Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

So I don't know if you heard what I was saying. In order to be an official meeting, we have to have a certain number of rec commission members here. We're not sure what that number is. I think it's five. I know it's not two or three. So we can't have an official meeting, but we can still have you speak. we can discuss that if you wish okay yeah i would hate to have to have you guys come out and then say whoops not enough people here that's your fault so you should be able to be heard so who wants to go first i will okay what is your name i'm calvin williams are you at the high school yeah i'm a freshman okay not for long

Okay. Just go? Yeah. Okay. I've been skateboarding for a while, and it's one of my favorite things to do. It helps me get outside, stay active, and have fun with my friends. The problem is right now is that there's nowhere for us to skate because I've tried skating. I like the schools and other places. but I've gotten kicked out, or it's just not really fun, so I leave. Previously, me and my friends used to be able to walk over to the skate park after school, and it was nice to be in such a convenient location for us, because we could just walk, especially since a lot of kids aren't old enough to drive to other skate parks, and it was good to be in walk distance. I used to be able to go to the skate park three or four times a week. and I have lots of good memories from there. Having a new skate park would give kids and teens a safe place to skate, scooter, bike, and hang out. It would also keep us off the sidewalks and other areas where people might not want us to skate. A skate park isn't just a place to do tricks. It's a place where people can make friends, learn new skills, and build confidence. I know that my younger brother and his friends in middle school, they all used to skate and create a space that many people could enjoy. Thank you for listening. Thank you.

Very well stated.

Yeah, I just wanted to add a couple points.

How about your name first?

Oh, sorry.

Okay, don't tell me you have to flip that over to read your name. Come on.

I'm Alexander Samoset. I live at 4 Foucher Road.

Can you spell your last name for me?

S-A-M-O-I-S-E-T-T-E.

Okay. Probably makes sense.

All right, yeah, so I just want to add a couple points on what he said. You know, a lot of kids in school want to have a local skate park in London there, you know. And if we don't have a skate park, we skate in the street, and skating in the street is dangerous. Parents don't want their kids just like staying inside playing video games and stuff and skate park gives you something to do outside be active and We could start a fundraiser or something to help rebuild it because it was deemed unsafe I agree with you guys

When the skate park was built, I worked to get the skate park. We had a group in town and there were a lot of people that weren't for it because I don't think they understood skate parks or anything and I don't think I understand going up and down on that little thing. Because if I fall down, I'm going to get hurt. So I would never do it. But I think kids need, if that's their activity, kids need to be active. I agree with you 100%. I don't care what kids do, as long as they're doing something.

Especially because a lot of team sports, some people don't like that kind of stuff. Or they aren't able to qualify for a team.

Very good points. So I kind of wrote a little bit longer. I did go to, like, Manchester's one, so I saw it was a little bit different. So I have a decently long speech, but not too long. We'll go through it. Anyways, my name is Woodson Mondesir, and I'm here tonight to advocate for the development of a new skate park in Londonderry. Yes, specifically a new skate park. At its core, this proposal is about community. It's about creating a space where young people, families, residents of all backgrounds can come together around a shared activity that promotes physical fitness, creativity, personal growth, and social connection. I am a Londonderry resident, a husband, a father of two, a consultant, and an active skateboarder. who is looking to help the youth learn about skateboarding or just how action sports can build adversity. I started skateboarding at the age of 30, I'm 36 right now. So pretty late and never looked back but always forward and it was because of living in Londonderry. I played just about every sport and found success in many of them and you'll probably continue seeing me playing sports or coaching my kids as they grow up. But there's just something unique about action sports. There is no other thing out there that teaches you mental toughness as much as action sports do. And that could be skiing, skateboarding, anything that's an action sport. Just build different people. Beyond recreation, a skate park brings diversity of ideas and experiences to our town. It becomes a gathering place where people from different backgrounds, age groups, and social circles interact, like debating over presidential elections or even Fortnite rankings. It encourages mentorship between experienced writers and beginners. It fosters friendships and creates a sense of belonging, like me. I'm part of an age 30 plus year old group called LDP, which is literally named after the skate park in London area. In today's world, where many young people spend an increasing amount of time indoors and connected to screens, we should be looking for opportunities to bring them outside and into a community. Escape Park does exactly that. It provides an environment that encourages healthy activity, face-to-face interaction, positive engagement without the need of joining a team, exactly to your point. Building self-promotion I encourage the town to explore the feasibility of a ski park, engage residents and active skiers in the planning process, and consider this project as a long-term investment to a continued successful future of Londonderry. Choose concrete instead of rotting wood. sports as you did in the past. Create mellow obstacles, add more visibility to ensure park, upkeep, and most importantly, don't change it to a pickleball court as much as I have fun playing pickleball. Just don't do that. And thank you for your consideration.

I'm going to give you the breakdown of all of this. It breaks down to needing money. It's expensive. We don't want to build enough. That skate park was 25 years old. We had it inspected because we had gone down there to do our inspection. We're not experts at it, so we brought somebody in and they said, ooh. And when it's... it looked good on the outside for some most parts yeah when it started to be taken apart it was like oh it was rotting yeah it was rotting yeah the wood they had wood down and then metal on top of the wood yeah the screws that they used weren't not stainless steel we had replaced those over time um and it just so Doug and I had talked at length, and I saw the skate park in Nashua, which is all concrete, and it makes sense to go with concrete. The problem with concrete is...

It's expensive.

Expensive. Well, how much do you think?

Probably 20 grand for the whole park, maybe a little more.

If it were 20 grand for the whole park, I could probably raise that 20 grand by this weekend. Add a zero and multiply it times at least two. That's how expensive it is.

Cost per square foot on average is around $50 per square foot. So a park of that size, you're looking at around $840,000 project to do concrete with the ramps. You look at something on a smaller scale, that's something you can look at more cost affordable and then talk about expanding and phasing out from there. future years. We appreciate the feedback we've been getting. Just so you all know, we are in contact with the gentlemen that have shown up at the town council meeting, working with some local businesses to start crunching numbers and ideas of what's a viable option, whether it's down there or somewhere else in town. What else could we do? Obviously, with the price tag, that does make a grander project harder to get to, whereas if we look at smaller projects, that might be more viable as we phase that out in the future, too. Timeline-wise, as with anything, it's town stuff that can go to icebergs, snow's pace sometimes, but we are working on it diligently with the groups that we're talking with. to get an assessment and kind of a plan forward that will get presented not only to town manager but to the town council as well, and this commission too. So everybody will be weighing in on the different ideas. Obviously the skating community has been very vocal, so it would be something we'd be talking with whoever designated the leadership of that group as well. Just so you know, some of the background that has been worked on and submitted for capital improvement projects too is I think Deb is well aware, she's seen there's two different projects that were submitted for that space down there and a new space all together too. Where that is, I don't know yet, but something to discuss.

Any other ideas for what to do with that space, is that what you mean?

We have not even, we haven't discussed that, but I did, I got an email from one of the high school teachers who some kids came to her and wanted to form a pickleball club at the high school. And I said, not down there. It's not safe because over time, 25 years old, like your driveway at home, it's got some cracks in it and some weeds have come up and it's just, no, not yet. So personally, I'm retiring soon, but my stance has always been, no, we're not going to, we don't take away from one group for another group. So if somebody wants to have pickleball, okay, they can attack the pickleball problem, which I think we should have, but I also think we should have this, have a skate park.

Yeah.

But I wouldn't take something away from skate park because there's 20 people over here saying we want to do this. Yeah. That's not fair.

You can also argue too that like pickleball could be played at like tennis courts, right?

It can, but according to state standards, we should have like 20 tennis courts in town or 16 tennis courts in town. We have four.

Yeah, only four, yeah.

And the high school team plays at our court. And we're trying to get the courts redone because they're in, the lower court is 50 years old.

Okay.

So when you knock on the spots on the, even the upper court too, you knock on it. You get that hollow sound underneath, which means it's not good. It's not going to last much longer. Oh. So. Yeah.

What's the, what's the, do you guys mind me asking, what's the budget, like, that London Air has? For? For a skate park. Zero. We don't have any, we have like. Is there like predefined, there's a like allocated budget already for something?

No. Do we have that kind of like fun that... Yeah, like a... You can say it. Say the word. Like a slush fun type thing. Don't say that part. Don't say that.

We can't use that word. We don't believe in that. No. How about rainy day fun? No. Appropriate or not appropriate?

That's what he does for a living. So no, there isn't because it's very tight. Okay.

I'm going to interrupt. Could you share what the rec budget is? Because I think you'd be surprised what the actual rec is. I don't know. Roughly.

I mean, $100,000? $390,000 total dollars. That's including two part-time positions and our part-time maintenance staff as well.

Right now, we don't have a full-time person in recreation. I'm a part-time director. He's a part-time rec director. We have a part-time maintenance guy who... takes care of the fields up at Lafa, Nelson Road, and West Road. And we have some part-time grass covers. Guys that just sit on the mower. So we have nobody full-time. We get a lot of help from DPW, but they've got their own projects too. So we're giving an idea. Dairy's budget, I can remember one year our budget was like 200,000, dairy was 1.2 million. So- Yeah. And we may do because we get a lot of volunteers. Laffer's all volunteers. Soccer, football, basketball, they're all volunteers. So we've had a very skinny budget. Okay. So typically, kind of like, have you read anything about the Morrison House, the Meeting House? You should, because they're looking for money too. Because the Morrison House was built, you'll know.

17 something. It's not old.

It wasn't the oldest building in town, but it was way back. It was moved. It was moved. And it was moved and stuff.

It was the original town hall.

And it's failing. And there was a warrant article to

Fix it.

Fix it and build it and get it proper, and it failed.

Yeah, it was $3 million.

That was like a 3, 3.1 or something like that.

Yeah, I see what you're saying, but I don't think we need anything crazy for a skateboard. You don't have to, like,

to design it. He's not. He's got probably a friend who's an architect that might. I do have people, the same people you're talking to. So there are people that, you know, we've talked, that Deb's talked to that are looking to help out and design it. But it's just costly. It's like when you get your first car, okay, and mom might say, what kind of car would you like? And you're going to say... I don't know, Maserati or Ferrari. And she's going to say Toyota or, I don't know, maybe a small Chevy. You know, it's just, it's a tough thing, but it breaks down to money. I personally have never voted against anything for kids in town. I've been in town for 50 plus years. If it's for kids, I vote for them. Not everybody's like that. So I think the big part comes for people to help out is to get people out to vote. You can do whatever you want with fundraising and matching funds and whatever. But if you don't get people out to vote, It may well fail. And then that's it. Then you can't... They have this strange rule that if I hit Powerball and I win $2 billion and I say, the vote goes down for the skate park. Okay, no. We're not going to spend any money. And then I want to donate a million dollars.

No means no.

For one year. For one year. They can't take my money and build a skate park even if I want to give it to them. So there's laws you have to go by. I know, kind of silly, huh? But that's the way it is. But you've got to get the vote out, and that's painstaking. Nobody wants to do that. People will do fundraising stuff, but they don't like knocking on doors or talking to people or have your mom call four of her friends and ask those four friends to call four more people, and then it just spreads.

So it's like voting, it's like it's a crowdsourced thing. Like you have to actually go out and like get local town people to sign up. Neighbors. Neighbors and yeah.

And if they want it and get them out to vote. Right. What percent of people voted in the last election?

We have 18,000 registered voters and roughly 4,000 voted. So I don't know what the percentage is, but it's... during presidential elections, but they never come out for the town stuff.

Which I just have a problem with because we get one electoral vote, or what do we get, two? I don't know. And it's like every dollar that we allocate stays in town except a little bit that goes to the county. But that's where you guys become important. Just getting the ties snugged up, tightened neatly, go knocking on the doors, you know, and talking to people about skateboarding and how we need

And that's down the line as it gets to the ballot. Prior to it, it's displaying and demonstrating that the funding sources are there. So whether it's certain percentages is budgeted by the town, part of the Warren article, as well as maybe matching costs that are coming in from such things as sponsorships. different types of funding so again we're looking at that too there's there's certain grants grant opportunities out there but it's hitting the cycle at the right time so i know it's a difficult thing you know whereas it got closed down and there was it takes something away and there was no nothing to be able to put back in that place right now so i know that that's leaving kind of that gaping gaping hole but um you know behind the scenes as soon as the wheels are turning we are trying to we are working on something so i know it's not it's not as fast as everybody would like trust me we wish it could go faster too

Would the idea be to still use that same kind of area, that same

So people I've talked to, we're looking at two different options. We're utilizing around 17,000 square feet, what that footprint is now, and then if it's moved somewhere else. Like I said, kind of a phasing out, smaller project. There's some examples we've talked about in the area. I'm not thinking of the towns, but they've put in 8,000 square foot facilities and stuff. It's a little smaller. I think Bedford did that recently. Bedford, though. I think there was around a $500,000 project for 8,000 square feet. So depending on what it is you're looking at. I know talking with some of the group too, they're looking at asphalt over concrete. So our big thing is sustainability. It's one of those things where we're not in this same situation 10 years down the road. Because everything that's happening now as we maintain and fix these projects is how we're going to maintain them. So how are we looking 10, 15 years out? How are we allocating for that? And some of that's generating revenue streams. Again, we're getting down the line a little bit, but once that park's in place, it's like, let's have camps and clinics and instructors there that are bringing in some sort of revenue source that goes specifically for the skate park. It doesn't go anywhere else. So we've talked about that with LAFA and with soccer as well, and some of the other groups in town. It's like, how do we start doing that and allocating that so it stays as a appropriated funds for us to use for our specific recreation spaces in town. But again, that's getting down the line. It's fixing these things first before we can even start doing that because there is no skate park. now doing there are plans in place it's just a matter of knocking over the right domino at the right time the advocacy is huge too I mean what you're all doing right now is that keeps it alive it doesn't just disappear I've been on the other side of that where in another town where there was a lot of fire in the beginning and it completely smoldered out and now the basketball courts no one even lifted a finger or cared so so this has not been the same here which is good

Any questions, guys? No. I think what you can do, if I were in your shoes, I might be going online and looking at different skate parks, new skate parks, and looking at them and see things that you might think you would like. So when somebody, hopefully, somebody says to you, well, what do you think you guys would like? You're going to know. Instead of saying, yeah, I don't know, but. You know, and look at them and figure out how big it might be and all of that stuff. But this is, it's not a kid problem. It's an adult problem. The kids can help with that. Because I like to think that the skate park would be to accommodate 30 plus year olds. and eight, nine years. I'm very pleased that you guys came tonight because I had said to somebody, I think the demographics of skaters have changed. I wasn't seeing as many kids up there as I used to.

Yeah, I saw that. That's why I came. Yeah, good job, man.

Because when we first opened, the first day that we opened, we had the ribbon cutting. Kid had to be like nine or ten years old, broken arm. And the fire department was there and, you The age is getting higher and I didn't see as many younger kids coming in. So, but it should, in my opinion, it should be designed to accommodate not just skateboards, but.

Exactly. All type of action sports. Yeah. Bags, scooters. Yeah. Should be pretty mellow. Yeah, you probably have a good idea about it too.

Because the people that put forth the Warren article didn't want Bicycles on it. And when I asked why, well, their pegs on the back will scrape up the metal. I never saw a sign of that. So we started letting bikes in, but bikes didn't really, and then when the scooters came along, that was a big boom to get some kids skating.

I think you guys are working with the right people and, yeah, looking at everything really well. That's why I think everything you said was the right progression, I think. But now I guess it's up to the people to actually go out, vote, and start crowdsourcing around it and getting people to advocate for it.

That is the key, is to get the vote out. 22% of the voters voted. 22%.

And that's just because we had nice weather. And we had a certain element, the library. And so if you didn't have those big things on the, if you didn't have good weather, you didn't have the library, we would have had a regular 2,000 voters out of the 18. That's usually the average is 2,000. That was a good year last year. A lot of people showed up.

But I can't tell you enough that you've got to get, there's got to be a lot more people involved. Because like you can say to your mom, I'm going to up it now to 10 of your friends. But if you get like 12 of your buddies or 20 of your buddies, you each bring in somebody, and then you knock on some doors and you talk to people. That way, things will get. And if you don't, it could be the best project in the world at a great price. You're going to have people donating this. They're going to be doing that for free. If it doesn't get passed, then we can't. Even if somebody gives it to us, we can't do it.

An interim lockdown of it was just to prevent safety? Is that the main idea?

I'll tell you what I saw. Some of the metal was deteriorated, so there were holes in it. There were screws sticking up. Tried to put screws back in, and it's like, nope. And when we had the expert come in, at one point she just turned around to me and she shook her head, like she was amazed that it was still up. I was down there when the DPW took the metal off and had it, they recycled it or whatever you call it, they brought it to the metal guy. And then when they started taking the wood down, I was looking at the wood and I would not feel comfortable walking on it.

Great setup. I thought it was well designed. Very well designed.

And people seemed to love it, but it was just... My first car was a 1937 Pontiac. Four doors, beautiful car, running boards. It was, I saw it, that's a car I wanted. I paid a hundred bucks for it. Compared to today's cars, no. I would never take it out of the city because I was afraid it was going to break down. But it looked great, and I thought it was special to me, but the new stuff is so much better. You know, you talk about the 65 Mustang, what a great car that was. I had one. It was, compared to these things, it's a piece of junk. Couldn't go in the snow, got lousy mileage, looked cool, but... So the new ideas... that were put in for purpose, that they're better. Just like equipment in sports. Except in baseball where they wear 42 different things so if they get hit by the ball they... Football helmets have improved so much over the years. You guys wear helmets when you skate?

Yeah, sometimes.

See, the one in the back is smart. He said yeah right away.

I usually don't.

It's going to make you living with your head, not just skating. Yeah, I know. Remember that? Yeah? Do you have any other questions? No? And if any, you know, the town, if you're on Facebook, we have a, we don't, I don't have a Facebook presence, but Doug has a presence on Facebook. So stuff will go up there, and you can always write us a letter.

So how far away are we from getting the amount of buildings we need?

districts and towns as a profession. And one of the most amazing votes I saw was we had an outgoing million dollar renovation. And they're like, there's no way it will pass. The 18 year old seniors in the building got it to pass. And he's like, my God, I'm retiring in June. And now I got to do a capital project fund. So you as kids can do something. You've got people in that high school building who are legitimate voters who can go over and have their vote be heard. You know, even though you're not technically a property taxpayer, you are a legal voter. I've been doing it 22 years. It's the most amazing vote I've seen. so you guys have power to go out and make something happen on your own I've seen it happen it does happen all the time but it can happen but that's a demographic you can hit I remember when this thing passed I think I might have been in high school I didn't think it passed then and it passed it wasn't close if I remember correctly Art you probably remember better than I do it wasn't close because they had a bunch of parents that were working on it they had two parents spearheading it and a bunch of parents that were working on it and they just

network. Is that the right word?

I think that's one of the amazing things about this community is they do come together for things that mean something to the community. So if it's meaningful to you, I think you'll find there's other people out there that will support it. It just, it takes effort.

And you may have to go, you may have to go after the 50 year old guys who haven't skateboarded in 20 years, you know, but they did, you know, like The Restore the Rec, the basketball guys, they raised, that's all self-funded, the new basketball courts. Because there were enough people that have played basketball up there and they helped them with it. But be patient, it's a slow process.

What's the timeline? So we're saying, yeah, what is the timeline? What's the deadline, timeline to... decisions will be made, things will be in, things will be, like, what's that look like?

I don't even know. So the budget process is starting earlier this year, but you're looking at department budgets and then they'll start, you know better about warrant articles and when that's done.

There's warrant articles for a citizen's petition or?

Just one article if it goes through, you know, we're looking at capital.

Two different paths with the warrant article. One is through the town council. And that means the council has to endorse what you're doing, support it, and then it gets put onto the ballot. Or you could do a citizen's petition where you collect 25 signatures of registered voters, it gets put on the ballot, you get to present it, you put it out there, and it gets voted on. So that all happens around November, December. And then the election is in March, the second Tuesday? Second Tuesday. Second Tuesday in March. I'm not sure if it's the first or second.

Gotcha. Okay. And then March. Okay. Usually a blizzard. Nice.

You can do absentee voting.

That's true. Right. Go. What, mail-in ballots or whatever? No, you go right into Taupo and you do it right there.

So I still have to drive in.

Yeah.

I will tell you this, though. It is difficult to get things to pass. without working with the town council. Because if they don't vote, they don't vote on citizen petitions articles.

No, unless it's about, unless it has a budgetary number to it, then it's a, whether they support it or not, because it's a financial, if it's got no financial.

Yeah, then there's no vote. But if, if there's no one to somebody, if I were to write a citizen's petition article for $500,000 with the budget committee.

Yeah, we both liked that one that was $950,000 that was brought forward for the Morrison House. The council voted against it because it had a number to it, but we didn't vote against the letter ones that Paul put in. Remember to go up to Compton. Yeah. Because it was an advisory thing. There's no financial point to it. But it has a financial... part to it, then it ends up that the council will say, oh, we're in favor or we're against it. And the budget committee will usually chime in on how they feel. Okay, and when you look at the, if you've ever voted, you'll look, it will say council votes, you know, 5-0, budget votes 7-0, or 2-3, or whatever. And that, sometimes people just look at what they did. They don't even read that.

A lot of people do simply look at that.

If you're campaigning, you better start now. You've got the concerts, you've got Old Town Day, you have all these people out and about because it's nice weather. Once the school year starts, you've got... limited access to large crowds of people and weather plays a role.

Interesting.

Okay. It's not an easy thing to do, but I think it's a very, very much worthwhile activity. Because I think if you have, I don't care what, and I said this before, I don't care what kids do as long as kids are doing something. Other than sitting on their phones, or, you know, watching TV, you know, to get out and be active. Kids' bodies are like race cars. They're not made to just sit and idle. They've got to race. They've got to go.

Yeah. I have kids. I want to take my kids to skate park.

So at some point, there'll have to be some kind of meeting or something or whatever. Yeah.

And we'll assess projects once we have more information. Once we have enough information.

Any questions? No. Thank you guys coming in and speaking. This is to me. This is a big deal. This is my final. Commission meeting because I'm retiring from this, but to see 2 kids come in to me is very hard. I've been doing it for 43 years. It's about time. We need new blood. He's the new blood. But for kids to come in here and advocate what for what they want to do is, I think wonderful. You know.

I agree.

And to start skateboarding at 30.

Yeah. It's not easy. But I like doing different stuff. So sign me up. I'll do it all. Awesome. Do you have any questions, Mom?

If there's anything else, you can pop us up later. Just shoot us an email. Yeah.

is the one I'm going to connect with. Is it Pillars Skateboards? What are they called again?

No, he didn't tell me who he was speaking to.

No, like they're, because they build skateboards. So you might have seen him skate more than that. Yes, okay.

You're going to find me out. I'm just getting information. Yeah. Yeah, if there's any questions, I'll be happy to tell what we've submitted. We're juggling summer coming up and camps and all that, too. We're limited with what we've got for manpower and womanpower as well. But, yeah, any time we need information, we have to be able to. All right. give me a drink yeah thanks for coming thank you good luck with everything absolutely

You're an adrenaline junkie. I'm a guy that just likes to be active. I like to do stuff.

Yeah.

If you name it, I'd probably die. Make it happen. Thank you. Nice to meet you, neighbor. Nice to meet you.

Good job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Want one?

There it is.

No, that's fine. That's going to be, I mean, I feel for them, but it's just an uphill battle. I'm sure they're seeing and realizing. But if they start, no. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. I think it's, but a lot of it's when they want it done July, you know, and it's not, that's not, even if it gets voted in, it's not until July next year that we can start using those funds. So it's... Right. It's a couple, you know, it's a junior high school by the time we get started on the project.

But if they start and they keep pushing it, they build a bigger base.

Well, what I'd like to see is even talking to, there's all this private real estate going in and people with their own properties, like would they be open to doing funding that on their own, on their own dime, essentially, you know, if they want to give back to the community, there's ways that they can do it.

It'd be nice if we had impact fees.

Yes. Yeah. We didn't bring that one up, but yes, that's one I know that town council wants to go after too, Debs specifically. I mean, I even look at the Lions Hall parking lot. Why not just create that into a skate park area? People are all worried about where the location is. It's invisible. It's next to a church. It's near the police station. We've got the space next to the Grange over here. There's town-owned property that can be developed even on a smaller scale. That's why I keep that location.

It wasn't, I mean... They're never the issue. It's the high school kids that are whipping around and, frankly, doing other things up there they shouldn't be doing.

Those kids kind of stick to themselves. It's not necessarily the skaters that created the problems up there. It's the hangar runners because they'd go down there and they... Yeah, I don't think it was...

I mean, in my perspective, I'm there all the different times of the day and week, and it's not that. It's the kids who have...

they conjugate that's the same kids who tried to break into the lighthouse down at nelson softball field that burned the porta potty trying to break in there there's bases yeah what are they looking for i have no clue you know um i just think this is the optics of it there's the stereotype of it so putting it in a more visible location but some people wanted it there. They thought it was good because they knew it might become unsightly, which is the same reason I didn't want it there. I don't know. So, I don't know.

Is there another thing to add to the list? It's not that we're not working on it. There's a lot of things on that list.

There were a lot, a lot of them.

Do you want me to just jump into some of these things? I know it's not a quorum, but.

Typically, I'd go through them. Yeah. But quickly. Yeah. So CIP. I'm already in jeopardy, so that's okay. Yeah, sorry. So CIP. It starts at second. I was going to say, wait a second. Yeah, that's when the meeting starts. I don't take any chances.

So CIP, you kind of heard me say that we submitted some of those projects, obviously two of which were different versions of the skate park. We did even submit something down there. If it was pickleball, we've submitted over at LAFA for a bunch of the requests that were in there from lighting to dugouts to drainage to turf. turf field for one of the fields as well. Fencing, that's right, fencing. Same thing with the tennis courts, just redoing them entirely, phasing that out. Some of those projects are phased out, like lighting at LAF would be phased out. I know there's a meeting tomorrow, so we'll see where we land on some of these things. Usually have a pretty good idea where a rec lands on some of these things, so we'll keep being creative and figure out ways to get these things done.

I went and took pictures of all the damages, too, and we attached that to the CIPs, so there's an actual visual component as well.

Yeah, so she built that out, which is great. Sakura's fencing, some of the ideas, I think we looked at some of the ADA compliance and things along those lines. So, again, we'll have some more information, I guess, by the end of this week, so hopefully by next meeting we'll know kind of where we stand on that. Then we're going to be entering into the budget season as well, starting that in July of this year, so they want us to start getting that information together. Obviously, mine's going everywhere with where we need to build up and beef up probably that, those funding sources too.

Sorry, just if they were to say by magic they were able to raise money between, say half a million dollars. between now and, I don't know, the fall. They would still have to wait because of, okay.

Yeah, it would be what Restore the Rex essentially did, but the basketball courts where they brought it to us, they brought it to the council, the council is going to warming embrace that and say, yeah, it's just a matter of, does it line up, do we want it there, or would we look to use that $500,000 to reallocate it somewhere else? That might be something on our end, department-wise, where we might discuss that if we're talking about other projects that might have more tread at that point. That would be the only thing. But you know, they wouldn't have to wait to the voting.

The town council has to vote to accept the funds. Yes. And if they don't accept the funds, they'll be rolled out of town. Well, yeah.

Well, it depends on if they were. So Restore the Rex was a nonprofit, 501c3 status. So they were collecting the funds. So it was more just... there was a formality of making sure it fell in line with knowing that the council was supporting what the department wanted so that was kind of where that project so it would be similar to that so because they're not it wouldn't be unless the sponsor's coming to donating it directly to the town to for those purposes then then they'd have to approve and there'd be a whole i'm sure public hearing and all sorts of stuff for them so when you win the lottery yes if you want it by then he's going to win

What I do is I... You've got two more meetings, sir. You don't get to just... No, I don't. I'm done rec-directing the end of June. In August. No, I'm... Go to rec-directing. No. I'm an assistant. I go be the assistant. I don't want to be called. The art will be on the mission. Do you know how many times I have to sign these things today on the computer? Sorry. Every five minutes. Bing, bing, bing, bing.

It says I already filled it out. I'm just going to sign it.

I know. It used to be like, yeah, it's okay. We have formalities now, which is probably the best way of doing it. The systems are going to be in place. Once it's in, it'll be much better.

Jump in, restore the Rex update. I don't want to... go too quickly on that. They had their opening night last Friday over there. So it was Friday the 8th. They actually extended beyond that because the lights got on and everything. So I want to say they had about 200 people probably. Kids of all ages, families of all ages. They were giving out swag. They did different little tournaments and three-point shooting contests and all sorts of stuff. Really awesome job by the five of those members of the Restore the Wrecks board, who pretty much did everything. So it was nice to be there, be part of it. I know they gave praise to the town, but so much praise, more praise has to go over to what they did and accomplished. There's still some things that need to be fine-tuned to find details up there, but they'll get done. It's been hydro-seeded, so the grass will start coming in, and then they're going to start adding benches. Again, they're phasing out the project, so now that it's there, they can start hosting their own camps and campsites. clinics and all that to start fundraising. It'll go directly to their nonprofit to continue doing that. And we're going to look at, like I said, eventually looking at revenue streams up there too. So there's some opportunities that can go back into maintaining those courts so that they don't fall into disrepair again. But a big thank you to them. It was a great turnout. They had a good night for it. Old Home Day, we just had a quick meeting about that. So there's been a little shift this year because now they have the committee. So recreation really is just kind of overseeing the color run now, which is something we've kind of been at the forefront of the last few years. Anyways, so that and the police versus fire softball game is back on. So they're just doing one game. That's what they want it to be. So we're going to help manage that game. So I'll probably be in touch about umpires again. Yep. It's just the one game. So that's fine. Yeah Something just to put everybody just so you're aware where would there are gonna be needed volunteers this year? So that week it's August 12th to August 15th There once we get the schedule of the varying activities and the times they are any looking for volunteers So if members of rec Commission can help with certain aspects of that, that'd be great We can keep reminding in the next couple meetings as well. We'll have two more meetings before them. I updates on my end we're wrapping up spring programs pretty much this week women's basketball wraps up on Friday Sam's been helping with that with reffing and playing because she had to one day because there weren't enough people so she got the full internship experience she never played basketball she did a good job she did not embarrass herself A lot of people had zero to be fair.

If you ask me how many times I shot it, I had a bunch. You were getting closer.

You've never scored in basketball on a shot you didn't take.

That's right. I tried.

So tennis will be wrapping soon. Spring tennis will be wrapping soon. And then track as well. So tomorrow's our mini meet for ages 5 to 8. So that will take place at the high school from 5 to 545. So that's always just fun. They get medals and stuff at the end. And then our big track meet is on Saturday. And that's, like I said, that's all the towns from the state come. And it's actually going to be at Lender High School this year. So we're set there too. Let's see. And then just quick updates on Summer Playground Program. I told everybody we're maxed out. Waitlist is closed. We're still adding names, but basically, unless somebody drops off, we're not going to be able to add anybody else. We're going to start training staff the week of June 22nd. Sam's been working with our co-directors on kind of getting them in line for all their details that they've been putting together. And we brought in the senior counselors in this past week. to update them. So now all the senior directors of that camp are now kind of in line. Everybody's heading in the same direction before we get to the rest of the counselors and continue heading in that direction as we've made some additional changes this year. So Sam's been really very helpful in getting that, keeping them in line, keeping them on task too. Voyager Camp starts this month on the 24th. So we are going to be hiring. We have a new counselor getting hired this week. We had one of our counselors step back because they got a great internship at BAE. So that's kind of his forte. So I wasn't going to begrudge him from doing that. But we were able to fill that role pretty quickly, which was great. And then we put out some late summer offerings. We obviously have the summer fun round we talked about that happens. We're going to have two different variations of tennis, working one with the USTA. They're the ones that provide their instructors for certain age groups that we're not able to accommodate with our own coach. And then we hired Juliana Schwartz, who is the high school girls coach, varsity girls coach. So she's going to be starting to do the grades three through 12 lessons. And we've got flag football and yoga, adult yoga, taking place at West Road for eight weeks starting the end of this month, too. So they have five different offerings there. It looks like Wednesday right now is the most popular. So midweek, people need to do stress, I guess.

Where is that going to be?

By the pavilion. So I talked to Mike. He said it should be fine. Okay. Yeah.

We just got to make sure. Yeah.

sure it's good over there. And that's all I've got on my updates. Do you have any updates?

I mean, you pretty much went over everything. We already talked about the CIPs. We've just been putting out flyers for all our new programs. I mean, other than updates with Summer Playground Program. Nope, you pretty much went over everything.

Doesn't sound like she's busy. I don't know how she gets it all done as quickly as she does. So that's nice. I thought I was good with computers. And then, oh, now it's you. Boom.

Facilities are in good shape with the exception of the gold mouths, which is a typical thing at West Road every year. And as Sid will say, well, we'll get them fixed. Other than that, everything, we had some problems with leak at LACA.

um with irrigation which just goes with the territory um equipment wise we're fine sorry there was one more thing with facilities i know i've i messaged you but just so soccer's aware too uh we were starting to conduct um oh yeah yeah inspections of the concession stands did you were you able to see that email today i didn't know okay um so do i want to no So fire is the only one that's done it so far. So fire has gone through and looked at everything. So they've put together their report and their findings. Our building department will go through on Wednesday for both buildings. So we'll have more. And right now we're touching base with the state because we can't do it. If they're a health inspection is needed. Um, we can't, we don't have anybody in town that does that. So we'd have to come from the States. We're touching base with prime X, but you might be covered under being a, uh, nonprofit voluntary, uh, concession stand that it doesn't need the health inspection, but, um, uh, more details, hopefully in the next day or two about that. But there are some findings with both concession stands that we're going to have to address, um, you know, within the next 30 days for the, at least for the fire department. So in order for the, those aspects to be operational and that's stoves, fry laters, things along those lines. So, um, just so you're aware. So I did send it over to Mike and I sent it over to, well, Mike, all the mics, all the mics have it.

Except for me. Except for you.

I know I should have added you. Just keep adding the mics.

Do we need to have somebody there? What did you say, Wednesday?

No, no. So we'll go around. They actually have access. We've given them the keys and they have the code. So I met with them over at the... their own. But, you know, if you want to be there, that's fine.

But that's the second one, right? What's the one that's coming up? That's the building.

So yeah, so so they'll put together their report. So we're just trying to get that all up to where it needs to be because it's just to make sure we're within compliance again with primex. So as we're looking at all of everything that's covered by town's insurance to make sure it's where it needs to be.

Initial filings come with

No, no, no, no, they don't do that. They just kind of say what needs to be fixed and then we'd have to look at Pricing that out from there so But I don't know I didn't look at the initial cost of that. I haven't done that yet I figure once we have all of the information once we know that we can put together a full project on it That's what I had Equipment We we bought some stuff for the irrigation at Westboro.

We bought a 15 horse motor, electric motor. Because if the motor goes and say in the middle of August, We're going to lose a field because it takes to get it out and get it fixed by that time. You know, water every day. So we can get it with this this way. We can get the if one breaks, we have another one. So we have a spare. So because if we were in the field, if a fruit field gets ruined that way, I can't even imagine what the cost would be to to redo. More importantly, the amount of time you'd have to stay off the field. So we're trying to avoid that and It was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. It was like $1,400, I think it was. I thought it was going to, I was figuring like four grand or something for the motor, but we're all set with that. The rest of our equipment is okay. nothing major budget wise we're going to come in okay we're not going to overspend which we never do but we'll be okay money in our budget does get shifted around a little bit like if it's a really dry season we'll spend more on irrigation than we normally do and sometimes that happens so other stuff has to get put off but we have to stay within we can't overspend our budget that's the bottom line if we do or it's not a good thing but at west road that's just electricity right that's electricity but i don't know do you have to pay for water up here yes yeah and you know we pay like west road we pay the electricity but we also have to You pay the pumps and that stuff. Because we had to put a foot valve in and it was just all yucky, according to Sid. It wasn't that old, but the other one probably lasted four times longer than this one, but I don't know if it's cheaper metal they're using. I'm going to blame the tariffs. I'm going to blame somebody down in Washington. I don't know. But I think it's just people are making stuff cheaper so they can make more money.

I will comment that I don't think the lacrosse team that used the field for practice were very good stewards of the environment because they beat up the field. five quite a bit with the goal mouth stuff with lacrosse goals so just FYI we need to that's high school girls team so I mean Sid can bring it back but I'm just saying it's yeah he'll bring it back without a problem but it's

It's like you borrow, you're a kid and you borrow your uncle's car for the prom, and he says, no smoking in the car, and then you smoke in the car. Yeah. It just, it's, and, you know, we've told them to just move around. Just move the goal. Yeah. How hard is that? So, anyway, but they don't.

Do they pay?

It's not actually that hard. It's school. Not hard at all. It's school. I did it for 11 years. The agreements I was having discussed earlier, that'll be one next year. Right? Spring and fall. change the layout of the field, right?

Yeah, there should be a field.

I thought it was something like that. Perpendicular? Vertical? Horizontal? You can tell the coaches to move. Don't scrimmage in the same spot every day.

But every coach, including myself, would stay. I'd probably be the best about moving. It'll be written out that way, but hopefully not. But for the defensive linemen, offensive linemen, we're going over there where it doesn't matter. But if you're in the, you know, I remember coaching the kickers, and you've got to move around guys. You can't kick from the same spot. Pretty soon the hole's this deep, and you know.

There's so much open space there.

Yeah, you just move a little bit, so. But that was just my gripe. I think that will have to be.

We just ask. It'll be part of the agreement if the future agreements will have it in there about damage fees and whatnot. But I think if we just ask them, that's just because they're going to do the same. If we have to use their facilities, they ask us, just don't do this. We don't do it anymore. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. So it's. that that those relationships we want working together um so because they're going to fall in line a lot with what policies we're starting to look to put together too so that way it's blanketed across all parties the only other thing i had we have uh jerry hunt started mowing oh yeah yep yep up for uh bill manning was mowing up at laugh us and i was uh stepping away so jerry hunt's gonna be doing that he started on friday he got everything done in one day nice it's pretty good He's bragging about it a little bit.

I think he did very well in his last company, so he was just looking for something to do.

I was jealous, honestly, when he looked at it. I said, I wish I was just mowing.

He's a good guy. He actually started making, for our major league, he makes the jerseys. So he'd stamp some, and they're all different. So if it's a sponsor, it's their asset.

actual logo full color and that was good you even got over towards the basketball courts by the end of the day too so because even some of that can't be mowed yet but there is that could just disperse it up so he'll do a good job he's a really good guy yeah no he's he's uh you know it's a thing with a mower you just want the guy to look look back when he's done yeah and look at it and say yeah it looks good i think he'll take pride in what he does yeah it's just a pride thing And then the only last thing I had was there's going to be two openings on the commission, too. So if anybody knows people that want to, I know there were additional that are applied, but Patrice has put in her letter of notice.

And then I know Russ said he was going to Russ is dealing with some family issues. So I'll talk to him again.

in a member position. I don't know who's alternate and who's not. I'd have to look at the website. Current alternate would have an opportunity to move up to member. So that'll go before the council on Monday. I think that's when they're going to put up the call for the next.

Kirsten always does that. Yeah, she's doing it.

I asked her.

She just usually tells us.

Call for more candidates.

It's sort of like, probably I could do rock, paper, scissors if we have to.

I got into my oath. I took my oath, actually. Good. Yeah. You're legit. I've been going back and forth, taking care of my dad. Oh, how old's dad? God willing, he will be 98 in July. Wow. Good for him.

My mother-in-law is 97. Huh? Doesn't know she's 97. Doesn't know her daughter's, but she's 97. Tough thing getting old. So, we done?