Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, so lacking a quorum, we will just have our informational meeting. So do we do the presentation on Dance Express?

Yep. I'm going to call up Lori Kuchar. She currently runs our Dance Express program. We just want to take a moment and talk about the last year, the success of the program, and if you guys have any questions.

Good afternoon, good evening. I do want to just kind of wrap up our 2025-26 dance year. It was amazing. We had 380 students. Out of those 380 students, they occupied over 1,000 spaces in our program, which is amazing. We offered over 50 classes, and we are offering about the same this year. We did extend the number of adult classes we offered. We currently had yoga, fit hop, cardio drumming, and now we have adult tap, if anyone is interested. The recitals from the 2025-26 season are on our website now, so if you want to view them, you can. We had two sold-out shows. Our ticket sales were over $11,000. It was amazing. Some of you guys did come to the show, and it was very entertaining. So we are hoping to exceed everybody's expectations for next year. We did, during the week of the recital, are killing it. We have not even opened it up to the general public yet, and we've taken in quite a bit of financial restitution for that. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer those now. If you want to know anything else about the program, what's going on, we are successful because we care. And I have a really good group of ladies that work with us.

So the adult classes, those are just as their classes? They are growing.

Adults are non-committal. So they'll come a couple of weeks and they won't come. So we do it more of a drop-in. So they're not committed to 10 weeks at a time, but they can drop in. They can commit and they can just come to one or two at a time if they'd like.

Is it due to the time that the classes are offered?

It's just due to parents having other obligations. The kids have an after-school program or something. So it just kind of just falls in that line. Okay. Any other questions? I appreciate your support.

This is great to hear, and the number of participants is phenomenal, I think, and so great job.

I mean, we utilize the rooms for sure, so I'm always hoping to get more rooms. Thank you. Thank you, Lori.

Thank you. Thank you, Lori.

Alright, so moving down to, I guess, old business, Garden City Business Alliance, the pavilion updates. Yeah, you're up. I'm excited to hear about this.

Well, first, can I segue a little bit? I do arthritis exercise for the seniors twice a week, and we have, what, one evening and two other daytime sessions. They're growing, growing, growing. My class has probably got 35, 40 people in it. And we started with like 12. What does that do? The arthritis exercise and the chair yoga. So it's all growing. Now I'll do GCBA. OK. We, yay, have electrical over at the park. Zach and I met an electrician over there, a couple electricians over there. I didn't realize it was as bad as it was. So, thank goodness this all came together. The service panel was in the rafters with a padlock on it. All the plugs were interior plugs. Yeah, so, yay, we've got exterior plugs, we've got a new service panel, we've got extra... It's all done.

Was that there for the first time in the park?

Yes. Because I was listening to see there was no interruption.

And we actually installed over by where the bands are, for us at least, extra plugs. So we have less extension for nonsense. So Zach was very instrumental in helping Figure out what was needed because I know electrical nothing Right, so they all suggested things and we it all came together. So it's done. It's paid for Well, it was paid for as of today So no, hopefully you guys will come to the next concert, which is what? You can see that, I can't.

July 16th, it'll be the Smith Factor, which is a local Garden City band.

Actually, one of those teachers is the singer. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it's all home. How exciting. Yeah.

That's awesome. And just to clarify that, I mean... Garden City Business Alliance pretty much paid for it. We paid for all of it. That's awesome.

And it just happened to work because our concept originally was yes, the electrical and the pavilion, but like the bathrooms, future projects. And it just happened that DPW could fix the plumbing in the bathroom and give the bathrooms an upgrade. So it's all kind of brand new. Yeah, all together.

So what is on the agenda next?

That's up to you guys. We have to save up some more money.

But we would like you guys to come up with a wish list. And prioritize.

Keep that within the scope of the pavilion and

that area. Yeah, that's what you're sponsoring, so absolutely. I mean, obviously it would be great to have a new roof, and if that's on the list, great, but realize we can't do that next year.

Understood.

Right? But if we have a list, I think that we, I agree with you having a list of priorities. Then we have things to be able to, okay, what's our budget, what can we afford, okay, we can pick that one.

Right.

So we want to continue the partnership and we want to make this...

If there's opportunity to cost share, I don't know exactly in the future. That was the plan for this year and then it just worked out and everything happened really well.

Yeah, because the first bid was within our budget and then the second bid was lower. So we didn't have to ask you guys for a penny.

that's awesome so yeah it worked out really really well i was so excited when you guys came and proposed this partnership so it seems it worked out well and the first uh music in the park it was well attended it was great phenomenal event the music was great well if you guys are there come up and say hello we didn't know you were there because you know we have one or two other things going on i'll be perfectly honest i would my intent was to walk up there once i put my seat down my chair down

i got sidelined because i i saw some people that i used to work with and started talking until we lost track of time and and that's what it's for yeah and it was wonderful well for the first time ever we saw people in the audience at the end of the night with their phones up with their flashlights on like it was pine knob it was so cool it was really really cool yeah so i think yeah yeah yeah they were really good yeah but yeah if you guys could come up with some kind of list give it some priority status and then we'll see what we can do next year all right well thank you thank you thank you guys okay and then zach you had some information on the grant award

yeah this is actually some pretty good news we've gotten last two weeks uh... we applied for a south east michigan with youth for youth uh... abbreviated as a s m i w y f y uh... it's a reimagined o s t grant award This is for $40,000. This will allow us to do more programming with our youth. Our goal is to have a part-time, part-time youth coordinator assist with this. Essentially, this will allow us to help and pay for, we already had our junior volunteer club actually put funds towards that junior volunteer club. It'll also create a council, probably the volunteer club, but like But a youth council, my goal is to structure it so they will actually suggest to this board suggestions and then this board will actually be able to come and present to this board. They have funds to expend. So they will actually be making decisions on a few thousand dollars of what they should spend it on in Parks and Rec. So hopefully gets a lot of into the rec center do all of our other activities, but also be a part of those activities It gives them a voice and in particular we run four different sessions of four different games so our youth dodgeball our nor fours and two other events that are kind of still in the works how these events are ran and managed and That youth council or junior volunteer club. I'm still trying to figure out how we're gonna structure it and will be once a signing or playing dodgeball like actually the kids in our campus rivet very recently created a new way to play dodgeball. The counting this group to put ideas together make rules for a game and then will actually posted and then people register for the people play that game. So it provides funding for all that something we currently don't have so we can kind of really expand on those. Right now, we do those as we can and when we have interest, but now we can run them probably once a month, so every game, so every weekend, we'll have a dedicated activity for youth to run every Saturday morning. It'll all be, whether we have 100 people show up or five people show up, we'll be covering the grant and be able to run. Then, of course, those youth will get involved with that Junior Volunteer Club and then also be able to pay staff to run that Junior Volunteer Club. SO REALLY EXCITING GRANT. I'M VERY EXCITED THAT WE WERE ABLE TO SECURE IT. THIS IS SIMILAR TO THE OST GRANT THAT WE GOT FOR THE TUTORING CAMP. WE JUST APPLIED A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY. SO THESE OST GRANTS, THE OUT OF SCHOOL TIME IS WHAT THEY CALL IT, ARE SEEMING TO BE A LOT MORE POPULAR. THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT MORE MONEY IN THE YOUTH REALM. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU NOTICED, AT LEAST EVEN FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE, the amount of summer camps this summer that are free and available have really gone up because the amount of money out there for youth programming has really gone up. Which makes it easier for us to apply, makes it easier for us to get grant funding. So we're going to continue going down this path of looking for more OST funds and more opportunities for our youth to do stuff. There's no motion or nothing, even if we did have our meeting tonight, that we need to make on this. I just wanted to bring it to your guys' attention and really start the framework of this other group, this youth advisory group that will be advising you, that will be making decisions. I'm kind of excited about that part. I don't even know how it's going to work out yet. I know how I wrote the grant and how I intended to work out, but we'll see if that actually comes through for tuition. I'm excited about it.

Congratulations on getting that. And then I can't speak for everyone, but if there's anything that I can do personally to help out, just let me know.

All right. Thank you. Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Yeah, it's actually, we learned about this grant through the other OST grant we have. It was kind of funny how you get a pot of money and then there's other opportunities within that one. Like, oh, you guys, if you did this and you guys like what you're doing, apply for this one. It was just like, it actually just, a quick mention in the middle of the meeting, I was like, oh, interesting. And then, of course, now a few months later, we got awarded the money, so.

That's phenomenal. Yep.

Any other questions about it? It does start July 1. We're working very quickly to figure it out. The programming doesn't have to start July 1, so yeah, tomorrow. But that is when the funding period is, but we're going to try our best to get this up and running in the next two weeks.

So as the program goes along, what are the requirements for the grant? Do we have to do some sort of regular recording for this?

Actually, that was one of my first questions because I have learned every grant is different and sometimes these localized grants, especially at the state level, have a ton of requirements. It often starts like how do we set up the funding reporting? What kind of notes do you guys want? Knowing that now is better before we start the purchasing. What I actually gave you guys is everything I got and they told us there'd be a midpoint check-in and more information to come. Learn as we go like I did with the last grant. You never know every little organization is different. This one I do believe is similar to the other OST where they provide the funds up front. You then expend them throughout the year and then you prove why you spend them and how.

But by the next meeting, would you be able to present like how things are going?

And, you know, I sure do hope so. We should have a vision of how we should buy the next meeting within a month from a month from today. We should have all the flyers out, all the stuff going on. Hopefully I have someone in that capacity that is running this grant for us part timer. So we're working on all that now. if you wouldn't mind it the ost grant the tutoring one was an ost yep is that one going well or what was the date uh the time frame yeah very well so that one started it's supposed to start in um january that one actually started in february for us because they were behind on their uh their schedule um We met 90% of our goal for days of more than 30 kids a day. That grant is all based on the number of days and the number of students per day. So every day you have to meet a threshold to get funding for that day. Thankfully, they have more than enough time to get your full 90 days. I think we have 120 days to fill, and we only need to get 90 of those 120. So something actually that helped us, that's why we ran the spring break camp. That was to fill in for some of our days that we needed for that grant. And kind of give us a look at what our summer camp was going to look like, which ended up being completely different anyway. But kind of give us an idea and that staff, because that staff is all brand new. Yeah, so we've hired nine staff members for that grant. It is going very well. As most of you do know, our youth coordinator has moved on. She's going to be a nurse at a different place. So she's still helping us out, but we're currently in the process of hiring a new youth coordinator. So we're working with the nine that we just hired to run this camp right now. And it's going very well, though. We've filled up 50 kids every week so far. So yeah, tutoring went very well. We had a very good end of it, too. Yeah, no, I think it's gone very well. We've expended majority of the grant. I tried to get the funding came in this fiscal year. So I tried to expend as many of the funds as I could this fiscal year, especially like stuff we had to buy, like all of our art supplies and everything like that. We had to buy for camp, try to get all that purchasing done. So we're pretty good. We've expended the majority of the grant. So and that ends in September 30th. That would actually be our next big decision is when we pick back up into school time. So in September, we'll finish the tutoring side of it. But the funds will run out September 30th. So we'll have to decide as the parks administration, do we still fund tutoring for October, November, December while we're applying for the next grant? And if we get the next grant, then that'll start in January. So three months of kind of limbo of, you know, what do we do? So I think we'll see in September how tutoring picks back up and go from there.

Cool.

Yep, June park inspections, I got those. I know I talked to a few commissioners this past week too about parks. I know the biggest thing is mulch, so I'm going to meet with Public Works and see where we're at with the mulch. I know we got some quotes back and... There were some plans and they had talked about the one vendor that was the lowest bid and the one we had used in the past. They actually have ways to blow in the mulch, but also they can come back yearly and stuff like that. They have like a collaborative partnership that you can join in at with a whole bunch of other cities. And then they do it every year. And it's supposed to bring the cost down low, but you kind of bid in for a few years at a time. So maybe it's a five year contract with them. I'm hoping to start that for like two reasons. One, It sets the next five years set. Every park will get done every year. And then two, it's a little bit cheaper that way. So that is the last I heard from Public Works is we were interested in getting more information about that and I haven't heard back yet.

So in this future year project, do we specify when that occurs? Do we get to have some sort of say that that needs to happen earlier? Yeah, no, I believe so. And it's like, oh, it's still not there.

Yeah, I believe the collaborative, depending on where you're in the state, they all kind of have the same time. They can have a whole bunch of cities at one time, a whole bunch of cities over here at one time. Geographic location. Yeah, so it allows them to move quickly through the state, all the cities that are on the same collaborative. Cities and schools. Hopefully I'll have more information. I've not heard back. I know they've been super busy just back, so.

On an unrelated note, on our last meeting, I had mentioned Helen Park and some of the metrics. If you're going to look into that, whether there's a company that could help remediate some of that.

Yeah, I believe.

Any progress on that, or where are we standing on that?

Yeah, I'll have to check back in on that. I know we reached out to Pantera. That's where we brought the playground through the last time. I don't believe we bought where they're at with it.

I don't know the history of it or when that was put in, but one of the council members mentioned that it wasn't too old.

uh helen parks that type of position yeah helen park's a little bit older that we recently did the sidewalk and stuff around it but they didn't upgrade the playground at that time so i think it's a little bit older a playground they're all within the same 10 years um so yeah i know there's not a new playground except for city park of course so yeah we're looking i guess i'll follow back up on that i know that was public works was looking at it and uh panchero so i can find out you know

Any questions on that?

I'm sure you were alluding to like some type of warranty or something. If it was only two to three years. Yes, that's what I was getting at.

If there was some sort of warranty in play there. Yeah, I know we don't have that.

What is the normal warranty on the playground equipment like that?

I think three to five years.

Longer than that.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was what came to mind when it was mentioned to me.

Oh, well, it's an opportunity.

It does seem like somebody, a company would want to fix it up instead of just taking advantage of municipalities and buying new.

And I'll be honest, I mean, when I look at it, I'm like, that's more than two years old deterioration.

Yeah, Pound Park is a little, it's a little deceiving because the fence is new, the sidewalk is new, there's new drainage. The whole park, they did everything new but the playground.

Aesthetically, when you look at it, it's nice, and then when you get up close to the play equipment, the playscapes, then it's like, oh, okay, yeah, that could be up there. Is it just some of the rubber, like the coating is coming off? Correct, yeah, I had sent some pictures. And then the metal is exposed, and it's rusting, right? So there's steps going up to a platform, and even on the platform, there's a little square that's going around, and that can easily be all deteriorated, gone, and rusting.

So I guess it's public comments is there any

Well, the next one I'll just talk about the other business, the public comment agenda items. This was asked by a commissioner just for me to talk about a little bit. Currently, the way our agenda is set up is we have a public comment before our action items and we have a public comment after our action items. The public comment before is for agenda items only. You always want to give the public in any public meeting for Robert Rules an opportunity to speak about the stuff you're about to vote on. This can be done one two ways or a few others But there's two ways the city has done this and even the Commission's are different and most notably is the way the council does that Well, you get every item before this commission makes a vote on it You give it up so we talk about it as a group or the person presents on the item The board goes to call vote they give that public an option to speak they each have three minutes each to speak on every item and and the board will speak and then you'll vote on your decision. The way we have it structured is before we get to any of our public or any of our business items, the public has an option. Then we speak about it and then we vote. The way this is structured is often in smaller meetings that don't have as much public comments on individual items. I think mainly just for the sake of saving time. The way this is structured it puts everyone at one time. So it's one time you're calling the public up instead of every item calling the public up. It can be done either way. That is totally up to the preference of the commission. I did include in the very last page of your packet the public participation at meetings. That is actually what is written in the rules of the council's meetings. I highlighted in blue the two portions that kind of really would pertain to what the commissioner was looking for in terms of changing it. So our rules would say after every item we have to have a comment by the public in terms of like your again this is informational so we're not making a decision tonight in terms of the two options this one's a little bit the way we currently have it is easier for a less formal meeting as of course we're still having a very formal meeting we still need to follow our rules but it puts it in the agenda so it's hard to skip over sometimes we're going through our items And we're making those motions in the table votes. If we skipped one time asking for that public, we broke our own rule. So it's just easier to skip over because it's not in black and white. You just have to remember, oh, the board's about to vote. We have to move out there. Where the council meeting is very structured and very formal. So that's only the two notes that I mentioned doing the research for this and the reason why some commissions are one way and some commissions the other. The only other commission that is after every item is the planning commission, which is also another commission that's very, they take very strict notes. They're very more formal because it's businesses and stuff like that planning. So a lot more planning, zoning stuff, regulations over there. But of course, it's up to the commission. I will check back in with you guys and see if anyone wants me to put this on the next agenda and get more information on how to do this. But I just want to provide that to you guys today as asked. For more information on how that works.

I will say that when we voted on the disco Yeah, because they had a time rate of residents and yeah We voted after you know before they had a chance to say their piece

Yeah, and really have a chance at the very beginning, right? But yes, it wasn't fresh in everybody's mind. So yes, I do think there should be an option for a public comment, you know, after an important vote. Yeah.

It is true, too. There's nothing out of order for you guys to make a decision that, hey, we're about to vote on this. We want to hear from the public again. So that's true. And it's probably, one, making sure, too, when we get to that point in the agenda, I know often our meetings are, we do have low attendance. We don't often have public. So that was something that we just didn't even know they were in the room for. But no matter what, whether there's nobody in the room or there are a lot of people in the room, we really should be following Robert's rules of order. It's good to ask three times, is there any public? Comment, even if there is none, still asking three times, giving people a chance to stand up if they want or not. And then also kind of explaining, I know like even during council, they'll kind of do a little, this is the time to speak about stuff that wasn't on today's agenda. This can be anything. So being a little more formal and when we get to number eight, saying, this is a time, if anyone is in the room that wants to speak on something we're going to speak about tonight, here's your chance.

We can always discuss it or make any changes during the next meeting, right? Yep.

We have more people here in the quorum. I definitely think it warrants further discussion.

All right.

Would you like to see it on the next agenda again then? The next agenda will probably be very similar since we didn't have our meeting tonight. Again, this is informational, so that's something we can add back on.

For discussion with the others.

So could we have a public comment on that?

You could if you'd like. Well, I guess that's up to the commission with their informational meeting.

This is my preference, all right? You guys bring up whatever it is that you're going to have a motion. I get to hear what you've said. Then I get to decide whether I'd like to speak or not. If I'm speaking before, I don't even know where you're standing on anything. So my preference is each time ask the public after you've had a chance to have your discussion. Done.

Thank you. No, I agree. I mean, that's just... We want it to be fair.

I guess that's the point, right? We want it to be fair. We want voices to be heard and be transparent.

Everybody has an opinion and want to hear it. Yep.

cool that'll be on the next agenda and then uh i was a little confused even like looking into i know we have bylaws we do obviously we operate underneath an ordinance that is very generic really we need to update our bylaws on how uh this will be so i can provide a copy of those and then the method change if that is the direction you guys are looking to go sounds good cool all right well then speaking of public comment that's not good hearing none

Back to Zach.

Yep, just a few updates. I'll keep it very simple. We have, of course, we have tomorrow, we have a lunch, our independent day lunch for our senior center that was originally now when it's a little bit cooler. We're moving to Radcliffe. We're hoping to have it on the patio, but given the heat index for tomorrow, if it's comfortable outside, we'll do our best. But I assume we're going to be inside given the temperatures today. for an independent lunch. The tickets are still on sale. I believe we are running our Camp GC. It's interesting because every week we have like even next week, every week and then signing up for the next week. It makes me a little nervous because with our grant we have to hit 50 kids a day, but every week we've been hitting our numbers. Every week we've gotten more than 50. Absolutely not a problem, but it is interesting to see how they register while they're dropping off their kid for the current camps. It's good because the kids like it. They didn't buy in too early. They actually do want to keep coming back. I was actually a little worried with the holiday too, seeing low attendance. We're not seeing that at all either. It's going very well with our half-day camp. We have another program starting up soon with the Family Resource Center. They have their summer unplugged. I know they have a few open spots for that. That is a half-day program running in their facility. I believe they still have a few spots open. You can register in person or calling the Family Resource Center. We also have two trips for the Senior Center coming up this month. We have our Firekeepers Casino trip and our Meridaville trip with some, I think a few tickets available in each. So some exciting stuff coming this month of July in the summer of Garden City. But that's about it.

That's great. Any comments? All right. Now, Commissioner, comments?

Anything from the table?

No, I've got nothing.

All right.

So we don't need a motion to adjourn, right? Because this is just information.

All right. I think we're good.

Thank you guys. Thank you for coming. Yeah.

We got something out of this, right?