Public Arts Board - Regular Meeting

¶¶ . . . . . . Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

We will call this meeting to order. Oh, I'm sorry. But since Caitlin is being the taskmaster, we will go ahead and call the meeting to order. And I don't know, do we have Ashley or no?

Let me just try to call.

I'm going to go ahead and call her on the cell. We can't just dial off of that?

Let me see.

I don't know. I thought we'd done that before. I thought we'd done that before.

Hello. Hello. All right, you're live. It's all here. Thank you. All right, so we're going to call the

Pre-meeting to order for the July Park and Recreation Board. First up on the agenda is a presentation from Keller Soccer Association. So Jason Burrock is here, who is the president of Keller Soccer Association. Do you have your, is your presentation up yet?

We're trying to get it emailed over.

Okay. Maybe while it's waiting, I can... Why don't we can go to the next, we can go to subcommittee reports or something to that effect and come back. We'll move on, Jason, and we'll come back to you while you're working on that. So we'll hit the subcommittees. I did go ahead and print out a new sheet of the subcommittees. So we'll pass these around. And I want you to check these because I want to make sure, since we had some movement on those, and the June meeting was a little abbreviated, I just want to make sure that we've got all the right people in the right places. Ashley, you're going to have to trust me. So I have on sports park oversight still Jay, Tom, and myself. Bike, trail, Jay, Ashley, senior, I've got Peggy, Tom, Nicole, Johnson Road, I've got Ashley. Johnson Road, that was Johnson Road. So Pavilion, I've got myself, Nicole, and Kaitlyn. Northeast Park, I've got Kaitlyn, General Lee, Jay. And then tree standards and memorials, I've got Tom, Ashley, and Jenny. Is all that correct?

Yes, sir.

All right, okay. All right, so I'll pass a copy of these down to you guys so you can have a copy of these too, Jordan. In case anyone asks who's on the various subcommittees, so this is the most current list at this point. We may have some movement around there because some people are obviously double and triple on duty, but there's certain subcommittees that are waiting some direction. For example, Northeast Park and there's some other things that are waiting some direction from council. So we're not actually... active in all of these but since we're jumping to that why you guys give me a high sign when you're ready okay so I think what we'll do is we'll jump into the updates from the committee's I'll just tell you real quick that I think that the tree standards you guys want you did send around the that Jordan sent around, the update from Tom and Ashley. Is there anything you guys want to say in addition to what you sent? Ashley, Tom, anything that you want to add to that? Anybody get a chance to read through it? Pretty comprehensive document.

This is what you're talking about because I sat down and read all of it.

So if anybody has any comments or anything you guys want to add to what you sent.

I don't want to add anything. Just that Ashley put in a whole lot of work on this. Believe me, that It's an excellent, excellent job. She did a fantastic job. Great doctor. Yep, yep. And hopefully, eventually, we hope the whole city can use this on all projects, not just one.

Yeah, no, I think that's great. You guys did speak about talking about a little collaboration there and eventually getting beyond the, you know, we talk about test what it can do and then eventually seeing how far it can go in affecting Alonzo and his group and some of the others. So I think it's great work.

Can I ask a couple questions on that? What's the division of labor in terms of maintenance and care of trees? Does Parks take care of trees in Parks?

Yes. The way I understand it, Yes, the parks takes care of them. The irrigation guy, once the sports park is turned over to us, those trees are warranted for two years, I believe, maybe three. But they've already replaced several trees already. We've got to keep up on the irrigation. I want to get with our irrigation person to make sure everything's being irrigated properly so we can make these trees last.

So even the next door, the natatorium would be under Parks, I believe. And so the Parks Department, the documents that you guys have written, would be executed upon and adhered to by... members of the parks.

Yes. We hope that Alonzo would like to look at this document for Elm Street when they do the landscaping there. Because right now they've put in just some terrible trees at this forest park, obviously.

One's dead already.

Well, we've lost four. They've replaced them. But we talked about not replacing River Birch with River Birch and they're doing it. But how do we stop that? Who knows?

they're still putting river birds they're still putting river birds back in once the river so um i don't know who to get with maybe i'll get with um jordan later about our irrigation guy and our memorial tree program uh we require when somebody comes in to buy a memorial tree it has to be in an irrigated area so we won't let them plant non-irrigated because it won't survive yeah so i think you know

labor and then expanding kind of standards and moving over into a deal with the lawns a lot and so I think you know the thing the kind of the using the parks and the as a proving ground for what this subcommittee could be and the standards and and showing and what you know kind of the meat to all of the of what you put in that document and and and put the you know put the results behind it and show the contribution that you guys can make with the expertise that you have and the like. I think put some wins on the board for the subcommittee here and then say, hey, this is my example, this is what's to Alonzo and his team and hopefully they'll welcome that contribution. So we talked about getting the wins here first and then hopefully it carries over.

I'd like to suggest to the subcommittee that you include in your documents something about record keeping. The documents now make We want to record.

it would be burdensome to... We keep record of all trees that get planted, pruned, replaced, maintained, because we have to send in a yearly report to Tree City USA to stay a Tree City USA, so we have to keep up with all that, and we have to have a certain cent per kappa to stay Tree City USA, so we have to... spend money on trees to be able to say that way, and we've always been within that threshold. So we keep up with all tree maintenance and planting and removing.

So there's a record book or some software?

A great Excel sheet.

Yeah, can you then, I mean, throw that puppy into a rock and get a report of the highest failure

all the trees at the sports park, especially the new trees. It was done at one time and nobody knows where it's at. It wouldn't be hard. It would maybe take 10 days to do it.

I do think that any of the new stuff that's dying has got to be warrantied.

Yeah, they've already ordered. They're just waiting for them to come in. We actually did a site walk today with community development and they checked all the trees. We have one dead tree that they've already ordered and then a bush that has died. Which dead tree was it?

Do you know?

It's right next to the splash pad. Yeah, right in front of the splash pad.

That little lace bar film? I believe so, yeah. Because there's 12 of them out there.

We're certainly complaining at an awful time of year. And that's what I was going to say. Is this the right time to be planting?

But community development, she said the landscape looks beautiful for the season it's in. She's like, they're taking great care with, I mean, our water bill may be a little high, but they're taking great care of it.

It's a challenging time to plant.

So it looks really great out there.

So I think you guys have done a great job there. It's so interesting to see what, you know, as you guys prove it out there. I also, you know, as you do the care and maintenance piece, I also would like to encourage the expansion of the memorial piece on this too and make more of that. Speaking of that, one of the things that we wanted to do on his behalf and then mentioned that to Cody and also suggested that he can pick where he wants it to go. I don't know if you've had a chance to connect with him on that yet or not.

We're getting with Bobby to see what location, so that's kind of a problem we have started to run into with the memorial tree program is we're running out of irrigated spots to plant trees. All the trees are doing so great that they're not dying, so we have no spots that need replacing. So it's getting bare on options.

eventually we're going to run out and it's going to be real soon of spots without adding irrigation and i don't know that we have the budget to add can we not take a tree that's already healthy that's been planted in the last several years and use that as a memorial tree that's in irrigation just plaque it yeah and just black it say this is a memorial tree for we could i mean there's some nice yeah stuff that's been planted out there we could live a long time yeah we just we're running out of room for new trees we just have to use existing

So if you guys come up with an idea, I think...

I think we may have one on the side of the building that is on the corner of his office that we had to cut down. That may be a good place next to Debbie's tree.

That would be great.

But we won't play it until the fall.

Yeah, and I think that's great. We wait until the fall, and then we do something nice. you know, like a mature version of that tree would be, and we Photoshop it into that location, and then we frame and mat it and sign the mat all around it, and then we all get out and get a picture in that together, the group, and present that to him. So that's what we're looking to do. Hopefully he's not watching it all, so he won't ruin this for us. But I'm sure he's got this tuned in. He's watching this right next to a soccer game. So... but that is what we're looking to do um and um so we'll give a chance to hopefully present that to him in the fall so what about this document do we need to get it adopted some committees aren't formally adopted anywhere that's part of our deal that's the way gotcha yep we're working so it's it's it's official so we're good uh but it's great work though um any other questions go ahead i did want to interject one thing so

With regards to parks, do we own all of this and what department? I did want to share that part of the reason we split it up the way we did was planning and design could go to any third parties who were proposing a new tree. That way when they design something like the sports park or any other area that parks owns in the future, that we could just hand them that document. so that they factor that into their proposal. And then, of course, we can double check their proposal against that just to make sure anything wasn't overlooked as far as spacing or tree type. And then the tree planning standards were intended to go to either ourselves or a third party who might be planting trees on our behalf. Based on some observations we saw at the sports park in particular was when we really thought about this one. And then, of course, irrigation is more so us. one group doesn't get just a big list of things that aren't necessarily applicable and they have to sift through them to find what's theirs. The hope was that everybody kind of got like a two or three page document that was specific to the work they were doing.

As I talk, I'm gonna work from the bottom up. So Northeast Park, we're gonna wait for some more direction, but there is certainly talk going on about it. Park Pavilion, we're coming around. We'll be talking about that soon because there's gonna be some budget implications there. Johnson Road Park, Ashley, do you wanna give us an update? You guys have had some meetings. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about where you're at? I know you're still in the midst of determining what the next steps are busy so you want to give us an update on where you stand?

I'll give a quick one and I'll let the team update in person. The general gist of it is that we've done three interviews. We originally had six applicants fill out the RFQ and we narrowed it down to three based on a scorecard and then we interviewed those three with a scorecard again. We're going to meet next week to talk about our individual assessments with our scorecards and work on creating a document to present to you guys that not only tells you what our recommendation is but helps you kind of walk through why that's our recommendation, both having seen what the community responded to in the survey and then also what these companies gave us to help us get a sense of if they understood the vision, if they could be within budget, and then help you guys understand what potentially we can and cannot get with said budget taking into consideration the survey results. So hope to come with a presentation or some other similar document to share with you. After you guys vote on it, then we'd go to KDC and then we would go to City Council. So our intention is to give you guys our recommendation in the August meeting. Anything else? Anyone else wants to chime in?

That was succinct.

You're pretty happy with what you saw in the presentations and what was offered by the...

Yes, they did well. The one outlier is we have one community build and two full-fledged builds. So budget is obviously the biggest determining factor between the two. And community lift is it's $150. I mean, $150 a day for seven days, so can the community uphold that standard to be able to maintain? You'd get a really great playground because the budgetary constraints are much less than if you have a full build, but then you have liability, community, are they going to show up, and what does Parks and Rec take on if that program fails?

And it's also a lot of pre-work by the city in advance of organizing those leads, making decisions. So that part, the community comes in, but there's a heavy lift. It's a lift. Yeah.

A heavy volunteer lift.

A heavy volunteer lift, yeah.

And on top of that, it almost barely comes under budget because... What our current park is comes under budget, but then we still have to do the demo work, the grading, and the prep work, the site work to prepare the site. And then if we want to add a shade structure, we probably come over budget even with that. proposal as well. And that's kind of what we'll make sure we talk through with you guys in August so that we all have a clear picture of what the budget can achieve with each vendor.

I would say that the so I would encourage you to I think we can rally a lot of people around this opportunity. I think we can The volunteer piece, while it's a big piece and it is a lot to coordinate, I think we that we can rally a lot of people depending on time of year. It all depends on that, right? Depending on time of year. We have a lot of groups and organizations, but we have some companies too that can contribute. I do think if there's a way to get alt ads built into this where They give you sort of a menu of, you know, you get your basic core of the playground and then you say, hey, we want these sort of a menu of other items that would be nice to have like these getting those donated by Pride funds or others to contribute, I think there would be a lot of interest in that because that's one of those parks that has a lot of visibility. So I think between the crew that we have assembled here and this board and the worker bees that we have in this room and the connections that all of us have in the different organizations that we're a part of, I think we could rally a lot of support in this. I think that when you to throw those things out there and let us know what some of those challenges are, because we can help you discern some of those things and present some options to possibly, some of those things that might look scary on their face, we could maybe look at it and say, well, what if we considered this, or we would help you kind of consider alternatives. all in and material labor yeah it would probably be less than half of what we need so if you consider the demo piece so if 650 is all we had then we would have to get really really creative but if we consider if we do get creative and figure out contributions from others and you know some public labor volunteer labor and and some maybe contributions from from some donations for these other pieces and parts that we'd like to have.

We did mention to all the Playground companies that we want some sort of community aspect to the build, whether we go with the community builder or a different company. So they are all aware that we want some sort of community participation to allow the community to feel like they contributed.

Are they open to hybrid models where they would do, like,

The community build does have a hybrid model. Ashley has more information on that, so we'll present that next in August, the different models and kind of the price points of the models.

Okay. Okay, anything else you guys want to add on that? Thank you. All right, seniors, anything on seniors this month?

Well, I think we had successful things over there. Talked about that. The dinner was really, really well and very good turnout.

I think there were 93 people showed up for it.

Only like $5 for dinner. It was. Dang, I missed out. It was pretty cool. Yeah, it really was.

There is a Kettle Community Senior Fund. It's a non-profit 501c3. And there's two ladies that are pretty much the only ones involved with it in action. Yeah, and they actually live over in Fort Worth, but they're members here. And they're really passionate about what they do. And I think they paid for most of the meal. I think all but five bucks. They did shish kebabs, and they had desserts. It was a pretty big deal. And they paid for most of it.

Is that a donation card? Yeah, it's a donation.

Well, it's their organization, definitely. Do they have something for the plants on the wall?

So the tree, when you entered the Keller Community Senior Fund, they started the tree and they accept the donations to get your name on the tree. So all their donations either goes towards meals, events, buying equipment for the senior center.

My question is, if you give a donation through that, depending on level, you would go up on the tree, right? I guess so.

It's a pretty cool deal. They are really passionate about what they're doing there. And they need more help.

They do that because I know a couple times I've stopped by. I've just gone into the kitchen to help with what they're doing. And also, Ollie, the last class that they had was on medieval English lineage. Anyway, I was really impressed because the lady was extremely good, very knowledgeable. And we had probably 26 or 27 people, which is unusual. And they really enjoyed it a lot.

And you said the next dance class, you said Tom was leading?

No.

Well, Tom can't dance.

Jordan's leading.

Well, Jordan's leading. Jordan, she's a country dancer.

I was at the Senior Citizen Center volunteering for YMSL not too long ago. I did see the survey response scan here. I sent you a picture of it.

Perfect. Yes.

I got to set up chairs for chairs. And I cleaned poker chips. Cleaned the poker chips? Yep, one by one. Were they dirty? Oh, they were very dirty. People were using them. Their hands, they're like... That's a lot of poker chips, isn't it? Yeah, there were... Play them with dirty money? We got them cleaned up. And bingo cards. What else do you have?

There's a free thing for the seniors. They're going to...

Hearing tests. It's free. All you have to do is do a little phone call and make an appointment. I went and did that and got told my ears were packed with wax. They couldn't do anything. So you have to go to the doctor and they do... Oh, this is disgusting. Anyway, I got my hair screwed up.

I just thought... Can you hear better?

I've never had a hearing test, so I thought, why not?

My friend's an audiologist.

They've put out some really good things there that you just go up and

All right, hike and bike. Jay, you guys got anything on your committee that you have to update?

No, we've been led to believe by some of our council member interactions that we're going to have an opportunity to make the presentation that we developed, make that presentation to either KDC or council in an upcoming meeting at some point in time. That's good. That's really good.

We'll see. So how many people from FIFA games have we had here at our parkland? We've had several, haven't we? Yeah, every week for the last month. Some of them. Some of them, yeah. Oh, yeah, one guy. I think he set a record. And he missed a sign at the end and went all the way to the parking lot.

All right, then sports park oversights. We've been led to believe we're going to present some of that to, I think, into... related to that, actually, possibly some further discussions. So I think there's a lot of that that's being looked at again, including some of the agreements that the newer members hadn't had a chance to actually look at yet, including tournament agreements. Newer council. Newer council members, sorry, yeah. So we will be... I guess did you circulate those to them? I guess they have them now. I was led to believe today that they have them.

The tournament? I have not seen anything. Aaron may have them. Someone sent them to them, I think.

Okay. So we'll have more to talk about probably next meeting on that. And that concludes all of the subcommittees unless anybody has anything that they want to talk about?

We were resting the ball fields at one time, weren't we, for the summer? Just June. Just June. Okay.

All right.

All right. So, Jason, thanks for being patient. So you're up now. All right. So we'll turn it over to you. All right. Why don't you start with introducing yourself since not everybody here has had the honor and opportunity to get to know you. Sure.

I'm Jason Burbach, our Keller Soccer Association president, and I've actually grown up in this area, graduated from Keller High School, met my wife at Keller High School back in the early 90s. Haven't gone far, went as far as North Texas a couple I'm a high-time soccer player, still play in adult leagues sometimes, but follow everything and I'm obviously passionate about recreational soccer. All three of my kids have gone through Keller High. I've got one still at Keller High playing soccer. Some have done club, some straight recreational. My third one has done a little bit of both. So I feel like I've known the sides of the soccer world and grew up playing club to continue to bring education to a lot. The soccer community can be very, I'd say it's very snobbish. It's a level of snobbery of you gotta play on the best teams, you gotta play in the best leagues. I think there's a level for that, but at the same time I think there's a huge benefit to the recreational program we provide. Obviously being part of Parks and Rec, you guys are close to it. I know within Keller Baseball there's different levels of the select and recreational. involved. I think it kept sucking me in. So ultimately it became a piece of, I feel like I've got a lot of opportunity to add wisdom to the board, a lot of wisdom to the Keller soccer community and ultimately try and help through the soccer building. Doug rescued the prior president. We worked really close together sitting over here five, six years ago, the initial kickoff of the soccer complex. And so a lot of the vision we had from our and now we have those things, so what can we do with it? So you've been president how many years now? This will be my second year.

I was trying to remember when Doug rolled off, because I think you did start on the board last year.

Yeah, Doug was president for seven. I was vice president and secretary. Forever. Forever, and I thought, okay, I think I'm done. But then

close of some time that's ready for the younger generation and sometimes it's like we still have a lot more to offer so so the presentation I've got built today is I wasn't sure time wise I know Jordan said you know you've got you've got time here so go ahead okay we've got so the pre session ends at 7 and I've got but if you run up to straight all of you take the rest of the time we can cover the rest of our things in the regular

I figured I'd go through some trends, successes, financial review, board of directors review, SWOT, and then some strategic initiatives I'd like to probably spend a little more time on.

What we'll do is we'll let you go through it, try to save our questions, but then we might back up some slides with our questions.

My early days on the board, that's kind of where we were. But that 1,700 is kind of what I'd say the steady state. And then the construction period of time, I don't know if that's construction related. It seems like when we lost about 150 to 200 people through that process, losing some fields and people is about where I say we're at, $1,500 to $1,600. Spring, once construction's done, that $1,522 is kind of where we're at. Today we're at $1,284. This is as of yesterday or two days ago. And for the last 20 years, registration opens different times. So it's hard to say, here's the exact path. But what I did was said, it's usually about a two-month window. So if you look at the far right, about 60 days from, you'll see we get up to about that 1,400 mark.

And then you have late registrations and some waitlist folks that add to it.

really blitzing that early registration, which kind of came with fee increases. I think that was a big incentive. With the fee increases we had to give, we also wanted people to register early to get to that price break, at least have that opportunity. This is something that Jordan's seen. I know he would send stuff to you guys on, at least I think Cody and Jordan back when he was here. The residents versus non-residents, that 40%. But that total fee, that's kind of a breakdown from this past spring season. About $52,000 is what it cost us to lease the fields. That's what it cost you for your registration fees.

Yep.

Yeah, I think that math was the residents, $10 a pop, $50 for the non-residents. You walk that math down. So yeah, for spring, and what I'll show you in the budget once I get there, how that kind of broke down when we got the initial update in October. Successes, lots of People come out once a year, once every other year from Bedford or ULIS, call a building and say, man, this place looks awesome. So you heard that positive feedback from the people that had been here. But if you're playing there every week, you saw it mature. But there's still a lot of people who say, man, we really like everything that's been done. So we've got to pass it on to this team. asked for some opportunity to get some Sunday time for our special needs program. This, we didn't know what to expect. I was thinking 15 to 20 people. And then we went a week or two ahead. It's just like it found some We'll see how it grows and grows us over the next couple of seasons. 76 on the inaugural year was very surprising and awesome. And then going out there in the first week, the opening day was a pretty emotional and impactful day for a lot of people out there. So something that's been awesome for the community and just thank you guys for that opportunity for letting them get out there. And 46, another piece, you know, you guys talk about finding 150 volunteers someplace. We're talking about buddies for almost every player that comes out. So every player that comes up, not all of them need a buddy, but they're assigning a buddy to a player. Some are walkers, some have a lot of athletic abilities, some struggle a lot more physically. But 46, sign up, that doesn't mean that we didn't have people coming out of the stands and going, someone else needs a buddy, I hope, you know, Derek and Michael have done a great job of launching it, and I think learning a lot in year one, or season one. So we'll see how fall goes, but I hope it becomes a staple of the program. Host our 20th A&O Commissioner Cup. That's in a season tournament that we really pushed almost 100. We've been that 99 number, 92, 97. It's a complete tournament where Felix can probably test. His kids were younger there. It was trying to start it. I appreciate the folks that started it and got it launched. Then we really grew it to something that across the community people talk about in Commissioner's Cup.

It's crazy to see 20th annual on there.

I know. What's really cool is I have a lot of teachers with my wife Being a teacher, they go, oh, kids come to school and they wear their commissioner's coat. Turn a shirt, and then they have to turn their shirts.

It's like one of their highlights of the year.

That's awesome.

That's just so, did you allow, you still keep it at KSA, or did you let other outside teams come in? It's about 99% KSA. So it used to be you'd have to collapse.

Only KSA used to be good, yeah. You're talking about U16 and up where I might have two teams that are KSA and we said let's invite someone that's good sports, good coach, no issues. We don't think there's going to be red cards. I did not invite a U19 boys team because I know how that goes. I don't want to invite red cards out here and give myself more problems. It's up to about 65% participation, so if you figure 150 teams, this year it had 144 teams, and 95 participate, which we just didn't market it. We don't really do a lot on the western side of Metroplex, but we did this before the construction. They loved it out here. Then we took away the B-pad because it was under construction, but we made it work, and they came back this past year. The only difference is we have to use Legacy now because the C-pad, the trees, We love it out here, and I think we'll keep that until we kind of, unless they want to go somewhere else, but I think we've got a good spot, and I don't think we're losing it due to lack of ability or facilities, so I think that's awesome. The more recent one, this is new, Whistlemania. Jordan's probably tired of hearing from you on this one, but we're working up North Texas again. They bring in 300-plus referees. That's kind of what they get. All youth referees bring them over. In adult referees, but bring them in one location. They used to do training on Saturdays, Sundays, spread them out. Cleaver and Burleson, Frisco, every association, we've offered them as well. But now they say, let's just do one big one and try to bring people in. Some people rent in hotels. I don't know what our hotel bookings are.

Maybe a two-year restaurant.

happening and we're ready to go next week. Awesome. Very cool. Is that training all the way through, is that D, what level? They do this more of a grassroots. Saturday is more bring the rookies in and train them grassroots and then introduce, like you'll have people come from all over the Metroplex. Assigners will come out so they'll all have tables that says you want to ref in Cleburne. I'm your assigner, here's how to get involved in Cleburne.

So it's like F through D?

Grassroots and then I don't remember the next one. I think Sunday they bring out higher level referees and if you want to be, if your referee wants extra training and you're into it, you have that next level outside of the grassroots. I've never actually seen it, so I'm kind of going off of... That's when?

Is it this weekend?

Next Saturday, 8th and 12th both mornings. That's great. So quick recap on the The biggest thing, and you'll see the total income, it's not there, and our season is odd because it's almost like a calendar year. All our registrations in this that we're getting for fall is actually going to go into this past year's budget, so that shortfall of about 200-something thousand, 231,000. You figure we have about 1,500 players at roughly, on average, between your early registration and full registration, $170, so you can kind of do the math. that 281 was a little bit of spring, but a lot of fall. So it's just a mismatch on the way the income comes down on the cash basis. But if you go down to expenses, our biggest expense, referees, just the manpower to run the field out there. And then you see I've got the city usage fees. I made a note there of the 69,000 was what we budgeted initially with the prior agreement. in October and we had to scramble a little bit to say we've got a new user agreement. I think I've got a 50% increase once we annualize this out. So that's the extra $35,000. That's where the shortfall comes from. I tell you, I just kind of think about from a budget perspective, I look at our biggest eyes and where can I cut? Because the last thing I want to do is we hit the membership with the referee and inflation on referee costs went up about 35% last year. membership increase and then then the fees that we did that last fall and then the city fees came in and we went oh we've got another shortfall so I've got to account for that so I've been looking to see where I can find some balance and sort of continue to pass on to the membership and we do we do typically land within about ten thousand greater or less you know from our budget and we do a good job of trying to manage that and keep it keep it in line so rent lease we do have an office which a lot of associations do not that houses all our equipment our uniform office like I have a whole uniform please we have a meeting room we don't necessarily need the meeting rooms there's times it's like we don't that's a new physical location so one thing to think about was like is there opportunity for shared over there that was cheap or free, and that building's gone now. But we did move out of that one. But I don't know if there's any other opportunity to at least cut $27,000 out of the budget that helps compensate for some of the increase in fees. Some other places and some of the field usage, while we have rentals on, we're Who's going to line the fields? We've got to get out there and do that, where a lot of times that's taken for granted because they're typically lined. We line them every week. So those are things that we, and they will invoice, they'll pay us for it, but at the same time it's still the manpower to do it. And just kind of this disconnect that I was talking about, shoot, I'm going to have to worry about, it's not just a rental to you guys, now they've got to come to us and look at, The board, not a lot's changed over the years. We've added a few positions, but we have one full-time, Sundee Becerra is still there. She's been there 20 plus years. A lot of you guys have worked with her. She's our only full-time employee. 11 voting members are all elected officials, volunteer roles. And then there's 10 appointed members, five 100% volunteer. We run our equipment, communications director, education director. concessions, referees, and then you have five contractor pay and all that really means is we do, like if you're gonna have a referee, a signer, they're paid per like activity. Same for scheduler, paid per activity, registrars, budget and finance and then some I guess task force type committees or subcommittees that we'll fire if we need to be. What are our strengths and weaknesses? I feel like we've back and forth, I think very helpful on all sides. Facilities, obviously can't complain about that. A lot of people are envious of when they come over here. And a lot of organizations have to do with multiple cities. You look at something like Greater Northwest, they're dealing with Argyle, they're dealing with Trophy Club, they're dealing with other might be different. Where I ask about our user agreement, they're like, I've got three. Have fun with your single one. Dedicated board, I do think we did kind of rebuild our board this year. And then as you saw before, financially sound, I think we were always, we were very good stewards of the funds. Weaknesses, probably something you guys know this very well, just participation. Where are your volunteers coming from? I was looking at it and I'm always, when I was secretary and vice president, I always tell Doug, you just run stuff, I'll go get volunteers. And that becomes old because you're constantly recruiting. But it's amazing how many people will sign up and say, i would like to help i'd like to be a part of the board i call them send them emails and how many respond maybe one out of the 20 you know and then you're hoping well if i can bring them in if this is my group i've created classes come in here's the board piece uh if you want to know more come ask and most of them want to come in and start a club is what i realized they all have they all have intentions of doing something for them which we try to weed that out i make it very clear if you're part of this board you got to You've got to have that mentality. So getting people to do that. That's a $50 contribution. Was it?

Alright.

Park usage constraints. This is probably no surprise to you guys either. That's why the park was probably the rentals were created and it's been a great opportunity. I still get a lot of people and think, well, do we build up Bear Creek Park? Do we do more there? Do we do somewhere else? So like KYA basketball, they've got the ISDs where they're used to something like that. You tell me where to go to practice. You tell me what night. And I tell my kids, we're going to Bear Creek Intermediate or we're going to Hidden Lakes Elementary. This time, we don't have that. It's very informal. We go, you're now a coach. Thank you. And then I can give you a couple of balls. But other than that, you look around where you want to go and you figure it out. I feel like we could probably do a little more, but that's something we need to work on, and I don't know if there's opportunity with how to work the park schedule as well. I know we have rentals, and I know some people take advantage of that every week. I don't know what the rentals look like right now in the summer.

The soccer field, it's some on weekends. A club that runs it every Sunday, Pad B right now. They're loving Pad B, or B, the turf. During the season, though, they're Rented every night. Every night.

Yeah, that y'all aren't using them. Most of the KSA teams.

It's mostly KSA parents, yeah. A couple that just have club teams that they're wanting practice, but it's a lot KSA families, coaches, renting space. All the parents are pitching in and getting good fields with lights. That's good.

I pay $200 to play, and then now you're asking me to pay to go rent a field. At a greater Northwest, I don't have to do that. I can't verify that, but there are other associations that give them that opportunity. Not saying that's what we need to do, but I do know that's still just some general feedback. Board strips then, that's probably part of every board. constraints as well. I skipped over park signage. I've talked to Cody a little bit on this. I think signs are coming. They're coming.

I actually was talking about that as far as...

There's a whole wayfinding sign program that's coming in. That's not finished yet, but that's coming.

City Council is working on that in the coming months. They definitely had a conversation about what the signage would look like and brand

up for visitors. KDC had a meeting, we had a meeting and we worked on it and voted on stuff and it was brought up for council and so it's, yeah, it's a whole part, it's part of the whole deal that we work on.

I figured because I know we've asked a couple times and I was like, Boy Scouts, we can do it. I was like, I don't know.

That's always been a part of it, but there was, so... There's a separate, so KDC does a lot of the, as far as the funding pieces, but there was budget discussion that had to go above and beyond some of the construction budget that we had to discuss that kind of over and above the original spend that was allocated for the park. wayfinding pieces were in there so we had to make some decisions around that which we've had a couple meetings and so those and then we've made the recommendations to council and then so so that's moving on so you'll see some wayfinding yeah that'll be coming awesome oh i'll pass it on i know that's that's one of the if you're ever on apad i can't tell you how many grandparents we get that oh yeah completely lost yeah that'll all be solved here soon okay hopefully yeah okay

Opportunities in player, coach, and referee development. That's always an opportunity. I mean, anything with a program like this, level of support, we can always improve on that. Increased community development. Actually, those top two, I'm going to hit on some of our strategic initiatives here shortly. Tournaments. I mean, that's, I know across the board, that's what a lot of people kind of envision as this revenue generator. I'm here to tell you that, like, we run our tournament pretty well. The tournament champions run really well. Facilities are there. We also could use both multipurpose fields, as you guys know. Who would run it and all that type of stuff? I think it's like, how do you do it? Is it a third party like North Texas? Is it a third party like KSA runs it? Usually by the time we're done in May, like when I'm done, done, getting through that tournament. So turn around and run. I don't know how people do them every week. fields and then we have Shared space, that kind of goes to that office piece of other things we could leverage between the two partners, between the partnership. Threats. This is not, I mean, unknown to this community, just thinking about our schools and shrinking there and everything we see in the schools, collapsing schools. We've been holding studies at 1500 and I couldn't go back and pull from 22 to 26 when I pulled the numbers and the breakdown of the age groups. back to 2000. There are some retention opportunities, I think, to keep people in recreation versus is it just going to be influx of just new players. Club competition, pulling players, that's always a threat. And how early and how much do people just want to go keep up with the Joneses on that side. Higher fees versus neighboring associations. I'd look at KYA basketball. Everything that I paid for my kids, I was like, we're always in the lower end. But then I went and looked at other soccer associations. We're talking like $125 price points, $100 price points, $150. We're definitely, with our 205, we are one of the highest of all the ones I compared. And I hear it from the ladies who are going to Great Northwest. So that's why I'm those those premiums on or the increases on and how where else can I find you know I love the facilities and we want to keep that but where else can I find things I can cut to to to make it work volunteer burnout and this general perception I think nothing nothing different from you but you guys know this more than I do is just people are not always happy to Because I get people ask me, why does baseball do this? I don't know. We're two separate entities. But that's the problem is I think in general, when we talk about youth sports and us being at that complex, it's something that is real that any time any of us have some sort of short-sightedness or slippage, it's a perception can spread. You can't feel it by association. Yes. Strategic initiatives. Increase community partnerships. Hit on the Top Soccer a little bit already. I think there's opportunities for sponsorship and donations. And this is not for our budget purposes. One of my visions, which I'll get into a little bit later, is just how do we raise funds for, like Top Soccer, that's 100% funded by KSA. There were, we did get, well I shouldn't say by KSA, they didn't pay a dime, the players did not pay a dime. They got a jersey, we got some funding through some went out to get. But those funds, they're kind of annual funds, and we also realized we thought we were paying for 20 jerseys at 76. So we burned through those funds pretty quick. So we'd love to not have that community pay. We want that to be a free service. Even if we get to the point where they're paying $10, $25, it's still not bad. But if we can do it, I'd love to bring in funds that we can keep that under the free umbrella. Improved player development, this is the biggest, I've got that highlighted in bold, just supplemental to recreational program. Felix knows this well, this has been the ever, it's chasing what we never can fix in recreational soccer and I feel like I'm gonna go through something I think has a chance. Geared towards more competitive players because the range of a competitive player in recreational program versus a beginner and someone that's just fun is the challenge. Improve coach support. Seasonal courses, we've done these. We can bring North Texas out. We did one. You guys let us go out on a Saturday morning and we ran a coaching session where we cleaned out the concessions, cleaned everything in there. And we had seven coaches out on the BPAT and ran a really good session that I'd like to be able to have the opportunity to continue to do those types of pre-season prep. So field availability is good for that. And then maximize the referee-coach interactions, meaning The more activities we can do in this kind of centralized places, think about 150 teams spread out across the city between Keller, North Fort Worth, and nobody's practicing together. Everybody's kind of independent, but the more I can kind of bring and centralize some things and bring referees to have a scrimmage and lower price points

on the side and just pull it down.

It doesn't do anything. Jason, so let me do this. Well, hold for silent. Hold it for silent. So let me do this. I want to adjourn this session. If you'll stay with us a little bit longer. And then I'll have our group at least give the chance to ask some questions, if that's okay. Yeah. All right, so I'm going to ask the group for a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. I have a motion. May I have a second? Second. I have a second. All in favor? Aye. All right, we'll see you next week.

Thank you. ¶¶ . . .

I'm going to call to order the regular session of the July Park and Recreation Board meeting. First up on the agenda is persons to be heard. This is a time for the public to address the board on any subject. However, the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits the board from discussing issues raised may be referred to city staff for research and possible future action. Seeing that there are no, there's no one here for persons to be heard, I'm going to entertain item C, which is approval of the minutes from the June session. I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion. A motion from Tom, a second from Jay. All in favor of approving the minutes? Aye. Any objections? Aye. Okay, no objections. All right. Now, Jason, I'm going to go ahead and let you continue. Okay. Now, there is a lot of meat here, but I'm going to...

community partnerships. Actually, this is very well done.

I want to thank you for the time you put into this. This is very well done.

I don't want to brush you through. I think a lot of it we could probably read through later as we get to it. To that point, too, we would like a copy of it. And then my two biggest things from there is just community engagement and partnerships. And you could really see it from the standpoint, like from a tournament for the last five years, I've really been like, we should be able to, it's a free tournament.

that to California storehouse or turn around and give it to something else maybe explain Jason further so they understand so you're talking about commissioners cut yes so that's so the end of season spring yeah so because spring season is truncated anyway so but that's kind of your end of season your end of season tournament for all right age groups right yeah our big finale and just kind of close out the year before the summer

Have a fun TOPS. Have a fun TOPS, yeah. And we did, I mean, to the Nina two years ago when she was hit by the car. The mom came up, sold shirts at our table. That was the best, because it was a person. It was a person people could relate to. And it was all over social media. So we said, let's, our cure could Take an association or someone that's a for-profit or an organization that's bringing in $800 per team, pay the referees, pay field usage, pay da-da-da. They've got money coming out on top of that, right? They're doing it for a reason. I'm thinking we do all this with the dollars already there. We just want a little bit to give right back to something else. So we can make it very clear. So I brought on a communications director, Tutu. involved in the tournament getting schedules getting fields getting everything set up we need someone that can build from fall to spring to the summer how do you map this out talking to businesses talking to sponsorships getting funds and then marketing the dollars to the parents of saying coming up here paying for free or playing for free what's a five dollar donation it's a QR code it's going to go straight to Top Soccer but just creating that vibe and creating it's really community sometimes So this is something we presented to the, I brought on Barry Adams, which is our education director, something else we've kind of gone in and out of, had people in place, but sometimes what does education director mean? I really want it to mean we've got to focus on player development. We lose a lot of players to clubs and academy, and these players are potentially very average to maybe slightly above average, but the recreational program just How do we bridge that gap? First thing that we did is we created a survey. We went out and did this survey probably five years ago, too, knowing we were going to have There's no middle ground. You got the gap from recreational program that cost you, we'll say $400 on an annual basis, $200 per season. Select programs, I got 3,000 there, but now at this point it's probably more like 4,000 before you start all your travel and all the extra stuff. It's a big gap. There is a demand, we did the survey, and about 94% above and beyond recreational. About 94% that responded said they were interested. And so you imagine the ones that responded and the ones that are interested. There are probably some people that say, I could care less. And then what's our vision? To create some sort of development academy. And it's very skill-focused, not team-focused. So a big differentiator from most programs are creating an academy, then we have teams, Coppell Academy or some other city leagues that go, we're one step above rec, but then they go compete. In soccer world, a year, once you have some talent, they're going to get plucked away by a big club. And I'm just, I don't want to create, do all this work, create a club or academy, and then we get, we still get picked away anyway. So it's really going to be, so the people that want to stay, let's give an opportunity, kids all the way through. The other one that played rec played all the way through. Great experience. My third one, he's been on multiple club teams every year. I don't know where the killer kids are. It's just all the kids scattered about, which isn't a bad thing, but it's not that relationship base that you're trying to want sports to do.

Do you do any summer camps for kiddos? We do. I'm not a soccer person.

Currently we work with Challenger. So they rent it out and they'll kind of go through us and they kind of, with the KSA umbrella, they have a little bit of opportunity to get in and book it early. But it's not that big. Like, I'll push it a little bit, but they also, you know, I'd still like to do a little bit more. So some snapshot of the survey of the folks. There's only 65, so again, you talk about participation. But the response was very positive, overwhelmingly 73% said yes with no hesitation. What are the goals of some of the things we asked? Do you want to play college? Do you want to play high school? Do you just want to play for fun? A lot of them, you know, 70% wanted them to play high school. That's kind of the pinnacle of here. It's still part of the community, right? You've got your Keller soccer high school shirt. That's what people like. Then you've got your 65%. So instead of forming 11 v. 11 teams and going and competing, which is there's restrictions against that, you've got to be a club, you've got to get in different leagues, again, don't want to mess with that. Keep it all KSA versus KSA and hopefully leverage facilities to do that. Enrollment projection, these are just some, we're kind of recommending, where we recommended the board is we put all this together. That conservative number is really, really conservative. I think we could blow by those numbers relatively quick. And I had a guy today that's really passionate about this every year. He goes, why don't you have an academy? I'm tired of watching US soccer not in advance. We need to do something about it. I'm thinking, I'm just a small guy in Keller, right? But he's very passionate about it, which I like. What parents want in the survey are the responses to improving technical skills. That's easy to do at any level with the right training. skills become hand-in-hand. Once I put that player on the field, whether they're playing against top-level competition, a lot of times playing top-level competition tears away that confidence. They're in over their head, and now the next thing you know, the best player on the rec team, now they're on the club team, and their confidence is gone because they're in over their head. How do we continue to build on that? You can walk down the lines there, top barriers, cost, What parents are looking for, two times a week at maybe 60 minutes. These things are all flexible points that we're going to kind of create a baseline and work from there. Summer and winter, I think I'd like to see this more year-round, but this is what they said. I can see it being an appendage to your spring and fall seasons. paying your fees to be a KSA you're paying a plan on your recreational team but on Wednesday nights you come out and practice with a larger group that you may not be with the 7th graders you may be with the 8th graders or 9th graders based off the skill level That skill level is a team-proofing. I think our biggest challenge will be games. I think the mini-season is our best opportunity. You can see not just training, but training, but having games. That's one deficiency in this program. North Texas does allow. Do you have all-star teams? From a bylaw perspective, it's kind of like you can take your recreational teams and you can get three here, three here, but that means you've got to have cuts, and cuts are a bad word in recreational. just part of recreational program. We do that today with Challenger, it's just on a much lower level of 14 kids come out and different levels, but there's no really structure. Challenger runs that structure. We're going to give that structure that we want to run. You can see the structure there, but ongoing. We'd love to talk coach involvement. I think depending on which feeder pattern, we'll get more participation in some and I think some will be like, I'm not willing to help. I just know that's going to be the case. Some will be like, oh yeah, I'd love to come up and help. But any introduction you can get, start that. I think it's a good flow. If you kind of think a small town of football, that's kind of what they do. They're bringing them up and they're introduced to the coaching from all the way from young to old.

It's at that 5v5 deal. I like that, but would you consider it in a futsal format?

I would. I mean, knowing that futsal is kind of coming back there and there's different, I mean, things are developing in my head as we speak. Because it's great for skills, too. Yeah. And you watch all the small-sided just typing in futsal. translate to the big field and that's the thing that people don't necessarily realize. Indoor game does as well. You've got Toker right there. So there's things that we could, depending on how that plays out in the back of the park. I think that was an acronym, I'm not clear.

Futsal is a different, the ball is a different size. So you have 5v5, it's a smaller size, but then you could go futsal, which is a different, it's a different size ball, so it's a smaller ball. But it's great for skills. It's great for ball handling. You play on a smaller field. But it teaches a lot of the select players play futsal in off-season. It's just great for their footwork. It's great training. But it would be kind of a cool way to do it. It would be a good thing to incorporate it into this.

but you think the difference is you kind of, if you've been watching They're a lot tighter. They're not panicked under the pressure. They're under pressure all the time.

And their eyes are like, they just know. You just anticipate the movement. It's a playing space. It's great. And how do you say that? Futsal. Futsal. My son played it and loved it. I mean, it's a great game. But anyway, so I just think.

How to not stub your toe when you're the goalie kicking.

Yeah, that's it, yes. So here's some general feedback that we really did set up. I had a vision of what I thought this would look like a couple years back. But Barry did a good job of going, I don't want your feedback. Let's go to the community. Let's ask exactly what they want, because your vision may not fit with what they're asking for. Fair enough. So we did that. This is some of the general feedback. How do we fill the gap? I kind of gave you some dollar points there. We would be writing that. The proposal would be kind of this. This would be incremental above and beyond their, say, $200 fee. This is just kind of for the next quarter, you're paying $200 to $300 for a quarter's worth of extra work. So it's more, but it's also not the one on the right that you're talking. If you do, you map that out as a substantial savings. Program and vision. Everything at the bottom there is the things that you see. There's nothing about games. There's nothing about winning. A lot of what happens in esports, as you guys probably all know, is winning becomes the biggest thing. Player development goes out the window as long as I'm on the winning team or I want to go to a higher level. Now I'm on a higher level. I went two and eight. The player loses the level of the game because they're getting blitzed every time they make a mistake. They forget about all these things, the ball mastery, technical development, speed, agility. It's an environment you create where these are the important things, and the other things will solve themselves. As you get older, not seven, eight years old, I'm not going to an academy or club and getting blitzed. I'm in a confined recreational environment where we're training these kids to be better at these items first. The winning will come over time because if they get all this at the right age, they'll be successful. It goes into junior high and then high schools and then to college. Yeah. They'll find a coach later on that will be hard off.

I don't want to be at the recreational level at seven or ten years old. The thing is they'll find out a lot of the game too. They'll appreciate it. The chances of them sticking around and playing soccer all the way through is a lot greater by doing something like this instead of getting discouraged and walking away.

So part of this, I know some of this is repeat, but I think it's important on the right hand program. And this doesn't mean they can't leave. We do want players, when they're ready and you're ready to go to the club, that's great. But if I can get another one, two, three years out of you within a confined, safer environment where you're truly just focusing It just becomes this domino effect. So if I can maintain them, but at some point the studs should move on. There are advanced players that should move on and go play in competitive environments, but there's a lot that shouldn't. We just have to give them a reason to stay. So this goes a little more about the partner we're looking for. We're creating an RFP to go out and look for partners, see the things they're going to be looking for, make it successful. for all the responsibilities. Big piece is obviously I'm building up to at the end, field access and facilities with lighting. So it's kind of like, how do we make this work? We have a facility. Most clubs, as you probably get every week, are looking for, I need a field to run my association, my club. These are the kind of way we look at what KSA is going to do versus... We'd be willing to take this on, but we want to make sure they're up for the task. Is Paul still running Challenger? No. No. He's pretty much out of coaching. He does some North Texas coaching clinics. He does want to get back involved, and he may. I don't know. He may be one coach that we bring out. can keep a man keep that because it's not just it's his plan you know again I kind of talked about some of the kids that are playing with their friends for you know 70% of team could be like my boys team it's a lot of started in lakes went through Keller or intermediate and went to Keller middle and went to Keller high a lot of them didn't play Keller high but they all played together as friends and they're still best friends now you know a couple years is you know gonna be seniors in college now so it's one of those things that said they didn't have to do. But if you don't have an environment, you're not getting that support from KSA, they're going to leave sooner. And it doesn't give a coach a chance. So they ask, not necessarily tonight, but I think as time goes on, I wanted to give you all a flavor for the vision of what we'd like to do. But just look at how do we get a little more on the field access that could be, is it part of that $150,000 or $100,000 that we're pounded by? How do we maybe change some fees to make this work where it's not? Now they're paying for that incremental amount. So it kind of goes into the field maintenance, the support of when can we use fields, and there's a night. And then Recognize Academy is just more of something that's really a community feel within Keller. I think that is it. Awesome. That was a great presentation. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of it, because I took the RFP that Barry created and went, what can I start doing slides on? Like, you know what, let me see what this does. And then I went and Tater made it to something that I didn't like.

Questions for Jason? I got a bajillion questions. My interaction with KSA stopped in 1997 when my kids played tennis players. So I apologize for my ignorance.

You played at the old farm fields. that play too that I'd say a little bit longer, or just not care as much as far as the...

I think it's an aging population in Keller also. Their kids are already off into college.

Yeah, I don't know the math. I think the math is there for that. I mean, there's some of that. I think we are aging in place a little. bond stuff that we're working on with the school board as is Ashley who's on the phone. There's a demographic miss right now on that where our numbers are off. The senior class that's coming into the high school here in Keller is a hundred less than it was for last year. There is some trickage there. I think there's all those things combined. I think it's a factor. I also think on the know depending on where you are we get some drain to grapevine we'll get some drain over to collierville to those those associations depending on you know who they're

We're done with KYA baseball after this last season, but my son is going into high school, and sometimes just getting over the track so you get a train.

I've heard plenty of people say that, though. I've heard people say they get over there faster.

were more of a premium program. And the aesthetics of a facility say that a lot. And I'd like to think better run, because I do hear stuff about other associations and people that complain about Eagle Mountain doesn't have their stuff together, or whoever it is, right? But a lot of times I don't know how true that is. I tell them what the president's number is, and this guy's kind of .

He's only gotten one out of his bajillion, so I don't know how you subtract one from a bajillion. What is that one?

That's a good question.

I think so. I mean, I'm just kind of going off the top of my head, but I do have a lot that I live more. Their kids go to Central, Timber Creek. I think I know two of us are in Hidden Lakes. Yeah, you're probably right. It's a very similar makeup. Because that's who we're fishing. That's the pond we're fishing from is who's there and who got asked on the wrong day to be part of the board.

for the composition of your volunteer group?

Volunteer group, a lot of it's the same. Our next level of volunteering is going to be field monitoring, like running the operations of the field on game days. A lot of that, 90% of that's on the board itself and managing that, but I'm constantly trying to bring in But other volunteers just participating here and there. I don't really know that answer, but I assume probably someone.

May I jump in? Are you starting U5 or U4? U5. We've done U4 here and there. I mean, I know I was. The reason I ask it in that vein is because that's the hard one to find volunteers for, because you're literally forming teams. And that, when you form, you form around elementary school.

And then you're just calling every parent that potentially would. I've got six kids on a team. You encourage them to do it, and then I look, I'm driving across the field, and I see that person five years later, and they tell me about, man, we did this, we did this tournament. They're like bought in 100%. I'm like, man, I was worried about this guy making a season. Now five years later, you know, he's all in. And then they become board members a lot of times. So Barry was one of those that he, I saw him at a funeral a year ago. got one more senior but i'm not coaching anymore i want to get back to the soccer he played college soccer his daughter plays college soccer um and i said i may have something for you but you may i need you to be a commissioner first get the lay of the land he hated being a commissioner and then i found another commissioner and i said but i was building you to to jump in this education role because we want to do something like this like we want to do some version of this and i don't and does all the stuff. His daughter's been successful. We met via KSA. We met by doing special skills. Both of our kids were not playing club. We would take them to subsidizing those and different skills through a group called Global Football Training. And I would build my teams around that, too. That little program I built for my teams, I was always like, how do I make that scalable? 250 other teams. Not everybody has the same contacts. You're kind of catering to which level on your team, and then you're going, well, for this group, I can do anything you want. You want to do tournaments, I can find you teams to guest play on. You want to go do extra skills, I can run, I can get you skills every night of the week if you want it. This group, you're happy to show up and get your free uniform, not free uniform, but your uniform, great, come and play. Enjoy the game.

Enjoy the snacks afterwards. Enjoy the snacks. The orange slices. They don't do that anymore.

They don't do that anymore.

No, it's a bunch of... I mean, it is like a goodie bag festival now. It's like a gift bag. No, I'm not kidding. It's like literal gift bags with like 19 things in them. Granted, they're all like nothing. I would feed my own children. But it's a mom. It's a soccer mom.

No, so they're competing against what they can do.

Oh, yeah.

recently with the introduction of field rental opportunities and tournament play. At your current registration level, what do you think the capacity is to increase through rentals and tournaments, etc., and yet keep the integrity of the turf? Where are you right now?

We didn't hit it, but some of the non-successes, or success we got every game in. We had 550 games, and I probably emailed you guys five times a week with reschedule. And it was probably 250 games. I think we had over half our games rescheduled. So what that did was the heavy rain, blah, blah, blah, put a lot of games just compacted towards the back of the season because we lost like a month worth of games. And then we were playing Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and I probably was killing you guys. from something like this that's about all I think we can fit a lot of this program on the turf. Now if you're kind of going how much could we grow from this 1500 number, I think we could get 2000 no problem and keep that same level of field usage with probably some rest periods. That's probably more for the agriculture folks that know that. Because I did see the wear and tear. I was a little worried that they'd end up going down. envision, do we need anything else sitting here six years ago? I didn't envision us going, this is going to go to 2,500, or I think we looked at capacity, those types of things. And Doug and I felt like, we're probably never going to get above that 2,000 mark again, 2,200 or wherever we were 10, 15 years ago. But with the field capabilities, we really just said, we like the new amenities. We don't need new fields.

need to slow down or stop on rentals or rethink tournaments, not something we committed to and then pull the rug out from under you, but just to be mindful of the integrity of the tournament. I think so.

I mean, I think two things. One, if it's a team rental, then I think they go with the assumption that they know they can stop at any point in time. At least when I expressed some concern work. And I do remember saying we can make the decision at any point or make the recommendation to let fields breathe because we were worried about the integrity of our games and potentially safety issues with the fields deteriorating. I did not see that in this one season up until about late May. But I guess my point is I think the field rentals, the team rentals, that's one thing. If it's a program like this where it's a K $300 for a quarter, and you say you can't rent them anymore, that's obviously a problem. Yeah, that's a problem. But I can envision just keeping this all still on that turf field, which the only thing that would stop would be lightning or something like that versus overusage. I don't know what it would be like if you played on that thing every night for the next five years.

We've got contingencies built into that, but you're more or less talking

We're probably resting anyway. I know this is kind of hit on a summer-winter schedule, which might be where you might recoup some of the build time. But I would probably say they'd be more staggered to the season, like maybe it's an August through October version, or like this year, because I think we're, I won't say we're behind, but I'd like to be a little bit further with this pilot that's kind of like we may, maybe October, November, and December type thing.

Get the season up and running.

I can't, I can't, focus on 50 kids over here in a club or an academy versus 1,500 kids that we've got to get uniformed to order and all that stuff. I can't take my eye off that ball. But I do think they'd be more staggered. Like, get something up and running, and now you're running a program. But again, I'd say keep them on the turf. And if the city says we've got to stop, I think it's just more of, We may have to rest the fields.

The section where you talked about shared space. What does that mean? Yeah, I took that as a, what do you need?

What do I mean? Well, I look at this building. I look at Keller Point. And I don't know what's all in Keller Point. I don't know what's all in this building. for some of us, appendages is our opportunity to say, is there some office space around here that we could just use for storage that we could come in and out of to run stuff like that? Or if someone needs to talk to us, like Sunday.

You may not remember, but we used to have the annex building over here where the Cajun restaurant is. And there was a little tiny building next to it and that belonged to the city let Keller Soccer use that for And that gave a little bit of relief for a while. But it was a small space. Yeah, we still kept, we got all our uniforms in there.

We had a little meeting room in the back.

Why not a storage unit?

Could be an option. There's a staff member there that works in there, so it's going to be a climate-controlled space. But that person works there and holds office hours, too.

She still does, and it would be one of those things to reconsider. people coming up. She doesn't have a lot of traffic, but a home base where people know that they're in registration.

I get it. I've been there.

I've done it. We're trying to cut $20,000. Is it $20,000 worth of drop-offs?

I have it priced out. Initially, when we were getting the field house, I was kind of, okay. Doug kept going, you may look at using the field house.

We have the field house that can be used for meetings and try-ons and weigh-in for KY, whatever the case is, it just can't be used for storage. So they would just have to figure out the storage portion. But it is accessible. We just have to work out details if you do ever need it. We have a lock pad on it that each association will have access to with the code. We just have to work out a schedule. So KY and KSA doesn't show up at the same time trying to use it for weigh-ins or uniform try-ons. But it's available just

I'm over there, and we could use their rooms and stuff. So meetings and coaches' meetings, and there's times we use the library. There's times we use the Keller Police Department for a reference. Like any time we have big events or bigger, you bring in a – that's probably all the time coaches' meetings. I need to fit sometimes 50 people in that room. They don't have to be sitting and comfortable, but 50 people to give them a speech about being good people is important. So we could do that over there, but I think it's more about our storage as

The room where people vote in, that room gets rented out. I think that probably holds about 50 people.

No, we've had the coaches. That's actually the room we've

But he's talking about jerseys and... We leverage soccer posts right now, but we're not very happy with them. They deliver stuff there, they sort through everything. But if you need a uniform and you're coaching and you go, hey, this number two is supposed to be youth medium, it's the kind of youth large. We've got to figure out how to get your new red uniform numbers there, can you press it, we'll be over there in 10 minutes type of thing. That's hard, that's a lot to put on them and probably not their responsibility. So as much as we can bring that to me, I'd like to buy a press.

I just bought a press, I can help you out with the pressing business. I'm doing a spirit shop for athletic food. I know about pressing, I've got the... Well we researched them and we're looking

have so many uniform changes that can be placed on the wrong team. So now you need a blue shirt. And I don't have any blue shirts from the coach.

We can talk offline.

Yeah, I was going to say, with respect to time,

Do you anticipate that the next go-around, I guess, would be the spring season? Might you adjust the rates? And I was also really intrigued that says here's the, here's our, here's KSA's competition and where they are. Do you have a takeaway?

Because I've just, all mine's more anecdotal. I go to their website, look up First United, and I look and I go, oh crap, how are they so low?

I think when we started the process, Jason, we had it, and we were somewhere in the middle. Now we're not sure where we're at now.

And there's two pieces of that? You did that work. Two pieces.

I would say... We did resident, non-resident. We didn't do registration, since that is independently... Each organization gets to set their own rates. We just did, and we controlled the resident, non-resident. We only did that research.

Another thing that I can give you that drives our biggest item is the referee cost. So we just did another comp analysis, I want to say, heading into last fall. we lose that, now to run that you need to bump that up. Luckily we have a lot of loyal referees that stay with us, but when I'm refereeing with them, they're like, like where'd you come from? I came from Colleyville, they paid $30 for this game and now I get three games there and I'm over here getting paid $25 per game. Whatever the situation is, but you get that feedback live. Then I go research it and I'm like, lo and behold, we were undervalued, undervalued. Yeah, it's just like other inflationary items that just kind of can creep up on you. So we have to keep doing market adjustments.

This might not be a tactful thing to do, but how do you all feel about a sliding scale for registration with a minimum threshold to allow people with additional resources to be able to contribute at a greater rate? So your minimum threshold pays your baseline. but you have the opportunity to pay, say, $100 more as your reservoir fund to mediate or remediate some of the inflation costs, essentially. I don't even know if that's a viable option based on your technology.

I don't know. And to be honest with you, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that.

They use it in health care, but you put someone on a sliding scale in terms of like, you have a minimum that you have to pay. So say it's 200 bucks a season that you need your athletes to pay. So you put on there, when you go to sign up for soccer, you have $200 and then you have 200 to 50 or, you know, or by $25 increments. So you can sign up to pay for your league and you click the button of 200 to 25 to 52 75. So if you have a family and you just say, you know, like sliding scale, in it, pay the registration fee that serves your family best, the vast majority of people are going to pay the minimum rate, which is fine. You're going to have a percentage that live in excess and are happy to pay $275. So it's like a donation. It's a donation. So yeah, it's a sliding scale via donation, but a way to generate revenue that doesn't tax the people that accommodates for your inflation rates without having outside funding sourcing anything with just like an added revenue button. I don't know what bylaws dictate for you.

We do have a, so there is a rate for so the way that fee so the fees are new right for resident we never had a resident fee until this past year and then the non-resident fee is higher than it was before and there is a max rate for families so so depending on the number of so there's a of kids yeah and so that there already is sort of a, it's not a scale by any stretch, but there is a max out of pocket for a family that they would pay. So that would have to, to do something like that would have to take into consideration how, what the max out of pocket is.

I would say the only thing we did consider, which in the past we would charge different rates per non-res and resident. We did move away from that a few years back. And even this one, when this rate increased, there was a strong contention with the Executive Board of going back to that. Number one, systemically we had trouble doing it and validating it without making Sunday's world a mess. Number two, we also thought politically it was a little bit more challenging with the stuff that was going on landmine and create that division same division within the KSA so it's basically you know a killer residents paying the same as a non-resident yeah and that was that was a tough decision with some of the exact board of how that it's a version of what you're saying but it's so are you saying that you so you're saying essentially that your fee was the same and you absorbed it you did the offset

charge a different rate? I would say the Keller residents are subsidizing. That's what I'm saying, yeah.

You basically charge the same on the... and you... We ran a couple different numbers and being at 60-40, obviously it's less... a smaller group that's impacted by that.

Because KOA doesn't do it that way, right?

KOA charges a different rate. Yeah. If it was in place, we would have kept it, but we also didn't think it was the right time to change it after everything that happened over the past year. That's not the registration fee. That is. That is the registration fee.

That is the registration fee.

But there is a pass-through for... Yeah, a Keller resident right now for early registration, or let's say regular is 205, but that's the same, a non-Keller resident place, 205.

So they just balanced it out.

And we did all the math of how do we to become 100% from non-res based off the extra $40 per fee that we're paying to the city. So we looked at a couple different options, but we chose to stay status quo and not create any more perception issues on that one bullet. I was very concerned about that with this. this moron that KSD is totally different city of Keller but KSA has nothing to do with the city or KSD but at the end of the day it's got the Keller name on it and it's going to create that same perception of division so we chose to avoid it. U11 is when kids have to make a decision if they're going to play recreational or club. From U5 to U10, they can play the recreational game, and then they can go on a different night, play with an academy, and they can do both. The North Texas bylaws allowed that to happen. But at some point, U11 is when they split off, and they say, you can't do both. And so what we see is a lot of times that U11 mark five teams once they advance because a lot of the kids are completely gone. We know at U7 to U10 they're doing both. A lot of them are. But then it's a matter of once they are forced to leave, they have to make that decision. So the target area would be that U7 to U10. And then hopefully as that, if you've got a good program, U9, U10, and they're developing, you minimize the need for them, the U11, to go, why do I need to go a little bit longer.

And relative to the interest and the programming, is there variability by gender?

I mean, our gender is about 60-40, if I remember right. I mean, our teams are kind of split that way. But the program would be gender neutral to where we want the same opportunities for each gender. training may be things that we don't have as much involvement on certain levels of maybe our U8 girls is light but maybe we join them in with the U8 boys and it's not really about U8 it's kind of like this level he or she may be fit better over here than maybe because you're not playing games. For games we do have to keep them separate but training if they're equals from a player standpoint we're trying to get them pitted Male, female, male 60, female 40. And that's very rough numbers. I'd have to double check on that one.

That, my friend, is a bajillion questions. Thank you.

I felt like a bajillion and one to me. All right. Anybody else got a bajillion questions?

No, you were saying it ages out at 11?

We haven't aged it out at 11, but initial pilot, we're targeting more of that younger age group to A lot of like a U12 and U13, those kids have already probably lost them. They may come back. Like my son, he came back from playing club. 10th grader, the last three years he played club this past year, he came back because he was tired of it. But we wouldn't target, say, hey, please come back. It would be more of, let's build this group younger than U11, and then let them mature into staying in that U12, U13.

We're just trying to win the split, essentially, with it.

Got it. Once we circulate the presentation, there may be some follow-up questions that we have. I may just either send them to you in email or have one-off. We do have the subcommittee, as you heard. And that subcommittee is going to be meeting with some some members of council and then there's going to be subsequent discussions and potentially even more committees to do some further research so this information is timely very helpful and again great Great work and great presentation. So when we envisioned this, when we put the user agreements together and envisioned having presentations from the associations to the park board, this is exactly what we were looking for. So thank you for doing a great job here and taking it seriously and really appreciate it. We threw a lot of stuff at you this last year with all the fees and the construction and the filming of a TV show and just all kinds of random crazy stuff that you had to accommodate along with the weather that was fairly rainy spring season. I can't imagine all that you had to juggle. I don't know if people truly took into consideration just how much work It is, as a volunteer, when you look at a $500,000 budget and all the people that you manage on the board and then 200 coaches and 1,800 players, it's a hell of a lot of work. So thanks a lot for what you did. Thank you for what you do. Thanks for what you do for all the kids in this community. We really appreciate it.

I got a quick comment. I appreciate that. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, and this is something... the first part of your presentation, the financials and everything, this is what we talked about a long time ago on the board, is getting this information from KSA and KYA. The numbers, the percentage of resident, non-resident, this is what we wanted, and I love the idea. You coming in here and bringing this to us, opening it up.

I've never seen those numbers like that before. Never have. Good, I wasn't sure, and even when you said, hey, I think Cody said, hey, you're going to be on, I asked if I could come talk like this.

yeah discussion but it's part of the users part of when you saw the new agreement that that's in it and that's that's part of the requirement and so that's what we envisioned and and you hit it out of the park so you said you set the standard hopefully your hopefully your your peers your peers on k-way and lacrosse and the other associations will step up

I see it in soccer. They're just starting with the skills and building them up. Then they go play junior high, then they play high school, then they go to college and play. Start with these skills like this.

It's a cool program. I feel very passionate about that approach. There's a lot of different ways to do it, but a lot of people just go to the money side. I was guilty of it, too, as a parent. My wife is like, I think he needs to go do more stuff. I listen to her. But I mean, there are different routes. And I think there's simpler routes that we're missing. And with the facility, I know it's a big ask. Because I think one of the things we'd consider is going, number one, we could still execute the program, but obviously continue to fund it via the parents. But obviously, if it's a partnership, how do we expand that?

How do we minimize that to keep that

I did see they won on the way home.

I was going to say, did they win today? They must have.

You and most people are saying that. Yeah.

this weekend, the record, right? Next Saturday, the 18th. 8 to 12? All right. When is the commissioner's meeting? I just want, that happened earlier. Tom wants to volunteer to be permanent goalie for the next day. Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Have a good night. Thank you very much. I'll keep emailing you. Yeah, I'll have that updated. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Jason.

I'll have that updated, and I'll see you next week. OK. Thank you.

So you have that. You have Jason's presentation, then you can send that to us. Can I already email it to you? Thank you very much. All right, so let's then go to construction projects, please.

Yeah, so Sports Park is at 95% completion. The water feature, we did a walkthrough today. The community development approved their portion of it. So they'll do the site inspection approval. We're waiting on the fire marshal inspection. And then we're waiting on a sign to go up for all the rules that we have to legally have up at any water feature, no diapers. hours of operation, all that good jazz. And then once that's up, Tarrant County will have to come inspect it to give us the AOK to open it. They have to inspect any water feature to make sure everything's up and running and nobody gets sick from it. So once we get Tarrant County, then it'll be good to go.

So anticipate an ETA of all that?

We're waiting on the sign. December. weeks yeah we're hoping by the end of July we're yeah we're just kind of in a holding pattern it's yes we're gonna plan some sort of ribbon-cutting event maybe having some an ice cream pop-up like we did is that to use the rest of our helmets from the sports park so get out ice cream and do a ribbon-cutting because they'll be hot the legacy restroom is continuing on they're working on the plumbing for that restroom so

Ashley jumped in to give the update on the council there with the KDC deal. So did they lock on that number then for the contingency number that we

so the we're still waiting on some numbers to come in because they're having to rerun the numbers for the wayfinding signs since we are doing double-sided we're able to have the restroom the restroom that stated that that's locked in that's good to go um they're moving forward with that and finishing the plumbing um the rest of it they're still working out final numbers to see what if there's anything else we can add in the contingency plan so but the fraud

Yes. Because just for your information, they came in at $178,000. It was a not-to-exceed budget. I wasn't really pleased about that, nor was Shannon, since we both have a construction background.

Well, they came in at $132,000, raised it to $178,000.

$132,000, $148,000, $178,000. It's, like, moving all over the place. But anyway, so $99,000 is where it stuck. Correct. And so now that's going to be finished when, then?

I don't have an ETA on that. I believe, I think they're hoping before the season starts, but that's not confirmed. I will get that information for the August meeting. Once a month we meet at the sports park to get an update with all the builders, all the designers on the 23rd. So I'll have an update then to give you all in August.

And then, okay, now a wayfinding one.

Wayfinding, they're working on a new design since we're doing front and back. They're able to take some out, but those signs will be a little bit more because they're double-sided. So he's working on pricing on wayfinding signage. But those are for next fiscal year, so we won't get those until October 1. Okay. The arena walls for the public works area is being worked on. The monument signs.

That's in budget, though. That was already in budget.

Correct, yes. And then the monument signs that were already part of the budget, those got started this week by the lacrosse fields. Coming along pretty good. The big, beautiful wall. Yep. Entry wall.

Okay.

And that is construction update.

All righty.

Checking along.

Are we... Did the...

the utility deal get resolved on the the line that they hit um it kind of went back and forth i believe the um hilltop that did it is gonna have to pay for it since they hit it so i know at our last meeting they're moving forward with the wall they just have to go around where they hit, and they were just off by the specs. They didn't follow it to a tee and just barely nicked it. But the utility line is literally right on the easement area.

Is this what the Facebook post was about, where you called in one person, and they nicked the line, and they called in the second person, and they hit the water?

this is back behind the arena by the railroad tracks and it caused all like the arms to come down one day off Golden Triangle yeah it wasn't the other construction projects any questions for regarding construction projects okay all right it's that one update from park board members any news or notes any

did a fantastic job we had five weeks of concerts all the work you guys did it's just incredible it was the best ever yeah every year and we say it can't get any better this it was better yeah the band was wheels off yeah just i do want to say that that color city lights was the most incredible i think yeah first off i don't know what time people started showing up but i

I could tell you. They came. Did you do like a cell phone, did you do a geofence? How many people came?

Yes, we're getting that. It takes a week to process the information, so we should have that next week.

Let's say over 30. So it was a geofence thing you did again, or how did you do it?

So it's with our economic development team. They have a contract with, I can't remember the company, but they pull cell phone data and ping it and... Yeah. All the fun stuff.

But, you know, we did our setup over there like we normally do. And I think that there were more people set up earlier than I've ever seen it. Oh, I know.

My husband's like, I heard there's a bunch of people setting up. I've got to go up there.

It was early.

I don't think I've ever seen something.

I didn't get there until 7, and it was great.

It was great. But the show was fantastic. The drone was a cool surprise and fun. It was. And I saw today that, was that you guys that requested the pictures? Because someone said if you have close to you light pictures, post them here. And I didn't post anything because I wasn't sure that was you.

It may have been Randy and Rachel.

I don't, well, I gotta go back and look at the site because I had been killed neighborly or something. But I was like, I have a tongue. And I just thought stuff was cool. And it was just all the way around first class, first class event.

It did take me 30 minutes to get home. So that's another suggestion. So we... PD had a little struggle.

Yes, we had a... Took me no time. I stayed in the hotel. We had a debrief yesterday and went over the good, bad, the ugly, and that was one of the topics was, and Petey said yes, it was, sorry, I struggled. Some officers deviated from the original plan. They did their own thing. They sent people north when they should have gone south.

Yeah, they let us go left when, in the years past, we were always able to take. Well, they made you take a right. They didn't let you go south.

And then they had one officer at the center. It was one.

I'm like, you're going to die, buddy.

I'm so scared. I was so mad because I wanted to go left, but I was like, no, Matt, they're only going to let us go right when we get in the right lane. Yeah.

So to save time, I'm just going to show you. Well, they should have only let you go right.

And had the people crossing on the left. That's what they've done in the year past.

So this is just some drone footage that we got of later in the evening of the crowd size, just to give you a... Holy moly.

Oh my gosh.

And that whole other field fills in. That's crazy. Yeah, so it's...

It was pretty intense. I don't know where they all parked. It's right in the sunset, so it was around 8, 8.30.

Take this moment to plug a potential bridge under or over. Thank you.

I want to take my bicycle over.

She's thinking. I like thinking.

Thanks, Ashley. This is the front field. I can send y'all this link. It's a little 10-minute reel.

Yeah. Yeah, it was great.

Everybody had a great time. We had all good compliments until people went to leave. They couldn't even get the buses. Yeah, you're great.

Yeah, PD dropped the ball.

It still was a great time. It was pretty cool. I see you right there. I'm doing something.

That's the key turnaround that I suggested because I was asked what would we bring back. Out of everything we added, I said my top two things would be the stilt walkers and Emerald City. So those are my two recommendations to bring back if budget allows.

You can also even do the second tier of Emerald City, because you know they're tiered now, and the second one is still really good.

They originally quoted us $15,000 for the two-hour show, and we got it negotiated down to $10,000. They gave us a break, which was nice, but when we went to book them, I was surprised that they weren't already booked for the third. So I'm assuming that's why we got a little bit of a deal, so I'm sure if I tried to book them right now, they'd be like, no, give us $50,000. I'm like, we could book out next year, but we'll see.

We'll see what the budget is. I mean, the whole thing, though, was...

It was great.

It was great.

Thank you! Another city who I won't name normally gets them, and I saw on social media someone was like, I normally go to such and such city. When I heard Emerald City was going to be in Keller, I changed my plans. Awesome.

Yeah, they go to Flower Mound on the 4th, so they went down the road the next day, but we had them on the 3rd. Great job.

Thank you.

They emailed us and said they had a great time and would love to come back out and their team enjoyed it.

Any other comments from Park Board members? No. No? Any notes for Park Run? Other than you've been averaging 150 people even when it's 150 degrees? Right. All right. Staff announcements.

Senior Center has none. The Point has none. I just have Sensory Swim is August 5th and 6th at the Keller Point. Registration is open now. So it's a time that we close down the outdoor pool for a private swim for our sensory and handicap friends.

I'm sorry. That was super fast. Tell me the date again.

La, la, la. August 5th and 6th.

For the sensory swim.

From 10 a.m. to noon. And it's just $2 per person.

Okay. All right. And then you don't really have any bed stuff goes on until we get to the pool.

Yappy hours in September, and then we have a date night, camp out, playing our best, and holidays.

Here we are again. It's crazy.

We have a little break, though, so we need it. We need a regroup.

Halloween decos are out. What? At Costco. On July 1st, I went to Costco. Halloween decos were out, and we went to one other store, and they were at Michael's, and they were out there, too. That's crazy.

all right so i think unless i am missing anything i think we've reached the end of the agenda i know that was a longer one but you guys got a reprieve on the last three so this one makes it a little uh but that was good that was a good substantive uh one i guess it's that you can't read between the lines and i guess i should have told y'all i'm interim parks and rec director for the time being so if y'all have any questions let me know i'm your point of contact for the time being um and

I think they sent that announcement.

I'm sorry I didn't say something about that. No, you're good. I forgot. I thought we all knew about that.

I'm just, I'm here.

I did not. I just assumed you were saying that. I just assumed you were saying that. So. We, yeah, so. I have a bit of a joking question. Oh, no. Go ahead and start. Can you adjourn the meeting first?

He's doing that after the meeting is adjourned.

All right, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I have a motion. I have a motion. I have a second. Second. I have a second. All in favor? Closed. Thanks.

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