Parks and Arts Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everyone. This is Monday, February 2nd, 2026, and it's 4:02 p.m. This is the regular monthly meeting of the City of Liberty Lake Parks and Arts Commission. We'll start with roll call. Nancy Hill, yes, that's me. I'm here. David Heimbaugh, present. Laura Frank, present. Katie Ferris, present. John Bar, present. Noel Otter, Learco, present. Bob Schneider Miller, present. Joanie Haye, present. Gary Edwards, here. Megan Ballinger here. And with staff today, all everyone's here. Woohoo.

Yay. Um, and staff today, um, is male online. Male Stevens, Garrick Bizanski, and Jen Camp is here with us. And I think that's everyone. So, welcome. We'll start off with the approval of the January 5th, 2026 meeting minutes. If everyone's had a chance to look at it, let me know if there is any suggested edits. Otherwise, a motion to approve. Move to approve. Second that moved by Laura, second by seconded by David. All in favor? I I

oppose. Nay. Please show it passes unanimously. Citizen comments. Do we have any citizens in the audience today that would like to make a comment? Shane, anyone online? Online.

No one online. No citizen comments. Moving on to our action items and discussions and presentations. We're going to start out with the parks plan level of service. Uh SCJ. Uh Jen, I believe you're online and will you start us off with this? Yes, happy to. Um, good afternoon everyone. Um, my name is Jen Dial. I'm the project manager on your parks plan um with SCJ Alliance. I believe you all have um in your packets a a memo regarding the level of service recommendations. Um this is very similar to the content that you saw when we did the joint session with the planning commission. um we've made the modifications that came out of commission requests from that meeting and so this memo reflects those changes. Just as a refresher of of what that was, um when we when we presented back in December on the two alternatives, there was an alternative A that was really keeping your level of service for for parks and facilities. this the same methodology that you had used previously and we kind of gave you some pros and cons associated with that. And then there was the recommended alternative B which refined the level of service methodology to to align with the National Recreation and Parks Association's uh more traditional standards and to give you all a little more um oversight in specifically the parks that you directly manage um or have a joint uh management agreement with. Um, in that meeting, it was unanimous that both commissions um preferred alternative B

as a means to move forward, so long as we made a couple of modifications. Those modifications were to remove um Ridgeline High School and the Selkerk Middle School's um acreage from the inventory because those those um limited use agreements um were not in place as as we had thought. And so we updated the inventory table to reflect that. The um overall difference in your level of service standard was not greatly impacted by that. Um but it is more an accurate reflection now. And we also um the commissions recommended that we reclassify we had been using the terminology pocket park for a lot of your smaller HOA parks and it was the commission's request that we change that classification to be a neighborhood park because it really is ultimately serving the neighborhood rather than being considered a pocket park. So, we've updated the inventory to reflect that classification and the level of service for the acreage associated with those HOA neighborhood parks. Um, we also there was um a wording change on some of the planned parks for um developments that are um to be done in the future. We had to revise I think the title of one of the the parks that was in there. we've made that clarification. And so that's kind of a a high-level overview of just the fixes that we made, but ultimately this is the same recommendation that you all saw back in December. Um I'm happy to to go into more detail on any of it of it if people want, but I thought I'd just start with kind of a highlevel summary.

Jen, thank you so much for that. And I know you had mentioned that as a joint commission meeting with planning we had approved alt B. Has the planning commission voted on alt B again with the revisions or that still has to go to them? Yeah, thanks for asking that. They they did vote on this at their last meeting and approved the um recommendations as presented in this memo.

Okay. So, what questions do you commissioners have for uh Jen? I said a quick question about Liberty Creek and Liberty Lake. Do we have a limited use agreement with them as well? I know you just mentioned removing Ridgeline and Selkerk. We do have recreation agreements with them. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? as you'll see. Um, it's just to orient people to kind of what the the level of service recommendation is. It's on the the last page um of your memo there and it's essentially previously Liberty Lake had one level of service standard that was um solely focused on acreage for the the amount of population that you have. And the recommendation was to break that up so that you have one for acreage, total park, land acreage, but then you also have a level of service standard for those park classifications, including neighborhood parks and community parks, so that you have more specificity on how you um can adapt your park system over time. So, we have requested action that you um would adopt a level of service standard for your public parks and open space of 10 acres per thousand residents. For community parks, a level service standard of 2.75 acres per thousand residents. For your neighborhood parks, it would be a level of service standard of 1 acre per thousand residents. a separate level of service standard for your open space and natural areas of five acres per thousand residents. And then lastly, a level of service standard of a/4 mile of urban trails and pathways per thousand residents. And part of the reasoning for that, just as just as a reminder of what we talked about before, was that gives you the flexibility to, you know, if you wanted to pursue grants specific to community parks or specific to like a trail system, you can point to this level of service standard as that metric that kind of gives you the foundation for that request.

And Jen, if I if I remember correctly, alternative B kind of positions us a little bit better for uh possible grants. Yes, it does.

So, we will need to vote on a level of service today because we're moving forward, of course, with the the comp plan. reminding that um the planning commission has selected alternative B as we did at the joint meeting. Um but now there's been these updates. So keep going with your questions. Otherwise, we look for a motion. I'll move to approve uh supporting option B for the the park use plan. Do we have a second point of clarification? Is that the summary we're looking at?

Well, alternative B, and you can see it in the introduction, but yes, I believe it's the um is it page five? That's the summary we were just looking at on page five. The summary. Yes. And also on the end of six and seven. Okay. It's been moved by Laura and seconded by David um for us to accept alternative B as the level of service. Um any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor? I I

oppose. Nay. Please show that the motion has passed unanimously. And Jen, we can't thank you enough for your guidance through this process. It's been my pleasure. Thank Thank you all. Thank you, Jen. All right, our next agenda item is our 20 year CFP discussion and planning. And uh Ben, did you want to lead us off on that? Sure. Ben Turner, our public works director. There's also a document in your packet that is very large and with very tiny print um that we'll associate with this discussion. So just the

I don't know if it's on.

No, there we go.

All right. So the city is uh initiated the pro the process to begin our 20-year CFP planning. So we put together a working group. Our first meeting was this last Thursday. Uh basically it's broken down into nine or 10 capital classifications. one being parks, another being public art. Uh so those are the two capital classifications that we're specifically looking for parks and arts commission um ideas, things that are missing. Uh the document that you're looking at may include I think one of the things that we put together is basically all the facility costs that we would need for parks and things like that. So taking care of the pavilion uh park uh restrooms, things like that. The facilities are kind of already covered uh over time over this 20-year period. uh to cover ma ma major facility upgrades and replacement things. Um I think one of the things that we're really looking for from this commission is what are we missing and I think the parks master plan will obviously give us a lot of good ideas out of that. Um you know things that are on the unfunded project list. I know we've had a dog park on there for a little while. So those are really the things that we're looking for help with. I think we've got a lot of the facility maintenance type costs kind of covered from the facilities that we already own through our asset planning software. Uh, but there's a lot of those other things that aren't covered through that. So, it's it's new playgrounds, uh, new fields, things that need to be replaced on a periodic basis over the next 20 years that aren't facilities. Uh, as well as public art. I know that we've got a pretty robust public art program over the next few years. What does that look like over a 20-year period? You know, we we've talked a little bit about having a maintenance allocation similar to what we do with streets and some other items. Um, but as we install more art pieces around the city, they're going to need to get maintained and refreshed and things like that because certain things don't last 20 years, especially when they're outside the elements. So, that's something to consider as well when we're looking at the 20-year CMP. Um, so our schedule is is very tight. Uh, we're basically trying to put together this draft plan within the next four or five weeks. We meet every week at the

library. Um we've gotten some great volunteer um candidates that have have um raised their hand to support this. So we appreciate that. Um this from not just this commission from all the other commissions within the city. And so that is basically where we're at. I'm ready to answer any questions you may have. So you're looking for as we look at this very small writing um on this big piece of paper. the uh something in every year under every year like a budget number of some sort or some kind of verbiage that actually details it out like maybe a sculpture.

Sure. I mean if we can do I know it's hard over a 20-year period. Um I think you guys have a kind of you kind of got your five-year plan set out and that's typically what the city plans by. Uh this is kind of a once every uh 20-y year thing where we kind of try to look forward. Uh so finding it I know we've got you've got a couple other things that are probably in your minds that aren't on the five-year budget yet. U if you got anything like that uh that'd be great. Otherwise uh allocations I think are are a good start. And so I think we had kicked around a maintenance allocation of you know $10,000 to start with every year to just maintain the pieces that we have whether that's repainting or cleaning up things like that. Yeah. I mean that's what we currently have in our

budget. So that's that's a start. Um, we're just looking to hone that over the next few weeks so that the council we've got, hey, this is what we think we're going to spend on public art roughly for the next 20 years. So, I went ahead and kicked off the spreadsheet with the two years that we do have pencled out on the budget worksheet. Mh.

And I I took the projects and split them up between capital level, which is basically at a 10,000, let's just say $10,000 project and larger, and anything under that is a non- capital level artwork. That's all that means. So, um the 2027 2028 um are reflective upon the bud the actual budget we're working with right now and then the $10,000 um and the other thing to note is we want these in today's dollars all the way through just 2020 take care of inflation over time. Yeah. So by the next meeting we need to we need to figure out kind of what we have all would agree upon um what 2029 through 2046 might look like.

Do you had a question? Yeah. You said something about a dog park. Yeah. So we we've had on our unfunded project list for several years. Uh the citizens have talked about having a dog park somewhere in the city within our park system. So, that's just one example of an unfunded project that may maybe not not slide in the public art, but in the parks um tab under that because because we're looking at parks and public art as well as a couple several other things, but yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's a possibility because really what we're looking for is, you know, what's missing. We know what we have and we kind of have a good idea of what it would take to take care of what we have. It's the it's the other stuff

uh that that would enhance the community like a dog park. I mean, we've had a semicconsistent budget over the last few years. So, would it be inappropriate to extrapolate that out a little bit, keeping some consistency and then inserting some potential? That's definitely what we're looking for is kind of a normalized budget and that's why we keep it in the same dollars because we don't have to worry about inflation in this particular exercise. But, um, so we would need to final thisize this by our next meeting. our next meeting, our right March meeting. Yeah, that would that'd be ideal. Okay. What questions does anyone have for Ben?

Is this going to be a living document? Is this something every year that you're going back to or this is just for So, this is this is a document that's going to be part of the comprehensive master plan, but it will lead to us putting together those six-year CFPs that we do every year. Um, so those will that's kind of the living document as we move along. So, this will just go into that 20-year plan and then you're using it as a guide or reference, not updating this document anymore after that. It'll go into your six-year, right? The six-year CFP plan will be the living really the living document, but this is really the trying to set up the framework for those a little better. So, so your your best guesstimate

exactly. It's hard to for and I we understand it's hard to forecast that far in the future. Um but uh we're we're accepting any and all ideas at this point. Um when it comes to public art parks, I think if we can extrapolate what we've historically done and then you know we do have some larger projects that have been discussed and kind of put those placeholders. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I mean assuming we're not being held to these numbers, right? That it's at least a starting point for discussion. Yeah. No, I think so. Any other questions for for Ben about the project? Okay. Don't we have you on here twice? Oh, you're Yeah. Don't sit down.

Yeah. Yeah. So, why don't we do this um maybe Jen um in advance of the next meeting? You can just extrapolate out our current budget. Sure. And fill that in. And then we can kind of look at our list of a few unfunded projects which are in no writing anywhere. And there's some at the bottom, but yeah. Are those the symphony and firearms? Oh yeah, I guess there's two.

Okay. So we can use that and maybe if we think um because I think you had mentioned Jen that maybe if every other year every third year we might do a big sculpture piece or something like that because we know they take time we could insert that. So if Jen does just kind of the extrapolation and then we think about this the next time then we can insert those projects understanding we're not held accountable then um over 20 years for this I think we'd probably be in a pretty good place. Does that seem reasonable to you? Oh yeah. I think that's a great start.

Okay. Okay. Anything else for Ben on this subject before we go to the the next item? All right. Next up on our agenda is the Kramer Art Corner landscaping and you can look up on the screen and it's I think it's in your packet. Um it looks fantastic. It'll look even better when we have fused glass in there. But uh that's the landscaping that your team, your budget is paying for the landscaping on this, but you indicated it did not include any lighting. That would be something we would have to do on our own.

Yep, that's correct. So, this was put together uh with our horicultural supervisor Dan Moss. Um so, this is a very similar landscape concept that you may have seen um on the Molter median. I know the mayor posted a couple on Facebook that we've kind of put together some similar um types of landscaping. So, this is this is considered zeroscape. So, that's the kind of the the salt black rock that you see in front of trailhead. Um but we've uh spruced up pretty significantly with service berries. Those are the big white shrubs there, as well as some other native grasses and and some other boulders here and there. So, this is going to go in the front of the sculpture. And the intent is to kind of hide that ugly foundation that we uh we built. See, it's kind of just kind of floating there in the uh kind of in the landscape. And so, the intent is to do this as soon as it uh warms up, even though it's I think it's supposed to be 53 degrees on on Thursday, but we're going to wait till it's really warmed up a little bit um before we can start work on this. And so this is really phase one of that corner because there's a lot going on behind it as well. So one of the things we did this um before it got too cold this winter was we transplanted some trees that were kind of overplanted over by public works back behind there kind of along where the road kind of that road to the apartments kind of runs. So there's actually six trees behind here that didn't show up in the uh in the rendering here. Um, but there's there's quite a bit of space in between the sculpture and the trees. And we intend to kind of do a similar landscape behind there, which may even be available for some additional art pieces. We can we can kind of talk about that later. But, uh, the intent is to have that entire corner kind of zerocape to this. So, it's and somewhat this style over time.

And so, by zerocape, there's no irrigation water there.

No. So, there's no irrigation, there's also no power. That's kind of why I recommended solar lighting um for the sculpture um if that's what the commission uh sees to do um because I mean we're really trying to keep our resources you know where they need to be and if we can build a landscape that doesn't require constant irrigation I mean that's that's ideal plus it'd be fairly expensive to get irrigation to that site. One of the things we are going to wait for for kind of phase two behind there is a Vista's been doing quite a bit of work right there. Um you know gas want to make sure they're done uh tearing up the the turf before we put anything nice in there. But that's kind of the kind of one of the timelines that we're trying to sync up with on the on what's going on behind the sculpture.

Okay. Any questions for Ben about the Kramer Parkway Triangle as they call it? Oh, commissioner. Um, you'll have to go up to the microphone so we can get you on the record. Karen Moley, our art consultant.

Yeah, I'm next. But my question has to do with this. Um, I have service berries in my yard and they now exceed the height of my house. So my question to you is if those service berries are as abundant and robust as the service berries that seem to be growing next to my place on the south hill with no water. What's your plan? So I think Dan was looking for a specific I don't know if it's a dwarf version of service berry but he he had mentioned to me they can get up to 8 feet. I was not aware they got higher than that.

So the good news is we haven't bought them yet. So there still is time to to adjust those as well. So I I'll take that back to Dan and make sure I'll let him know that there he lives on the south hill so that he should be worth it. Yeah, we certainly don't want anything that'll just No, I don't want to block the either. That's the whole point of it is to frame it, not put itself in front of it. Were we entertaining the idea of solar lighting? We Yes, we know we wanted to do some form of lighting to highlight the sculpture. It was now knowing what the landscape plan is and that the lane is not part of that, we as a commission need to decide what the path forward is and and where the budget comes from.

When I found out it wasn't included in the project, I asked Jen if she would have her team look at the location and make a suggestion and so uh hope maybe by the next meeting they'll have that information and we can see what they suggest. Um if they can provide a cost associated with that. We've already spent our budget on the sculpture, but we do have beautifification money and and there might be another option too that we'll discuss when we get into our our project list. Gary, so I might have missed this, but uh could you let me know what is the symbolic meaning of the obelisks?

That's not a question for me to answer. I just got there. The artist interpretation. So it's, you know, the the basalt columns that are in the area. It can be a rolling river, a rolling mountain. It's really meant to be open for interpretation, but it was looking at our natural surroundings and and gaining the inspiration from that. Great. And there are the fused glass pieces that will be inserted. So where you see the circles now, there's going to be vibrant colored glass. Um, we just need the temperature to be warmer for the the materials. So yeah. Okay. Any other questions?

Well, we'll wait until our next meeting when Jen's team has some recommendations and a price associated with that. And when is this landscaping? You said when it gets warmer, so we Yeah. So, we're looking probably April time frame. And if if you guys by then have a chance to kind of solidify the lighting plans, we can work around those as well because I think we want to hide the lights from, you know, we shouldn't be able to see them from the road. work some something in and I think we need to run lighting through will we need to run that through building and planning because we can't do uplighting. Yeah, it is it probably would be considered up lighting. So, we probably just need to get a I'll work with building look at it possibly.

Yeah, because if we can approve some kind of a lighting plan at our next meeting, then that would be ample time for her team and your team to work together on getting that done. Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate the update. Thank you, Ben. All right, our next item up is uh the update of our uh subcommittee first meeting and uh Karen Moy,

thank you. Um we had a rather robust discussion um because it was the very first meeting of the public arts subcommittee. Um Laura, David, Nancy, and Jen and I spent some time talking with um to each other about what the upcoming projects are, and I had a lot of background information. Um one of the things in play and discussion is what should happen for public art for the new city hall building. And I wanted to talk with you guys a little bit about a couple of the ideas that I had. Um, I know that we have to get the plan approved before we figure out what the art actually is, but um, I would direct your view to the screen here. This is the exterior of the existing building. And when we met with the architects, there was some discussion about there being signage and a I guess I'm going to call it a covering um, above those two double doors, which are the front doors. And one of my ideas is that some of the public art might be some sort of relief sculpture that would be in that upper area above the three windows on each side of the front door. Perhaps that would be something that would be like enamel, perhaps ceramic tile mural, or perhaps something that is constructed out of a three-dimensional material. possibly like welded metal with powder coating or something like that. Um the budget is um not completely determined, but I did a little bit of research. I don't think you have enough money to do a fancy relief bronze like the doors on a Renaissance cathedral there or something like that, but um I think that might be a location we would need to

coordinate about what the signage plan is so that it makes sense, right? because you don't want to have multiple styles of things abuing one another on the front of the building. So that's one location and if you could go forward whoever has management that's the interior plan which I'm not going to talk about. I want to go to slide number five here. Um here you go. Stop there. Um, my suggestion for the lobby area is that we take advantage of the architect's suggestion for these port what might be works for um locations for port what we call in my business portable works. Portable works are works that are made um to go on a wall, but they're not integrated into the architecture. They're applied to the wall. So if you decided to remodel that, you could move them to another location. Can we go to the next slide, please? Okay. Um, this is looking back the other direction. The architect has put some placeholders into this lobby area. Um, and we discussed a little bit about what this might be. Um, I know there's been some discussion of this possibly being something that reflects the history and the story of Liberty Lake. Um, I haven't really written this up in a formal proposal, but my thought is that this might be something that has a theme kind of like past, present, and future, which would allow us to reference some of those really lovely historical photographs that your historical society in Liberty Lake has collected, but also maybe depending upon what we arrive upon with the budget, either painting or some other kind of imagery.

that would reflect the present history. And then possibly, if you kind of dig the idea of it, maybe doing something that projects out some kind of futuristic idea of what Liberty Lake might be at some point into the future. And I don't know, I think it's a real gas to see what people think is going to happen a hundred years from now. And then I mean you probably don't spend a lot of time looking at those illustrations of the 21st century from the 19th century but you know we all have these big ideas about what our world is going to be. Um I looked at the budget and we need to have a little bit more refined conversation if you like these two ideas about what it would cost. Um, I'm imagining we might spread it over two years, do the commissioning of an artist for the outside, and then do the planning, but then have the artist for the inside. I know this has a really accelerated timeline for this project. I don't know the exact timeline, but I was really surprised when I was looking at it that the goal is to actually be in this building. I mean, I oftentimes work on things that take six years or something. I think you're probably going to be moving in sometime in 2027, if I'm understanding correctly. So, we we need to look at that. Um, anyway, so for your consideration and discussion would be those as two sites and we could talk about that and then I want to talk about the basketball court mural, but let's hold that off until you have a chance to respond to what I just had to say.

So, Karen, I don't just a comment. I don't know if you're aware, but it's a placeholder in our 2027 lookout, not approved by council or anything, but we do have an additional a 40,000 in uh art for the city building, right?

So, so my question would be, and I'm not going to guess because you have to kind of like come up with the idea. I don't think 40,000 is to enough to do both the outside and the inside. No, but we have 60 for we have 60 now and I'm saying we may have 40 next year. So if we had 60 for the outside and some of the planning for the interior and we had 40 for next year that would be enough I think to do both sections of that. But we can change that number too.

Yeah, we can change if and if and I know Martin Bill Ben you can probably answer this. I think I heard at another meeting that summer of 2027 could be a potential move in date. I see a thumbs up. So, if that is the case, if we use this year's money for the outside art and then we had more money for the inside art, could we start something and get it done and ready before the summer opening of the building? I think what would make sense would be and I don't know how your budgeting process works but to set it up so we do artist selection artist contracts and the first progress payments out of 2026 and do the final progress progress payments out of 2027 for both

so that we could get the artists on board. We know what they're doing. the architects would know what they're doing and that could get integrated into their process rather than waiting to the beginning of 2027 to um identify the artist for the interior. So, use most of the 2026 money for exterior, but start the interior on the last of that money and then be ready for a final payment in 27.

Yeah, that's what I think would make sense. Now, I don't know enough as I only just started at the beginning of the month. Um, so today's like one month and one day or something. Um, I think it would depend a little bit on what other expenses there are. Like if the out if the exterior work was set up so that it was a relief sculpture, probably there would be some expense to attaching it to the brick. And I don't know if there's going to be signs or other things that are installed on the outside, but if there were, we might work with Baldwin or whoever does the sign when they bring out their lift equipment and those things to coordinate, which would reduce the by coordinating it would reduce the installation cost. But that would require knowing things that I haven't learned yet. And you mentioned that for art on the outside, we kind of need to know what the architect is planning for signage on the outside so that we don't clash with that. Do did they give you guys in your meeting with the architect any idea when that information would be available?

I got the sense that it was in the plan, but it was a placeholder, so there's no specific design information yet. And I just talked to Ben and he said the bids are going out and we'll be coming in I believe tomorrow. So we'll have a better sense of who's doing what then. So I think we could discern that information pretty quickly. Okay. What's what questions, Laura?

This is probably more for Jen, but when we look at these projects, like when you talk about, you know, making our progress payments out of this year's budgets, next year isn't approved yet. So how how do we go about planning these because what we've run up against and Karen you've you know discussed it with us and and we're trying to understand how to tackle that challenge of one fiscal year oftentimes is not sufficient to be able to execute a project. So, how do we better plan for multi-year kind of phased payments? And if for some reason that 40,000 were not to be approved next year, we're we're mid projects on two, right? The exterior and the interior. So, what's the what's the best way to tackle that, I guess?

Well, my recommendation off the top of my head is is that we would try to be conservative and only do what we have money for that year. um not not knowing what we're going to have the next year or is going to get approved the next year. However, um I would also bounce that off of our finance director to find out what his guidance is on how to proceed with that. Or Mark Mark, you're here. I don't want to pick on you, but I this is a big project for us, the city hall, because we want to get it right and we'd like to have it put together for the opening of city hall. So if you heard Laura's question, what would be your suggestion? Can you restate the question to make sure I'm answering?

Well, so we have 100,000 placeholders, right? 60,000 approved this year, 40 for next year. And Karen, yeah, this year's isn't 40.

No, I said next year's is not the 60 for this year is. And so Karen's suggestion is that we initiate both the exterior and interior projects with the down payment and progress payment and then the final payments being made next year. But that money has not been approved yet. So, is this a situation where due to the nature of this project and that it's for the the new city hall building, do you go for special council approval to be able to do that or do you just say, well, no, you can't plan on that money being available and you need to scale your projects to what we know we have today. And our general struggle is that these projects, these larger sculpture type projects are taking multiple years. And how do we better plan for that?

Sure. And and so I think the the best answer is that you would plan as though all of those things are going to happen and then as budget development occurs if there is a change uh you just pivot based on that change. Um and so there would be a need to make sure that things are phased appropriately with respect to planning. But there's no reason why if um based on the council's previous approval of the allocation to public art out of the sales tax revenue, there's no reason to assume that the budget itself for the use of those revenues would not be approved.

So you're making project. Sure. And and I would say everything in a year that isn't the current year on the CFP is is the is the same gamble, right? But we're taking calculated risks. And I suppose if there if it was a lean year and we had to narrow down our budget, then that would obviously be the top priority on the budget that or like I said, if you phased it in such a way where it wasn't dependent on the earlier project where I don't think based on what I've heard it is, you could just push it out a year and push it out a year potentially. That's not maybe the ideal solution, but that's a possibility.

Yeah. I don't know how that would work if because what I heard Karen saying is to enter into the contract and lay out the artists and give them the initial deposit on it this year and then do the final payment the following year. So that's that's like we're overcommitting or something.

Actually think you could do if you could do the sculpture Oh, sorry. I apologize. Trying not to bring you out of the way. Um, if you did the sculpture and you plan to do it in 2026 or 2026 with the conclusion in 2027, I don't know how you can do carryovers. Some cities do carryover, some don't. You could do the planning out. I think you could do the planning out of the 2026 budget and then you would have the proposal of what the interior art looked like to go before the council and say this is how much money we need. You could do it as with the artist. You could do it as a staged contract so that if the council didn't approve it, they'd do the planning, but then they wouldn't do any execution.

Oh, I saying we have multi-year um agreements in place that span beyond the current budget year. Okay. I think it's possible. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mark.

Okay. Anyway, so there's a lot to be figured out there, but I mean that seems like those are the two most appropriate areas to focus upon in the building. Um, there are some conference rooms right inside the near door, which is on the other side of this photo where those glass panels are, where there would be a location where you could potentially put a historic photograph or something like a single item in those rooms. Um, if you're like most city halls, somebody will come along and decide to give you something cool from a sister city or the mayor's trip to Guadalajara or whatever is going to happen. Um, and you may have something that appears that seems appropriate to be there in that particular location. So is the next step then back to the subcommittee um to potentially look at you know the outside like you said and then the interior is kind of the the secondary look.

So what as long as I don't and I'm not picking up a like oh that's a dumb idea from anybody. So what I think we would do next is write up a basic scope of work for those two areas in the for the subcommittee to review and then bring it back to the committee of the whole and then that way you would have something to go and I I'm assuming that this also needs to be it needs to come to this body and then it needs to go to council. So I would think that that would be our next step to flesh this out in more detail. No, that makes sense. Does anybody have any questions or about what I just said? Okay.

Okay, cool. So, we'll have a we'll have a subcommittee meeting um which I guess I'm supposed to be scheduling, but I haven't done that yet. We only met like a week and a half ago. Um, the second project which has been, and we talked about this at the last meeting, is the court mural at Rocky Hill Park, the basketball court mural. And I talked a little bit with Jen about that. I reached out to get some numbers around getting the site prep done because it needs to be cleaned and a few things. And I'm still waiting to hear back from the very nice guy whose name I forgot at Aeroc Concrete, Jim. Jim Bettner.

Yeah. Um because he was going to give us some information about the the site prep. Um and I started kind of looking at that as far as what needs to be in the prospectus. I had an opportunity to talk to Daniel Davis because I ran into her at the MAC on Friday night. She gave me a couple ideas from having done a court mural of things she thought. Um, I think I can develop the perspectives fairly quickly. Um, I did have some questions and I don't know if I got it yet. You sent me some of the old ones. There was some complaint or criticism that related to the quality and character of the paint adhere adhesion. Does anybody know anything about that? That should be a good question. Laura,

is your mic on? That came from the artist that did the riverfront park courts. Okay. And I know Danielle used a very specific paint because we had to do a change in scope. I can't remember off. Yeah. So, I know she used a a paint specifically designed for that type of application. So, I I don't know that we've had issues. You guys haven't thus far. It was downtown.

Okay. Well, I know the person who did downtown. I I'll send them a note and ask them their question, that question. Okay. Um, so there's that. And then we have that list, which I'm sure you all have, of the things you want to do that aren't yet funded. And I thought that the subcommittee might want to talk about that in light of this CFP discussion. Um, and then it hasn't happened yet, but um, I believe it would make sense for the subcommittee to get back together with um, our friends from Visit Spokane to try to flesh out because you looked at that at the last meeting, but they weren't here to flesh out what it means to them if you were going to do a designated sculpture park area. So anyway, um, I think that's all I have. Does anybody have any questions for me? I just had a question about because we've never really had a chance to talk about a theme for the Rocky Hill basketball court mural.

Do you want it to have a theme that is above and beyond basketball? I don't know. I know we talked about

um we had talked about I can grab that other mic. Maybe I bet it has a low battery. Sorry about that. Um, I don't think we had talked about a theme specifically for the basketball court, but we did when we discussed doing a mural on the restroom building, having it be something farm related due to the the use of the land before it became a park. Is that also at Rocky Hill Park? It is. Okay.

Yeah, it's it's actually right next to the basketball court's right next to the um the bathroom building. We didn't do a mural. We just discussed it at one point. Okay. Yeah, that's when we talk about our right project list. That was one of them. So, if we I I would say that's maybe the only reason we would want a a specific theme if we're trying to coordinate those two if you're looking outside of basketball. But I don't think we talked about a theme for the court itself, like farm animals shooting hoops or

Wow, that seems awfully literal. But, um I mean I don't know. I mean, I'm going to let you guys think about that. We're going I'm going to work on drafting the prospectus language for the basketball hoop in my experience with basketball because there's so many things you have to do in order for it to maintain the integrity of the structure of the court. Um, and this is only for my Hoopfest buddies who play three on three, who drink beer at my house, which is they don't want it to be too complicated because they don't want to be stepping on something they think they're going to trip over when they're moving quickly. So, their advice to me is if you're doing something thematic to do it around the edges and leave the court itself with some fairly solid planes of cover color so they're not perceiving that there's something on the court.

I don't know if that makes sense, but if you're moving around fast, it seems like it makes sense. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Um, next up is our updated project list. So, your big piece of paper with the yellow on it. Just to make sure that we're on track. We have um our goat statue is still a work in progress. That's a carryover as is the city birthday art. The story walk um was moved to spring. I don't know if there's been any any updates on that, David that you're aware of. Uh the um update to the um uh story walk for the building of it. So

it's on my calendar, too. Because they said spring. I think it's on my calendar for far.

Okay. Either late February or early March, but it is on my calendar. Then our other carryover project was the pavilion historical outlook which turned from a funded project to a donation. Have you heard anything more on that? No, I'll follow up. No. Moving towards our um 2026 projects, we have the pavilion park ticket booth and mural extension, which I don't know if you've had a chance to talk to the artists on that to see if that could be done before the birthday. I sent a note um just reaching out to him asking him if he had room in his schedule and I haven't heard back so I I'll follow up with him

and then when you're asking them I wonder for in that same budget if there could be a touchup I'll ask the question yeah it's not a touchup it's the boards need to be fixed oh the boards need to be fixed is that something that he would need to oversee or is that something okay

see if where that all falls within our budget I'll send it out. The trail head beam project. Now that I've seen the renderings of um the new city hall, that's probably a little too rustic. We may want to save the uh the beam for when the redo of this building is because there's a little more space for possibly if you recall that's the beam that came out of the old trail head building that the mayor asked us to save. So we could I don't really see it going in in this city hall. So, we have that as as a line item, but that could actually help us if uh the pavilion park mural, say the repairs or something went south. So, we can just kind of sit on that for now, but at some point we would probably have to do a a budget change for that. Then we have our city art, um, which is of course what Karen's working on. We have Narin in the budget, which we're so glad you're here.

It's very helpful. still.

No, it's very helpful. Um, we still have beautifification. Uh, we since we don't have money for lighting, I have no idea what lighting will cost, but that could be falling under beautifification. Um, I'm assuming at some point we'll hear some more details from male on programming suggestions for this year. We have our basketball court, which we just discussed, our maintenance, which is also a discussion I believe Lauri you've had. um with the uh yes, we're looking to touch up the skate park at Pavilion Park. It's obviously just wear normal wear and tear on the paint. So, we did get an estimate from the artist who I will connect with, Jen, to see about moving that forward. Oh,

yeah. That's part two. So, we do have more money in this year's budget. I just saw city birthday event, right? Yeah, that's for the second carousel because we were only going to do one carousel this year. Oh, that's right. That's for the the remainder of that project that we paid for. Got it. Okay. So, that's the birthday art, not city hall. Two city things.

All right. Thank you. So, that's our projects for this year. So, we seem to be relatively under control. um other than just getting some estimates and some scheduling to see if we can get certain things done. Um it'd be lovely to get that that mural done before the birthday, but I don't know if that's going to be it's a big project. The extension, I'd have to speak to the artist obviously. I think the the ticket booth building seems maybe more feasible than the extension in time for the birthday celebration.

And that'll be that'll be nice because that'll um be front and center the ticket booth more so than the the side of the building. Is that the when I am able to connect with him is that the priority then if he's the ticket booth?

I think so. So the the city birthday party is going to be at Pavilion Park. We'll have the unveiling of the city birthday art sculptures and then if we can get what we're saying is we're gonna we have the money to go carry the mural around the side of the concession restroom building but and we also have the money for the ticket booth if the artist can only get to one. Are do you think we should prioritize the ticket booth because it's more front and center and it's also quicker to get done? that that would be my recommendation for all. I mean, if we have to prioritize, hopefully he comes back and says, "Sure, I can do all of it, but um just knowing that we have to get the agreement, get it approved, and go through those steps."

Um I I think it'd be smart for us to have a prioritization.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I guess just a reminder to the commission on the ticket booth. We were just talking on where the the ticket booth window insets are of doing, you know, smaller murals within those insets. So it might be a person selling a ticket or um just something a little more manageable in that space. Okay. So it sounds like Laura's got a lot of jobs. Let us know if we can help you with any of those. So, we're not going to do a vote today because we don't know if we're train changing the beam project to something. We'll just kind of wait and see how it plays out and what the budget is and where we need some extra funding and have that kind of just a placeholder for now. Nancy, yes.

Could you remind me the date of the birthday party? I think it's the 4th of July. Okay. Which is a Saturday this year, isn't it? Yeah. All right. Moving on to the commemorative design for the 4th of July. Sensing a theme here at male. Yep. Can you all hear me? Yes.

Yes. So, we've been planning the uh Fourth of July uh city birthday event for the past couple months. And one of our previous meetings, an individual had brought up the idea of doing a commemorative art piece uh like a youth art. So having some criteria where then youth could submit some different um art pieces and then and then the winner would be selected and then that piece of art could be used on stickers or t-shirt or something like that. And as staff talked it was something that we don't necessarily have full bandwidth to do. And then we thought of oh parks and arts commission may have interest in doing something of that nature. And so we just wanted to present that uh to the parks and art commission and see if there is any interest for the parks and arts to uh run with a program like this where so kind of the idea would be do some type of call to youth artist with some criteria. Uh they submit their pieces of art, arts and arts selects a winner. Uh they could even if they wanted to use their uh program, use some of their budget, programming budget to uh purchase the art rights to use. So give some type of prize to the winner and then that art could be used in in stickers or shirts or or some type something commemorative that people could have and or purchase uh at the event.

Would that be like a design for a t-shirt, something like that? Yes. However, the parks and arts commission, if they do are interested, it would be some type of design for like a shirt or a sticker, just something that someone could have to remember this this event specifically. Have we ever talked with the the parade committee? I know they do different design shirts and sweatshirts every year. Is that something that I know they're technically outside of the city limits, but the the parade is something that goes on as part of the happenings in Liberty Lake.

Yeah, we'll be actually meeting with them this week uh or sorry, next week um to just let them know kind of what we're going through. I think the difference would be this would be more city focused. I think more themed towards the 25th anniversary of the of the city type commemorative art. Okay. So, were you I think you had mentioned to me before that it could be t-shirts or it could be a flag or it could be a sticker. I mean, were you anticipating that whatever it is, it's free to the public.

So, that would uh we would have to uh discuss that with with finance. I assume it would be something uh potentially you would have to purchase. I'm not 100% sure uh the details of that. I'm kind of just at this point seeing if there's interest in the commission and then I would put together something more concrete. Uh there's different ways we could go about it. If the commission was interested in say it was a piece of art that would went on a shirt and people wanted to buy shirts, I talked to Kyle about we could pre-sell shirts through our website or through our new rec software and then just have those printed and then those could be given out the day of. So, if it's something the commission wanted to sell to the community, then that is an option and I would have to find out about giving away like little flags or stickers or things like that. I'd have to do a little more research with Kyle.

I remember one time at the farmers market they gave away those little flags. Wasn't that Liberty Lake together flag? Yeah, those came from Kuanas. Oh, those came from and they Kuanas donated them to the city to hand out at farmers market. What does our student commissioner think about that?

Do you think the students could come up with a design for a t-shirt? Yeah, I think if we do like a contest, I think probably at Ridgeline, I think a lot of artists um could submit stuff and then maybe students could vote and narrow down the designs to like top five best ones and then someone here picks maybe. Yeah, sounds good. male, is it possible the project could pay for itself if it's designed by Ridgeline and then the t-shirts are sold for to recover the cost?

Yeah, that's what I would envision that t-shirt, stickers, however you guys want to go about it, that they'd be just charged the cost of of getting them produced. Uh the only thing I could see is if commission wanted to do a prize or purchase the rights to use the students art then that would probably potentially come out of uh your programming budget. We've have we ever purchased student art before because I know it's on like signal boxes. I don't believe we purchased that. I

So this is this is this is a way instead of having to you don't have to purchase it. I'm making that as a suggestion because the city can't use public funds to give a prize where this would be in lie of hey you're the winner here's here's a prize right yeah we've done stipens on all the utility boxes I just didn't know if the photographs that are in trail head that came from Ridgeline if we've done a stipen to the art program or to the students directly or

No we haven't but they they go back to the students so So, Michael, are you talking about that we would give the artist that was chosen as the winner a stipen? Uh, yes. If if that's the way the commission wanted, I know a lot of times if there's an art contest, either some sort of prize at the end and so trying to incentivize the artists to come out since the city can't just give a prize. It would be the commission purchasing the rights to use that art on the shirts. Okay. What questions do you have for male?

I was just curious if we preferred t-shirts or stickers. My experience with t-shirts is when you get men's, women's, all the sizes from small to extra large, it's a lot of inventory and a lot of work in management. If you're handing out one like item to 2,000 people, it goes a lot faster. So, as far as like distribution and things like that would be the thing that I would want to talk about if we were involved in that. Yeah. I mean, we don't want to get in the retail shop business. I mean, if it was online, it would be awesome, but still, when you just

the founders and fireworks coordination group, I think it felt like we were leaning more towards a sticker. Oh, okay. Keeping it simple. Um, because of that exact reason. I know Muel has mentioned, and I'm speaking for you, Muel, that something about people can pre-order and then you only place the order for what you've pre-ordered. Okay. So, there's that option if we do go with t-shirts. But we we were talking that the Fourth of July parade does the t-shirts and do we really want to repeat that? We thought flags or stickers would be a much easier thing to handle.

Yes. But by far stickers would be much much simpler. So if we ran a contest with Ridgeline High School, we could pay the winner the stipend and then we would have to pay for if it was a sticker outside of our from our programming budget and then we could give them out at the actual celebration. Yeah. Well, and I think Muel said if there's interest, he'll come back with a more detailed plan at the next meeting. I think those are questions we need to hash out or items that we need to hash out. But he could he and I could bring something back in March. Miguel, is that too late?

No, but March would be our last probably opportunity to to get it off the ground. Okay. All right. Well, do you have any more questions for him? And if not, do you have an interest in him bringing this forward in March with a more detailed idea? I wonder if we could do like a hat or like a belt bag since they're so in style right now. Yeah. What we can do is put together some options of ideas um when we bring that detailed plan back. Yeah.

And kind kind of what I'm hearing is something simpler kind of one sizefitsall type thing. So, sticker, patch, pin, so I can, like Jen said, I can come back with a couple suggestions kind of in that uh vein of thought. Yeah, I think that'd be perfect. Should our student commissioner also ask like the students at Ridgeline about they want to be in this competition? She can. I'm pretty sure they will because we always usually get good submissions for the art. We'd have to coordinate with the art teacher there. And I'm sure that you could help with that.

So, I think if you guys just give me like guidelines for what the project is, like how complicated it can be and I don't know like what if it needs to be on digital or any sort of specifics. I can just ask I think either Mr. Gent or Mrs. Kronister and then just have them talk to their students about it. Just ask them. Sounds good. So, what I would propose is once we have a plan, um, Muel could send it over to Heather, to Megan, Megan, Mrs. Cronister, um, and also to the art teacher and then it can get forwarded out that way.

No, that sounds good. We'll look forward to hearing the detailed plan next month. Male, thanks for bringing that forward. You're welcome.

All right, moving on to unfinished business. Sorry, our Liberty Lake better together rock garden update. Mara Larson. I that should still be on, but you might have to check the microphone. Well, first of all, I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the Liberty Lake Better Together Foundation for allowing us this opportunity to give you an update on the rock garden. Um we have been meeting as a com a small committee small but mighty um and we have al all na now as of now we have six of the seven um Liberty Lake schools involved um and that makes 1300 kids that will be be participating painting rocks. So we're very excited about that. Um, so right now we're in the process of purchasing the art kits and one of the members of our team is um, uh, has a strong art background and she's kind of leading leading us in that area, excuse me, with getting these kits put together. Once we have these kits, then we will make sure that the each of the buildings get gets them. Also, I didn't mention that the uh, launch academy wanted to be a part of this too. they reached out. So, they're part of it as well as these six of the seven schools. Anyway, all of those schools will receive the art kits and we've we're working on a timeline so that um our we will go to each of the schools. um they will be inserviceviced on this rock painting and what weeks are kind of our expectations and then they in turn will in service their small team and you know kind of on their own timeline get their rocks done. Those then will be collected

and we're hoping that they will be collected by probably miday or excuse me midappril and so then that our we can host our dedication ceremony unveiling ceremony probably the end of May and we're thinking that because of graduation in early June just you know and the high school's involved in this so we don't have an exact timeline yet But that's what we're looking at. So, we're very excited for that and I will have all that information to you hopefully within time due time. Um, we also I've spoken with Derek um Koseni and we're he has been in touch with the landscape company and they um said that because of you know the mild winter they hope to get started sooner than we'd planned. So maybe mid-March, but we're not sure about that yet. Um, what else? Also, we have we're looking at the possibility of having a goat, the mascot goat placed on a rock, some sort of a sculpture on a rock, and the dedication plaque would be a part of that. And if any of you have any ideas on how to direct me to get to the right goat sculpture, I' I'd love that. right now I'm just out there searching for ideas and and um but anyway we are very excited about it and open to questions. I think all of you know I've had this the last time I was here that it's on the corner of um Country Vista and Molter. So any questions?

It's going to be awesome. I can't wait to see it. Thank you. We're really excited and I'm so excited that we have this many participants. um that's bringing our community together. There's nothing better. Um and involving the kids. So, we're very excited. I just keep thinking I hear all those kids. I'm like, I wonder how many rocks per square foot. Exactly. Well, thank you. If there's no questions, um I'll keep you updated. And again, if anyone has any ideas to share with me, just please reach out anytime. So, thank you. Thank you so much. And please thank the rest of the foundation. It's just a wonderful project. You bet. I will. Thanks again.

All right. Next up, micromobility bike safety update. Katie Ferris.

Okay. So, a couple of us from the bike uh pedestrian committee met with uh deputy chief uh Morgan, the Liberty Lake Police, and talked about what kind of educational outreach we can do because there's been so many uh various issues about the ebikes and what are legal and what are not. So, uh, he suggested we talk with the resource officer, uh, at the school that's with the Liberty Lake Police, and I talked to him today, and we're hoping to meet with the principal of Selkerk, and they're going to do some kind of a safety uh, night for parents in March. And so they're going to include something about the ebike and the laws and then the resource officer will do a presentation along with their other things that they're going to do at that uh parent night. So that's kind of our first step to help educate uh the community and be a positive thing. So, uh, we're also hoping this later this spring we'll they'll have a bike to school day, so everyone will be riding regular bicycles and having fun being outside. And we're also hoping to uh have a community park ride that we talked about last year. So, we're going to all get together with the administrator and the and male and pick the date for that, the park ride. So, those are some fun things to look forward to.

That's great. Sounds awesome. I think middle school is a great target audience. Yeah. And there's four trained police officers with bike that ride bikes on patrol. So, they can be a part of any community bike ride or a school bike school day. So, that's pretty awesome, too. Any questions for Katie? Thank you for going the extra mile on the bike program. Get this all rolling. All right, Rainbow Bridge update. Jen, do you want to handle that?

Yeah, so um it will be on the agenda for a second time tomorrow evening for council consideration and approval. Um we don't anticipate that they will have further questions. I think their questions were fairly well answered at the last meeting. Um I updated the agenda item uh a little bit as they had asked that evening. So um again I I foresee that it will most likely be approved tomorrow. Yeah, the council just needed a few more details and between myself, Mara, uh the funer of the project and Jen, I think we answered them all. So that should be moving forward. And then the next update um Mara expects to give is when she has more of a detailed plan um for the site that she's gone over with Jen's team and they're getting closer to construction, but they do hope to start something in the spring. All right, utility box updates. Jen, you want to do that?

Yeah, so everything is uh submitted to CWs and ready to go. They're just waiting on weather. Um, he hasn't committed to a date quite yet. He's kind of planned. The weather's so strange this year. Um, I might bug him because I think we're supposed to be getting warm. See if he can't come out and just get those done. But that's that's the only thing we're waiting for. So, as soon as we have this 50°, it was that with the temperature. Oh,

okay. Any questions on the utility boxes? Then we also have the um plaque for we uh the Rotary Club reached out and if I don't know if you recall, but at the new trail head building they had the art. It's by the water water fountain bottle fill station and they wanted um to do a plaque uh for the artist and showing what the piece is about. So, you'll see this um out of courtesy, they wanted to show us the plaque and make sure that we approved it before they go ahead and order it. So, um does anybody have any comments on the plaque or they're fine with this verbiage? And it'll go, I'm assuming, at the location of the water fountain bottle fill station where where the art is kind of above it in in the rotary in the trail head building. Okay. I don't even think we need a vote. We just that we're good. What do you know what size it is? Just out of curiosity.

That's a I'm guessing it's going to be close to this size with that much writing. Don't know what I'm saying. I don't know. You didn't say find out for you, Laura. Yeah, I was just I mean I have no issue with the the plaque that just presented. I was just curious. All right. Staff report. Derek, are you online? Um, let's see. Park and facilities updates. Uh, obviously we're starting to look into spring. Derek, are you there? Yep. Sorry. I was trying to It wanted to get me to set up a new picture.

Do you want to go ahead and give an update on park facilities? Yeah. Um, so right now park facilities. Um we're just going through doing our daily cleanings. Um taking care of the uh facilities as needed. Um there's a few small projects we've been doing in a couple restrooms without fitting with new uh soap dispensers as well as um paper or uh as well as toilet paper dispensers. Um we are kind of just waiting for the weather to change so we can start moving forward on hopefully uh getting ready for u mowing season to start within the next probably two months. Um, and other than that, it's just kind of been uh stand still a little bit just because of the weather.

Okay, thank you. Any questions for Derek on parks? A quick question. Yep. Uh, do you know if there's going to be fencing put around the basketball courts at Orchard Park? Um, I believe it's budgeted. I need to look at the CFP. Um, I I think we budgeted for that. It's just we don't haven't started that project yet. I was just wondering when when it'd be start. Yeah, let me find out and get back to you. Yeah, because it it is kind of a danger for the balls to be since it's on a hill, the balls if they overshoot, just hit the cars in the parking lot. It could, you know, be a danger. Check and see where where we're at on that and what the plan is. Thank you. Good question.

Um Muela, are you still on? Do you want to provide a community events update?

Yeah. Um, so there's a list of community events that we're working on. First one, we got Clean Green and Bulky Waste, uh, which is all scheduled with Waste Management and Goodwill, uh, for April 25th at Town Square Park. Uh, the same time frame that we've done the last couple years, I believe 8 to 2. Um, and then, yeah, so that will be as normal. Those that are city residents and our Waste Management customers should be getting a flyer with coupons. I believe he said starting they'll start sending them out in end of March. I'll have to double check with that but those should be coming out soon um or mid-Marchch. And then we have Touch a Truck which is normally a library event that we we help out with. Uh this year the library will not be hosting uh touch a truck and so um parks and rec staff is is working on putting touch of truck together this year in one form of or another for 2026. Uh there have been some ideas and discussion about kind of adapting it to be one of our uh more flagship uh events as well. Maybe adding to it a little bit. Um, and we'll we'll have more information as we we start moving along with some ideas and planning on that. Um, I'm not sure how much we talked about last time since I wasn't able to jump on, but we have the Fourth of July event which we the committee has named founders and fireworks which is will be a combination of barefoot and the 4th of July. Uh, tenative time for for the all the events throughout that day will start at 2 pm and end at 10 p.m. with fireworks show. Uh some of the activities that we're looking at is flag raising ceremony, unveiling the new art piece, uh a time capsule presentation, um inflatables, classic picnic games with a twist. We'll have a dunk tank again. Uh Quantas will be doing car show

again, uh yard games, live music. We'll have two bands that day, one earlier in the day and one to end the evening. Uh we're going to work on an apple pie baking contest, a watermelon eating contest, and then for the usual ending the evening with fireworks show. And then one thing to really keep in mind and let people know and the city should will be posting more about this next coming weeks and I think David has something in the splash coming out that there will be no barefoot in the park this year in 2026. Uh just the founders and fireworks event on the 4th of July. Um, and then already been working on home for the holidays for this year, especially purchasing getting ready to purchase lights and displays. Uh, they're a lot they do a lot of sales at the beginning of the year because that's their slow time for sales and so they give a lot of discounts early in the year. So, I'm looking to try to capitalize on those. I have uh some displays that will be going before council I think tomorrow evening uh to add some more displays to Orchard Park and to potentially add some lights and two displays to Pavilion Park. Um and that's kind of what I have for upcoming um uh community events.

And then would you like to provide just a quick update on community gardens and any wreck programs coming up?

Yep. So I'll be super quick. Arburum only has two spots left. Rocky Hill has one spot left. This was the first year that we did online reservations for those and overall went really smooth. Um, and I we normally have everyone come in and do it in person. I only had three people I think came in and did it in person and so I think it was uh a success to be able to do it online. And then wreck programmings, we've started some our new programming this year. We had a climbing class in January that was run successfully. Uh we're doing a staffled program, the police station excursion, police station field trip for prek kids. We have 13 participants signed up split up between two different sessions. Uh we started advertising for our Lego build competition. We already have three people signed up for that. U and that registration goes for a couple more weeks and that will take place in March. Um, we have online right now an assortment of climbing classes and whitewater rafting, scenic river float, uh, programs up and running for registration.

That's kind of what we have coming up. And Muel is working really hard um, reaching out to places like the county to come up with some solution to the swimming lesson issue and desire that we keep hearing in the community. So, he's he's working on it. We haven't uh vetted too much yet, but we've got some thoughts out there, so we'll keep plugging along. And also, kudos to Muel for uh the Rotary presentation last week. That was awesome. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. And Muel, uh are you going to do some changes to the competition of the home for the holidays, like the lighting and all that?

Yeah. So, we already have notes from last year and as we start uh doing the planning for that. Um, we'll make some adjustments from the things that we learned this year. Yeah, Joanie and I could help you with that when it gets closer maybe since we were there. Absolutely. Okay.

All right. And the the last two things I have to add. um staff got together. Um the parks plan will be ending uh the leg work of the parks plan will be ending soon and we still have a park that we don't know what we're going to do with next year, the playground. And so we have information from the parks plan engagement surveys regarding pavilion parks specifically, but we um Muel and I talked and I spoke with um David Gainor and we are going to continue um surveying the community on what they want to see at Pavilion Park and get as much information as possible so that this fall when we go to council with a budget, we have an idea of what the community a really solid idea of what the community is wanting and we can stand before council and say this is what the community is asking for because we have three options really. Um replace like kind just the one structure which is what's budgeted right now. Um re renovate the playground in its entirety and then the third option is also include renovation of the splash pad. Well, there's significant costs to that project. Um, so when we go to council, we want to be confident that what we're asking of the council is speaking on behalf of the community. So we're we'll continue the online surveys and I'm going to work with David on getting the community engagement commission involved. It'll be a very simplistic survey. We'll update it as needed if it's if it's popular or not. Um, but we'll try to get the word out and rely on you you all to help get the word out that we have we will have that ongoing just so we can collect as much data as possible. Then then upcoming council report February 17th if anyone would like to volunteer. Nancy, you're so good at it.

All right, sign me up. No, I'm happy to do it. All right. Any questions on the staff report? All right. Our next meeting is uh Monday, March 2nd. And and if there's nothing else, we need a motion to go home. I'm so moved to agend uh close the meeting. Second. It's been moved by David, second by Laura to adjourn the meeting. All in favor? I. I'm assuming no one's opposed. Pass. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you, Nancy.