Library Board - Regular Meeting

Alright. We will call to order, the Waukesha Parks Recreation and Forestry Board meeting on 02/16/2026, with roll call.

Alderman Camacho. Here. Eric Hummer. Here. Steve Johnson.

Here.

Sarah Roth.

Here.

John Schmitz absent. Alderman Wells absent. Jennifer Wallner.

Here.

And Erica Yas.

Here.

And that completes roll call.

Great, thank you. We will move on to public comment. It does not look like we have any public comment this evening. So we will move on to the approval of minutes for the board minutes from 12/15/2026.

I'll make a motion to

approve. Second.

Motion by Sarah Roth and second by Eric Hummert. Any further discussion? Alright. We'll take that to a vote. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? And that passes unanimously. Moving on to discussion decision items. Item a, review and possible action on special use request received from the Waukesha Allied Veterans Council regarding the twenty twenty six Memorial Day and Veterans Day events proposed for veterans and color parks.

Alright. Joanna's here tonight to talk about both these important events. Every year, we have this special use process, and, this year is no different except earlier, which is good. Joanna?

Thank you, Ron. So, yes, this is an annual request by the Allied Veterans to utilize, both Cutler Park and Veterans Park for Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The Memorial Day, parade, they would like to host that again. The I understand the permit has been approved by the clerk's office. So they'll do the Riverside ceremony in, at the plaza, and then the parade will start at, the State Office Building.

That permit has also been approved by the state, and then they'll conduct the parade and then use Cutler Park for the rest of the service. On Memorial Day, Veterans Day, they utilize Veterans Park, for a short service there. So they are requesting use of the parks for both of the remembrances.

Any

questions? All right, I will make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Motion by Jennifer Walner, second by Eric Hummert. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And that passes unanimously. Thank you. Thanks, Joanna. Item that takes us to item b, public street planting program public hearing. And we will this will be a vote to open the public hearing. I will make a motion to open Motion by Jennifer Walner, second by Steve Johnson. Any further discussion? All in favor to open the public hearing, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

And that passes. Any public here for the hearing? No. Okay. That will bring us to our item Motion

to close the public hearing.

Thank you. That's a motion by Steve Johnson and second by Eric Hummer to close the public hearing. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And that passes. Brings us to item d, recommend that the common council set a public hearing on a date to be determined to review and act on the proposed assessment for the spring twenty twenty six public street planting program said to said cost to be $397 per tree.

Alright. Well, Erin Leonard, our city forester is not available tonight, but Melissa Lipska will take that on and review briefly go over the program and answer any questions the best we can on it. Melissa?

Yes, thank you Ron. So this spring, we're looking at what would be considered a relatively small planting. In your packets, you should have different information that Aaron put together. So the planting summary will show the spring twenty twenty six tree planting summary we're looking at. We are looking at between fifteen and eighteen.

He's got without charge three. So I believe those are trees that don't have a private frontage. So new developments, we're only looking at assessed trees, 15 of them. Other than that, mostly replacements has kind of been the tradition with our planting plan in the past several years. We do have a couple memorial and retirement trees already in the hopper.

So those will be going through. So for 2026, 158 trees total. Of those, this year, as in some recent years, we've been kind of doing some different things with contracted services and the different work units. And so working with the forestry supervisor, Erin, we're looking at contracting out all of the street tree planting this spring. The three memorial and retirement trees our staff would plant.

We always plant those in house with our staff. And so we're going to be getting quotes for installation. We have some quotes from last fall from Johnson's nursery and some other nurseries for installation of the trees. One thing that we're looking at doing to kind of keep the quality control is we are going to purchase the trees ourselves and we're going to hold them in our yards and then the contractor will come get the trees from our yards so we're not looking at different markups or some contractors only have access to certain species. So then we're getting the species in the size of trees we want to ensure that we have a diverse urban forest and we keep maintaining that.

So Aaron solicited quotes from, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six nurseries this spring. So trying to get as much kind of pricing as we can from various ones. And so we'll be purchasing trees from five of them. One of them Johnson's Nursery. We've worked with kind of on and off over the years.

They tend to be more expensive. So at least for the spring, we're not looking at purchasing any trees from them. Kind of if it's something where we have last minute sort of requests or some other park trees that come in, we do utilize them for things because they are so close and can generally dig trees pretty quickly upon request. But we are now looking for those for the spring planting. So if you will look in your tree planting assessment packet, I guess I should apologize, also within the tree packet before you also is the EAB treatment history, kind of the forestry division update.

It shows histories of annually how many trees we prune, how many trees we remove, how many trees we plant. He also has the urban forest breakdown by the genus species chart, shows us trying to diversify our urban forests. That way if we have an emerald ash borer, Dutch elm disease, that wouldn't be as dire as it has been in the past. Generally, generally when we look at where we're getting prices from the nurseries, a lot of the nurseries that we get good tree pricing from are ones that are more strictly nurseries and don't have a commercial landscaping side as much. Leaves Inspired, Meacham, Turtle Creek, Breezy Hill, they're a lot more focused on the nursery aspect than like the landscape installation aspect, which means they primarily focus just on growing which is why we're looking at purchasing the trees direct.

We get a little better pricing that way too instead of having the markup. So we have solicited from Pialas in the past and they've either declined or they've been on the more expensive side. Yep. So I can actually yeah. Do you want me have my screen?

Well, We're purchasing from five different nurseries and we're doing an average of the trees. So for example, maybe yeah. Maybe it'll be better or not if We'll see. Is there a spreadsheet on your guys' screen? There we go.

Can you guys see that now? Okay. So this is a breakdown of all the quotes that you guys can see Excel spreadsheet, yes? Okay. This is a breakdown kind of summary of the quotes that Aaron solicited from all the different nurseries and then the pricing he got from each and then the highlighted columns are which species and quantity we're purchasing from which nursery And then the yellow on the bottom is a total.

So he takes care to cross all the species and all the sizes across the different nurseries to make sure we're getting kind of the best bang for the buck, so to speak. So it is it is even for me and I love spreadsheets, it is really quite the spreadsheet that he's put together here. So through all of that, the numbers that you guys are gonna wanna look at is the bottom right hand corner and then what our average cost per tree comes out to is just for the plant material is just under $200 And if you'll look at some of the other costs, you'll see some of the tree species are well over 200. That depends again on the type of tree, the size of tree and then also the nurseries have their own different pricing as well. Yes.

Okay. Here we go. Oh, yes it is. Because the we have the requests in, but we do not have those committed. Is that what you're looking at? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. The total yeah. The total amount of trees that we'd be contracting would be $1.55. Let me see. So the without charged trees Aaron has it's not noted on here but he has the parks staff, parks and forestry staff planting those in house so I can make sure that we clarify that on our future reports.

Yes. Yeah, the without charge ones are correct but it's not a good, I guess, differentiation showing the different totals in the chart. So we can just pick that a little more clear.

And Melissa when we're saying with charge that's that $3.97?

Yep that would be the assessment correct

and then without charge will be the in house? Correct and

that would be yep that would come from the non assessed planting budget line item within the forestry budget.

Okay. Great. I also brought this up to Ron, but in the plan commission, we have been working on redoing the zone zoning code. And it was brought up at our last special meeting that there were recommendations from the DNR about plantings, specific geniuses and Okay. Things that work well. And I guess they mentioned Erin, they said they had talked to the forestry manager, but I just wanted to make sure that those conversations are happening.

We had a conversation, I believe, back before the holidays. Mhmm. And Erin and I have reached out to try and further that conversation. Erin include me into it because we've been talking for a couple years about rewriting the forestry city ordinances. Yeah. And we have not heard anything back. Okay. So

I'll put a bug in just because she had like a whole packet Okay. Someone from the the city, and she had a whole packet that came from the DNR and was saying, like, this is what we should be using. Great. Yeah. But no one's in the room here that will make those decisions. So okay. Nope. Connect those dots.

I know Erin and I would appreciate that

yeah no problem thank you no problem

okay let me find the correct street here

any further questions

I can't find the correct sheet, I'm sorry. Oh, there we go. So based on quotes that we received last fall from Johnson's nursery, which again are on the high side when we actually solicit quotes. We anticipate the labor to be less expensive, but that is what we've utilized to calculate the assessed tree value for this year. So estimated labor cost per tree, dollars 229.72 per tree is what was estimated by Johnson's nursery and that includes planting the tree, mulching it, watering it in, all of those things.

And so our average, of course, like everything else, climbs a little bit every year to $428.88 but because again we're using kind of an estimate and there was such a decent size increase last year, we would look at recommending keeping the assessment flat at $3.97 of course any questions comments take some more if anyone's got any

is there any sort of guarantee of work with the contractors that we're hiring like if they were to for some reason, put in the tree wrong or not fulfill the watering, would they be responsible for replacing the tree?

Yes. Absolutely. So if, you know, they were to put a tree in the wrong spot, we don't pay them until the work has been inspected to our satisfaction. And we're gonna be getting two different types of warranty quotes. One that would include the contractor watering throughout the season and then one that would include the city watering.

Very, very likely we'll go with the city watering the trees throughout the season because when we get forestry seasonal staff and interns, their labor is a lot less expensive than contracting it out. But just for comparison sake, we do like to request costs of watering from the contractor as well. Thank you.

I'll make a motion to approve the recommendation for $397 per tree.

I'll second.

Motion by Sarah Ross, second by Alderman Camacho. Any further discussion? Okay. We will take this to a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And that passes unanimously.

Yes. Thank you. And if there's questions that come up in the meantime too, again since I'm pinching for air and I know he always welcomes questions from the board.

Thanks Melissa. All right moving on to item E, review preliminary 2026 pool program season and fees charges.

All right. Perfect timing with the weather. Yes. The pool season is not too far off. Mark's here tonight and Logan to talk about the pool program, again, So hit on very high level, like the pool season, what we're looking at, got some new ideas with the Learn and Swim program, which is pretty exciting. Maybe a little talk about cabanas as well. It's Mark's favorite subject. So take it away, gentlemen.

All right. Thank you very much, Ron. So I do have Logan here this evening to help out with the pool reports. I'm going to cover just how the pools performed in 2025 as that was my season, I own it, all the numbers in there. And then Logan will cover the 2026 proposed season. We do have after analyzing the data, realizing some trends and then some gaps in services, we are going to be recommending some major changes to the Horeb swim schedule, and we'll be getting to that at the end. So that's just a little bit of a teaser right there. But this first picture right here, this is just one of our staff in services. So this was before a fire department in service. So that is just one of our pools right there.

We do have a couple of our managers that are there. But that's just kind of an at a glimpse idea of what it takes to staff just one of our pools. So next page, please. All right. So overall, at a glance for attendance figures, we did awesome in 2025. Weather wise, it was kind of a mild season. It definitely wasn't a hot summer. So we seeing an additional 4,000 people at the pools was awesome. So as far as the memberships go, our memberships continue to go up. We are seeing a little bit or we saw a little bit of a dip in our Learn to Swim enrollments and we will get there in a little bit of what our proposed changes will be on that.

And we really think that we've come up with a solution that is going to be a win win for both our budget and then also the community for the amount of seats that we can serve. And then with weather closures, we did have four full day closures early on in the season. Our operating cost between both pools is right around $550 an hour for staff costs. So in order for us to sustain that, we need to have about 100 people that come through our doors every hour. So we really were taking a critical look on those days when it's 73, 74 degrees and you have some members there, but there's just not any paid admissions that are coming through the door.

So we pulled the plug early in the season when we had those high sixty days when we just knew we were going to be barely maintaining our minimums, if that, and tried to be more fiscally responsible with our taxpayer dollars. Next slide please. All right. So overall, the combined recovery rates, we were at 85% and we'll get down there, but that's trending pretty much exactly where we have been for years past. Our pool pass revenue is up again.

And the trends that we're seeing in the pool passes is our City Of Waukesha residents are really leaning into our pool memberships. And we're seeing more usage of city residents for pool memberships. And then on the other side of that, we are seeing more non residents going for our daily rate, which it's a 50% inflated rate for non residents that they're paying for that non resident fee to come in. So we actually over performed our daily admissions by about $15,000 this year because of those non resident rates that we did implement a couple of years back. Just some other notable expenses that I want to add.

Talked about the personnel services that will always be our number one driver in the pools. We need to maintain lifeguards at the pool per state code. That will always be the highest figure. The other expenses that jumped out at us this year that we weren't necessarily were expecting, uniforms. The tariffs on uniforms and swimsuits in particular. In 2024, we were paying $30 for a men's suit and then maybe $40 for a women's suit. That more than doubled last year. And if you didn't buy your suits before June, you could not find lifeguard suits anymore. We had staff reporting that they were paying almost $100 for a second suit. So we're putting our orders in early this year.

We've negotiated some discount pricing by locking in 2025 pricing in December with estimated orders to try and save ourselves some dollars there. And then utilities are always variables and what utilities are going to cost and it was a high season for those. So if we could scroll down to the bottom please, Mark. So overall you can see how we were performing in the past since 2017. Revenue wise, our revenue was up $7,000 this year.

We did acquire the Turbo Chef, so we did a $17,000 outlay and then just some increased expenses with supplies expenses and utilities. So moving on to the 2026 revenue plan, we are anticipating that we're going to have an additional $45,000 in revenue this year and essentially this page lays forward how we think we're going to do that. So I think this is a conservative revenue plan. We're thinking we're going to reach essentially the numbers that we underestimated in 2025. And then we think that we're going to sustain with our concessions.

We got a little over aggressive with how much the TurboShelf were going to sell. We did very well, but the ROI on those is going be more like two point five to three years, where originally we thought it would be more like one point five to two years. They're actually over performing more at our youth sports complexes than the pool and we thought it was going to be the other way around. So it's kind of interesting how the numbers are showing here. And then the biggest addition to our budget this year is going be the $13,000 in cabana rentals at the two pools.

So we are eagerly putting that together right now, all our marketing material and getting everything purchased and ready for the season. And then also just a friendly reminder that we have new pool features that we're going to have over at Horeb this summer as well. So we'll have a dump bucket, we'll have a new spray shower and then the lemon drops, which we called them before, which were the stationary three pillars, there was a little yellow top, there was two little areas that sprayed out water. Those will now be pivoting water shooters. So there will be a stop on them to where you can't shoot the water onto the deck, but then essentially that will be a play area to where the kids will be able to shoot water on each other opposed to just non interactive features where you're walking underneath a water stream.

Alright, last page here. So I'm going to kick it over to Logan here and then I am probably going to interject a little bit as he makes comments. Now the biggest thing that I want to lay forward is this proposed pool plan is not Logan coming in and trying to turn the pools on its head. This is 100% my doing and just the operations of the pools for the last nine seasons, seeing where I think there's gaps in services, where we can best utilize the taxpayers' dollars, how we can possibly open up the pools longer or how we can be the most responsible with our dollars. So this is the plan that I laid forward that I asked Logan, do I have your blessing to present this to the board?

And he said, absolutely, this makes sense. This sounds like a good plan. So I just want to be very clear that this is not Logan coming in and just trying to totally redo the way that we do things here.

Thank you, Mark. Evening, everyone. As Mark said, with this little teaser, let's get right into the Horub schedule. Compared to last year, we'll be open seventy one days. This minus three days is due to the school year schedule. It's probably the biggest term for that. So with that, we're just proposing that that first weekend, we just open Horeb on the weekend and then have Buckner open during the week and then open Horeb the rest of the time period just to maximize our attendance until school gets out for the school year. The big item to review is the schools the pool schedule itself. So we'll be moving swim lessons from the morning to directly into the evening. I'll get more on that later into it.

We'll be opening the pool for open swim from 11:30 to five. And then from five to 8PM, we'll be having swim lessons. So just compare this with Horeb from Buckner, we'll be having swim lessons in the evening at Horeb for those families that are working during the day and just wanna have some lessons in the evening. And then we're having all of our morning swim lessons at the Buckner aquatic facility. And then come August, we'll be able to open Horeb from 12:30 to 8PM to extend our operating hours at Horeb to maximize until the school year starts back up later.

At the Buckner Pool, it's very similar to the normal schedule. There's minimal changes there other than adding additional swim lessons to really hit those key swim lessons that we're not having a horror of. So just to recap all the pros and everything of why we're making these changes, It simplifies our swim lessons for our staffing for WSI instructors so that way they can focus in the morning and in the evening. They're not trying to jump back and forth between double mornings and evening schedule. This really hits home for avoiding availability for having those evening swim lessons and having those morning swim lessons shows us less confusion, especially when it comes to registration.

And then having the pool open longer at Hora, but we'll hopefully boost those concession sales that Mark mentioned that we're hopefully going to over hit as well. Did I miss anything?

Thank you, Logan. So the biggest statistic or the driver in all this and not reopening the pool in the evening is really the economics of it. Historically, we closed the pool down at 04:30, then we would have two blocks of swim lessons, a 05:00 swim lesson and a 05:30 swim lesson. Those are our most popular swim lessons. They would fill up like a Level one and a Level two class.

If you were a non resident, you couldn't get those options. They would be gone before non resident registration day. So what this does is it effectively doubles our capacity in the evening when our lessons are the most demand, when we know that we're going to be able to fill them. And then in addition to that, when we were reopening the pool from 06:30 to eight p. M, over the course of those eight weeks, we had an average of 10 paid admissions that were coming in the door.

So an average of about $50 and it was costing us close to $500 in staff salaries. So over the course of the season, that correlates to $26,000 in staff salaries and we took in about 4,000 So this arms us essentially to take away that gas guzzler in our budget of reopening the pool and nobody showing up. And now we're going to have the pool open, doubling our swim lesson capacity where we know we're going to have bodies in the pool and we know we're going to fill those hours. We still will have a pool available over at Buckner for people who want to swim in the evening. And then when our Learn to Swim program comes to a conclusion at the July, we do intend on keeping that pool open until 08:00 Monday through Friday.

Pool will remain open until 08:00 on Saturday and then it will remain open until 07:00 on Sunday. So really the changes here are isolated to Horeb schedule. Buckner will kind of remain as it always has. Buckner is firing on all cylinders from 07:00 in the morning until 08:00 at night, seven days a week. So we're maximizing the usage of that facility at thirteen hours a day, where Horeb was primarily only being used, call it at the very most.

And I think that this it just gives the community the best use out of the pool. So that's a lot that we threw at you guys. I know that there is no recommendation for approval that we have here this evening. Logan and I are more than welcome to entertain any questions that you have this evening. We anticipate lots of questions on this.

So by all means, feel free to email either Logan or myself any concerns that you have, anything that you think that we may not have vetted or things from your angle that you think we need to take a closer look at. This is by far the largest change that I'm recommending in my ten years here with WPRF, but I do think that it was going to be for the best both for the taxpayer dollar and then also maximum utilization for the pool.

One thing right away, sorry. Additionally, when you're saying like if we switch to this format, does that also then reduce the cost per hour in staff time?

So the statistic that I gave you was our open swim staff time. Learn to swim is going to be a little bit different because we do pay our instructors a higher cost, but that is we know we're going to make a profit on those lessons because we're going to cancel them if we don't meet our minimums. So it's more of a controlled environment with the Learn to Swim where regardless we're making money off from Learn to Swim, where Open Swim is just kind of you're rolling the dice based on the weather. And in order for us to get 100 bodies through the door with paid admissions to sustain, you really need to have 80 degree plus weather. Would be are you talking about like with the loss at Horeb?

Yeah. No, it doesn't. I mean that's the problem and that is essentially the biggest heartburn in all of this where we had more than 10 people that were in the pool. We had 10 paid admissions, but we'd probably have somewhere around 40 to 60 people in the pool. So that does mean that there are, call it 30 or 40 members that were planning on coming to the pool or they paid for an admission and then we kick everybody out of the pool at 04:30 and we give people a hand stamp to reenter the pool later.

So it's likely a combination of those two, but we will have a pool to refer people to. It's not just the pool is closed, you can't go swimming here, we can refer people over to Buckner and your hand stamp is universal. If you get stamped at Buckner you can go over to Horeb. Right. And the concession stand wouldn't open until 01:00 because reality is you're not hitting the concession stand the first thing you

do when

you get into the pool. So yes, and for the rest of the board, historically we opened up at 12:30 for Monday through Friday, well just open swim in general. And now this is going to push it up to 11:30 because we want to put in an added benefit of not just eliminating that evening open swim and just saying tough deal with it. This is kind of the compromise of it definitely serves those younger families because I know when my kids were little, both of them less than five, they're up at 06:00 in the morning. So trying to get to a pool at 12:30 seems like a lifetime away.

What do you do?

I should know this by now, but if you have a pass to one of the pools, you have access to both?

Correct. Okay, thank you.

Do you anticipate any sort of backlash or like what questions are you like maybe potentially getting from folks that do buy the pass and say like, why go to Horeb every night? And now what am I gonna, like are That you anticipating

is the biggest question that I anticipate is this was our go to, we always went over here, we lived two blocks away, we walked to the pool. I don't have a solid answer for you outside of come visit us on the other side of town. But from a financial standpoint, when you really break it down and then the amount of residents that we're missing out on that can't come to our morning swim lessons because they have two working parents, I just think that the amount of people we can serve greatly outweighs the amount of people we're going to impact with this change.

Other questions?

Yes, you didn't dodge the cabanas. So

the cabanas are so it is essentially a private little like gazebo area of the deck. So we're looking at having a minimum of five total between the pools. We're just trying to negotiate in on specifically it's the wind loads that we're worried about on these.

And

the wind loads for like a lower level are right at like 70 miles an hour and we get that. So we're going to have to bump it up to the next level. And once you get up to the essentially hurricane rated cabanas, they're a little bit more expensive. But you'll be able we're going to price them very competitively. We just were at the Kalahari for a state conference and they were charging anywhere from $300 to $600 a day for their cabanas on top of your hotel stay.

Ours for a resident is going to max out at $100 and Buckner and Horeb will be priced differently and then there's different prices based on the weekday and weekend. So it's a $99 rental for a Buckner weekend rental, which can get you from 12:30 until 08:00. So when you break down per hour what you're paying on that, it's an amazing deal. And thank you for bringing them up. But the Cabanas, essentially what this does is it allows us to hold the line on all of our additional pricing for 2026.

So we don't need to raise the price of memberships, we don't need to raise the price of daily admissions or swim lessons with the addition of the premium seating. And the $13,000 that I had in there, that is with the cabanas at a 25% occupancy rate. So that's like one weekend day essentially for each one of them. And I think that they're probably going to do both weekend days at both pools. I anticipate all of them are going to be full.

It's that weekday I think is going to be real hit or miss. Because again as a parent, it's a really cheap birthday party outside of our birthday party options that we're already offering, where if you only have let's say three or four neighborhood kids, I can rent a cabana for $60 or $100 at the very most and now I've got a private birthday party for my kid.

Not

yet. So this is going to be our first year. We're going to allow drinks in them right now, but this is our first experiment on how this is going to go. I truly do think that these are going to be received extremely well and then we'll have to talk about what expansion of the program looks like in 2027. Right. So we might not be too many years off from Cabana Boys and Cabana Girls.

You'd like your license with that name. Right.

Well if there aren't any other questions at this time, by all means please do email Logan and I with any sort of trepidation, any concerns that you may have about this. I know that this is a lot to digest. It's a big change, but I truly do think that it's going to work out for the best. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Again, this is no action required. This is a preliminary review. We'll give you a taste of the upcoming summer season. And next month, we'll have the final on that and they'll wrap things up because we're making progress on believe it again another believe it or not summer activity guide. And obviously that's a big part of it is the pool program. So thanks Mark, Logan, great report.

Can I

just ask one other quick question about the cabanas? Will they be like will you reserve them when the activity guy comes out or will how like?

Yes. So reservations will be available as soon as registration goes live for residents and non residents. You will be able to rent them online up until twenty four hours or the day before. And then any capacity that we have available the day of will be on a first come first for basis at the pools.

Actually, I do also have a follow-up question.

We're excited about it.

I know. Are you working with like the marketing team to be able to kind of, I don't know,

drum up some excitement Absolutely. About

You're probably going to see River and Splash doing a video here in the near future about our cabanas. And I saw that our recruitment video just hit the socials, I believe, on Friday. So if you know anybody who's looking for a job, send them our way.

Okay.

We will move on to the Board President report. As I mentioned, the Plan Commission currently is the big project they have we have are redoing the zoning code. And that one piece that came up was just about the DNR and the species for trees. So I'll connect the dots there. Otherwise, nothing else to report. So we'll move on to director and staff Report.

All right. Thank you, Jennifer. A couple of things and then I'll move to the Manager Reports. Making good progress on Mineola Pavilion. So hoping by the April meeting, we'll have some plans to share and hopefully how it's looking, but so far so good.

And they've been, I'd say a good firm to be working with and engineering department has been a very good partner to help keep things on track. So we want to again, the goal is to be able to have this open for the 2027. So next year, round roughly getting around this time, April Fools Day, we'll use that one for the grand opening. So think positive and I just want to let you know that so far that's looking good. Lots of planning initiatives going on.

We're going to we're very close to having a kickoff meeting with our Park and Open that's the old term, the Park and Recreation System Master Plan, which used to be known as the Park and Open Space Plan. It's really the mother load of our park planning for us. We've been working off a plan that dates back to 2007. It's amazing how fast that went, but we've accomplished a lot from that plan, but it is definitely time to take a whole new look at it, refresh it and take what we had from the past and then merge it into the present because things have changed a lot in all those years, to say the least. So I look forward to that.

There'll be opportunities, for board input, etcetera, all to come. So we just kind of finalized that contract. We'll be working with a firm called Damon Farber. I got it right for once. They're also doing our way finding directional signage.

I'm sure Melissa will touch on the progress of that because that's much, much further along. So that's a companion plan to this master plan. And if that's not enough strategic plan, so we've had a little mileage on the strategic plan. We like to do like an annual update to that. So we're going to be looking at I'll be soliciting like a Saturday down the road here, not too distant to get the board together and really kind of spend time to go over the revised strategic plan and keep that up.

If we touch base on it at least once a year, we'll never get too far away from us. And so we think that's important. The city as a whole is doing a very nice job with the city's strategic plan. And so we like to do the same to keep our, again, a companion plan, our strategic plan aligned with the city overarching plan, a lot of plans. And most importantly, the stay on track with the initiatives that we're looking at that are what we feel critical, especially in the next five years, to keep PRF on the right track.

The, yes, there's a citizen survey that's out. Maybe you've heard. But every two years, the city has participated. It started in 2022. It was conducted again in 2024, and guess what? It's 2026. So it's time for it's called the national community survey. There's two pieces two big pieces to that. There's a statistically valid survey, so it sent out a random sample of two residents throughout the the city. And that's a plus or minus, I wanna say 4% on that.

And then there's the online survey. So it's a great way and I would encourage anybody and neighbors or whatever, take the time to fill that out. Easy to do. That closes on the twenty third, okay, February 23. So take a peek at that. It's again a chance to give input on not just parks and recreation type things, but the whole gamut. And it's very helpful and it's utilized. I have to say that a lot is gleaned from that survey information. So more to come on that. Just wanted to make you aware that that is out and and available to take the online survey.

So anyone can do that if you're a resident. And this the other survey is one if you haven't received one by now, I believe you did not get one. So that's a random sample and the way that works out, again, it's a statistically validated sample of that. With that, we got lots of other projects going on and Melissa will touch on a few of those. And Mark kind of hit on a couple other ones.

So from pools to the rotary building, frame park, formal garden, a little bit of everything. Playground projects getting ramped up, I think, next month. I think we're gearing for next month to have the playground project that's earlier than usual. We're trying to push that one up. This year is Greenway Terrace, another little known small little pocket park kind of in the Banting area, and, it's our oldest playground in the system right now.

So that goes back to '99, I wanna say. It's in the nineties. That's all I'll say, late nineties. So that's our oldest. And it's a never ending process with 32 playgrounds in the system. And every year, we need at least do one, ideally two, but we're doing one this year. So with that, Melissa.

Thank you, Ron. As Ron mentioned, the next month we'll be having a public input meeting on the Greenway Terrace Playground. Also coming up hopefully in the next month or so, public input meeting on the way finding signage and design project. So we're getting close to having some good locations, some good renderings to get that public input and stakeholders before we would bring any recommendations to the Park Board. So you'll be receiving those invites as well, so kind of keeping an eye out for those.

Along the line of CIP projects, the formal gardens one will be hopefully wrapping up if the weather stays nice. The deadline for that one to finish is the May. So kind of a little bit longer in the spring depending on how Mother Nature cooperates or doesn't cooperate with us. And then also buttoning up a hoard pool retaining wall and new zero depth features, as Mark mentioned. Forest started a new pool season, so that pool will have a little facelift for 2026.

Those are kind of the main projects that are holding over, so to speak, from 2026. 2020 no, from 2025 or finishing '20 Sorry, I'm already in 'twenty seven in my head. So for 'twenty six projects, we have the Greenway Terrace playground project. We also have one project. It's multiple budget line items, but it's going to be bid as one project.

It's the Prairie Park Pickleball And Tennis Courts And Lighting. And then also as part of that project, the Prairie Baseball And Softball backstop fencing and the Banting Tennis And Pickleball Court resurfacing. So combining all of those into one project, hopefully, will be enticing to some contractors and we'll get some decent bids on those projects. That one would look to start in August. So get through the summer season for rentals, for programs, things and then do fall renovation and then hopefully too with the ball fields.

That gives us some chance to do sod installation in the fall which is very good time to get some sod established at both of the ball diamonds there. Other operational items, we do still currently have a couple open positions, two arborist positions and then two positions in the buildings crew, the plumber assistant supervisor. But also along those lines, we have begun hiring seasonal staff. So we have a couple that have already committed to returning, so we're very excited about that. It definitely helps us get going a little faster during the spring.

If anyone's looking for some outdoor work that we're very, very flexible. We've had seasonals start at as early as five a. We have seasonals work until 11:00, 11:30 at night. So we're very flexible with schedules and so that's actually benefited us. Other operation wise, forestry crews been working hard to get on to a routine pruning schedule for the different forestry work units that are slightly different than the Aldermanic districts.

They're slightly smaller and they have to do a little bit more with the street layouts and how they can access them. So working through those. Also winter is a very good time for training. We've had the negative 30 degree days or days when it's particularly rainy or snowing, CDL training, pesticide training, forklift certification. We've got CPR and first aid that Mark Thompson and his staff are leading for our whole department.

Very thankful to be getting those done, kind of making hay while the sun is not shining. Of course, continuing on even though it's 60 degrees, we still have a couple months left of snow plowing. So I appreciate comments and feedback that we've been getting. So if anyone continues to have comments, feedback, notices issues of concern, please continue to communicate those. We are keeping track of all of that.

And then a couple kind of rejuvenation projects. Buckner Park, if you've been past, you'll notice that some of the shrubs have been cut down a little bit. The U that's been on the corner of Broadway and Oakland for approximately thirty five years is no longer there. So feels a little different. As part of what we've started doing in other parks, we're trying to reduce the amount of shrub plantings that require annual or semi annual maintenance, and then increase the native plantings, your native perennials, your native grasses, which also are much more beneficial for the pollinators, particularly the monarchs and the honeybees.

So, trying to go less maintenance, more environmentally friendly. And also, we've been working on some invasive species removal, buckthorn primarily undergrowth in the Fox River Sanctuary, kind of behind the target, behind the police department shooting range, if you're familiar with that section. So we work on mowing kind of every couple years. It keeps the buckthorn down. And then we're kind of working on areas where we might be able to plant some trees or just get it restored as an understory.

So trying to, again, when the ground is frozen in the winter, is perfect with no snow. So that's ideal, any sort of forestry, shrub or restoration projects. So that's most of what we've got going on at the moment.

All right, thanks. Thanks, Melissa. Not to add more to that list, could you expand a little bit on the formal gardens project, what's all going to happen with that for the board?

Yes. So currently, the formal gardens project, the base of the project has been done and I mean literally kind of the base. So a lot of the storm sewer under drainage work, if you've ever been to the formal gardens even a couple days after it rains, you'll notice there's some puddles on the stone pathways. So this will alleviate that, make it quicker to dry out. Particularly, we've seen that be issues when we have rentals or things like that.

People don't necessarily want puddles with their wedding pictures, some do, but that will be happening. And then kind of the flip side of coin, in keeping things wet, the irrigation will be kind of reinstalled. We've had irrigation in there. It's several decades old now. It's kind of been pieced together and accidentally kind of dropped up over the years.

We have a new irrigation system and that will include drip irrigation too for the hanging baskets that you see and those require watering on a daily basis. So even Saturdays and Sundays if there is absolutely no rain in the forecast, we do bring in staff, typically seasonals, to water those on the weekends. So this will save a lot of staff time in watering and then also hauling hoses out with hose bibs. So we should be able to kind of control the quality of the gardens a little more with the irrigation. Along with that portion, the kind of final portion that goes on top is a new pathway installation.

So we'll call it the main arterial of the formal gardens, the stone pathway, is going to still look like stone, but it is going to be a type of installation. The brand name is typically Flexi Pave. It goes by a couple different names. And it is, again looks like a stone but it has a binder to it. And it's also porous.

So we will not have puddling on the top of it. We will not have to add stone to it every year as it won't erode away. And with all of that binder as well, that makes us ADA compliant. So that's been some requests we've had over the years for getting better access into the formal gardens. And so those pathways will be realigned slightly over the years.

Some of them have gotten wider and some of them have gotten narrower. So we're going to realign them as they should be in a formal formal garden setting. So that will be done this spring as well. And then we'll have some new edging along that, some new sod, and then that will go along the flexi pave pathway to kind of formalize it will be brick pavers to kind of finish off that formal look for it. So we are looking at stubbing out not as part of this contracted project, but through this summer to get electrical back into the gardens as well.

So both outlets for rentals to use for speakers, sound systems, but then also lighting in the garden. We'll have some bollard lighting, just provide some low lighting for security. We've had some people go in and occasionally dig up and pull plants. Got So cameras pointed that way but it does help a lot at night. But getting some more lighting in there too and then also kind of extends the usage hours of the gardens as well.

And then kind of enhance the formal part. We want to keep them very much at the top tier of that level. So those are a couple of items that you'll be seeing coming up. Too much? Just enough?

It's just right. Two other little things combined with that. With the Prairie project, it's good to note that pickleball, those courts sets a new addition. I mean, reformulated the courts. So that'll give us, this is for those elevator talks, 32 dedicated outdoor pickleball courts and a critical South Side location.

So we're very excited about putting some love into Prairie Park, definitely needed. And the ball fields, the best way to kind of describe that is if you have a chance to go over to Banting. You see how the baseball field was redone and with the softball field or the little league field pretty much ditto, that type of thing. So not only backstops, but the the baseline fencing. So they'll get a brand new facelift.

Prairie is used by South High School for their JV games still. And so overdue in the lighting, some of those oldest lighting that we have is going to be redone. It's a big project. Steve?

Speaking of Prairie Park, I was by there today and that parking lot way in the back where you put the wood chips and stuff on the backside of the diamond The by parking lot was full today of cars. I don't know if they're parking from Weldahl or where they're parking from, But I'm assuming that's our parking lot.

It is.

And so just something to be aware of. No, appreciate that. And flicks with something that we have going on at the ballpark or something that affect or the placement of the wood chips out there during the summer. I don't know if well, low people are parking there or what.

The only thing that comes into mind is if you recall the electrical easement that came through Prairie through the board last year, Weld Hall was doing an expansion and renovation. So anything I can think of is that that's temporary while they're doing that, but certainly something we'll look into.

But they're utilizing the parking lot.

Correct. Yes, if that's truly what they're doing, but that's the only

thing I I can hope they've asked permission or I'm sure they did, obviously, but

just just FYI. Everyone always I

I saw that and I just kinda clicked and said, that's not right.

So Yeah. We appreciate that and we'll definitely check into that. It'd be it's never a good thing, but it's gonna be more of a pressing item once the summer kicks in. And then that parking lot will be in demand by park users.

Okay.

So good to know. But right now speculation if it's Weldahl or some other entity, but not a program that we're aware of at least that we're conducting. But speculation, good to know. More eyes and ears we have on the park system, the better. So appreciate it. Okay. We'll move over to Mark Schramm and admin report. All right. Thank you, Ron.

So as Ron already hinted at the admin team is prepping for the summer activity guide. We will be bringing back the turn book. So that seemed to go pretty fairly well and a one stop shop for information for the city. The activity guide, you should expect that early April in your mailboxes. Online registration for residents will begin in April 13, and then it will be April 16 for nonresidents.

Outside of of the prep work for the summer activity guide, the admin team had been working on updating content on our Jamboree webpage. So the admin team manages all that during the November through January time frame for that event. As a part of our contract with Civic Plus, every two point five to three years, we're up for a redesign or a refresh. So we are now starting that process of a redesign for that. So come next year, the Jamboree website will have a little bit different look and feel to it, trying to stay up with market trends and make it appealing for our audience.

Another big part of the website redesign is ensuring that we're going to maintain ADA compliancy. Coming mid April, there are some compliancy changes, which is ultimately to have a more accessible website for those that might be visually impaired and need to use things such as like screen readers. So we're very excited to be going through that process. It's about sixteen week process. From a CIP standpoint for IT technology, we have installed three meeting displays at our Shuitee Recreation Center that'll be able to get utilized by instructors, staff, users, to, input content on a screen.

We have one that still needs to be installed at our EV Shirts location, that'll go into the community room. This spring, we are working on getting scheduled a digital display out at WRO, which will primarily be used as a concessions menu, but also, can be used for scheduling, marketing materials, and what have you. From a Baycom standpoint for keyless entry and cameras, since we've last met, we installed cameras and keyless entry at River Valley and also at Grand View. And then we have completed keyless entry over at our rotary building in Frame Park. Locations coming up here are to be determined, but it's going to look like either Prairie, Bethesda or Banting.

Outside of the keyless entry and camera report, since we last met, our full time customer service specialist that was housed at Aviation accepted a full time position as a administrative assistant at the clerk's office here. So we lost our customer service specialist, but she's staying with the city. So we're very, very happy for her. So we have been focusing on recruitment and interviews to get that position filled. We do have an offer letter out there right now.

So knock on wood, hopefully by our next meeting, I'll be sharing some good news on a new staff member joining the team. And that is my admin report. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Mark. And before I forget, I have to remind you that we have our banquet coming up. So it seems to sneak by and one of the most obvious things to talk about to you. But as a friendly reminder, March 19, if you can make it fantastic, it's at Tuscan Hall this year.

So right down right down the road. And a very nice facility. We had we had banquet there that's over ten years ago, for sure. But, again, it's that time of year for our annual banquet, and should be a great time. Last year, we had about a 100 attendees and wide variety of very worthy recipients of the different awards recognition. So I better get that in before I forget. Last but not least, Mark Thompson, Recreation.

All right. Thank you very much, Ron. So just going to cover just kind of some of the highlights of each one of the supervisors. So I know Logan was just here and shared, but in addition to all the exciting things that we shared, we're also going to be revamping the birthday parties this year. And we're going to be adding an additional ultimate birthday party package, which is going to be guaranteed indoor space inside the Buckner Community Room.

So the way that we're streamlining this is in the past, we literally had a staff member that went around and asked each one of the kiddos if they wanted chicken nuggets, pizzas, there's one other item on there, and then they got a drink and then they also got a snack, hot dogs, there you go. So trying to get kids to give you three decisions and then 12 of them, it's a nightmare. So essentially it's now pizza parties and then we're going to get two liters of soda and water bottles and then that will streamline it for the staff, and it'll ultimately be a better user experience because we don't have frustrated parents or hungry kids. Then in our sponsorship program, I don't know if this is a promise or a threat, but next meeting, we should have a naming rights policy, a first kick at the can here, ready for you guys. And then Cheryl, she is knee deep in the middle of soccer season right now.

We had just under 2,000 players last last season, so we're anticipating the same numbers. And then Cheryl is also helping out with the CPR and first aid training. As Melissa mentioned, we're in the process of recertifying all full time staff and it's taking place over the course of about a month with three different trainings. In the rentals world, Greg has been doing awesome. So SC Wave and Elmbrook United recommitted to their spring schedule of what they did in fall over at Mendeola.

So the rentals over there look fantastic. We also secured a new lacrosse clinic. So it's almost like well, it's just that, it's a clinic. So not necessarily like a tournament, but more learning the game. And then in addition to that, he secured a new basketball group that is going be utilizing Shutesy during our underutilized months.

So during summer, when the gym is pretty much sitting vacant, we're now going to have a club basketball that's going to be doing practices inside of the gym. In the youth enrichment world, Gayla and her team are working on the Summer Explorers program. We are going to be offering Summer Explorers out of the Shutsi Recreation Center for the first time. I believe as we shared in the past, the trend has really moved away from outdoor shelters and parents want accountability, they want indoor spaces, they want air conditioned spaces. Gone are the days of kids being able to come and go from the playground program.

You're signed in, you're signed out and we'll have structured activities for the kiddos during the day. And last but certainly not least with our special events, we are in the process of locking in like all of our food trucks, all of our lower level agreements, all of our main acts and everything have been signed. And then also exploring the possibility of hosting a moving memorial, something similar to the wall, not quite as big to help celebrate our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. So those are the highlights of The Rec World. Thanks Ron.

All right. Thank you, Mark. I think that covers a lot of territory and that concludes our report.

Great. Thank you everyone. If there is no further discussion then we are adjourned.

Right. Thank you very much.

Thanks everyone.