Board of Park Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I'm just gonna do a quick sound check-in virtual. Can you hear me?

I can hear you.

Perfect. Thank you.

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the board of park commissioners to order here today on Thursday, 09/18/2025 at 05:30. Commissioners Cleary and Littlejohn are excused. Everybody else is here attending the meeting. Our first order of business is approval of the minutes.

Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Commissioner Wilson? Can you state your motion, please?

We'll move that we approve the minutes.

Okay. Motion by Commissioner Wilson, seconded by commissioner Olson. Is there any discussion on the minutes? Okay. Then can we please vote?

That motion passes unanimously. Moving on to notices and discussions. Are there any notices and discussions? Okay. No notices and discussions. All right. Moving on to agenda item 20 five-eleven 11, request to approve the concept of the Copeland Park train covering presented by the four thousand Foundation. Do we have any yes, we have Deputy Director Trussoni.

Thank you, President Troost. This request is in front of you. Was originally approved, this concept, in 2017 because the time that has passed since then and the new Board members, believe, in conjunction with kind of an upstart again of the fundraising efforts. We bring this back in front of you to approve the concept. That's important because before a shovel were to go on the ground on this project, it would have to come back for final approval. But this is just since it's been so much time has passed to kind of bring this forth once more.

Are there questions from commissioners for staff? Yes. Commissioner Kirsch.

Thank you. So as far as, the materials and color schemes and stuff like that, that would be in the future. This is not on the table right now. It's just the structure design phase as a

Correct. Seeking conceptual approval. Mark from the four thousand Foundation is here. He would be best to answer any kind of detailed type questions on materials, stuff like that. But just looking for conceptual approval on the covering at this point.

Commissioner Olson?

I make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by commissioner Olson, seconded by commissioner Kirsch. Is there any other discussion? I do have one member of the public who wishes to speak in favor of this legislation. Is that still the case? Okay. Does anybody wish to speak to the applicant or ask them questions? No? All right. Okay. I think we're good. Thank you, sir, for being here in any case. Any other discussion among commissioners? Okay. All right. Then let's please vote.

That motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Is there a next step for this that they'll need to be ready for?

Final approval when that time comes. But they have to need some fundraising to be completed yet. Then they have some stuff to do on their end before they come back.

All right. So this is really a first step.

Yeah. They wanted this just kind of as a comfort level thing.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Moving on to item 20 five-eleven 13, request to approve improvements to the Bluff View ball field presented by the La Crosse Youth Baseball Group. I'll again look to Deputy Director Truszoni.

Thank you. So Lacrosse Youth Baseball reached out to us. They have a group of kids coming up now that have gotten to the age where they need a little bit larger field to play on, infield that is. So they brought this request to us. It wasn't something that we had the funding to take care of, but we offered up if they were to fund this project themselves that we would support it and we would bring it in front of you, ask for your support as well. Really, it's a minimal impact to the field. The footprint isn't going to change. It's just an increase in the size of the infield to allow for older kids to compete more effectively in that type of setting. So we support it. They will need any permitting would have to be completed on their end.

I'm not sure at this point if any permitting is required. That depends on the level of disturbance and size of disturbance. But something we would support is just really increasing the size of the infield.

Any questions? Yep. Commissioner Kirsch?

Yeah. Thanks again. So basically, it's just I'm not a baseball person. But it's just bumping out the area that isn't grass. And so it's like putting down dirt and stuff, or is it just making that dirt wider? Or

Expansion of exactly what you're talking about. Yes. The infield portion of it, the limestone kind of infield mix, if you will, will just be kind of the arc will become larger.

Okay. And will they need to use heavy equipment or anything to do that?

I mean, could do it. It depends what they want to do. Scott's here.

But you could use a shovel and a wheelbarrow if you'd like. But they will probably use equipment to do that, yes.

And that's fine as far as the other grassy elements of the park?

No issues on our end, right. Okay.

Any other questions? Okay then. Do we have a motion? Commissioner Olson?

Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Commissioner Olson, seconded by Commissioner Wilson. Is there any further discussion? All right. Then can we please vote? And that motion passes unanimously. Moving on to item 20 five-one one one four, request to approve a fundraising event at Black River Beach Neighborhood Center on 02/12/2026. I'll look to staff member Kate Kroll.

Yes. They are here in the audience, and I believe they would like to just say a couple words. But this is a new event. They're just looking to host a fundraiser for, band concert.

And we do have one person who would like to speak in favor of this legislation. Can I get unanimous consent to go into a public hearing? Okay. Thank you. All right. We are in public hearing. Thank you. And are you mister Barron? Jason Harden?

Yes.

Okay. Can you say your name and the city where you live, please?

Sure. I am Jason Harden. I live in La Crosse.

Okay.

Go ahead there. Sorry.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. So, I'm one of the two band rectors, and mister Barron is the other one at Central High School, and we just had a wonderful idea of having an event for, students to kinda show some of their hard work in performing solos and little ensembles and stuff in a classy setting, which the beautiful, you know, beach house is great for that neighborhood center. So and we'd like to we're always trying to raise funds for our program. So we're hoping to have something we may sell tickets for the the dinner and maybe a little silent auction and that kind of thing for that event. So and if we're all good with it, we'd like to invite you all February 12 for it. So if there's any questions.

Commissioner Kirsch? I'm pretty sure

we would have had this on the legislation, but this is a nonalcoholic event. Correct. Correct. Okay.

Commissioner Olson?

Thank you. Since you mentioned that you might be having, like, a silent auction or anything, are there any other permits with the city or the county that need to be achieved by the group before they have their fundraiser?

We also might do sorry. If you wanna ask, go ahead. Okay. So we also, we're talking about having a raffle. We have a license for that currently. So I don't know if silent auctions are the same kind of thing or not.

I did check with the clerk's department about a special event permit, and at this time, it does not qualify for one. But should it grow, we can certainly connect and and explore that. Okay.

Thank you. I just wanna make sure I just wanna make sure that if you did need one, you made sure you had one so you didn't have a change of plans at this last second. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Okay. Thank you for being here.

And does Mr. Barron want to speak? Okay.

All right. Thank you for being here.

All right.

Is there a motion on the floor? I move to approve. Okay. Motion to approve by Commissioner Kirsch, second by Commissioner Wilson. Is there any discussion? Okay. No more discussion. Then can we please vote? And that motion passes unanimously. Thank you both for being here. Do they know what their next step is? Do we know what the next step is? Or are they good to go?

They're good to go. Okay.

All right. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Liam.

Moving on to Item 20 15, update on the 2025 aquatic season. This is Jared Flick.

All right, everybody. So what I'll do here is kind of take you on a little history here for the last three years of the pools and what the pools have been doing. This would be very heavy in data, so I'll just kind of walk everybody through this. One thing of note that I'll say is, just as a reminder, that Ericsson Pool was closed in 2024. So as you're looking through your notes and everything, you'll see some, you know, some things that are abnormal or skewed.

So we'll kind of really focus on 2023 and 2025 to kind of really kind of look at how everything lined up. But I will say that the the twenty twenty five pool season was very successful on our side. The pool season started on Saturday, June 7 and ended on Sunday, August 17. So the first thing that we'll look at is the swimming lessons. Swimming lessons is always one thing that's very important.

We know it's important to everybody that uses the pools. We saw good numbers at all three locations. We do know that, you know, obviously, Ericsson veterans in Northside draw very different groups of people. We know that at Northside, it is very popular, as you can still see with the numbers, with the nighttime swim lessons. So going from 212 to a 197 to 25, we're we're on that same similar path.

Veterans saw, a small increase from 23 to 25, and then Ericsson kind of stayed pretty consistent between the two. So swim some lessons we saw are good some good numbers this year. We had a lot of wait lists, and there's always lessons that we learn from each year. Some of those are just the heavy demand in the the very young and early levels of swimming lessons. So those are things that we'll definitely look at moving forward too.

So moving along, we'll look at another big piece, and that was our pool reservations. That's one thing that was available to the public. We saw good growth in all of them. We saw the most growth in pool reservations at Northside. Northside from 23 to 25 went from 19 total reservations to 35.

We actually expanded that a little bit to the morning stuff to offer more opportunities for reservations at Northside, whereas the other two pools at Veterans and at Ericsson saw very consistent, reservations. I will say the adding of these reservations has really eased our use of the pools and has really helped generate revenue. It's really kind of locked in some of the spaces that may or may not have inconsistent uses at night. So those are things that we're really happy with how they're doing. So those are the pool reservations.

As you can see, of through some charts we've got here. And then what we'll do is talk about how people are entering the pools. That's usually either by walk up or by with walk up with cash or by pass. Our walk ups this year broke they get broken up into adult and youth. The fee structures for both are the same, but we do try to break them down break them up so we can kind of see who's accessing the pool and what times.

But we did see some consistent consistencies from 23 to 25 in the adult side. We also saw some real consistencies on the youth side with year to year. One thing that we started tracking starting in '24 is our free pool days. In the past, we just really just kind of opened the gates, and it really didn't help us by kinda figuring out who and how and everything else. So in '24 and '25, we were able to kind of track the thousand people in '24 and 1055 and '25 that came to those free pool days.

We offer three free pool days a year. They are Father's Day in June, military appreciation day on the July 4, and then we do a customer appreciation day at the last pool day, which is August 17. So those are good. We also offer free admission to veterans at Veterans Freedom Pool. We started tracking that in 2025 as well where we had a 122 people walk up as veterans and use the pool for free.

So so that was good too. One thing as we look and stay on this page is something that we try to evaluate how the pools are used and how people are accessing the pools. And kind of going up going backwards, you'll see that we we generated a total of a $129,000 in total revenue at the pools. And of that, $60,000 was generated of people walking up with money. So there was those that didn't physically buy passes or do anything.

They just literally just walked up and and used cash. That's something that we'll talk about internally if you know, do people not know about the passes? Is it is there a barrier to get the passes or or what what that is? But that's something that we'll we'll kind of keep looking at as far as our process and our customer service. We'll scroll through. So when you get to the next page, it would be our next way of how you get into the pools. We offer family memberships, single pool memberships, and our punch pass. Our family memberships, we saw, again, very consistent movement between '23 and '25. We did about $14,000 between the two. So for family membership, so that was really good.

When we go to single pool memberships, those are not really as popular, but there's still something available if you're a single person and wanna buy a membership. But the one that's heavy that we know of is the pool punch pass, and that's one thing that the that the city residents get as their discount to get into the pools. So that's one thing as we talk and try to advertise is kind of the city residents discount to use the pools. So with that, we saw consistent and even a little bit of a decline in how the Punch Pass was used, but that's something that we'll keep looking at to moving down the line to figure out, you know, is you know, if if you use the Punch Pass, it's $2. If you walk to the if you walk into the to the pool, it's $5.

Like, we're really trying to push people into buying that punch pass. So one thing we started this year was actually offering to sell the punch pass at the pools, but it seemed like it really didn't help steer the sales of punch passes. So that was something that we still gotta kinda figure out our way through, but that was interesting. So it just seems like people are just you know, they wanna use cash. Right?

It's just what it's an odd thing for us, but it's just kind of what's there. So and then we'll go to the second to last piece of information, and that would be how the pools are using through their daily visits. So I will say that the 2025 season was cut short by about seven days from normal, and that was kind of in response to the school district's changing of their scheduling of the when the skill the kids came back into school. So I wanted to show kind of an average to kind of look at how the pools are being used on average too. So, generally, Ericsson, for dailies between, you know, 15 you know, even Ericsson is dropping a little bit from even previous years where it was seventeen, eighteen thousand down to 15,000, and then this year down to just over 13,000.

Veterans, you know and I will say now I'm trying to, like, not look at 2024 because '24 would be it was inflated because Ericsson was not open, so people were kind of scattered through the city. And then in '23, veterans went from ninety nine zero three to this year, eighty five eighteen. And then Northside went from forty seven eighteen to 3846. And then really what the the the big look at is the average. Right? So Ericsson went from a 199 people per day to a 188, you know, with a little bit you know, Robbie kind of asked me about weather. Like, there you know, this wasn't a great weather year. Right? It was gloomy, rainy, so that may have had an impact. Veterans went from one twenty four to one eighteen, very consistent.

Northside went from 59 down to 53. So consistent, but we saw declines kind of across the board with people that were coming through on an with these average visits. So when you scroll to the last page, you will see our budget statement for the aquatics program for the last three years. Between 2023 and 2025, you know, our numbers for revenue under pool admission fees are very consistent. We went from a 125,000 to a 129,000 operating three pools, So that was good on our side.

We had a a budget, a budget revenue budget of 120,000, so we did achieve that. And then when you look at some of the other, categories between LTEs, you know, our lifeguards, we were able to achieve our budget, about 179,000. We spent 190,023, so that was good. Our team did an excellent job with managing the staff that we had on those rainy days, sending staff home, you know, not giving people around when not needed, so that was good. And then throughout the rest of these categories, we do I will say the '25 budget is not closed yet.

We are still maintaining and weatherizing and closing the pools right now, that number is not set. But we are sitting in a good space with the 2025 budget as far as our expectations. We are waiting to kind of see on electricity. That is one thing that we're waiting for. We are hoping that with kind of the new renovations to Ericsson and then Ericsson pumps that we'll see some efficiencies with with that project. So but everything really was in the 2025, it did it did go in a really positive direction. And with that, I'll take any questions. I know I just word vomited a bunch of data on here.

Commissioner Olson?

Thank you, president Troost. Jared, I got a question. I'm sure you've looked into it. I just I don't remember. Is solar something that would work at any of the pools or not to help with the electricity and everything? We've

looked at it. There we go. We have looked at it, but it really we haven't seen those real efficiencies at really any of our locations that have solar. I mean we've seen them at a couple of parks, but not really. I mean really it's the going to the VFTs, the pumps, so they're not going 100% all the time was the major piece to what the renovation at Ericsson was, that's something that we're still kind of working through.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

I don't have all the charts you were referring to, so could I get them later?

So

can I ask a simple question of clarification? So the revenue is $129,000 for the pool season, but our expenses are $345,000 for the pool season?

Yes. Correct. That's currently it's actually going to be higher as our utility bills continue to come in and our maintenance is complete for the year, but that's going to be that's pretty close. Yes.

So the other 200,000 is made up in our operating budget, in the department's operating budget?

That's correct. And as you see, like, in 2023, the two it was 248,000. Right. And then last year, operating two pools was $181,000

Okay. So none of our admissions or fee generating programs can anywhere at all cover our operating expenses?

That's related to Aquatics?

Yeah.

Correct.

Right. Okay. But this is a public service, and we don't necessarily expect it to generate a profit because it's a service for the community, just as long as everyone understands that. And why the Parks Department asks for the operating budget that they do is to cover these services, which we see are consistently used. Mean, we don't see a huge drop in the usage.

Any other questions? Okay. So I guess we are just receiving this report, and I don't think we need any kind of a vote. Okay. So any questions online? You guys okay out there? Okay. All right. Okay, thank you. So moving on to item 25 dash one one one two, request to approve the outdoor water recreation fee structure for 2026, 2027, and 2028, and we do have some attachments. And, this will be our representative, mister Dirk.

Thank you, President Troost.

Yep.

I believe everybody's got the attachments. I'm here tonight to ask, for approval, for fee structures for 2026, 2027, and 2028 for all three city mooring facilities, all five public boat landings, and all of the boathouses. I will certainly ask or answer any questions that you may have.

Commissioner Kirk. Thank you. I think well, first a statement, then a small question. I think these are pretty doggone reasonable, especially since they're graded in, then they get advanced warning. So can you remind us what the fees are used for?

Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. That's my main

Absolutely. Fees are used to maintain all of the facilities, make all the improvements, make all the payroll, and I'll I'll give you a few examples. Last year, we put in a new, fishing pier at Green Island. That was $50,000. We had the funds to pay for that. The year before that, we refurbished two fishing piers at Petty Bone Lagoon. That was 60,000. We have the funds for that. Three years ago, we put in an ADA compliant kayak launch at Vets Freedom Park. That was $25,000.

We had the fees for that. I am extremely proud, to tell you, and I think park management knows, for the last nine years, the revenue generated from all these facilities, has made them all self sustaining, has put a few dollars in the rainy day fund in case we need to do unforeseen maintenance, paid back part of a million 4 that was borrowed to build the municipal harbor eight years ago, nine years ago. Not 10¢ in the last nine years has come out of the park department's operating funds or the city's general fund to maintain, these facilities. And we have some of the best facilities, on this side of the state. So I'm pretty proud of that.

Pretty proud that this board has approved everything we've done along with park management. It's an awesome thing. The people that pay the fees and use it should, and it's not a burden on anybody else that doesn't use the facilities.

Commissioner Young.

Thanks. Sorry. I forgot to hit the other button. Hopefully, two simple questions for you, Gary. One, is the transient dock in here somewhere?

The transient dock at Riverside Park?

Yes. No. Okay.

We charge $10 for three hours, and that I don't anticipate us doing anything with that for several years.

Okay. And boat landing fees, I see, are flat, which is fine. But do you see, boat landing expenses on the horizon? Are those pretty much set?

We are we are pretty consistent on expenses. We are very consistent on revenue. If you notice, that only goes through '27. For '28, we'll take a look at what other municipalities are doing as far as charging fees, and we'll also look at what the state of Wisconsin charges at their state park for fees. We're only allowed to charge no more than what they charge, and we are less than what they currently are.

Any other questions from commissioners? So it looks like the water recreation landing fees didn't change at

all. Correct.

But the other two did.

Correct. We just raised rates at our boat landings in 2024, and we haven't had an increase in our boat landings or in our mooring facilities for like three years.

So that's so you're if you hadn't done that, then those might not be going up either? You're saying they're due for an increase? Doctor.

I think nothing is cheap anymore.

Doctor. Yes.

It's if you look from '25 to '26, it's no increase. '26 to '27 is about 3%, and '27 to '28 is about 3%. The increases are minimal, but it will allow us to absorb any increases in maintenance fees, I think, over the course of the next three years.

Yeah, okay. But the boat landing ones didn't go up? Correct. Because don't need to?

We just had we just had an increase Okay. In '24. Okay. And the boating public pays attention to what goes on at those pay stations, I I think we'll we'll be fine through '27. We'll take a look at '28.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Certainly, one of the things we've discovered is that user fees, people can tolerate gradual increases, but sudden increases, like in our storm water utility fee, kind of makes people gasp. And so it's what you're doing is incrementally increasing fees, which is much more tolerable.

I would I would agree a 100% with that statement, and I can tell you that, some of our older clientele that are dyed in the wool fishermen, don't look too favorable on us if we even go up a dollar. And in the same breath, they'll say, god. You guys have really nice facilities, and my reply is, you cost money. You know, thanks for the compliment. We're still cheaper than what the state is. You know, if you got any problems, here's my phone number. Call me. We'll take care of it.

Okay.

Alright. Thanks for your help. This is the first time I've gone through this process, so I appreciate you explaining

No. I appreciate the questions.

To a new person. Any other question? Yep.

Thank you. Gary, are there any projects in this timeline through '28 that we have planned at this time?

There is some talk between park management and I about expanding Copland Park Marina. There is some talk about maybe another fishing pier. And there is some talk maybe another kayak launch somewhere. You know, that seems to be pretty popular.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions? Can I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Commissioner Olson, second by Commissioner Kirsch. Any other discussion? All right. So please vote. And that request passes unanimously. Thank you so much for keeping us

Thank you.

Where we need to be.

Appreciate the support. Yep.

Our last item of business is 25Dash1116. Request to appoint two members from the park from the board of park commissioners to the City of La Crosse slash school district pool collaboration group. And we have a mission statement attached to our agenda, which I thought I would read. The city school swimming pool planning committee will explore opportunities for the city and the school district to collaborate on an area of mutual interest, our pool facilities. The committee will evaluate the status of our current pools, explore opportunities for meeting our communities' needs through collaboration, explore opportunities for partnerships with other organizations in our community, and refine options to present to the school board and city council for consideration.

The objective of the committee is to develop options that meet our collective needs, create efficiencies, increase opportunities for our students, and improve the amenities for our residents. Are there any other statements that any staff would like to make? Any questions from commissioners?

Commissioner Kirsch? Yeah. Actually, I do have a question. How long do they foresee this participation to be needed? Like, year, two years, that sort of thing?

I would say less than two years, maybe one year. Yeah, one year. Any other questions from commissioners? If there are no objections, I would like to appoint council member Weston and commissioner Kirsch to this committee. Are there any objections to that?

Then can do we need to can we vote on that? No. I will just note that in the minutes that the two appointments were made. Okay.

Alright. Is that by unanimous consent? Alright. So this is going to be the committee that there will likely be other entities also on this committee. It doesn't necessarily replace the work that's happening between director, Doctor. Engel, and the school board operations person. So there's two levels that we're moving forward on with this. Okay? All right. All right. That's the end of our agenda. Agenda. So I will call this meeting adjourned. Thank you so much for coming in this evening, for your service on the commission. Yep.

Thank you. And thanks to the staff who are here till the end of the day. And thank you to the folks in the audience there. I don't know if there are any questions you wanna ask folks after we break up. So thanks for being here too. And thank you guys for calling in to us, mister Albert and councilmember Weston. K. Good night.