Board of Parks & Recreation - Regular Meeting

What do you think about? Congratulations. like to call to order the parks uh uh meeting for April 27th, 2026. Uh opening prayer, Mr. Pike. Dear fatherless tonight.

Amen. Oh, absolutely. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You did it. All right. I need a motion to accept the agenda as it is. Mr. Pike made the motion. Mr. Golden made the second. All in favor say I. All oppose. Uh need a motion to accept the minutes as they are last week. Mr. Head and Mr. Golden was second. All in favor say I.

I. All right. Any public comments sir? Um no sir. None tonight. Thank you. First item eas project. Mr. Gardener it state your name. Tell me what you want, brother.

I am Jackson Garder. I I am with Troop 75 and also the Sumar rugby team. And I will be pitching a scoreboard. So, what our project needs is we have the two fields. We're only looking at one right now, but looking at getting a scoreboard to make it a better experience for all the teams that come from like we had like guys from Michigan come, Kansas City come and it would be nice if we had a scoreboard because this all the athletes, the parents and the coaches, they don't know what's going on. So, it's just kind of hard to tell how long and what's the score and who's winning. So the type of uh scoreboard we need to get is a fair play model MP 8 81 and 142. It will be mounted on a 200 foot steel beam or a similar aluminum poles. So this is like the scoreboard that like the the baseball fields use and like all the all the fields in like

tennis or Hendersonville use. So if you look at the picture, that black little marker is where the scoreboard is expected to be. And the bench, those gray things are the benches. And that line on the back end is where like all the like all the uh parents and all them are watching from. And pretty much if we do it on another field too, it just depends on how much it'll cost. Um we it'll be pretty much in the same spot. So, the project plan, we need a few things to like get checked off. The first thing is getting you guys to approve of it. The next step would be to get uh Tennessee 811 to let us be able to dig out the trenching for the electrical for the scoreboard. and um and accord and also posting it to according to the city of Hendersonville's code and securely mounting the scoreboards which I believe the um person who manufactures it makes sure that it gets all put together correctly because uh we were calling him and it was like he was saying that he doesn't allow like other people to put it together because he wants to make sure it's put together correctly. Uh so the schedule that I have is well today I need to get it approved from May to June is funding. So it's approxim

but it's about approximately $7,000 and then July is my goal to get it installed and up and functional. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Uh stylewise and sizewise and all of that, Mr. Gilly, what's it look like? We are good to go. We've met met on site with Mr. Silkwood and uh I appreciate Jackson thinking to do this project. I think it'll be great.

Indeed. Indeed. Question $7,000 covers the scoreboard, the digging, everything. Yes, it uh it's for the scoreboard and the like equipment like the augur and the trenching tools. I'm assuming I know we already Well, part of this process is getting electricity where it needs to be. So, but we've all met. I think we're in good shape. Any questions? Yes, Mr. Sto. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the project. Good job, Jackson. I

have a first from Mr. Golden, second from Mr. Pike. Any more questions of this young man? All in favor say I. All oppose. I want to I want to appreciate you bringing your report here. Uh, you know, if I if it would look like that every night, I mean, because we got people come here and say, I just want to do a thing. I have no idea what it is. So, yeah, I appreciate what you've done and what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you, brother. Hey, Jackson, if you don't mind, once you get it done, can you come back and just let us know how the project went? Send a picture or something. It' be great. We'll do. Thank you, sir. And you can have a picture with me if Never mind. Thank you, brother. Right there.

All right. Nami walks. Miss Edwards, is that Mike on back there? It is not. Push the push the button there on the

there. It's NAMI National Alliance on Mental Illness. I'm Katrina Gay. I live on Drex Creek Road close to the rugby field. Good decision. Um and I um am the executive director of NAMI Tennessee, which is the state organization of NAMI. It our office is on Saunders Ferry Road. We have 18 local affiliate chapters in Tennessee that we oversee through our office, including one in Sar and Wilson County. And um I'm here to ask you to support our NAMI walk. Uh this would be one of 200 walks that are happening across the country. It's in the top 10 walks in the country. The NAMI walk is it raises more than $15 million for NAMI, which is the largest grassroots mental health organization in the country. It helps us ensure that we are able to continue to provide free uh uh in support, education, advocacy, and awareness programs to families and individuals and communities that are in need. Um and the one in five that are affected by a mental health condition. Um the walk is hopefully going to be at uh Saunders uh at Memorial Park. Um, our date ideally is October 17th to skip over the um, fall break when this town becomes a ghost town and hopefully have a great event for families um, that's very familyfriendly and bring some new um, sponsors and revenue and individuals from across the state to Hendersonville.

Questions? Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve? Mr. Vinnett was approving it uh first. Mr. Mononttoya was a second. Any more questions? All in favor say I. All oppose. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much. Appreciate y'all. This sounds like my kind of thing. Pickle fist. Mr. Lee. Hey. Hello, everybody. U you know I just want to I I I just want to do a thing. Thanks. Good. [laughter] No, I'm just just kidding. I just playing off of what you said. [laughter]

So I I apologize for that remark. Oh, you're fine. Go ahead.

Don't hold it against me. Hey, so so I I'm here because uh August 1st we want to do an inaugural pickle fest. So all things pickles really, you know, costume contest, beer wine garden, pickle eating contest, pickle 5K, breastfeed contest. I mean, a lot of people do a lot of things with pickles. So we was trying to come up with something new and exciting for us to do as another event for Hendersonville. As you know, we do the spring carnival which is coming up and uh so we just wanted to kind of add off of that and play off of that. So I'm here to ask for Veterans Park on August the 1st um for pickle festival. First off, you need the chair up. That's all there is to it.

Question. He mentioned a walk. Is that going to be a problem of any kind?

Uh, there's no problems with anything on his application. I don't believe we've we've gone over. Uh, I appreciate all that Barry does for not only us in the parks department, but the community as a whole. Um, I think it's going to be cool. One thing I would say, your motion to approve would need to uh include the caveat that the site map come back for approval because I assuming that we're probably going to have pickled flavored uh alcohol there of some type. So, we'll need to probably include that in the site map. I mean, we'll include that in your motion to approve that we'll bring the site map back for beer board and parksport approval. Okay. I move for that motion, please. [laughter]

It's all good. No problem. You're in good shape. All right. Any [snorts] question? More questions? Mr. T, you going? I'll make a motion we approve it. Depending the site map comes back after it gets approved by the beer board. You got it. Mr. T made the motion. Mr. Pike second. Any more questions of this this somber young fell? All in favor say I. All oppose. You're done great. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Barry. Thank you, sir. Thanks, man. I'll come back with another thing one day. I'm sure. already got two things I want to bring. Don't worry [laughter] about All right. Let me know. Thank you. Thank you guys.

First Baptist Church Ice Cream Tuck Crook. And I'm not going to try the last name. Uh I just call him Casey. They were supposed to be on Zoom, but I don't think they're on [snorts] Not. He's not showing up. Okay. We'll hold it. We'll hold the spot open here toward the end. Memorial bench for Reagan Goodman. Mr. Gilly.

Uh yes, sir. Page 24 in your uh packet. Um Reagan's mother, Cheyenne, would and her family would like to put a memorial bench in honor of their daughter Reagan, who tragically passed away a couple years ago. And um the location there is at Malard Point close to where the we lost a tree in the ice storm as you can see on the map. Uh but somewhere in that vicinity is where we'll get this bench located at Malard Point for this family. Should you all approve? Can't see why we wouldn't. But anyway, any question?

Mr. Pike makes a motion to approve. Second, Mr. Mononttoya. Any more questions of Mr. Gilly? All in favor say I. All oppose. It passes unanimous. Thank you.

All right, let's have an update from Miss Hamlin. Good evening. Uh, Raptors baseball and kickball season is currently happening. We have until May 15th for our baseball to continue and then we switch over to kickball the rest of the uh, season. I have 30 registered and 28 of the 30 are also playing kickball. We play a mix of Friday nights and Saturday mornings. And then the special needs fishing rodeo will be on June 5th at Memorial Park from 5 to 7:00 and that takes place in one of our ball games. Uh the special needs Easter egg hunt was held on Thursday, March 26 at Mary's Magical Playground. We did have several who didn't show that night. I'm not sure if they had registered for the wrong program or just couldn't show up or not. Everyone was very polite about the place being closed for a few hours for that event. Kids C. Kids Club summer program for special needs community. The camper will begin June 8th and go to July 16th. We go Monday through Thursday each week from 8:15 to 2:15. Campers are to bring their own lunches and snacks daily. It will be held at Whinton Elementary. They must be potty trained and self-sufficient in feeding skills. We currently have a few spots open, so if anybody's interested in checking that out, they can uh contact me at the parks or email me at camblinhvilletn.org. I am also currently taking applications for summer program workers. This is a special needs camp and we are looking for some energetic, hardworking, and compassionate workers. It's a great summer job that still gives them time to do other things. Everything we do is all fun things. We don't do academic things and it will also look great on their college applications. It's good for teachers and assistants who need that little bit of extra income over the summer. Their work time is Monday through Thursday from 8 to 2:30. The

program setup will begin around June 1st and camp actually begins Monday, June 8th, and goes through July 16th. Any questions or concerns? You did well. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. recreation. That's bigger stuff.

Our adult kickball, pickle ball, men's open, and co-ed softball leagues are still ongoing and having a great season so far. Our pickle ball league has two weeks remaining. Kickball has three weeks left, and both softball leagues have about six weeks remaining of their season. Last week, we finished registration for our summer T-ball program and had a great turnout. This year we have 120 players registered in our 5U division and 48 players in our 6U division, giving us a total of 14 teams this summer. Practices are scheduled to begin May 16th with games starting June 6th. And in addition to that, registration also closed last week for our summer adult basketball league where we have 16 teams signed up. Games for that league will begin on May 19th and we're excited for another busy summer season in our parks. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Questions? Good job. Good job. Special events, Miss Langster.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, this past weekend, we had the Master Gardener plant sale out at Memorial Park. Uh, the weather held off for him and it was a really nice event. Um, next weekend, the 9th and 10th, the Hendersonville Arts Festival will be out at Sanders Ferry. It's a good Mother's Day, pre-Mother's Day event. Um, some other big dates coming up in May. We'll have another meeting before these, but just to get them on the radar, uh, the spring carnival, which is our good friend Barry Lee, uh, it'll return Thursday, May 21st, um, over at Veterans Park, and it'll be until Saturday the 30th. Uh, the Isaacs are returning to Veterans Park this Memorial Day, the 25th, for their 6th annual Memorial Day concert. It is a free event, but you must claim a ticket on our Eventbrite site. Um, and also Touch a Truck is moving from July, it's been in July the past couple years. It's moving from July to May 29th this year, and that will be from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Drake's Creek. And that is all I have. Thank you.

Well, that's enough. Thank you, dear. Thank you. Parks, uh, maintenance, Mr. Cole.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Um, now that our kind of busier season started up, our projects are kind of dying down. [snorts] Um, we do have a few things with the grass coming up. We are going to spray out the rye in the next couple weeks. So, if you notice the fields brown, it's not bad. We're just trying to get rid of the rye grass so Bermuda can come in. Uh if you're right by the hockey facility, you'll notice that it's a little bit wider now. We were able to get that clean last week. Um it's not the easiest thing to clean or find somebody to clean it, but we were able to do that on a pretty good budget. And our irrigation, we are fully started. Not as many problems as I was expecting, but there are always going to be some. We are going to have to pull about 3,000 ft of wire in the next few weeks down to the bottom three fields and completely rewire all of those. So, that's going to be a little bit of an undertaking, but it's going to help out in the long run. Um, rugby, we lost the well. Brian, you probably we've talked about it. We uh we're going to have to have that pump replaced. It's not. I think we had to put it in in August or September of last year and uh we were trying to figure out why we couldn't get it going, but figured out it was the pump and nothing we did. So, that's always good that it's under warranty. Um and then we met this past week with Len Ray um for Sod. We're looking to be in pretty good shape this year and the numbers are going down every year and as we can get our irrigation back up and going the way it needs to be. That should continue to happen along with we're putting a better genetics down for our sod. We're using a different variety now and it's seeming to hold up a lot better at about the same price. So we are going to sprig three and a half bills this year on the bottom. So I'm excited for that. It seems like we have better luck whenever we sprig instead of sod. we get it. It takes a lot better. So, look for that to come. I think beginning part of June. Was that it, Dallas?

So, that's just a few things from maintenance. Trevor, which which fields are going to be the the sprigs? You said there are three, but which ones? Uh, so we're going to do seven, eight, nine, all the bottom fields, and then we're going to do probably half of 13. Um, but those it's going to it's going to be within that shutdown window, but we are going to have to flood the fields. So, they're going to stay. We're going to put a a barrier up so that people have to stay off of them while I closed anyways, but just an added precaution, but we're going to do those fields. Okay. Stissant director, Mr. Del Long.

Thank you. Um, soccer-wise, adult soccer is ongoing for about another month. Um, rec soccer, uh, this coming weekend is their, um, community spring festival, and they they have about two weeks left of their season. Uh middle school soccer uh finishes up this week and then Tennessee United's ongoing. Uh we just hosted their large uh spring tournament this past weekend. We had about 250 teams in town for that. Um lacrosse is done for the spring. Um they have maybe a couple practices ongoing, but other than that, they're completely done. Um this coming weekend's the uh state tournament for rugby and then we have about three weeks remaining for the flag football league. That's it. Thank you, sir.

Assistant director, Mr. Bruce.

Thank you, sir. Um, excuse me. Fast pitch league is ongoing as normal. Uh, Civotan baseball open in Wreck ongoing, getting close to their tournament dates. Uh, middle school baseball has their tournament tentatively set for Monday through Wednesday next week. Uh, high school sports, baseball, football, excuse me, baseball and softball. District tournaments start Thursday. Uh, Hendersville is hosting the first round in the softball. Uh, hockeyy's ongoing normal Saturday for them this coming Saturday. Senior men are up and running. Literally up and running. No Bubba, so I guess he's out. Maybe maybe he's out playing. [laughter] I'm not sure where Bubba is. Um uh and Thursday for your excitement if you want to come on out to the park 9:00 Thursday morning the senior women are coming will be in town.

Oh boy. Whoa. The 70 year old division and 80year-old division starts on Thursday morning. My goodness. So if you're interested in some senior women's softball, come on out. Thank you, young man. I don't think I heard you mention anything about kickball. Did I miss that or are you Miss Jasmine's pre experience now? [laughter] Kickball director Mr. Gilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, as Dallas touched on, I think Natalie also, we had a ton of stuff going on this weekend and not a lot of problems. So, that was a great great thing. I appreciate Tennessee United and their what' you say 250 teams from all over the country that were in town that did a good job with that event. Uh I want to say a thank you to the Hendersonville Fire Department, Andrew Hayden for offering up uh CPR and AED classes for our employees who all all of our office staff and maintenance part-time and full-time went through those trainings. So that's that's good. Uh I think we got one more at night this week with him. So, I appreciate what they've do with that. And then, uh, the police, we've had several things with them late at nights. Um, I've gotten gotten to know Miss Mullins with the police department real well. She gives me phone calls about 11:00 when people are camping out in the park or doing things. So, um, I appreciate them being so conscientious just to let us know what's going on with the police. Uh, there's a project update. I think we can put that on the screen if you want to real quick so you can see some things in front of you. Just some updates on the bigger ones. Uh Sanders Ferry Greenway marking that is a project that uh JP and and IT and planning department have been working on with Dallas and Trevor uh to get the greenway marked so that we can have trail posts that are logged with the ECC up at the county. That'll be a good thing when we can finally get that done. uh the maintenance shop. We've got all kinds of issues with the bids that we've got to go over with some higher powers than us uh later this week. Uh where some some things are looking like they're going to cost a lot more than we can afford. So, we got to figure out how we can do it, maybe even ourselves if we have to. I know the guys are willing to do whatever it takes to get in that building as quick as possible. Uh Trevor and his crew have done a great job at Country Hills Golf Course. If you've

been out there and seen the restrooms and the kitchen renovations, they've done done outstanding job. Uh, Heritage Park, we opened bids last Thursday. They're currently being reviewed by the procurement team. Um, down a little further down, a lot of these won't start till summer or fall, but uh, parks master plan, the public survey closed this past weekend. Had a good response with that. Appreciate everybody that took the time to take that. And, uh, the bike pump track is a contract being reviewed by Tde. So, we hope to get started on construction on that soon. Any questions? I will take them. Uh at our next meeting in May, we will uh you all will hopefully review the budget as part of your uh duties as parks board members to make recommendations on the budget. So hopefully we'll have that in in May.

Question. Thank you, Mr. Gilly. Thank you, Mr. Ted. You got anything to say down there, sir? Yes, I'm glad I'm here tonight. Not in the park. No, not really. because it's been a busy season. I make that comment because I think this is the first time, like I was telling Andy, that I don't think we've had a single rain out in the spring season. So, they've done an amazing job, Trevor and his guys and everybody in the parks. Uh, as busy as it's been, it's been an amazing spring. Mr. Mononttoya, always a pleasure to be part of this board, to be able to help in my community. Oh, I'm sorry.

There we go. Uh just a pleasure working with you guys but no food. Wow. It's the golden I want to I want to represent I appreciate uh in our parks board bracket which people don't tend to get to see is this uh placer AI service that we use in the parks we have for what Andy a couple years now.

Correct. And uh you know it basically tracks uh basically devices in our parks. And put aside the fact that might be a little creepy for some folks, but this does give us a little bit of an estimate. For a long time, we we always talked about the impact uh of of visitors and the events and all the hard work that that that parks does uh without numbers and this puts it on there. Oh, good. Thank you very much uh for putting it in there. Just the out of visitors. Am I saying this? Like 611,000 visitors. Um, which is two about 2% up year-over-year just in the month of March, which is just incredible. And the amount of time that that they spend here and the money that they spend here, it just goes to the impact in real numbers. I just want to make sure I I just wanted to point that out to people to be able to see what what the real impact of of of this group is and the events that they put on. So that's all I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Gold. Mr. Bennett, I'm good. Thank you. Well, I'm glad, [laughter] Mr. Gordon. The only thing I have, if we can have a pickle fest, wonder if Barry Lee could bring us a banana pudding festival. Oh, don't tempt him. That's what I'm missing here is a banana pudding festival. You're lucky he's not still on there because he would do it. Is he? Okay. You're lucky he's not reach out [laughter] to him.

I hope you do. As uh as a lot of you know, uh I didn't do such a killer job with my speech at the banquet. Uh quit laughing. You ought to get anyway. Uh I just wanted to go over that. I won't keep you but a minute, but I'm going to do it. I wanted to I wanted to of all things help uh think Mr. Lamar. Uh Dave and I over the years he asked my opinion. I asked his opinion and we just became best of friends and he did more for the park system than I could ever imagine could have been done. When he retired, I have to admit I had reservations because I couldn't see the park system being run any better than it was already. And I was wrong, Mr. Gilly. Uh, not only has he done a tremendous job, he hit the ground running when he started. He had ideas when he walked in and he took off and he did that. And between Dave and between Mr. Gilly, he's brought on staff that are incredible. Uh, I've been here, like he said, I've been here a long time and I've seen a whole lot of staff members come and go, and I can't think of better staff members that we've ever had. And for them to do what they do to keep things running is is incredible. Uh, second off, I want to thank our maintenance people. Uh I I was thinking uh before the meeting about

who should I thank the most and I think it's probably going to be running in there to the maintenance people cuz if it wasn't for the maintenance people nothing would happen. And I have been down there after we've had catastrophes. And I've been down there when we've had floods. And I've been down there when wind has blown things away. And there's a daggum maintenance people right on down there. There's the maintenance people out early in the morning when I it's 6:00 mowing grass. I mean, how much more can you think somebody uh than our maintenance department? And I'll say all that say this. It's not just Dave and it's not just Andy and it's not just the staff and boy I I didn't mention this board but I can't again I've been here a long time and I can't think of a better board that we've ever had that are willing to do anything for anybody and I've seen it done. And so saying all that I'm just saying we don't do any of this individually. I don't think we do this as a team and this team has made this park system one of the best ones in Tennessee and I'm darn proud of our park system. So, I want to thank all you guys. I want to thank Andy. I want to thank Dave and he's not here but I want to tell you how much I appreciate the award. That's all I got to say about that. So, I need a motion to adjourn. Mr. Pike first, Mr. Golden second. All in favor say I. We're out of here.

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