Planning Commission/Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

All are meeting to order. We'll do the roll call.

Alderman Anderson. Present. Dan Rogers. Present. President of Grassfield. Here. Here.

Here.

Everyone received their approval or their agenda in the email. I'll entertain an approval motion. Motion by Leslie. Second. Second by Dr. Powell. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. You also received the minutes from the last meeting, and I'll entertain a motion to approve those. I'd like a motion to approve them. Motion by Stan. Second by Leslie. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Citizen comments?

OK.

Updated software recognized the bank drafts part of this.

or membership of the chapter for that. Amen. A few months ago, this picture

Thank you.

Is it like just flipping a breaker at the house or you got a whole lot more to go with than that?

No, so this handle here on the side. The red one? Yeah, you switch that about four or five times and then Tearing up the tile in the locker room and putting it down in epoxy is what they call aggregate in it, which has the fastest around. It puts a coating on the floor, and you can pick how much grit you want it to have by how much aggregate you put down. That's just a sample there. We're looking at putting that in multiple areas, the birthday party room, the hallway by the pool, the lifeguard office.

that is very needed especially in the locker room when you come out from the pool um is very slick and i worry i don't know i'm sure people have fallen over the years um one suggestion is um to choose a i mean i love that surface and that looks perfect but maybe choose a color that's not going to show everything because those controllers get really i don't know what that would be

All the men's and women's locker rooms in the additional areas is about $45.

in the aquatics area. We have a majority of our pool baskets. We're still just waiting on one.

Hang on just a second.

I've missed a few meetings, so I don't know. Does everybody know what we're doing painting lines? We've disclosed all that. The whole building is getting painted, right? The blue is going to be on the one end, and then It's great.

Thank you. We haven't done it here recently.

because it's already been a lot of years. But A.J. and Jeannie, the purchasing lady, they keep it.

That 4,900 over there.

With that, you said it's mobile and can be moved around. Are there several people that know how to do that and use that? Because sometimes that's rare.

Yeah, once we have the unit operational, then Jordan and his supervisor will be the only people to move it around.

Versus trying to replace two or three of them and just follow up.

And then also, when you look at these estimates,

the lines to match the LEDs.

starting on the 1st of August. Yeah.

So that's why the cost is a little high for that.

working I don't think this has ever been done but trying to get some sponsors the mayor suggested which thing is kind of harder for it being an adult league not as many people want to sponsor but I'm reaching out to local

I like that one too.

Is that what you think?

Stand. I'm not sure what you'd get out of that, to be honest with you. I'd be kind of afraid of that. In those days, you'd get some pretty wacky folks.

I'm thinking that from what's going through your mind. Okay. Let us hear some of that, Prager. Do what? Let us hear some of your backing.

I'd rather not.

Mayor, what do you think?

250 years. I mean, that's been the thing for the whole year. Mm-hmm. Ends the year. Ends the year correctly.

But you want three.

Y'all got one y'all like? Another one?

might be one, might be our third one.

you don't see us out there But I think that's really it to get us in shape because I'm looking at doing it maybe mid-October and it gets darker, you know, by the time we run into the evening. But the lighting is good down there. It's just not pointing correctly. One or two of them. Most of them are good. But I'd say those are the three things.

Would this be a one-day thing or a one-night thing?

Just one day, actually. We're looking for like eight to five.

AJ, where in this, and you may be getting ready to say this, where are the current courts right now?

The basketball, where it shows the basketball court in that is where most of the courts are. That's where the tennis court is currently. Okay. And that includes six pickleball, two tennis, and one outdoor basketball.

Okay.

Is a pavilion there right now?

So you sent this out for bid?

The middle section that has the equipment that you can go and work out on, I guess. We talked about taking all that out and putting it along have an exercise you want to do, then he gives you another offer. Right? I mean, we haven't done nothing in a long time.

But like where 7 is right there, is that not where pavilions are now that people use for picnic things and stuff?

7 is that, like I said, that area that we put up used to be the swings. But then they put in the area for like a workout. I don't know how many pieces.

But aren't there like three large picnic pavilions there?

They're more over to the side.

But they're just not on here. Correct. Okay. It's not like they're gone. No, no, no.

That's what I mean. Right.

This is just showing you where we're talking about.

Are you thinking about phases like? No. You're thinking about, okay. That'd be awesome. I mean, it's not going to be any cheaper. Right.

Phases don't get finished.

Phases don't get finished. You don't know who's next or what their things are.

Just the ball field side, that drawing that y'all have, not including obviously the splash pad and playground, we're looking at just half a million.

Where the new area of where the tennis courts would be as far as that river, when that floods, how far does that go out? That would definitely be something I'm sure your engineers would look into. I think it gets down this way more, not up there. Excellent. Okay. Yeah. Right. Okay.

meeting. I watched this on CBS Sunday morning. There's a girl that's gotten rich doing all these tournaments and stuff. She's won money and she's amazing.

And if there's a way that, you know, in the tennis community that you could get word out that, you know, the mayor's working on this and we're getting proposals and if there's, you know, there's donations and things like that that you could get word out. We just need some cameras in that room. I guess we need some. In the new complex, we need some cameras.

or would this be kind of a partnership with the city?

No, I don't know how tennis works. When I did the triathlon, I put that on for 11 years here. There's an organization, USA Triathlon, and part of the fee, part of the entry fee, which was about $23 a person, went to that, and that provided the insurance. I don't know if tennis had that.

Yeah, there are some companies.

Like a certified, but I don't know, and that may not be something, maybe you,

I would just throw that out there.

Thank you.

right building has been leaking for quite a while that building gets rented out almost every single weekend all throughout the year we put a roof bit out for the whole removal of the current one and put a new one on we are holding that bid opening here this friday the Eric put out a little survey thing on Facebook asking people if we should bring it back, and so he's thinking about doing it for next year, but the last few years they haven't done a fall league.

Okay, the slow pitch I assume uses a day at King Park. Yes, sir. What about the fast pitch?

They are using, since we don't have a fall baseball this year, they're using fast pitch and tee ball field, or their main game field.

and them are booking out too but yeah they have fields available for the fall the mayor we were i'm just thinking you know about the property at it makes for we need more since we've got several several and each of these like slow pitch and fast pitch and even the baseball they keep putting another level in every so often and that just keeps

small playground repairs. One picture we had on here maybe will come up. We had some chains break on the playground that we've just been welding back together just to make it safe for the kids. We put up several new memorial benches along the greenway. One of those was for Miss Carolyn Davidson that had worked for the city school. We purchased new tables and chairs for the Ada Wright building and the farmer's market. That was much needed because we were renting those buildings out like I said almost every weekend and tables and chairs The big thing that we worked on is we finished our first shade structure over at Dave King. It's over the score tables. It cost us $500 in material, which was a lot better than the $5,000 I was quoted for the fabric shade. There we go. up the score table so our handheld score keepers that we have now, it's not messing those up being in the sun.

Okay, will this be one of these at each field?

If y'all like how it looks and everybody approves it, then yes, I would like to do several more of them.

Do they do any public address announcing with the softball leagues and so forth?

in but over at dave king they didn't have anything we tore i think was last spring might have been last fall we tore down their old press boxes because they were one time they had it where they had a little wood one maybe maybe two people could sit in a little covered field for each of the softball fields yeah those were tore down they were falling apart so we ordered these new score tables which they're actually

How have we been, AJ, with the water? How much rain have we had? I just noticed that grate there. Do they feel slated or anything? Are they pretty well dry fairly quickly?

They do. One, we get a lot of rain, but within a day or two, it goes away.

for things at the parks. We've been trying to build a list to bring you guys so that we can have a conversation about what we want to do with that versus just doing it because I think it is good to let the county know what they're getting for that dollar. One thing that we put on the list toward the top is new score boards for the girls side. That seems to be the biggest area of problems is on that side and So if you guys can think of some more things that you... Ben Lowman cut the wire to the school board. So we had to fight through some of that and find out where that is. So I just think it's a good time with extra money, and that will be a big bang for the county's buck that they can see. And so if you guys can think of something else, we should have some more money to throw at a couple bigger projects. I think they're wanting to see those type of things versus something smaller that we can...

I think years ago, and I think Prater can

Oh, no, I'm saying reach out to see any business or individual or something might like to sponsor a school board. Yeah. It's a possibility.

And we kind of bannered it around a little. We may put the city of Manchester or the park's logo on each one and not, I mean, you know, because a lot of these places are, it's made for the tournaments, the average person who to do some kind of logo for the park specifically, or as you said, I mean, there's opportunities to name some other stuff, but...

I know they're bombarded with... Every day, I'm sure, Rand has no idea how many people in a week's time...

It's what's been on advertising dollars. Sometimes they don't.

Every 10 blizzards, you get a free visit to your house.

And I'm going to charge you with coming up with what you need to do.

It's a perfect opportunity. No, it's a perfect opportunity.

across the five-lane road.

It's on your shoulders to keep this city slim. Shoot.

Oh, that's great. I think that is good if they're giving the money to follow up and see where that's going to run.

Well, I mean, just like.

That is true.

Well, and the kids can't get out of the pool area, can they?

Well, there's going to be a lot of kids that are the age that they'll probably walk to the rec center and do something or whatever that's going to go wrong.

And that's where all the money's at.

It sits there, don't it? But you need to get with Dairy Queen. You need to get with Dairy Queen and say, okay, if people will keep up with their blizzard purchases, on the 10th one they can come visit us free because they're going to like it and they're going to need it. Therefore, we'll get a promotion.

But what came out of that meeting that I think this committee needs to kind of talk about is the actual leagues, the actual structures of the leagues, meaning we don't want to shove people where they don't want to go, but at the same time, Little League is a brand, Cal Ripken is a brand, and with those brands come very definite structures of how was run, how they handled their stuff, which really didn't involve the city. We let them all, I put the presidents of the league up front and let them answer. Well, Prager was here. I mean, and it seemed that once we did our commitment part and said, hey, we're going to do better, right? Fields could have been better. We get that. We're going to do better. Then it turned into some league things. And I just think when my kids played here, we played a little league. You got to play with Teloma. We that extra time versus just forcing everybody into playing travel ball. Kind of talking through some of that internally so that we can put some of that out there and see how we push them into things that govern them for us before we can get out of it. I don't want to be in that business.

I was kind of concerned that some of them had basically a closed

board board of directors and some of them had an open board of directors and i think it was one of two actually didn't even have a board of directors uh so i think that you know that's something you know we don't charge them we don't want any other money i mean you know i know we talked about some fees and some different things and we come back around to some of that but i think if we can get that part of their

But how did we get so involved with going away from Little League that we allowed them to go away from whatever we approved them to go through? And now they just became whatever they wanted to be.

Does that make sense? It does.

I think when they came to us about that, that was a long time ago. Other places around here were getting away from Little League. And they wanted to be able to.

But I do remember hearing the whole presentation about what it was going to be, and that's the reason I asked. And if they felt the need to come and ask to leave Little League and do away with that, why did we let them go away from the others? I guess what? This is news to me.

It's news to you all. What are they now?

Am I making sense? 100%.

I don't think they're sanctioned.

I guess as the rec center and the rec director, would you want that?

What's that?

Just anything that they want to be.

No, I think they should be sanctioned.

Are they liability- After two years. Okay. Liability-wise, or is it just following the rec center, or is there a- Well, they provide us insurance and everything just for using the field.

I mean, they go out and buy their own separate policies.

It's just- So are they just a structured-

We don't know how they're structured. Part of what we require for them to be down there is proof of insurance and a very generic type of a balance sheet. And it's just more or less we're looking to make sure they don't owe a bunch of money from the year before and that they have some money to start this year.

They still bring you all their financials?

No, not all of them.

And I'm looking up here, but I realize you do that. That's one thing we have problems, we've had problems with all along was the fact that even when the leagues had the concession stands, it wasn't unusual for the leagues not to present the recreation commission, which is part of our structure. We just allowed it to happen and not do anything about it. But we had a difficult time getting any kind of funding. I mean, it wasn't like we needed a CPA to look at their schedule. In fact, you know, this is what we spent. This is what we have. This is what our balance is. Something very, very fairly simple. But we've just, we as a commission or... Director, whomever you want to put the blame on, which we're part of it, just didn't ask them for that stuff.

And so just don't be surprised if it gets a little more intense and involved as we go, because I think that is part of what we're supposed to do. Because a good 75% of your fields are in these three things.

I just think they should, I guess I'm confused because I guess I've always heard little kids say they played Little League or they played Cal Ripken or they played. Is it the TYBA?

Yes, is that what it was though?

I think it was TYBA.

TYBA came in right after Little League.

Yes, and that's when we were involved. So what did they say they play now?

But we weren't aware that it wasn't going on.

It wasn't happening. That's why we're doing this today. Listen, I'll take all the blame for the last couple of years because it just kind of happens. It just kind of goes along.

It happened for the last couple of years, Joe.

But I mean, it's just... And let's move it.

And is the reason they get out of it is because they don't like something particularly?

Just never held them accountable to make them do it. I don't think anybody's maliciously not. We get them to sign the paper. And then if we don't have everything, we still let the league go on. And we're just going to have to put the brakes on it.

Do we ask them to be associated with the sanctions?

organization is that what you're saying i'm going to present something to the board that says there's got to be some kind of sanctioning body for them to get to fields for no cost well it's going to ask you know well i mean other than that everybody else who uses our field i mean if you practice on them or you have ball teams that travel everybody pays you a fee to use our field except those three leagues so that's the case and they want to keep that structure

Yeah, okay.

We've never heard of any of them. There's several for them to pick from, and I think part of the comments that I'd heard with Little League was that the sanction and this stuff got to be a burden to where they were going to have to raise the rates on the kids. This is why they claim to have made some adjustments. But, you know, I heard in there, and it was very odd to me, that to play baseball, it was $85.

And if you'll remember, we had three to four meetings about leaving Little League. Public meetings. There were public meetings, I believe.

I just want to put that back on your radar. Well, one thing.

That right there, there's two problems. One, that's Brent Percy's birthday. That's who? That's September 9th's Brent Percy's birthday. I will be at a bank board meeting. I won't be here, but that's totally fine if that's still good for everybody else.

And you can maybe get closer to Tom and see who's going to be at that time. It's my 29th birthday. Bank board retreat. I don't want to be here. That's right. I mean, is it whatever if we need to reschedule? I don't know.

If you want to wait and see if we've got a quorum, I'll be at a bank board retreat. That's the one we leave for that.

Well, you might want to check with them.

Leslie. Yeah. If y'all can all do it, it's totally fine. I'll hit y'all the next month.

On the airwaves.

October 3rd. He did.

Did you make a motion, Prater? I did not. I mean, any Wednesday of that month is fine with me if we want to change the date on it. For me, too, if you need.

I guess one thing, you're saying we'll have other people at the meeting from the ball leagues and stuff like that. Are you going to call that a special meeting or just at this meeting?

Well, I was going to push it off until probably like January. Not a lot going on. Well, it's not a lot going on. The next couple months are going to be busy. I mean, we've got a new board. We've got new committee assignments. All that has to be redone. And so it'll just be a month or so before I can get back to it.

we're kind of already like we're starting to falling now so I guess it's better just wait till they finish fall before we start spring ball do we need to change the September date

Not as of right now. Leslie's not going to be here. Leslie Brasfield's going to be here. She'll be fine. Are you going to be here? Yeah.

It's his birthday.

It's just today. He's in a bigger hurry than he is now.

Yeah, I'm not going to stay here late. In that case, I make a motion to be adjourned. Thank you.