Parks and Recreation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Calling to order the 01/15/2025 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting. Roll call. Will the board clerk please call the roll?

Chair, Joel Van Himmel. Here. Vice Chair, Benjamin Nazario. Present. Kenneth Forbes. For the record, Kenneth Forbes did inform us that he would not be able to attend this meeting. Michael Guardino. For the record, Michael Guardino did inform us that he would be late in attending this meeting. Sheldon Voss? Here. Teresa Natassee?

Present.

This meeting is being conducted live with a quorum physically present. The material for today's meeting is available online at www.coconutcreek.net. Anyone wishing to appeal any decision made will need a record of the proceedings and for such purpose may need to ensure that a verbatim recording of the proceedings is made, including the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. The audio of this meeting may be requested from the city clerk or may be heard online at www.coconutcreek.net. If you have not already, please silence your cell phones.

If you must take a phone call, please excuse yourself and step outside. If any members from the public are present and would like to address the board, you may do so at this time. When you come forward to speak, please state your name, address clearly for the record. Are there any corrections or revisions to the minutes from the 09/18/2024 meeting? If none, is there a motion and a second to approve the minutes as presented?

I so move. I second.

We'll take a vote. Chair Joel Van Hamel? Yes. Vice Chair Benjamin Nazario?

Yes.

Michael Guardino? Still absent. Sheldon Voss? Yes. Theresa Natuzzi?

Yes.

City staff will present agenda item five regarding updates on special events.

Good evening. My name is Lenore Thomas, superintendent at the Southlook Community Center. I'll review some of the information on special events. Starting with our Groove and Grub, it officially started last Saturday, January 11 behind the Recreation Complex. It's a brand new traveling event series that brings live music and diverse food options to different neighborhoods across the city of Coconut Creek.

The hours are between six to nine Food trucks show up at 06:00. They're there throughout the event and the band starts at seven. Moving forward for the next couple of months, March going to be at Sable, April, the Rec Complex, May again at Sable, and July and August, it's at the Community Center. Our upcoming car show is Saturday, January 25 from ten a. To two at the South Community Center.

Our Butterfly Run will be held on Sunday, February 2 at Tradewinds Park starting at seven a. M. The race is full with over 600 runners. Our annual Butterfly Festival will be held on Saturday, February 22 at Sable Pines Park from two to 8PM. The headliner band is named Keith as Kenny, which is a Kenny Chesney cover band. Our hometown market occurs the first and third Saturday of the month from nine a. M. To two by Veterans Park. The last market of the season is March 15. Our Preserve Our Parks program is Saturday, February 8 from twelve to 01:30 at Woodmull Park.

Our park rangers organizes volunteers of all ages to pick up trash and loose debris throughout the park. The upcoming girls softball opening day is Saturday, February 15, ten a. To two at Sable Pines Park. Little League Baseball opening day is Saturday, March 1, nine a. M. To 10:30 at Sable Pines Park. Our waterway cleanup event is March 1 at Donaldson Park and the community center from nine a. M. To one. We team up with the Marine Industries Association of South Florida for the waterway cleanup.

We also recently have four special activity instructors. These are contracted instructors who provide activities which staff currently do not, which is specializing in karate, tennis, coding, and dance. With the agreements, the city obtains 20% of the generated revenue by the special activity instructor. That concludes the special events.

Are there any additional questions or comments from the board regarding updates on special events? The city staff will now present agenda item six regarding updates on recreation athletic leagues and programs.

Our youth theater show was held on Saturday, December 14 featuring Alice in Wonderland, Jr. The next production will take place the May and will feature Moana, Jr. A special night with Holocaust survivors will be presented on Monday, January 27 from six to seven at the City Hall Commission Chambers. Pre registration is suggested. A fishing derby will take place Saturday, March 1 from ten to one at Sabo Pines Park for all ages.

Registration is required. Our Mayor's Chess Challenge will take place Saturday, March 15 from ten to twelve at the Recreation Complex. The twenty twenty five lecture series will focus on sustainability beginning in April with four events on food waste, solid waste, regenerative gardening, extreme heat, and climate smart Floridians. The time and date will be announced in the future. We do offer special needs programming for adults and it's mainly athletic activities. We have a bowling league that just started this past Monday. It runs from five to seven p. M. At the AMF in Margate. We have 18 participants.

We started a pickleball clinic held on Saturdays throughout the month of January from nine a. M. To ten at the community center's outdoor courts and we currently have 11 participants. Our fun and fitness program is offered on Fridays starting this Friday at the community center from 11:45 a. M. To 12:45. It's a physical education based classes. And those programs are again for special needs adults for ages 18 and older. Our upcoming adult athletic leagues, we have a flag football program, league I should say, with six teams starting tonight at 06:30 at Gerber Park. Registration for the upcoming outdoor pickleball league season started this week.

We offer four leagues: women's, men's, co ed, beginner, and fixed partner. The season begins in February at the community center's outdoor courts. We also have an ongoing men's basketball league. We offer two different leagues on Mondays and Thursdays at the North Recreation Complex. As far as the youth athletic programs and youth leagues, youth soccer is concluding with playoff games this Saturday, January 17, and the finals and awards are on Saturday, February 1 at Saba Pines Park from 08:30AM to 2PM.

The youth basketball league will soon be underway with the 9U and 11U division, which begins in April I'm sorry, February. And the 14U and 17U divisions begin in April. We have a kids pickleball clinic for ages eight to 12 held on Mondays from seven to 08:30 at the community center outdoor courts and we currently have 15 kids enrolled. And that concludes our recreation athletic programs.

Are there any additional questions or comments from the board regarding updates on recreation, athletic leagues or programs? City staff will present agenda item seven regarding updates on Creek Fit.

So our Creek Fit North has been beautifully renovated. Hopefully everyone's had an opportunity to see it with new flooring, strength cardiovascular equipment. Our Creek Fit in the Park program has begun on Tuesdays and Friday mornings at 07:15 a. M. Outside of the recreation complex. Creek Fit at the community center, South Community Center, hours change for Tuesdays and Thursdays where the hours are from twelve to eight instead of eight a. To four p. M. And our current memberships total is 2,128 members. That concludes my fitness report.

Are there any additional questions or comments from the board regarding CreepFit? City staff will now present agenda item eight regarding updates on parks.

Good evening board members. My name is Danielle DeBarris and I'm the assistant director of parks and recreation. It's nice to be with you here tonight. As many of you guys know, we are still in the midst of our Parks and Recreation master plan, updating each parks as the years go on. It's a ten year plan, and I would like to give you some updates on that.

Regarding Sunshine And Donaldson Park improvements, the purchase order has been received and the vendor has submitted for a permit. The permit should be received soon and then work will start hopefully within another month or so, sometime in February. Regarding Oak Trails Park improvements, we just finished the third round of the DRC, which is the Development Review Committee. And next, we're gonna go to the commission, the city commission on February 13 for the zoning and site plan approval. Once that is approved, then we are hoping to advertise the bid in the summer.

Once again, that's Oak Trails Park. And the last park that I'm going to speak on is Lakeside Park Improvements, and this is phase one, this is the south portion. We are hoping to advertise the bid in the January or February for that park. That concludes my presentation, Mr. Hamill.

Are there any additional questions or comments from the board regarding Creek Fit? I'm sorry, Regarding updates on parks.

Could I just ask a question? You most certainly can. I walk in Sable Pines every day just about and down where the restrooms are where the roof has been gone for, I noticed that they came down and removed the sign saying that it was gonna be done and renovated in 2024, that sign's gone. Any ideas what's going on with that?

It will be 2025. I unfortunately don't have an exact date for you but I know that is an active project that they're working hard to wrap up.

I could try to get you an answer on that and get back to you by email.

So what is the lag time from the time that you put out bids until work typically starts on these like the Oak Trails or Lakeside?

It all depends on the GC's timeframe and then city's timeframe. As far as breaking ground, maybe a couple months hopefully, hopefully within that. As far as completion of build, it all depends on the size of the project.

It goes through many approval processes. First, the DRC has got to look at it and then of leave it out.

We will now hear communications and reports. Does city staff have any communications or reports for the board?

Good evening, board members. Wayne Toby, director of Parks and Recreation. So I have a couple here for you. Scoreboards. We're supposed to get some new scoreboards over at Sable Pines Park, but unfortunately we found some issues with some of the brackets before they were putting them in.

The vendor, I two Visual, did correct the issues and they should be installing them within the next couple weeks. And those scoreboards are gonna be going on one, two, three and four of the baseball fields. So we are excited about that, to get some new scoreboards out there. In late November of last year, we converted the West Tennis Court at Sable Pines Park into two pickleball courts, which makes that court now a multi purpose tennis pickleball court. So, we were able to get the two courts on there and it's getting a lot of nice usage out there.

So, that should open it up like Danielle was talking about with Lakeside Park when that south addition puts in the pickleball courts there. So, it's a good thing. We do have two playgrounds out there that we are working on. One is the recreation complex playground. The PO was issued to the vendor.

The vendor is Top Line Recreation and the vendor has applied for the permit. They should get this permit soon, and we're hoping that the project will start hopefully in February at some time. This playground is an animal butterfly insect themed playground. I mean, it is gonna be our first ramped ADA accessible playground. So, we are excited to get this playground within our playground inventory, I guess you could say.

The second playground that we are working on right now is George S. Gerbil Memorial Park Playground replacement. This particular playground, we're working on putting in an airplane themed design. We're working with a vendor now on the design to try to get it within the footprint of George S. Gerber Park.

If you're familiar with George S. Gerber Park Playground, it's a small footprint playground. It's circular with a sidewalk going around it. So, without going into any of the retention areas or tearing up any of the sidewalk, we're trying to get it within that existing footprint of that. And, it seems as though that we are pretty close in getting something in there because one of the items or one of the amenities that we wanna add to that playground, because it came up from the residents, they'd like to see some swings in that area.

So, that is something that we had talked to a vendor and we're gonna try to put in some a bay of toddler swings for the playground. So, that playground's coming along. Like I said, it's in the design phase. So, once we get that approved, then we could move on to the next phase of that project, hopefully, and get that going sooner than later. And, that's all I have for reports and communications.

Do any more members of the board have communications or reports to share?

The only other thing I just wanted to point out before you close out the meeting, I just wanna let you know that the next meeting that we have scheduled or or trying to schedule will be Wednesday, May 21. So if you can just check your calendars, your schedules just to see how that's gonna work, but that'll be the next meeting. Do I have a consensus on that date? May 21. It's a Wednesday.

Same time, 06:30, start. Yeah. That's another thing. With that meeting in in May, I believe that I think in that March meeting, you may have to reapply for the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board again. So those commissioners that assigned you to the board, you know, I'm hoping you guys come back.

Please talk to your commissioners. Let them know that you are coming back. Fill out that application. You'll contact the city clerk to to fill out those applications and, you know, talk to your commissioners that appointed you to let them know that you are interested in it again, so this way here they are aware when they go through their selection process again.

And that needs to be done in March?

I think it's either the March or the April commission meeting. They'll be doing it.

Normally, the applications are due April 1.

April 1, yeah. I wanna say that it's in there, you have to get that

So out Ends March 31, and you gotta apply April 1 for the first commissioner's meeting, and then they'll pass on that so you can meet in May.

Yeah. March is the actual commission election part of it, but, yeah, for the boards, I think it's in April.

And we send that to the

City clerk. To the city clerk. Yep.

The application should be available online Yeah. When they come out, you'll probably be notified if you're interested in applying again. Okay. You can apply online again. And then during the May meeting that's when we will choose a chairperson and vice chairperson.

Yep.

If there are no further comments, I'll take a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting.

I move we adjourn to the next meeting.

And I'll second it.

Second it.

Nice job.