Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

run enough. Ready to get started? No, I'm fine. I'll just look at yours. Okay. Oh, I can't see anybody's glasses. I actually I have it on my phone so I can No, I'm seriously fine.

Sucker. Do we have any minutes that were submitted? There were minutes in that appointment. I thought that was an old one though. Um, was Roberto, you know, they were new because they talked about the um, Liliana thing. I didn't know if Roberto was going to do the minutes. They were attached to that thing. I RSVP on that. Okay. So, maybe she sent them in. She might have sent them in. Yeah. Can't read it. Okay. Do everybody get a chance to look at the rest? I did not, but I'll just Yeah, I didn't. I had another one. I had another attachment.

Yeah. It was It's one long thing and two attachments. So, Um, okay. So, we only got two. Do you read the minutes, didn't you? I can't vote on them, though. So, I read them, but I Okay. So, I We don't have enough people to vote on it then. No, I don't think so. We'll have to do it next time. Yeah. Let's do um Okay. Okay. So, let's let's jump into old business.

Okay. Facilities update. Um, some of the gold mouths still need more time. We're It's difficult. We're just talking about the dry weather and um I think we'll be okay. We're going to have Mother Nature will balance out, I think, but some of the gold mouths still are still um cordoned off. Um, and fields aren't as great as we'd like, but I mean it's just it's mother. It's just the heat and that there's none of the fields get any shade at all. So, um, DPW helped us up helped us out immensely on the upper fields. Um they there's sumac trees up there that uh they have that flail mower that goes around and they they chew everything up. And there were 90 plus balls found

Yeah. in a patch that's about what six feet six feet wide from. What does a softball cost now? Too much old home days. Make a little table used softball. The uh it's like a 100 bucks. 65 bucks for a cheap dozen. Yeah. For a cheap dozen. For a cheap dozen. Closer to 100 for five or six bucks a piece for a practice bowl anyway. Really? Oh, yeah. I've been making them go and get them. Oh, we'd make them go. We started to do that with lacrosse balls cuz it was ridiculous. So, anyway, they they went up and they they got the flail mower

and they just they dug they got it and it looks seems to be working. And Sid will put some stuff down. Hopefully it doesn't come back. Yeah, but it's grow. It's already growing. And it's growing in the grass. Regular grass now, too. Yeah, he can. He's going to He said he sprayed the stuff that was off the regular grass already. He's going to have to do it again. It's sprouting everywhere. You have to You got to kind of wait for it to sprout. Yeah, cuz like you could dig up the roots. It's like um bittersweet. If you think you pull up a root, forget it. You don't.

So, best thing to do is take it down and then you have to put something on it that's going to get to the root and kill it. Um, so we'll have to keep up at it. And well, I I didn't I can't go off the grass either. Well, it's not grassy. No brown, but I can't go in there with the No, no, no, no. That would You could, but that would changed the blade right after right after it. So,

um, irrigation heads at Laugher um, Sid had called me and we had some going at 360 when they didn't need to be. So, and Ler's been great about, hey, can you get us a, you know, box of heads? And they do. Um, and that'll save money and you won't be watering places you don't need to. Um, we did have a little diddy at the playground and I got a call on a Saturday I think it was. I don't remember. But anyway, one of the panels um kids standing here and then there's like a little safeguard thing here and one the bolt came out and it was sitting right there. So I don't know if like kids took it out. It it didn't because like typically if it it it come loose one of them one of the things would have fallen to the ground.

So, but um we put um Joe in charge of going around and checking making sure all the the bolts are tight. So, so facilitywise we are we're okay. We could use more rain, but that's nothing we can

do. Equipment wise, everything right now is working. Um, we haven't had any problems. We're only into the sixth week of our budget, so budget-wise, we are okay. Um, the tennis court and the basketball court, capital improvement plan, I haven't heard anything. Um, as soon as I hear it, I'll I'll bring it to you. There is a fundraising group that's active um to refurbish the courts. Um and there's some kids that went to the high school that are now I'm trying to figure out how old they are, but you know, late 30s, early 40s. They made a little video and they put it online and you know, so hopefully that helps. So, who do you have to hear from about the tennis courts and the basketball courts?

The capital improvement plan. Okay. The capital improvement committee. Okay. So, they everybody needs something that fits into the capital improvement plan and this does fit in. You make a presentation to them. So, when I did present it, I don't know however long ago and they were receptive. So, did you present replacing them totally? Yes. Okay. Yep. The I went up with the town manager showing him around and we looked at the

Oh, yeah. You talked about that. Yeah. So, if I mean if if it got approved or whatever. Um, is there a poss It's still going to be a little bit out, right? Like a year or two out because it has to be voted on and not too It'll be the next ballot cycle. So, it be So, be March, but it' have to have Yeah. March, April. So, you don't want to start them. It It depends when they can do them, right? Okay. You know, because you don't you can't shut them down for the high school tennis, right? That would not work well. So, so it we may be able to get it done before, but I don't, you know, depends. Seems like Yeah, it doesn't seem likely though.

So, um Doug's not here because of uh old home day because he is like very busy. Um, the Voyager camp has been an absolute success. Um, I think I don't know if last time I told you, we had one incident on a bike trip. They were going through Dair and this guy that was about 50 years old, 55 years old. 12-year-old, one of our kids, about 12 goes by on a bike and he shoves him, knocks him down. Are you serious? Police will call and nobody knows why.

It's weird.

So yeah, I mean a bunch of kids riding bikes and you know it just there's a long lines of bikes. I don't know. Maybe he was upset about that. I don't know. But that's like the only incident and it wasn't caused by any of our kids. So the kids are really liking it. that has um that's been a the Voyager camp's been a great success because over the years when I first started doing this the summer camp stuff um the bulk of the kids were 10 11 12 13 years old then it got to be 9 10 11 and 12 year olds and it kept getting lower and lower and those those older kids as we brought camps forward the high school baseball, basketball, all the camps that go on. We were getting fewer and fewer of the older kids. So, the Voyager camp kind of stepped in in in taking that and they just go on trips, which is what the kids want to do. They don't want to, you know, like they don't want to do what the other little kids do. So, um the summer playground program last year we hadund um our average attendance was 148 this year was 192. Um we have increased um we had 400 kids registered. We had about 340 or 360 last year, but we capped it at 400 um just so that we could be assured that we'd have enough counselors there to with the kids. Now, the big difference is we have a whole lot more younger kids,

kids entering first grade um and they need you Back in the back in the old days, we had 10, 11, 12, 13 year old kids playing kickball. You could have 15 on a team and you could have like one or two people watching is not a problem. But with the little ones, they need more attention. So, it just and we have to stay within those. We want to stay within those limits. Do we know how many people we had to turn away or if we had to turn away anywhere? There weren't that many. We had a waiting list of uh I know we had two people off the waiting list cuz some two people dropped out.

Um but most of the waiting list was way way after the deadline. So everybody who signed up on time got was it. Yeah. Nice.

So and that was good. And as we closed out this past Friday, um, as the cars were going by, as I'm waiting to put all the stuff away, and the parents were very thankful and very nice, and several parents got out of their cars to thank the counselors and whatever. Um, the woman who was the head honcho down there, Don Hodes, has been working with me for 25 years and this was her last year. That was a tough one. So, wow.

Doug got her a little plaque. Um, I had a little pin from London Dair and um, she had a couple of other little things and she wrote me after she was on the way home. She says, "I can't make it up." I she lives in conquered and um she said I couldn't couldn't make it home without crying but it's 25 years and she was great because I quite honestly I never had to worry about things if Dawn was there

like I know she would do the right thing. She works in education at the conquered high school and she was a sped she was in the sped special education department here

and uh it's just a nice nice person. So um we're going to change the age limit next year for the it used to be um entering first grade to 14. We haven't had any 14 13 year olders and even I think 12 year olds. may have had one or two. So, I'm not sure where we're going to put it, but the Voyager camp is taking taking over that that portion. So, and yeah, they go up and God bless Doug for doing it. They're climbing mountains, going on bike trips, going into wherever. And

we just read he went to Canoby Lake, too. Yeah, they went to Canaby, which we we always used to go to Canoby. Taking an in six-year-old kid to Canoby is in a group is well's a parent and not not not too good. We used to go to Tuckaway State Park. Then we had a couple of years we had to cancel because of the water po whatever was in the water. Yeah. And then as the kids got younger and younger, it's like, you know, can your kid can your child swim? Yes. But there was no box to say yes, they can swim if they have swimmies on.

Mhm. Which, you know, so it's harder, as you all know. Um the fall and winter scheduling is ongoing and we work working closely with the SAU about the indoor activities. Um, and we will meet, well, I will go to the meeting with Doug and we're going to talk about uh softball tournaments. We were discussing it before. Um, that go into like October, November or indoor or with I'm sorry, you said with softball? No. No, for next year. Okay.

Because like in July they had a softball tournament every four weeks in a row. Yeah, I think it was close to eight weeks in a row. It was insane. It was too much. It point is what you're talking about is the scheduling is is a big issue about maintenance on the fields and y it just uh it's difficult to get all the maintenance done if you don't know when the the game start. Most of them started on Friday this year which

was a problem. It is. Um, it's difficult to say the least, but they're they're doing, you know, the tournaments up there are great because they're always filled. Yeah. You know, um they're they're wellrun. The organization makes some money. Uh yeah, the stand does really well. The stand. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Not on the 18y olds. No, you know, we do really well on the eight and 10 year olds because the parents won't leave, right? Captive audience. Yeah. The 16 and 18 year olds, the kids drive themselves drive, right? So, it's we have no parking and nobody buying anything. So, the younger kids is the

it's a bread and butter. So, but the softball is that the adult credit card. Okay. It's a kids. You have a lot of softball tournaments. Okay. Yeah. the the the only they don't have the adult the adult softball league will have like a little tournament as a fundraiser. Oh, okay. Like a one day thing and then they're going to they'll have it to donate to scholarship fund or something. Okay. So, um they did have the Jake Nard basketball tournament. Um they raised a good amount of money and they Yeah. Do you know how much they raised? What I saw from Judy was like seven grand. And

so that's for the scholarship, I think. Right. I I believe so. Looked like it was really successful. But Jake Nar was a football player. Mhm. Who had died in a car accident in the spring and was it's a great kid. I got to coach him which was a blessing. Um and the kids keep wanting to do it. So they have a big picture. It's on online. It's right around the corner from my house. Yeah. before it happened. It's scary stuff. Um, and it just we've talked about kids and driving before, but yeah, it was brutal.

So, um, that's been an ongoing thing. I And these kids are I don't know if they're out of college now. And they somebody had reached out to us Saturday to use an extension cord, which they absolutely can, but they can reach out earlier than the day of the event. And we have no problem letting them use the power to do whatever they want to do. The kids organize it themselves. Yeah. And I don't I'm just saying there's somebody who wants to reach out to we'll work with them and like we'll help them out. It's the thing is if there's a mommy or daddy there helping them. Yeah. Okay. Do you have your extension 7000? Do you have this? Do you have

I think it was actually Thistle who reached out and said, "Can we do this?" And we're like, "Yeah, of course you can." But like in the future if they want assistance we'll just reach out. That's all they're going to do. The only the only adverse thing about when this first happened they were on the basketball court with candles and it was I went up the next day and there was wax all over the um so I was scraping them. Oh I told them no candles. They have fake ones you could buy that have a little It's probably good for the dirt anyway.

They said 7 they together they raised over 7,000 and that's 4,000 more than last year. So who are the kids that won it though? I saw the picture. I didn't recognize I mean the winner Jake's saying was no bad days. Yeah. There's a picture in Jimmy Ozon's office. We're going out for the football game. We're right underneath the goal post. And Jake was in the back and he had jumped up and somebody caught him jumping up. So everybody's heads are here and his head is up here by himself. Mike, Nick, and Jackson won it.

Oh, good. there. Um so that um we we Doug received a letter about the skate park and the woman wants to do something. You know, what can we do about it? And um did a little research. Anybody want to guess what it would cost to rebuild the skate park? 120 grand. I see your number. Huh? the way it is now to completely rebuild it or just go in and replace. You got to have to take those down and rebuild it. Oh yeah, hundreds of thousands, not 500. Is it all cracked and not in good shape? It's not in great shape, but it still works. Well, it's all wood.

It's all wood. And how old is it now? It's amazing. 25 years. Yeah, it's 25 year wood. Yeah, they estimate, rough estimate, $55 per square foot. So it cost about $550,000 to Is that is that metal or that would be concrete is the way to go. Yeah. Yeah. Concrete's the way to go. Um and we did you we've had a problem with graffiti.

And we've spent a lot of time and a lot of money getting rid of the graffiti only to have to spend a lot more time and a lot more money to get rid of the next layer of graffiti. Mhm. and we just don't have the time. Well, not only that, those bases are hollow, so they've got hiding spots. And yeah, and they're loaded with trash. We'll throw trash on there. So, if it's concrete, eliminate all that. I don't know what the one in Nashville cost, but what's that? Cuz then you just have graffiti. Yeah, but it's easy. You can have pressure wash off. Yeah. You know, Nashville one is really nice. And this woman also wanted it wanted lights on it.

Mhm. And I was adamant about no lights. Yeah. Because it's down the hill a little bit from the parking lot. And I just thought, but there's a neighbor there, too, right? On the back side of the tennis courts, isn't there a residential home there? Well, there's a home there, but that's there's going to be six or seven more homes back there. Really? Cuz they sold out. Yeah. Mhm. So, when you get down to the end and you have to take a right to go to the courts, y there's going to be a road going down to the left. Most people know what they're buying into at between what? 7 and 7:30 and 2:30 every day. Well, actually, it's constant all day.

Yeah, because we have open campus now. Well, then but it's really bad. It's a racrack at night. 10 drivers. Yep. Then the that's why I did not somebody talked about putting pickle ball courts up there and I said no cuz I knew the houses were going in and you hear the bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing. That's why I wanted them at West Broadway out in the back cuz at least they're at least at least a quarter mile from anybody else. There won't be any more smell of gunshots I hear and there. So Oh, you get the gunshots all the time. I get tons of gunshots. Like sometimes I'm like that's excessive. But there are a lot in those power lines. We're like how can they be shooting suckers going on?

But it's not like it's not like bang bang. That's what it sounds like. And then every once in a while you hear somebody with they hit a house once. You know that right? They hit off. You know the wy if you're going down we wy from where you live on the left. Those like Yeah. Somebody was close enough they hit a house last year. Yeah. But isn't that the wedgefield? No. This is if you go down while you have like the the westward soccer like you're going to Lichfield. So on the left right after you pass Anthony all those houses somebody was back there and hit one of the houses last year. But every once in a while you hear like Mhm.

You hear both. They're in both. Like we you can tell where it's coming from cuz I'm right in the middle of field and the other one. Oh wow. You can deal with fields that sometimes like but you know like when you hear like the fireworks and it's at the end and you hear the loud boom. Every once in a while you're hearing this. It's like boom boom boom boom boom. Then somebody comes in with I don't know what it is but it's like up here and it's like it's insane. Mhm. I used to have a friend who would call all the time and they I don't know if they can I don't know if it's legal or not. I don't know. I just don't understand like it's not where they shoot. It's just not that far off from the soccer fields. Am I there? Soccer games are going on right now.

We've had that before a long time ago. We up in field three. Somebody was shooting and wasn't. So, um, you know, the skate park's going to be allowed a lot of money and throw it in with the basketball court. Yeah. B the tennis courts need to be done. I mean that's and they used they're used from snow off to snow on even sometimes the really cold days they're shovel they shovel them off and put a net out there.

We'll go up and take the net down so it doesn't freeze because if it freezes then you can't get it out. You go up couple days later and somebody will bring up their own net so they can play. They do. as a group, they bring their own net, which is I don't care. I just I can't can't like I can't put the Mets in danger. You have numbers on the skate park, how much how much use it gets.

I don't have anything formal because it's always been very steady. There are typically people up there quite a bit there. I've been up there at quarter 6 in the morning. There's a guy, an adult 30, 35 years old, skating before going to work. Um, there were kids after school, the kids in the summer. Um, I was just curious. I don't know how much use it got or didn't get. Yeah. I don't think it gets as much use now as it No, it doesn't. It did before. Yeah. It used to be really crowded. Yeah. And um, so whatever around there, it's not. Now,

I don't know if it's a com if it's the skate park is not as good as other skatep parks because it's 25 years old or the sport itself is and that's what I wondered. I know 80s 90s it seemed like it was that's everyone had to have but I don't hear a lot about it now. Was it a point where you shut it down some point if it's a safety issue? Somebody comes in screaming it's a safety issue. Oh, if if it becomes a safety issue we'll have to shut it down and you have to take it out because people jump the fence and all that. is um and then maybe when it's blank, everybody that wants to use it can come up with the money to It's just I was just shocked at how much money

I I you know, because when this when it went in I look at the skaters as the risktakers, you know, back in the 90s and whatever. And they were people were complaining. They were skating up at Market Basket at Shaws. Had kids going like 30 miles an hour down Mammoth Road the high school. They skate down the handrails on the hands. And so I just I you know a lot of kids want to skate. They need a place to recreate that.

And there were people in the town council back when that didn't want it. I don't know how this count. I haven't brought it up to this town council, but it's just it's something for the kids to do and it's a whole lot better than sitting at home looking at the computer the whole day. I said that's what they are. They're playing video games now instead. So, it'll be do anything to get it onto the capital improvement plan. I wouldn't want to mess up like the tennis courts and the basketball courts because Okay. Like you go up, you've seen the basketball courts and they're talk to somebody playing up there. Always. Yeah.

You know, they have camps up there. They Yeah, they have camps, they have out like teams will practice up there. So, and that deserves to be redone. And then I think in order to get the skate park redone, it's going to have to be another warrant article. Mhm. Mhm. So, what was the letter about? Just asking if something could be done or uh Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And Doug wrote back to I thought you might come tonight, but Mhm. Um did it claim that was a safety issue or just like to see it improve? Okay. Said it was messy and it's

usually a lot of there's a bit of litter, but you know, Joey keeps up on it. have gone down and raped up the trash and well for that alone over the years over the years it's should have shut it down it's should be self-p policing right it's like out of every facility we have like you can have 1,200 kids out at west road not have a single candy wrapper or cup you can't go 50 feet in a m not it's been terrible this year it's been really bad yeah but the skate park too I mean I used to walk the field every Sunday after lacrosse and pick up all the stuff. People could be 10 feet away from a barrel and they just stole

I've actually watch them where they'll just drop it on the ground. You're like trash can's right there. Like you really can't put it in there. Yeah. It's just terrible. Oh, it's adults, too. It drives me insane. Don't pick it up. It's changed with the uh the team locations where they're coming from too, hasn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, these turnups are getting bigger and bigger and they're coming from more from New York and Matt. Oh, yeah. Okay. I think what irritates me more than that though is when they bring food in like they'll stop at Dunkin Donuts instead of getting coffee there. Honestly, I'm fine with that as long as they throw the cup in the trash can. Yeah, but I I I just they can bring in a gallon of coffee if they want. I'm okay with it

as long as you go to the concession stand on a wait term and you you get something that's $4 or $3. You give him his big stand is super cheap though. I'm not a big concession stand guy. Yeah, I'm there for the weekend. I've got my cooler of stuff that I uh work out of. I I don't mind that. But like you're coming in like it's like going into a diner with a cup of coffee already, you know? It's I don't know. But that concession stand always gets my money anyway. It doesn't matter how much stuff they get eventually. You get it eventually. Might just be drawn out a little bit, but they get it. Some siblings go to those games. Absolutely.

Oh yeah. Younger siblings parents, you know, they go to the next parent who said yes. And grandpa or grandmother there. Then so my kids always did. My youngest. You just got to know the source. She gave me money. Five bucks. She needs a dollar. My nine-year-old granddaughter knows if you really really need something, who' it go to? It goes to me. It's all you need. It's I I have to have this. [Music] Okay. Well, that's I think that's all I have.

So, we Oh, one other thing. We we um we Doug has sent out um questionnaers to all the camp counselors for um you know, how can we make this better? What would you like to see different? What was the good stuff? What was the bad stuff? What worked? What didn't work? Nice. So, We when we had six or seven I could I used to do that in person but now that we have the numbers that we have it's kind of hard to narrow and you know get around to each one of them. So okay that's about all I have.

Does anybody else have any other issues or questions or thoughts? No. A motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor? Hi. Thank you.