Parks Recreation Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone. And welcome to the September 14th, 2026 Parks and Recreation board meeting. Erin, if I could get a roll call, please.

Board member Caviezel and board member Martin are excused. Board member Tier 2?

Present.

Board member Reagan?

Present.

Board member Spracklin?

Present.

Vice Chair McKenna?

Present.

Chair Whiter?

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you, Eric. If I could get a motion for the approval of the agenda? Motion to approve the agenda. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Does anyone make a motion for the consideration of the minutes? Motion to consider the minutes.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Sounds like that carries also. Erin, do we have any more public comments tonight?

Yes, we have one member of the public here, Zachary Sanders.

Thank you. Welcome, Zachary.

You will just need to turn on your microphone. It should, yeah.

Good evening, Chair and members of the board. My name is Zach Sanders. I live in Puyallup in District 2, and I've lived here my whole life. I plan to stay here, and I want to help the city in any way I can just to become as good as it can be. And I was here last time, the last meeting, and in July, during that benchmark presentation, we passed with flying colors almost everywhere. More trail miles in the peer median, twice the playgrounds, more revenue per resident. And those benchmarks aren't something we have to hit necessarily. It's just to show what our peers do. So we're already doing really well compared to the people around us. It's one place we come up short and that is aquatics and outdoor pools, indoor aquatic centers, competitive pools, leisure and therapeutic. And we have nothing to go through all of that. We do have a splash pad, but that is on a different, it's not considered an aquatic facility per se. And I put together a concept for what a pool could look like, broke down the numbers, pulled examples from other cities. It's all at swimpuelup.com. I put that up about two, three months ago. And I put out a survey. I just wanted to see what people think. I got like only 25 responses. But some people were for it. Some people obviously don't really want to pay more taxes. So it just depends on what we want as a city. But the main thing is a aquatics firm found my website and reached out to me in August. They design pools, they do inspections, and they run feasibility studies, which was the thing I was initially asking for. But definitely a little too far ahead of myself. So I was able to ask them some questions and got some good information about how this really works with pools and how they're built. And the most important thing is he offered to get on a video call with this board directly. So you wouldn't have to hear all that from me, from a middleman, not truly understanding everything. I believe I have sent their information to Cody. So yeah, if you guys are interested, he could definitely get that to you. I know the city has its hands full and a pool doesn't seem like it's something we can necessarily take on right now. And our tax base would probably not be willing to pay for it right now, but just to have the city consider it at the very least name possible aquatic center in the pros plan, being in the adopted plan helps make it eligible for state and federal grants, at least to get them easier.

I believe that's all. Thank you.

Zach.

Thank you, Zachary. I would encourage you to also bring your presentation to the city council too and discuss budget with them also. All right. Great. So we will move on to considerations and requests if that's no more public comment. And so we have the pros element draft public hearing. And I believe we have to We have to have a vote on that tonight. Is that correct, Cody?

Yeah, we'll ask you to vote if everything looks good to approve that and send that on to council. At this point in time, everybody has the Parks Recreation open space with the red line copy in front of them. And Alex and Wayne and Nick are waiting on Zoom and we'll do a brief presentation on the comp plan update. And then we can open it up for public hearing. Okay.

So after the presentation, that will be open for public hearing for members of the public to have two minutes to speak. After that, the chair will conclude that there are no more public comments to be made. And then the board will be able to present their own suggestions, ask questions, anything like that.

Thank you, Erin. All right. Well, I guess without further ado, let's bring Alex on board here and let's hear what he has to say.

Great. Hello, Parks and Recreation Board. Good to see you guys again. Tonight's meeting is a little bit different in context, but really builds on all the information that we've been working on over the past almost a calendar year at this point since October 2025. Tonight's process, the ask, is a little bit different, separate than the actual PROS plan itself, just as a little bit of context setting. Tonight's ask is primarily focused on the park recreation and open space element of the comprehensive plan. And although those two have a very large overlap, they are separate documents, and I think that context is important for consideration of the documents in front of you tonight. Again, just as a brief primer, the entire Parks, Recreation, and Open Space plan still undergoing our updates that we've been discussing and meeting with you guys regularly since October of last year on. The PROS plan itself, the Park, Recreation, Open Space PROS plan is very detailed, contains a lot more information than the comprehensive plan element does. The comprehensive plan element is really intended to distill the PROS plan in a little bit more of a digestible format, kind of the 3,000-foot level of information with the important context of staying consistent with respect to goals and policies between the two plans. So really, that's the driver of the comprehensive plan update piece that's included in the packet for consideration tonight. We're building on the information that we started to update the PROS plan itself with and distilling that into the PROS element of the comprehensive plan. So understand there's a lot of overlapping terminology that could definitely step on each other's toes. If there's ever a point of clarity where I can help distinguish which path that we're discussing, happy to pause and do so. Feel free to interrupt me. With that being said, I will share our presentation for tonight. One second while I pull that up. All righty. Perfect. Just want to make sure that this is displaying full screen for you guys.

Yes, Alex, it is.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So a bit of context setting, this is going to be a repeat for the Park and Recreation Board, but really for the purposes of members of the public, anybody that might listen online currently, or might listen to this meeting later, a brief overview of what is the PROS plan. Again, the PROS plan is the full park recreation and open space plan document that really dives into all the details that we've been working on, including goals and policies, level of service standards, park and recreation inventory, and then funding as well. So that is really what's highlighted on this slide, what is included in our PROS plans. And one of the primary drivers of having a certified PROS plan, which the city currently does, is to maintain eligibility for grant funding for additional pursuits of parks and recreation funding at the state level. Importantly, and this is a good segue with the comprehensive plan update portion of tonight, the PROS plan itself really helps guide decisions by city policymakers. The PROS plan serves as a document to serve as the basis for decision making and funding priorities. It establishes maybe some of the gaps in the park and recreation system that the city currently has. To Zachary's point earlier, potentially aquatics, making sure that we're starting to address that and make sure that good policy language as the city sees fit is to either prioritize that or maybe establish why it's not a good idea. That's a policy decision for the city to make. But having that information contained in the PROS plan is important. Also important getting back to the comprehensive plan is ensuring that the pros plan a comprehensive plan are saying the same message and that's what the comprehensive plan update is intended to intended to do. The city updated its 2024 comprehensive plan adopted it at the end of 2024 with valid cycle through 2044 20 year horizon. So a fair question is, why are we updating the PROS plan now? The comprehensive plan has been adopted. And really the major benefit, there's been some changes at the state level for how the PROS plans get certified. And certification means you're eligible for grant funding. Again, kind of the primary driver of keeping our parks plan certified. The new rule or the new update changes the period of time that the PROS plan is valid for. Now, if the city were to adopt the PROS plan and the comprehensive plan in association with one another, instead of tracking separate update cycles for the PROS plan and the comprehensive plan, both of those documents are now on the same update cycle. And there's two really major benefits of that. One, from a city staff and elected official perspective, major policy updates are happening simultaneously versus year after year. And two, it helps ensure that as these major policy documents are updated, they're consistent with one another. They're happening at the same time. Major crux of the PROS plan update. The city just adopted their PROS plan, the currently adopted PROS plan in 2020. So the intention of the update process that we've been undergoing is primarily related to time relevancy, making sure that we're updating the PROS plan for projects and priorities that are already completed and recalibrating for additional future looking priorities since 2020. So a bit of a context, the comprehensive plan update piece of this. This is really our new effort that we had not discussed previously through our Parks and Recreation Board meetings that has been primarily focused on the PROS plan itself, level of service information, goals and policies. So where the comprehensive plan update piece comes in. There is an annual amendment process for the city's comprehensive plan, and that has a pretty strict timeline by the end of this calendar year. And what we want to make sure is that the pros plan, I'm sorry, the pros element of the comprehensive plan is updated to reflect our revised information in this pros plan draft that we've been reviewing since October of last year. We want to make sure that this pros this pros element of the comprehensive plan is adopted this calendar year otherwise just based on the annual amendment cycle, the comprehensive plan. It would likely have to wait until next calendar year. And while we can do that really the efficiency here is while we're updating the pros plan itself. Let's make sure the comprehensive plan element is saying all the same information. and start our extended certification clock for the PROS plan, get it on the same update cycle as a comprehensive plan. Really our changes to the PROS plan are highlighting three major elements. One is the time relevant piece that we just discussed. Two is a review and confirmation of existing goals and policies. And that has been accomplished not only in coordination with Parks and Recreation Board, but also our public survey that we issued earlier this year and a public open house in August of this year. And three, ensuring consistency between the comprehensive plan and PROS plan. Again, just making sure the major policy documents are consistent and addressing the same information. A bit of context setting, who are we planning for in both the PROS plan and the PROS element of the comprehensive plan? We're planning for the city's population, no surprise. Since 2010, there's been a significant amount of growth. Also, no surprise to residents at the city. But there's a diverse band of residents at the city to plan for from a parks and recreation perspective. As you see on the slide, there's a healthy amount of residents that are under 18 and over 65, with a median age just over 36. And really what all that information means is there's not a one-size-fits-all solution for park and recreation planning. The diversity in age groups that the city has, the diversity in recreation interests that the city has makes it so that we want to account for the priorities citywide and incorporate that into the PROS plan, again, to really help decision makers make informed decisions of funding and development priorities for the city's park and recreation system in the future. And how do parks get paid for? Really a key element. Again, going back to the public comment that we heard already, Zachary identified correctly that aquatic resources, great. However, they are not free. The park and recreation system has to be grounded in reality through the lens of the PROS plan and the PROS element of the comprehensive plan. And that really comes from the funding availability or feasibility of anticipated improvements and how the parks and recreation amenities throughout the city get paid for is a variety of ways. And Highlighted on the screen, the one that I really wanna highlight here is the state grants. Again, our extended eligibility window by adopting the PROS plan consistent with the comprehensive plan extends the city's eligibility through the State Recreation and Conservation Office, RCO. That's the office where a lot of the park and recreation funding comes from the state level. And having a certified PROS plan keeps the eligibility for grants there. And having a certified PROS plan means your PROS plan is consistent with the comprehensive plan. So really just trying to tie all these pieces together of the documentation you see before you and why we're updating this material. So a brief highlight of the city's park system today, a variety of neighborhood, community parks, open space corridors, trails, a lot of well-loved parks, a lot of parks that might need a little bit of attention and TLC. All of this information, which is identified in the PROS plan, really emphasizing the parks that are well-loved, large with a lot of different recreation facilities. activities, and then even down to smaller parks, which, although might be a bit smaller in acreage, are still critical parts of the city's overall park inventory. And that includes trails and open spaces, including ways to create open space corridors that tie not only the trails to one another, but the trails to park and recreation areas throughout the city. So again, really, this is highlighted throughout the PROS plan and the information that we've reviewed over the last calendar year. I just want to highlight the information that's contained not only in the PROS plan, but the level of information that also gets translated to the PROS element of the comprehensive plan. And parks and trails are certainly not the only parks and recreation considerations. There's a variety, especially under the recreation lens, the recreation center, aptly named, provides a lot of recreation opportunities, not just for younger individuals, but adults and then also seniors. And there's community events like the farmer's market, specifically adult services, and then other places for the community to gather and how to partake in the recreation and park opportunities the city provides, like community garden plots and picnic shelters. So how does the plan get put together? And from this lens, it's not only the parks, recreation, and open space plan itself, but again, how that translates to the comprehensive plan element related to PROS, again, for consistency. The highlight here is that it does not occur in a vacuum. It does not occur just by city staff. or us as consultants, really we wanna drive any update process based on park and recreation board feedback and community feedback. So really we provided a public survey that gathered initial thoughts and sentiments for the 2020 PROS plan. Where was that plan still strong and valid? Where did that plan maybe need some finessing or updates again through the time relevancy lens? And then we also provide in-person opportunities. There is an August open house where members of the public were able to come out, take a look at this information on boards, ask questions to us and city staff, clarify any information and provide their feedback. Outside of the public perspective, there's also kind of the nuts and bolts of this process, which is really the inventory of park and recreation facilities throughout the city. Figuring out how has the inventory list in the 2020 plan evolved since 2020, what needs to be changed in terms of inventory, what is available, and what is the quality of that inventory. Just making sure that we're staying up to date through the lens of the PROS plan and, again, consistent in the comprehensive plan. And then identifying goals and policies, really the overarching driver of this policy document, where this will be a repeat to the Parks and Rec Board. Goals are really that higher level, again, 30,000 foot. Where do we want to be as a city? What do we want to develop our park and recreation system into? where the policies are supporting information that establish how to achieve that goal. So making sure that our goals and policies are up to date is critically important, as is making sure they're consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. And again, this does not happen in a vacuum. Tonight, bringing it in front of you guys for review, comment, and ideally a recommendation to move this forward. However, there's additional public commenting opportunities, particularly through the adoption process as City Council reviews not only the PROS element, but the PROS plan itself ahead of adoption. Again, tonight's focus is primarily on that PROS element of the comprehensive plan. And we also want to highlight some major priorities that are already in motion. Again, this is really that time-relevant piece. Highlighting the new playground at Van Lierup, identifying ongoing renovations and repairs, highlighting new trail connections and anticipated trail connections where the planning process is going since 2020, and then identifying the importance of open space habitat, water quality, and all the benefits that open space corridors, even separate from trails or parks themselves, provide to the city. And incorporating what we've heard. So really this gets to how do we develop the plan? How do we decide what gets changed? And the basis of that is our engagement process since we've begun this project. We issued a public survey in October of 2025, held that open through, I want to say early January, if memory serves. It was at least through the end of the year, really tried to pick up some responses. And I believe we were in the hundreds of responses, not quite to a thousand, a bit shy of that. That was kind of our internal benchmark, but we did receive a lot of responses that really helped direct the edits that you see, not only in the pros plan, as we've reviewed that so far, but the pros element of the comprehensive plan that's in front of you. you tonight. And just want to highlight the Parks and Recreation boards that we presented to you guys varying information throughout the last calendar year, with a notable highlight of the public open house for goals and policies of the pros element just last month in August. So priorities and next steps. Our intention tonight is to get a recommendation from the Parks Board to advance this element as revised for additional consideration and ideally adoption in association with all the comprehensive plan amendments. Really the driver for us from a scheduling perspective, again, is just making sure that we're staying on track with the comprehensive plan annual amendment process. We want this to ideally get adopted by city council in association with the other comprehensive plan amendments by the end of this calendar year. And again, that just helps us ensure that we have extended eligibility for the PROS plan through the lens of the recreation and conservation office at the state level. This is not the only opportunity to provide comments or feedback on this element. And this is primarily public focused. There's additional opportunities to review the element as it works its way through adoption, particularly through the city council process. And how to stay involved. Parks and Recreation Board meets every second Monday, just highlighting this for public benefit. And I'll pause myself here maybe for a question. My recollection is that there is not a meeting in November. Is there a Parks and Recreation Board in October or December? Do you guys know offhand?

We do plan to meet in November. I haven't looked at the calendar to see if it aligns, but sometimes we do.

Our next scheduled meeting is November 8th, barring the board deciding to do a different meeting.

Gotcha. Okay, perfect. Yeah, just wanted to highlight that with this note in here in the presentation. So that way, at least it's on the record of when the next meeting is. And then just general commenting opportunity. Again, tonight is not the formal adoption of this document. We're looking for a recommendation to advance this forward in the process. But that does not mean we are closed for commenting or changing the information in here. I think at this point, we're fairly confident, especially around the comprehensive plan element of the information contained in there. But that's not to say that we're not looking for or accepting any additional feedback. I think we'll take that throughout this process as we get to adoption. I would love to hear any major issues, thumbs up, thumbs down, yellow or red flags. We'd love to hear the green flags as we take this through adoption. With that being said, I think that is the high-level summary of the information before you tonight for the pros element of the comprehensive plan. And I hope it was easy to track the two separate paths that we're discussing. Pros plan itself still working its way through all the nuts and bolts. That's the more detailed document, level of service, facility, inventory, and then the pros element of the comprehensive plan. which is a document you have before you tonight, which really distills the major findings of the PROS plan for consistency with the comprehensive plan.

Thank you, Alex. Wayne, do you have anything to add to this?

No, I don't. I just was here mostly just for Q&A. Yep.

OK, great. Thank you very much. I guess at this point, we can open this up to public comment. Aaron, do we have any way for public comment this evening?

Zachary Sanders. And I misspoke earlier. It is actually three minutes, not two minutes for public comment.

Good evening again, board and chair. My name is Zach Sanders. I live in Puyallup in District 2. So I've already shared the main details of what I was talking about, so I'll be quick here. Just for the record on the PROS plan, I just would like it to be considered that aquatics are named on it, just for long-range possibility, just looking at things. And second, the next time the city does a survey, maybe ask where people are driving to for things we don't have here, like if you swim, where do you go, and how often. I believe that, or I don't believe that there was any specific ask about a pool in any of the previous surveys, but a few citizens put in about a pool. They wrote some things about a pool or that they were interested in it. And yeah, just kind of focusing on that might get some better answers or more input from citizens. I just want to share that. Thank you.

Thank you, Zachary. All right. I'm going to open this up to the board if... First, if you have any comments or questions for Wayne or Alex.

One quick question, Alex, and I apologize if you covered this and I completely missed it. I think the intention is to align this with the next comprehensive. So the next pros review will be same time as the next comprehensive plan in 2034, correct? Correct. Will those still be separate exercises or will the PROS plan be integrated into the bigger picture comprehensive plan?

The PROS plan will still be integrated into the comprehensive plan as an element, very similar to what you're seeing before you tonight. But to your point, that update cycle then becomes consistent. They're on the same 10-year update cycle. So that way, you're not tracking a separate update process for just the PROS plan itself. Now they occur on the same cycle, which the major benefit there from my perspective is one, gives a city a better opportunity to kind of comprehensively think about goal and policy changes and make sure both documents read the same. And then two, just from a workload effort, city staff and elected officials as they review, recommend, and eventually reach an adoption recommendation or adopt a documentation You're looking at kind of all of the information that's been updated in one go versus, yes, maybe the comprehensive plan. For example, the 2024 update of the comprehensive plan adopted the 2020 PROS plan because it was the most currently adopted document. This update cycle puts the two documents on the same alignment, which ideally just means it's a little bit easier to make sure the information is consistent.

Gotcha. Thank you. The only other thing I would kind of add to that is, yeah, we'll be on the same update cycle. So that periodic update that is 2020, 2024, 2034, 2044 type thing would still hold. Now, Cody's got a, Cody and his staff have a great relationship with RCO. As we know, you know, the city with its comprehensive plan, was a little bit behind schedule just because of, you know, reviews by Commerce, et cetera. So their 24 plan actually got adopted in 25. So we'll want to make sure that, you know, if for some reason, you know, issues are such that the comp plan gets slowed down that Cody and his staff will reach out to RCO and they're pretty good about providing some relief just in case the comp plan is a tiny bit behind schedule because they're looking at so many additional issues, some of which are controversial.

Wayne, can I ask a quick question too about by aligning the two plans, just confirm that this is a little bit more fiscally efficient for the city also?

Absolutely. Because the previous PROS plans, you only got six years for those. And now you can get up to 10. So yeah, it's certainly a big step in that direction.

Great. Thanks for clarifying that. Anyone else have questions for them?

And not to cut you guys off, I did want to highlight one piece that I was remiss in mentioning earlier. The document that you guys have in your packet shows one picture about halfway through that's centered right in the middle of all the text. I do want to provide an overarching note that all the formatting will be 100% cleaned up by the time we take it to the next stage. Really, it was primarily a content review was the intention, but I did want to highlight that, and it's kind of a self-spotlight, but we will 100% make sure that all formatting is dialed in.

Thank you, Alex. I have one question. For the inventory portion of the PROS plan, will you be providing replacement reserves to assist with budgeting?

Replacement reserves. I guess I'm not directly familiar.

Oh, just costs for replacing equipment and amenities.

Generally not quite to that level. Really where you see that in the pros plan is the, um, capital improvement section, and that's really starting to identify some of the major capital expenditures that are anticipated, whether that's major facility updates or, to your point, facility-specific items. Absent of specific intent to provide those facilities and putting a cost to it, generally there's not kind of a replacement number, and that's for a from a budget perspective, that number kind of gets a little eye-popping, especially when some of those dollars are contingency for replacement as opposed to priority repairs or new facilities. And then two, just the cost increases over the span of a currently six-year update cycle, ideally moving to that 10-year update cycle for the PROS plan. It kind of makes that cost information really, really difficult to make sure it's up to date. and the difference of the capital improvement information you see in the PROS plan, those numbers are really the basis for not only decision-making from a fiscal standpoint at the city level, but also for grant pursuits. So that's why it's really important to attach a number to those items. That's the basis of review for some of the grant proposals. Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Wayne. I got one comment.

Yes, please. under just maybe 10, 7, 10, 8 schools and colleges, maybe, you know, to bolster that public comment. You know, I know Puyallup School District has a pool downtown city proper, and maybe you could bolster the relationship and look at, know some facility use or agreement there to you know house uh or at least get it into the plan or start the discussion with with the school district and i believe that might be the only facility that is true like downtown that is a pool facility so

I know we had talked about that at a previous meeting about how maybe it could work together. And I know that the pool does need some updating down there. So there's a way to work together. And so if that could be, I agree with you, Mike. I think that if we could find a way to look at partnerships for pools, I also have no problem with putting in the post plan somewhere to identify a facility that we could possibly have a pool of our own with the Parks and Recreation Department. That doesn't seem like it's a big ask to possibly identify something that could be available 10 years down the road. But I really do like the idea of a partnership at this point. I think that's the most reasonable, most attainable thing that we could do at this point. So does anyone else have anything to put into here for Alex? Any changes that we want to be made? Anything that stands out at this point that really just would keep us from moving forward? Now, it does look like most of the strikeouts are just minor word changes, minor updates. I do have one question, and I'm sure it was probably just an error. In the survey key findings, it went from the percentage of respondents that did not participate in parks and rec department sponsored programs, went from 23% to 73% of respondents that did not participate. That is quite a big difference. Is that accurate?

Yeah, and we can re-verify that. Short answer is, based on the survey, yes, that we did in October. And the reason I think that jumped up so much was I think the survey was specific to, do you do it within the city? And that was the response number that we got for in the city specifically, where, again, aquatics kind of being a good example of that. I think a lot of respondents would say, yes, I participate in parks or recreation activities. But in that example, the answer would be no. No, I don't do it in the city. And I think that's why that number got inflated. But we can add some language to address why that number changed so much and maybe a limitation of the language of the survey that facilitated that number being higher than it was previously.

you know, I don't even need more language there. I just want to be sure that that was, like I said, it's just such a big difference. I just want to make sure that we take a look at that and are 100% sure on that.

What sticks out to me on that, Eric, is that the question includes department-sponsored programs. So, you know, whether somebody engages with Parks and Rec facilities, is different than if it's, you know, sponsored program.

Does that make sense? Sure. I, uh, basketball or some sort of, uh, like the, uh, the walk and walk around town and concerts in the park.

Sure. Yeah. But I think to your point, maybe a little bit more description there would help identify why that's such a large number. Right. As you look at it and go just context. Yeah. Yeah. Some context there.

Yeah. That is fair. I, I understand where you're coming from on that one. OK. And so yeah. So at this point, if everyone on the board feels good about this, I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to proceed with the process here. Yeah, the pros element plan. I second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, Alex, good luck.

appreciate it and we will be back before you sooner than later with more pros plan specific information so more to come but much appreciated all right we'll hope to see you back in november yep thank you you will all right moving forward so i'm i'm going to ask that we uh

change the meeting time for the next two meetings, November and January, to 6 p.m. So I'm going to make a motion that the meeting times for November and January are changed to a start time of 6 p.m.

Can we have a discussion about that real quick?

Absolutely. You want to do this? No, just curious. Fixing stuff. Okay. We could do 530. 530?

I mean, I think that's what you were talking about.

530 is fine. I just need that extra little bit of time. No, I hear you. I'm going to do two.

Okay. 530 works, but six gets into –

Sounds good. Bedtime territory. 530 feel good for everybody? 530 works. Okay, so I'll change that. I'll strike that first one. Make a motion to change the start time in November and January to 530 p.m. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. All right, Cody, let's move on to staff reports. And actually, take that back. Brian.

Oh, sure.

You're on it.

All right, so Puyallup Parks Foundation, you guys are aware from a lot of our previous conversations that we put together this foundation. Well, we really resurrected this foundation. in order to be able to facilitate funds to aid some of the different projects that the Parks and Rec Department has going. That continues to move ahead. We now have a solid board. We're having regular meetings. We've already had funding come in. We helped a lot with facilitating Kiwanis contribution to the kids' summer activities. And that went, once we kind of got a process involved, that went pretty smooth. We're right now involved in the NAMES Foundation is granting some funds to go towards scoreboards. Those scoreboards, they're not for the rec center, right?

They are, yeah. We replaced one of the scoreboards a year ago, and the other two have now shown signs of decline. And so they're to replace the other two remaining scoreboards at the outdoor facility. And so now there's wireless controllers that people can log into the scoreboards and keep score on the scoreboards at their games. And so... They've been kind of underutilized. After COVID, we didn't bring back scorekeepers for every night of the week. And so now people can just remote in from their phone and keep score on the scoreboards. And so we can utilize those for tournaments. And it's, again, positive reviews on the one we did replace.

Yeah. We're in that process. We have a meeting tomorrow evening to go over an MOU that Cody and I have been putting together with the city to kind of make it a little bit more official in terms of what our procedures are and how we work together with the city. So I'm pretty excited about it. It's taken a while to kind of get all the cats herded, but it's coming together well. And yeah. moving forward.

Yeah. I think one of the things that Brian and I have talked a lot about is just co-branding and being able to kind of promote each other's programs. And, you know, if people do want to donate to a project, I know the skate park was one of those things where people were saying like, Hey, how do we donate? Or, you know, could we set up a separate fundraising? And we weren't there yet. And we were still a year out from that. And so it's really cool to see it come together and have this opportunity to to apply for funds through, especially through the names foundation who has, who has a ton of interest in being involved in, in Puyallup. And so I think it's a really great opportunity. And I think there's going to be a good symbiotic kind of relationship there that we're going to be able to cross promote each other. And especially if we have fundraising campaigns and, uh, I think there's probably going to be some... We might be short a little on the Bradley Lake project when it finally gets here two years later than the estimates that we got. And so I think there's going to be an opportunity kind of coming up to see how it works and plays out. But so far, so good. Kiwanis Kids Days, Kiwanis Kids Foundation funneled money through the Parks Foundation. And so that was kind of unexpected to us. Like normally those funds come straight to us and they came through the foundation. And so that was... cool. We were able to work out some kinks and make it happen. So, yeah.

And this will allow us, you know, we've got, for example, the greater Tacoma community foundation really wants to be supportive of everything going on here too. And we've already been building relationships with them and figuring out how we apply for some of those grants. There are at least a half a dozen other, you know, big foundations throughout, you know, the, the, South Sound region, really, that we can tap into for funding. And we've got a committee set up now that will start to actively apply for some of those grants once we figure it all out. So we're in good shape.

I'm curious, what does the cross promotion look like through parks and recreation for the foundation? Just kind of give us an example of what that may look like. Cody?

Yeah, we talked about setting out signs, QR codes on fences and spots where we can promote the foundation. If you want to get back to the Puyallup Parks and Recreation, here's a QR code in the catalog, having a page or half-page ad for the foundation itself on how to give. And then also once... Projects are completed, you know, having those opportunities to thank the foundation publicly and, you know, promote any sort of fundraising drive on our social media and things like that. Without that MOU, the city doesn't really love to jump on board with nonprofits that don't have a connection. And so really creating that kind of intertwined relationship helps us to be able to promote fund drives and things like that.

Does it look like... You can do any kind of email blasts or social media advertising. Does that seem like part of it too?

Yeah, I think once we have that MOU in place, then I think we kind of can promote as needed.

Sounds great. All right. Brian, do you have anything else you want to add to this? No. Okay. Appreciate it. Great. Thank you very much for that portion. And now on to Cody.

Yeah, obviously summer's come to an end abruptly here. The fair started. But we had some really awesome programs throughout the summer that I'm sure a lot of you were able to check out. And Mike might want to jump in on these senior programs that some of their key highlights this summer, but they did a big 250 patriotic party. Um, on July 2nd, just to celebrate the 4th and the two 50th, the senior picnic was hosted. Uh, we, we returned to hosting the senior picnic offsite. And so parks crew delivers all the tables and then the fried chicken comes from within. And, uh, so they do a party in the park out at Clark's Creek. And then the Harmony at Rock, the VIP concert, had to be moved inside the pavilion that night because of smoke. And it was actually a great turnout. The pavilion was full, and it sounded as good as it could in the pavilion with the acoustics there. And so they had front row seating, and we still took 500 people into the pavilion that night. And then the inaugural Foothills Trail Bike Ride. So they had a group of folks that were interested in getting out on their bikes, and e-bikes were kind of the main thing, starting at Van Lierup and then riding into Orting. And so they had 12 participate there, which was a good start to it. And then trips and tours, our trips and tours have just exploded. Mike and I were just talking about this. We've got three bus drivers now on staff. And so we're able to run a lot more trips, a lot more consistently. And so that revenue and that participation has really exploded over the last year and a half, I'd say.

I think if we had more buses, we would be able to.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been there multiple times. Yeah.

Yeah. So Crystal Mountain, they're doing walks. Mike was just saying they have 28 on the wait list for a Leavenworth trip, a fall Leavenworth trip.

The bus holds 20. And so we filled the 20. I mean, the booklet came out at the first of the month. And here we are at the 14th. It was filled a week ago.

Wow.

And we have 27 on a waiting list. And so we can, again, fill the bus plus a good start on the third bus to do this. So extremely popular. Wow.

And the activity center is 95% no fee. So when you come and play cards, when you come and do any activities, there's no fee. But the trips and tours, there's a fee base to it.

I mean, we started charging for events, which helps. That guarantees attendance. Attendance, yeah. And it's five bucks for most of the events. So it's a pretty easy entrance fee and stuff. Huge social thing. And they love it. getting dressed up whatever it takes to you know how there's halloween coming up there's a luau soon you know it goes on and on a noon year's eve party uh you know that sort of stuff so yeah so they're they're they're live and kicking over there yeah yeah nice

New summer camp, our day camp is just phenomenal. 1,000 kids registered, 10 weeks, 180 unique campers. A lot of people do use it as their summer daycare, so 180 kids that were served throughout the summer day camp. And then the CIT, I know the chair can speak to this, but we had 5,720 volunteer hours. And most of our camp counselors do come from this counselor and training program. So when the kids are 14, 15, and they can't get a job yet, their parents drop them off with us. And then they assist the counselors there. And then that usually turns into our next camp counselors. So it's a really successful program they built with the CIT program. And then specialty camps, we just parkour, AI, robotics, bricks for kids, arts, dance. The rec center, we drive a lot to the rec center as far as specialty camps go. And then we also rent the fields for a lot of specialty camps. So like Nike sports camps, Skyhawks, I think we'll talk about Skyhawks in here too. But there's a lot of other sports camps going on outside as well. And then Move Puyallup, our summer fitness program. So we had 1,600 athletes. participate. So that was up 300 from last year. And our morning classes that are kind of senior focused, the Zumba and the yoga in the morning have actually been our more participated classes. So we have some 9am move Puyallup in the park and those beat the participation in the evening classes. And so we might add another morning class next year. uh, walk Puyallup 600 participants. That was, uh, we did walk with hop, our former mayor, John Hopkins led walks, uh, uh, for the activity center. And then we did walks with the Ranger. Um, so he would choose a different location to, to walk throughout Puyallup. So that was, that was fun. Um, Uh, we may have overloaded walk through all of them might've been too many. So we might dial it back a few, uh, by the end of the summer, we were only getting like four or five per walk. So, um, but it was, it was, it was fun to see, um, adult softballs going great. What else do we got? Soggy Doggy was on Sunday. I don't know if anybody brought their dog down for Soggy Doggy last Sunday in the Splash Park. The dogs went crazy. It was dumping rain. They only got about 50% of the participants that signed up showed up because it was so wet. So it was really soggy. And then Concerts in the Park, you know, just super popular. We think that Journey, the Journey tribute band was over 4,000 people. If you were down here, it was people were on this side of the street watching the concert. So that's just been, you know, what it is. And then Kids Days, we did four Kids Days and that's Kiwanis that sponsors the Kids Days. So they sponsor all the entertainment. So we had Bubbles. bubbles and balloons and face painting all for free out in the park during those four Tuesdays. And then the outdoor cinema, we had almost a thousand people come to the movies. One at the rec center and then two up at Bradley Lake. And then Communities in Schools, we partnered with Communities in Schools for the first time this year to hand out free meals in the summer. And so Communities in Schools would come down here to Pioneer Park on a couple of days a week and hand out free meals. And they handed out over 2,000 meals this summer to kids in the community as well.

Very good.

And then just a quick project update. Bradley Lake RCO came back and we were ranked 20th out of 58. So we're right above the cut line. So it looks like we'll be funded fully. The 500,000 will be funded for if the state funds the program at the same level it funded last time. So we're looking good as far as Bradley Lake goes. And then I was also on a call this morning or this afternoon with wash dot in fall. 2028 is when the one 67 trail from Meridian to the rec center will be completed. And fall 2029 is their expectation to open the entire Puyallup to Tacoma. This Puyallup trail.

Oh, well, Cody, I was, uh, I guess it was maybe Saturday. We were over walking our dogs around the rec center, you know, loop. And, um, I was just curious. The freeway is awfully close to really close. Yeah.

So it'll, it'll at the rec center, it will be on the, um, on the, the trail will be on the South side of the freeway, the levee road side. And then at the rec center, it will come under the under pad. There'll be a pedestrian under bus that'll get you to the rec center. And so the rec center parking lot will be a parking trail access. And then it will use the trail, the existing rec center trail, and then head parallel the freeway. So it's going to be very close to the, to the rec center.

Is Washtenaw putting up any sort of barrier between the freeway and the property, the rec center property?

Yeah. Cause it's all elevated there. So yeah, the, the, to some sort of burial will be there. I'm not sure what it looked like.

Man, you get a bad accident launching off there.

Yeah, right into the fields. Yeah. And then the underpass is where the artwork is as well. Very cool.

Cody, refresh my memory. Where is the western terminus of the trail? Is it at the port?

It is at 509, and then at 509, it will go towards Tacoma. Okay. So Tacoma and Fife are building sections of the trail that will connect all the way into Tacoma. And that section of trail, that freeway is open right now, but the trail will not be open probably for another year.

Okay, great. Fantastic. Be able to be connected with that. Okay. Do you have any kind of an update on the skate park at this point?

Uh, skate park demo is complete. Great. Uh, they, they've completed the demolition of the, the ramps and they will have, I think a dumpster out tomorrow to pick up the, all the pieces. So it should be flat tomorrow.

And then when does construction start?

I believe next week.

Oh, great. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So it's moving pretty quickly. Uh, That's fantastic. Do you have anything you want to talk about with Wildwood Park or do you want to table that for the next meeting?

Yeah, I think Wildwood Park. So the update I do want to give on Wildwood is that there will be a public meeting. The first public meeting will be held at the pavilion on October 22nd. I believe that's a Thursday, October 22nd. And I will send out more information to the board once we get some solid details on that. But the first public meeting will be October 22nd from five to seven at Wildwood or at the pavilion.

And what, like, how does that go? The public meeting? Is it like, Hey, this is what we want to do.

They'll search it. They'll, they have, they'll have some concepts developed so people can comment on what they like, what they don't like. And so they're not going to go in with just a completely blank page of what You know, you design your park, you get to put a pickleball courts in and that. So it'll have some suggestions and some what do you like, what do you don't like opportunities for people to put stickers on and give feedback and comments and things like that.

Is there an online survey planned for the Wildwood update too?

I'd have to go look at the timeline on what their plans are on what their surveys look like.

Okay. Yeah. Off the top of my head, I can't say for sure what they're, what's in the, if it's possible to put together some sort of an online survey for the public to put some comment in there too. Or once we've got a little bit more of an idea of the direction that the park's going, if they're, you know, maybe ask questions about things like how large of a pavilion would you like to see in this spot? Or, you know, what would, you know, what would you like to see here or there? And I'll leave that up to you to figure out, you know, how much response you want to deal with on that one. But I think it'd be nice if the public could have an opportunity to, you know, weigh in on what the park will look like.

Yeah, Berger's really good at that public outreach piece. So I'm sure they will. And I'll engage them about the survey if it's not in the timeline.

All right. Anybody else have any other comments for this evening?

else we want to bring up anything we want to bring up next month or next meeting in november anything pressing anybody right now no okay well is that going to be too early to have have them give us an update of what they heard at the um yeah for a while but yeah i can i can ask them if they're because i think they'll be ready to present like to hear that you know

I know we're getting close to the pros plan, so I'm sure that potentially the full pros plan might be available at the next meeting.

If not, definitely the January meeting we'll have an update on what's going on with Wildwood. All right. Well, as always, if anybody thinks of anything between now and the next meeting, please let me or Cody know and We'll make sure to get it on the agenda. With that being said, if there's nothing else pressing on anybody's mind here, I'm going to make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening.