Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. We'll go ahead and get started for the November 25th, 2025 uh park and rec park park and rec commission meeting. My goodness. Um we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance. Algiance to the flag. the United States of America and to the republic for its one indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

All right. If you haven't done so, please uh turn off your cell phones and then um it looks like we are all present. All commissioners are present with the exception of Jason. Oh, Christa as well. All right. Okay. Any amendment amendments to the agenda this evening? There are none.

There are none. Ceremonies, announcements, appointments, presentation. Hearing none. Declaration of conflict. All right. About consent of calendar. We're looking for action items. Do we need to approve minutes from June 24th, 2025, July 23rd, 2025, and September 23rd, 2025? Um, I'll kick it off. Uh, I'll uh I would move to approve the minutes from June 24th, 2025 as presented. Are we able to do them all, lump them all together?

You could do them separately or all together? Well, okay. Well, uh, I will amend my move [laughter] and, uh, and move to approve the minutes from, uh, June 24th, July 23rd, and September 23rd, 2025. And I'll second that. And before you vote, just a clarification, because this isn't very often that you have this many minutes to approve, but we had a workshop in there and then with a change in staff, this is just kind of got stacked up. So, we're making sure everything's clean and proper.

I I I I [snorts] All right, moving on to any citizen issues. I see no citizens in uh the room this evening. Um unfinished old business. Uh new director update. So uh the city has selected director. You're not going to have to hear me talk about it though. We have our city administrator Shelley Ander here to give you folks an update. Good evening. How are you?

Good. So, I'm here to introduce um his name is Chris Ammerman and he comes from Wilsonville, Oregon. And he is currently serving as the park and wreck director in Wilsonville. Started his career in Roseberg, Oregon. Um and I'm going to read to you from this because it says when you Whoops. Actually, I was going to say goodbye to Dave first. Sorry. Let's start that all over again. You guys have been invited to Dave's party, but this will be an opportunity to celebrate Dave and all he has done for the city. I should have brought my glasses. When you look at the playgrounds, the ball fields, the trails, community events, and the programs that fill our seasonal brochures, you will see Dave's fingerprints everywhere. Long after this retirement party is over, long after all of us in this room have moved on to new chapters, there will be children who grow up playing in these parks, families who gather for reunions and picnics, seniors who stay active and connected, and neighbors who will meet for the first time at a city event. They will not know Dave's name, but they will all be impacted by his work. That is the quiet power of public service. You don't always get headlines. You don't always get credit, but you build something that lasts. And Dave, you have absolutely built something that lasts. So, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. But that wasn't on the agenda. I know. I'm a city administrator. I can take liberties, you know. So, um Chris Ammerman, um he is experienced park and record leader with a strong record for building highquality community focused public areas. He comes from us from Wilsonville, Oregon, where he's served as the park and recck director. Um, Chris is a graduate of Oregon State University. I'm sorry. I know it's not WSU currently. I I did go look up their mascot. It's Beaver. I didn't know that. Benny the Beaver.

Okay. Um, and he started his career in Roseberg, Oregon. Chris is a certified parks and recreation professional and has guided several major initiatives in his career that have helped strengthen and elevate Wilsonville's park systems. Chris is very excited about transitioning to Post Falls and we look forward to welcoming Chris to the city team. His first day will be uh December 15th. And if you guys have any questions about the process, basically for this process, we did use Prothman and so that's an external recruiting firm and they're the ones that went through and kind of vetted the applications and then brought candidates to us. And um with that what we did was we did our first round of interviews that kind of vetted down the the to a smaller group and we had a admin panel that interviewed and that's the mayor and uh the president um of the council along with myself our deputy city administrator and our HR director and then we had a a department head panel that interviewed and so they are the ones that made the recommendation that came forward to negotiate with Chris for this position. So, I just kind of wanted to give you a little background. I wasn't sure. I think Warren maybe came and presented. Did he come here and present early on? No. Okay. I know there were some meetings and different things going on. So, um that's the process that we used for recruitment. Um some of you may heard we do have a retirement coming with uh our chief of police retiring and so we'll be moving forward with that after the first of the year. We'll be doing another process. So I can take any questions. I don't think so.

If not, when Chris gets here, we'll bring him and introduce him to you. So Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Joel. All right. New business. Introduction of commission for I need my glasses. Uh accreditation. Yeah. Uh the park and wreck. We call it caffer caffra.

Good evening. Brian Meyers, parks manager here and uh today I'm going to give an update on some of the department's progress towards uh really the underlying u background information that could potentially move towards CAPA accreditation. Uh CAPRPA is um the commission for accreditation of parks and recreation agencies. It is multiple different uh professional organizations that come together to develop standards of the work we do. Um and so kind of a overall give a general overview of what CAPRA is uh the different agencies that make up that organization and then a general or uh overview of those accreditation standards. Uh the big thing right now is there's been some major changes to the way this accreditation has gone or has been framed. Um, historically there were 150ome total standards to measure yourself against. They've restructured that to the 68 that we see in the 2027 standard. Uh, basically if we were to apply today, we'd still fall under the 2025 standard, but if we applied after January 1st, we'd end up that 2027 standard because of the timeline it takes to go through the review process. Uh so the new standard is divided up into 10 chapters, 68 total standards. Uh 37 of them are fundamental standards that all have to be met and then you have to meet 80% of the 31 remaining standards to become accredited. Here's a list of the organizations that are involved. Um the primary one that we are involved in is the national

recreation and parks association as well as the city council um management association ICMA. Those are the two that our organization city post falls touch for the most part. Uh some of the others are related to other forms of recreation that uh so therapeutic rack or or military recreation those are all encompassed within the standards and so that broad scope of various recreation providers are all addressed in in how they're managed organization. So very high level uh standards that that are to be met um to be able to achieve this this level of certification. Uh quick little picture of the 200 and some 220ome agencies across the nation uh and one in Germany. One of the air force bases or army base joint air army base in Germany is accredited. It's the only international agency. Uh but as you can see in the Pacific Northwest, it's it's rather slim in in terms of accreditation and in particular in the Mountain West. So um not not common out west. Uh you see far more of these being present in that the eastern side of the United States. So should we choose to pursue this, we we may be one of the first in the western states. big thing just want to paint the picture of what it would take uh if we choose to move forward with this u and really what the value would be even just moving towards our own internal audit uh to measure ourselves against the overall standard. So overall process uh is completed through six different steps. Completing your

application basically declaring an intent to pursue this. At that point um staff would then attend a training that's offered through the National Recreation Parks Association. It's an online training that uh that your CAPRA manager that that heads up the process for the city um would attend. And at that point, you get introduced to an individual that will mentor you through the process. Somebody that's gone through the process and familiar with the standards to to be able to bounce questions off. And really that's one of the big values of going through this is the the mentoring support network that you gain from others that that are in the work that we do from that point. Uh refining the self- assessment report. This is something that we've already started the process of. Um this has been ongoing for a number of years and now that we have the new standard uh it's just updating and updating our files that uh this is this mapping it one to one from the 2025 standard to what we have in 2027. Um, at that point, uh, applications submitted, we have our mentor. At that point, we'd send our self assessment off to the Kapper review team and wait for their initial review. Uh, following their initial review, they'd provide feedback on items that are deficient and need correction before they assign a host team. So another big change within CAPRPA is prior to COVID it was a in-person visit from a large team and it was a burden of the agency that was seeking accreditation to pay all the travel costs and uh their residency costs for the time that they're here. That is now done in a hybrid type setting. So the costs have

gone down dramatically in hosting that that review team uh locally. Uh following that attended in person or virtual hearing. Often those are done at the national conference. So a place that we already are going. It's a list of the the chapters and how it's broken out. show this here just to illustrate the scope and and that again that high level understanding of of what's being evaluated should we choose to to pursue this. So it's it's diving into you know agency mission and purpose. That's that's our mission statement. It's our value statements that we that we already have intact. Uh it's evaluating that we have a master plan for our parks department. Are we following it? Do we understand that as a staff? uh those sorts of things are checked checked in on um community and park planning. So the review board, you know, the park and rec commission, uh how do we manage those? Have we actually undergone the the steps to legally establish you as a team? You know, we we can check all a lot of these boxes off just out of the gate because we've been doing the work of establishing an organization based on best management practices. So a lot of this is already done. Um facility and land use management. There's questions of do we have every purchase and sale agreement that has resulted in parkland acquisition over over time since the 1960s is there is their uh timeline of the requirement. So, it's a lot of things we're already doing, things that we have in place, and it's just cataloging those, making those things uh viewable and uh transparent to both staff and and to you is important. So,

again, that reduction that large reduction in total standards and it's they they have rejuggled them. So some of the standards are now bulleted items under the new standard. So it isn't necessarily overall streamlined. They they didn't get rid of too much. U it is now a point where they have just added a parent category with more refined sub bullets. Um the Excel sheet not get less complicated. So, where we're at in the current process, um, we've already done a lot of work in creating connections, meeting other individuals throughout the country that have gone through this. Um, there's a group out of Oregon that that I've made contact with that has recently gone through the process and keeping that dialogue open. Um, but honestly, you Dave's already moved us in a long ways uh towards this effort. So, it's really just keeping up that momentum. Um, reading and understanding the standard. That's that's where we've been in the last uh six months since the new standard's been rolled out and really uncovering what this looks like for us. And then we're in this edit and edit again process. So, um, haven't dove into the new narratives because that's that's part of it is you you identify where your processes are, where your policies are, put those links within a document, but then articulate an individual narrative for each of these different content areas. Um, that's the next big stride should we decide to to move forward with this. Uh, and then, you know, celebrate the wins. It's going to be a long grind. This is not going to be something we that we can move through over the next six months. This is a

twoyear two to three year commitment to be able to move through it. Um so if we're going to have something that's that's that long of a horizon, uh we need to find ways to to break it down into small chunks and celebrate the wins along the way. Uh and then ultimately the goal is to sustain an organization that's that's moving at that high level. So setting up standards that we're reviewing these policies and procedures on a routine basis so when you go through the reacredititation process five years down the road that those links to policy documents are still updated that we're maintaining that database and the narratives as things change. So with that I'd stand for questions that you may have.

I have a question. What is the purpose of going through this accreditation? Why why would we do this? What's the

Yeah, the big thing is taking the chance to step back and really evaluate what it is we're doing and the purpose and the why behind it and being able to articulate that. So, one example would be our our current u encroachment policy and procedure. Is that current with the way we operate today? um and when was the last time we looked at it. So, it's really taking it down to those individual component parts and saying, "We're going to look at this every five years and make sure it's still current to the way we do business today and the way the community is expecting us to do things and setting that on the calendar, putting it on a list of things that we're going to do on that routine cycle [clears throat] and just ensuring that we're we're continuing to manage these facilities we've been entrusted with at a high level. It's the exercise that is the big value, the the stamp of approval. If we get there, great. But for me, it's it's the exercise and the discipline of of doing the right thing the right way consistently.

Um, so, so I'm clear. U to threeyear process to get accredited initially is your thought. Yeah. And then five years later you reacredit. Is that from the time you initially started or from the time you were awarded? From the time of award. Okay. So yeah, I I would say the two year two to three years of going through those 60ome 68 standards um ensuring that all of the narratives are done and that those policies that the links all work that that's all it's all going to take some time. So

and we have to go through this process again in five years. the entire application the sevenstep process or is it yes and oh

your new standard is not 80% of those electives but 90 so it's expected that you actually ratchet yourself up to a higher level of performance and and excellence in establishing policies and procedures some of it is you know strategic plan is listed as an item that it is completed in the the last five years. So, some of it's making sure that we're on CA cadence to go out and uh survey the community and ensure that we're still reflecting especially in a growing community like we have that we're still capturing our current population. Um, so that's the need for that reacredititation on a periodic basis is that they're they're looking to make sure staff as it that transition happens that they still understand the system uh that they understand the why and that our values are still being held true within the organization. So,

and what's the cost to get accredited? That's unknown because partly because of the um you know timeline you know two years from now who knows what that fee is going to be and then the other piece of it is that travel expenditure piece. What what is it now to go through the process besides the travel

$2,500 or so is kind of where it's been sitting. So not including the staff time to build the resources. That's going to be the larger commitment, right? is the the staff time associated with articulating the narratives and that sort of thing and ensuring that the policies and u plans are in place. You know, there's a true cost to updating a master plan on a five-year rotation. with that. Any thoughts on your perspective of of the value in this or uh I I I $2,500 is not u a large amount considering what um you know what you could get out of it. So I I mean I I'm all for it, but yeah,

I was expecting a larger number. So yeah, me too. I think this kind of an exercise is always good to for self-reflection and and it sounds like it gives you kind of the bullet points and the process to go through for an organization like a park and recreation department that are specific to that department. So I think that's a good that's always a good thing.

It it also will require us to work with others within the city. You know there are sections that are on information technology. So that'll require us to go through and update our own understanding of the way it is approaching some of our data ma data management and that um lot over a lot of overlap with finance division and HR those are two really big uh heavy lifts that it won't be us that are articulating those policies but it'll be working with them to to ensure that our understanding of that polic policy is what it is and that that we have it available. I think the other the other piece of this um with Chris coming online, having this information available in a in a database with the policies that we do know that we have right now, just having that data link is going to be a big value for him to to be able to use that as a resource. So,

okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian. If I could add a footnote to that,

I'll back up just a little bit. Um, I know Brian said if you wish to continue and everything, he also indicated we've been working this direction, which we have. It is um also one of the parts of our comprehensive plan was working towards this. So we've kept in line with that. Um I would recommend that we do look at it [snorts] as you asked about you know what's the value. I think Brian handled that really well. You know it's it's assuring the public that we are operating at the highest level. This is a great department. We don't you know toot our own horns enough on that but we stand equal to any of the ones out there. But it is a lot of work and you have to pick and choose how much of it you do to get to there. Um the one thing about having the standards like that is it lets you know that you're doing best practice and that you're operating efficiently which then says you're using the tax dollars to the best value. So you don't lose anything with this. the only gain.

I don't have anything yet. Thank you both.

All right. Falls Park Pond update. I thought I should let you know, but if there's any real questions, you have to ask uh Robbie and Brian [laughter] because I've kind of jumped on other things. But the pond itself, the fish pond has been dug out. The bentonite's been removed, relocated somewhere. Uh it's dealing with the snail issue. I think the plan right now of Vista is looking at coming back in with a liner system which also means um there has to be some type of drainage underneath it. So that stuff is being worked on. You will see that happen over the next next year and it's hopefully going to solve the issues of that we've been dealing with. So, when people ask you what happened to the pond and why it's all dug up and the rocks are moved and everything else, it's we're trying to resolve that issue. Actually, okay. A Vista is trying to resolve that issue for us. Let's just be honest.

It's great to have partners like a Vista. All right. Admin administrative update staff reports. Start with park construction update. Is that you Robbie? Yes.

Good evening members of the park and commission. Robbie Quinn, parks planner, and I'm going to go over a few of our current and near future projects that we'll be uh working on next year. So the first one here uh long awaited the Corey project. So we did receive official approval from the state and council has accepted our land and water conservation fund grant and that is for $1.25 million which is the largest the state has ever administered and obviously the largest one we've ever received. Um, and so that will cover our phase one improvements which are shown here on the plan. And just to summarize what those include, we'll be installing two multi-use soccer field or multi-use fields, um, one restroom shelter building here, the entry plaza, large parking lot, and then our maintenance yard. And this will the bid package will also include alternates for a playground and sports courts. And so timelinewise um we accepted that grant earlier this month and at that council meeting we also were approved to continue on our design. So the current construction plans were about 90%. we were waiting until we knew exactly when the project was going to go to make sure we needed to make any final tweaks so we could do that and so that was also approved. So currently the design team is working on making some of those adjustments. Um we have submitted for some of the permits currently. So waiting that review that generally takes about three weeks to get comments back and then depending on you know what those comments are how long that takes to reddraft. So, generally

looking at probably another couple months of permit timeline um with our hopes to start bidding around February and then start construction in the um March, April timeline of 2026 with an estimated about 10-month construction window. So, pretty exciting to finally be able to get started on this project. Next up, the Montro Sports Complex. So, this has been under construction this year. Um, so I have a few pictures I'll kind of run through. These were taken last week, so very current. Um, and then kind of talk through a little bit of timeline and how the rest of it's probably going to go. So, first one here is the parking lot. So, the parking lot is probably about 90% done. Asphalt, curbing, obviously landscape irrigation are in. The only thing left to do out there is install the irrig or the um lights and then the swale. But other than that, it's basically done. Uh so this is a shot from the southern end of the parking lot and this will end up being the main access into the sports complex. So this will continue as an asphalt approach into the site where we have the two fields on the left side of the image here. So this is one of the fields. So we have currently all the um outfield fencing and the back stop net poles installed as well as the dugout frames which you see here. Um, and then the last thing they did was they poured the first band of concrete kind of encapsulating the dugout section here. So that they needed to do that in order to get the infield mix installed. So that has also been done. Um, which is kind of hard to see

in the picture, but the infield mix has been installed. Another picture kind of looking at the two fields together. Again, same thing. Both fields are at basically the same stage. And so this is where we're at today. Um, obviously the construction window has essentially closed for the year. They are going to plan on it wrapping up most of the electrical still this year. So you can see in a lot of these photos there are conduits stubbed all over the place. So they will be getting handhole boxes in and those light poles installed in the parking lot still this year. But other than that, it's it's basically going to sit as is with the exception of getting some temporary fencing installed to hopefully protect these infields during the winter from people getting in there. So, and then next spring they'll pick up on site and complete the remainder of the work starting with getting the top soil out in the outfields and some of these landscape areas. Uh once that's complete, they'll be able to uh finish the concrete. So this essential essentially this whole area here is kind of a plaza will all be concrete. [snorts] And then lastly finish up with the asphalt access and there's another loop path on the north side. So they have um essentially figured about May is when they think it'll be completely wrapped up out there. We we weren't planning on playing on it at all in 26 regardless. Um, and so it'll give it a year to kind of grow in and be ready for play in 2027. And then last but not least, Black Bay. So, as you know, we've we've been the majority of Black Bay has been complete with the exception of the boardwalk, which we were waiting on um a lot of parts to come in. And as you can see by

these photos, we are almost there. Uh, it's about 90% complete, I would say, at this point. There were a few panels that had to be refabricated just to the difficulty and angles and slopes that they didn't quite get right in the fab shop. And so, those are have been refabricated and should have been delivered this week. Um, so the plan is for the contractor to get back out there probably next week. Um, and then maybe another week or so worth of installation. So, getting really close. Hopefully mid December it should be completely wrapped up. So, I'll just kind of run through a few more pictures of this. Um, I guess just starting on this one. Uh, so this is the new kind of beach area. You can see in the Oh, you can't even see my mouse this whole time. There we go. So this is our tacified aggregate uh walkway. So this is the ADA accessible route to the boardwalk. Um it ended up turning out very nicely. Um and so that connects all the way, which you'll see in a future photo here. But what they have done to date, they have all the decking installed. Um, as you can see, most of the the uh guard rail and the metal grading. So, this is another view from the entrance of the boardwalk. And the this is actually a ramp going down to the lower platform uh down here which will be submerged about an inch or two underwater at full uh summer pool. And so in that scenario, these lower panels actually are removable. So in the summer we can pull

them out and people can access the water. In the winter time when water's five feet lower, we'll put the panels up to um protect the users. And here's another example of a piece that they're still waiting on here. And this was the entrance that I was mentioning. They did end up having to re not they didn't redo, they waited to do this last five feet of the tyified aggregate until the boardwalk is complete. Um, so that's why you're seeing some ruts right there, but that has since been fixed and just another photo of the boardwalk. So, with that, we'll stand for any questions.

It looks really nice. It does. It turned out really nice. It It makes a huge difference seeing it with the the railing and the cables. It looks great out there. All right. Thank you.

All right. Up next, 2025 Parks and Recck Department Review.

Dave Fair, Park and Rec Director. I wasn't originally going to do this part from the podium, but it's hard to just hold the button down and talk and flip pages. I know. Have me do two things at once. It's just wrong. Um, as you know, the rumor is that I'm retiring and that means that I won't be here to answer some of the questions on things as they come up. But I wanted to share with you some of the numbers that we look at the benchmarks and things and things that jumped out at me. So I did send you a few items in the packet. But before I get to that, uh first and foremost, we had a good year. the numbers don't always uh picture that without having a reference on the idiosyncrasies that are involved with those numbers. But uh certain things, you know, the cemetery, we had 84 services last year. That was a slight decrease by two services. But our lot sales, we had a large increase up to 112 sales. So that tells you that future years we're going to have a lot more business there. Now, one of the things with the services we had, 73% of those were burials versus cremations. Um, [snorts] what makes that interesting is one, that's absolutely opposite of the national trend. Should be the other way around. Number two, it tells you that we will be going through our cemetery land much quicker. how you extend cemeteries is with cremations and niches and all of that. So, uh, down the road, we're gonna have to obtain, if we wish to continue being in the cemetery business versus just maintaining the cemetery, we're going to have to buy more land for the cemetery.

Uh, one of the things I wanted to let you know is the free resident car passes. I think we're in our third year, fourth year. Help fourth uh was controversial, but we gave out 1,381 free uh car passes to our residents. That equates to $27,620 of value. In addition to that, another 34 resident um passes were purchased. That means somebody who wanted to have a second one for their family or they lost one also sold for 44 non-residents. So, you know, you're you're looking at there about 1450 for the number of passes. So, those are people that are going quite a bit. revenue for the parking and the boat launch or $132,851 were collected on daily revenue. That's what helps pay for the free uh passes we do plus our general fund maintenance and operations. Picnic shelters, we had 360 of those. Most of those are prime time weekend. And it's our ones at Camilan Park that probably account for 80%. No, I'm just guessing on that. Brian will probably correct me.

Not anymore. Not anymore. It's everywhere.

Okay. It's everywhere. So, we're going to say uh instead 80% we're going to say 79%. [laughter] But that equates to 56,436. The trail head had 55 rentals for 45,479. And as Robbie mentioned, we received our largest grant ever for land and water of 1.25 million. With that said, um if you look at our I gave you a three-year program for our recreation programs, it covers enrollment and attendance. Uh the enrollment stayed fairly flat from last year to this year. I think they're both at 11,000. we were down slightly but if you look at um enroll or attendance which is attendance hours that was also flat but that's a big jump from where you saw it in 23 and that's really because we reconfigured how we are doing some of the programs uh our camps really took off and if I go through some of these we have programs that have been eliminated lack of interest lack of instructor change in staffing and other that we've stabilized. So, one of the big things in there, you look, is the camp. And part of that is we're into our second year of having a consistent uh full-time staff for that and starting to rebuild those seasonal staff members. For a while there, we were going through coordinators quite a bit and seeing a lot of changes. So, that's a positive thing. Uh it also means that with some of those changes we've experienced, we're stabilizing programs, getting people trained because it takes a minimum of a year just to understand all

the different programs and then about three years to truly u be able to push it, get the relationships going. So not a surprise to see us being flat in that sense. uh should see an increase this next year and then after that a little bit larger larger increase on those uh usage. In the next presentation I'll talk a little bit more about one of the other effects that we've got to experience. That's kind of a cliffhanger right there. If you go to the city's financial reports, uh really a few things that I wanted to highlight in there is under urban forestry. The very first one, uh as you can see, we don't have contracts and professionals this in the budget, but we're working on getting that back. That's what we use for those projects that are maybe outside of our staff's comfort level, removing the hazard trees or just time expenditure. That account was up a 100,000 over the previous year and that was strictly due to equipment purchases. So when people look at these things and say, "Well, your budgets have really increased." The personnel side of it hasn't. We've decreased in some areas, but we have we have person or uh equipment purchases. when you go into uh the four 42 account which is cemetery one area that jumps a lot and it's we try and budget what we think will happen but we're really conservative on it but headstones and graveliners that strictly is a product of one the cost of those items because we have to buy them and pass it on. The

second one is just what what people want. Some people will buy the headstones at the time of burial. Some people buy it when they buy the lots and they want to have that all set and ready to go. So that's one when you're looking at it will always be just fluctuating. And you'll look at what you know example is we budgeted 32,000 we spent 82 but it is pass through. We charge for that amount plus. So I I don't worry about that too much. It shows up on the other side in our revenues. Uh cemetery was down 150,000 from the previous year. Once again, construction project that was the Spokane Street um project that we had the previous year. I'd love to say it's because of, you know, great management and everything else, but the reality is a lot of these things we do are equipment capital based or project based. One thing that jumped out on me on the 443 account for the uh [snorts] parks, the hiring costs, uh that was up from the $5,000 budget to 149. I'm willing to bet that that's because uh I decide to retire and they're they hired a firm to go look for that. Yeah. And that that one was fairly flat from the previous year. A slight decrease, but as you see, we'll have some areas where utilities go way above. We have to cut back on some of our other M costs. 444. That's strictly whatever capital

projects we have going on. That one's going to change from year to year. It It's not the impact fee budget, but it's the monies that are coming out either grant passroughs or through the um general fund. So, that one is just going to be depend on whatever we're doing. I think the one thing that triggered it a little bit there that we weren't planning for was the Chase restroom fires. So, and that'll come out next year, too. So, you're going to see that that pushed through. When we get to the recreation side, as I said, it was flat. The expenditures were flat also. Only a few thousand difference. So, that was to be expected. Uh, as I said, we had a good year. It shows when you look at the revenue side of it, you know, the parking was good and solid. Not our highest, but it was good and solid for what we were expecting. When you look at that um issue, we were fairly flat from last year. We were slightly under. I need to borrow your glasses, Gina, to actually read that low, but it we're about 100,000 off from meeting budget. The reality is we were over budget except in here is a um a block grant for 400,000. So, we will be getting that. It just didn't close out in time to reflect that. One of the things I did highlight because it's always a challenge for us when we're doing scholarships for the um students. So people can sign up and apply for a scholarship. They don't have

enough money to pay for the um programs. We limit how many they can get and they get a partial credit on that. But we do it for both the camp and then just for general um recreational programs. that is stuff we have to go out and fund raise for the whole thing. So, if any of you have um connections with businesses or other interests um or you're just talking to people and somebody who wants to step in and how can I help the the community, that's a great way. We need um we need to be funding that more. Like I said, when we run out of money, we've run out of money, so some people don't get to use it. Uh so any help we could get there for scholarship monies would be greatly appreciated. It helps our programs. It helps our community. So um those were things that I wanted to highlight. I thought they jumped for me. They jumped out. Needed to be explained a little bit. As I said, it's a good year. Um after next year, you're just going to have to make up the reason why some of those numbers don't make sense or do make sense. So, thank you.

I do have a question. How do you solicit for those scholarship donations? We work with uh the Corlane Kuanas on the camp one. We have as people sign up for their programs. Um there's a check box where they could donate money. Some people do that. You know, I'll round it up, do whatever. Uh some of it's just going to friends and we're sometimes running out of friends. So no real fundraiser per se, just donations the community. Okay.

You know, we've thought of a lot of different fundraisers for different things. You know, one thing I've always wanted to do is start charging at Post Falls donation for parking and all that money goes to um a dedicated fund for playgrounds. Playgrounds are so expensive and one of my pet peeves is seeing just an average playground. It's it's a signature. It's something that, you know, designates it makes a park special. Most of the kids and most of the parents probably call White Pine Park Castle Park. It's because we hit it right and we have something that stands out. That's a side note. That was a squirrel. But um yeah, we just we go to people. We try to, you know, shake the bushes, but we don't do as good a job as we should. But then you guys have contacts that we don't have. Everybody has their own little circles of of stuff.

Okay. Thank you. I'll be back in a minute with new information. New presentation.

New Yeah, that's what I meant. Uh, general parks recreation discussion. Is that you, too? with this one. I had pretty pictures. [snorts] Once again, Dave Far Park recctor. Yeah. The reason I wanted to [clears throat] do this, uh, this is a mini version of what I'll be presenting to council. Um, so if you have nothing to do on the second council meeting of December, you can go see the bigger version. Uh, and really it comes down to recognizing there's going to be a loss of institutional knowledge. Uh, so I wanted to pass that on. I'm also kind of a control freak, so Um, our department has changed a lot in 30 years and you need to have a little bit of perspective of where you've come from to understand where you're going. I'm not going to go over every detail, but to give you an idea, in 1994, uh, we had six parks. Today, we have 37 parks. We had 157 acres and change of parkland. We now have 933 acres of parkland. I can't tell you what the program enrollment was back in '94. I can't tell you what the attendance was. They didn't take those records. Took me a year because I'm a little slow to catch on that. We didn't have those records. So, we didn't have numbers until 1996. At that point, our attendance

uh so that attendance that's program hours was 25,773 hours. In comparison, today our enrollment as you saw was 11,128 uh about 180,000 and uh attendance hours. The number of divisions we had back then was two. Number of uh park and wreck employees was three six counting myself. We now have 32 counting myself. We have five divisions. So we've grown a little bit. The community's grown a little bit. Um and we've become very professional in our operations. You know, revenues at that time were 93,977. Today just in uh general fund, it's 1.4 million plus. We didn't have impact fees then. Matter of fact, my first full year 95 95 our uh capital budget that was for park projects and equipment was $3,000. Impact fees was just over 2 million this year or this last year. So, we've changed a lot, but our expenditures have gone up, too. Back then, we spent uh 265,000. Now we're at 5.5 million. So I'd love to tell you that things get cheaper, but they haven't. Not in that time. U [snorts] at the last time I talked about there is

something else that has impacted what our attendance, our revenues, everything. And I know it was in 2020. That's five years ago. But I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about that because the impacts were really um far-reaching for us. They had an impact on the department, the community, the world. We all know that. We all lived through it. We had to deal with it. But when you look at some of the numbers, you look at things that changed um and the benchmarks we have. So, one of the things I want to in here I show you is 246,000 was attendance hours in 2019 dropped down to 96,000 in 20 which was to be expected. There were programs we couldn't run. We had to do the distancing. We did everything that we could. Um we had that's but that's attendance hours. That's not people using the parks. We actually saw the park usage and all of the the self stuff jumping quite heavily. We still see a lot of that. So when we see a shift when I talked about those enrollment and tendance that's strictly recreation classes. Um we've bounced up tound or the next year we went up to 156,000. We're at 181 right now. So you can see that change has been slower in happening. One of the biggest uh things that happened though when you look at volunteer hours before that 72,000 hours we had volunteers multiple for teams you had all this stuff um co of course we had to cut down went dropped out but they the volunteer hours didn't bounce back up with the programs matter of fact they went down to 3200

we're at about between five and 6,000 000 right now. And that's a that's an issue that you know so society sees, the community sees. You don't see as many people in the civic organizations. You don't see the same engagement. So there was a lot of disengagement caused by that. Um it's it slowed I was going to say stopped our growth, but it didn't stop it. It slowed down what we were doing. We're finally getting back into into gear and you know it's kind of like a long plateau. We're going up. you're going to see a lot of parks coming in that just kind of got held. Uh but the community growth didn't stop. So kind of having we're not keeping up the way we should, but we're starting to accelerate again. I think the biggest thing was the change in expectations, the demands uh for what we do, why we do it, how we do it. So those are things that we've had to respond to. uh the public interaction of when we do parks. I think Singing Hills was a great example of that. Something we had been working on. We had done it. And to have it um stopped at the 11th hour, it means that we have to educate more, but we also have to move faster because you have people that move into the area, they don't know it. We have to explain what we're doing. So, there's a little extra work for staff in that. And of course the skyrocketing cost of construction in lead times. As I said, it it impacted all of us. It changed how we do business. Some of those things aren't going back and we found better ways to do some things. So, I'm not saying it's all negative. I'm just saying you have to understand that when you look at our numbers, you look at long-term statistics, it doesn't tell you that whole change. And there's a reason for it.

One of the other things I wanted to talk to you guys about is how we do our our planning. uh you know we we allow development to drive where we develop and that's to a degree. Um [snorts] the one thing I hope is we never get locked into a stepbystep development system because we won't keep up with growth. You have to have that broad enough um brush stroke that you can go in and take advantage of things that are happening. You know, if you ask me where we would develop and how we develop and see, I couldn't guess that. I'm not sure anybody really can. Sometimes it's it's fueled by access by infrastructure. Sometimes it's available land. It's banks everything have. But we have to be ready to say that in that case this is what we want. So we do that with that onem map that has helped us a lot to address it. We are in better shape than a lot of departments older departments around the nation because they didn't develop their system with their community. They were kind of set and regimented and now they're dealing with areas that don't have services. You know, I grew up in one of those places. Matter of fact, until I got into college, I didn't even know what park and recreation was because we weren't service it serviced in that sense. So, I was outside of Seattle, but if you weren't in town, you didn't see it. Uh, we've always made a point to put the right park in the right location. And once again that's that to the degree. Um we are approached on different things about you know will we take this on do this or that. If it's not um big enough it's not coste effective for us to

maintain it. It also doesn't allow us the flexibility to provide the systems that uh people want. So I ask you to keep that in mind. Keep our standards up. Um fight for the level of service It's easy to cut back, but once you start cutting back, you're not moving forward. So that 10 acres of level two open space, one acre, I mean the level one active space, six acres, that's 16 acres. Done a remarkable job of maintaining that. So that's a critical thing. You know, when you look at the parks and they're brought forward to you and you have some reference in that design, look at the design for engagement. You can build the most magnificent park. It can be an award-winning park, but if people aren't using it, it's not worth anything. We haven't done a citizen survey for a long time. I think 14, 2014 was the last time, but we had a 90 93% usage of our parks. That's a very high usage by our citizens. That says we're doing something right. So, keep that up. Um, I'm going to push that. Keep um getting the city parks. I know it becomes a tax issue and what we can afford. We've tried to modify and go to robotics and do this and that, but if we put them all into HOAs or private parks, you're you're hamstringing the future generations because if we own it and control it, as needs change, as trends change, all of that,

[snorts]

um, we're able to make those changes and keep the parks relevant. If we don't have control, you're going to have areas that just aren't being utilized. So, that's a critical part. As I leave, these are things I hope you keep in mind as you help lead the department and guide the staff and everything, but don't lose sight of the little things make up great parks and programs. And the way I look at that is all of our all nationwide I'm gonna pick on firemen right now. So, I'd pick on the police, but I'd probably get stopped on the way home. So, I'm going to pick on the fire department. You can go pretty much anywhere in the nation, and they're all the same. They run the same way. They may have a white truck, a yellow truck, or a red truck, but pretty much they just they're standardized. And that's good because it works. Parks and WC doesn't work that way. That's what makes us difficult. We're not mandated. We're here because the people want us, but we reflect the community. So, it's those little things that make a difference. Always engage the community. We're here for the people. Parks are for people. Recreations for people. Everything is about that community engagement. Um, we're going to in the future need to expand our revenue centers. Uh, [snorts] I probably should have done it the other way around because the next slide talks about that. But we need to have broaden out where our revenues are coming in because if you have one cycle, it can totally change everything.

Obtain land that's adjacent to your parks whenever possible. Now, sometimes the costs are just too high and we can't do it. We've faced that many times. But take a hard look at that. Uh I think over the next probably 10 years that downtown area is going to become critical. That's everything around here to the river. We're seeing that change right now, but I would ask you guys to lead the charge to obtain the railway corridor when Burlington Northern finally vacates it. The loss of that is I don't even want to think about it. It's critical to get that the connectivity it does to some of our parks. It's also how we connect the Centennial Trail that where it should have been on the original, that's what was drawn for to Core Lane. It also broadens out where we're really tight in some areas. But just getting the railway corridor isn't enough. There's the switchyard. That switchyard is critical. It needs to be obtained. It needs to become a a center point for downtown and an event space. Camil Camille Park is being heavily used. We use it for that, but it needs some relief. So, you need to look at that. Um, we need to finish the Espenade and we need to try and obtain more land around the water tower so that you have that connectivity. There's going to be fewer and fewer spaces. You might look at a a public mall in some of this stuff, but it's having that space that's critical. To the south of the community forest, there's the Department of Lands is up on the hill. We need to find access to that. Um, that's 1600 acres of land that

could be used also for trails. He could use for some mountain biking. It's up high enough that you could um those trails could also be then used for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing. So, it expands that that beauty that we have with the community forest. Uh don't have a lot of large parcels of land left in the city. The pot latch property is one of the last ones probably. So, when that comes forward trying to get as big a piece uh of that, go around the uh skate park over on the other side. But don't forget that that's that's there. The Pendar building that's right next to our maintenance shop. If that ever comes up for sale, need to try and push for getting that. whether that becomes a community center site, whether that becomes office space for the parks department, combination of both, or um even expansion of our center. That's just that's part of the original Black Bay. So, trying to get back that land. Uh the last big parcel of land that's really around, unless you go out into the prairie and further out, is the Hansen property at state line. That's 98 acres. is not annexed into the city. So, when that comes in to be annexed, I I would be pushing that there's some parkland that comes with it. We do recognize that we'd like to see a trail system along the river. Uh we have some easements already in place that would connect to that, but also just having additional land that might join up with the Centennial Trail and the county's uh parcel land there. It's a great focal point.

Not on here. We should look at building a fieldhouse. When you look at community center, right now we have to use the school district's property and we thank them for that, their facilities, everything. But that's one user that controls all of our destiny in that when CO hit, we didn't get to run basketball, we didn't get to run volleyball. It had a severe impact on the program. So that's just like revenue, expanding your revenue strength. Having that in there is important, strengthen our partnerships and expand them. We can't do it alone. And then the final thing I hate, you know, I have this whole list of things we should be getting and stuff. I hate to share it because then I work for Scaja County. You know, they listed exactly what they wanted. Prices went way up. But if there's houses go up for sale on Parkway Drive, we need to try try and buy them. and then rent them till we're ready to expand parking. So, that's kind of looking at that future. Talked about the funding, the stuff in black, general fund, fees and charges, donations that was in place when I came here. Since then, we've added uh sponsorships, impact fees, we go after grants now, and we do have a few rentals. The sponsorships have a lot of room to grow. That's going to be somebody else's thing to do, but be picky. You know, it's easy to sell yourself for a few dollars up front, but look at that long-term relationship. It has to be a win-win because they're representing you. You're representing them. On rentals, that's land. That could be houses, equipment, concessions. That's an area to expand out. the revenue centers. You know, we've talked about RV parks. Once we get the

Corey done, we can then go look at the Corbin property. That's lots of grants for that. Low match. Um [snorts] it services. I've had a lot of people say, "Well, we shouldn't have anything like that. That's not what we're supposed to be in. It's park." We also have a lot of people that have moved to the community that aren't used to being out in the woods or you have a single mom and her kids. They're afraid to go out there. Something in town or they have a job that restricts them but they want to go with their grandkids. Something that allows them for that quick, easy access to experience a park-like setting. Corbin Park's perfect for that. Um, you don't do long-term rentals. It has to be shortterm. A week would be probably even too long, but you do that. You don't do mega stalls. You do smaller. You have some camp, maybe a yurt or a cabin. You have some camping sites. There are people that travel uh do the bike um touring. We we host some companies with that. They'd use it. Um [snorts] but it adds another amenity. It gives you a revenue source that once again offsets that. We've got the sports complex being built with Montros and the Corey. Those need to be uh geared up, tournaments, league play, but tournaments are where you're going to make the money. So, expanding all of that. Remember our mission. It is for the people, those that make up Post Falls, those that make up our community, and then our visitors. And then the final thing I want to let you know is trust the staff here. I felt good about leaving at this point. It's a great staff.

I don't worry about the the department. They're in good hands. So, believe in them, support them, have their back. and thank you. And most of all, I want to thank you guys for the time you've spent sitting on this. Some of you are fairly new. Some of you have been around for quite a while. Um, but I do appreciate the time you spend. I know it takes you away from your families. It takes you away from other interests and everything, but um, it speaks volumes about your engagement and how much you care about postfalls. So, for that, I thank you and I'm open to questions. No questions. He left us in good hands.

Thank you, Dave.

Okay. All right, we have a written forestry report. Are we I got to remember to push the button. push the button. Yeah, I'd say you could train me before the next time, but no. Uh Preston wasn't able to be here, so I just asked him to have a written one so you guys at least know what's happening there and what's going on. Okay. And then a tree does kind of remind me. We have the Christmas tree lighting ceremony next Friday.

Next Friday. Uh we lost a tree, but we gained a tree. So, please come out and support and see that. And that will be the winter fest with all the crafts and activities here on on site. Right. Correct. I was curious. So, it's 4 to 8. When is the actual tree lighting? I haven't been given the schedule, but if I remember right, 6:00. Okay. Okay, with that any commission comments before we close out.

That was uh last meeting that we have Dave. So just uh thanks for your service for the city of uh what 31 years or more. Push the button. Damn. [laughter] Can we have a can we have a motion detected system, you know, for some of us older and slower people? Uh, just shy of 30 years because I did take two years off to go to back to Western Washington and go to Sketch County, but um it's been a good it's been a good job.

You've done a good job. Thank you for your time and I've appreciated sitting on the board and getting to know you over the past six years. What do we decide? Too many too many years. Come on. More years than that. All right. Anyone else? Okay. Meeting adjourned.