Parks & Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

[Music] Are you ready? Got you covered, man. All right. Call a meeting to order. It's the park and rec commission. February 19th. We're meeting at five Oaks on Morrison. Uh roll call, please. Commissioner Person, present. Commissioner Bashan Helman, present. Commission. Uh, chairperson Sue Rich present. Commissioner Travis Neil here. Commissioner Bill Hansen. Um, Commissioner Stephanie Todd. Is she online? Is present via Zoom. She has ga on. Is she on as a Yeah, I'm on. I can Can you hear me? Yeah. Hi, Stephanie. Hi. Am I missing anybody else? And uh do you want to say who else is here? Yeah. And uh we also have uh Beverly Tucker Knight, the parks and recreation director, myself, Patrick McGee, the assistant director, and we also have joining us um Hannah Samora, who's the recreation supervisor, and Kristoff the sports special. My sportsman and Mike Sto. What I guess is in attendance. Yeah, in attendance. Yeah, in process here to hang out. All right. And Maxine is also avail on Zoom as well. Is she on Zoom? All right, perfect. Uh, item number two, hearing from citizens.

You have anybody out there? Ask that gentleman. I do have one. Uh, Josh and I not sure how to pronounce his last name. Thomas asking if he's interested in speaking. Hello. Hello. me. Yeah. Yeah, it is you. Yes. Um it's Josh Tomachek. Hi. Um I uh I actually sent a message in just last night about Villa Park. Um so if it's written communications, we can go ahead. Go to someone else. Yeah. Josh. Um I'm This is Beverly Tucker Knight. Yes. I received your email. I apologize. We had late opening today. Oh yeah. Don't worry about it. Have to stay home today, too. Okay, terrific. Well, um there is there is a plan to so um for the for the benefit of the commission, Josh is interested in what's happening on the north side of Villa, the northeast corner where the there's a park entrance from Tess and um so Josh, in our park master plan, it does show a paved ADA entrance from that area of the park. When we were originally working on Villa Park, we had um a plan done for that area and discovered in the course of it that the plan that we had designed was going to send storm water down the private driveway on tests and then um exacerbate some of the drainage problems in that area. There's a um there's a open storm storm sewer trench back there that's kind probably a ancient creek. So we had to pull it out of the plans because we didn't we didn't want that to happen and now it's on our to-dos to

re-engineer that and when we do future projects at the park incorporated into that. So Villa is still slated to have its restrooms renovated. We don't have um a timeline for that, but it will be it will be soon in well, let me rephrase that. In municipal speak, it's soon, meaning it's going to be in the next couple years, but I I don't know yet when that'll be. All right. Yeah, thank you, Josh. Do you mind sharing your address? Thank you, Sue. Uh yeah, I'm on uh Dolores Avenue, uh 1034. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then um do you receive our updates from the department? Um I do not. Okay. I'll add your email address to our notifications so that when we have meetings about the park, you'll be notified. You'll also get a lot of our program information. It comes from Constant Contact, so you may need to check your spam folder. All right. Great. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you. And also Josh, uh this is Jim Bur. I live on Llewellyn and I pay a lot of attention to Villa as well. So, uh I appreciate your your interest in it. Great. I mean, we love it. We It was just um sometimes it gets a little muddy and I'm sure that's the drainage you're talking about and very muddy. Yeah, very muddy. There's a slope um from that area of the park. The whole park drains that way. So, um yeah, it gets quite And during storms, you you'll see a lot of surface water flowing in that area. Mhm. Good. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Item number three, written communications. Any additional? We do not have any. Item number four, recommendation to approve the January 15th regular meeting

minutes. Only thing that I saw in the minutes is that one of the um I don't know if it was a motion or a second by me. I was listed as Kate, which is fine. Um, short-handed maybe. I literally am writing Kate down, right? Needed to have last name or you're fine. We will we will add that. Sometimes like when I'm I write what I write on here so that I accidentally dictated. I will fix that. You got it right later. You can you can move to approve the minutes as amended. I I I move that the minutes be approved as amended. Second. Uh all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstension? All right. How did did Stephanie vote? Yeah, I ra I raised my hand. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I l I looked down and saw a head nodding so I thought that meant that you were okay. I saw Patrick nodding or something. Item number five, special presentation, the annual report of youth sport. Please take it that's why you guys are here. Yes, it's all yours. So to to introduce everybody today, we have with us Hannah Samora, who is our recreation supervisor in charge of sports and fitness and contract classes. And then with her is Kristoff Wiggle, who is our recreation coordinator, also in charge of sports and fitness and leagues. So, they're here today to give our annual report on Alvette youth sports. And as some of you may remember, we uh started doing annual reports a couple years ago. As we move towards uh we started taking all the individual

fees out of the code to be be able to respond more quickly to um adding new programs and adjusting our fees and and paying more attention to our cost recovery. So that's why we do these annual reports instead of um having to do a code that says we're going to charge $2, you know, for for something. So that was a commitment we made to the council and to the parks and rec commission and so that is why they're here today. Absolutely. Thanks Beverly. So as Beverly said, we are here to obviously talk about all about youth sports. So Kristoff and I put this very beautiful presentation here together for you guys to really encompass and show all the great things that we're doing with sports. So I hope that you can see that as well. Can you put the mic closer to her? Thank you. [Music] Thank you. Can you hear me a little bit better now? Yes. Perfect. Well, we can't see anybody. Oh, there you are. The only request that we have is just that you ask questions at the very end because we may end up answering the questions throughout the presentation, but we will gladly and open up any of the floor for any questions that you guys have at the very end. So, to start us off, Patrick, if you could give us the next slide. We wanted to start off with just the philosophy which really kind of just encompasses what Olivet has and sees for our youth sport program. And so really that consists around having a safe, fun, and clean environment for all of our athletes and all of our players because we really harp on the importance for teamwork, skill development, and just overall just having a really fun area. Whether that's having clean parks, that's having really nice equipment,

that's offering new uniforms, that's hiring and having really good coaches, hiring really wellqualified referees. And so we try to overall encompass that. And you'll see that as we kind of approach through the presentation. But that's our overall philosophy is having a fun and safe environment for children to to learn the importance of teamwork, fair play, and then skill development through our three sports, which is soccer, baseball, and basketball. Um so kind of like our objectives um for our programs. Um one is definitely encouraging lifetime participation. Um, I was someone who loved playing sports and I still play sports to this day. So, if we can definitely get kids involved at an early age, they're more likely to stay involved than afterwards when they're adults and um into, you know, later years as well after they're done with with youth sports. Um, another thing is just uh objective is just developing positive uh social skills uh confidence and kind of just characteristics um that you can kind of find in sports whether that's teamwork, whether that's um just being on time, right? Time management um and just kind of those characteristics that you can see when when being part of a team. um that will then play later on when of course they're um older in the working world as well that they can use kind of those characteristics like they learned um during youth sports and hopefully apply it to um their work or life in general. Um and then finally of course is involving the entire uh families and communities um here in Alvette um where we have coaches helping out, volunteer coaches helping out um where we also just have refs as well that um kind of become part of that community um that coaches can uh um kind of get accustomed to as well with that. And then hopefully

they will stay with us through through the time when they start from micro which is our prek um all the way through fifth grade which what we offer. So so we're going to start with talking about some of our coaches. And so our coaches are really kind of the foundation of a large amount of our program. Kristoff and I are here to build all of the rosters and different things, but our coaches are the individuals that really go out onto the field. They're working with the kids. They're inspiring the kids. They're getting the kids to participate. They're teaching those skills and that foundation. And so really, they're kind of like the life and the heart of of all of all of that in our sports. They really offer teamwork and participation. They offer encouragement. And so something that we really look for in our coaches is these are the different things that they're required to do. So they have to complete a background check. They attend coaches meetings and clinics. And in these meetings, we kind of review those expectations, kind of what their roles and responsibilities are so that they can meet those guidelines. We also offer clinics, which is something that gives them the opportunity to expand their coaching knowledge and that can kind of look at how to develop a practice, what are different um things that you can do during that practice, how you can run a practice, what are different skills that you can work on. This was something that we really harbored in with our soccer our soccer season and we hope to carry that into our basketball and baseball. It hasn't happened just yet, but it is something that we are looking to to implement. We've also offered for our coaches the opportunity for resources on our website. So, that also looks like more coaching materials and more resources for them to kind of dive in different videos. There's different things on team sideline that we utilize as well. Something else that we require for our coaches, sorry for that. Um, is to keep consistent communication with their teams. And so that looks like communicating with those parents, communicating with their players and athletes whenever they come to their practices, updating for rain outs or reschedules due to weather and etc. And

then lastly is just reviewing those reviews, those rules and those expectations with those players and those parents and everything else. So we really are so thankful for our coaches and really appreciate all the work that they do because they do make such an impact on the field or in a gym either way. Um, so kind of um now kind of layout of our leagues and divisions. So like Hannah mentioned before, we offer soccer in the fall, uh, basketball in the winter, and then baseball/softball in the spring. And then from there, it kind of goes into kind of grade levels. Um, so micro and kindergarten. So micro is pre kindergarten. Um, they are co-ed. Um, so it's both boys and girls that can sign up for that. And then starting around first grade, we split them into boys and girls. So we'll have first grade boys basketball, for example, and also first grade boys or first grade girls basketball. And it kind of goes up from there. Um our goal, of course, is to have all the way up to fifth grade um with a large number of participants so that we can create a league. Um uh with baseball, it kind of diminishes a little bit. So we're trying to really grow that for for the spring for baseball. Um and then how the games kind of work. So for micro um it's a six-w week long program. Um so they usually start a little bit later um in the season. Um and then from K to 5th it's an 8week program. So they have eight weeks of games. Um usually practices start usually a month before the games begin. So for example for basketball we had practices start beginning of December but their games didn't start until after the new year um on January 11th. Um, and then with the whole program as well, like I said, they get eight games. They get usually a weekly practice um that is decided usually by the coach um whenever best fits their schedule um and also just gym availability sometimes for basketball.

Um and then they get a uniform and also medal at the end of the season as well. And uh I just kind of want to jump in and say one thing too that uh we are also open to taking anything above fifth grade. We just don't get enough teams at those grade levels, but we work with other municipalities and other leagues nearby to get those get get them in a league um if we can. So we stop at fifth because that's where we drop off really really hard. Uh but we are trying to find other resources for them to get them in the league as well. And another thing I want to add as well with in regards to the weekly practice uniforms and medals at regards to individual registrations. So we kind of have two different registrations. We have a team registration where a whole team can sign up in a sense and then we have individual registrations. So this is just dealing with uh individual registrations. So this will start of a series of a few slides. So this first slide will be about soccer. But this is a great slide to show you on our two different years and the breakdown and the differences and the growth between the two. And so starting at the top with soccer for 2023, you can see that we have our micro registration, our K through 5th registration and the different prices between the two. And so um micro starting at 70 and then K through 5th is that that 110. That's for that an individual registration. And then just below that we have the team registration which is $700 for a team registration. Now that encompasses where an entire team gets to come in and that can range in between 10 to 15 players truthfully and I'll talk about that a little bit more when we get down to the bottom and and participations here. But for 2023 for soccer we had 619 part individual registrations for team register or for individual

participants that came in and played for soccer. Now, we did have three team participants and I want you to remember that with those teams comes that 10 to 15 players. So, if we take, you know, if there was an additional 10, so that would add an additional 30 to that overall registration. So, it puts it, you know, a little bit more in the mid600s, a little higher than that. So, keep that in mind kind of as we go. You'll see a a big jump here as we move into 2024 soccer. So you can see that for micro registration increased to $90 for an individual and then for K through 5th it increased to $130 for an individual. That team registration did say the same at that $700 rate but again remember that that team registration could have anywhere between and generally for soccer you're kind of in that 10 to 15 kind of range for a team. And so we had 14 team registrations during this season. So you can see that there was a dramatic increase. Nonetheless, an already increase to that 702 individual registration. So if you add an additional 10 to 15 per team, multiply that by 14, then you could see that our number would be much higher with the amount of people that were active within and participating at Stacy and participating at the Leoo Fifth grade center. And so those games, if any of you were there, they were packed, they were busy, they were moving around. And so it was a lot of fun and it was a lot of it was very exciting with our very cool uniforms that received a lot of compliments as well uh for that season. So you can see the difference between the two. There was a a large amount of growth and so we're hoping that coming into the 2025 season that we're going to see even more of that too. Now on to basketball and also again kind of the relation between last year and this year um basketball season which has actually come to a close here in a few weeks. Um but as you can see again um we

had $90 for micro registration um for the 2024 season. Um for K through 5th it was $130. Um team registration stayed the same um with that $700. Um and then we had an overall participants again the individual participants of 373 with um three team participants. So if you add of course um 30 players to that overall participants um we're looking at around uh 400. Now if you look at this year we did increase the prices um kind of stayed the same of course just like we what we did for this year for soccer. Um but um again as you can see there's a huge jump specifically with our team participants and the reason for that is that we partnered with um the city of uh U city um the municipality of U city season um and so we had a lot of uh their teams that joined our basketball um league this year um which was fantastic because we were able to give them a lot more um teams to play in the league instead of just playing themselves two or three times um throughout the season. Um, and so you see that huge spike there in regards to that. So if you multiply that 27 by by roughly 10 to 12 players and then added to the overall participants, which is already uh a good growth from last year, we're looking pretty good. Moving right along to baseball. Now, our baseball numbers when we get to 2025 are only updated for you as of today. So we'll keep that in mind as we go on. But looking back at 2024, so the same pricing as we had for all of 2024, which was that micro registration at $90 and then that K through five at 130. The team registration keeping the same. But for our participants, for that individual registration, we had 333 and we only had one team participant at that

time. But moving into 2025, that pricing will stay consistent for 2025. So it's for micro $110 for an individual registration and then 150 for K through five team registration being the same. So as of today um Kristoff and I broke down the numbers. We had 289 individual registrations. So we are not exactly where we want to be as we were for last year. We do have a few about a week or so few days for our registration. Truthfully most of our registrations do come after the deadline. So, we should see a large amount of registrations that do happen and that's okay. We are so happy to help and and we will get anybody registered to a certain point until uniforms are ordered and then we're kind of in trouble. Um, so, but we do have an extra team participant as well here that's that's starting out with baseball, but that doesn't mean that we won't have more numbers as the as the season goes on. And so, I suspect that until probably just before games start, we'll have people still trying to register. So, do we have an incentive to discourage that? We don't. Um, we don't I can tell you that at other municipalities they do and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. We used to have just check. We It used to be cheaper to register on time and it had zero impact. Yeah. I would say soccer is a really hard one with that because school like our deadlines in the summer. So people aren't even thinking about fall sports at that time. So and a lot of people move at that time too. So then we try to always get individuals registered when they're new to all of that and we want to make sure that they Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a tough one. That's good. Um, so we do partner with the Leoo School District and so this slide kind of just um explains kind of um what they kind of do and what they help us with and then kind

of what we kind of do from our standpoint. Um so I'll start with us and kind of what we kind of do on our side is we definitely have the league structure. Um so we structure the leagues kind of how we best uh feel fit in that sense like I said before, but that might grow all the way through fifth grade. Um we also deal with registrations um either through the phone um through email. Uh a lot of parents do sign up um just online or our website. Um but usually once the deadline does end I usually or we take those calls and sign their child up usually. Then um we create the rosters once the sign up is kind of finalized or finished and then um we always always add to those rosters especially for those late registrations. um background checks uh not only just for coaches but also for our referees um and also our sports specialists. Um our sports specialists, if you guys don't know, are they're just in charge of the facilities. Um specifically for uh for basketball this season, we have five different locations including Five Oaks. So the four LU schools and Five Oaks. And so I have a person at each location that's kind of in charge of that um place just to make sure things are kind of running smoothly. Um and then also of course background checks for our coaches. Um we field supervisors and officials um like I mentioned uh scheduling and rescheduling. Um so we create the schedule through team sideline but a lot of times uh coaches get back to us saying like hey I can't make this game so they ask for a reschedule and we do that as well. Um, and then just open communication. If there's, perfect example, today with the snow, um, the LED district closed. So, I send an email out to all my coaches in practice today letting them know that, um, practice is canceled for today, including at Five Oaks as well. Um and Hannah will probably go or we'll go into this later in regards to whenever time the LEO

school district is closed even if five Oaks is open we also um close because um just being fair to to all the teams but we'll talk about that a little bit later. Um and then just parent and coaching meetings that we have usually before the season begins and also at the end um and sometimes throughout the season if there are any questions that come up. Hold on we go back. Sorry. Um, let's also just review what the Leoo School District does as well. And so they are fantastic at providing space for us. So obviously during our basketball season, they're currently providing their four elementary schools for us to use during soccer, fifth grade center, which is a great opportunity for the kids to play on turf fields. Unfortunately, they don't. We only use our areas for baseball, but hopefully that's something that we can possibly explore in the future. Being able to use something for baseball and softball within their area as well. They also help us identify and volunteer help identify volunteer coaches. And so that's something that some of uh the previous leaison will still kind of help us do, but generally we actually have a really good overall group that coaches and they kind of pretty consistently coach throughout all of the seasons. And so Kristoff and I will see the generally the same names that will volunteer over and over. And so it's nice to kind of get to know those people and kind of build that relationship. And then lastly, just aid in reserving the field and gym spaces. We do have a system that the Leoo School District uses called the FMX system, and we often work with the assistant superintendent in trying to ensure that those spaces are booked to make sure that we're consistently having practices and games. Thanks. And um just to be clear, we pay for the school facilities. Yes. Some of them are free, but some are not ma mainly our games when they're a non-LU team. Uh you know, when we have our games, a lot of times it's they're playing a non-LU school district team. So we pay a rental for basically just our game. We don't pay

anything for practices, right? Which in the past we've done both. And we always pay for the fifth grade center. Yeah. All for all the end of the third grade center. Yes. Yes. So leading into our lead participants, so we obviously expand outside of all of it and touch other places that come in and participate with us. And so obviously we've partnered with University City and the city of Clayton very frequently. Um very heavily too right now within our basketball season, but there's so many other people that come and play with us too. So that's the community school, um Villa, Mirowitz International School. We don't have to read all the names. You can see all of them. But the exciting thing is that we accommodate for all of these different types of people. Offering where we can adjust for the schedule that they need due to religious obligations or other different types of things. So that's kind of the one of the best things about all of it is that we offer that by offering Saturday and Sunday games in different times. And we try to ensure that our Sunday games are a little bit later in the day so that those religious obligations that individuals and groups have that we make sure that they get to participate and play as well. So you can see all the exciting things and sometimes these individuals come in as teams. Most of the time they do, but sometimes they're also individual registrations. And so all of these kids in Alabet and Loo get to play with all of these other kids that come in and build future friends. and they get to play all these same kids as they come through soccer, through baseball and basketball. And and as you all know, a lot of those teams have all their residents on them even though they're not in the Leoo school district. So a lot of all that residents are going to those other schools or they may live in the Leoo school district, not in all of that, but so it also helps um build that community by playing these other schools. And these schools fluctuate too. Sometimes we'll have Rowan Woods or some of the other schools each year. They that kind of depends on on where they're going and what's happening, right?

Um so now just getting into more of the other things that we offer. So one of the things we also offer are sports camps. Um not only in the summer but also throughout the year in a sense. Um so one that is definitely coming up is Skyhawks on March 17th through March 20th. Um it's more for that older age group um that are looking to possibly do volleyball or get involved in volleyball. Um we're definitely looking to see if we can uh expand uh the amount of sports that we offer. Um but that's just the process um in which we're going into and so kind of just creating a having a camp just to see what's what's kind of out there, what are the what is the interest like as well. Um, one of the big ones that we have this summer coming up is Challenger soccer summer camp. Um, which will we have the Tiny Tikes is what they're called, which are ages three to five, the little small ones, um, in the morning. Um, and then we'll be offering a, um, half day program from the morning to to the afternoon for ages 6 to 14. Um, and then also offering an evening half day program which is in the evening from 5 to 8. And so, um, parents can sign up for either the morning or the evening or both, however they want to do that. Um, and that's coming up in July. Excuse me. End of June. Yeah, we're excited to have Challenger. We used to have them and then there there was a break during the pandemic where we we didn't have them and then there was a they oftentimes bring coaches over from Europe. So, they're great programs, but then there was an issue getting the HV visas. Um, so now they're they're ramping back up. So, we're very excited to have them back this summer. So, they're a great program. Yeah, Challenger does also a really good job of helping us with the marketing side of things. Um, kind of really trying to reach every person we can kind of get. Um, they also put it on their website as well. So, if anybody's just looking on Challenger, they'll also have it under our our name as well with all of that.

And then we're looking to possibly also do another soccer camp closer to the beginning of our season for soccer. Um, and so we're working with Skyhawk and Ambush right now to see which one we kind of want to work with. Um, and we're hoping that we could possibly offer that at the end of July, right before our season begins in August. Yeah, Skyhawks is new to the St. Louis market. It's huge in the rest of the United States. It started in Seattle and it went down the West Coast and then went over across the US. So, it's just coming into the St. Louis market. I think they've been here two years maybe. So, um they're still building that program, but they offer amazing programs other places. Um in my previous city, I had all other camps. They we had all sorts of camps with them year round. They So, they're still they're still trying to get that name recognition in St. Louis. It's hard to break into the St. Louis market. Very difficult. So hopefully, fingers crossed it work because when they called me, I was thrilled to to have them call because I tried to get them before and that's when I learned they weren't here. So very very happy about that. Spread the word on them. And do we split the revenue or We do a percentage. We do a percentage. Yeah. Yeah. And those are both national groups. Uh Challengers. Yes, they're both national. Yeah. There's a couple other nationals we'd love to have here, but they aren't invisible. So fingers crossed they'll get one. So, wanted to Kristoff and I really wanted to review some community feedback that we received from our soccer survey. We haven't completed one for basketball just yet just because the season hasn't ended, but as soon as that ends, then we'll do one for basketball as well. So, for soccer, this was kind of the large overall the major hits for improvement that and so we really wanted to highlight those here. So number one was that we wanted to improve that our some

games were happening during holidays or school breaks. And so in the next slide, Kristoff's going to share with you on how we're going to improve those or things that we have implemented. So I'm just going to read through some of the improvements and then Kristoff will share those the ways that we've corrected it. Number two was that practices for soccer were starting at 5:30. So one practice went from 5:30 to 6:30 and then the second one was 6:30 to 7:30. Well, at about that 7 o'clock mark, we unfortunately don't have lights. It was getting dark and so by 7:30 then it was really dark and that with we tried to keep our younger kids to be more at the very first set of practices than our older kids were at that later set, but it gets just to be a little bit too dark to hold a practice. And so we'll talk about how we've improved that later. Um, next one was more qualified referees. Number four was reducing the number of times that a team played against one another. So we we often had a conflict where one team was facing off maybe against the same team three or four times and so offering a bit of variety in different teams was was a complaint. Um la or next was more team signups and then lastly was just more knowledge or greater advice or knowledge on co coaching techniques. So, and then lastly, before I skip, but in in our survey, we did have an overall rating of a 4.3 out of five for our Alvette youth soccer program. And I think that that's pretty good. So, I'm happy with that. Um, so these are just kind of things that we've either have improved for the basketball season or we're look we're looking to improve for the following soccer season um coming up next year in in August. Um so number one like Hannah said games during the holidays and school breaks. So what we actually did with basketball um is that we tried to follow the Leoo um just school calendar and so any time that Leoo had off um because of um break or whatever I guess that came up. We tried to not schedule

games during a time. It didn't always work that way especially with like um President's Day for example. Um sometimes we just couldn't do it and because then we'd get too much into our baseball season and we didn't want to do that. Um practices starting at 5:30. Um we will begin practices earlier at 4:30. Um for here for basketball we did here at 5 Oaks begin a little bit earlier at 5:15. However, with the schools and having their after after school programs um we couldn't quite move it up because of the programs that they had right after school. And so we kind of had to keep that uh 6 to 7:00 slot. Um and what we kind of did with that, instead of having an hour, we kind of condensed it to 45 minutes. So where um one team was practicing 6 to 6:45 and then the next team would practice from 7 to 7:45. Um so that's kind of how we condensed it in that sense. Um more qualified referees. Um we did for basketball hire more referees and held additional trainings. Um, one of the big things that we also did when we hired referees is change um certain things that we asked in the interview process um to kind of really weed out um the uh the referees and and really get qualified referees. Um we we started hiring, sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. Um we hired so much sooner than we did for soccer as well. Um, and so that also helped because we had a large amount of time to be able to interview a large amount of people and then be very selective on all those candidates that we had too. Another major change that happened over the last year is all of our officials used to be contract employees. Well, sorry, contractors. We switched in the last year to hourly employees. So what that means is now we can train them because when they were contractors we couldn't train them because that changes that

definition of a contractor. Um so now we actually hire them and then we we increase the fees so that now we're paying the referees much higher. So we're getting older referees too as a as a result of that. Right. So that's been that's been a a big change too. Yeah. And we do hire a little bit younger as well, but for that we try to combine them with the older referees that do have a little bit more experience, just so that the younger referees kind of stay with us as well and get that experience as well. Um, so we've kind of did that as well in regards to referees and hiring uh qualified referees. Um, in regards to reducing the number of times a team plays against one another, um, one thing that we've done for basketball is we've partnered with the city of Clayton, but not only with them, but also with U City, um, which allows for more teams to either come into our league or to send a few more teams over to Clayton to play with them. Um, which allows for more diverse teams that they play and they're not playing the same team three times or whatever in a season. Um, so we've done that. Um, more team signups. What we're hoping to do um in the upcoming year is definitely going to the Loo schools and just having a table present hopefully um and providing you know where students can come up and talk to us or parents can come up and talk to us and uh we can just kind of spread the word that way. Another thing that I've been in contact actually with the director of communications at the Loo School District um and she's actually helped us as well, Kimberly McKenzie. um she's helped us um kind of get the word out too on Facebook channels, on um Instagram, and then just kind of their constant contact um communications that they use for for all their skills. Um and then finally, just a greater knowledge of the co to coaching techniques, excuse me. Um so we we have provided a lot more materials for the coaches where they can find these things on team sideline or on our website. Um, but also anytime that a

coach reaches out to us and asks for certain materials, we also have provided them that as well. So, those are kind of the things that we've in um kind of improved on for basketball, but we're looking to also continue to improving that for the upcoming season as well with baseball. and talking. So overall, just to kind of close us out in just an overall summary, but truthfully with all of it and we appreciate so much the collaboration between the Leoo School District and U City because it like Kristoff and I have kind of been saying this entire time is that it offers such a variety for the kids to participate with. It offers different individuals, different players, different skill levels. when you play with individuals that are maybe a little bit better than you or just different people who play differently, then that offers for change and for growth for you to improve as a player as well. And so our participation is continuing to increase and increase. And so we're really hoping to drive that through into the future, continue to partner with other individuals, get more schools or more partnerships outside of just city and then the city of Clayton just to bring in more participation. We've really worked to improve a large amount of our marketing. Um, we've also discussed tableabling with the Leoo School District. And so we're making attempts and to build our program within the city of Alte to build as much of participation and attraction as we can. So we're just continuing to try to do that. Whether that's also offering different camps and different types of things that we can just get people engaged outside of their homes and and playing and participating as much as possible. But overall, the the Alvette community is great. they're consistently always offering improvement or ways for us to kind of drive that participation and just to be able to make that sport experience as fun and safe as clean as possible. And so that's what we're hoping to do as well. And so lastly, there's one last

slide. If obviously if anybody has any questions, again, my name is Hannah and this is Kristoff and we are always here to help and to and drive in any way that we possibly can to make all of it the best. I have a couple questions. Uh so is the program breaking even in terms of fees versus we have to pay for maintenance of the fields, the refs, all those things? It's breaking even for direct costs. Absolutely. Um it far as uh indirect costs of renovating the fields, we don't have that yet. Yeah. The field renovations. So if you look at what Clayton sped spent to renovate their fields, we're looking at millions of dollars for just Stacy, like at least three million. Um Dorson probably 2 million. So we don't have that. How often do those renovations when they are financially feasible? Like how often do those happen? Um just speaking from knowledge of my previous uh job with another city um Okay, you can take um we did they were on about uh six to eight year rotations for each field and um it really depended on you know sometimes depends on how how they're used. Uh those fields have also been you know redone in several different ways to accommodate not just baseball and softball but more soccer um irrigation. Not having irrigation really is tough for us on all of our fields. Uh that's a huge expense for those fields because they do all have irrigation in Clayton. Um our fields likely wouldn't. So that would be one thing that we don't have. But if you don't irrigate your grass, it's really difficult to have good year round fields. Um since they're also they fenced a lot of their fields in Shaw Park as well, that enables them to, you

know, do um do pre-emergent u fertilizer sprays, you know, things like that that we could never do here because our parks are open and anybody could walk out of any time as well. And they also um we'd have to have serious discussions about doing pre-emerggers and herbicides and things like that that we don't do as a policy. So there are it's a different operation that they do. Um and there's pluses and minuses to that, but that would that's a serious discussion that the commission would have to undertake. Yeah. And I could say quite frankly that um there there are some grants we could potentially go to, but again it's weighing there are limits and is the field the priority for our trails or our playgrounds. So you really have to that's where you know we really talk to the commission about that when we go in when we open up the park master plan. It's going to be a big discussion about how you want to rank that because we do have on our priorities of the ball fields getting renovated is a is a big priority. There are groups that do specific grants for just baseball fields. Cardinals have some outreach. So there's a potential there but there are strings attached to that of how the fields can be used at other times. So we we want to be very careful that if we do get a generous grant like that that it doesn't preclude us from using it for adults or for soccer or something else. So so there's a lot of um a lot of balancing that has to go in there. But there I do think that there's a potential for us to to really get some money for those fields. It needs to be done. All of fields have never been officially set up. They they're in the same footprint they've been in for decades. And I know in the past they tried and there just never was the finances to do it. Yeah. One of the things that that we did decided to do um this last fall is to do a lot of um air

rating and overseeding in some of those fields to hope you know get them to last and grow better. Uh we overseed a lot so that more grass grows in. um you know when you don't irrigate them doesn't mean you can't grow grass but weeds eventually once the grass is gone the weeds just start a primary green cover and those don't generally do well in the winter. So we're trying to get some more grass you know established in there because that will help those fields last longer during soccer because that gets a lot of use during our soccer season. But, you know, we're hoping this spring we get some good growth from that. And, uh, also looking at other ways to possibly keep growing grass in the winter, possibly using growth tarps down the line where we could actually grow grass during the winter season and other green ways of making those fields look more aesthetically pleasing, uh, but also still environmentally friendly. Yeah, Pat and Brian have been doing a lot of research on what can we do within the parameters of what we can afford and and what meets our um our green green um commitment because we certainly don't want to be putting anything on the fields that's going to hurt the kids or dogs or anybody else that's out there. Um because some of those chemicals they use to make fields beautiful are very dangerous for children. And next week, uh, we our our staff here is meeting with the park staff to go out to our baseball fields and kind of see what we can do to help with drainage out there, um, and kind of leveling those fields out so that they have a fighting chance to be played on during the during the spring because that's always, you know, really tough for us and mainly because if you look at all of our fields, they're they're very bold out and that's part of just dragging the fields continuously. You just kind of create a crater and then when it rains, it just fills up with water. So, we're trying to do things to mitigate those things that are again green practices, but also can get those fields to be usable because when we get rain on a Tuesday and

sometimes we can't plan Saturday and Sunday and that's not what we want. That's not what we want for the for our programs or for the kids either. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, so um first off, thanks. This is great. This is a topic that's uh near and dear to my heart. I've got two young kids. In fact, my daughter was on the very first slide. Yes. Well, I was going to interject, but then you said, "Wait." He said, "Wait, cuz I was like, man, I want to wait. Put that slide back. I want to throw it back up there." She's little blonde girl in the soccer uh one of one of my twins. Uh oh, next slide. I'm sorry. Second slide. See the blonde girl uh back in the back there. Oh, yeah. That's uh that's Payton. That's one of my twins. Uh but anyways, uh love this topic. Uh I've been co I'm coaching basketball currently. Um, I really enjoy this. Uh, the big question I had was around practices. Yeah. Um, I saw the slide that said 4:30. Um, if you're open to to feedback, that's that's really early for for a parent. Um, and the other part about practices in this setup that I found challenging. And really what pushed me to be a coach is the luck of the draw, right? Like your coach dictates what day of the week your practice is. And that that was really challenging. the first full year we we did all three sports there in prek. Um and then as kindergarteners, you know, soccer worked out. We got lucky that it was like we have two free weeks uh for two free days during the week. It was like, "All right, man, that worked out." And then basketball, I'm like, "I don't want to roll the dice." So, and I played basketball. So, anyways, it was fun. But, um I I don't know. And it's probably too big of a jigsaw to like say like, "Hey, can people recommend or and I don't even know if they can submit like, hey, I want to be on the team that practices on this day or this day during the week." But as a parent, I I think I would feel more comfortable diving into more um sports if it had that uh flexibility. So, just my feedback, I'm sure you guys you guys get plenty of

that. So, it's going that we could do. Absolutely. And so, um, like one thing I can already think of off the top of my head is when individuals register, they fill out sport questionnaire. And so, we could add somewhere in there about if you had a preference on a practice time, then you could put that in there. Doesn't make it guaranteed absolutely, but we could try to at least take it into consideration for whenever that's scheduled. The other goal, too, was that possibly whether it was at 4:30 or or 5, that was kind of more of the adjustment. And so, we're kind of kind of look at that. But luckily with the coaches too, they can kind of pick that. But we want to make sure that all the parents and everything else can come. So we're always very accommodating if for some reason that a player can't make that practice, we can always ship them on to different teams and try to move people around, too. Um, but that's always something that we can we try to send out and before we make that final change, we'll probably offer the community and all of our previous coaches and participants and families the opportunity to really kind of vote on if that really works for us. And so if majority vote leads that way, then we'll leave for an earlier practice that way. And then if it doesn't, then we can we'll go back to that that 5:30. We just want to make sure it doesn't get too late. But I appreciate that. Yeah. The daylight savings time really kills us with particularly with soccer and then baseball in the beginning of the season is tough. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, if we get those lights though, we are not getting like till 10 years. So that goes back to remember our financial responsibility and sustainability. The lights dark sky. Yeah. And dark skies. Yes. Yeah. The lights are I mean we could get lights that will qualify for dark sky, but the cost of those I have I have one other question if you'll entertain it. The increase in the rates. Uh how's that led to this being a better better league? Any pick a sport, but I'm just curious the $20 increase. What is that like contributing to XYZ? Like I'm happy to pay it obviously. I'm just curious what it's going to.

Generally, it's just because of all the other expenses, meaning like uniforms are costing more money, equipment is costing more money. We're trying to pay referees a little bit more money as well, just because we want those qualified referees. But just overall those expenses that we've had, everybody else is in. We also have come out to be paying for the LOU. um for the first year we didn't end up paying for most of their spaces and now we kind of come into paying for those spaces and so just with all those expenses that's kind of where that price increase kind of happens and we also have strived to increase the quality of equipment that we give to people I mean I I was when when I first got here and I mean we have so much stuff and that you get start making your bags and the bags just gradually get down and you get down to the you know old baseball helmets and stuff and they just were not up to par. You know, for example, like with our soccer balls, we had rubber soccer balls that were really an interesting purchase. Um, and we just really we really just wanted to change it to be like an actual soccer ball where the the players were playing with something that was going to be if they went anywhere else and played soccer, they were going to be playing with that soccer ball versus a rubber soccer ball. And so, we just we wanted to make that change and so that kind of came into into play as well. Absolutely. Cool. And um referees and officials nationwide are an issue. No one wants to be a sports official because of the abuse they take. I was going to say, have you ever done it? It's a miserable job. Horrible job. And you know, we working really hard. We have a parent code of conduct. You know, we put it out there. But I witness horrible things from our parents and hear horrible things. So it is very difficult. And you know, you think of your your own kids are going to be out there officiating and then to hear what's said to them is heartbreaking. And it is tough to be an official. Um

there are leagues um out west where they've don't let parents gym for basketball as a way to control that. I don't know if anybody would ever accept that here. Yeah. Um but there are also leagues where they require parents to be an official and rotate through. Um, that is something we could consider doing if you if you felt there's a way we could sell it to the parents and get it. I mean, that's another scheduling thing we could add. But if a parent had to go out and be on the field and take the abuse, would that make them think think twice the next time that they're going to yell? I don't know. So, so I can't speak on anything past kindergarten so far, but the coach's self-refering is a brilliant way of doing it. I don't know at what age you introduce referees, but um yeah, generally is the the reason you do that in youth sports is just to hear a different voice. Um often times, you know, just kind of like kids with their parents, you know, get that same voice, they kind of know, you know, when they can uh ignore it. Yeah. Bend the rules. But when you actually have an official there, it's it's a different structure. And it also, you know, when it makes it a little more serious, too. Exactly. And they they're also out there not just calling, you know, a follower penalty. They are explaining it to them and trying to make sure that they know why, you know, they they blew the whistle. So, it's it's kind of just another voice in their ear to help them and also kind of make it progressive. That's a big thing with our sports is that all the rules that we have is they're all progressive. So we don't want to call traveling, you know, when they're super young because I mean we would never play. Yeah. But but you know there like we want them to eventually have that structure so that they can go and keep playing and you know if they want to go play competitive or they want to go play in high school eventually like they there needs to be some natural progression of more rules being you know

adhered to and and officials out there. And we kind of did that with basketball through the season in a sense where I kind of told my reps like first like two or three weeks like just don't call everything so particularly. Um kind of be a little bit more lenient in your calls. And then once we kind of hit that halfway mark um since the kids have been practicing a lot more, they kind of know the rules, they kind of know what a double dribble is or traveling is or whatever else, then I've kind of said, "Okay, now we can be a little bit more of course not call everything, you know, but just be a little bit more stricter on on what you do call." And then also explain of course when when you do see it consistently from one player or another player. Yeah, makes sense. And I should mention so this is my seventh season of all deck sports. So I've done this job over the last couple years. I can appreciate very much where we started even back then to now. Huge improvement. Huge improvement. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. I'm so excited with the team we have right now. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Um the other thing that they've introduced that we don't have a sample of is there's a new intake form that's going to happen for coaching. So we have a a volunteer um application that when people come and they want to volunteer and do something, they fill it out and it we get a lot of information. It's wonderful. We've never done that with the coaches before. So Hannah took that form and has adapted for the coaches and now that'll really help us. So find out right up front when they first want to do it, you know, when can you practice and all of that. But then also it has the coach's expectations and that'll really help them because you guys have pro probably know that often times we get someone who's going to coach because their spouse has signed them up to coach and they don't necessarily even know what the commitment is and all of a sudden they're like I have to go to a meeting what um and so getting coaches to the coaches meeting is really important too. So I think that formalizing that and you know really seeing those expectations laid out right from the get-go is going to be really helpful. Yeah, it can be

scary the first time, but after that Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Couple of questions. One, what's the res versus non-resident participation? You know, that's a great question. Um, generally it's going to be higher for residents. Um, but we do have non-residents, but I don't have specific numbers for you, but I can get numbers and I can I mean, it's just curiosity more than anything just in terms I would say more 75% are going to be residents and it's going to be that 25% will be about a non-resident and we're trying to kind of balance that out a little bit because we need we need the non-resident teams to it's more non-residents team like the team registration versus the individual registration where that's going to be a little bit higher. That's why we have one fee. A lot of our programs, we have a resident member rate and a non-resident rate. But for sports, youth sports, we don't because kids can be in the LU school district and not be a resident, right? And then we also need those other teams to address, you know, when the parents say, "Well, we played the same four teams all season." Well, if we don't get outside teams, that's going to continue to happen. And it's important to note too that for those uh team registrations uh especially for like new city we didn't provide them jerseys we didn't provide them practice times or equipment. So they when they pay that fee which is why we didn't make it go up yet because they are just paying for eight games and our officials. So that's why they paid. So and then the second question is a is an equity question. Sure. Do we subsidize any folks who it might be an issue with u with finances? Well, we have a waiver program we in sports just as we do for camps, but we have far fewer requests for sports. We're not sure why. Um I think there are times a coach is just

paying for kids and that we don't get the request. We also a coach gets to their child plays for free or 50% off which which you know can also help. Um but we we do get requests. We had one recently. Oftentimes we'll get requests from from kids that don't live in all of that and that's much harder for us because we're only authorized because we don't have a scholarship program. It's simply a fee waiver. It simply is we won't collect that money. Is that based on school lunch cont? Yes. Yes, they provide like a school lunch form that they do just with the schools and then if they provide that to us, then we can give them that. And that's the same thing we do for camp. We don't want anybody's financial information. The school takes care of all of that. They just show us that, oh, I have this. And if they're not enrolled in that and they're too young, we just see their SNAP card or whatever they have. Okay. So, yeah. So, we're not excluding people because No. No. And we don't um Yeah. and and I just don't I won't I don't want anybody not to be able to play because they can't afford it, particularly if they're a resident. Yeah. Right. Two other quick questions. So, um how close would your capacity would you say for the different sports? Are we like 80% ballpark? Is there more? I would Yeah, 80 80% would be high. Um, I think that for our league that we could hold a lot more than what we have, especially for the older age groups. I think we have a good amount for that K prek through maybe second grade is probably a good number. Um, but as at about third grade is kind of where it dies off a little bit. But I think if we could build really third through six, that's kind of where that next growth happens. And so that's something that we really tried to channel. I think unfortunately they just go and either at that third grade they kind of hit that more like I want to go a little bit more competitive or I'm going to go play, you know, at your club or something else and

that's where it drops off a little bit. And so I think that's kind of more where we could really hit hit that growth. So yeah, there's been a lot of research recently about youth sports and the drop off because definitely kids are leaving rec leagues and going into the select. However, there are a large number of kids that are no longer playing organized sports and they're either going to e- gaming or they're not doing any sports at all. And that is that there's a sharp cut off that happens and that's nationwide especially girls. Especially with girls and so there's been a lot of research to find out why is that is it are they overexposed some of the select players? Yes. They they start to hate it. They absolutely start to hate especially if they're playing volleyball year round or traveling things like that. there's a lot of pressure in there. So, yeah. So, it's it's a it's an emerging research area that some universities are really looking at and and we we look for articles about that to see if there's anything we can help with, but definitely a trend just like baseball is definitely downward trending nationwide. It's still pretty strong in the Midwest. Softball's still strong here, but on the coast, you're seeing huge growth in lacrosse and cricket and other sports. So, those are those are two things that eventually we'd love to be able to offer, but we can't right now. Yeah, I think trying to find variety is the best thing, especially for avoiding some sort of sports specialization where one kid only plays one sport the entire time. It's actually really healthy for them to Yeah. You brought up one thing. We talked about the traditional sport. Do we do anything with esports leagues or anything like that? No, we we have tried five oaks related. Um we haven't had a super amount of success with it. We haven't we've tried a little bit, but I think if maybe we tried like a little I don't know whether it was like an open house or something where kids could kind of come in and play.

Unfortunately, I think our space that we have just isn't large enough for like if we had a space of a room like this, then maybe more kids would come. I'm sure you've seen our little nook over there, but it only holds four people in a room like this. Well, we don't have we just don't have the technology equipment. So, there is a beautiful esports setup you can see nearby for us and put one in and it's a room that's the size of those two room of these two of these rooms and it's set up constantly with the computer workstations everywhere. Um, and it's beautiful. Esports are great when it's set up really successfully and it has all the monitors and all the keyboards and everything else and that's when it really hits to be success whereas I'm not sure that we have the equipment and they have a full-time employee. Yeah, they have a full-time employee who runs that whole thing. But they also sell alcohol there and do all sorts because it's for not just kids, it's for adults, too. So, it's a very interesting if you get a chance to have a tour of it. Um, but I'm I'm not sure as a city all of that is we don't I don't think we have the population to support that. Not yet. And we have looked into doing um at home tournaments through a vendor to where we wouldn't actually need to host it here, but we could like host the event and maybe do it on their own um consoles, their own computers, but um that was pretty cost prohibitive for us to to do that and offer it. It just didn't seem like the right time. But um something that we at least have an eye on, at least have an idea of what it cost to Yeah, we keep engaging with them. There's a big company called Mission Control that's headquartered here and they're a nationwide company. There's actually and then there's another one here. St. Louis is a hotbed of e- gaming. The universities here do very well in the national tournaments. I think for a while I think Mville was the champion for the US. So I have a I have

a comment. I don't think we should promote esports. I just don't. We're parts and parks and wreck. We need to get kids need to get outside. That this whole trend where kids sit at a computer screen all day and don't go outside. I don't I don't think we should promote it. I don't think we should get involved. Yeah, it's a it's a tough one, Stephanie, because when it first came out, I was dead against it 100%. But the more I've learned about it, there is a group of children that never participate in organized sports and they can participate in esports for various reasons. So it is a way that socialization happens, but I had to really learn about it. I because my initial knee-jerk reaction was exactly the same. But there is a place for it. I'm just not sure that we can be equipped to offer that. And are there any sponsorship opportunities for whether like jerseys or even banners around like the soccer fields or something and that could help supplement some of the additional cost? Great question. Yeah, actually we were exploring this um we hadn't gotten very far into it but it has come across our table and so that is something that we are exploring whether it's also helping for more teams and players to come in and play or whether it's helping with funding for jerseys and different banners and stuff. So that is in the works. We have talked to individuals. Nothing is set in stone yet, but it's definitely a conversation for us to talk more about. I think that's definitely something the commission should talk about. Um the city um right in the last few years, all of the sponsorships we've done have gone towards the turkey. So now that we have the parks foundation, we have a wonderful opportunity to start really engaging and getting some sponsorship opportunities. It'll take some leadership um around that. And I think the commission is a perfect place to start. The board of the parks

foundation is the city council. Um so I do think that we need to have a spring event at this commission's talked about that some spring event that's a benefit for the parks the way the fall event is the benefit for the food pantry. And that's such a nice tiein with the food pantry and turkey trot. It's perfect. But what can we do in the springtime that can balance that and be just for our parks and really grow our grow our um our funds in that park foundation so we can start earning interest and invested and start really making that money work for us so we can invest it back in the parks. I think picturing all that business would be awesome. You know something on the jersey would be perfect. We're getting a lot more businesses. Yeah, absolutely. And you see those turkey trot shirts you see everywhere. Um and so a similar thing that went on our Olivet jerseys. That's great exposure because the kids they wear their jerseys all the time especially when we have nice ones like we have right now. That was a question I had um regarding the jerseys. We were with CYC for a while and we went through St. Richards and they had a thing. Now it was a cumbersome process. I am not suggesting this process where you had to write three different checks for things and one of them was for your jersey and then if you return your jersey at the end of the season you get that check back which the whole check process was a pain but the idea of oh great now I don't have this jersey that's going to sit in the closet like for my kids they never wore the jerseys except for when they had to and then If we were we were just holding on to these things and it was in my mind it was wasteful. And so where do they keep them? They just have bins. Big bins or you throw them away or donate them because what else are you going to do with them? They're a lot of

them. No, I mean when you turn them back in where do they store them? They have bins. I would assume bins. I know a few other like St. John's and there's a few other individuals that reuse uniforms year after year. pretty common in a cath in Catholic schools because it's also I assume that you paid but I also they're not different but I assume you probably paid like CYC to play a sport is like $40 like mainly because you're not getting jerseys every year. Um you know you often times are practicing at your own school. So the cost of registration is is really cheap and they do that by reusing their jerseys a lot. Okay. Well, but they also did things like you you had another check that you had to write to do park maintenance and if you didn't attend the park maintenance workday, you didn't get your check back for that piece, too, you know. So, I mean, it was an interesting thing of like for for a lot of parents, they were like, "All right, I'm writing this check and there it goes." You know, but for other people it's like, "Okay, I can come and I can paint benches or I can help, I don't know, spread seed or whatever the thing might be." Um, as just Yeah. Again, I'm not necessarily suggesting that. What I am suggesting is looking into the possibility of um having a jersey reuse program. Um we um I have looked into that at at previous u employment places. Um but the one thing is is that I I think a lot of people think we spend a lot of money on our jerseys or our basketball jerseys. Let's let's do soccer for instance. So soccer came with the jersey and the socks and just that. Just that, right? Okay. So we got that for I think it was under $11. So right at $11. I think the jersey was 11 and then the socks were like four. Yeah. So but we're still you couldn't go to a

store any store. You couldn't even go to Goodwill and get a shirt and socks for that. But that's only when you order them all at once in the summer because then what happens is when you add someone to the team and we need to get it, all of a sudden that jersey is $40. So it's it really is a problem. And I know it doesn't account for everyone, but as I got a little bit older, I know that most of our players are younger. I actually still have held on to a lot of my jerseys just as like kind of a a memorabilia piece. Um but I like to like look they sit in a box. Yes, they do. But every once in a while I pull them out and I think about that one time. I'm not saying I would do that for my kindergarten jersey, but you never know. You know, they're they're DJ will help you make it into a quilt. She would she would help me make it into a quilt, but I'm not, you know, don't write off that there probably is a kid that will Well, I love the idea of reusing. I love the idea of the reuse. And we and just kind of on that similar topic, we had a big problem with inventory of previous turkey trot shirts. We didn't have any I mean we were hemorrhaging shirts everywhere in boxes from the last hemorrhaging is the wrong word. Uh we had a lot accumulated. We were backed up. We were backed up with them. So we did partner with an organization to to recycle those to give them to people who need them and put them in communities. So you know we do that. TJ TJ also partnered with that's Yeah. Yeah. So we actually gave some older sport equipment that we didn't use for a long time. So we do give it back into the community as well. And then there's a young man with his project for his bar mitzvah. He um collected sports equipment and and was able to give it to other kids. So we gave a lot of sports equipment soccer. Yeah. So that so that could be something that we could consider for like you know if people don't want to keep them that we could make them part of our donations that we

that we do. So because I mean I I like an end of the season collection or something like as a parent I would be like here you go. My kids don't have any emotional attachment to those things and I certainly don't either. Sure. Yeah. And maybe that would be something good that we could offer a team registration that comes in too that if somebody wanted to donate their jerseys and we had enough of one color or something or you know offer that too. That's great. Last request for every sport if we can provide enough balls for the every player on the team because I know in the past we've done eight. Yeah. And for soccer we had 11 people. So I went out and bought balls. Yeah. Because someone missing them. Sure. Generally, we kind of assume that there's going to be a kid or two that brings their own ball. Um, but no, yeah, we totally understand. We just budgetwise. That was kind of what we could get at the time and so we kind of tried to use, you know, a lot of those rubber balls at that time and things. Um, but yes, no, that is definitely the goal is to get as many players as somebody has. That's the amount of balls that they can. We have to lose about 15% of our balls every year in every store. Maybe the parents need to write a check to us and then they get the check back if they bring the ball back. About 60% of soccer balls. Yeah, there was there was a guy who showed up with one ball in his bag. It may not be clear to parents that those balls are not Yeah, yeah, we had we've had we do try to go over that like in our coaches. We did and we mark them. We mark each ball for a couple years. I have my basketball for a couple years. That is great. For a couple years, we didn't give trophies. We gave balls so the kids could keep the balls, but the balls were the terrible balls. So then we went to the good balls. Now they cannot they cannot keep them. Yeah. And they don't they know they know. So we don't require the kids to purchase a ball themselves.

No. Some leagues do. They do. Some leagues do do that. Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you guys. Thank you. We need to stay and thank you to Travis and Mike for coaching. Thank you very much. I do I do want to say that Hannah and Kristoff have done a phenomenal job and Kristoff in a short period of time and Hannah already Hannah came in mid soccer everything was the beginning of soccer the beginning of soccer and it was it was she I was every day worried she wasn't going to come back. It's very hard. Soccer's the hardest sport and she started right then. Yeah. But we've got to have we got two people here that love sports and love, you know, kids playing sports. So I think that that is, you know, they both have previous coaching experience. So I think they understand some of the coaches a little more than, you know, some of our staff have in the past. And I think they've done a really good job of really working through all those issues that that we've had in the past and also working to make sure we don't have issues going forward. So, I never say that enough to them, but I they do a fantastic job. Thanks, you guys. Appreciate it. And please join my fitness classes. We love All right. Item number six, proposed bicycle. All right. So, did everyone get a chance to read your packet? Um, so I want to just very quickly talk about this. This is an issue that we've started seeing more and more and particularly with young riders, young children riding their ebikes through the parks. The adults say young, do you mean teenagers? No. 12 and riding very fast. And right now they're there are no ordinances. So, I have talked to parents when I can see parents. Anytime I'm out there on the weekends when we have a big rental or

I'm there, I see the bikes and they're whipping through. I mean, it really is a problem. So, um I do think that um I don't I I certainly don't want our officers out there with radar guns the way they do in other communities. We don't have that. I mean, we don't have mountain bike trails where that really is. We don't have equestrians. So in areas where you have a lot of mountain bike riders, you have a lot of horses, a lot of interaction, um national parks, county parks, uh particularly in states with mountains, um there is a place for that. I'm not talking about that here, but I do think we can do some education, but I also think we need to put something in the code so that the police officer feels confident to talk to kids and talk to their parents. Because what happens right now is I'll call and say, "We've got this problem." and they come out and one they can't see they can't find them and two they're like well I what am I going to do when I stop this kid? Um so we have to have rules for if we start to have I mean if there is someone that ever does need to be talked to then there's something there's a statute there. Um I also really want to keep bikes off of our new hiking trails. They really are not designed for that. They're not safe for that. Um, and I think just with signage saying no bikes, I think that'll make a big big difference there. But I think that to clean up our code to to have the correct tools we need, I do think we need to um define what is an ebike and that is very clear for us. It's in the it's an industry standard. It's a law standard that that's a national standard for these bikes. So, I think if we can use that as a model and have a very gentle enforcement and education, then I think that we can improve it. And again, this is a problem at Stacy primarily. We're starting to see a little bit here in Wars, but with the greenway coming

through, when the greenway goes from here all the way to Chevys and connects into um Shaw Park, I definitely think we're going to see a lot more of it on the Centennial Greenway. Are you saying no ebikes at all in Montreal? No. What about like that old? Well, yeah. Everybody's allowed to bike on the greenway. So, the the Great Rivers Greenway allows ebikes unless the local jurisdiction doesn't. But having speed limits is really important because that just makes you more aware when you're on it. Now, I'm a cyclist. Well, I was a cyclist before I moved here and um and you know, quite frankly, I'm a scoff. I mean, I love to ride my bike fast, but not on a greenway. on the road is a different story, but on a greenway, you really do have to be careful. There's pedestrians, there's dogs with really long leashes, there's ba babies in strollers, you know, so you really need to be more aware. Just having a little speed limit sign, I think, is a good idea. Are we addressing other mechanisms? I mean, tonight I saw a guy on a scooter in the dark flying through the industrial park. I was going to ask the same question. and through the side streets and all that. Well, those are those are in the code. Those are in the code. So, I gave you you've got the code in here for um yes, they the code for all of that is the alternative vehicles and then they have definitions of all those, but ebikes aren't in here yet. These are talking about mopeds and lots of other things and scooters. They've got scooters in here right now. So, there are rules for that. scooters that are power assist. Yeah, these are these are all powers. Yeah, these are all powers. Yes. And they can do that and they do go out way more of those. We have they do a lot of enforcement because there are some little miniature motorcycles that go all overact and they do enforcement for that. They try and find the parents because we had a big problem here a

couple years ago and they did a very good job figuring out where the kids came from and found their parents. Then we also have problems with um uh you know golf carts are legal in we'll do they're not legal and all of that and when Starbucks was here the do kids would drive their golf carts up to go to the Starbucks. So you know they've addressed that. So um this is something that I'd like it to be as I say in my report similar to dogs on leash. We have a leash law and it's complaintbased enforcement. So, I'd like to have something on the books so if we do have um you know a recurring issue that we can deal with it. It's just it's just another tool in the toolbox. But I do think having a speed limit is really important particularly as with the greenway coming. I think having a sign posted there is a very good idea just to remind people, oh yeah, I shouldn't be going, you know, 30 miles an hour um as I go through here. And then also having the no bike signs on our hiking trails I think is really important. So, I I agree the no ebikes the I I don't know what to say about the miles per hour because I agree with you, Beverly. You cannot cuz I ride my bike a lot and and I like to go fast but yeah, you cannot go fast on the greenway because I take the greenway sometimes from what is it from uh OAM up to uh Shaw Park and yeah, you can't go fast on that. But um you can go 20 miles an hour or a good biker 20 miles an hour on their on their bike. So, I don't I don't A speed limit sign is is it's completely uninforcable. I don't I don't know what to say about that. I mean, I think it's pointless to put up a speed limit. Um, a question I

have is what about the path that goes from Oh, I don't know what Mansfield over to Dealman. I've seen ebike kids zipping back and forth on that on ebikes. Yes. Yes. That's a problem over there, too, because they're also going right across streets with cars, interacting with cars. I've never seen anybody on. They're all around. They're all behind with those bikes and these by Okay. So, so a couple questions. one, are you simply saying that we add ebikes to the definition of alternate vehicles or do we need to put because there's a lot of rules in the There's a lot there's a lot of rules. So, I'm I'm doing a couple suggestions. So, my first one is that we put the classifications of what an ebike is in the code and we can put it in the parks code or we can put it in the um alternative vehicle code because right now it's an old code. It doesn't have these new inventions. So, these are the three classifications. So, class one is pedal assisted and you can't go without pedaling. You have a little motor that's in the frame and it just gives you a little assist. Class two is throttle, meaning it can have more grips on your handlebar that you can control. Um, you can al also ride without pedaling. And then class three, well, that is a that's like just a step below a moped. So, anything above that class three, class three is a moped and is covered under this. So, my recommendation, if we could go to the next slide, my recommendation is that we allow class one and class 2 in our parks and that is in keeping with what Missouri Department of Conservation does, what Great Rivers Greenway does, and what the county parks do. But I do

think we should ban the class three. Um because having something that can go 28 miles an hour without pedaling I don't think is appropriate in our in our parks and our greenway. So how do you identify those? They say it right on them that but if I saw somebody would I be able to tell the difference? Could I if I was looking someone coming down the greenway, but I noticed you well you would if you could tell by their speed, but um if if there were a question and again this is complaint driven when the bike is required by law to have its classification on it. There's a label. There's no label that the manufacturer has. It's kind of like the 49cc. Yeah. Yeah. Jim Jim, you'll know they're zipping along like on a little motorcycle. Okay. Yeah. So, there's a ton of kids with them. Yeah, there are. I Costco. Well, not class three. You can't buy class three. You can buy class three at a bike store. I don't Costco, I think, is one and two, but I could be wrong because they change all the time. But, um, but I do think that I I would like us to put the no bike symbol on all of our hiking trails. So when I say hiking trails, I'm talking about the Sassifrass Trail here, the Cottonwood Trail at Stacy, and then behind the pond, we have all those new trails that are going there's a name for those. I cannot remember their name. Um, it's not doesn't roll off as easy as Sasrass and Cottonwood, but uh the parks crew has named that over there. Do you remember it? No, you don't, Kate? Yeah, I don't remember either. Yeah, we don't have that. We don't have the signs yet there that we put the other ones. So those those posts we have, we can very easily put a little symbol on the post we already have that says no bikes. And again, it's just a reminder to people there should not be a bike there. And that helps also that if you're walking through there and you see a bike, hopefully you'll say, "Oh, you're not supposed to have a bike here." Now, I know people don't feel comfortable doing

that anymore, but when I was growing up, all the other adults kept you in line. Um, I would like to um adopt a 15 mph speed limit for bikes on all of our paved trails on the greenway and in our parks. And again, it's not enforceable necessarily, Stephanie, but it's a good reminder that we can put in the park code very easily. And then I'd like us to post signs. So, I put up here, this is what the signs look like in our wayfinding. We have not deployed these because we couldn't afford them. But all of our new park signs are this is that same wayfinding system that we have for all of the the uniformity of all the park signs. So we can get these little ones made very affordably. Um and then the other thing is the wayfinding does um identify na labeling the streets on the pathway that goes between the houses between Oak and Dealman because no one knows where they are when they're in there. And people call Stephanie's been really helpful. She always finds stuff in there and tells me about we have a couple other um residents. They call and say there's a tree limb down. I don't know where I am, but there's a tree limp down. So, if we had the little signs that said this is Radford, this is Cherry Tree, then it would help us go out and find those limbs. So, it I think it helps people know where they are and it also helps um helps with maintenance because cell phone coverage in there, you have to sort of open your map to know exactly where you are. So, deal has little spotty areas on it. So, it can be a little troublesome in there. So, are you talking about just limiting this discussion to ebikes? Yes. Because I've seen scooters that have gone rapidly. I see people on these single wheel. Well, those are Segway kind of things. Now, the Segways I' I've not had a problem in

the parks with yet. That just like Segway not Segue. There's those What are those two? Yeah. The one wheel, two wheel things. Yes. One wheel is hoverboard. One wheel is one wheel. Yeah. There's a there's a guy there's a guy that lives on Worson Pines and he is the only one I see um going around with those systematically. Um he's a really nice guy. He used to take it in worse and I don't think he does anymore. Um but because I haven't seen him since since our offices moved. I used to see him go down Grand View. So, the other thing that I noticed when I was at Stacy the other day, people riding those bikes across the Maxine has a question. The fields across the across the fields and through the parks and all that. I I just saw the tracks in the snow. I don't know whether it was a bike or whether it's that, but Well, there's also crosscountry skiers that go in there when it snows. Yeah, this was this was a single track. Single track. But anyway, but we're talking about bicycles. Well, yeah. I really don't have a problem with the bikes running across the grass particularly because we haven't invested in them. They they don't really do the damage in there. I have a problem with them on the unpaved trails, the hiking trails. Now, do we have a recommendation from the city attorney on this? Well, let's go to our next steps. Okay. Okay. So, so I have a I have a question. So, can we So, I agree with all the signs, Beverly. I'm fine with them all. Um, is there a sign that's that's like no ebikes that we can put up? Not unless there's a code that backs it up. No, but if there is a code, is there a sign or or do you just write no ebikes or Well, the problem is we're we're allowing one and two but not three. So, is there a way we can put some kind of sign up? I'm just asking. Well, the the m the miles per hour is where it really is effective. So, just like we don't

have signs all over the park that say you can't drive a car here, but there's still a law that you can't drive a car there. So, if someone drives a car in the park, they'll get a ticket um if we see them. But, um so, so again, we don't have to have all of the signs up for the law to be enforcable. Okay? We just have to have the law on the book for problems. And so, yeah, it has to be complaint driven, but if you know, we have, you know, we get problems all the time with specific dogs. And when there's a specific dog, we work with the police department. We find out what time they're typically coming. The police come out and they do a very good job of getting, you know, finding that dog. So, the same thing with the bikes. we have a repeated repeat occurrence happening the same time like after school or on Saturdays then they can absolutely be out there and intercept them. So we but we have to have the law on the book for them to be able to do that. Okay. Maxine, did you have a question as well? I saw your hand up. You're on mute. Yes. Thank you. So be before you went to the next slide, how do you def I guess it's kind of like Stephanie's question. The the the sign there shows no bicycles. That's how I read it. Um there isn't anything for ebikes because you're saying we're not prohibiting bicycles. No, no, that's on the trails. That's on those dirt trails. You don't want people flying going on the dirt dirt. So the ban the banning of the bike is both electric and non-electric. So it doesn't have to say that it's an ebike. It's just no bicycles at all. So it's like a vin diagram. I understand. Yeah. Okay. So are you considering like the path around Stacy being No, that's a gravel one. The gravel. No,

I'm I'm talking about any any trail that's not paved. Okay. Okay. So, that's where those signs would be. Yes. That would be on all of our hiking trails. The hiking trails. Yeah. Not not the paved sidewalks and not the pathways. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Um, can you go to the next slide? Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Yeah, no problem. So, the next So, we're we're a long way for this getting adopted. So, first first I take your feedback that happens now, the feedback you give me tonight. Then I take it and I talk to the police chief about it. That's the first step. And then um once I get all of Beth's input, then I prepare a draft ordinance. And then that draft ordinance comes back to you for you to review it again. And then um once it's in the in this condition that you like it and that you approve it, then it goes to the city council and that's when the city attorney sees it. Um and then we present it to the city council and it would be two readings. So then once it's adopted, it gets codified into the city code. Then we have to put into the budget to buy the signs. So it it you know it takes a little bit of of time for this to happen but you want to have make sure that you have these public meetings so that the public knows that we're going to talk about this because people have a lot of thoughts and feelings about bicycles. Um in that process just looking over some of these like chapter 375 for alternative vehicles there is a lot in there that's really outdated. Um, so I don't know how much in addition to creating a new ordinance, it seems that it would be this would be citywide because these are definitions that that would apply citywide, not just parks. So what would happen with the ordinance is it would

amend the ordinance to put the description of the ebikes in there. I am I am not prepared to change that whole ordinance. That's got to come from the police department. But they there's a uniform vehicle code that they take that from that from the state of Missouri. So it could be time for them to review our code and make sure it matches the state code and and all of that. Um this was last updated in 2008, right? So yeah, that's quite quite some time ago. So So that so that definition would go in there, but then it would also update our park code. So, we would put the miles per hour would be in the park code. Um, and then it's up to the police chief where she else she wants to put it. It could also I think it only has to be in the ordinance in one place, but that's where I don't have to worry about that. So, what happens is we we amend an ordinance or we repeal it and replace it. So, I think this will be this ordinance would be an amendment to all these to just add this wording in there. So, when you see the um when you see the codes, for those of you that have, you know, not everybody looks at the codes all the time, but you see all these little ordinance numbers in here, it's when they it tells you chronologically when it was amended and and what happened, right? Yeah. And there's several amendments to the park code that aren't in the code yet. They haven't codified it yet or they're still sitting out there as changes. So, when you print out this the chapter 240 for parks and wreck, it's outdated in the ordinance. you have to go into the new ordinances that haven't been they've been approved but they haven't been put in there yet. So it's it's a complex process. So we're talking about it. Question. I would hope not. I would hope I would like to have it done before summer so that we can get it in the budget so I can get the signings. Question. Do we have to have two readings before

we can approve it and then Okay. No. No. Only the council. Okay. Yeah, because you're not you're not changing the code. You're just making a recommendation to the council that there be a code change. So, you're you're just looking for feedback, right? That's all this is. Okay. So, here's my feedback. It's confusing why we have there's three classes and we only want to ban one class. I get the difference in the speed, but that's confusing to me. And then the other thing that jumps out at me, and I have no I have no experience with this, but I'm just curious how these are enforced. Like I'm always like concerned about that like these are generally going to be kids like are we really going to no escalate this to some point if they're repeat offenders like no you know what I'm talking about. So what happens is again it has to be in the code for the police officer to address it. Yep. And then they address it and then they catch the kid doing it again. So what they what they're really looking for is where do you live? Who are your parents? And then they go knock on the door and they talk to the parents. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. The clarification I think is also that you're not like walking around the bike path and your kids on their bike, you know, which you see a lot and they're halfway ahead of you. These are more middle school and teenagers and even college students. Well, there the problems we're having are with younger kids. So, we would not take Yes. The kids I saw were like 14 and 15. Well, I'm again, you see that, too, but I see some pretty young ones. Yeah. But but anyway, so okay, after they talk to the parents, after they talk after they talked to the parents, then they now they have a relationship with those parents. So for example, um we had a huge problem with littering last summer at Indian Meadows Park. Someone kept putting giant bags of 2 L bottles and all this stuff and just filling our cans and it was overflowing. Um and we just picked it up. We didn't

really worry about it, but one of the neighbors called and reported littering because they were fed up with it. The police saw who did it and they went and knocked on the door and it was a young person who was buying all these drinks that the parents didn't know about which is why they were throwing them away at the park. So the parents, the police department talked to the parents and now that behavior has stopped. It doesn't happen anymore. So, I think the ELET police do a really good job of doing that early intervention with parents. Now, if we have um a college student or a commuter that's consistently violating it, they'll give them a warning and then they will give them a ticket. So, it it's all about the age. So, this is a ticket thing. That's what I wanted to land on. Like eventually, it's this is like speeding the car, right? Yes. Could be. Got it. It's an ordinance violation, not a felony. just somebody that doesn't know anything about this just this laying the plane is the class of the things is confusing to me. Yeah. And the class's good with it. I'm good with the class um is what we have to use. That's how the codes are written. So that's why I gave the example um Missouri Department of Conservation. I mean these other agencies have done the work for us and made it made our path much easier because they deal with it far more than we do. I'm just thinking like logically like 20 miles an hour on a bike versus 28. Like somebody smoked me going 20 versus 28. It's gonna hurt. Well, it's not. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's it's it's not the the the difference is that 28. You're not pedaling at all. You're really revving, right? And and you can get a lot faster than that. It doesn't max necessarily max out at 28. That's what that classification is. But you can get bikes that go even faster than that. Yeah. Yeah, people soup them up. They do all kinds of stuff. We don't have that here. Got it. Well, there that's my feedback. Yeah. Thank you. Because those two classes go up to 20. Should we make the speed limit 20? No, I don't want 20

miles an hour in the park. 20 miles an hour is fast. I can go faster than 20. Well, I can too, but I wouldn't do that on the pathway at Stacy. Yeah, Stacy would be. Yeah. So, that's what I'm saying. So, I'm not It's not a citywide. It's only on our paved paths in the park and on the greenway. And you wouldn't want to go 30 miles an hour on the greenway on your bike. Yeah. Well, people do. I There's no barriers. There no barriers, right? There's no barriers. There's no barriers. There's turns. It's designed for a lower speed. Yeah. I My worst bike accident I ever had in my life was here in St. Louis and I was going 28 on Canon in New City and it was horrible. And that's that's not a fascinating nominate them for as a city by someone who is biking and there are no good signs saying don't do this right that's also a risk right and and you know I'm not a sign advocate I don't like signs I've removed a lot of signs in the park we had a lot of sign blind but I think having miles per hour close to it is a good idea a good practice and it might be interesting too to have those we had one on villa it was just a a little block electronic speed thing that they just attached to one of the street signs. I mean, the police had the opposite effect because like my family, we were like, let's run and see how fast we can go. You know, we have the opposite effect. Yes. But it's another option to help people see, oh, what is their speed? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I I probably wouldn't be able to put those in in the park because of the cost, but the police department have the ones the police department have, they move around, right, because they are so pricey. Yeah. So, if we had a problem area, we could put them up temporarily. Yeah, for sure. And maybe partnering with the police department, right? And, you know, it could be a flash in the pan. I mean, we

we could go through all of this and then we just don't really have a problem. But it's but I think it's good for us to kind of keep current on what's happening and we're definitely seeing issues. Um the parks crew is really concerned and I really want to take their concerns seriously and I'm concerned because of what I've seen. So someone gets hit. Right. That's wonderful. Yeah. But also we don't want these kids to get hurt. I mean the kids are going fast and they're not wearing helmets in the park. You never see kids with helmets down in the park. Um, and they are going super fast. They could I mean, we have those dogs on those retractable leashes. I mean, there could be a serious like children could get really really hurt. All right. Item seven, working group report. I think uh there's one, right? Three of us. Um, yeah. So, we uh Mike, Stephanie, and I met and I you've got the report. Hopefully, you had a chance to read it. Um the basics of it is that what we have currently at and we're using Stacy Park as kind of like the the ground zero. Exactly. Starting point. The current cans that we have are all being used as trash cans. Recycling is not happening. Part of that is because the cans all basically kind of look the same. And even though it says no trash, that's kind of wiped off. There's also a sign in the front that I think is hilarious because it has more words than anybody will ever stop correct to read. Um, so the basic gist was that let's try a lowcost entry point. Get some blue spray paint and pick four cans and spray paint the outside of them blue. uh get rid of those uh signs that nobody's going to

read and instead have a very simple banner sort of I don't know banner but recycle simple sign that says recycle bottles and cans only or recycle bottles and cans here the idea is we're just going for bottles and cans. We're not going to worry about paper. We're not going to worry about cardboard. Um, and then getting some of those circular single hole lids, whether it's doesn't matter the style. Um, but having a lid that only accepts um things of that size so that people are less inclined to just stuff whatever they can in there. Um, and then we're the goal is to just start with four and see if it makes a difference. Um, and Ed Castner, who's on the park staff and is a wonderful champion for this, really wants to see recycling improved in the parks as well. He's working with us to help monitor it and be um in the works. Yeah. And one one question about all the signs. Is that related to any grant? It was originally. It was required by the grant, but it's so long now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that grant is available. We can go for it again. Unfortunately, it only pays for recycling and we really want the recycling to match the trash. That's our goal. Um, so those cans are incredibly expensive. So, we we'll keep working and the group is doing great great job researching. Yeah. What happens when someone has a pizza party and they have 25 pizza boxes? Do you just what what would we want people to do with that? So, the pizza boxes can't be recycled. They have to go in the trash. They um they shove them in there or they stack them up next to them. Is that okay? Is that the best people do? They should put them in the cans. They should fold them and put them in the cans or take or take them

home or take them home. And we're that's why we're charging that deposit now for every rental on the weekends. Oh, we would charge them if they left pizza boxes up. Yes. Yes. And we've had to go to that because we have tremendous and pizza boxes really aren't our problem. It's everything else. everything. Just excessive amounts of trash. Excessive amounts of trash. Yeah. People um decorate the pavilions like nobody's business. It boggles my mind. Yeah. So that would sol this would solve for that at least. Yeah. Yeah. And it would really it would really help the park crew out too because it's heartbreaking because the other thing people do is they put full cans in there too which makes everything really heavy. Yeah. So what's what's the next step on is park staff going Yeah. Our staff's going to we're we're working on it right now. We're going to uh we're going to try the spray paint. It it'll flake off, but we'll try it. Um and then we're also seeing if we can just buy blue paint. Buy the blue um the the replacement cover in blue. Okay. Because we'd love to be able to put the one with the small like that other one over there. Yeah. Yeah. Expensive. Okay. Everything's expensive. Just crazy. All right. Sounds good. Thank you very much. Stacy Parking very Soccer. Mike and I kind of touched base on this. Um he had asked um what our plans were for soccer. Um so what we're going to do is we're going to stagger the uh schedules of games on the weekends during soccer season in Stacy. The one variable that we can't control is going to be the fact that if we have a large park rental in Stacy on a weekend, they're going to bring cars in there that we can't necessarily. But that's always been a problem. So, but I think by staggering them we can get people in and out. Um, we also plan to use Worson this year. Um, so we can kind of, you know, spread things out a little more. Um, so I think we have a good solution

for that. So I think we can check that. And the young the younger games have the most attendance. Yeah, of course they do. Yes, exactly. That's an old show. And we're also looking at possibly using wor younger kids because they have so many people. We can stagger them a little more and they can park both here and up top. Both ways. Yeah. So, we got some villa for the little guys like the micro. I know that when I was with with Clayton, we had met with them and we looked at it and it it's like it it'd be difficult to do there. Okay. just just based on is really limited and it would go straight to your house. Well, yeah, they they park it on straight. Yeah. Y both sides. They went back back uh before I started um I think five or 10 years before I started was the highest they ever had in uh all of that athletic association, OA, which is the precursor to this. and they would put games at her zide and villa. But two things have happened since then. One, they identified that the fields just weren't appropriate. They aren't built for that. Um, and we've also constricted our amount of mode area. So, it would be a much harder. So, in the past, we have used them occasionally for practices, particularly when we were under construction in other areas. But, it is difficult. It's difficult to use those spaces, but we could theoretically put a like a kindergarten team there for practice. We have six fields at the right. Correct. But now that we have Yeah. But now that we have the um the now that we're allowed to use the fields at the elementary schools, they're putting a lot of practices there which has helped tremendously. Okay. Yeah. Well, didn't somebody leave a goal at Villa? There's a goal at Villa all the time. It's a hockey. The same the same.

Yeah. Well, people move it around. Kids play with it all the time. One of the neighbors put it in. Um, it's a very expensive goal and it's just there and it moves around. The mowers move it and the kids move it. Yeah. And we're okay that it's there. I mean, it's okay. Yeah. Number three, park tools. You had me add that one. I'm not sure. Yeah. Did you guys want to talk about the forms? Is that what this is? Yes. Oh, I didn't understand that's what that was. Okay. It was supposed to say park visits. That would make more sense. I was like, are you doing park tours? Um, do people see I don't know that folks other than you two saw it people have used Can you pull it up? I don't have a Oh, you don't have the link to it? Um, but I could. So, has everybody received the email that has the Google doc? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Okay. So, um I did get feedback on there from Jim and from um Sue and it I was going I have it now. But I was going to the schedule. I was going to the wrong one, but now I'm going to the right one to see the comments in there. So, thank you. I appreciate that. Now, if we happen to be in a different part, you can still Can we still do one? Yeah. I I put my note I went to Villa. I happened to be in Villa and there were 20 people there. So, I make comments. But what I'm saying is if if I go to Villa and do one and then if I happen to be in Stacy, can I submit to there's no limitation. I don't think there's a limitation. No, no. Yeah. The idea with the form, anytime you go to a park and you have something to report that you can just pull up the Google doc form and you just enter it in so that we have kind of a running Yeah. And then Bill Bill went to Zide and he didn't put in the form. He called me immediately because the dog pot was overflowing. So that's perfect. He saw it. He called me. That's the best thing.

What was that? The dog pot. Well, and I I did her side, too. And and the Y the gates are a mess. Yeah, the gates are a mess. Yeah. Okay. People are rough on it. Right. Okay. All right. So, that was great. Um, where are we? We are item number eight. That right? Oh, five. Sorry. 50 awards and monthly update. We included all those numbers. So, can we just sort of summarize quickly? Yep. Uh we had 111 uh new additional members um since our last meeting in January. Um we are still getting more and more residents that are coming in here which is awesome. We got about um I think 70% of them were residents. So that's great. Um we've also added some more rentals. Um we're went up in the playground quite a bit and um in the kitchen as well. We had a private rental over here. A private rental. Yeah. So um those keep uh you know growing as well and we are we are doing well here. We're we're busy quite a bit. Our practices for basketball here have brought in a lot new lot more new people and um so memberships. We're also working with um a couple of organizations um in the business district over here um or in the um industrial park. Thank you. I cannot think of that word. um in the industrial park about doing um possibly 20 new membership for a corporate uh company. Yep. So that that's exciting. Not Emerson. Not yet. We've offered it. We have Yep. We haven't talked. We are working with them. U they're going to be doing tours for each of them to come through here and they want to come here during the Emerson. No, this is white uh white glove. It's they basically high-end exotic car service. Yeah, I think it's called White Globe.

It's a detailing for high. Yeah, they do all kinds of What's the number of households as members? I know we surpassed a thousand recently. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, we're almost at 15. I really wanted to add one person. Yeah, just to a nice round number. I didn't want to lie to you guys. But next month, hopefully it'll be over there. One quick mention too. So Oak Bonum is having their annual trivia for that PTO and I thank you for donating the daily passes for five Oaks. That's a little basket. So that's up. We're included in the option. Another one of Hannah's skills was Yeah. Yeah. So we'll get even more exposure to Five Oaks without um are any improvements or updates made to the sound system? We're working on it. So, um, uh, so I I have talked there were a couple things going on here. We addressed the issue that you had had that night and fixed that part. But then when we did that, we also noticed somebody had some issues with our TV and the projector. We're working with the company that installed it and they basically they're like, "We'll reset it. It should all come back." We reset it and then everything stopped working. Yeah. So, we've had like but they're charging us a high service fee to come out every time and we're really irritated with that. So, um there aren't a lot of companies that can do that. So, we play hard ball with them and got 20% off of the next service call. Not not a ton, but we are like I I kind of Yeah. Who are we using? This is um Communics. Communics. We can also we could use Tech Electronics. There's a couple other companies, but when they come in, they'll erase all the work the other company's done and it'll be a new setup fee and Yeah. It's a game. It is. Oh, that's so frustrating. It's very

frustrating. That's where you put your problem into YouTube and you figure out how to do it. Well, we So, the system's a lock. I wish I wish it was that easy. But yeah, one of those sports guys come over here. It's designed to be smart and those smart components make it much more complex and there's coding and when the power goes out it wipes it out. So, do do we have the funds in the budget somewhere to have a backup system? Because that's what I was thinking. We have the backup system and we've talked to the staff because they should have brought the backup system. It's just like a portable speaker. It's in the It's in the Dogwood studio. Yeah. It's the one we use in there. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have an even older backup system for that that we use in the parks. So we we do have the training. It was a training issue. They forgot they have they had it had been working well and they didn't even think to do it. Yeah. And we also have a plug-in mic that they didn't use either which can eliminate because the cordless one's the one that does the Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like it's mostly just kind of training so that it is troubleshooting can happen on the spot. Yeah, we found that the microphone was under when you were right directly under a speaker, we'd get a lot of reports. So, that was one of the things we tried to address right after that. Put the slide back up. Item nine, city council report. Maxine Max. Okay. Well, last week we had two very exciting openings. Um, we had the opening of five of five votes. Um we had the opening of Aldi's and um one woman got there as early as 1:30 in the morning. The first hundred people in line um were um received a a bag of groceries and gift cards and they range from $10 to $100 and you know and no one knew what they

were getting. Um and Jan Fitzgerald who we all love um who is um the chairperson or president of of um Alvet and Bloom was number five in line. She was there on a dare. It was a very cold morning. Um the but this the store is great and I hope everyone had a chance to get in there by now. Um and then on Friday we had the the opening of Great Heart Brewery. Um and last a week ago, Monday, they brought up sta some of the alvet staff members and um the city council members and gave us a tour as well as showed us the micro brewery. So when you're the when you're there um you can see the micro brewery through the glass. I don't know if they're giving tours on a regular basis, but it's really good. And um come spring, we'll have also a um there's a it's a little cold right now, but there's a patio outside and um so it's fun. Um I encourage everyone to stop by and it's a great addition to um the the clover because at the beginning of the month, Jennifer Yakley always gives us an overview of Olive Crossing. They are at 90% leased and 85% occupied. and lot three, which is um the the opposite of Aldi's on the far end, right where you pull into right as you are about to pull up onto 170 going south. Um they're aligning their subcontractors right now. And so they should be we had hoped they were going to break ground at the end of January. Ground was frozen. Ground still frozen, but hopefully by the end of this month, um we'll see some more movement of dirt or something over there. Um, for those of you that don't know, um, Greg Carl had to, um, step down from city council for unforeseen, um, situation. And, and so the the Elevate City Council

appointed Mike Solino. And, um, so for those you don't know that, tonight's Mike's last meeting as a um, chair as a commissioner for parks. and um but you'll be seeing a lot of them because he's now going to be the uh on city council. He'll be sworn in next Tuesday night if any of you would like to come and see that or be there to support him. Um we have three other openings um that c we have two other openings currently um to fill. So, we'll be filling Mike's position for parks. Um, EDC U we have one opening and PCDC we have an opening but the opening on PCDC is specific for a architect. Um, and these appointments um will be um made in April and then at the end of March is when we look at who is on the commissions who are rolling off and then those appointments will be made with the new members of the city council post election. like in June um to go into effect for July. So um are there any questions? If if someone's interested in applying to the commission, how do they do it? Um they go online to the website and it's actually one of the first things on the website right now and you can get to an application. Um, you can call city hall, you can reach out to, um, you could reach out probably to Bev even and we could send you an application if Bev doesn't have access to that. The best way is to go on the website. I can't see you, Beth. So, I don't know if you just rolled your eyes at me, but I saw I saw Sue smiling. So, um, but I I'm writing down I'm writing down notes so that but if any of you know someone that you do you would like to encourage to be on the parks commission or or any of these EDC is economic development commission. Um, PCDC like I said it needs to be someone

who is in the profession of a um architect. So um it's just you know good things are happening. We just need uh the weather to warm up. See, do they have to be a licensed architect or just an architect? I don't know the answer to that. I think they have to be licensed. I think you have to be licensed. Yeah. Okay. It can't be It can't be a hobby. It can't be a hobby. Earlier today, it's licensed or experienced architect or landscape architect. Oh, okay. It's how it's licensed. Yeah. Licensed or experienced. Okay. Okay. And Beverly, the permission openings are also on the Facebook page. They are. And they're going to be in the newsletter, too. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Maxine. Thank you. Okay. How fast everybody drive safely. For those of you that are there, we hit a lot. It's really good. Well, this is for those of you that didn't come. The Lunar New Year. It's our first year doing it. It was great. Really good. Next year, we're gonna have to move it out of this room and into the gym. And we'd really like to get a resident community, a resident committee to help plan it for next year. So, we've um we've got a couple people that have said they'll participate, so the staff's going to work on that. We have our hotwash board coming up, but it was fantastic. Was it organized by staff? It was. It was organized by staff. Yeah. And it was a request from residents and I'm really happy we did it. Yeah. So, I think that um I mean, we have a very large um Asian population in all of that. So, I think it's really good that we did this and we learned a lot. And then the partnering with the St. Louis Modern Chinese School was amazing. So really, really good. The food went so fast. So fast. People loved it. It was really great. And then that's Ed Shu who um is a local author and he came and did an author talk Thursday night before and that was really great,

too. So that was great. Okay. Uh vaccine, can you see that? Oh my god. So we have a show up right now. That's amazing. So all the turned wood out there is from a majority of that wood is from our parks. They're beautiful things. Um and then the mosaic exhibit is from Lisa Roth who was a longtime teacher at Old Bottom and she's her show is almost 100% sold out. So there's a picture of Marianstein and Maxine Wild up there that came to the opening. It was a really well attended opening. She sold out at the opening. I mean it was incredible. Um, but Beverly, can we add that not only was she a teacher at Obama, but she did the wall with the community for the city hall. Yes. She did the mosaic. The mosaic at Stacy Park. Yes. She's amazing. And the mosaic in our children's um indoor place. Yes. Exactly. She's fabulous. Um, so then Hannah has been doing all sorts of great things to get people in. She did Gallentine's yoga. There's a picture of that. It was phenomenal. we had to use this whole room um and it was it was um advertised to bring a friend. So quite a few people came and it was their very first time. They came we had a beautiful email thanking us from one of the people saying how she just loved bringing her friend and it showed off the community. She was so proud of it. Um so I'll forward it to you guys. It's it's not a email to the commission but I'll still share it with you. It's really good. Um anyway, so that was great. There's our new camp 5 Oaks logo. That's our new camp coming this year. Completely redesigned. The the pictures aren't changing for us. Oh, I see in the corner. Okay. I'm sorry. That's okay. Next slide. Okay. Um, so you will this I really wanted you to see this. So, there is a master plan specifically for the fences at Stacy and they've been doing a lot of work on this. This will be something you'll hear about because we took down

the fence around the children's play area. It's really important you all know that because when the weather warms up, people will notice. So, the reason we did that is people park their kids in there when they're having events in the pavilion and leave them unsupervised. So, it's a false sense of security. That fence does not protect children. It actually um is a a huge exposure of liability for us. So, that is gone. It's our only playground that had a fence around it. Um so, it will not be there. However, that fence is incredibly expensive. So, they took it out piece by piece. We're putting it back in. So, you'll notice we're taking down even more of the old barb wire fence. So, there's a section still up by that retaining wall just across from Old Bonum. This fence is going to go there and we'll be able to take that down. And then we took down the fence between the park and bottom estates which looks so horrible coming into that subdivision right on the corner of the turn there. So that fence will replace that. That neighborhood really wants a fence. They think that without a fence there, people will park there and use the park. So even though they have all their no parking signs. So we are doing that for them in that first section. the rest of it we're leaving the fence because it's just I don't think we have enough fence and and I don't want to put that low of a fence between those homes. So, wherever the fence at Stacy touches private property, we're leaving it. So, that whole row along the southern end of all those homes that their backyards, that fence is staying there. But then we're going to take it down also down by the cemetery. And the cemetery is very excited. They want that fence out of there. So, we'll be taking that down. And then we're going to leave it up along Warren where the hill is, the big hill. Eventually we'll be take that down when we have something else to put there. But that's a long-term plan. And then we'll be taking it down where the crosswalk comes into the prairie. We're

taking that fence down there. So that that'll right now the gates are off and then eventually we'll take more, but we're leaving it north of the crosswalk. We're leaving it there because we don't want people going in and out or running through there. Um, and then around the subdivision, I mean the substation, we're keeping that and then eventually we'll take it off the front of Olive, but that's another longer term. We have to figure out how to prevent cars driving on that that thing. So anyway, so you as the weather gets warmer, you will hear buzz around this. I wanted to make sure you all knew why that's come down. Um and and no and remember it was the only hot lot that was fenced so it now matches all of our other parks and um people that were coming for events at the pavilion and even walking the trail were leaving their kids in there unattended. Okay, that's wild behavior. Yeah. Yeah, that is wild. Yeah, just go play over there. Yeah. So, Beverly, you went over lots of different places where things were happening and I have a giant I have a giant layout of that. I can bring it to the next meeting. Wherever this fence master plan lives, can you share that with I will I'll bring it to the next meeting. I'll bring it in March. Yeah. So you can see it because it's it's good for you to see it. It's good for you to see the pictures of what we're doing. Um Okay. Uh Brian's growing a lot of seed. A lot of seed. It's amazing. He set up a a little grow grow area in the park office building and it really is cheap and cheerful, but um but it's he's had amazing success. We wrote an article about that. will be in the newsletter because it really will save us an incredible amount of money. Um, and then we got a grant from the Missouri Prairie Foundation Foundation. We've applied for this grant four times and we got it. So, it's about $700 and it will um we're partnering with Planting Shade. They're going to help do the planting and it's a Savannah area that's going to go in um towards the

eastern side of Warson Park here u as it turns north on the greenway. So, it's a really really exciting project. So, I have a question about the fence. So, I'm Yes, I guess you you're saying you're not going to tear the one down Warson for a while. I guess I'm worried. No, we are. Warson's Warson's coming soon. We're not tearing down the one where it goes up high because there's a hillside there. I don't want to take it down. It's a It's a safety barrier right now. So, what I'm worried about is cutting down all the trees because it looked like when you cut down the one along O Bama Estates, you cut down a lot of pine trees. We did not take down pine trees in there. No. Oh, no. Amarind came through. Oh, yeah. They they've Amarind and AT&T have done a lot of work on there. We're not taking down trees on Warson. We will be taking down there's some junk mulberries and a lot of honeysuckle. We'll be taking that down. Okay. Yeah. I was worried that there were some pimmens and some some No. No. Brian would never cut down a pimmen. Okay. No. No. But thanks for watching out for it. Okay. Next slide. Okay. Cut down trees. Do they rep do they do anything? Do they just Well, they're not they No, they don't. They just They don't. Stephanie, if they're cutting down a pine tree, don't worry. We will replace a better tree in there. Don't worry. Um, I wanted you to see this. This was a brutally cold day and Jim was out there and our other amazing volunteer and they did crazy work on a horrible day. So, I want to make sure you saw that. It's really good. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. That's it. All right. So, you guys can read the future agenda items. I have one question about an upcoming program. You need the commission's help with Holy Fest. Um, Holy Fest is a really tough nut.

There isn't a lot for the commission to do. We get very very The If you wanted to help with recycling, I'm sure that the green team would love to have you. But as far as an information booth, it's kind of a wash. No, but I mean, you need help with any of the logistics or anything because it's on the It's before our next meeting. That's No, no, not really. So, really? Yeah. Well, about Holy Fest there on the website, it says it's on sun Saturday, March 23rd, which is a Sunday. In the program guide, it still says that it's on March 18th, which is a Thursday. And I just read on our list that it's on Saturday, March 15th. So, Saturday, March 15th is correct. You Where did you see it on the website? On on the parks and recck website or the city one? The parks and wreck tonight. I looked when I during the meeting. So, you may want to have that changed tomorrow. But this ad that was I don't know if you can see it, but the ad that was in the program guide um was wrong. Is wrong. But the one on I would think that the program guide online you could fix. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'll entertain motions to make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? If you are, you've got a job. Thanks everybody. Lot of information. Thank you. Thanks. recording.