Parks and Recreation Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. I'd like to call the meeting of Monday, May 4th, Parks and Recreation Tree Advisory Board Committee to order. Let's begin by saying the pledge of allegiance.

Let's take a roll call. Gary Johnson here. Kathy Ste here. Mary Heinman here. Jennifer Mueller present. Mike Abbott here. We have five for the quorum. Very good. Thank you. Next up, approval of the minutes from April 6th. Should have a copy of those in front of you. take a look at. Thank you to the vice chairman for handling that meeting. Are there any corrections or additions, changes?

No. I'd make a motion the minutes be approved as written. I'll second. All right. All in favor of the minutes as written, raise the right hand, say I. I. I all opposed. Thank you. Uh do we have any public comments? No public comments. Right. Moving right along. Old business has no items for discussion. New business. Two bullets. Uh Jay Arens had a discussion regarding pickle ball courts. I don't see Jay on Yes. He he um had an unexpected emergency. He's asked that that be continued to next month.

Okay. All right. And then uh Mike Abbott discussion regarding trash cans in Fabic. Um yes. When I was walking Fabic, I noticed the trash can on the parking lot by the restrooms. The plastic lid of it's broken and I think it should be repaired. So I would like to make a motion that the parks and recreation committee recommends that the board of alderman take action to repair or replace. It was already replaced today. Um, we have it on video. There were some kids that put fireworks off in the trash can. Okay. Wow. Any other issues out at Fabbe?

I'll second your motion. Bullet list. Wow. Fireworks in the trash can. All right. That takes care of new business. So, we move to tree advisory board items. No old business. No new business. We move right on to park reports. Park reports. Kathy,

uh, the Budw Wild Park, uh, pavilions look really good since they've done their painting and cleaning up and everything like that. Just had a couple little things. The gutters I noticed, uh, actually a friend of mine on the bathroom. They need to be cleaned out. They're going to they're, you know, got a lot of gunk in them and leaves and stuff. Uh there's a few branches that have fallen probably from last week's uh storm, of course. And then there were some rocks and branches on the lake spillway, you know. Other than that, everything's good. I'm sorry. What was the gutter on the restrooms? Yeah, the gutters.

Yeah, we're going to when they go to do the work for the pavilion, we're going to get a change order to have the gutter guards put on those also. Yes. Very good. Yeah, yeah, very good.

All right. Uh, Mayor Mayor Matt Greenway, Gary Johnson. Uh, this this is really a positive report tonight, Dan. I'd like to report that there are several areas of rogue shrubs and grape vines that have been removed by the I guess it's called the forestry cutter. Does that sound right? I haven't seen that in operation before, but it really cleaned cleaned up a lot of the shrubs and little trees within the bigger trees on the river side. Uh, looks looks a little like maybe a Tatosaurus went through there. It's all going which way, but I'm sure it'll lay down after a while and look even better. And we also got one of the fences, the cross rail and the pipe, I call it a pipe fence, has all been fixed up. Uh, we still got a couple items outstanding for P power washing up on the boardwalk and uh I guess sometime in the summer the asphalt there will get fixed up a bit. But thank you very much for getting that cleaned up, Dan. You and your people. So, we move on to uh Westside or excuse me, Riverside Park and Valiant.

Um, both parks look really good. Uh I the only thing I was thinking is that maybe we I don't know if we've put it on the docket to paint the stripes for parking spots anytime soon in the parks. Uh cuz they're getting kind of worn down. Other than that, I think it looks really good. Valiant's looking good. Um yeah, there were some tree limbs down from the storm, but obviously that'll get cleaned up probably very soon. And then uh they've got it all roped off really nice for where the old pavilion was where they've taking out stuff. So, no safety hazards that I saw and everything looks good. Okay, Jay's not here. Anyone got comments on West Side? No. Okay. No problem.

Babick.

Um, Babick's the um grass is being cut nicely. The uh native plantings are coming up well. That looks good. The the lower lake there's erosion around park benches. The benches need reset. Um with all the rain, the gravel road has some ruts and um it's rough rough to drive on. Still need grass seed around the lower lake at the bare spots. I was doing my code required walk around and slipped and fell again. Um the American lotus plants need to be treated and both lakes are starting to multiply. That's it. Mhm.

Okay. Fenton City Park, Mary.

Okay. It's It's busy down there for sure. Um I don't know if anyone has been there recently, but they they cut out all the underbrush that was along and removed the fence between Riverside or sorry, Fen City Park and the Fabic property. And it look really looks it's like transformed that whole area. Really looks great. um along with kind of like removing all that undergrowth like which I call like the creek that kind of comes in at Riverside Drive. So that really looks great. Um trash's picked up. I mean people are there. Grass is cut. Things are looking good. Just a couple things I noticed. Um on the playground by back by shelters one and two. The swing set is there but the swings and chains have been removed.

Correct. Yes. um they have been removed. There was a report that was submitted. We had a certified playground inspector do inspections of our units and there were some faults found with that unit to where it's it it's going to be very costly for repair. So, we have taken it to the board. We do have in the budget for replacement of the playground back there. It's just going to take further discussion of what the desires are. So, but yeah, unfortunately, yeah, we've had to rem remove the the the swings so that they're not it's not utilized. I thought it was an intentional thing. I was just like, "Oh, yeah." Yeah. Is once we received the report, we we had to make an executive decision to get those removed pretty quick.

And it looks like they painted the exterior of the rooms down there. And that looks great. The interior will be starting um on May 12th is when the flooring because we have to wait for the flooring to get done before the rest of the improvements. But you'll see the plumbers for the next few weeks and the electricians are still going to be in doing work. Um once the flooring is done, then we'll get the painters on the inside and finish up with the um new amenities. Awesome. Because I f I'm like that side looks great. I'm like oh not yet. They're getting to it. So um and just kind of like just on the back burner like next year maybe when we're thinking about budget items. There's a couple benches when it rains that are like along that loop

where it's like like it has bared out and then it just it's just like a big puddle in front of that. So, I don't know if that would be something that maybe they want to appropriate some funds for to like pour like a pad um for those for those couple locations, but that's all I have about the park.

I'm sorry. I say I don't believe Thomas is here called in but wondered if anyone had comments on the heroes memorial or old town and here's memorial is there did we appropriate some money for like some landscape like people trimming those crazy barberry bushes in there and no no um we did um and I am getting ready to get a bid out to have landscaping company look at landscaping companies to come in to assist with that um but currently that is still managed by our public works department. Okay.

Because I know they had talked about I don't know if they're really officially in Fenton Park or the soldiers memorial, but you know those two BMS I think they they took out uh yeah the one tree the invasive uh Bradford. Yeah, thanks. And it looks like it's got about a zillion suckers coming up out of the ground. Yep. And the other BM looks good. If it is probably just needs some Yeah. TLC need some thinning out of some things in there. All right. Thank you. Can

I say one thing? Sure. I want to just thank everybody and Dan and company uh for putting in that tree in Bud Wild Park that I asked for the dog wood. So, I saw it and I got to say something about Thank you everybody. Great. All right. Well, I think that takes us to announcements. Correct. City staff. Have any updates except for what was taken to the board last month?

I have those. So, um, a couple of things. The fishing derby is at Westside Lake on Saturday from 9 to 11:00 if anybody is interested. Um the police department is helping with it this year. So a couple of our officers um Officer Dilks and Officer Yanuzi. I know for sure our parks officer will be there. And then the next food truck is May 15th 5 to 8. Um the band is John Jarrett. He has played it all over. He's he's good. Um he got a really good um positive reviews last year. So a lot of people had asked him to come back. So, he's coming back 15th. And um the outlook area and the bench for the helicopter pad that you had suggested, Mary, both of those items passed the board of alderman last month and the floating wetland and west side. That's all.

Great. And Nikki, you didn't have anything? No. Um the floating west land wetland we're just it's being per it's actually being manufactured as we speak and as soon as it's delivered our goal is to have it in by the end of May. And the playground well they at Budwe in case anybody asked I'll just go with that too. Um they had to put lime in the soil because they couldn't get the moisture content right. So they had to lay down code L. Yeah. And um now they're just now tomorrow it's going to rain. It rained today. So now they put something down to get the moisture out of the soil and now it's raining. So um

they're still they're still what they call turning the turning the dirt. Um later on this week they'll be bringing in a piece of equipment called the reclaimer. I had to Google that um to to help assist with the dirt. Um because again it's with the moisture content they can't get it down to what it needs to be in order to start laying the foundation. So that's what's going on there. Okay. It is reclaimer. That sounds like a song from 70s and 80s. I have that. Okay. Anything else? Takes us to the last bullet. Next meeting will be Monday, June 1st. And with that, I guess I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. I make a motion to adjurnn.

I second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. All oppose, nays. Thank you very much.