City Commission - Regular Meeting

budget work session to order July, June 9th, and tonight we're going to hear from Park and Rec. Go ahead, Chris.

Mayor, Commissioners, I want to thank you for the opportunity this afternoon to brag a little bit about this Department of Parks and Recreation. So it's divided up in three divisions, which is the Golf Division, the Parks Division, and then the Recreation Division. and they each have a superintendent, and I'm gonna go over each division and the employees, and we'll kind of tell them what they do, then we'll go over their entities and everything. So our mission of the City of Pittsburgh Parks and Recreation Department is to provide a comprehensive array of services and programs to meet the recreation and leisure services needs of all the citizens of Pittsburgh, Kansas. And here's kind of a quick budget overview of the expenses we've had over the last few years. I know you've gotten all that and we stay relatively steady on that. And now we'll get to Four Oaks Golf Course, the golf division. And it starts with the top was the golf course superintendent who's new this year. Jared Leverins is his name. And he takes care of all the course. He's over everything that's there, including staffing on the maintenance side. Then all the irrigation scheduling, the chemical scheduling, the RV park. the mini golf, pickleball courts, and everything like that. He oversees everything there. All the agronomical management practices of the golf course, he oversees all of that. And then he has an assistant golf course superintendent who is Zach Roseboro, who has been with us at the golf course for five years now. And he's been in the assistance capacity for three now. And he is a hard worker, smart kid, and he assists in the chemical applications as well. And he does a lot of the irrigation repairs, like I said, and managing the part-time staff as well. Then as we move to the clubhouse, Randy Dawson is the clubhouse manager there. And he's been with the city for 21 years now as the clubhouse. And he oversees all the operations that go on the clubhouse side, between concessions, running the tournaments, staffing, scheduling, helps out with the mini golf and everything, and then manages the cart fleet that we have for the rental carts. and everything, and he does a good job. He's been dealing with the public. He's the one that's in charge of the tournaments and programming in our youth clinic and everything. So yeah, like I said, he's been with the city for a long time. And then, of course, we've got Greg Baker, the equipment operator. He's been with the city for almost 30 years now. If anybody's been around the golf course, they've ran into Greg, and he's just kind of a mascot, per se. Everybody loves Greg, so he's there. And on top of the full-time staff we have there, there's also four part-time maintenance staff. on the outside, which we're trying to hire some positions now. And then we keep 12 in the clubhouse to keep rotating shifts, because we are open seven days a week. And it's mostly weather-permitted and year-round. And like I said before, it consists of the RV park. They're over all that and everything like that. There's 12 spots. They have 30 amp and 50 amp plus a bath shower house that Pittsburgh Beautiful donated the funds to, which you can see it there in the middle. And just a couple years ago, actually last year, they decided they wanted to put a mural on there. And Jenna Spencer, she was the one that made that mural and everything. It turned out really nice. That was all funded by Pittsburgh Beautiful. And, of course, we have the golf course itself. And that's the main attraction there. And then that's just a picture of six of them. But now we have 12 pickleball courts down there that is busy. They are just incredibly busy and everything. We're getting on that. And of course, the mini golf. The mini golf has been, I think it's in its second full year now after being completely renovated. They tore out the old one and put in the new one. And it's doing really well. Doing really well. But so... That's the Gulf Division. Here's kind of the summary of revenue. And like I said, it slowly keeps increasing. It stays pretty steady. Don't want to do that. So, any questions on the golf right now?

You still have quite a few passes, it looks like.

We do. And, yeah, that's actually up and coming. We had a little bit of a lull there and everything. But, no, a lot of people are taking advantage of the passes now.

Looks like concessions are doing well, too. Do you guys keep track of demographics and numbers of people that come through?

Not as many demographics. We do have a senior pass and then youth passes. passes, so we're able to differentiate that way. But other than that, that's about it.

Why is 2024 different than every other one?

Actually, on that, it's, a lot of it has to do with the weather. Because, like, you look at this year so far, it rains on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And so the weather, so our busiest days, we've lost because of that. And if you remember, 24 was a pretty dry year, so we were able to stay open. And that makes a big difference, so... the timely things.

Didn't you recently change out carts?

We're on a five-year lease program with that, and we actually bumped up the numbers from 36, or we went from 30 to 36, just because of the sure demand is what it was. And now when we do host tournaments, that puts two carts on each hole, all 18 holes, and then that way it just makes it easier. Because renting carts for tournaments has gone through the roof exponentially as far as cost. So we were able to keep it there. We're still running out of carts. They have a waiting list. It's good. But it's on a five-year lease. Every five years, we get a new fleet in.

What do you usually, how many extra, sorry, how many extra carts do you have to usually get for a tournament?

Some of the tournaments that we host, like say Knights of Columbus tournament, which is a big one, they usually bring in 10 or 12. And, I mean, they're getting close to, don't quote me on this, but close to $100 a day per cart, plus travel. So it's expensive.

How many carts do you normally have on hand?

We have 36 that we keep in our fleet, yeah. We just bump that up from 30.

How hard has the dry weather been on all the trees and the golf course out there?

A lot of the pin oaks have actually had some insects that have damaged them. You see the big ones where the tops blow off? They just hollow out and do the insects. And then we actually had a little burrow blight that went through and wiped out some of those. And as far as the weather, the dryness and the moisture, the changes in it affects it a lot. But a lot of it, yeah, some of those is just low roots. They're not getting the root system that they need.

So you have to be strategic about taking them out during the, so you don't mess up too much of it, getting out there to where they're at?

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we've had some big storms. Last year we had a big storm. We lost a bunch of oaks, and it took us quite a while to get to some of the low areas because it was so wet. You're doing more damage than good. Sure. So you've kind of got to draw the line there. Sure.

Can you talk about that partnership with Pitt State for the cart paths?

Yeah, so they have done seven projects now. They do 500 feet each section there, and they've done seven now. And so what they come in, they come in and tear out the old, which we help them with a bunch of stuff there, and then they pour new. They're getting all new concrete paths in there, and we just keep piecing on it, piecing on it, and everything like that. It's fun to work with those kids doing that. It's their senior project they do, and... We try to get them all over the place and they've been lucky to have a couple concrete crews go in there. We just got to redirect traffic on those holes just so they're not in harm's way. Obviously they're not driving through the construction, all the golfers and everything. But it's a great partnership.

Thanks for bringing that up.

We just pay for supplies. The labor is free on that.

There's young backs helping us out.

Is there a forecasted plan for the use of that program to cover the entire thing?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. We'll use those for as long as we can. We've got a couple projects. We didn't have any this spring, but we've got a couple in plans right now going for that. And hopefully there's some more of the cart path going as well.

Pitt State helped, or they built the miniature golf, whatever you call that.

That pavilion, yes.

Yeah, the pavilion.

Yep, yeah, the construction.

I've seen your project or something.

Yeah, that was another. Actually, that one took up, actually, I think that ended up being three projects. The first one designed it the first semester. The second semester, they started on it. But that was when supply was still not like it should be. And so they couldn't get finished because the supplies came a month after they graduated. So they weren't coming back. So the following semester, they ended up finishing it. But it turned out really nice.

Is the School of Construction the only one that you do that with? As far as city projects, Darren, is there any other departments that do anything else other than the parks?

I mean, this year we had a – the Neighbor Advisory Committee does a lot more cleanups than we used to do. Oh, yeah. And so we partnered with one of the fraternities, and they came – I don't know how many people they gave us, but they came out and cleaned up a whole bunch of right-of-way and things like that. So, I mean, whatever – we can get them. Oh, sure.

And we actually utilized the wood technology program this year because the carousel, it had some rotted pieces that were curved. I mean, over 100 years old, so we had no idea. And again, we paid for the supplies, and they had their students design those and build them for us.

Same way with some of these shelter houses at all the different parks?

Yeah, they've done, yeah, as far as the parks that I know, they've done a lot of concrete work at Schlanger Park. And I know they've built the restrooms. Well, I just had it up there, the restroom. There's a little shelter and then the restrooms at the RV park. Those are both senior projects. And then there's also a little shelter, shade shelter at the mini golf that they did. And yeah, they do all kinds of great stuff. We utilize that.

What department does that from the university? That's the School of Construction. School of Construction, okay. Yep.

Anything else on the golf? Okay. So now the Parks Division. And I'll kind of run over this pretty quick. Of course, Mike McClure is the Park Superintendent. He's been with the city for a very long time. He's a very well-respected man, and he does a great job. He oversees everything. You can think if it's a park and everything, he's got his hand involved in it somehow. From mowing to all the maintenance to lights and everything, he's in a lot. He's the one that gets called out when the trees are down. And during the storms, and yeah, he does a lot for the Parks Department. And then under him is Ben James, he's the project coordinator. And when we have projects going on, he builds the playgrounds. When the playground's doing, he's the one, he's certified to go in and get those done. If we have concrete, we do on our own. He's the one that coordinates all that. Plus he helps with organizing everything else, like the ball fields and everything else when in need and everything. He's been with the city for a long time. Then we have Jacob Grother, who's the forester, vegetation coordinator. And his prime focus is on the trees, and he's very knowledgeable and very skilled with what he does. He's able to go in and just as far as pruning, people want to get rid of the trees, and he can talk them into just let's prune these and save these trees. And so he's able to save a lot of trees as well, but unfortunately some of them you can't save them all, so he does have to remove quite a few, but he's very talented. And then we have a part-time mechanic, which is Steve Vanderpool. And I don't know if you guys are familiar with Steve, but he was the actual mechanic for, I don't know, 25, almost 30 years. And then he retired. And Steve's the kind of guy where he had big plans for retirement, and he got them done like noon the first day. So, yeah, he was bored. So he came back, and he's been working part-time. He works four hours a day and everything, but he's an incredible mechanic. And now he's all we have right now. We're still in the hiring process of that. But, no, yeah, Steve, he's a good one. And then now we move to the facility coordinator is Rio Gardner. And he kind of does maintenance on our facilities. He works on the restrooms, the toilets and sinks and stuff like that. He sets up for seniors doing things like that, minimal stuff there. But with Rio, he's actually a certified lifeguard trainer and also an aquatics facility operator, and he's extremely valuable at the pool. He helps out a lot there. He helps train all the lifeguards and everything, and he's real valuable on that. He's very sharp with that. And then we have the, he's an operator, he's a Mount Olive caretaker. His name is Ryan Peters, and he was out at the cemetery for a long time, and then when that got switched over, changed it around, he came over full-time to the parks. Well, switched jobs, so now he's working for the Parks Division. But he also, he still does the gravesite services out at Mount Olive. So if there's a funeral and everything, he's the one that's out there digging the holes and coordinating with... the funeral homes. And then we have Ron Henry is another heavy equipment operator, very talented, been with the city for a long time. Kylie Tindall, she's also very skilled. And all these operators, I say that it sounds like they just operate equipment. They have their hands in everything. I mean, whatever it demands. I mean, snow removal is part of our thing. I mean, all over the place. If they need help on the ball fields, there's a tree down. Everybody drops what they're doing, and they go assist and everything. They do more than just sit on a piece of equipment. They help out with the mowing when we don't have time, when we're in crunch time, kind of like we're getting here soon. Then Zach Sharp is another one. He's in the same boat. He does a lot of work on the ball fields. He's a good one. And now, just recently, they've hired a night security guard that works nights, and it has really helped out with any vandalism and damage and stuff like that throughout the park. Just having a presence more than anything. He pretty much just tells them that the park's closed, and he usually doesn't have any issues. But just being a presence has helped out immensely, especially with the vandalism and everything to our facilities, like the restrooms.

Does he keep track and document everything that he, you guys compile all that? Do you report that up to Darren?

He actually works directly with the police department.

So he reports it to them? I'd like to see what all engagements he has and what that looks like.

Yeah, and his shift ends at 3, and that's usually when my phone goes off that I received an email of the update. Bless him for that. But no, it's been a valuable addition to the...

Is he the one that locks everything up in the bathrooms at night?

He helps. Yeah, him and Mike Zupon is the other one that does that. Yeah, he's down on the list a little bit, too, there. But, yeah. And then we have Brent Tompkins. He just pretty much runs the trash route. He helps lock up and unlock stuff. And he's one of the – I mean, there's so many trash cans, trash everywhere. Yeah, we have – Couple routes that take care of that he it fills in every chance. It's not just the parks, but down downtown as well Yeah, yeah, he's mostly in the parks around there and then I Of course, we have the mow crew. You see the trim crews going around, picking up everything that doesn't get mowed on everything, the big equipment. And then Mike Zupon's the one that also locks up in the evenings. And he may be the most valuable to this department because he's there every weekend. He's there every evening. He's like, if there's something that needs set up, he's there helping out. He's just a great guy. Great guy. But in the mornings, he's actually... It says caretaker. We have Donnie Luton, who's the next on the line there. And he's actually with Mosaic. So he comes and Mike picks up Donnie and they come and work three or four hours doing the downtown route together and everything. It's a lot of fun. It's a good situation. Donnie, I'm not sure how... He's been with the city for five or six years. And before that, there was another one similar, John Elms, who actually retired from the city. Probably 6, 7 years ago, so, but yeah, that's the. That's this workforce there. And now we'll go over some of the parks. We have Rotary Leffler Park, which is there on 4th Street. It just received the brand new playground set there that was dedicated not too long ago and then have a very nice tributing plaque to Toby Cook there at Leffler Park. And all that was funded through grants in Rotary Park itself. So that's a nice brand new, it was within a month ago that it was actually dedicated, the new playgrounds.

Very cool they dedicated that to Toby. That was a beautiful thing to do.

Yeah, and then now we've got Lincoln Park, which I'll come back to that playground. Of course, Lincoln Park, it has... Lincoln Center has the Aquatic Center, Kitty Land, it has disc golf, also has the Pickleball Courts and Four Oaks Golf Course, JC Ballpark's part of it, and of course the Don Gretter Sports Complex, plus the Band Room. And they're all at Lincoln Center. But this playground here will be on our needs list here in a little bit. But yeah, Lincoln Park. Everybody knows Lincoln Park. It's kind of the pinnacle right off the highway, and it houses a lot, and it's busy. And then we go to Lakeside Park, which is unique in itself just because it has Plater's Lake on it, which is a little under five acres and with a fountain, so there's fishing opportunity, and then there's nice walking around there. There's also some tennis courts there that... will be on the needs list as well. And it also has a story walk that the library did, that the public library did. As you walk around the lake, it tells stories around there. It's really neat. And then Countryside Park, it has just the neighborhood, they had a neighborhood group get together. And they raised a bunch of money, got grants and everything. And it's just, we just finished it. It's put together the new playground set is. And they even went in and poured a concrete pad and put a basketball court in. And this is all funded through the neighborhood and everything like that. And so we just got that. We got the mulch in last week. We got some border we have to put up soon. And then that back part, the front part will actually be open to the public soon. And we'll have a grand opening coming up sometime once everything, once the weather cooperates. But on addition to the new playground and the basketball court, we've acquired acreage, some acreage back behind it that we're clearing some trees out, some dead underbrush and everything, and kind of going to have a little type of small trail around there, a little open area back in the trees as well, kind of expanding it. So that's a lot of good stuff going there, but that's all brand new. Then we got Sunflower Kiwanis Park. It's a little one there on Fieldcrest in California. It's just a little play area. And then Kiwanis Park's the one on Joplin Street. And it has relatively new equipment on it as well, thanks to the Kiwanis Club and everything. And then we got Duranus Park, which it's a relatively new playground. It's not very old on that. And so that's doing well, but it's also home to the famous Dramas Park. So it's been a staple in the community for a long time. And Europe Park is a nice little quaint downtown gathering place.

Do you guys acknowledge Kiwanis Park's alias of the Barney Park? It was always known as the Barney Park.

Yeah, it's the Barney Park, yes. Everybody knows what you're talking about when you say that.

It's been there a long time.

Yeah.

Didn't you take it down recently, like in the last, say, five years and have to redo him?

The dinosaur?

Yeah. Yeah.

And then, yeah, Europe Park, that's a nice little waterfall and everything. It's a nice little downtown area. Wilderness Park is... out there north of town. And it's got miles of trails. And it's just a lot of fun. It's a unique nature. Adventure and everything for biking, hiking, walking, whatever you'd like to do. And yeah, it's just got a wonderful set of trails out there that's nice. Schlinger Park is the home for the splash pad, the dog park, which is on here as well. And this is Catherine's Playground that's pictured there. And it's an ADA-accessible, compliant playground for everybody plays, is the foundation that has that up and running, did everything there. And it's actually getting ready to get some new turfing put down, some of the surface to get repaired. It was already paid for by a grant. And as soon as he gets us on the schedule, which will be very soon, he's going to come in and get repaired on that. It also has a butterfly garden. And it's very nice. It houses three pavilions there at Schlanger Park. So it's a busy park, plus the disc golf. I don't know if I mentioned the 18-hole disc golf they have there. And then Trailhead Park, the Watco Trail, it's just down there, kind of across from the middle school there. And it's just nice to start to the trail. Whatco Trail is the abandoned railroad track system that they had made the trails and everything. That's just the start of it there. And there's the dog park that's out of Schlinger Park. That was donated by the Thomas Fund. He left some money and he wants it spent on dogs and a lot of special needs stuff with him. He has a foundation that paid for all of that. And it's just a Nice dog park. The 23rd Street Bike Park there, it's kind of a low maintenance thing. They usually have volunteers that come in. and do all the cleaning work and everything. It's set on old dumps, so there's very little maintenance there. And it gets used quite a bit. It's interesting. It's exciting along the dump system for bicycles and everything. Offers a lot. And of course, Miner's Memorial. It's a great tribute to our history and everything. Really nice. Just the stories that the history tells and then the memorial to the miners themselves that were lost. And Immigrant Park's right next to it. The house is Pritchett Pavilion. Excuse me. And, again, it has a tribute to our past as well. So that is the parks. Do you have any questions over the parks right now?

I do. The Miners Hall Memorial over here, in the last, what, say, year or two, we have someone taking care of it besides your guys?

Mm-hmm.

And that is a big addition. That's a plus. Because it looks so much nicer. What's the difference on the upkeep of 23rd Street? And Wilderness Park compared to the other parks in the city limits, how do you, I mean, do you just make sure the trails are clear and trash free?

Yeah, there's been some debris, yeah. And we go back and kind of resurface the Wilderness Park as well, changing the debris. And, yeah, it's just keeping it clean, keeping it mowed down there. How often do you go through Wilderness Park? As much as we can. Unfortunately, when we're busy, it's not as often and everything, but we try not to let it get too overgrown so it's less work when we do get out there. But we'll get calls, people that are hiking, that tell us the tree has fallen over so we can get out there and get that because we're not out there all the time because there's a lot of trails out there.

Okay, not a lot of people know there's park hours of the playgrounds around. What is the end time of each night that People can't be in the park anymore. It's 11 p.m. 11 p.m. Skateboard Park, is it still over there on Schlinger?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mention that.

I just wondered. I know the lights are on a lot over there, which is a plus. But 11 p.m., same way with the skate park? They chase even during the summer hours?

Yeah, and that's something that the security guard does. He reminds them. They usually leave with no problem.

Pickleball Corps, I get calls at 11 p.m. from college students that are complaining. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we may have to expand.

You mean like at Lincoln?

Yeah.

But would it matter? I mean, it's not like they're bothering anybody in houses. No, no.

That's why, yeah, we're going to change some of that stuff. That was just the... Yeah. I'm like, well, I guess... Yeah, because in the nighttime now, it's really getting a lot of use from a lot of the younger generations, which is good. So there'll probably be some changes coming up as far as the opening and everything.

And we take every effort to make sure the parks... especially around playgrounds, are free of any debris, litter, any kind of things that shouldn't be there, that people should feel safe, that their kids are able to play there without, for fear of having to look at everything before they let them. Absolutely, yeah. And that's a big, we appreciate you guys on that.

Yep, yep. And they added a lot of lights into our parks and everything. That's helped out incredibly as far as everything else. But no, yeah, we try to keep them as clean as we can. That's why we have a lot of people out there.

Now, Schlanger on 4th Street, you know where they used to play soccer just on the other side of the tree line there? Is there anything down the road about having another soccer or small field there like they used to play on? Does that belong to a church or to the city? It's not the city. It's not the city. Well, there used to be all kinds of people there playing, and then they'd also be in the park, but I wondered if it would ever just become part of Schlanger Park.

That I don't know. That'd be interesting.

Well, thank you.

Any other questions on the parks?

Chris, just something I want to talk about, kind of expound on what we talked about earlier. Some of the majority of the people who live in Pittsburgh that have children now, core memories are derived from the parks and experiences at the parks. Do we currently have any type of a partnership with the civilian side to assist in cleanup of the parks and maintaining them?

There's quite a few volunteer groups that come in there. As far as, not to my knowledge, there's not, I mean a lot of the organizations like the Kiwanis, the Rotary Group, all of them, and yeah, they're more than happy. They plant a lot of stuff there. Pittsburgh Beautiful is another one that's great on that. So yeah, there is a lot of community involvement with that.

They kind of do that on their own or is that something they work through with your department?

Yeah, oh yeah, we all coordinate with all of those, with like trash pickups and everything like that. What was it, the NAC, the Neighborhood Council, they had a spring cleanup and everything. We assisted some with that.

Pittsburgh Beautiful uses a lot of their own money. It's amazing how much they contribute to the flowers, you know, because buying all those flowers and everything.

And you don't control the decks at Lakeside either, right?

No.

Okay, so as long as people know that that is not a city, we don't put the decks out there. They make their way into, fly in and then they wreak havoc. But we don't furnish it.

We appreciate all the hard work that goes into the parks. Like I said, this is absolutely one of the treasures this community has. The amount we have, one, but how they're kept up and the people that put time into it. The last question I have is, we're talking about the curfews. I've had a bunch of phone calls on Trailhead Park and issues with transients and whatnot in that park. Is that something we're tracking closely? Is your security guard spending a lot of time there?

It's always documented. He'll make a model of car, lights his plate, and what was going on. The gentleman on a bicycle with a backpack, I told him I had to leave without. Not everybody leaves with pleasantries, but no. But everything's documented. Like I said, he works closely with the police.

Yeah, I've spoken to him several times. As my family came out of Bob's Grill one day, there was a large gathering there, and there was some kind of combat going on or something. But that being right on Broadway in front of the middle school, all the children were walking back and forth.

Actually, it's an ordinance, isn't there? You can't lay around in a park either. You can't camp out there.

Yeah, you passed a couple years ago. And the police have been really helpful. Trailhead used to be a flop area big time. And it's what DJs experienced. It still goes on when they're moving from either they just got some food or something. But for the most part, you can't be in a park. You definitely can't be asleep in a park anymore. And obviously, if somebody goes out and they're laying on a blanket looking at the clouds, we're not going to probably go after them. But we keep them moving. And that's because we were getting so many complaints years ago about, I don't want to take my family to the park because there's three people asleep on the wood chips. And that's not good for anybody. Thank you. Keep up the good work.

Okay, now the recreation division. It consists of Jason Cecil, who's the recreation superintendent, who is here in attendance tonight. He's getting ready to speak. And we've got to thank these two. It's Jason Cecil and Josie Maples because they are extremely busy this time of year, and I asked them real nicely to come and assist me on this. But he is the recreation superintendent, and he oversees the athletics programs, Mount Olive, aquatics, and kiddie land. And then Josie, she is the recreation program manager. She oversees the camps, seniors, special events, farmers market, and office administration. And there's also a recreational athletes manager, and she oversees concessions, athletics, and special events. So, I guess now I'm going to turn it over to Jason.

So I get to talk to you a little bit about the sports and athletics and then our aquatics facilities in Kitty Land. So Elizabeth is our athletics manager. You can tell on there she is in charge of all of our ball fields. So we work very closely with JL Hutch, the PFA, and then some of the outside tournaments. We started hosting a lot of the outside tournaments, which are going really good. So we've got seven part-time concession workers and then seven youth sports clinic coaches that we do throughout the year. We're getting ready to do some of our soccer clinics. We just completed a baseball softball clinic. We've got a football clinic coming up that we use some of our Pitt State athletes for. We'll talk a little bit about them when I talk about lifeguards. So that's kind of what she does for the sports and the athletics side. And then aquatics. That's kind of the beast of the summer for me. So we'll talk a little bit about that. I wanted you guys, I know you're out in the community a lot, and you probably get a lot of questions about the pool. So you guys, in front of you have one of these little brochures, and it should have all the information on there that you could potentially get taught to about questions. I know one of the biggest questions that we get, and you guys may get, are why we closed the first weekend in August. If you remember back when we all went to school, we started school at the end of August. And now the schools are starting, my wife's a teacher, and I know they start the 10th, the 12th, and around the 14th of August. And then the majority of our guards are athletes, are student athletes. So in fact, I think all of our male guards this year are Pitt State football players. So once that first weekend in August hits, I lose all of my guards. They all get called back to practices and athletics. So I can't run a pool without lifeguards. So that's why we closed that first weekend in August. And then we also do a week to a week and a half of private parties. We've had a lot of requests. In fact, the majority of them are sold out already. Schools do back-to-school swims. They do back-to-school parties. We get a lot of birthday parties. So that last week, we do those. And then we do the dog swim on the 12th. And then on the 13th, we'll close and we'll drain it.

A question I had a couple years ago and then recently, grandparents taking their grandkids to the swimming pool. They don't swim, they just go in there and watch their grandkids. So they were being charged to go in and I think we waived that at some point.

So is that still something we do or do we charge the grandparents? We charge anybody that goes into the facility. And we haven't had any complaints this year about that. I know the first year I was here, we'd heard a little bit about that. But this year we haven't. And even last year, I don't think we had any complaints about that.

What's our charges?

$5 for adults and $4 for kids. And then the seniors are $4.

So if they come in in jeans and long-sleeved shirts, they're still charged? Yes, sir.

And I know at one time, I think there was some conversation about not charging those. But even when some of the people would say they weren't going to swim, we would catch them in there swimming with their grandkids and holding them. So we just went to a straight policy. If you come into the facility, you have to pay.

How many lifeguards do you have out there at any one time?

We run 12 a day. So I have 10 out at the pool at all times, then we run two reserve guards. They help check bags when they come in, and then the other one that's on a break will check passes, the aquatics passes as they come in. So it's 12 a day, and we run different shifts, and we run, right now this year we've got 34 lifeguards.

Wow. Is that a larger number than...

We ran anywhere from 30 to 35 the last several years. The test to become a lifeguard is a beast. I know your daughter does it, so she's well aware of that. Like Chris talked about, we are extremely blessed to have two lifeguard instructors on staff. One of them is Rio Gardner. The other one is Lexi Miller. She's one of the pool managers too. So we save a lot of money by doing that. We can do that internally. And that test to be a lifeguard is tough. So we only lost one this year during training. It's funny because you watch some of those Pitt State athletes that are built and they're cut and they get out there and they start swimming and it's like, you know, it's a different deal. So it's a tough test, but it needs to be.

Tell everyone about the newest rule you've implemented, which is awesome.

This one was important to me. The last several years, I've wanted to do something with that. And I talked with Chris this year. He was great. He was on board. Historically, a parent could come drop a kid off that was seven and younger, had to be with somebody that was 16. So if they were eight or nine... you could drop your child off and just leave them at the pool. Especially with today's society, for me, that's scary. That's dangerous, and it's scary. KOM came out and did a story on it, and I think just about everybody they talked to were in favor of that rule change. You know, you have an 8-year-old or a 9-year-old child out there, and it's 100 degrees, and it's 120 degrees on that pool deck. Who's going to make sure they've got sunscreen? Who's going to make sure they're hydrated? And who's going to make sure they don't talk with a stranger and leave? It can't be our lifeguards because they're focused on the water. So that one was important, and Chris was on board, and we went through, and they went through really well.

Safety for sure, but you weren't a babysitting service either. Correct. I wanted to say that, but you said it, so thank you. Well, I appreciate you stepping up and doing that. That one was important to all of us. That's another level of professionalism.

What's the age now? It's 10. We thought about making it 12. This year we went with 10. We may raise it again next year. We'll see. 10 and under has to be with somebody that's over 16. We've had one or two issues with parents upset about it so far, but like I said, for the most part, it's been very well.

Thank you for doing that.

I fully support that. Like I said, my daughter is a lifeguard, and she works very hard to keep the pool safe.

She's on duty today.

Yeah, she's there now. The concept of... dropping your kid off in a water area like that. It's crazy. I agree. It's mind-boggling for me. I can't imagine, but I know for some people that's how it's worked out. We do understand that that's changed the way they've planned out their summer and their time frame, but our staff doesn't need to be liable for small children for an entire day.

I appreciate it. Thank you guys for your support on that as well. Our aquatic center does how we do. We have two aquatics managers. Linda Graham has been there for Kim, you want to help me on that one? 45, 50 years. She's wonderful. She gets the attention of these guards and does well. We have four maintenance workers. They have to be 18 years old because they help with the chemicals. So I'm blessed this year that we have all four over 18. We run three security guards, eight concession workers, two front desk attendants, the 34 lifeguards. And then over at Schlanger Park, we have the splash pad, and we have eight splash pad attendants over there.

So you have security guards during the day? Yes, ma'am.

Awesome. When we have issues, it's not like when you think of security, like they're big fights, but we get little groups. And most of them are middle school boys. And they get their little groups and they just start harassing each other and those kind of things. And there are Pitt State football players that do it for us. And they do a really good job of establishing rapport with those kids. And it has helped tremendously since we started that. Good to know. Any other questions on aquatics?

Just not so much a question, it's a statement. I did field calls last year about the pool and the closing thing has always been a thing.

I was there when you came and talked to Toby about it. So I wanted to make sure you guys understood why.

Yeah, no, I fully understand. I know some of the options that were thrown my way to adjust it was to be adjusted time, less need for that large number of guards. I think when you explained that the option to have private parties in that window of time also kind of squashed a lot of it because people understood there's a high need for that too.

If we got rid of the private parties, you guys would get a lot of calls. The schools are big with that. I think every school in the community has booked a back-to-school party already. Those are very popular. Part of the reason we changed our hours this year – On Saturdays and Sundays nights, we do not have family swim anymore. Those were our two lowest nights for attendance on family swim. So what we did is we opened those up to private parties because the schools would take so many of our private parties at the end of the year that private individuals didn't have the allotted time to have a party. And we've booked several of the parties this year on Saturdays and Sunday nights. So that's been a big help.

Now that when you guys did the movie night stuff too, that made a big impact on the community too.

We haven't had movie nights since I've been there. I know part of the problem with that is we don't have lights in the pool. So it's hard for us to do anything once it gets dark. But that's something we can look at doing outside of the pool again sometime for sure.

That's all I have. Thank you.

Perfect. Kiddyland. Everybody is familiar with Kiddyland. We had the 70th birthday party. two years ago, I believe. We run eight Kiddyland attendance out there. We have a young man by the name of Logan Jones who's our manager out there, and this young man just loves Kiddyland. He lives for Kiddyland. He's always coming up with ideas and things to do out there, so it's going really well. I know Chris is gonna talk a little bit about some of the financial things that we've done out there to make that park look better, but it's a good park. Any questions on Kiddyland?

All right.

Now I'm going to turn... He's going to tell you about Kittiland.

Thank you, Jason. On Kittiland, before we open, Pittsburgh Beautiful came in. They kind of had a branch off of Pittsburgh Beautiful called Friends of Kittiland. And they were about to determine they were going to get the roller coaster painted, the track. And so I started getting quotes and everything, and everybody was three months out. And they decided, no, they're going to take no for an answer. So somehow we found somebody at Rapid Restoration. I met with them in the afternoon. They started the following morning. So they got it all sandblasted. And then we found a painter to come in. Local, Kelly Williams, he came in and painted it and everything, dropped everything, his scheduling, just to get that painted for them. So they came in and got all that done. And that was all funded by Pittsburgh Beautiful and then the sponsorships they had there. and everything. So they got some other plans coming in. Pittsburgh area young professionals are getting ready to paint our storage shed out there. It's kind of been an eyesore out there. So we got a power washer. We're going to paint that within the next month to put a mule sign out there. So yeah, that's all private donations and they got it all done and everything. So it's nice.

You're talking about the building that's right across from the ball field?

No, not that one, it's their storage shed in the back. Yeah, we have plans for that other, the shack, you could say, coming up and that. But no, I just wanted to, Pittsburgh Beautiful is the one that's spearheaded that and funded everything, and it turned out really good, so. Very cool. Oh, and now, Josie Maples with the program, sorry.

I have a question for you, Chris. Yeah. Where are we on the band dome?

The band dome, it's coming up with our upcoming program. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Sorry, Josie.

You're good?

Okay. Okay, so I am the Recreation Programs Manager, and so I do all the non-athletics, but our Athletics Manager, she does the Mama Miles, which has really taken off, and then also all of our clinics and camps, so that would be our tennis camp, our youth soccer camp. football camp junior golf is done by Randy at the golf course and pickleball camp and then also our t-ball all of our athletics programs all these clinics all these camps they have skyrocketed all of our attendance is up and then I do our summer camp throughout the summer we run for 10 weeks we have 50 kids every day it is it's my baby it's my joy But that's our summer camp. It is so much fun. And then we also do our corporate challenge. And we have seven companies this year in it. And that is just four days of all kinds of challenges that we plan for these corporations. They sign up. They invite their employees to attend. One day is at the aquatic center. Another day is down at the park. We do like a tournament. We do... I'm trying to think now, I lost it. We do all kinds of different events for all different physical abilities. It's not just sports and athletics for that event. We also do like Message in a Bottle, which is kind of like an escape room game. So it's not just sports. And then our Crafters Club, that we started this year. It is for our senior citizens. And we also have Timeless Travelers. You should have a brochure for that program. Thank you. And that's another program that we started back up in 2025. And we honestly thought, oh, it'll be good. It'll be good. And we keep filling up. And that is one population, our senior citizens, that are completely underserved that we found. We did timeless travelers, and we opened registration, and we are full with all of these trips. They're gone in a day. We're already sold out for our fall trips. There's not a spot open for any of these trips. And which Chris will talk about later is that one of the reasons why it fills up so quickly is our transportation issue is we only have our van and we can only take up to 11 to 12 seniors at a time. And then our other senior program is our crafters club because like I said, we saw that our seniors were underserved and we started this and it is also sold out every time. And they come in for two hours and they get together and we do different seasonal crafts and they love it. It brings them together. They get to get out of their homes. socialize and craft at the same time and then of course we do have our senior bingo and it happens Thursdays and Fridays and we increase that also just from Fridays to Thursdays too because we saw the need for it. Do you have any questions so far? Go ahead.

When you're going to build a new program or a camp or something, what are the steps that you go through? Do you look for the need? You're talking about a lot of needs for the older community, and I love that because there's never enough stuff to do when you're retired.

it kind of depends on the population we're talking about so when we did our senior citizens for let's say timeless travelers when we did that we used to do that program and then covid kind of shut it down and then at our senior bingo we've had that for a long time and they kept asking me can we travel again can we travel again and so we looked at different places and we looked at prices because most of our seniors they're either on a payment plan for this program, because they are only living on Social Security, and that's it. Most of them don't drive anymore, so this is their only travel outside of the city of Pittsburgh. If they can't get to it with the caravan, they're not going, basically. So that's kind of what drove that program, was our seniors was wanting to travel, wanting to go see things. They kept asking us, and I said, okay, let's do it, let's figure it out. And then our crafters club that also kind of one of my seniors, she's super crafty and she kept coming early to bingo and they would have this one table that they would either play dice games or craft. And she said, can we have more than, you know, when we come early to bingo, can we have like a designated time? I said, of course, let's figure it out. We can have a program. So that's kind of how that one was born also, is our seniors asking for things.

Do we have any exercise programs that seniors can do, can get into?

Say that one more time, sorry.

Do we have any exercise programs that seniors can come and do?

So we do not. However, the YMCA has silver seekers and then Homer Cole has the drumming. So when we look at senior programming, we also look at what other is in town because we don't want to compete, especially on time-wise. Because they're either walking to our facility or taking the caravan or public transportation. And I don't want to compete with other things for our seniors. That makes sense.

Like I said, you've got a ton of things on there and that's awesome to see. When a new thing comes up and there's a new draw for it, reach out and try to find a group that would be interested in it. It's good to see there's this many.

So does the city only own a bus? We don't own a bus. Is it just what?

We only own a passenger van.

Passenger van. So if you have a lot of interest, why don't you rent a bigger?

We've looked at it. So for our summer camp, we do go on a field trip and we do rent a bus from USC 250. Okay. And unfortunately, for our timeless travelers program, it's not feasible. And even for our summer camp program, we've had to go down to one field trip outside of the city of Pittsburgh because of the bus price. They charge us $106 an hour for a bus.

So if you're going somewhere for a day or farther, you'd have to have a full bus in order to make it.

And even then, it's really hard. And that's just a plain Jane school bus. No accessibility, no handicaps. So if they can't get up the stairs, they're kind of out of luck. But we do do that for our summer camp, is we do rent a bus there.

Thanks. You're welcome.

And then, so here's some of our past programming that kind of happens outside of the summertime is like I said, we do have our timeless travelers. We have a spring and a fall, and then we do our Easter party for our senior citizens. And then we'd also have a Christmas party for them. And then we have our date nights, our mother, daughter, our dad, daughter, our mother's son. They've been around for quite a while. They're very popular. And then, of course, our baseball softball clinic. And then we host camp when USC 250 is out of school. So that would be your Thanksgiving breaks, your Christmas breaks, parent-teacher conferences days, those little random spurts, just to provide parents child care at an affordable price. And then we do a few things on the sports side on spring break. We had our pickleball clinic, and then sometimes we host other clinics. Do we have any questions so far? No? Okay. And then our special event, that's going to be our OK Kids Day, which this year we did have a record attendance. We had over 600 people come to our OK Kids Day. And that is a super special event because we partner with PSU, and I go there every two weeks in their program design class, and they plan the event with me. They plan all the activities. They go out and get all of the sponsors, donations, everything for that event. PSU, the class, goes and does. And then they come that day and they get their volunteer hours for their class and help me with the event for OK Kids Day. And it is a great partnership. And not only does it go with their recreation major, but it also goes with the class program design. That way they see everything on both sides. And then we have our Christmas parade, of course, and our holiday craft fair, Easter, and then our baseball tournaments, which Jason already talked about, 4th of July, which is huge, and then our kids' garage sale.

You're having a baseball tournament on the 4th of July?

No, we are not.

Oh, no, okay. No, no, no. I'm missing a sit, sorry.

No, that would be a long, long day, even more. Yes. And then I do oversee our farmer's market and our manager is Kayla. We got her last year. She is amazing and I'm sure you guys have seen how big the farmer's market has grown to. She's done a wonderful job. We've gotten to the point that we are starting to put pop-up tents outside of the pavilion because we have so many vendors that we can't fit them all inside. And our numbers are skyrocketing, and there we do still have our Double Up Food Bucks program, and then also we take SNAP ABT also there, and then SunBucks that just got added, and our senior vouchers also are added there too. So we have lots of benefit programs that we can do and it's happening at the farmers market. And it is growing and growing. We have live music there. We do Kids Day still. We celebrate all the holidays with either crafts, live music, or both. A couple weeks ago we celebrated all of our city heroes and first responders. And they came out and brought a bounce house and did kids activities and they got to climb all over the trucks and see what they were about. And it's just a really good time. And it happens every Saturday from mid-April to all the way until the end of October.

That's awesome. I know that's been a great program for the city, and there's been such a huge response. I love that there's so much variety in what people bring.

Yes.

It's not just fruits and vegetables. There's so many different things. It's awesome.

It is. It is wonderful. Chris?

Thanks, Josie.

This is kind of revenue for the recreation program there. And then I'm going to go ahead and get into the upcoming projects. At the Wilderness Park, Get Busy Living came to me, and they wanted to spend their funds. Their project this year was a story walk out at Wilderness Park. And these are kind of examples. They're going to have history of the mining life, and then also have some nature. There's going to be nine, which was Dylan Meyer's number, and so everything's a nine. So that's coming soon. We have most everything done, and that'll be moving forward there. Along with this, we're actually going to upgrade the trail system with marking and everything. We've got a lot of volunteers to do that. So that's going to go on at Wilderness Park. And then these are the bond issues. Of course, we know the turf fields down at Don Gutter's Sports Complex. And then the soccer field. This is the dream rendition. This is what our goal is eventually. And as of now, we're going to go with our original bond issue package and everything and get some ball fields going. So they're not going to be turf right off, but hopefully it'll look like this soon.

Chris, forgive me, I don't remember if I saw it or not, maybe I did and I've just forgotten, but did we adjust for lighting systems for one of the fields in the second change? We're going to put fields in and make those accessible. Yeah, that'll be eventually.

Lighting wasn't originally.

We never got to a point for that? Okay. We'll have to look at it.

Okay, then of course the launch program had the dog park down on 2nd and Walnut. That one's coming, hopefully start seeing some movement on that one as soon as we get that. And then Lincoln Center, this is an ARPA funding project. It's going to get a new roof, which is much needed because of the drainage and also a retaining wall on there. And the band dome. That's what the band dome looks like now. Where we're at now, the construction is finished on that, and we're waiting back for architectural designs to see what direction we need to go on that.

And it's currently available for use. It's available, yeah. The acoustics are good. All that's been tested. I remember seeing that. So it's functional.

It's fully functional to use, yeah, for fundraising events and everything.

And it's all sealed up, so no additional damage.

It's all sealed up, yeah. Everything but the shell. And then, of course, our department needs the golf course, of course, the continuing cart pass, like we talked about, updated clubhouse, which is always on the list there. More attractions on the mini golf course. And we have an old cart shed, 804, that we use a lot. We utilize it for a lot of different things. We kind of got some partial metal back put on it due to a storm that knocked it down. But we'd like to finish that. And also some drainage. We've always had drainage issues. And that's kind of a long-term need on that. For the parks, a new Slanger Center is always interesting there. Then need updated restrooms at Slanger and Lakeside. They're old. And also need to develop a plan of action for the tennis courts there at Lakeside because they're beyond repair, I believe. We're going to definitely need another full-time position, especially when we get the soccer fields because we're already short-staffed now, and then that's going to be a full-time job out there maintaining that because it also has the lake as well. And then the bridge at Wilderness Park, hopefully there's a grant available this fall, and we can get a new bridge on the backside there, because sometimes it's actually impassable. And, of course, upgrades all around with ballparks, lights, scoreboards, new road, lights at the soccer field, all the above, the wish list. Then the recreation, of course, the bus for transporting timeless travelers and camp kids, which Josie talked about. The Lincoln Park Playground that I showed you earlier in the picture, that one is probably up next because it's in dire need of repair and replacement. The new Kitty Land Shack, which is... And so hopefully we get that done. It's just extremely outdated. And then Jason would like two cabanas at the Aquatic Center. Yeah, I'm sorry. And for rental, to have a cabana that would be rental for the daily and everything. And then also an addition of a splash pad there at the Aquatic Center, kind of where the volleyball nets are. It would be just an extra attraction there. So that's the gist of our department needs. And any more questions?

You were talking about the equipment at Lakeside. How old is that system?

Oh, the facilities, the bathroom facilities?

No, well, that too, I guess.

That's another good one. The play equipment that's there currently, how old is it?

Oh, at Lincoln Park, the one that Dieter plays? At Lakeside. Oh, Lakeside? No, you said Lincoln. I said Lincoln Park. Yeah, Lincoln Park. I'm not sure of the age of it, but just the way it gets a lot of use and just the wear and tear, especially on the Fourth of July and the big festivals down there, it's just nonstop.

That's right in the middle of the hub of all, when everybody sets up. Yep.

So as far as the age, I'm not for sure on that. I'm sorry.

What about the... latrines at Lakeside Park. They've been there for a very long time. Yeah, that's probably the ones we used when we were growing up. So they still look the same.

So if you have bathrooms in all these parks, wouldn't it be a yearly thing where you go and you pressure wash them and then you dry them and paint them and make sure everything's working? Do you spray them regularly too? Like for spiders?

Yeah.

A lot of times that could be a problem.

Anything else? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris. It was a good brief.

Good job. All right. We want to take about a five-minute break before we start commissioning. Mm-hmm.