Recreation & Parks Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, calling the meeting to order at 6.01.

Okay, for roll call, members Paz.

Here.

Members Dhaliwal.

Yes.

Sandhu.

Here.

Gucci. Chair Corey?

Here.

Noted for the record, Member Gere, Member Patali, and Member Frazier are absent.

And if we want to stand up for the flag, please. And Secretary, are there any changes to the agenda or supplemental reports? There is not. The commission can now disclose any ex parte communications. If no ex parte communications, we can then move on to public comment. Have there been any ex parte communications? No? All right. Moving on to public. Secretary, do we have any public comment cards?

We do not.

And are there any comments for items not listed on the agenda in the audience?

We do not have anybody in the audience that has any public comment.

Moving on to consent items. Secretary, is there a request to pull a consent calendar item from the public?

We do not have consent to pull any items from the consent calendar.

Thank you. And do any members of the commission have any items they would like to pull? And then do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

Move to approve.

I understand due to motion to approve. Do I have a second? Ms. Pucci to second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Motion passes to approve the consent calendar 5-0.

Okay. Moving on to discussion items. Item D-126-394, review and approve new program, Tarulu Water Polo Academy, intro to water polo. At this moment, Chair Corey will recuse herself. Recreation Supervisor Tyler Ashbaugh will provide a brief report.

Good evening. As Megan had mentioned, I have a new program here, so a pilot program for Water Polo Academy, Intro to Water Polo. So really activating the water polo for the youth to hopefully build on that and have some high school teams for the high schools in the future. but there is a lot of interest out there. Lauren has also helped kind of put this together, but we have Eric Zader with Zader Aquatics, who will be the coordinator and instructor in providing the coaches for this program. This will cover ages eight to 14 years old, and will be two practices per week for three months. one to two hours per practice, depending on the age range. And this will go for the month of September and October. So the fee here that's being proposed is $290. And that $290 does include a $40 per registered participant fee that will be collected by recreation. So $250 will go to Zader Aquatics and 40 will go to recreation. This program will also be at Sierra High School. And that is all I have.

Thank you Tyler, appreciate it. Clerk, do we have any public comments?

We do not have any public comment cards.

Thank you. Any members of public have any comments?

No members of the public have any comment.

Thank you. I will bring this item back to commission for discussion. Commissioner, any comments, any discussion? Seeing none, do we have motion?

I'll make a motion.

Second?

All those in favor?

Aye. Tony has first. So item passes, thank you.

Thank you.

The motion passes 4-0. Ms. Quint will bring, for item D2, will bring here Corey Betts. Oh, there she is.

I should have scared you.

I'm thinking the doors closed.

All right. Now we're going to move on to item D to 26 dash 395. Review and approve program changes stem robotics program K through 12. Recreation Supervisor Tyler ashfall will provide a brief report.

So this is a current program that we've been running. It's been pretty successful. In the last three levels we've had 10, eight, and six participants. So there's been some children that have kind of dropped off from that. Some of that has been due to the price of the class. So the instructor has kind of reworked his program a little bit. As you can see, the current structure is $236 per month. And so if you participate in all three levels, which is a three month course or program, it'd be $710. The material fee is 67. What they are proposing is that they change that to $126 per month, it's the same amount of class hours, and the material fee will be increased just a little bit to help save their costs, $149, and that's a one time fee, I'm sorry, that's a per month fee. instead of the one-time fee. So for each level that they participate in, that $149 will be allocated to each level. So the prices do range a little bit, but it still is less than the current cost of the class to help support the families that want their children to participate in this class and continue on.

Clerk, do we have any public comment cards?

We do not have any public comment cards.

Do any members of the public have comments?

There are not any members in the public that have comments.

And now we'll bring the item back to the Commission for discussion. Does anyone have any comments or any questions in regard to this item?

I'm glad that they've reduced the price. is a hot item right now in the whole entire community. So I am happy to be a little more . Thank you.

So what's the current participation in the substantial decrease?

Yeah, so the first level that they taught, which was back in, I want to say, May or June, they had 10 participants. and then it dropped to eight and then dropped to six. So we're hoping that these fee changes will help increase that participation again because we have gotten feedback from families that they just can't afford to continue on with the program being so high in cost.

Can you repeat that question? So this is divided into several grades, right?

Correct.

Is there any grade level that's more involved than others?

That's a good question. It does range, but I would say primarily what we're seeing is anywhere from eight years old to about 10, 11 years old, but mostly around the eight, nine, 10 range.

Thank you.

And in the future, You know, depending on how the participation and the rosters go, they may adjust their grade levels for the different classes that they teach to kind of encompass and like focus on different specialized age groups in the future.

What's the new material fee?

The new material fee will be $150. And that's each month? That's each month, correct.

Do you have any idea if there are grants available for this kind of program that you can apply to so that we could include or give more access to the community to this class?

I'm not familiar with grants per se. We do work with the school district, the ELOP program with MUSD to provide free camps. for children who may not be able to, you know, afford those programs. And we have a lot of similar programs like this one, including Chess Camp, Art Camp, and a variety of others that are offered during the intersessions. So, you know, fall break, winter break, and summer breaks.

And we also, the department has a scholarship program too. So families can apply for that at Cool, thank you.

When does this class have, if we approve it through, when would their first round of sign-ups happen?

It would be in the fall, September, October timeframe.

When's our next meeting? Could we get a report of how that's actually going?

At least three to six months, because when it comes out, it sometimes is hot, and then it kind of fluctuates from there. Just like you had mentioned before, it started off being... And that's kind of sometimes that's what happens with some of the programs. But yes, we can bring back. I would say probably more like in maybe our October meeting. I agree.

Yeah, maybe after that October meeting.

Just like a little update. Like maybe a first meeting in 2020.

Do we request any feedback from the participants, especially when the programs are not what we expect?

We do. So a couple times a quarter, we will send out some program surveys that we have, kind of generalized surveys to all of our recreation contract classes like this one. And Typically that gives us some good feedback so then we can share that with the instructor and give them kind of a guideline or maybe some tips and pointers to move forward. And then that's kind of where we come up, we come back here and give some recommendations for approval so that we can kind of find the solution that works best for everyone.

Do we have a motion to approve?

I got one more question. maybe because it's been a long day and with the heat and everything, I'm just trying to add up the math. So the current structure for 236.75 a month times three months gets you 710.25 and then with the one-time material fee, it's like 777.25. But then when I'm doing the math for the other thing at 126 a month for three months, that gets you 378. But then you have to pay a reoccurring fee of 150 per month too for the materials. That's 450. And that's kind of like 50 bucks more than the previous structure. Am I reading that right? Or have I been in the kitchen too long?

Or maybe it's a 150 flat rate?

Because you're saying it's 150 every month, so that's three months, that's 450. Plus the 378, which is the 126 times three months, I'm actually getting an increase in this proposition.

want to almost say it would have to be a 150. Oh, yeah, this 149 material fee on the second page per month for for class. But I would assume that it would be I think it might be a flat fee. Because if you look at it, why would the material fee be higher than the proposed fee?

Yeah, you're looking at $828 total for the new proposed fee as opposed to the previous one that comes out to $778. It's $825 for credit.

And prior is $778. So I'm assuming that $149 is probably a one-time for credit. Before it was 777, 777. Right. I think maybe it's just for one month. I'm sorry? Maybe it's just 149 every month, or three months.

Is there a way you guys could check for his table and?

Yeah, we'll have to table this.

Because if we're going to do the 149 just a flat fee one month, then that's saving $250. Yeah. Which is a great idea, but the wording on it kind of makes it sound like we're adding $50 because we're lowering the fee, but we're doubling pretty much. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have that. information, I'm not certain, so I will have to table that, unfortunately.

I'm sorry, buddy.

No, that's okay.

Because I think it would be great if it was just that 149 one time, but I would just have to make sure.

We want it to succeed, I think, more than anything else, and obviously they're having some type of financial struggle, so we want to make sure that we're including some type of inclusivity financially for families, but also making sure that we don't have to adjust every few meetings. We want to

Now question two, are there any places in town, I don't want to say sponsor, or what would be some businesses or something that is similar to what's being taught here that might want to donate to bring fees down or to help people afford this thing? Because I like the program. I remember when you brought it up the last time, and it's a great program and everything, but do we have businesses or places of employment that kind of specialize in things like this? Or do you know, do you think that there might be places that would want to donate to help, you know, sponsor a kid 50% or anything like that?

I think it's hard because we are the city and it's not, I think if it was like a nonprofit organization in their opinion, like people who want to donate like towards the programs participate like in our, like fundraisers for our scholars. So right now that's pretty much what we would have that would be available

Because I would almost think something like this would almost be like a trade. Like say you did a program with plumbing or how to do faucets or plumbing and then you got people who want to invest in the kids that are doing this because they know it'll lead to other things. That's all.

And then like Tyler was saying earlier, the ELOP program through the school district. So we offer the classes through our programming, but the ELOP program pays for the classes so the student doesn't pay anything. So that's another way for them to participate in one of our programs at zero cost. So they have to sign up. They sign up through us. So that's another partnership that we've done and allows the kids to participate in programs.

I wonder, I work for the county office, and we have a huge STEM department, so maybe I can get them in contact just to see if there's a meeting actually with them next week so I can bring up like, hey, you know, maybe we have some sort of donation aspect or just something that they can get together mind-wise. I mean, I'm sure county on a much larger level is able to kind of navigate a lot of the population of students, so maybe they can help that and figure out how can we help you guys succeed and continue to be a part of it. Well, I don't know what avenue we go to table this, but we'll just table it for the next scheduled regular meeting, I believe, in October. Is that correct?

Is there some sort of way, like, maybe research it and then we do a special meeting, like, by the end of the, just so we can vote it to get it passed? Because I wouldn't want to wait over, I wouldn't want to wait that long for a program.

So this program can still operate as is, just with the current fee structure, not with the new structure that we're asking for. So it's not that we won't be able to run it at all. Okay.

And if you guys wanna run a special meeting, I think we're all pretty supportive if there's a quick meeting like this that we can hop into, and if that helps you guys and helps them out, we'll all collectively make it happen.

At this time, we're going to table item D2 26-395 for a future meeting.

Thank you.

Okay, now we will move on to item D3 26-396, Provide an update to the Recreation and Parks Committee regarding Parks, Recreation, and Transit Department. Parks, Recreation, and Transit Director Brandi Clark will provide a brief report.

All right. So just a quick report with some of the things that have been happening and taking place and some of the things that are near future. So we had our National Night Out Celebration last year. Yes, so it was pretty successful. We had it at Franciscan Park. So that is our goal is to have it at a park that is a neighborhood park that maybe doesn't get as much love as some of the other parks in town. That's kind of the goal and to kind of move it around throughout the the community so that we are in different districts from different areas um you know uh each year so that's kind of the goal of it um on tuesday um august 18th is our next council meeting um at that meeting we will be taking the parks nexus study um for approval at that meeting if anybody would like to to come and help support those fees and that Nexus study. I can send you the information, but I would love for any of you guys want to come. Also, if there's any groups that you want to kind of advocate and rally up to kind of come, that'd be awesome. So the park fee study was the second portion of the parks master plan. So in some of our one-on-one meetings, we discussed the Parks Master Plan. You guys had some great feedback, some great comments on it. And now this is the portion that is basically reassessing the fees for developers. So when they come in and... with their park master plans, what you guys are looking at, and then they purchase houses, the fee for that, for the park side of it, the development will be increasing. So we don't like to talk about, I know people don't like to talk about increasing fees, but it's basically to kind of pay their fair share of development in town, as well as keep our park as best as possible in the construction phase. So also some of those funds also contribute to our community parks.

So our future, excuse me, our future community park.

So just to kind of give you guys a heads up on that, it'll be on the 18th. That does not start until, the meeting is at 6 p.m., but it's kind of gonna be a longer meeting. So if you came at like 7 or 7.30, It would probably be better. Also during that meeting, we will also be taking the transit reroute there. So we have had a ton of community meetings and received input from our senior community, our high schools, the general community about the reroute of the system for our transit. And so that will be going to the meeting as well. So I'm pretty excited and proud of both of those projects. It's been a lot of work. However, it's going to be great for our community. Music on Maple is coming up. Third Thursday of the month was the 20th. So if you guys would like to come out at 6 p.m., it is like a pop band that will be there. They're actually great. What is the past time? Fast Times is the band, so everybody loves them. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but we've done two videos so far for our little park planners. Super cute. We came up with the concept to kind of grasp some attention. the Northgate playground renovation project for an inclusive playground. If you haven't taken the survey, please do so. It is on social media right now. If you need a direct link, let me know and I can text it to you. But I would appreciate if all of you guys participated in it as well as sent it to your friends, family, neighbors. It might not be in your neighborhood. However, it will be kind of Manteca's first inclusive playground. So I think it's really important for us to provide some information and get the word out. So we're trying to get as many survey responses as we possibly can. And I can send that out in text because that might be easier just to do it.

Okay.

Okay, perfect. I'll send it to you, Flo. And then the skate park, we talked a little bit about this at the last meeting. The skate park, Westwood, which is a company we're working with, is finalizing the layout and the drawing. After A few meetings we've had with the skate community, which included the skateboarders, the roller skaters, the BMX freestylers, all of the community came out. We had several discussions about wants, needs, and then we kind of created a priority list based on that with the funding that we have available. So of course we couldn't do everything, but we plan to do it in several phases. So that is being done. If you guys have seen, some people call it mini park, but there's already a mini park in town. So I call it mural alley, which is the new mural downtown. So the flowers just got installed. The flowers are going to have the ability. So we're going to put some lights on them. So that's kind of the reason for having the flowers on the one side. And then there's going to be posts up on the building side. So there will be light string across there. And then also the parking lot just got redone. And there's some other things coming, but I think it looks so nice. I don't know if you guys, have everybody seen the mural?

Okay, perfect.

I just wanted to make sure you guys are getting out and about. So Bill also brought up today that there's a training that was emailed to you guys. He said it's a pretty intense training. So make sure you guys get that done. That came from our city clerk's office and I don't want her to have to get on you for that. So if you guys could get that done, if anybody has any questions or comments about it, please let us know and we'll assist you with whatever you need. And then the commission dinner is on September 2nd at 5 p.m. That's at the Transit Center. So please, if you have not RSVP'd, please do so, or they will be calling you. So please do that. Parkapalooza is on the 12th. September 12th, that's where we have the live bands, food trucks, and all of that at Woodward Park. Megan, can you put a request in their email, please? And then Farm to Fork is happening again this year. If you went last year, you know, I think for our first one, it was amazing. So we're back in action. If anybody wants tickets, you're interested, let me know so we can secure some tickets for you. It will be on October 10th. then aquatics is pretty much wrapping up there's some open swims still left on the weekends but kudos to tyler and the aquatics team tyler kind of jumped in when staff resigned so i appreciate all of his hard work and jumping in there during that time same goes for junior giants they pretty much have wrapped up and i've heard nothing but excellent comments and just people completely love that program. So so nice to be able to offer that to our community. And then tournaments at Woodward. We've had a couple tournaments lately, so you probably have seen the park very busy. There was a comment that came in from Amy who wasn't able to make it. She's working tonight, and she just wanted to give Tyler, your staff, kudos for coming out and helping out with the garbage and the cleanup after the tournament. She said everybody was super nice, very polite and respectful, and so a shout out to them. so it's great to hear a website so the city is going to launch a new website coming up on the 20th so the team has been tremendously busy getting that done one of our website stuff is like um we have a lot and the city counts on us to have a lot of information on there so they've really had to buckle down and get that information posted there so um so more to come on that If you've seen, we also have the fabulous front yard project going on. So if anybody has anybody in your neighborhood, friends, family, that you would like to nominate them for the fabulous front yards, please do so. Flo, you probably have a really cool front yard that you should probably, somebody should probably nominate you.

It's a little dry right now.

Well, if you have any pictures of it, like beforehand.

I have some pictures.

You should totally do it. Also a couple of grants, we did submit a grant and we were an interest for a grant. We were told we did not qualify for that grant, but we've submitted another letter of interest for a second grant, which is shade structures in parks. So it's called the extreme heat grant. And so we've submitted, I think we're a great candidate. Wait to see what that looks like coming back. uh library improvements they just did some of the prime painting on the library so when you go and drive by there you'll see some refresh of the library so just excited about that the snack shack at lincoln marion elliott park had brand new doors put on it. The doors were getting broken into. So there's nice brand new security doors, which is going to be very helpful for that facility. And then just so you know, I'm out of the office starting tomorrow through the 17th, but I am still available by phone, text, or email. So don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything.

And that completes my report.

Thank you.

Okay, we will now move on to item E, staff comments. Do any staff have any comments? Okay, moving on to F, commissioner comments. Chair Corey, I will bring it back to you.

Thank you. We can, if any commissioners have comments, we can always start at Bill and work our way around if anybody does.

It's real quick. We've been going through some extreme weather, triple digits. Stay hydrated. Stay cool. Thank you.

Thank you. Charles?

I don't know. I don't have nothing. It's been a rough couple weeks with this heat and everything that he just restrains me. A couple things downtown. We just had another Pilates in the I know there's some sort of art in the park happening pretty soon at Library Park. These are things that we're trying to do in our downtown district is bring more events and more life to our Library Park and make that a destination where people wanna come and have events. We have, oh, we got Aaron Weinstroll coming up. on the day before Halloween and we're still doing trunk retreat?

Yep, trunk retreat on the 31st, yep. We're trying to do the things we have.

I know, we're not trying to think that far ahead. No, I know, I know. Downtown, we only got that event coming up. But just things to market the owner with. Both of them are fun times and we are trying to work on some other events in downtown with some night markets and Do we have a date set for the mural? I don't want to say premiere or anything, but when is that going to be like?

So we have some other things that are taking place. So we do have, I believe it's going to be in September before Music on Maple. So just the August was a little too soon to do it. And it's super hot in August. And I'm like, I don't want to do 5 p.m. in August. Yeah. So we pushed it back to September.

Were there any other features they were going to add to that? Were they going to add a stage? At the mural alley?

No, not a stage.

There's a couple of other things.

coming but not a stage. It's not really big enough over there for a stage.

Is it going to be tables and chairs or something?

I don't know if we're going to move forward with that. That might be something we would do in the future. I think we need to figure out honestly what that space is going to be utilized for the most. I think events will be great but to leave tables and chairs out there might be a struggle.

That was something else that I want to bring up too was that with this new feature we have in downtown with the mural and the lights and the flowers is going to be a nice little destination to get together and have cool events or maybe mini pop-ups and yeah things like that so that's going to be another place in downtown where you know when you're driving by something you might want to stop by um get into um i also know that the planning commission approved to have an um lounge in our downtown which will be So we are getting some nice, fun downtown nightlife coming along. And Christmas time, we are working on doing some, I don't want to call it a Santa crawl or something like that, but we're going to try to do some fun events during Christmas time related to the holiday and also things that family and kids could come out and do as well. So that's kind of all I have right now. I bet I'm tired of this heat. I'm kind of ready for a little bit of That's about it.

Thank you. I really want to give a hats off to Tyler. I think with kind of the transition of Ashley and Eric and just kind of that happening in smack dab the middle of, I think, the busiest time of year is pretty wild and literally jumping in both feet. So hats off to you, Tyler. And Tiana running all the crazy events, too. You guys work immensely rough and under a very short staff. through so that's crazy it's too much for an average staff of what you guys have let alone down to three people or however many people you guys are down so hats off to you guys and then tyler dealing with my million emails they're fine and eric's back and forth so uh thank you for that i appreciate it and then um the little park planners like melted my heart that was so cute um and i work in special education myself And we have McFall that's right down the street from that park. So I'm going to make it my mission to really drive up those surveys because they really do matter. And we have a lot of people that have pins online. Hope they filled out the survey. So I'm going to try to push that population and parent community to get that filled out. And I think it's exciting. There's a lot of things happening. I saw that mural for the first time yesterday. Didn't get out. It was too hot. You would have to pry me out of my car. But I do think that progressively we're moving in a wonderful direction. And I think like month by month, I'm just blown away at everything we have to offer. And if anyone says we have nothing to do, man, together, crazy. So thank you for all you guys do. Yeah. Hello?

I have one question, though. I do not seem to be receiving a lot of questions for the meeting today. Yeah, so the survey would have come from our city clerk's office via email.

Yeah, the training would have come from the city clerk's office via email.

I will try to check everything else. Yeah. I haven't seen absolutely anything.

Yeah, because the meeting requests for these meetings will come from me, all of the email.

Yeah, those are dead. Okay. It showed her the net file that they sent us. Okay. Okay. But it'll come from that, but maybe I'll double check again.

Yeah, everything is through email, so I don't know if you want to like, if you have like a spam blocker that you need to turn off, maybe it's... Maybe you have, yeah.

I said I double-checked it. Sometimes if I don't recognize the address, I delete. Right. We're getting so many crazy staff right now on the phones. I'm a bit paranoid. But yeah, I will check into that. Other than that, I don't have anything else to say, but kudos to everybody.

Are you getting the emails for these meetings?

Yes.

You do get those?

For these meetings, yes.

And then you get the emails from me?

Yes, from you I get the email.

Okay.

And sometimes I get the text from Brandy. Okay. But that's it.

Okay.

So the other one, like I said, I'll take that.

Yeah, and I'll let the clerk's office know as well so that they can try to reach out to you to get that figured out. Thank you, appreciate that.

You're welcome. Check your email from Netfile on behalf of City of Lexington.

I wonder if a spam blocker probably, just search Netfile and it might populate it.

Yeah, Netfile, that's where it comes from.

But thank you, Bill, for bringing that up because I didn't even know it was a trainee.

Yeah.

I just saw it, it just kept scrolling.

I would have probably erased it if I see it. We are keep sending you the emails.

Every week, yeah.

Yes, I kept getting those, and I was like, I don't know what this is.

Anyway, I'll double check now, then I know. Maybe if you don't get it, reach out, and that way they can see if Cassandra has it. Now then, I know we have to do the explaining.

And anytime you have questions, you can call me or email me, and I can help you. Even if it's not something for me or our department, I can always help you. You're welcome.

Thank you so much, everyone. You know, we're looking forward to seeing you guys maybe on the Thursday? 20th? Yeah. And have a great evening. See you guys next meeting. Thank you.

Meeting adjourned. I adjourn this meeting at 6.40. Thank you.

Wonderful. Wonderful.