Library - Regular Meeting

Advisory Board and all of us are volunteers. On my far left is Angie Lonson. To my immediate left is Kelly Kelly, who is also vice president of the advisory board. On my immediate right is Candace Gardner, who just had her appointment renewed by the council at the last council meeting, so appreciate you staying with us again. And to my far right is our newest member, Bianca Latvala. I'm going to ask Bianca if she'll take a few minutes to tell us about herself and what motivated her to join the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.

Like you said, I'm Bianca Latvala. I am a very engaged Clearwater resident. And I personally, I work in digital marketing and I work for a lot of nonprofits in the community. But I wanted to join because I'm an avid tennis player and so I've been using the parks facilities for a long time now. And I'm also an avid attendee of the events at BayCare Ballpark. So I frequent a lot of the different parks facilities and so it was a good fit for me to serve my community further.

Very good. Welcome. There are copies of the agenda that are available for those of you attending person, and we have items that are not on the agenda that you may speak to as we begin the meeting. You'll have three minutes to speak. When you approach the podium, you need to give us your name, and try and restrict your talk until for about three minutes.

The agenda items, you will be asked to comment upon them if you like, and you may come up and comment upon the agenda items as we go over them. The first item on the agenda tonight is the approval of the minutes from the 04/22/2025 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting. Those minutes have been published, and if there are no corrections to those minutes, I would appreciate a motion to approve those minutes as published.

I'll make the motion to approve the minutes. Second.

And a second? Thank you

very much. The minutes of the April 22 are approved and become part of the record. The next item on the agenda are citizens to be heard regarding items not on the agenda. If you would approach the podium, tell us your name, and you have three minutes to speak. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr Chairman.

Good evening, Mr.

Members of the committee. Bianca, it's great to have you joining this committee as well.

Thank you.

I am Bill Johnson, 200694 Redford Court West in Clearwater. I wanted to share some information that is an update to information that I shared a year ago about our wonderful Cochrane Park. A year ago, I pointed out that in Cochrane Park, we had these uplights in the under the trees, but they're broken. Kids play kickball with them or soccer, and many of them were disabled. The city is appropriately installing these little underground lights so you just get the light up and there's nothing that can be kicked around.

And unfortunately, that we still have a lot of the old lights up on the top of the hill and around the library. So, there's work in process to complete that. There are also maintenance issues in the landscaping area. There's quite a bit of area that used to be landscaped that is now mulch or just dirt. There is trash in some

of the

landscaping. And this like at the library, there's just no grass there. Along Cleveland Street, the along with the big wall. This area is not being very well maintained. And even if we look at the at the park, the waterfalls.

The for some reason this Waterfall is pretty dirty. Going further. But you get the idea that we have problems. One of the pictures that I show here is several shots of the restroom facilities at the harbor master's office, which in one of the restrooms, the light set isn't working in it. So, it's it's it's a just a dark room or if you go in to use the facilities unless the door is open, You can't see where you're going.

And

however, that I will say that the floor that used to be a real problem is now now resolved. Part of that facility that the doors are pretty banged up and so the bottom line is look, I invite you to go out and visit Cochran Park and see if that's what you think is appropriate for our city. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bill, by any chance, do you have enough copies of what you presented to us tonight to give to the various board members that are here?

I do not have extra copies, but I will be happy to mail them to the board members if you'd like them. I gave a copy to the clerk. I think I have one more copy here someplace. Okay.

If you could do that. And also, Mike, would you care to comment at this time about some of the things that Bill pointed out?

Yes, sir. Yeah, and I can scan my copy to the board. I have a lead to scan it tomorrow. Yeah, and I appreciate the comments, Mr. Johnson. I will definitely follow-up with staff and the landscaping, the lighting project. We started that several, about a month ago or so, but we started from the west side of the park and we're making our way upstairs. So you're absolutely correct, the ones on the promenade by the fountain are not done yet, but those are, we're just following kind of it westward, or excuse me, eastward. So they should be done shortly and I can update the board on the timeline for that because I don't think it should take, I think it was about six weeks, the project itself. So we're getting close to the end of that project.

And then I will also the lights and the doors, will pass it on to our building maintenance division. The lights are probably a sensor, all of those are sensor driven. So I'll definitely bring that up

that may not be we may not be aware of this.

Thank you. I think one of the things that Bill has pointed out to us previously is that Coachmen Park is in fact a highlight of visiting Clearwater, and we try and maintain all of our parks, but in particular, residents plus visitors come to Coachmen Park and like any of us that visit a city, if we see things like he's pointing out to us, we're going to get a very bad impression about the maintenance of our gemstone, if you will. So if you don't mind, I'm going pick up a note about this one and perhaps at our next meeting and prior to that, you can provide us with some updates as to the focus on this to get it to where it needs to be. And if there's anything additional that needs to be done from the city council or whomever to get this to be taken care of, because it's not as good as we would like it to be.

Sure. No problem at all.

Very good. Thank you, Bill. Does anybody else have a question?

No, I think that's great.

Think it's pretty well spoken.

Yeah, it does. I

just I like the tablet. That was I wish everybody did that, the tablet presentation. It's like having a little slideshow.

I'm sorry?

Your tablet presentation, I really appreciated that. It's like having a little slideshow. So I wish everybody did that,

yeah. Okay. Is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak on an item that is not on our current agenda.

Good evening. Jason Mastropietro with the Friends of Moccasin Lake. I'm the president of that organization. First, I would like to say thank you to everybody here for all that you do for the City Of Clearwater, its residents, and the animals and plants and stuff we have here as well. I am focused on the park itself, and I didn't realize that we could hook up something to display. I'll do that the next time I come by. So I have two questions I wanted to ask. I'm not asking for anything to be done, but rather to try to get some information about where these two things stand. First, within the last year or so, there was a property that was purchased next to the park off of Evenwood Street, about

three

three and a half acres and it's in the process of being open for use as part of the park having the trails connected to it having some of the buildings that were dilapidated being removed etcetera being

that's

I I itself question. Has as time has gone on because it was first dredged out because they were it was used as fill for Building US 19.

Mhmm.

Now the the area's been filling in with silt and runoff. It's being very much overrun with vegetation. It's turning to kind of the marshy area it was back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, etcetera. I know that there's thoughts and there's been work on approaching to clean it up, dredge it out carefully so you don't destroy the ecosystem that's there, and return it to the lake form. I don't know what the status is with that.

I know that at the July 10 meeting of city council, there was agenda item about purchasing two pieces of work equipment that I know and could be used some for that one one they were both for pond maintenance and say one was say like a not a lift but like a piece of digging equipment and the other was something that was a boat and the particular item was from the the Boat Incorporated.

Right.

I didn't know and I'm just asking if that if one of the uses for those items might be Moccasin Lake.

Okay. Thank you, Jason. Mike, can you comment on each of the items?

Yeah, I think that was a public works item. I'm not sure if those pieces of equipment we use, but I know that the conversation, I was just on an email either, I think it was yesterday, about public works asking us if we have a trail that goes back towards the backside of the lake there. And they were asking us to make sure that it was clear because they were starting the planning of the dredging. I don't know a timeline yet, I can certainly pass that on because it's being done with our public works department.

Okay, thank you.

This the dredging of the lake?

Yes, sir.

Sir. It's now under public works response.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

But I can get a, I can talk to Matt and work on a timeline and actually reach out to public works to find out a better timeline. And then the Meadow, we were, Matt, Art and I were at the Meadow location, say about three weeks ago, and we were working on kind of what buildings to take out because of the safety factor, and I know that Matt was working with our fire department, and they were using it as one of those structures as like a training mechanism. So I know that they're working on that, but that's the first to go. Once those are cleared, then the next part would be getting the trail to navigate around that meadow, and then we've talked about planting wildflowers in that meadow. There is no timeline on that.

I would say at least six months and it could be even longer, but I can certainly get that information in terms of budgetary, the piece that would need to support that, and I know Art is working on that.

Do you think that that activity would merit being included on our product reports so that we could have an update on somewhat regular what basis is being done, what still needs to be done, and what its progress is?

Yeah, absolutely, we can put on there.

Okay. Okay, great, thank you.

Thank you, Jason. Thank you. Is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak on an item that is not on the agenda? Seeing that there are none, we will move on to item number four, new business items. Item 4.1 is from myself. It is a follow-up report on a Merrymount Park community meeting that was held on June 17 to understand what actions may have resulted from that meeting and what actions still remain to be done from that meeting.

Sure. Yes, as you said, June 17 was the day of the meeting. There were four main areas that they talked about. One was the open space, the green area. The other one was the pavilion, the restroom, and the playground.

So, the open space area, that was graded on June, sorry, yeah, June 22, and now there's fencing around there which will be pulled on August 1. So that whole area will open up. There's some minor landscaping that we need to do once the fence is out to make it look a little bit better than it does right now, but the turf will have enough time to knit and then have that space open. Our staff is working with Van Nuys construction now on the pavilion and the restroom building. Still working out some of those details, but as soon as those are done, it seems to be something that should be done in the next month or so, we can get moving on those two pieces.

And then the playground is the last piece, staff's working with Play More. They're a playground company we've used in the past and working on some final plans on what that playground is going look like. It was a very productive meeting, I know Art, Matt, staff were there, know the mayor was there, and I heard a lot of great things about it. So I think we're on the right path and we're heading in the right direction. And I can certainly get back to the board about when those, the pavilion restroom and playground pieces will all start to kind of fall in line as well.

There was a concern expressed previously also because that area was used as a debris area from the hurricane both Helene and Milton, that the ground had become contaminated as well. Has that been eliminated as a problem?

Yeah, no, that was eliminated, so our engineering department took care of that before it was graded and resodded, so all of that has been taken care of. So now it's back to its natural setting, if once you those fences are removed in August.

And would you also be of the opinion that this could also be something we could put on our project list perhaps? I can follow-up on on a regular basis.

Yes, sir.

And any questions from any board member, please?

I do. How do you find out about those meetings ahead of time? Is there a site you can go to

or they're not I'm

sure how that was publicized. I want to say that that was a regular neighborhood meeting that was organized and they just happened to be part of that agenda.

Okay.

I'm pretty sure that's how it was because I know our neighborhood coordinator was there and she was doing a lot of organization and I think we just happened to be on that agenda.

Okay. I think I may have seen it in Clearwater News as well because I picked it up from some document and made a note of it that was going to take place on June 17. Okay. And I wanted to see what developed because a couple of people had come to me to ask about what was going be done with that area, including the contamination. It got some pretty good publicity, I think.

Okay, good. Very good.

Any other questions from board member on this matter? No. Okay. Thank you very much, Mike. We'll now move on to item 4.2, which is an item that I added myself. It is a status update on the shuffleboard and lawn bowling facilities that are undergoing some review by Parks and Recreation as to what can be done in that particular area as a result of the damage from Hurricanes Feline and Milton.

Sure, I know that Matt had talked about this at the last meeting, and kind of the update from that is that Art, myself, and a few of our staff members have met with the liaison, or usually the president and a few of the board members for each of the clubs. We sat down with them and we've really tried to focus in on what would be that minimum requirement for them to move their sport forward if we weren't able to put the buildings back. And I know that Matt went into some detail on the FEMA and regulations and the fiftyfifty rule. So we've gotten information from both clubs, and we're still working through that. We're not exactly sure if those buildings will remain.

We're optimistic and I know there was a comment made about maybe using another site. We're really focused now on trying to get them as whole as possible at that site because that's what they call home. But we know we may need to do it in a different way. Both clubs, I've had the ability and the fortunate ability to work with both clubs for a long, long time, and they're very passionate about what they do. And they, surface, I think one is called a rink, it's a lawn bowls club, and then the other one are just shuffleboard courts.

They take incredible maintenance. If you've ever gone out there, both clubs do a very, very good job of maintaining. But now it's outside of those courts or those rinks, what do they need to do to be successful? So, do they need as much multi purpose space as they have now? Do they need an office?

Do they need restrooms? And we've gotten that feedback from them. The biggest thing that they've shared with us is shade. As you can imagine, we're going through a relatively hot time of year for all of us, but for them, so we're working with both clubs, we understand that shade is a priority, we understand that the rinks or the courts are a priority. And I know that, and I don't know if Art or Matt have talked about it, but And we are in the process of trying to work through an RFP to try to find some temporary offices or office space and as well as restrooms.

That has not hit the streets yet, but we are working on that. So if those buildings do end up having to be removed, we have a good plan for them to kind of take them to that next level. I know that we'd love to keep the buildings, we would love to keep them and put them back the way they were, it's just that there's certain requirements that we have to follow that we cannot do without making some alterations.

Exactly. And I think the presence of FEMA with respect to what you can and cannot do has been a tremendous impact on any activities that you would undertake.

Yes sir.

But I would believe that meeting on a regular basis with the leadership of the shuffleboard and the lawn bowling, together you would not only keep them up to date, but together plans can be developed

and so forth. Absolutely. Yeah, the one big thing, and I completely respect and understand is they were trying to get some authorization for their events, or upcoming events that they have. Because a lot of them happen in the fall when it's a little less humid and hot out. So ART has given them both clubs the ability to continue to run their programs, but also host some of those events that they have been accustomed to hosting in the past, so there's no restrictions there. And some of those events for them are a revenue stream, you know, to kind of offset some other expenses in their club. We've gotten Middle East whole through the fall, and then we'll, as you said, continue to communicate and keep them in loop with how the conversation continues to evolve to make sure that they're prepared for the future.

Very good. Any questions from board members on this matter? Thank you, Mike. Moving on to item 4.3, I had put this item in, and I might be a little bit behind where we are on this one, but it's relative to the Pier 60 repairs, and the last thing I recall is that Parks and Recreation was gonna propose to the council three options about the repair work that would be done on the pier, and I was curious as to whether those three options have been presented, and has the council decided which one they're going with?

They have been presented. Where we're at now is that the pier itself is open from basically beach, if you will, where the concession is, all the way up into what we call the pier house, which is kind of where we sell snacks and trinkets and things, then you can get your permit, or you get your license to go out to fish. We are working on opening that bait house. September 1 is our deadline for that. So when September 1 hits, we're hoping that you can enter the pier all the way up to what we call the T, and then the T is what you're referencing as in the proposal that came in front of council.

So we have worked with some engineers, architects, we've offered three different options. At this point, engineering has taken over the project, so I know they're working through some of those ideas now, and may even have more ideas in the future. But our focus as a department is really to get that pier open from where you enter at the concession all the way up to the T, and we're hoping to do that again by September 1.

And it's at the T where the council will have to make a decision what That option they go

had the most damage, if you will, during the storms.

Okay. Moving on to item, I'm sorry, any questions on this from the Board? Moving on to item 4.4 is a status update on marketing, and I think this might be relative to videos that we had talked previously about talking about parks or is this something else?

Yeah, that's what I was gonna share what I knew, which is I was gonna talk about Parks and Recreation Month, but I can help if you had any specific questions about marketing. I know our public communications group is working with us right now because we are celebrating Parks and Recreation Month. Know that they've been out doing some short videos and posting them on Facebook and their social media outlets. I'm not exactly sure if that's what you were looking for, or I can expand upon.

Yeah, I think what I was thinking about is at our last meeting, I think Kelly Kelly suggested that there was a very nice video made of Moccasin Lake Nature Park, and they had suggested that we put that up on the city website, it was so well done.

Okay.

As a means of introducing to residents or visitors, the parks that we do have And that you can we were gonna start with Moxen Lake Nature Park. Are you aware whether they were able to put that?

I am not. I apologize. I am not aware of that. I can certainly reach out to public communications, you know, tomorrow. And work with Matt. Matt, even though he's on vacation, he tends to look at his phone. So I can see if there's any update there and update the board via email, And if that's

there was another thing that I was working on with, I believe her name is Lisa, public information communications. There's a gentleman that conducts informal tours of parks in Pinellas County. It's a hobby of his. His name is Jack Armstrong. And I reached out to him to say, Jack, would you be interested in having making videos of Clearwater Park specific ones that are selected that you could work with the city to not only do the work video and video of them, but having them published on the city website.

And I thought he was receptive to that. But then I heard from Lisa that he was not receptive to doing it. I reached out to him for confirmation because he could not recall from May what this was about, and I did send him a note and did not hear back from him. My point being that if this is something that he had previously said he would do or could do and be at no cost to the city, the city could pick the park that they want to have done. He could be accompanied and do his video and so forth.

And then if it was reasonably, you know, professionally done and very well, showing what that park's about, we could then use that at nominal cost to put on the city website. Sure. What I might do is reach out to Lisa perhaps. She was the one that the last time I brought this up said that she would reach out to Jack and kind of see where they're at on something.

Okay, or if you want, if you want to email me the contact, then I can copy you on my email.

That's a better idea.

Then it's less work for you.

Absolutely. And it was, I mean, was basically the idea that started with Kelly Kelly that we need to publicize our parks, not all of them, but are really gemstones, if you will, and this is a nice way to do it, quite frankly. Sure. Okay. I shall take care of doing that. Any comments or questions from the board on that?

I do. I just want to commend you on Facebook. Photos that you've posted over the past month are phenomenal. They really appreciate it.

That was my comment as well. I've been noticing and it's been really well done and I appreciate the effort that's been made.

Great, great, yeah. We lean a lot obviously on our public communications department. I know that we were trying to highlight and I'll talk a little bit more in the director's report about Parks and Recreation Month, so I appreciate the feedback because again, people see things differently through different lenses, so anytime that you can get feedback like that is

I'm curious, is it one person that does it or is it multiple people?

We have a one main contact with our public communications group that, you know, kind of helps us with all of those communications. And she leans a little bit on staff to get some of those pictures, you know, that she may not be able to get. But, yeah, they do a great job They do. Of helping us market our facilities.

My only feedback on that would be that, like I mentioned earlier, I'm an avid tennis player, and I found when I moved here that I had to look really hard and go in person to find the times of classes or when there were meetups for that. And I feel like Facebook would be a really appropriate place to share those couple times a year, like because they, I think they update their schedules maybe quarterly at McMullen, but I wanted to try and participate and had a hard time tracking that.

Sure, okay, no, that's good feedback. Thank you.

Yep. Any other questions or comments on that, Madison?

That, I would also, the playgrounds, because Clearwater is a very, Marcus itself is a very family friendly place. One of those things that may be a good focus is to specifically do a playground run where they're just focusing on the swings and the sliders and all of those things and how the kid how a parent can engage their children in the playground. And also, with that, focusing on the younger groups, the babies, the zero to five group, the ones that don't have very many climbers around in the playgrounds.

Yeah, no, was just, when I watching the last board meeting when Matt was here, I know that you made a comment about kind of the age appropriateness of those play areas, so it's definitely something to highlight. I know my kids are 21 now and 18, so it a while ago when they were under five. But again, we went to parks specific to their age groups, so knowing more about kind of what you're about to drive to would be important.

Yeah.

It's something that in the last month we've tried to highlight parks, but maybe working with our public communications group and picking topics like playgrounds or athletic facilities or pickleball courts or really trying to maybe focus and highlight and once you capture that audience, now they're engaged, oh, I wonder what the next park's going to be or what the next playground's going to be or the next pickleball court to keep them kind of hooked.

I just want to add to that the disabled playground

Yeah, antecedents absolutely.

There's a couple of parks that I think are undergoing replacement of the playground equipment and so forth. Forest Run up in my neighborhood is one of those. And I would assume the very thing you're talking about is something they're thinking about as they decide what new equipment will go in and who will take care of and so forth. And maybe there is equipment for 21 year olds as well.

There could be.

Very good. If there's no further questions or comments, I'll move on to item 4.5, capital improvement project report. I'm not sure if that came from me as well, or

Yeah, I mean, I think all of you did get one of these. Yeah, so if there's anything specific I can run through, or I made comments, you know, to have maybe Moccasin Lake and Merrimont noted in here, but if there's anything, I know that Pier 60 is in here. Some of our repaving, you know, kind of projects are in here. I know Craig has also put a couple of our recreation centers, or I should say one recreation center that we're looking to redo the pool. So yeah, there's any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them for you or get the answer.

Yeah, the only one I had you've answered was on the Pier 60 work about the options for the city council, so that's been taken care of as far as my satisfaction. Anybody else have any questions on any of the projects?

I only had the one about Forest Run that says that gonna start this week. Did it? Did the demolition start this week? I only ask it because it's my kids. Like, my kid goes

to school across

the street. I am not sure if it did, but I can find out for you.

I think I did notice where they announced the shutdown of that playground in anticipation of the demolition I all that want to

say that in last senior staff meeting, I think it was everything was on schedule. But with the weather, it may have changed, but I can find out for you

very Okay, thank you. Is there fishing on Pier 60 up until the bait house or what

do call it?

Do not believe so. No fishing. Out past the bait house.

But closer to shore can you fish?

Once you get past the bait house and that turnstile, that's where the fishing is allowed if

you want. Oh really? You can't fish? You could never fish?

I don't believe so because that's really you're on the beach almost for half of that pier before you get into it, and you're pretty shallow. There could be people in the area that you'd be fishing in.

Yeah. Okay.

Good to know. Any other comments or questions? Moving on to item number five, the Director's Report.

Sure. All right, first starting with upcoming budget meetings and workshops. I know that I think that was a topic you all talked about last time, but more specific, we do have a budget workshop scheduled for August 8. No, I'm sorry. That is a mistake. It's August 6, I'm sorry. I knew that that was not right. So, August 6, so Wednesday. It is our budget workshop where we'll be presenting as a department if we're requested. I know one of the things that we talked about last time was our fee schedule.

So that'll be one thing that we'll be prepared to talk about. And if council has any questions, we'll be there to answer. And then we have special budget meetings on September 3 and September 17, and that's where they go and they dive into the budget, take public comment. So that's another meeting you may want to attend or at least watch. And then I know that there was a comment made last time about our budget being online.

So it is very easy to find. I did it today. I was trying to kind of grab the link to if it was somewhat, if it was short, but it's very lengthy. But if you go in there and type in City of Clearwater budget, it pops, it's the first thing it pops up, and it is very well done, very easy to navigate. So if you're interested in our budget or any other budget, I would recommend going out there and checking that out.

If I could comment on that just briefly, because I listened with a great deal of interest at the July 10 council meeting where the budgets were presented, if you will, and I just wanted to bring to everybody's attention on not only the board, but those people watching on television, is that the budgets tentative that have been approved, once again, Parks and Recreation comes in at number two with respect to the size of its budget, only exceeded by the Clearwater Police Department, and number three is the Clearwater Fire Department. So they are maintaining the structure and the budgeting that's necessary to operate all

our That's parks and true. Recreation That's true.

That's Yeah. Was a slight reduction of the budget, but in fact, it still turned out to be number two and was taking 25% of the city's budget was going to be allocated to Parks and Recreation. Most importantly, there was proposed a 12.3 full time employee reduction citywide, but none of that was to be done by Parks and Recreation. Parks and Recreation lost no FTE, full time employees, with respect to the new budget. So therefore, the strength that they could give to Parks and Recreation, which is very, very important to the city, and in my opinion, just after the Clearwater Police Department is in fact where they belong, is gonna be maintained in the next fiscal year.

I was glad to hear that. But I'm looking forward to attending the August 6 workshop budget just to get some more detail and see what's going on there as well.

Next on the report is summer camp. If you've gone to any of our recreation centers, I know Mr. Rafferty does, but we manage about 600 kids each and every day for ten weeks, and I was told that we have thirteen days remaining in summer camps. They were gonna give me the hours and the minutes, but I felt days were fine. But one of the things that we look forward to, I look forward to, is our character trait luncheon.

We highlight character traits throughout the year in our summer camps, and we have those winners, if you will, of each of our recreation centers. They come together and they talk about those character traits that they were recognized for. So you have five year olds all the way up to 15 year olds talking about courage and leadership. If you're ever having a bad day and you go and you watch that, you're gonna have a good day after that. Turkey Trot is next on our list.

Just an update here, as we continue to plan, our committee continues to plan and work on race details. Right now we're working on securing a race director, and also looking at trying to secure a title sponsor. So it's something that, as some of you may know, the city is taking, our department is taking over the turkey trot, so we're just trying to make sure that when we do it, we do it to the best of our ability and try to not only cover costs, but see if there's revenue streams that we can generate off of it. So sponsorships is one of those pieces that we're focused in on now. We are looking to go live with what we call sales, even though a lot of people don't register for the turkey trot until as we get closer to Thanksgiving, but you will have the ability to start registering September 1 if all goes well.

As I mentioned earlier, Parks and Rec Month is this month, July. It's recognized by not only our state or association, but our national organization, NRPA. I did present a few of you swag bags. Some of the items in those bags are things that we're giving out to our patrons as they come to us. There's also a board to my right here that it's each one of our recreation centers says, I love Clearwater Parks And Recreation and we wanna know why, right?

Wanna know why people are coming to us. We think we know, but really knowing that we can make a difference in someone's life. Talk about, you know, we never know what somebody is dealing with before they come, so how can we make it the best environment for them when they come. So a lot of those are, those hearts represent, you know, what they like out of our recreation centers, and that specifically is the Countryside Recreation Center.

Was very nicely done, yeah.

It's very popular. Mean, that's the one that I go to, and my lord, between the pickleball and the weight room and the basketball, I mean, it is well, well attended, and I think it's evidenced by the number stickers that were placed on there by people that go there on a regular basis.

Absolutely. Would you mind if I show a short video?

Absolutely. It

kind of goes along with you see that the sticky notes are a shake of a heart. And that's there is a reason for that. So this was a video that we played at the council meeting on July 10. So bear with me. Think I have a few of Sandy Clayton's words, but it goes right into the video after that.

We're talking about what the park is and where it is and how why it's special. Fun events have been planned throughout the month to help us celebrate the connection we have with our community. We would like to say thank the council, council, city leadership, and the community for their continued support of our department which allows us to be an essential reason Clearwater is bright and beautiful. We are Clearwater Parks and Recreation, CPR, with a heartbeat of the community. Now we're gonna play a short video for you to provide you some cookie bags afterwards. So if I can do this right.

Where do you go when you seek the peace of a natural setting? When you want to exercise, reduce stress and anxiety? Where do children go when they want to play, swim, laugh and make friends? Where do seniors go to socialize, learn new skills or improve physical strength? Where does a community go to celebrate, relax, or compete?

In Clearwater, we go to our beautiful parks and recreation facilities. We go to play pickleball, to watch a picture perfect sunset on a white sugar sand beach, to volunteer for our community, to be part of a team, to see a bald eagle up close, or to simply spend time with friends and family. With 109 parks, 27 playgrounds, 51 athletic facilities, over 12 miles of trails, hundreds of community events, programs and classes, and an award winning beach. Clearwater offers citizens and visitors thousands of opportunities each day to uplift their physical and mental well-being. During Parks and Recreation Month and year round, we recognize the importance of the programs, places, and people that make up our Parks and Recreation Department.

Clearwater Parks and Recreation, the heartbeat of our community.

Uh-huh. Take a plug. Very nice.

Very nice, yeah.

I think at that same meeting, the mayor issued a proclamation for

He did.

Parts and reclamation.

Yeah, that was a there was a proclamation and then what you saw briefly in there was Art, myself and Matt, who narrated, did a beautiful job narrating our video, and then all of our senior managers, that's our upper

leadership. Right.

And as I've mentioned, you know, to kind of go along with the Parks and Rec Month, we've tried to highlight a park each day, and I've taken, you know, kinda notes from our conversation, which I think are great, we can play off of. And then we've also tried to really highlight our patrons and and really show them the appreciation. And some of the events that we've had is on July 7, we had a national it doesn't have to all be healthy too, the way. National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, where we gave out cookies to our patrons. We had July 14, we had Snow Cone Day, where we gave snow cones out.

At McMullen, we had the Kona truck come out and give patrons some Kona ice. We've had a couple different barbecues. At Morningside, we did a free drive the movie along with a barbecue for all of our campers. Moxen Lake Nature Park, we had the Birds of Prey, and actually the birds came out and perched outside their cages, which I've heard was fantastic, well received. And also some cookouts, more cookouts and more diving movies at our Clearwater Beach Rec Center and our Ross Norton Center.

Again, just something that we wanted to show, again, as with the swag bag, show appreciation for our patrons, but really highlight what we do. We don't do a very good job of self promoting in our department, it's just something that we, you know, we just do our job, but taking a few days to highlight what we do I think was important, and I think very successful.

I think the public is very appreciative of all of our parks, the recreation centers, wherever they're located, and so forth. The staff that's there, the cleanliness of the places, and there's constant people coming in coming out doing different things. It's just a wonderful thing to have in the city.

Is. Thank you.

I have

a wonderful staff working

on it. Thank you. One of the centers we wanted to highlight with the Long Center, just to give the board an update. I was at a meeting today, and I don't know if you've driven by the Long Center. There's a lot going on, not even just with programs and activities, but natatorium, we're about four months in or so.

All the steel work has has been completed. They're doing some some final touches on some painting, working on the roof now. Next next phases will be air condition, HVAC, enclosing the building, and then also looking to redo the pool. So we finally got that number back that Art will be sharing with the city manager manager and our council. Still hoping that, you know, we'll be open spring ish in 2026, but it just depends on, you know, how far we can go and how much the weather cooperates.

But everything's going well. We're very fortunate. We have a very good superintendent and a very good manager out there, so everything has been really good. The ARC of Tampa Bay is also have a small project out there. They're turning a couple classrooms into a cafe. So those two projects going on at one time has been a little bit of a challenge, but staff has done a good job working with our contractors on that.

I anticipate that patrons of that center though are gonna be very excited when they can get a cup of coffee after their Yes, absolutely. In Paris, like on the weekends.

Yeah, yeah, no. This is it's gonna be I mean, it's a great partnership, you know, the Architeb Day. Mean, it's just, know, again, we do so many things together, festival of trees and such, and and again, they're they're great partners, and yes, I think it will be a great opportunity for those who go out to the Long Center and are able to enjoy that as well. Henry L. McMullen Tennis Complex follow-up.

I think last meeting we talked about Matt was mentioning facilities grant that we applied for. We did secure that, we did receive that, it was a $46,000 grant, and it was for a lot of the damage that we took on with some of the hurricanes, lot of the fence work that we did, so that was great. USDA allocated that back to us, and then we also, we applied for a second grant. I know, I think the last time I was here, which was a while ago, we talked about wheelchair tennis. Finally applied for that, we got a $9,000 grant for that.

So staff is working with some of our community members, as well as the USTA representatives, so they're looking to host a tournament in the fall, I think November is what Sean told me, but we're looking to get that program off the So, we're super excited about that. One thing I added here, it wasn't on Art's report, and Patrick you may have seen it, but the medians on Countryside Boulevard. Yes. So, I thought you'd asked, so I wanted to come prepared to answer. But we do have 16 medians in that area.

We're looking to plant 31 trees, 25 of them will be a white crepe myrtle, one pine tree, and two live oaks. We're also looking to install about 46,000 square feet of sod, Bahia sod, then looking to also install about 6,400 square feet of perennial peanut, and that's gonna go on either side of the star, I think on countryside all the way, and then at the end of countryside to kind of bookend the median project. We are not adding any irrigation. We're gonna have mother nature help us and knit all of our sod in, but also we, as Matt mentioned, I think last meeting, have a water truck that will also be supplementing what mother nature doesn't give us. So we're excited about that.

It's gonna be a great improvement to that space. That's cool. CBRC is just an update there. I think when Matt was here last time, we were about 50% in those drawings. We're now at 100%, so we're getting a lot closer to securing a contractor, and then starting that, getting us a start date for that timeline of construction. Nothing has necessarily moved up, we're just in that next phase, so we're hoping again, I think Matt had mentioned May '26 as being a date to open, so we're still looking to hit that deadline. That's all I got, but I can

That last item was the Clearwater Beach Rec Center, is that what you're saying? Yes, I'm sorry, yes, Beach CBRC.

Yeah, sorry. The ECMO. Sorry, I forgot. Yes, Clearwater Beach.

Sorry, thank you. I had one comment which I'd ask you to comment on as well. I noticed that not too long ago that the Morningside Recreation Center celebrated the installation of solar panels on that rec center. Had quite a good turnout of city people plus previous people pushing for solar power, if you will. And I was just curious as to whether other rec centers may follow that with installation of solar panels? There

are, I believe there's four or five buildings that they're looking at to install solar. I wanna say Morningside is the only recreation center, but I do know that the Long Center, in its renovation, we are installing anchors and then looking to install solar panels eventually on that site. But I can very easily get that updated, but I want to say that was the only recreation center that I know of right now that will have Okay,

very good. Any other questions on the Director's Report from the Board? No. Seeing that there are none, we'll move on It's to not I'm sorry.

It's kind of, it's about Forest Run and Countryside, but I guess it's more to be heard. I guess it would be in the next section.

Okay. So we can Board members to speak.

I those two parks, I live in the same neighborhood as you, so both of those parks are, would be well more used if one or both of them had a shelter to be rented. Like Forest Run is really well used all regardless of if school is in session or not in session. So but I know that countryside has more space to accommodate a shelter. One of those parks or even Seoul Road because it's also nearby. I'm not I haven't been there since you reopened it, but I One of those parks would really benefit from a shelter so that you could use it for birthdays and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Think the closest one to that area would be Woodgate. Woodgate. That's the closest one that I can think of right now. There could be more of that. But yeah, I appreciate the information.

Anything else? Kelly, Kelly.

Are we on

the board members this and there's no limit.

Promise it won't be long. I submit this like five minutes too late to be put on the agenda. Like 12:05, I thought, oh, this is a good idea. Over by the Kings Highway Recreation Center, there's an unnamed park. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

But I suggested that maybe we add it to the roster of parks and also, I know it's not in the budget right now, but eventually some paved sidewalks and some lampposts and some benches would be nice. The other park I was thinking of, Mercado over well, you know where the Mercado, maybe those could also be added to the roster city parks, we'd have 111. So, I mean, they're already there, so why not Yeah. Name

Are you

aware of anything that's being considered for Kings Highway? Because I think you brought this up once before.

The water tower

I think The water tower is eventually coming down, I think this year or?

Yeah, was just watching the meeting before this meeting to make sure I had all my information together. But yeah, could find out. I don't know if there's any conversations

It's about not exactly where the water tower is. It's like all of that forested I mean, don't even know how many acres it is right there.

It's a huge piece of property back there.

Yeah, is. And it would be beneficial to develop it a little eventually when the budget allows for it. But just to name it, that costs nothing.

That's true. Thank you.

Anything else? That's it.

No. Candidates, no? That's it.

Thank you. Bianca, anything you'd like to add?

I don't have anything additional, but thank you for being so welcoming.

All right, very good. I will finish with basically asking board members to visit the parks in your area, make yourself known to residents so they can bring issues to you about parks and recreation concerns, And we are in a collaboration, if you will, with Parks and Recreation. We can be their eyes and ears for things that need to be done better or need to be done that they may not be aware of. So we can always do that. And then the August 6 workshop, is that going to be televised?

Do you Yes. The August 6 workshop where they will go through their budget, that's what they're intending to do would always be of interest to us. And if you can actually attend it, that would be a good thing. And then finally, as a result of input or your own visits, if there's anything that you hear about yourself or from residents that could become an agenda item, feel free to suggest it. You must be on time evidently, but feel free to suggest it and we'll add it to the agenda items. And if there's nothing else, this meeting is adjourned.