Board of Parks & Recreation - Regular Meeting

All right, let's go ahead and call this uh meeting for the parks board for February the 4th, 2026. Uh glad everybody can make it in from Ice Apocalypse and uh glad everybody here. Um before we get started, Andy, do you mind giving us an update on Chairman Hessen? Um he I talked to him today. He's at home and resting and recovering and actually went to work today, but on light duty, whatever. I thought he was a permanently light duty at work already. Yeah. Wow. But anyway, he's uh just resting and recovering and hopes to be back um when we meet again this month. So, appreciates all the prayers anybody can for sure.

Well, he's got them about to get one now. So, everybody everybody bow your heads for prayer, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this day and we thank you for this life that you've given all of us. Uh God, we ask that you uh bless everybody here in attendance tonight in this great city. Uh God, we also ask that you lay your hands on Ken Hessen and have him uh recover and heal. Uh and we just appreciate all that you do, Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right. Thank you, Mr. Head. It's that time of year, folks, where we get to elect our chairman and vice chairman. So, um I'm not saying that we need to have, you know, everybody doing the same thing. But I think Ken is a great person for Okay. Okay. All right. So, we actually have Mr. Perry suggesting that Ken Hess be chairman. We have a second. All right. Uh we have a second here. Any questions? Anybody want any other people voted for chairman? All right. Well, I think the voting will need to cease and like to take a vote. All in favor say I. For Ken Hess.

I. All opposed. All right. Ken, congratulations. Hope you're resting at home for for being chairman. All right. For vice chairman. Um anybody choose you. Okay. All right. All right. All All in favor? Who was the first? Uh, it doesn't matter. Bubba and then Jill and then Mike. And everybody else. All right. All in favor? All opposed. All right. All right. We'll just let that go. All right. Anything else? Uh, Andy on that one? We're good. Good on that.

Okay. We're good on that. Uh, one item we need to bring in, uh, was sent by email today. Uh, I'd like to see if it's all right if we add Tennessee United's item to the agenda. Think motion. I'll motion to add it to the agenda. Okay. Second. Uh, motion by um, Mr. Pike. Second by Mr. Head. Anybody have any questions or concerns? All in favor say I. I. All opposed.

Okay, that's added to the agenda. That will be item I. Sorry, Tennessee United, you're on the bottom of the barrel, but that's okay. Appreciate you being here. Okay. Uh, we have uh uh minutes. We have to accept the agenda now. So, uh, any anybody would like to motion for that? Mr. Pike, second by Mr. Head to approve the agenda. Any questions? All in favor say I.

I. All opposed. Agenda is accepted. All right. We have minutes from the last meeting in your packet. Uh, please take a look at those. If you have any questions, please bring them up. If you have any items, please bring them up. If not, I'll take a motion to approve. Mr. Perry, motions to approve. Miss Helman seconds. Any discussion? Nope. We'll give you a minute. If no discussion, all in favor say I.

I. All opposed? All right. Minutes have been approved. All right. Any public comments tonight, my friend, Mr. Bruce? Uh, no, sir. None tonight. None tonight. Okay. Unfortunately, no, but no. We're glad to have you here this evening. Thank you so much. It's always good to be here. There you go. There you go. All right. No public comments. All right. So, items for approval. Uh, I don't think Mr. Silkwood is here yet, so we're going to move that one down. Um, Tennessee United might be lucky not to be the last one tonight. All right. Uh, item B, native meadow. I I can't pronounce the first name. How about um App April.

April. Okay, April. Griff, I can do the last one. Griffin. All right, come on up and tell us what what you're looking to do and how we can help.

There you go. Good evening, everyone. My name is April Griffin. Um, I would like to propose a native plant meadow at one of our parks. Um, how do I change the slides? Okay. Okay.

Um, so I'm going to tell you a little bit about the process and what's involved in creating a native plant meadow. Um, first of all, I'd like to introduce myself. Uh, I have a wildlife biology degree. I work professionally in genetics, but I spend a lot of my time volunteering with the Tennessee Environmental Council. Uh I am the Sar County Ambassador and I work with their pollinator program. Um we have created seven native plant meadows at local schools including Mel Hyde, uh Schaefer Middle, Rucker Stewart, uh several others. Um and I also volunteer for the Habitat Connection. We certify homes as bird sanctuaries in Davidson County. Uh, next, please. So, the process of creating a native plant meadow, um, unfortunately, it's not as easy as just buying seed and throwing it on the ground. Um, a lot of what you see outside are invasive species. So, those invasive species have to be eradicated before the native plants will take hold. Um, so in order to do that, you have to do for the size of the meadow that I would like to do, which would be around 1/4 to 1 half of an acre, you need to do three rounds of herbicide one time. Um, that would be in May, June, and August of this year. And then you would sew the seeds the following fall. Um, and then they have to overwinter. If they do not overwinter, they will not germinate the following spring. And then you should see flowers by May of 2027. Uh next please. Uh we have identified three areas that uh could potentially be a native plant meadow. Uh the first two at the top are in Memorial Park. The first is uh near the dog park and the sports area. The

second is in the back of the park. Um and then the one on the bottom is behind Mary's magical place. Um, if I had to pick one of my my top choice would be the top right, which would be the area that's in the back of Memorial Park. Um, some of the requirements I had for the meadow was that it needed to be accessible. I wanted everyone to be able to enjoy it. Um, so I wanted a paved path that went to the meadow or close to it. Um, I also need it to be it has to be full sun or else the flowers will not grow. Um, and it, um, it needs to be relatively flat. And then I wanted 1/4 to about 1 half of an acre. Um, one of the reasons I like this site is that, you know, this is kind of something new that we're trying. And it's public, but it's not too public, and we can kind of try it out and see if we like it. And if if everything's successful and it's easy to maintain and everything goes to plan, then you can even expand it into that other uh blank area that's in the back. There's like a another patch there. Uh you could expand the meadow to that area. Uh next, please. Just to give you an idea of what this looks like, uh the first year it's not very pretty um because you have to kill the grasses that are there. Um, so I usually will, uh, put up a sign of some kind to let people know that this is intentional, um, and it has a purpose and that, you know, we have a plan. Um, I would stake the area off, uh, and then we would hire someone to spray it. Um, someone that's licensed and certified. Um, next, please. Uh, year two, you'll have an early meadow. Um, you'll have early blooms getting established. This is pictures. These are all my pictures, but this is

pictures from uh a meadow in White Bluff, Tennessee. Uh next, and this are the this is the picture of the native meadow at Melhyde High School. Um this is about what you would expect for year three. If you're a gardener, you've probably heard, you know, the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap. Uh so on the third year, you can expect to see some blooms. Um, and then the maintenance for this is pretty low maintenance. Uh, you just have to mow around the perimeter of the meadow. And the meadow itself has to be bush hoged about every 2 to 3 years after it's established. Um, if you don't do anything to a meadow, then it will turn into a forest through the process process of uh natural secession. uh animals, birds will bring tree seeds into the meadow and those will grow and those will make it not a meadow anymore. Um and you may be asking yourself, you know, why don't we see more of these plants if they're native plants? Um and that's because uh these prairie plants, they used to be a lot more common in this area. We used to have prairies and wildflower areas here when we used to have bison in this area. and bison were acting as our natural lawnmowers. Um, but over time as we set as people settled the area, uh, prairies were often turned into farmlands and we lost our bison. Uh, so we now have to maintain these meadows artificially. Next, just some pros and cons. Uh, pros obviously it's beautiful. Uh, less mowing. Uh, it's educational tool. It attracts pollinators. Pollinators are necessary for pollinating lots of the food that we eat. It's a rare ecosystem now. Um, and it provides a lot of flooding control. A lot of the plants

that we have there now are things like bermita grass, uh, crab grass, fescue, johnson grass, those kinds of things don't really have a lot of a lot of those don't have really deep roots. And so those areas, you know, as we know, those areas tend to flood. These native plants can have roots that go up to 10, 15 feet deep and they're fibrous and they absorb a lot of water. Um, so I think it could provide a lot of flooding control. Uh, some cons is obviously the herbicide. Um, not pretty at first. It attracts pollinators, which some of those can sting. Uh, so that's one of the reasons I was shying away from Mary's Magical Place because it's near a playground. I would say if you were to do anything with that area, you could create a native grass land. Um, native grasses will provide the flood control and the habitat, but they don't have they will not attract nectaring insects like the flowers will. Um, it looks dead in winter. Uh, you don't have to mow it in the winter. You just leave it and the plants will come back in the spring. And obviously the planning and the prep work is uh one of the um you know a little bit difficult at first. Um like I said, it's not as easy as throwing seeds on the ground. You have to have it established and once it's established um it's pretty low maintenance at that point. So um in conclusion, I think the pros outweigh the cons and um I would like you to consider it. I think it could be enriching for the community and of course it would be good for wildlife. Um and that's it.

Thank you April. Thank you so much. That's very very interesting. Um any questions right now? Bubba here. The first one would be who who would be maintaining this area?

Right. So, um I've spoken to um you know I have to be in contact with the the superintendent and the the parks. The parks will be responsible for um mowing of course like they normally do like around the meadow and the bush hoging will be done by the parks as well. Um the actual establishment of the meadow at first would be up to me to schedule that and uh get that started. But once it's established and mature, at that point when we start to bush hog it, that will be maintained by the parks.

Questions for Andy. Andy, um, I think it's a great idea. I mean, there's some really good pros for this, but I know we have leeway on core land to do a lot of different things. Where does core land where does this fall under that? Uh all the ones at Memorial are definitely on core property, but they have no problem as long as we're not removing dirt or adding a lot of dirt. So the spraying part,

the spraying part, they have no we we spray when we need to spray. I mean, we we spray out in the lacrosse field to kill Bermud Bermuda grass and I mean to kill ry grass and fertilize Bermuda grass. They don't anymore. They used used to spray for mosquitoes at Sanders Ferry and Memorial Park.

So, I guess the the first thing we need to decide where it needs to go. So, I I like the spot where you've chosen for sure because of Mary's and the kids and I don't want to get stung either. I'm kind of chubby and I swell up a little bit. All right. Would Would you get more bang for your buck at Mary's Magical Place? I mean, I I drive by there all the time and I mean, I like how public it is. It's very visible. Um, but like I said, I don't know it being that close to a playground and attracting things like bees, right? That's,

you know, um, I think that you could do other stuff with it, just maybe not things like flowers. You could do grasses and and and my second question is the deer. The deer wouldn't mow that down. No, I mean, they grow they browse naturally, but they don't they won't eliminate it. you know, they'll lay on stuff and they'll We have a lot of gardens that we don't have an issue with. Okay. Yeah. I did have one. Who is going to absorb the cost for all this?

That's a great question. I meant to mention that. Um I've actually raised the money to start the process. Uh we've raised $2,500 through the nonprofit to start the meadow, which should be sufficient to do the spraying and the seeds. Okay. Yeah. So, I didn't want to get it to the level of where we spray it and we don't have the for the seeds. We don't have the money. They're more expensive than you would think. Okay. You know, for that area, for that size of an area. So, Gotcha. Yep. I would think some of the local schools would be um wanting to come out there and and look at the foliate, look at all that and kind of get education on that. Yeah. I was hoping Hendersonville High School um could maybe even help with the seating

since they're within walking distance. Be pretty smart. Mhm. Uh what other questions anybody has? Just one more. Is this going to be a yearly that we need to approve this or is this we're just going to turn it loose and take as long as we need it? Once you approve it, it would be it's done. And is it for just that one area or you would just continue to add different different areas? If we I would say if we want to add on we could maybe re you know like rejoin and discuss it again. If we add on you would need to approve it. We would need to approve it. Correct. And this doesn't create uh too much work for

for let's ask our parks maintenance supervisor what he thinks. question. No, it won't it won't make much work, especially if we don't have to mow. I mean, that's a little bit less that we got to mow. You know, if we bush hog it, it'll take 10 minutes every couple years. I think we can handle that. Well, with that being said, then I'd like to make a motion that we approve her request to to try this. I'm actually really interested to see how that goes. Also, oh, for Yeah. the location that you had mentioned uh the memorial park area in the back area. Okay. Yes.

All right. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right. Miss April, you've got your meadow coming. I would like to see in two years maybe come back with some pictures and Okay. Uh definitely not year one, but uh second year. Let's take a look at it. I'd love to see how it's going and uh maybe this will be something we can keep going further in the city. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming. Congratulations. Thank you. All right, Native Meadow is done. Uh hockey rink vending machine, Adam Jones, come on down again. Just state your name and what we can do.

Sure. Hi. Hello everybody. My name is Adam uh Sones. I think there's a bit of a misprint in the the agenda. Uh Stones. Stones. Stones. Like Jones but with an S. Zones. Yes. This is my wife uh and business partner Dana. Um we are uh really grateful to be here. Thank you so much for your time. Um

uh I I actually grew up here in uh in Hendersonville. I currently play in the HIHA uh adult league uh since 2023. and I played when I was a kid uh here back when the rings were at Saunders Ferry uh as well. So, we're big fans of the parks uh and really appreciate the opportunity here to uh work together to support and improve uh the the parks. Um what we're proposing here, so we're proposing placing a a merchandise vending machine at the roller hockey rinks outside of Volunteer Park for the purpose of making roller hockey equipment available on site. Uh that would include things like proper roller hockey gear. So roller hockey pucks and tape and like skate laces. Um and player safety equipment as well. So things like helmet repair kits, uh mouthguards, wheels, um those kinds of things that players need to to play safely. Um we uh at the rinks today, we we do see a lot of damage that's caused by improper gear. uh namely ice hockey pucks which are a lot heavier than roller hockey pucks and will break the the glass around the rinks. Um when we see the the damage to the glass, it generally happens because players are using the wrong pucks. Uh despite, you know, all the signage around the the rinks that are telling players not to use those pucks. Um so pending your approval today, we would make roller hockey pucks available on site to help mitigate those issues. uh and we can supplement the signage um as well, letting players know that they can then be attained uh on site. Um at times we also see players with wheels that are on the cusp of breaking or helmets that maybe need a new screw. Um both of which could cause avoidable injuries as well. Um sometimes players know about these issues uh to their equipment, but they don't want to leave to go up the road to to purchase something and instead they want to they want to play. So, while our

HIA officials do a fantastic job of enforcing player safety uh and equipment rules, sometimes players may elect to play with damaged equipment. Uh anyway, so we think by making these items easily available on site, players would be encouraged to fix their broken or overly worn gear before they play. Uh, and then players sometimes show up to to tournaments and they may forget uh things like mouthguards or tape or other accessories that they may need and they opt to forego those items instead of uh having to travel offsite again to purchase them. So having convenient access to these items at the rink would enhance uh the overall just rank and tournament experience we think. So, our goal here is to really to make these items uh easily accessible and available to players to help avoid situations where they would use the wrong equipment or forego the the proper safety gear. Um, in terms of the the value that we really see to the the parks here, we see that being three things. Uh, the first is cost savings. So by selling proper roller hockey pucks, the proper gear, we we would hope to reduce the volume of glass replacement that we see needed each year. Um I think the value of that is is somewhere around $13,000 annually. At least that's what we saw in the data uh for for this previous year. Uh the second is around enhancing player safety. So players would uh be able to replace again broken wheels or replace helmet hardware instead of skating on, you know, compromised equipment. Uh, and then third would just be an overall improvement to the park and and league experience both for hiha players and for, you know, regional tournaments that play at the the rinks. Um, so overall, we're presenting this to you as a as an opportunity for Hendersonville Parks to solve a persistent and expensive uh problem while simultaneously improving player safety and park amenities. Um, so again, thanks for your time. We're happy to take any any questions that you may

have about the the terms or anything laid out in the the proposal there as well. But again, appreciate uh appreciate your time. All right. Um Mr. K, you want to go over the terms for this? It looks like it's three years. Sure. um believe they're on page

22 and 23, but the the biggest part is page 23. First of all, uh this this board, I think I've told you all this, this board can't really approve your request. they can make a recommendation that Bulma uh enter into an agreement with you all to be a vendor per like a semi-permanent vendor in the park.

So that would be if y'all make a motion to approve that would be a motion to recommend that Bulma um enter into an agreement with these folks. So on page 23 it says revenue share for year one would be 4 and a.5% of gross vending sales with a cap of $100 a month remitted by annually July 31 and December 31st with sales records accompanying uh they would and they would request a glass breakage baseline which we provided to them. It is between last last in the last year we spent 12 to 13,000 replacing glass from the hockey rinks from behind the goals for when they break. Um we probably have mitigated that somewhat already because we've just chosen over the winter months to put wood up there. The the biggest glass breakage happens in the winter from what we've seen. Um and then uh track through year one with performance matrix to compare how we did. So, I I don't know if we can if we're going to continue to put wood back there. I don't know if that factors into, you know, your vending machine reducing

Sure. our cost. Um then year two, year three, if glass reduction meets 25% compared to 2024 baseline, the revenue share goes down to three and a 3% of gross sales. If reduction is below 25%, rate remains at 4 and a.5%. So that that is what their proposed terms were. Uh you all can make a motion to Bulma to accept that or you can recommend that it be something different. Um they don't have to agree to anything you recommend either. You know what I mean? So

yeah, I think the normal that we have for vendors is 7 and a half% uh is the return for that. Uh and that goes towards the probably we can we earmark that for the No. It all goes to the general fund. Goes to the general fund. Okay. Fees like that get turned. I would I would, you know, for for having a cap uh and having it not meet the rest of our other vendors that we have there. Um I think we need to have it at 7. That's me personally. Um if there's anyone discussion on this, go ahead. Anybody that wants to talk?

Um if if I'm may I add too? Yes. Um yes, we we did review that and thank you for all the information on um other vendor agreements too. The reason that we had it slightly lower mainly being that this is a really niche demographic where you're going to have foot traffic and just general public buying things like ice, sodas, snacks at a regular vending machine. This is very very niche and really just providing stuff for the players and the families that are there. So, it's a little bit of a special case where um you know it might not experience as much foot traffic or be as much of a revenue driver as a general vending machine might be in another park environment. So, that's why we had tweaked it just slightly. So, we played around with the terms a bit, but um happy to hear your feedback on that and adjust as necessary, but hoping that you will consider that as part of the review process.

All right. Any discussion? Anybody have any other questions? All right. Anybody want to make a motion, Mr. So, it's strictly only equipment and stuff for inline hockey players like uh yes, that is the goal. We may um the the machine that we are looking at is uh is a a machine rated to be outdoors and also is refrigerated. So there is the opportunity to potentially sell things like water in the summertime like refrigerated water in the summertime. We wouldn't vend anything uh like snacks or or anything like that. The goal is really related to all like inline hockey equipment like you mentioned. Yeah. You wouldn't be able to vend water either.

Okay. Yeah. That would go against the park contract with that we have with concession stands and with Coca-Cola. That's That's no problem at all. Sorry. We can adjust that. Yeah. No, no problem at all. Yeah. Any uh other questions? Any comments? Yeah. Jill, you got one? No. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I make a motion that we accept that we approve their proposal as it is. All right. Have a um approval um motion to approve. I have a second. I have a second by Mr. Perry. All right. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right. Looks like we got the motion to Bulma. Great. Thank you.

Congratulations. You got it. So, just so y'all know, um this will have to go to a public works committee meeting which is the LA 20. Hold please. Probably will be the 24th of February and then there is a Bulma meeting on March the 10th that it would if it goes forward. We'll have to go to there. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Uh illumination request for Memorial Park Foundation. Angela Laughen.

Unless she's on Unless she's on Zoom. I don't think no Zoom. She's here. No. So,

all right, Angela, I'm sorry, but we have to move you down if you didn't show up. All right. Soccer turf field use policy update by the park staff. Okay. Uh, we might let Dallas speak on this if you want to. We've had a lot of requests over the years or over the past year or two since we've gotten turf fields and other fields um where we've had to come back to you all for oneoff things uh since we put in this policy. So, we just were trying to figure out what would be best to keep keep you all from having to deal with oneoff request. That did I say that the best way I could?

Sure. Um, yeah. When we uh created this this policy a couple years ago, I mean, this was our our first uh turf soccer field and and we put a pol we met with our two soccer groups and and put a policy together that um we thought was fair um for both groups. Um and overall it's worked um worked well. Both groups have worked together on it, but um not knowing all the different circumstances that would would occur um once we got to turf field. there's been some some areas where we we identified some areas we we could tweak and and improve a little bit. So, this is just an updated verbiage. Um uh one of the main things um that we've added in this is um ensuring turf field access to the Rex soccer club um for their tournament play and ensuring um uh the turf availability to Tennessee United's club during their big try out week. Um so those both clubs have identified those are very important to their um club success and so we want to make sure that the field is available and they're able to play and not get rained out or other circumstance that may come about. So uh those are a couple of things that um we've identified in this in this new agreement. And then the other is um um providing access to our Sar County schools should they need it. Uh there was a couple times last year with the weather, they were in district and regional play and they needed to get their games in and uh their fields were uh rained out. So using our uh school park agreement, we wanted to help them out um if possible. So that's kind of the the main um additions and changes to the agreement, but overall the the the verbiage has stayed pretty much the same. So

thank you, Mr. Long. Any questions or comments? Anybody want to make a motion to approve? Mr. Head makes the motion. Mr. Pike seconds. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. All right. All opposed. All right. We have got that approved. Welcome, Dr. Golden, by the way. Glad to have you here tonight. All right. Moving on. We got the cold weather policy again by the park staff. back to back. Here we go.

I'll take this one. Uh we have had from several years a severe weather policy that addressed severe heat. And um just as in my personal experience as somebody who's had to cancel coaching golf practices in August when it was 98 degrees, yet I would have to wear seven layers to coach baseball in the spring wondering why are we out here in the cold but we can't be out there in the hot. So, you know, we had policies for heat. Our clubs uh several times over the past years have asked us on cold days, are you going to close the park? And we're like, no, it's kind of up to you. Like, we're not closing the park, but we we have a heat policy. We don't have a cold policy. So, say that to say, we've kind of did a lot of research to come up with this recommended uh chart that would give our staff some guidance to kind of um modify or cancel outdoor activities. This recommendation from this this would be for our leagues that we run. Okay? We will tell the leagues that we don't run. If they call and say, "Are you going to close the park?" We're going to say, "Our policy is this for our leagues. If you want to go by that for your own, that's up to you. We're not trying to tell lacrosse, rugby, soccer, baseball, softball, all these people they have to go by this policy, but we will have our own policy. If they want to use it, good for them. That way if grandma calls and says, "Why is my grandson practicing baseball tonight when it's 10?" We're gonna say, "Ma'am, that's not our league." Um, but you know, you need to call the Civotan Club. Just want to make that clear.

Thank you. So, this policy is for Hendersonville Run leagues only. Uh, so we will share it with other leagues if they want to take that into account and use it themselves. I think that's great. Most of them are members of national organizations that are supposed to have their own cold policy anyway. Like soccer is an example. They're supposed to be going by Tennessee State soccer cold weather policy. But so we're not trying to overstep that. Or if USA baseball is who Civotan goes under for baseball, they have a policy then they can use that.

Okay. So we have Mr. Perry's on roll. He makes a motion to approve this. So we have a second. Second by Bob. We're going with Bob this time. Sorry, Mr. Pike. All right. So, uh, all in favor say I. All opposed. All right. Make sure you share that with the middle school softball league. Um, don't want to freeze mine. That would be a Civotan league. Oh, okay. We'll make sure Civotan get Jimmy. Make sure Civotan gets a little bit of that. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Don't want to get too cold. All right. LPRF 2020 2026 application Mr. Gilly.

Okay. Thank you. Poll please. Okay. So be before I start um this would be another one where you you would be making a recommendation that Bulma approve the park staff to apply for a grant um which Miss Garton has gratefully um agreed to be the sponsor of such resolution for the park staff to apply for a grant. Um on your screen we are required by supposed to have a clicker up here somewhere. I don't know where it is. Let's see here. Did you lend me the clicker, JP? There it is. I got uh we are required by the office of outdoor recreation at the state to go through a presentation at the parks board um to show you what we're going to apply for in this year's round of funding for an LPRF grant. We currently have a uh $3.5 million LPRF grant open to build Heritage Park. We have a $5.5 million LPRF grant uh that we're about to start work on going across multiple parks for improvements. And because of our uh halfsent sales tax increase that the city passed, uh we've got enough funds that we're going to apply again in 2026 for a $3.5 million round of park improvements. So, I will click forward this slide presentation to show you what we're planning on doing. The first slide is our city's demographics. Uh 626 acres of parkland is what Trevor and the and the guys down there have to manage every day. Uh that's a lot. It's 63 almost estimated in 2024 64,000 residents. I'm going to say we're probably up to about 66 or 67,000 at this point. Um this kind of

shows you the the uh American Community Survey in 2019 what the age of Hendersonville residents were. I'm going to it's probably shifted slightly when we do the next s census. Um programming. This shows all the different programs that are run at these park sites where we're going to be completing these projects. So you can see this um touches a lot of different aspects of our park when you start talking about baseball, softball, kickball, travel tournaments, disc golf, fishing tournaments, um people just renting shelters, large community events, walking, running, biking, lake access, all the things, rugby, soccer, flag football, lacrosse. Positive impacts. Uh you will see that we're going to suggest that we do LED light conversions at Drakes Creek Park. Uh we're going to pave the entire um loop there at Sanders Ferry along with the parking lots and the little access roads to the pavilions. Um convert the three fields at Veterans Park, baseball fields to uh LED lights. and then at Volunteer Park um convert the soccer field to a turf field and put a concrete walking path around that field which was supposed to be in the original site plan for that project. It's been cut out two or three times. Um here's the three goals of the goals for each um part of the project. Imp improve quality of lighting which helps lower energy use, improve accessibility, circulation and park usage. improve improve uh enhance connection, safety, and playability. It's a 50/50 match. So, uh what we're proposing is that the city offer up 1.75 million and the state give us 1.75 million to complete $3.5 million worth of projects

to come from the city's PIP fund, parks, infrastructure, public safety, and paving. Uh those are the four parks we've touched on. Drakes Creek Park, Sanders Fairy Park, Veterans Park, Volunteer Park. This slide shows highlighted in yellow is this is from our parks master plan that we completed 5 years ago. We're about to start an update to that plan, which is very important because um to get these grants, you have to have an updated parks master plan now every 5 years instead of every 10 years. So if we were to come back in 2027 and apply for one of these grants, we would have had to have updated our parks master plan this year. So we are updating our we will begin that process in a month or two. Highlighted in yellow are projects from 2021 at each one of these parks that we have completed. So that's that's good that you see progress and you see that we've clicked off a lot of short-term and long-term goals at these various parks. some that we know we we didn't realize we'd even have a chance to complete, but we are completing these that are in squares currently. So, this page will be a lot more yellow this time next year, hopefully. Um, this just talks about economic impact, some of the goals and initiatives that the uh LPRF, local parks and recreation fund grants take care of. Um, not going to go over this word for word. If you want to, you have a copy of that in your packet if you want to read it and have any questions about that. Uh, it is a three-year timeline. I will say with with this with these type projects because they're very um not complex and not multiple vendors involved like there's one vendor for lighting, there's one vendor for turf, there's one vendor for asphalt. So, we would I'm going to say we'll be done in two years instead

of three years if we're able to get this grant. Pretty simple uh process as far as construction. Take takes a takes quite a while to get under contract with TEK once they say you get it. We won't find out till May, June. If we got it, we probably wouldn't be under contract till December of 2026. So, we would hope to do the bulk of the work probably summer of 2027. Um, this is kind of the budget for what we're looking at. About 700,000 of LED lighting at Drakes Creek Park. Uh, we would be looking at fields 2, four, 6, and seven on the baseball, softball side at Drakes Creek. Uh, the walking trail and parking areas at Sanders Ferry, Veterans Park, all three baseball fields, then volunteer park, the walking trail, and turf field. And then with with these grants, you like if we're just going to pave a parking lot oursel with our own money, we just call Rogers Group and we say, "Hey, we want to pave." When you do it through these grants, you have to have the parking lot designed, engineered, you have to show all the slopes and the ADA access and all the things. So, there's a lot of design and engineer work. And then grant administration, the notebooks to manage these grants is about 2 in thick. So terms of the city doesn't have a grant writer or a grant manager. So Andy is not going to do that. Um we were we are blessed to have good people that we can hire to do that on a one-off basis. Um this is just p pictures. This is a requirement of the grant to show pictures of some of the existing fields at Drex Creek Park, existing pictures at Saunders Ferry Park, existing pictures at Veterans Park. You can see the snow and um existing pictures at volunteer park project vicinity maps shows all the

parks that we're talking about and then specific each park has its own little uh map there that shows where we're going for each park. Then preliminary site site plans as well for each. Sorry, I went really fast there. It's not that complicated. Oh no, is that it? Is that the last one? JP may be the last one. Okay, that is all. Um I will say also the requirement of application is that we have a this is a public meeting but we have to advertise a much larger public meeting. So before our parks board meeting in the end of this month, we will probably schedule a a one-hour session where members of the public can come in, go through this same presentation, ask questions. Uh we also can have an online public meeting where we post the presentation online and people can make comments. We have to screenshot every comment. So the, you know, the more people that come to those meetings or comment positively for these applications, it helps our scoring when they score them when we get to that point. It's I didn't really know that until a couple years ago. That's interesting. They do pay attention to all that. This point, if anybody has any questions, like I said, a motion would be to recommend that uh Bulma approve the park staff to apply should you choose to do so.

Thank you, Director Gilly. Any questions before we get to the motion? Yeah. Two. Um the for the field of volunteer, what would that be striped for? What sports would be supported there?

To be determined. Uh when we did the soccer field at Drake's Creek, we we only we striped it with turf for soccer 11v1 and two 7v7s because we did not want a lot of extra seams in the turf. Then we came back and we painted lacrosse lines. I would anticipate at volunteer that you could see everything from soccer to flag football to lacrosse. It may look like a checkerboard of painted lines, but I will say we the actual turf lines we will keep to a minimum because the less seams the better. I just know that that that field is used for lots of different it is used for rugby, lacrosse, soccer, flag football, I mean

cricket. Cricket. Yeah. I don't know that we'll stripe it for cricket, but we could be. I mean, we've even talked about putting an infield in every corner painted to where you can play four little league games in every corner, four t-ball games going at the same time. I've seen that in several parks, but it it's truly anticipated to be a multi-purpose field. Yeah. And then Okay. And then other question was uh for Drace Creek and the lighting for those fields. Can you just remind me what would remain in terms of needing LED conversion? Uh the choice for those fields and not others. Uh yeah.

So what would remain would be field 13 baseball, field 8, 9, 10, and 11 for baseball and then back soccer other than the soccer stadium. When you apply for these grants, if you complete a project on, let's just say field 13, for example, you have to make fully accessible to ADA. Um, the entire site field 13 right now to make it legitimately ADA totally accessible could cost more than putting the lights on the field. So, we may or we may or may not do LED there. Not saying we won't ever do it, but we have to be really careful. At soccer, back soccer. If we were to do it, we would then have to install sidewalks all over the back soccer complex. Um, I don't know that that's always going to be soccer back there. And to install sidewalks based on a current field layout would could be detrimental to future use. So we in our current quad in the main quad we have field three and field five LED. So to do field two and four would be very important to finish out that quad. Field six and seven um at Drakes Creek Park when you first come in to the right. Field seven is kind of a showcase field for 12 and under baseball and field six's lights are terrible. So that's why we have chosen those fields at this time. veterans we chose because had adding turf this year then to do LED would kind of finish out that part of that complex. All right, any other questions, comments? It's love seeing stuff like this. So, um if we

anybody like to make a motion to suggest this to Bulma. Mr. Head makes a motion. Mr. Pike seconds. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right. Let's go get the grant. Thank you. Awesome. Appreciate it. Okay. Uh, wall of fame, Mr. Gilly.

Okay. Um, hopefully last long speech I get to give tonight, but um, we have our wall of fame induction coming up. Um, we do it every two years. We're going to do it in March. Uh, I think we do it right after our parks board meeting. Is that right, Natalie? Kind of what we plan on doing. Uh, but to do that, we always take a, uh, group of volunteers from this, uh, board to help us select this year's class of people. So, if anybody would like to volunteer for that. Um, Mr. Perry, you volunteer. M. Rather, Mr. Pike, Mr. Head, there's four right there. How about everybody? We just Everybody want to volunteer? Yeah.

Okay. Then the parks board can volunteer. We will send you all the nominees and we'll let y'all tell us who needs to be in. How about that? I don't even think we have to vote on that. I don't think you do either. So, excellent. Awesome. Anything else on that, Mr. Gilly? No, we have some great nominees. Great. I hope we do. All right. Didn't forget about you. Tennessee United, Mr. Whan, come on up. Brian, I'm gonna get you after that. You were first on the list. We'll get you. Go ahead, Jonathan.

Uh, yes, we would like to uh propose adding a WPSL team to our leagues. Uh, this would be a women's uh professional semi-professional soccer league that would participate in kind of the May June time frame. It's designed as a uh as a college league for female athletes and when they're home from school. So, we uh we've got a men's team currently, and so we would just be um asking if we could add a women's team. And this would run May through June. That's Yes, that's pretty much the time frame. Yep. Okay.

I have a couple questions. We I know we talked about this, but uh I've forgotten. So, um h how does this impact or interfere with the the men's schedule that you currently have? Um until we know exactly what the schedule is, it's it's hard to say, but right now we're looking at six to eight games. Um at least three of those would be local games that can be played during the week. Um and and again, in June, uh we can we can kind of find a lot of time. May may be a little tough, but June June, we can find a lot of space.

What What about the um what about the the scheduling between the men's team on the turf and the girls team on the turf? Will men's be done by the time the girls started up? No, they wouldn't. I mean, we would schedule on off nights similar to what we're doing right now and it would be kind of that 8:30 training time. um the the women's league does go a little younger that high school players can participate and obviously our teams are still going so we would need to coordinate with those schedules but there's also potential opportunity in June that these training sessions are during the day.

Okay. Um the only other comment I have just so you're you know all the events that we have back there in the end of May and in June with lacrosse and now we have a grass volleyball tournament um the 3v3 tournament camp. So, just want to make you aware that, you know, those may be some conflict dates there, but yeah, we Yeah, we have no problem working around anything we need to. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Long. Any other questions uh for Mr. Way, Mr. Pike? So, Dallas, with all that being said, do you feel semi-confident now that we can that we can push through this? I know y'all are good about working through it, but I'm confident.

Confident? Yeah, we're good. All right. Like it confidence. All right. If any other discussions, need get a motion. Anybody? All right. Mr. Perry and Mr. Head. All right. First and a second. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. All opposed. All right. Mr. Willen, thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate you.

Thank you. All right. Women's adult rugby, Mr. Silkwood, come on up. So, I've got with me a couple of the players from the National Women's Team. Um, the way this has come about, um, we had a girls high school team a couple years back. We had a um a girl that was out of college who came and coached and then she left to pursue some other career opportunities and got moved and then our team just so trying to coach girls when when pretty much we have an all boys coaching staff just didn't really work very well and so we've partnered quite a bit with the women's team about trying to help us grow the girls rugby program from the high school middle school side with them. And then through that we have also um you know in helping that with that we kind of came up with a conclusion that them having practices out at our field. So their practices would coincide with our same day. So Tuesday and Thursdays pretty much everything out rugby is rugby. Um high school and middle school practice 5 to 7. Their practices would be more like 7 to 9. So some of the girls will be coming a little bit early helping out with the with us on the high school girls team. Then they would have their additional practice right after. Um they've played most of their games are at home um up at our facility for the past three year probably past three three years. Um and then they also coincide with some um with the men's team and host have hosted a couple tournaments at our site as well through the summers. Um so it's been a it's been a great overall um you know collaboration within the rugby community to have them up up at our facility. We're trying to see about them having their practices up at our facility and being Andy. Maybe I'll speak a little bit better of kind of the application to be approved as a group. Um, but essentially we're looking to try to help bring them in under the umbrella with us

at Roby to help grow the girls sport um from the high school side. And did I did I do okay talking to me? Yeah. I guess we'll find out when they vote. I'd like to hear from ours. Yeah, we'd like to hear from Yeah, just a second. What Brian said, um what's good for the women's rugby program here is good for us. Um we love being able to help youth rugby grow and hope to keep some of these players in Nashville in the surrounding area to play with us when they're out of high school, done with college. So happy to be here, happy to use the facilities and grow rugby in Tennessee. Thank you very much,

Mr. Chairman. What Brian was trying to say is that he would like for you all to probably approve this league, but based on the fact that they operate through the Sar County Rugby Club in terms of working with us for scheduling where our staff, meaning right now Dallas doesn't have to deal with 43 different people to schedule. He continues to work with through the Sumary County Rugby Club to let let them kind of deal with the adult women's rugby. It is National Women in Sports Day according to President Trump who signed that today. So glad to see all these women's leagues and players and all the things.

All right. So, Miss Jill, Miss Jill's making the motion. I have a second. So, the motion is the motion is for the to approve the Nashville Women's Adult Rugby uh program to operate through Sar County Rugby for scheduling with our staff. Okay. Okay. Miss Rather makes the motion. Miss Halman seconds. That's fitting. It is. All right. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right. Congratulations. Did I do okay, Brian? Let's play some rugby. Good job. Glad you made it, Brian. All right,

that's right. All right, so we have our financial reports update, annual reports. Uh we'll go ahead and get kicked off with Hendersonville Lacrosse Club. Come on up. Good evening. Um, I wanted to um take a moment to um inform you of an of a of an announcement that uh a conversation that I've had last fall, last late last spring with uh Andy in Dallas that uh I have uh formally stepped down as the club president uh and janitor of the of the lacrosse club for the for the past 12 years. Um it um it it was it's been um an amazing time that I've had here. It's been absolutely great. But it's been but it it's it's all been made possible by this board. Uh you guys have supported us tremendously over the last 12 years and it has meant a lot to not just me but to our parents and through for the hundreds of kids that have come through our program. So, I just wanted to formally uh make you all aware of uh of the transition uh the administrative transition with with our club. Um and also, excuse me, my voice is cracking. And introduce you to my successor, uh Jake Jake Whitley. Uh Jake is a parent. He's been with us a couple of years now.

Yeah. Five

five years. He's got he's got two boys uh that are playing. Uh and he will fill you in on kind of what's going on with our club. We are, as many of you know, we we we uh there's been a a pretty significant change with uh lacrosse becoming a a TSSAA sport. Um the uh the the school leaders here did not decide to add lacrosse uh as as a school-based sport. So, you know, we're we're still in that fight uh and and having several conversations with with the school leaders here because as you all as I said last year, we don't want the sport to die and we essentially now have become a travel team. Uh because our varsity players cannot play sport cannot play the sport in state. So, we're essentially out traveling to Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, and whoever else will uh uh you know, invite us to play. But uh Jake will fill you in on some of the other things. But we still have a very excited excited group of kids. We have uh actually expanded with all the other stuff that's going on. We've actually expanded and have added a girls middle school team. So, you know, the interest is still there. Uh we still have kids and parents that still want to play lacrosse because as you know as I said as I've said every year for the last 12 years our county is growing. You know more people are coming here and they want to play lacrosse. So uh we're kind of filling filling the need. Uh but if you want to make any comments here.

Yeah I'll just be brief. Excited to step into some big shoes. I continue to work with you guys and the partnership that we've had. Um like Greg said Greg said we're we're growing despite the challenges. Um, and we hope to continue to grow with um some of our national partners, USA Lacrosse and things like that that that provide our insurance and can do well beyond um just insurance. So, um hopefully stability is what you'll see out of this and and we'll make the transition as smooth and thank you Dallas and Andy for all you've done in in the last couple months to make it smooth on me.

And our financials, uh they you know, we're we're pretty simple. Uh we're money in, money out. Uh we buy uniforms when we need them. Uh registration fees, ref fees. We don't we we do not do concessions. Uh that's never been a part of our thing. But we, you know, we try to keep it as easy as possible for for our parents and our kids just to, you know, play lacrosse, keep it simple. Uh, you know, thanks to Dallas for letting me bug him for the last several years when, uh, you know, the weather doesn't cooperate and the various uh, coaching renegades we've had over the last several years, we've kind of had to navigate. But if there's any questions about about uh, our club, our financials, we're here.

Any question? Go ahead, Mr. Pike. I just want to welcome the new person there. And Greg, I want to thank you for being a bastard of this game. I I was briefly involved with it when my daughter was playing. I watched it grow. I watched a lot us finally get lights that we that y'all worked on for a long time. Big deal. We worked on for a long time. Very big deal. Yes. Um, thank you for the work you've done and thank you for growing the sport. Oh, sure. Thanks for your support. He took every word I was going to say about you, Greg. So, thank you. Thank you. Is a long time. Yes, sir. Look forward to working with you, too, too. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Greg. You know where I'm at if you need me. Yes. Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right. Anyone else? I I just want to say I' I've been on the board for a couple years. Appreciate you taking it to the level of where it is now. You know, whatever TWSAA says, we're beholden to that, but wish they would have done it for you because you put the work in and you're leaving it better than you found it. So, on behalf of the board, thank you and uh hope we this isn't the last to see you here. We hope to see you more down the road. Okay. Absolutely. Appreciate you, Greg. Thank you. Appreciate. Any other questions? We're good. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Midstate Senior Softball League. Man had to put a jacket on. He got cold. Come on in. Well, it's good to see everybody. You can put that up when you get Okay. Uh, my name is Roy Dew. I've been around this league for gosh, 30 years, maybe. See, if I started at 50, how old would that make me?

Gives you an idea. Long time. Um, but anyway, it's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to see everybody. Uh, familiar faces, a few I'm not familiar with, but uh, I'm I'm very pleased to, uh, introduce tonight those that don't know him. Standing beside me is Darren Litl, our newly elected president of our league. uh he takes the place of Brad McKenzie. So u Darren's going to speak to you a few minutes and then I'll be glad to cover the numbers with you.

Quick few minutes. First I want to thank Brad McKenzie for his leadership as part of this senior softball league that we've had over the years for what he has done, what he will still continue to be as part of our senior league. Next, I want to thank the parks board and especially Keith for what you've done for us over the years. We greatly appreciate it. uh it has meant a lot for this relationship cooperation to back and forth. So I greatly appreciate that. Thank you. Um also I want to let you know that that I see some people in here that that I recognize that's played. Um this our league goes uh in three age groups 40 to 52, 52 to 63, and 64 and up. Okay. Uh my dad currently plays uh almost at 80. Uh, so this league has meant a lot to me and to the people of Hendersonville. So if anybody wants to play, come out and enjoy it. Reach out to me. Reach out to Roy. Okay.

Especially I want to thank you for putting that turf on Veterans Field. That's nice. You know, I play third base. Well, used to play at it anyway. They got some nasty hops over there. That'll that'll solve that problem. But we do thank you for that. Um, all right. Let's talk about numbers. I'm going to just do you a quick summation. You can look at our gross revenue at a little over 31,000. Our expense is just barely 30 uh,000, which means we made a net profit a whopping $675. Um, I add back in when you get to our cash reserves, I had to add back in the 2724, which was actually a 24 expense that we paid, a prepaid expense for softballs. We expensed it during 25 which brought our ending cash at $13,761. So we had another good successful season. Our profit went down a little. We did add a fall league with what seven teams.

Seven teams in the fall this year which was real nice. So they got to play a lot of ball. What was 12 weeks? 10 weeks. 12 weeks. Yeah. And I think our intention yours is is to continue that process this year. Yes. Absolutely.

They had a lot of fun. So, and it's all our age group. They they kind of mainly the younger guys. We have a few of the older guys. And by the way, speaking of age, I think we have a 88 and an 89 year old still playing. So, uh, for all of you who want to step out and play ball the rest of your life, we got a good place for you to do it. And, and that's the design of this league. It was designed that way originally um so that we could get people bring them up into different age groups and as long as they want to play ball, they get to play ball. So that's what it's all about and Darren's going to continue that and he's committed to it. He wants to keep his dad on the field. I know what it is.

But uh anyway, we we appreciate you all. The parks board has been super good to us and over that long period of time. And Andy, you run a good group here, buddy. And we thank you a lot. So, yes. Any uh any questions on the budget? I'd just like to thank y'all for what you do. And I'm moving to third base. Are you you can handle it now? Get those Sunday hops now, aren't you? Any other questions for Roy or Darren? Well, Darren, welcome. Uh we're glad to have you. Roy, we appreciate you, buddy. And uh I haven't told you, but thank you for your service. Appreciate what you do. Y'all have a good day.

Thank you, guys. Thank you. Civotan baseball, select baseball, fast pitch, flag football, tackle football, basketball, cheerleading, and a partridge in a pear tree. Come on up, Brian. Thank you for being here tonight, sir. Uh, real quick, revenue was at 1.35 million. Expenses are shown at 1.23 million. Uh some notable things that we have done, $1,700 for new windows at one of our concession stands, $13,000 in field maintenance, and that's between rugby and football, uh $15,000 uh donation for LED lights at one of our softball fields. Uh we did $22,000 in donations for sponsorship for families uh for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We also sponsored breakfast with Santa and the Easter egg hunt with uh organized by Cindy Hamlin. And then we also made various donations to some of our Civotan families that fell on hard times. Uh one notable, you'll see that we had a $40,000 profit in the concession stand, but if you'll remember last year, we showed a deficit. That's just due to material co or uh costs of inventory that we've had. Thank you for what y'all do at Civotan. That's what I have to say. Appreciate it.

Yeah, it looks good. What uh any other questions? Anybody been in discussion? All right. Thank you for being here tonight. We appreciate you. Thank y'all. Yes, sir. Walk up. Walk up next. Jeez.

Andersonville Inline Hockey Association. Come on down.

Good evening. For those who don't know me, I'm Tyler Tubs. I'm the HIA president. Um so going into 2026, we had roughly about $61,000 in our account. Um after our bird project um for the bird netting, those you don't know, our inline rings are victims to birds. They go fly over it. They roost in the um top of the rink, destroys the the um tile. So we put up this bird netting uh help prevent that hopefully. Um it's pretty expensive project. So, that brings us down to about $20,000 in our account. Um, spring we're expected to make about 15K off of signup costs. Um, we expect though it's going to be about $10,000 once we talk about like jerseys, paying refs, all the player fees, insurance. Um, so that's about a 5k profit off of the season um going back into the account. Uh we are we have decided to start selling like hats and t-shirts um to try to build our account back up because when we're talking about replacing tiles on the rink um like half the just to do half the rink it's about 40k. Um so maintenance cost is pretty expensive for the rinks. Um so we're constantly trying to figure out how we can you know increase our revenue um so that when we do have those large expensive projects it's not you know putting us in a deficit. Um, bear with me. This is my first meeting, so if I missed anything or you guys have any questions, please let me know.

Mr. Gilling, Tyler, y'all done a great job, man. Thank you. Um, you have a great facility that we've all worked to get, but I appreciate you all just, hey, the tiles need to be replaced because of the sun. Y'all came in, spent $20,000 replacing tiles. You thought birds were a problem. They came in, just did it. So, I mean, and that's a product of hosting all the tournaments, too, to some degree because of that facility. They're able to do things like that. So, without having to come to us and beg and ask us to really do it. So, I I appreciate that. Thank you.

Yep. Y'all y'all do a great job. It's a great league. If you hadn't been out there on a Saturday morning watching the local league play, it's pretty fun to watch. Yep. All right. Any other comments? All right. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. All right.

Okay, we got Senator County Rugby. Come on back up, Brian. There we go. All right. Uh, I'd say similar to Civotan, pretty straightforward for us. It was a pretty normal year. I think couple highlights. Um we spent a little bit of money um both us and Civotan together on expand the parking lot. So the main parking lot we extended about an extra 12 ft to be able to get pretty close to maybe an extra row of cars in there. Obviously parking uh during our tournaments and during some of the bigger flag football days are you know there's cars cars floating all over the place out there. Um we spent around 10 grand getting keeping the grass and um you know no weeds and keeping the Bermuda grass looking great out there. And then to kind of piggy back few things we have that we're working on out the park. Uh we're working on trying to get a covered pavilion. I've talked about this I think a little bit with you guys before. We continue to get closer. And then I've actually been approached by one of my players. Uh they're working on I'm hoping this comes out. He's wanting to do an Eagle Scout project out there. He's looking to want to put scoreboards. Um they're a little more expensive than I would have thought and when we add trying to get power to them and everything. So I think we've I think I'm going to try to get him to fund one and then I'm going to try to figure out within the rugby community and maybe sit down or something figure out the other one. So it's a little little more complex I thought just get some easy scoreboards out there. But other things that we feel like we need at the park um you know to kind of make it better but uh for our financials pretty much money in money out um you know not really a big deficit not really big of anything else major for you guys to be aware of. All right, any questions, comments? Uh, again, your facilities, the facility is top-notch, so thank you.

Um, keep it going. And any new tournaments coming this year?

I do have one really big tournament that is new. We've um there's a there's a a travel group that I've been a part with, the Panthers through this group. They pretty much within rugby probably eight of the top 20 teams in the nation will be traveling here in March. And there's they're working on trying to maybe have this tournament be live streamed over TV. Um and we will probably end up probably with over 800 people out there on Saturday. Um they'll be playing one game on Friday, two games on Saturday, and one game on Sunday. And you've got 20 teams with, you know, 20 25 players. and you count, you know, parents, you know, some pretty admit parents. I mean, one team's coming from California. There's a couple teams from Indiana, Charlotte. Um, uh, I'm not I'm more of a admin and make the tournament happen. I'm not as much on the bringing the teams in um with this one, but some of the people that here in Nashville within our high school group that's bringing that's had the contacts of Marines and one of our local Nashville teams, one of the girls teams and one of the boys teams have gone to nationals for a couple years in a row and have talked about the park and then they started getting interest from some of the other teams and so they just made this extremely elite um tournament that's is going to go. This will be the first year for it. you know, and they've got a website. All the Hendersonville hotels are on it. You know, there some of the hotels in Gallatton because they ran out of hotel rooms. So, there's like, you know, eight hotels that they've got on the website for you. It's kind of a call it play to stay or or stay to play. I said that backwards. Stay to play type tournament. Um, so there's going to be a lot of people over the very last weekend of March up here for sure.

Awesome. That's great. Thank you very much. Any other questions for Brian? Okay. All right, brother. Appreciate you, Todd. I promise I don't make the agenda, so thank you for staying to the end. Appreciate it. Come on up. Last but not least, you got it, man.

Well, last season or last year was our 50th year, which was a big deal for us. So, we had a festival in the spring and in the fall where we bring uh bounce houses, uh video game truck, and in the past, we used to have a zipline, but when 2020 hit, we weren't allowed to do that any longer. But, uh we we had a good year. Um very similar to past years. Um we looked at about 23,000 in park improvements. That's 15,000 with the LED lights and then the $8,000 and for the turf fees for the uh grass seed and whatever plan they have in place. Um I just went to the AGM meeting with Tennessee State Soccer last weekend and we're the third largest rec club in the state. So it's pretty cool. Um and we continue to grow. Our numbers will be up not a lot Dallas but a little bit more than last season. Especially our U5. We're going to have 14 teams. That's three and four year olds. So, that's going to be pretty wild. So, does anyone have any questions on the financials?

Anybody got any questions for Todd? Anything on there? Excellent. Well, we appreciate the donations again to the contributions to the parks and thanks again. It's great, great league. Glad to hear the expansion coming on too with that. It's awesome. And appreciate you waiting all night. All right. Sure. Thank you, buddy. Okay. All right, time for our verbal updates. Leading us off, recreation coordinator for programs, Miss Cindy Hamlin. Come on up.

There she is. Um, Raptors basketball has begun. We play on Fridays beginning at 5:30 for the first group and 6:15 for the for the older group. Saturdays at nine o'clock for the first group and 9:45 for the other group. We do this at Whit Elementary. Currently, I have 48 registered to play. Uh jerseys are on the way. Hopefully, the weather didn't hold that up any more than it needed to. We average about 24 each time we we meet on Fridays and Saturdays. Uh the season is set to run to February 21st, and we've talked about adding two more at the end if the parents want to make up the miss games. Upcoming next will be registration for Raptors baseball and kickball mid-Marchch. I want to remind everybody that is interested in sign up that if you're going to play kickball, you have to register while we're doing the baseball registration as well. And they can choose either to play baseball, they can choose just to play kickball, or they can choose to play both. That way it helps with us ordering the uniforms and getting a better cause for that. Um, the special needs Easter egg hunt registration will be at the beginning of March and I'll be getting with Civotan on my budget for that. Any questions?

Miss Hamlin, have y'all got a a date at the high school basketball this year? We have not had anyone ask us to do that this year. So, if there's a high school out there that wants us to come, hopefully we'll get uniforms this week and we'll be ready to go. Good to know. Any other questions? Anything for Miss Hamlin? Thank you, Miss Hamlin, as always. All right. All right. Recreation coordinator athletics not available. Anybody want to talk about that or are we skipping over that?

Um, this we're going to skip over that tonight, I think. Okay. Other than uh Dallas might tell you that the high school basketball league ended last night. Um or this week, sorry. High school basketball league high school basketball league ended on Monday. There you go. High school basketball men's basketball ended on Monday. One of the most competitive leagues in the park is the high school Dunkin Donuts beat the Fruity Flamingos. Wow.

But uh when we meet in February, uh we will have a new recreation coordinator for rec recreation supervisor. Uh we promoted Jasmine bigger staff who is our admin assistant currently to that role. So she will take take on that role managing all the leagues that we run and uh our program supervisors during basketball season. She um I'm not sure she knows what she's getting into with that. Natalie is going to be glad to get rid of that job and and pass that off to Jasmine in a hurry. I have a feeling. So but congratulations to Jasmine. and they had like 30 people apply and um there was members of our park staff and HR staff in the interviews and she was pretty unanimous that that's who we needed to go with so she'll be here next time.

Oh, wonderful. Well, congratulations to Jasmine and to Natalie and speaking of Natalie, we have special event supervisor Natalie Langster. Go ahead. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Um, so since this was supposed to be January's uh meeting, I'm going to recognize the Festival of Lights winners at this. Um, I recognized we recognized them at the Bulma meeting in January, but I haven't got to recognize them to you guys. So, um, we had the Clark Clark Griswald was 1078 Avery Trey Circle. Um, the most lit was 1568 Drakes Creek Road. Um, most traditional was 100 Lucinda Lane. The reason for the season, which is like nativity scene, was 126 Twin Bay Drive. Um the neighborhood Harmony Nathan Forest Drive uh also known as Santa Claus Lane during December. Uh and the best overall was 99 Blue Ridge Trace. Uh we thank everybody that took the time to drive by them um and participate in them. It was it was great. I drove them all myself. So it was awesome. Um coming up this month on page 49 at the end is the special event uh list for the month of February. Um we're getting back into special events. Um, one I'll note, I know that Keith in Dallas will mention some of the other ones, but uh, February 15th is a couple shuffle 15K. Um, this company, Bodies, Bodies Race Company, is the company that runs them. They ran a couple last year. Uh, they added a couple more. So, this is a new one, um, for them, but they do run events and other 15ks in the park. But, February 15th will be their couples shuffle, which starts out at Veterans Park. Um, and that is all I have. Thank you. Hopefully, it's warmer than than it is right now. Thanks.

Agreed. Agreed. Any questions for Miss Natalie. All right. Thank you, ma'am. All right. We get uh parks maintenance superintendent, Mr. Trevor Cole.

Yes, sir. Thank you. We uh we continue to try and chip away at our winter list, you know, painting the bathrooms and and trash barrels and stuff. This past week has been more tree cleanup. um had several come down, several limbs come down a lot, mostly in Sanders Ferry, kind of right when you drive in and around the first three shelters. So, we've uh we've been very lucky to have the on call company come in. So, they're they're focused right now in Sanders Ferry and so our crews are trying to take care of some of the smaller stuff in the other areas to get everything back opened up. Um and we found out today that there's going to be one for Country Hills as well. Um we're still working through a couple things with them, but it's looking like there's going to be a dedicated truck for out there, too, cuz they they had just as many trees as we did come down. So, um Country Hills, we're still working through some renovations right now with the restrooms and the entry area with the updated flooring and stuff. And then we will um we'll move on to the kitchen area after that with new countertops, new floors, and try and give it a nice faceelift out there. Um, our LED lights, we got a message earlier before we left that the soccer lights were commissioned today. So, we're going to test those out in the morning, make sure everything's working. Um, we've already done field five and field 12 and everything seems to be working right with those. And, um, they have moved on to tennis. So, they're over there working trying to replace the fixtures over there right now. And then turf, we got push back a week. Um, they've got most of field one done over at Veterans. a lot of field two. So, we'll see whenever they can start back up with that after everything thaws out.

Awesome. Any questions? The turf is a big thing with the middle school softball, right? That's the big hub up. So, thank you for the update. Appreciate that. All right, Mr. Cole. All right, assistant director Dallas Long.

Thank you. as uh Amy mentioned earlier in in honoring of uh National Girls uh in sports day. Um just a few updates to go along with that. Um our our lacrosse program has grown. We now have a a girls middle school team in addition to our our high school team that we already had established. As we voted on tonight, uh rugby has now added a women's team in addition to their growth with with their women's program. And then our uh Civotan program uh was just named the NFL flag female program of the year in the nation. So um that's pretty cool. Um and I thought that's fitting with with today. So just want to give them all a little shout out as we continue to grow girls sports here in Hendersonville. Um and with that uh sports are starting to start up. Uh lacrosse um they've they've already been practicing when they can around the snow and the ice, but their first game is scheduled for next Saturday. Um Tennessee United and middle school soccer set to begin uh playing February 16th uh with Tennessee United uh set to uh I'm sorry, with rec soccer set to begin the following week, February 23rd. Um rugby set to begin on February 16th and then flag football will start up March 2nd. So a lot going on here in the next few weeks with sports. Thank you.

Thank any questions for Mr. Long. All right. Thank you, sir. Assistant Director Keith Bruce.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, youth basketball has been very interesting the last two weeks as we've been snowed out for two Saturdays. Um, for us, a given Saturday is 76 games. So, we've lost 150 basketball games the last two weekends. So, a lot of rescheduling. Uh, a whole lot of rescheduling. Um, we got a whole lot of games this week, Thursday through Monday. We're going to make up about h at least half of them and get everybody at least one of the two makeups. Um, so working a lot with gym supervisors, Natalie's been doing those in Dallas with the schools, just trying to find basically anywhere that has goals and bleachers, we're going to play in Saturday and Sunday. So, um, of course the high schools are all doing makeup games too this weekend. So, it's um plan is to play a whole lot of makeups and keep the tournament to start on the 14th. So, the be 14th to the 21st would be the tournament. Um fast pitch is doing signups online and Civotaman baseball also signing up. Their draft is next week and then they will start practicing after that. Um that's the open and the wreck division. uh Fastpish Middle School, which evidently is quite important to the chairman. Um starts late February. They are going to try to back it up a week so you can be a little warmer. I'll work on that for you. And um work with Mr. Anthony on that and like I say, hopefully the third or fourth week of February. Uh middle school baseball is still doing signups, trying to get all their schedules straight. Um, hockey has the evaluations this Saturday hopefully with no birds because the hot net will be up there. So, we should have no birds. Uh, high school sports start practicing legally on

Monday. Uh, that's baseball, softball, soccer. Yes, I did say legally. Everybody's been conditioning up until now. So, officially everyone conditions. Uh, so they can officially start practicing on Monday. Um turf fields are coming along. Uh weather has slowed them down a little bit. Um so they're not going to be able to start on those four fields on Monday. So hopefully in a couple weeks we have our field turf fields up and going um fulltime. And the first, believe it or not, the first tournament of the year, softball tournament, uh which middle school softball, which you may be playing, Mr. Bennett involved in it. Um is February 13th and 14th. So we're about a week and a half away. Uh that's sponsored by Hersville High School and that is a middle school tournament Friday and Saturday and after that we're pretty much every weekend until Thanksgiving.

Thank you.

Any questions for Mr. Bruce? Excellent reporting. Thank you again. Appreciate that. Before we get to Director Gilly, we've got Mayor Clary in the audience this evening. Is there anything you'd like to say to the board? Come on down. Was not planning on it. Um uh but I also know that if you're going to speak to the board, you need to be at the microphone. Uh I'm I'm sure several of you all have have this in mind, but um our park staff has just been amazing past past 10 days. Um yeah. Uh it it takes me back to the flood of 2010 when you looked at what our parks look like look like and you thought it's going to be months before anybody's out here again and it turned out to be weeks. Um I mean 10 days ago I thought it's going to be weeks before we're out there and it's going to I mean it turned out to be a week. So um it's amazing the work that they've done. So thank you'all.

Thank you for the words. We appreciate it. All right. Uh parks director Andy Gilly.

Thank you. Thank you mayor. Um, these folks have worked tirelessly and uh, while we were sitting here, we got an email losing a gym for Saturday. So, they got to go figure that out here at some point. But, you know, no fault to the schools. They got to reschedule their stuff. Then, we've fallen in line with that. Uh, Trevor and his crew have done a great job cleaning up a lot of stuff. We reopened playgrounds today. Tomorrow, we're going to re take the signs down, reopen all the greenways. Those are good. Um will be a minute before we reopen. Sanders Ferry, Malard Point, Volunteer will get open by this weekend. Um and then kind of back to normal where you just check the weather line for your if your field's open or not. So appreciate everybody reaching out and offering to do things. There's a lot of things we can't even do. It's out of our scope, honestly, some of this stuff. So unprecedented little ice storm in the in the middle of February. Um, following up on what Dallas said and about the NFL flag with the girls, uh, Ryan and Michelle Claire were named at that same conference as operator league operators of the year for flag football at a national conference. That's a big deal. So, congratulations to them. Flag football has continued to grow exponentially, and that's exciting to see. Um, JP, I don't know if you got that chart I sent about the projects. if you could put that up there if you don't mind. Shout out to JP back there following along with us tonight on a Wednesday. Um rather than me just kind of go over this line by line on the screen here, you have um I'll email this out to everybody after the meeting, but this is a list of what I would call the major projects that we have going on in the park right now. And then at the bottom potential if we get the next grant that you all kind of bless tonight

for us to apply for. So you can see that's a lot of projects and a lot of dollars uh that are going on and they're all about to start at the same time. So we can't have any more ice storms and uh we're going to have a lot of bids going out. We're going to be working with a lot of different vendors and activities and scheduling things around uh the regular activities in the park. But um you know you can see this is a long list of most of these projects are not um big shiny new facilities. Most of these are going to be new facilities but they're replacing older ones or doing what we would almost call deferred maintenance in some cases. So, the the funds that are being used here um are going to benefit our residents greatly because they're the ones that use this on a daily basis and then it will help us continue to attract people from out of the city to spend money here also. So, if anybody has any specific questions as you look at that list, you're welcome to ask. Um I'm going, you know, try to keep update on the progress of these as we go. Some of them uh get held up longer than others for reasons outside of our control, but that's kind of where we are on projects. And then um just again, the staff down here has I've I have, you know, I get to be on there wearing a hat on videos and they're in in the office actually doing all the work and scheduling and cleaning and doing things. So, they do a great job and I appreciate them tremendously for what they do. They keep thousands of kids on a regular basis happy. So that's good,

right? Any questions for Director Gilly at all? Any comments? Um I did have one question. Um the maintenance building, how's that coming along? Well, that's a, you know, that is a project being managed by the public works department and um it is scheduled to go out to bid either this week or next week. All right. Finally, the ice held it up. It's on there down there somewhere. Okay. All right. I just thought everybody would like held it up. That's right. Okay. Any other questions for Director Gill?

I would say, Mr. chairman in your in the for your information too. It's kind of skipping the round table, but there's a um report about visitor report and then a visitor spend. We This is kind of a cool little thing I wanted to show everybody. You can kind of see what a Placer estimates as visitor spending over the November to October 23 to 24 year. kind of get these numbers in the rears kind of a rears whatever that word is. Now 50.9 million is not direct money going into the city's bank account. You have to keep in mind that that it would be nice

but you have to keep in mind that the majority of that is going to be going to the businesses where they spend it and then sales tax which the majority of the sales tax goes towards the state and the local schools. then we get about nine% of that or seven percent. So, you know, that that number is a huge number and it probably is very real, but it's not what goes in the city's bank account. But I'm glad we have it and I'm glad so many people are coming here and then leaving. It's great. That's right. Leave your money at the door.

All right. Well, um, if y'all want to take a second, it looks like the disciplinary reports have gone down this this past season. Is that right, guys? from basketball. I'm I'm guessing Mr. Bruce. Yes. Overall, the number of technicals and especially the ejections are down. Um, wonderful. Termit time starts the 14th. It'll be interesting to see what happens on the 14th and 15th of February. Well, 14th of February, a lot of love in the air, so hopefully hopefully it goes along with that. Is it the love for the referees? Basketball. Okay, let's get the round table. And in the spirit of National Women's and Sports Day, let's start with the ladies. Miss Garden, go ahead.

Thank you. That's up. That was I always my compliment. She took what I was going to say. I was going to compliment the staff on the great job they did. And we have outstanding staff. Same nothing to add. Good.

Thank you for everything y'all do. Not only not only the staff here, but also the maintenance staff working in the cold. I know what it was like for three days in the cold without power. People get irritable and people get and it's tough for people to deal with and it's especially tough when you have to work outside. So, and thank you Andy for all the social media that you do. I love the hat. I love I love all that that you do with that. So, thank you.

Hats off again to what they just mentioned. I can't say enough thank yous for everybody. And um Andy, the the daily updates after the all the ice and all the craziness. Um, Manser Farms is a big place, but I've and I've got a lot of friends there, and I've had a lot of people tell me, you know what, you guys are running a good show down there. And, uh, you are, you guys do a great job. Thank you.

Well, thanks again for everybody what they do. And we're going into a new year that's going to probably top the year we just finished. And you couldn't go into it with a finer staff. With Trevor and all the maintenance guys and the staff over here, not many people can top what we did last year, but I think these guys are going to do it.

Well, it is February. It is the calm before the storm as they say. Um again, I echo with everybody's what everybody says up here. Thank you staff. Um we know we got a lot coming up. So, uh good luck and uh appreciate all that you do. Uh, any other discussion or questions? If not, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Got a motion by Mr. Pike, second by Mr. Mononttoya. All in favor say I. All opposed. Thank you and good night.