Parks and Rec Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, says roll. I'd like to call the Wednesday, January 7th, 2026 Parks and Recreation Parks and Recreation Commission meeting to order. Please call the role. Bruce here. EMTT here. Kimmy here. And I have

All right, we'll open the floor to general public comments. I see no one here for that. Moving on to number three, approval of the minutes. Has anyone had a chance to review the minutes as presented? If there's no discussion to be had, I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes from November 5th, 2025. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from November 5th, 2025 as presented. I'll second that. All in favor? I. Moving on. Approval of revenues and expenditures. Has that if anyone had a chance to review these? Question.

I did have a question. Okay.

Um, since the actual spending is is less than what was budgeted, is that surplus stay and stay or what happens to the surplus? Jesse, do you know the answer to that? So, we'll have to look at the total city budget and make sure everything is um chewed up and then what is left. If it was general fund to start with, I'll go back to general fund. If it were like donations, which I don't, sorry I haven't looked at this specifically. If it was like a donation for a specific thing or whatever, then of course it would stay within there. Does anyone else have any questions or discussion? If not, I will entertain a motion to approve the revenues and expenditures. I'll make a motion to approve the revenues and expenditures as listed present.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor? I.

Motion carried. Expenditure and revenues report approved. Up or number five, special events on streets, highways, and municipal parking lots. Permit procedure. Jesse. So, there's been a lot of questions about what the process is to have anything approved um that would come that traditionally may have come here or come to the council or come to other committees. And so, that has been a question that's been brought to staff a few times and I tried to look into what the history was and all that. And basically going back to the ordinances and the ordinances are for the most part a lot of things can be approved by staff although some first time things go to council or the committee that they've appointed for those things. I think that the idea behind that is to make it easier for the public facilities to be used for people to provide events and things to the community that type of thing. Um, of course there still needs to be checks and balances done, but as the ordinance has written, the things that actually have to come before this committee basically are limited to events where there's going to be animals present. So things that I can think of that you guys have approved in the past would be like the reindeer for the um tree lighting celebration if they were to do that again. the um um donkey baseball thing that we had not too long ago, a petting zoo, those types of events would uh require this commission to approve. And because what the ordinance actually says is that some if somebody requests to utilize a park facility, staff is supposed to respond to that within 10 days of their application and say, "Okay, you're good." or no, you know, if there's an actual reason to deny it, you know, like the part's already rented for that date or whatever. Um, and then you guys would be the appeal committee for that. So, if

the staff said, "No, you can't have the park." They're like, "Well, that's not cool." You know, I I want this up the chain, then it would come to you guys as as the appeal board on that. So, um, what we thought as staff would be to go to what the ordinance actually says, um, and if you, if you don't think that that's an appropriate process, then it's an ordinance amendment. So, you want to talk to your, um, representatives, your council members about potentially changing the ordinance. But, we do think that's really important that you guys are aware of what the park is being utilized for. So our what we anticipate doing is providing you a running of list of what has been approved within the park system for the year and updating that for you every month. And then of course if something requires your review, it would come to you just like it has in the past. So, um you received the packet that was put together for the council um when they asked because there were some other um permits that they asked about as well like the street, you know, if you're doing a parade, street permits and um those types of things. And then it also has the actual ordinances themselves. And I tried to highlight the areas. You're welcome to read the whole thing, but I tried to highlight the areas that were most pertinent to what I thought we would probably be talking about. So, as any questions, concerns, something that just doesn't make sense, but we wanted to make sure that you were aware where we're at. We're just trying to get back to what the ordinance actually says. And of course, ordinances can be changed, but that's a process through the council.

It sounds like this is going to be a much simpler process anyway, like it's going to be more streamlined way to handle it. Makes sense? Yes. And if things don't work as we think they're shown here, we can bring that back to you guys for your suggestions and then to council if we if you or staff feels that it needs to be looked at further and potentially tweaked. That can be done at any time. If you don't feel it's working the way it should.

So, for example, just to make sure we're all on the same page. So, like for the turkey gobler on Thanksgiving, they're going to fill out the appropriate paperwork. It's going to go to the staff. You guys are going to make the call in 10 days and let them either have it or not have it. Authorize it and only if you find a reason not to let them have it when it come to us. If they appeal it, wait a minute. Yes. But you would get it the next as soon as we knew about it, we'd add it to the list and that next month with your packet, you'd see on there that the gobbler has been approved for Thanksgiving 2026. Sure. Makes sense.

That sounds great. Does anyone else have any other questions? And will this start in February then or whenever our next meeting? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think we've received any applications yet this year, but anytime now people will start because, you know, if you have a summer event and things, people will start to say moving forward from Y. Yep. So, just in review, you're not proposing or the council isn't proposing any changes right now to ordinance. We're just um clarifying what's already in the ordinance and sticking to that a little better. Exactly. Yep.

It makes a lot of sense to essentially empowering the executive to execute the ordinances as written and where the appeal level. I like that you mentioned though that I think it's good for us to be aware of how they're being used and any feedback you have for us in case we need to recommend something. Yeah, absolutely. And if there's information that you feel is missing, whatever, by all means, we certainly want you to have what you need to provide the best decisions and recommendations to the council that that you can. So, please utilize staff if you need to. If somebody does come in with like a petting zoo or the reindeer thing, is that still the 10day thing then or that's going to come to us? And is that the 14? That's going to have to come to you guys. Yeah, that that won't be within the 10 days necessarily depending on when the meeting is. Okay.

Yeah. It says right in the ordinance that if it's an animal wanted. Do you know why that I have no idea. I don't know if something happened with animals in the past or they thought it might happen. I I don't know. I don't know what we require them to bring the animals meeting to demonstrate. See the back [laughter] report. I know what you asked for. I just kangaroos in Kentucky. So, I'm not opposed, [laughter] but I wouldn't be opposed to like reviewing like there's nothing the state laws or other reasons like that could be something because it just seems kind of unnecessary for that one exception around the animals unless the council feel strongly about that.

Yeah, I honestly don't know. I wouldn't mind them looking at that like why that's the one area why just answer the question. Yeah, [laughter] there's a reason for it. Just a second look for liability maybe or something like that. Yeah, this could definitely be. I I don't know. But I thought that was interesting, too. I don't know the history when that ordinance was put into play. Maybe they had just had an incident. I don't know. Very well. Anyone else have any questions or discussion?

All right. It doesn't sound like we need anything to do or recommend anything or whatnot. So we'll move on to number six to new business. Does anyone have new business? Any old business? I will then entertain a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? I'll second that motion. All in favor? I. We are [laughter] Thank Thank you.