and updates. And, uh, first up we have Mr. Pendleton here with the NAD restoration project. Chris, the floor is yours, please. Thank you. Thanks everybody for um entertaining me today and let me provide an update. Yeah.

Um for the NAD restoration project. As you know, we've been working very hard since um last year to get this going and we've had some really great success over the the course of the early spring. It's gotten to be the time of the year where volunteersh for disc golf are hard to come by because everybody's in tournaments or they're playing or they're enjoying the time. So, our work party season really starts kind of at the end of August and really gets going into like October through March. But I wanted to provide some of the updates that I sent out um in email. Do you all have those? Yeah, I printed off a copy for you. Bring off copy. Fantastic. Okay. if anyone wants to read it.

So, um just kind of the highlights, what we focused on this, um this winter since the last time I saw you was really focusing on kind of the soft restoration. So, um mulching, we spread probably about 100 yards of mulch over the um over hole one, two, one, and four. Uh we've planted 100 natives um including red oer dogwood, nine bark um p uh pose and um crab apples um in whole tube in strategic areas that will both provide safety aesthetics and habitat for uh for our native fauna. Um, we also have done um the TPAD restoration on hole two, which I think you saw in the last the last time I came by, but we also did hole four. The um continuation of the project, however, we just sort of realized in those those three or four holes that we've been working on that getting volunteers to be doing the mundane work of um moving mulch reduced the amount of volunteers that we were getting. We were saying, "Hey, come out too crazy." And people were like, "Really?" But coming out like restoration where we were doing something that they could sink their teeth into. We got a whole different category of volunteers. So um I reached out to Washington Challenge Academy, which is an established with the LED preserve on that's obviously county jurisdiction, but they're working with them to do a lot of the mulching. and uh my neighbor Josh chatted a bunch and I happened to run into the director of playing disc golf out at N. So, um, we've been coordinating, we actually have three dates to work with the youth challenge academy to spread mulch and really get

that relationship established so that every year, twice a year, we can have that cadets, it's up to two cadets, it's 50 kids and nearly 2500 hours of work over the course of like um, no, excuse me, let me back that up. That was over a course of four weekends. So it would be like three days and I think we're looking at like about a thousand hours of work. Um and still that amount of work volunteer work hours can do incredible amount of really beneficial impact uh for our our fairways. So we're working with them um to get that done. We are hoping that the ILER might be able to share resources a little bit. Tim and I met with uh Vic Ol who's the guy who's doing all the the stewardship management out at Illehe and that didn't happen because it's too complicated. Can't really lend you the the wheelbarrows but um I am meeting with the NAB rangers um this Thursday so a couple of days from now and we're going to be um kind of working with both the city um and our volunteers to gather the 30 blue barrels that we need for the platoon. So, we have our plans established and um we'll be doing that on the 23rd, the 29th, and the 30th of this upcoming month, August. Um some other really great news is that we had our tournament um in April, the um the the trash panda challenge, and we had a lot of success from that. $1,000 that were raised for um the project which some of that will go towards this um this work with the Washington Community Challenge Academy in August. But then the kids son article that we had written up was read by a woman who was managing the estate of a friend who had recently passed away and she donated to us and

donated to the city for specifically for the restoration project $4,000 which was incredible gift for um the future infrastructure projects that we have going on. So those are um some of our our updates and our highlights. I think I'm not I think I'm not missing anything in here. Am I? Um, no, I not. But are there any questions or any comments about the work that we're doing out there? So, this volunteer youth group, it's not the Washington Youth Academy. That's a different

It's It is the Washington Youth Academy, but they call it Washington Youth Challenge Academy. I guess they changed their name a couple years ago. Yeah. And I think this could what is kind of cool about this is this might set a precedent for other parks in the city. Um and and we could establish a relationship with them and if all goes well um I don't think they have a relationship with uh any of the other stewardship for they were coming to park. Oh, they

a safe place for them. Yeah. Well, hopefully maybe Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The biggest thing with them, which we learned from talking to Vic too, is with with that large of a group, you have to be extremely organized and detailed and make sure you have enough adult volunteers to to ensure that, you know, besides just, hey, fill up your wheelbarrow and take it over there. Well, take it over there isn't specific enough. And we found because you don't know where there might end up.

We kind of found that. Hey, let me that said, you know, just go ahead and and just follow the fairway. And that wasn't even enough instruction. So, when we did hole two, I went through and taped everything off and it said like just follow the tape, you know, and color between the lines kind of thing. And that worked out really well. So, we're going to be taking that

the Challenge Academy. We're also going to be doing a full volunteer call, too, to help the the uh cadets be directed, stay on task, stay focused, and and keep them moving. So, um I think we have Tim and I have a few things to work out in terms of like, you know, bathrooms for them and that that stuff, but um I think our detail of our organization and our volunteers still work out well with Yeah. Yeah. This thing.

So, how many um participants did you have uh at the tournament? I think we had we sold out um something that didn't register for his own tournament. So, I didn't I had to buy discs off people, so I had my own my own my own uh my own takeaways from that. But we had 50 people register for the tournament and then we sold four player packs on the side for people who just wanted a player pack. And originally that was meant for the four of us that had Rangers to buy our own player pack. But yeah, I I registered too late. Was that just a one-day tournament? Was it all week? Just one day, Chris, or all weekend? It was just one day. Just one day.

Yeah. and we are looking at doing it again. We've actually been kind of contemplating maybe doing um a fall counter um tournament to that and that would be like a putter challenge which is something that used to be done um at at NAD where you can only throw something that is like a one to three speed which I know doesn't really mean it much for people who don't play disc golf but basically slower the slower discs and and that's a lot of fun because it's very challenging to do that. Yeah, Chris, thanks for always being here and giving keeping us updated and keep up the good work, man. This commission really appreciates you in in the group. Absolutely. Well, appreciate you all your help and and enthusiasm and support. So, great. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

Yeah, I think that Youth Challenge Academy partnership will save you guys a ton of weekends. A ton. Just be more strategic. Yeah. Yep. contraction stores and things. I mean, you can kind of standard. Yeah, I agree. Future. There you go. Yeah.

That brought up is that maybe we can encourage them after, you know, afterwards some create an event for them. Yeah. A reward. you know, you know, doing it around or teaching them how things Yeah. All right. Next up, we have the Haden Park ribbon cutting ceremony uh this Friday

at 1:00. Is that anything else you want to put out on that? Well, I was gonna say all sorts of great things, but I don't know if we can tell if there's anybody in TV land out there because it's like I don't know if I should share anything today or since we have no That's us. That's you. Yeah, that's us.

That's me. Um, yeah. So, I was just going to share a couple things. share the flyer this Friday at one o'clock if you hadn't heard. Um we're excited about it. It'll be a fun time. Um we're going to kind of set up a central area on the basketball court. Um we'll have our tent there. We'll have all of these fabulous items on display. Uh we will have a video that we'll be showing um that is a mix of video and photos between two 2020 and 2026 of the restoration project. Um 2026 2025. I keep saying 2026.

Well, I think pros I think pros has got me missing 2025. I think pros caused me to totally miss a year. Everything's 2026 now and now we're in the budget cycle. So, it's 2026.

Yeah. So, I'll do a little I'll be MCing it and do a little um explanation of what Lulu Haden Park is and and where it's been and where it's gone to. Um give obviously kudos to all of our um partners in it. And so that's donors uh but also volunteers that were out there on our build days. um and staff. Obviously, we're going to have all of our park staffers, as many as can be there there just because they're a heavy part of of what goes on at the park. And then the mayor's going to uh say some things. Um then we'll do our ribbon cutting, but we're also going to have the um summer playground program there. And so they'll do some parachute games, tug-of-war, just kind of some field type games with kids. We'll have music playing. um have some I guess Little Debbies is donating a bunch of Little Debbies.

Cool. So, we'll have that there. Yeah. Uh found that out today. And then we'll have water and other things, but um should be a fun fun environment. Uh we definitely have seen a lot of action there. Um, I'm assuming that as the the newness wears off, it'll be more of a neighborhood park with some people that'll commute to it. But it's been extremely busy. Yeah. Any anytime after the first part of the morning, it's basically packed all

Yeah. Yeah. And good and bad. When the sidewalk went in on uh 15th 15th or Lafayette? Lafayette when it went on Lafayette that cut off the ability to park on that side of the street. Um it's providing neighborhood access but because it bumps out there's not enough space to park on that side of the street. Although Friday we'll probably see it, I would assume.

But uh yeah, no excited about it. Um obviously uh we've had some hurdles to to overcome um fires, fireworks. Uh, so part of the hillside behind the playground um is is burnt up, but where there's that you see an opportunity now we can put down landscaping and it's all cleared up and right. Yeah. And that'll be the Yeah. So we we were able to finally get power yesterday. Uh that's been a month's battle. Yeah.

Uh to try to get that scheduled. And so with power, that provides us the ability to not have to manually turn on and off our irrigation system. So now it'll start getting watered on a regular cycle. So the turf area is going to be dry and then we'll overseed or hydro seed this fall. And we may wait a little bit to plant our trees. We were trying to get them in before this, but with warm weather, uh, it's probably best at this point to just wait. The biggest thing we needed was to get the playground open before school got out and we did it the day before. Um picnic tables we don't have for the shelter yet. So we've brought in some temporary um seating from um Fourth Street. Um so there's something that people can utilize there and actually haven't been really getting any questions about it. I think people have been enjoying it. I don't think they realize that's temporary. Uh but yeah, no. Yeah, we're just we're excited to move forward with this project and Friday will be a will be a fun day.

Do we have an ETA on the picnic tables? So, we have the legs and everything. The tops did not show up and so there is a little bit of a confusion as to where the tops are and why we're claiming that we don't have the the tops to the tables. And then I feel like that's not something we would just make up just so we have extra extra tops sitting around. A couple three, four. Oh. Oh, two parks. Yeah. Yeah. So, three three picnic tables for for both park. Wow. And so we haven't been able to We won't open either of those up for rentals at all this year. But

And a vendor we've used before like Yeah. Yep. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Um and we also have an event on our Facebook page. If anybody wants to share our event, uh feel free to do that. But I'll email the flyer out to the commission. Have you invited the page?

Um I have invited the chamber. Um, they'll be there with their with their scissors and and ribbon. Uh, but yeah, I can send it out to Jim. Okay. Yep. With the new restaurant there. Oh, it's great. Yeah, I went I went to it for the first time about three weeks ago. I loved it. It was great. I was cutting through well on cutting through and um on my way back from a meeting and and I was it was awesome. Had a poke bowl. It was huge. Yeah.

Cool. That'd be great. They should show up because it's just two blocks for her, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll send it to you before I leave tonight. Um, is this when we wanted Did we want to share the video now? Yeah. From the beginning. Yeah. I want to see that. Oh, slow.

I enjoy the drinking fountain.

That old playground. Sure. Yeah. Again, it was a playground from the 80s that was stored and then 10 years later put out. That was

a seat inspired again. No. Uhuh. Yeah. I never saw any of this stuff for the irrigation control. Yeah. Oh, really? Okay. Turn it down. I was like, "Did Carlos really need to put the put it up that high? Is that just for fun?"

Yeah, it's it is a cool set. I love that there's just a big open field still. Yeah. Had you done a playground build before?

Uh, I had not. That was my first one that I've been able to make. Firefighter. Yeah. Oh man, that hillside got scorched pretty good. It did. Yeah. And luckily it didn't get the trees, right? I mean, it could have done a lot of damage. Didn't get into the bark, didn't it? Didn't get into the bark chips here. I mean, it got right up to that wall. Oh, man. Scary. Yeah. Awesome.

Yes. And the new signs up. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Friday at one. Friday at one. There we go. Any pictures have any other questions or comments on that? Exciting stuff. Yeah, it is. All right. Next up, we have Ivy Grey Cemetery Fence Replacement Project. Of course, I got rid of Well, it's complete.

Cool.

Sweet. When was that? When did we first receive this? Right. because it was supposed to go down Mel, right? Yeah. And then the Mabel Avenue Improvements uh decided that they would replace the fence. We thought it was the change to 15 the same distance. Yes, we actually thought it was gonna it was actually a little bit longer maybe and we thought that the grant wasn't going to be to pay for it, but Brian's on us a really good price and we're actually under budget. So, we don't ever

Yeah. Plus, the nice part too is that public works will cover the Naval Avenue side uh when they update that roadway and do their ped and bike improvements.

Yeah, the trees alone. Are there going to be any kind of I don't know that there's going to be room for trees there, but they said that they would move it and replace that fence for it. That would work. Maybe a planting somewhere else is better to leave the plant be nice. Yeah, we were looking at something potentially else on site somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't have a loss.

Yeah. It is in our ordinance that for every tree we're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they making us some trees to the USA. Yeah. Yeah. So, this new fence runs the entire length of the cemetery on 15th 685 ft. Wow. Cool. Good deal. All right. Any commissioners have any questions or comments on that? Good stuff. Good project. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, also you you did a it's a great job you guys came out under budget, you know. I mean, you got to take a bit of all that. Yeah. Try to pay some attention to social media and so there were some good posts when the sign was when the fencing was down of potential zombies being released from the pictures people were posting. It was pretty comical. I think they need Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Next up, we have uh new business and it's the pros plan chapter one. Okay. So, before I lead into chapter 1 and chapter 4, the good news is that we don't think it's going to take a whole lot of time for us to review it tonight. A lot. So, we may be giving you some time back. All right. Um, so a lot of what we did was um just honestly general updates,

general updates to the plan related to um let me see if I There we go. So, mission statement we haven't really changed. Um obviously the acknowledgements it is kind of interesting to look at the acknowledgements um from now versus 6 years ago when the last uh plan was updated. Um I think we decided we had two council members that were on the mayor was on and was it all Ben were you here six years ago? Ben I think was the only one that was here six years ago from the commission and even staff um Colette's the only staff member of the four staff member listed.

So quite a bit of turnover in the last six years um since the last plan was updated.

Um so like I said a lot of that uh a lot of what we've done and we've tried to keep the same amount of page numbers just for simplicity. Um, I think we have a couple spots where we may have to shift some page numbers a little bit throughout the entire book, but really nothing too major. Um, our obviously amount of um, land that we have hasn't changed. Our forested parkland, including the watershed property, hasn't changed. Um, our number of parks haven't changed. Um, so a lot of these things are pieces that were um just cleaned up and and updated. Um, but nothing no real major changes.

Is this your official job hunting? Yeah, this is too fancy. Park preservation and development hand. I like it. still I don't think I Yeah, we could we could we could add it to it. Um I'm I'm sorry. Is this the date we're hoping to like No, I'm No. Yeah, because that's the full six years. Most likely it'll be December 17th is my plan.

Cool. Yeah, probably. If we say it, then it's true, right? We don't want to we don't want to take two more years or two more months.

Um, so the economics and and demographics. Colet, did you want to just kind of touch lightly on this? And this is general information that you had gone out and and uh researched and then just updated to what we had there. Really, the the text of the the detail isn't a whole lot different. Um yeah, I mean obviously like population um has changed um diversity's changed um and then the the um median income, poverty level, those types of things have all all been adjusted um relative to what today's numbers would be. Um same with persons with disabilities obviously identifying and understanding that 13%. Um we are at 15 a.5% state's 13 and and the national average is 13.4. So we're a little bit above that. Not sure I'd call ourselves a retirement community but but we definitely have a little bit higher than the average mix. um updated information related to the community involvement with the survey. Um so we had the the 900 responses uh to 33 questions took 11 to 12 minutes and we had 662 additional written comments which was awesome to have. And again a lot of that information is going to be available in the appendix. So we just make reference to it throughout the chapters. Um but the the extra material will be um listed in the end. Um and then obviously the beginning of that second page there to be updated um will note um just kind of the updated information related to the the plan and when it when it gets approved.

So these are just this is just all information that we really went through last week and or last month and handed out to you. So these are just more of the key findings that we came up with. Again, all the responses to all the questions will be in the appendix. So um you'll be able to go through and see what questions were asked and how the responses um came back. But these were just um some of the key takeaways from some of those uh questionnaires that we filled out. And then obviously individual themes. Um so and I think I told this I've told this group that we're now part of um a council committee which we hadn't been for a while. So we're part of the finance parking and investment. So now it's the the hardest the most difficult part was to try to figure out what acronym. So it's PIP. It's parks finance investment and parking. uh which which aligns us with uh Mike Riley and the finance department which is important for us to be a part of that group um because that's where our money comes from.

Yeah. Um so we want to we want to be tied to who who who manages the money and uh we have Jeff Coughlin um Jay Rebelski and uh um Michael Goodnau are the three council um members that are a part of that committee. So, and it's really nice because they meet every fourth Tuesday at 1:30. And so, really what we talk at about at this meeting, we just prep for that meeting and that's our dry run. So, that's why we're so polished at night for this meeting.

Okay. So that's really the extent to um that first section um for the uh the introduction um and any questions anybody has on that section. [Music] Okay. Next one, chapter four.

Yeah. Next one is our needs analysis. Um, again, this is just kind of explaining to someone that's reading the plan, uh, what we what our level of service, uh, what that term means. um describing the amount of quality of parks um and recreation facilities that are needed to serve the community um at a desirable and measurable standard. And so we really um try to adhere to a lot of the NRPA standards. And so that's kind of what we utilize as our comparison for that. Um, I did not update, if you read through the packet ahead of time, I had some trouble going through NRPA metrics. I think a lot of this information is fairly similar on this page. Those are just showing what our standards are. I couldn't find the comp update of the comparables within the state for some reason. Um, it doesn't didn't look like we had updated our metrics since the last time we um input the pros plan. And part of that might have been because we had a secondary account that was created. So I need to look at um meshing those two, which it tells me that's an option, which means that's probably what's happened in our case. But again, it just kind of talks about what the level of service standards are, you know, as far as the park sizes. So, neighborhood park and community park uh what those tend to look like as far as acreage um and their service area within those areas. So, we'd like to provide some updated um obviously numbers for uh communities within the Washington area uh to be able to note there. Um again, not a whole lot of lot of changes here. things that we're going to be doing in the next month along with our capital

plan and our 20-year um facility plan is updating photos and then getting quotes from this current um from this current survey. Those are just kind of afterthoughts right now. We wanted to stick to the meat right now and then we'll go back and identify where those needs are. Um did you want to talk at all about the service area mapping? So the the leverage service was determined um I think in 2020 or before 2020. It was before probably 2014 that um any a community park serves anyone within a 2 to five mile radius and a neighborhood park is um what is it again?

Half mile. Yeah. A minute 10 minute walk. Yeah. Um and so these two maps, this one is for um our community park. So the the area shaded is the two miles. So for NAB Park, for instance, the the orange color is the two miles that's shaded and then the orange line that's farther out is the five mile. So you can kind of see the areas that um the park serve based on that criteria, that level of service. We know that like parks like Evergreen get used by people that live beyond that five mile rad. But that's kind of like the standard of what how we did from

So this map didn't change at all. This map did change or needs to be changed because Mountain Park, which is right here, we were classifying it as a neighborhood park simply because there wasn't any other good alternative. Haden hadn't been updated and now that Haden is updated and has more amenities that really is a neighborhood park and Mountain which doesn't have a restroom, it's and is like.3 acres. Mhm. Um is more of a pocket park. So we are going to

remove this from the map. But this is a map that's really difficult to edit. So yeah, need some GIS help there. Then again, the 10-minute walk campaign was something NRPA uh championed in 2017 is and is a is a big um concept that the mayor would like to utilize as a standard as well uh for the development um in infill within our park system is uh that everyone should be within a 10 essentially a 10-minute walk of a park. like

this and this is the um part of the two-minute walk campaign that they um partnered with for public land which launched this program called park serve that you can put in any city and it will it'll give you the data of um what were the gaps within the city in terms of who's not living within a 10 minute walk.

And our last update it said that we've had 66% of pe of residents of Barton living within a 10-minute walk. It's actually increased now to 74%. Earlier we did gain more parkland. So I think it's just the distribution of the population where people are living um to make that that difference. So yeah, now percent services.

Yeah, that's true. And obviously being located near parks is more of an ideal. So it makes a lot of sense and ties that in as far as where the residential developments occurring. So the national average is 54. Yeah. out. Yeah.

And this map is something that the the program provides and tells you where you're laughing in parks basically. They acknowledge that this is phase one of phase two is going to get more detailed information about what you know what's how things are being zoned. So you can see that they're saying that there's a high need for a park at the, you know, put sound shipyard not recognizing that what that is or that it may have its own internal system,

which there is a system of recreation and and green space on base. We just filled There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Then this is one. Is this the one we're removing? Yeah.

And it's really it's really close. Essentially, it's east Breton. Yeah. East Birmton and kind of west area is where but East Birmton is really the focus where where we're lacking park space, but it's one of those things that our the property line is so arbitrary right there, you know, so it's kind of MX. Yeah, it's it's the property line is really strange because I I know people on one side of Perry that have all the chickens that they want. Yeah. They're like, "Are you in the city or what?" Yeah.

I'm stuck with my five. So, the park metrics, correct? Yeah. No rooster.

So, the park metrics is the one that I said that I need to get updated once I can get some of those comparables. But, this will will kind of tell you where we kind of lie overall. um with it's about 900 to a,000 other agencies across the country um that have filled out um this survey. But I wanted to also share with you some information. When the 2024 uh NRPA agency performance review came out, I I sat with this and walked through our system and so kind of did some um handwritten analysis uh when this came out this winter. So um like so I'll just kind of go through with our population assumption of 45,450 um as kind of our baseline um the average um finding was that um a city would have 2,386 residents per park. Uh with the number of parks that we have, we're actually at 1,623 residents. So we have a higher number of parks for the amount of people that we have here. Um but on the flip side and talking about some of our small parks that we have acres of parkland per thousand residents, uh nationwide the average is 10.6. We're at about 6.42 acres. Um so even though we have more parks, our parks are smaller than the average. Um, I didn't do the percentage of agencies offering summer camp programs uh as 83%. We don't uh because there are uh partner agencies within the community that do provide those. Uh some of these other numbers were kind of interesting. Uh full-time equivalent employees per uh 10,000 residents. Um 8.9 is the national average. We're at

4.2. uh which really explains our um lack of the ability to regularly maintain parks and keep our parkland maintained is because we're literally half the staffing. Uh where I was at previously um and 10,000 less uh residents uh I had almost 10 more employees on my park side full-time than what we do here in Breton. Um so that's obviously something that we want to work towards. Um percentage of full-time staff dedicated operations and maintenance uh a national average averages is 46. Uh based on our staffing it's 68 because we again that it looks a little skewed but that's because we really lack in the in the recreational programming side. And so it's going to show that maintenance and operations is is much higher rate for us. Um per capita the national average is $9940. Per capita we're at $76.30. So we're low on that end. Um yeah. So that's just some of the and and that'll be some of these comparisons some of that information that will be getting getting filled in. Um and then again it further explains in this um and on since we've done the 2025 input then we'll be able to get a very specific one for uh Breton once that next report comes out. Uh but because we couldn't find the entry for 2024 it didn't cater it to us. So I just was able to print a generic version to to do a comparison against. So yeah, so that'll be really nice and and

make sure that obviously you get copies of that when the 2025 um survey is completed as well as council. So then they have that and then we'll obviously utilize these types of documents when we're going through the budgeting process. just more of the comparisons. Um again, these these are just pages um explaining uh what how we classify each of our parks park segments. Um and I don't know if you've read through this yet. Um, Colette, we talked about uh how we feel like identifying um our houseless population is something that we need to really recognize in this in this one. As of right now, I've just noted it on the side as a park survey result. Um as far as um the top three issues um that were noted within our surveying is vandalism, cleanliness and safety within parks. Um so that's I think something that's extremely important for us to consider. So uh that statement may stay like that or it may get incorporated and we may identify it differently else in another spot as well. But again, just kind of noting uh what's classified as a neighborhood park within here. Um and just kind of naming a few of those locations, pocket parks. Um you know, it's a little funny because we've we've discussed Pat Cary Vista um as what do we do with it? I don't know if anybody caught it, but one of the Seattle TV uh channels last weekend shared a photo someone took of sunset of a guy and a gal sitting at the park and it was like their their picture of the day. So, that was kind of cool.

Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of cool. Um saw it on social media um is where I saw that. I was like, "Oh, that's actually was really awesome." Um yeah, so just kind of further defining um what each of our um different um classifications are within our park system. And then obviously our our own wreck facil facilities and partner programs um including Marvin Williams Center and YMCA and the Jarstead complex. Um, if you see most of our pictures, we don't take pictures of faces unless So this is AJ's husband and daughter. So, so, so we'll throw them in as marketing. Same thing with the video for Haden. Those were friends of Colette's kids that we've got video of. So, kind of fun um to incorporate those in. Yeah. and just kind of a general sum general summary of our level of service. So, okay, any questions on chapter 4?

Concern about our houseless residents. Are you thinking that? So I see it here is about calling that out more within the the froze plan because it is a it's a definite needs for our operations team. Yeah. I don't think it's going away, right? We want the public to understand that.

Yeah. Just Yeah. I think I think we're trying to figure out how how is that best served in this in this guide? How is it best identified? Um, is it best identified as a as a challenge? Is that mine? I forgot that I highlighted them. I was like picking up yours. Um, yeah. Do we identify that as a as a future challenge or a current challenge or um um yeah I think that's we've got a little time to figure it out but I I think

yeah trying how do we properly identify it in there because we it it's it's an important part of what we do. Um, we've talked with Carlos and uh with our parks crew uh who's our our lead and um we we could anticipate around 30% right now of the work within the parks is around those three issues uh that were noted um vandalism, safety and uh sanitation.

Yeah, the sanitation side of things. I mean, that's a huge uh reduction of time um being able to be be spent elsewhere. And it's great cuz a lot of that's in coordination with um Common Streets who the city's coordinated with to try to help um get people housing and get them services, but at the same time, we're still the ones in there helping clean up and coordinating with them. It's great having the parters partners, but it's not taking a whole lot away from what we're doing. Yeah. Um it's it's important to note the partners, but also that the problem owned by all of us for sure. You know, not just this department. Yep. Absolutely.

Y because it's it's like the it's like the 10-minute walk to the park metric. Um that depends on the street department, too. Yep, it does. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, that's an abbleist metric. Yeah. Yeah. And the transportation. Yeah. I mean, we we we're not technically the creator of the transportation plan, but the transportation plan is a huge has a huge effect on on our ability to get to parks. Yeah. So, I appreciate how how you work with the whole city because it is a big community. Yep. And if

and this would be the perfect place to put it and just like a little blurb, you know, how much time he spent. I think it's anecdotally having conversations with people about why isn't the park doing this and then that and and I just pause and say I let's talk about what they all do. There are things you're not thinking of. One of them is everything that Brian's been illuminating to the commission over the last year or so. Um, so I think it's important and

to your point and I don't think it belongs here, but it is something the city needs to think about what happens a decision made in one place like an anti-amping ordinance has a direct impact on the park system. So when people who are unhoused move from one place the you know and they're not going into shelters there's going to be or even a great example is the rebuild of MLK. Yes. Uh had a direct effect on on Warren Avenue Park um had a direct effect on us having to shut down the restrooms

um and keep those locked um because of the issues we were coming across there. And those are all things that we tried to minimize the best that we could. Um, you know, we collaborate with a lot of different uh divisions and departments, whether that's anywhere from

uh Bington police to common streets uh streets outreach um uh mental health services. I mean there's we meet monthly and then I'm also part of the county team that sits in as part of the monthly team and these are all concerns that we have and we talk amongst ourselves of different departments, different divisions and see what we can do to help each other out and what the impacts are to somebody else. We kind of talk some of these situations through especially when we have some larger events and things like that. So yes, there are conversations being had

standing in coordination of endless things they wouldn't even think of come up like a you know a renovation of a street. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioners got any other questions or comments on pros plan we've looked at tonight? All right. Great stuff.

So, just last thing I'll say on the pro plan is we're getting closer. Every month we're taking a step closer no matter how many hours we're in here. Uh 3 hours or so. I think when I came on board I said I would try to keep us to an hour, but I also didn't consider the fact that pros plan was going to be a major part of this year.

So, so we're putting the hours in. Uh next month we'll be talking about the action plan and capital facility plan. Um so that's going to be a lot of work on our end and putting together that six-year CIP and the 20-year um project uh identifying projects within the next 20 years. So we'll go through a pretty good review of that next month. Um then really after that we'll uh and we're going to be working on getting um quotes updated, photos updated, and the plan over that next month prior to September is we're going to be working on um getting our final drafts together for each of the chapters so that we can get that out to this group. Um in a perfect world, we'll get get all of that to you about two weeks ahead. Um but then um in September we have planned for the uh initial approval from the commission for the draft plan uh because then that'll allow us to then um get those chapters online for public review and then get it to the recreation conservation office for their review and for council to start reviewing before they uh dig into it in their public hearings in December on the 3rd and 17th is the plan there. Um so brought that up with the co with the council members uh this afternoon in that meeting. So they're excited about that. Um so really after we get the draft plan uh discussed in September uh really October is going to any last minute updates um we can kind of talk a little bit if there's been some feedback what kind of feedback there is and then looking at our consideration of a November December meeting. um you know December 3rd will be the first public hearing. So we may want to look at that combined meeting being that first week in December. So um because we usually

combine November, December. So that would be the day before the com count the first council meeting uh that we'll discuss it. Um, but yeah, maybe in October we might talk about some potential commission roles in in the public hearing process and some things the commission can do to to help support um the project uh with um the city council and their approval in December. So cool. It's a quick it's a quick year um but I think we're we're getting there. So the 60day review process

done. But again, as noted, you know, we wanted to make sure that um with this current city council, we were able to get it through because they've been the ones that have been on board. And we have up to two new council members, I think, and potential new mayor. Um, so would like to have those that have been involved um be a part of that decision process. All right, commissioners comments. Let's start with Commissioner Waterman. I

just thank you so much for all this work and what's coming. Uh my gosh. So that's that's all I have to say. I thank you so much. Nice to see you back to back. All right, Commissioner Wagel. All right, Commissioner Dawson. Um, how many saw the article in the Sun about Toana State Park in the snack bar there?

Did you see that? Pretty cool. They said that it was part of a statewide and basically they're they're uh a food chef celebrity um decided to open that up as a kind of a high-end seafood type of place and uh but anyway, the state evidently is and they're looking for revenue and they're continuing to uh update services. That was one of the initiatives they did. They're doing them at other parks and not necessarily that at high end, but they are trying to look at the snack sale step. That one had been closed for 11 years, long time,

you know, and so there were lots of work on that. Um, one of the things that Tim had mentioned about Pentagast Park was was putting in a path for uh food trucks and things like that, which I thought was a great idea, you know, but I also thought, what about attracting food trucks uh at least on the short term, you know, not not permanently uh lodged there, but attracting food trucks to the other parks, you know, that sort of thing through some sort of permitting process where the parks and actually gather some fees from that and generate people that are interacting and getting tacos or something. So anyway, I like the the pender gas idea a lot. I didn't I I know you're probably working on lots of stuff here, you know, and I did like that a lot, but but I just that just reminded me

why don't we put out a call for uh food trucks to market all of our fun and have it shortterm type of arrangements or we try them out. So, the city does have a process for that. Okay. Um and I'm not sure how long it's been in place. I had a couple groups reach out to me this year, coffee trucks. Yeah. um didn't really ever hear back from them once I sent them to community development to get all of their permits in place. Um but it is probably something that we should advertise more

because um being involved on the commission, you probably didn't realize we had that process in place. So there is and I think what one thing on our side before we would do that is just to kind of talk through where do we it's kind of almost like benches where where are our preferred locations as opposed to someone picking out and we have 10 benches next to each other. What are our preferred locations for these and then market it that way. Yeah. And it'd be nice if the the money went to the parks department

for sure. Yeah. I'm working on some of that too. I I would love I would love to get to a point where like our shelter revenue goes back to a special revenue fund uh that this group can help control and we can develop more shelters using that or putting amenities into our park system. Um but looking at an overall I'd prefer to do the comparison of the overall city budget where let's say our revenues are $60 million. um $200,000 a year really is a drop in the bucket, but 200,000 to us means a lot. And so if there was a way for us to pull that out of the general fund revenue and then be able to create this a separate account for the commission to be able to help decide annually how those funds get get spent. Um it's worked before, I'll tell you. I've I've done it elsewhere and it was it was great.

It was great. Then we're not having to go to council for $50,000, for $75,000. We could use it as match for projects, but at least gives us something to work with to try to help um put some resources back into our park system. Great. Yeah. And and and as far as food trucks, I mean, those are actually, you know, have broader benefit because they're kind of business incubators. They also they also can be an extension of an existing brick and mortar business where a restaurant wants to get into that similar to Crazy Arts always used to do it at the fair,

you know, and several microser restaurants also have their own food cart stuff and it's just something that uh that kind of benefits a whole lot of people, right? And might benefit the parks. Yeah. Well, even with the food trucks, I mean, if we're providing, let's say it's almost like an RV hookup for them at sites, I mean, we would need some of the revenue back to help pay for the power they're using. So, it would make sense that it comes back to us, but it's a revenue um as well. But, uh, yeah. No, I think that's I think that'd be a great project for the commission to look. When I go to Evergreen, I'll go across to

Yep. That's a very popular spot. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. The little guys, you name it. But, you know, you can let the the market kind of decide what what people want and stuff like that. We we we have to do the marketing to get people and to get people to commit to go over any hurdles that they might have to do with because these are small business owners, right? Yep. All right. Anything else, Mr. Johnson?

No, I think that was it. Thank you very much. No, you're good. I actually have a couple things to myself. Um uh Brian, this is first couple things I have are going to be more up your alley here. Right. There's all I called Mr. Evans today about this, but I just want to give you a heads up. I was playing on P1 uh last night and second base is um Brian, it's a little cockeyed. So, I think the post that is put in the ground wasn't maybe installed correctly. So, the base is sitting it's cockeyed from the other bases. Yeah. It probably just got loosened. Yep. Yep. Maybe just got a little loose. So,

too many people sliding loose. Yeah. Uh last week uh we were down at Lions one and down the first baseline there is a tree in uh halfway in the outfield and that tree is uh it's encroaching on the field. So maybe if you could if you could have your folks take a look at that, maybe do a little pruning on that, I would appreciate that. Would that would be great. Um, it's there's some branches that are they're starting they're starting to come over the fence line a little bit. Yeah, they're just starting to come over the fence line a little bit. Yeah,

they're full of foliage this time of year. So, [Laughter] aim for the tree. You're good. And then stay in play. I just had a couple uh questions really for for you, director. I was wondering how in the boardwalk held up after the bridge blast. How'd we do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was Yeah, it was it was a mess. Evergreen. Was it down there? Yeah. Was it? Yeah.

Yeah. Evergreen. So, evergreen was a little bit of a different issue. It's it's the how do we not to generalize but get teens to behave when they're dropped off for events. Um so we had a number of of teen fights that occurred at Evergreen Park that night. Wow. Yeah. And it's kids that are just getting dropped off and then picked up later at some point unsupervised and just kind of doing whatever they want. Okay. But as part of that role, we we also fit in on special events. We did talk situations and had enough folks down there to to manage it.

Yeah. Okay. But yeah, we had staff obviously on um that night and it was busy. Yeah, it was busy. All right. I got one more thing. meant to bring this stuff up a couple months ago. Are the lights in the Pender gas parking lot are those like ones you can control from like your computer similar to the the lights at the field? Do Do you happen to know that? So, I think I can't I haven't tried that yet. The one my one request the whole reason I bring it up early in the softball season when it's still getting dark relatively early, those lights are not on. Yeah. And so when we're leaving it's it's dark in that parking lot.

We've had quite a bit of wiring issues up there and we and some of the bolts are out and we're like that. Okay. Um and so we're looking into uh Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I think those are normally on they come and it could be Oh, I'm sorry. That makes me think of one more thing. When I'm when I'm pulling into Pendergas, I go past that on right before uh I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself here. The there was a bunch of like uh foliage like is that from Kitap? Was that stuff from Kitap Lake? Okay. That's what I Exactly what I thought it was.

Yes. I just saw I was there yesterday for my game and and I saw it up there and yeah, I figured that's exactly what it was. Cool. Makes sense to me. Perfect. That's all I had. Thank you. All right. Meeting adjourned. Thank you guys. Adults should never