Parks & Recreation Board - Regular Meeting

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. We have a quorum.

Right, approval of the minutes.

Citizen comment. We don't have any citizens signed up.

And then the approval of the minutes.

Consider approval by motion at the April 16, 2026 regular meeting minutes.

Move to approve. Second.

Motion for a man and a second. Okay, I'll do a roll call. Dan Alton. Approve. Brian Franks.

Approve.

Bob Beeman.

Approve.

Benjamin Peck. Approve. Derek Gribbley. Approve. Joseph Zesko. Approve. Motion passed.

Alrighty, next item is to receive a staff update and hold discussion regarding the summer 2026 operations and managed access at Rio Vista. If you've driven by Rio Vista, you've seen our fencing and we're working on finishing hanging signs for park rules and all of those things. So we will start Saturday. Park ambassadors have completed their orientation and training. And they started that Monday, so they had training with our park rangers slash deputy marshals all day Tuesday, Wednesday. They did just general orientation on Monday, so they're ready to get getting movement and so they'll actually be at the park tomorrow. We're not. We're just kind of getting them accustomed to being. Out in the park, with the weather, we are watching that for this weekend. We do currently have a flood watch. So we'll be watching that, monitoring. If there's a lot of thunderstorms, we will hold staff for their safety. And then we have the peri-weather system that makes announcements into the park, letting people know that lightning has been detected for thousands of miles. Please take cover. So we'll just be Doing that so we might have a light crowd because of the weather. We'll just kind of see what happens. All day Saturday we do have multiple high school graduations that are happening at the University Center, so they start at like 830 in the morning and go all day. So it'll be interesting to see how traffic and all that stuff works. It shouldn't impact Rio Vista as much, but city parks will probably be pretty busy. We have let Lions Club know about that to make adjustments if they need to for their shuttle routes because they do plan on operating, but they could decide to close operations if there are calls for them. So we've been working on getting our software up to date. launched. Anybody that's ever rolled out software knows that it usually takes about 12 weeks. We're doing this screaming fast at about three and a half. So we have access to it. We are actively testing it. We were going to deploy it for this weekend, but we have to push it. It's not ready. We want it to be seamless. We want it to be easy, not only for our local residents, but also for our visitors. So Right now it's looking like as we are already kind of behind, probably will not be requiring tickets to enter the park until June 20th. Primarily because we have to get the word out. We have to get it live on the website and we have to start doing our media pushes. When did they put it on the news? I think that we haven't committed to a date yet. We were hoping that we were going to have it ready for Memorial Day, but we have been pretty careful. We did have a media, but we weren't kind of committing to a date just yet. We're like, here, go to our website for more information. So we do have some additional tweaks that we need to make. Jessica just provided me with an updated email from our software folks that, yeah, we still need some additional work to be worked out. June 20th is where we're landing. We have ordered the wristbands for residents. Remember, kids are free, so it's mainly going to be for adults. If they don't carry their cell phone or their ID or their additional pass with them, they can opt for a wristband. And it's a reusable wristband that will be good for three years, and then we'll change the design in three years.

Okay.

I did try to do RFID with these. Unfortunately, we don't have the technology to scan them just yet. We did try, but it will take another investment, and so we'll plan for that for next year.

And also maybe a little more research, because we knew nothing about

how to program RFID. Yeah, the company sent us some samples, and so Jessica and I started trying to play around with it, and we're like, you know what, let's just get the wristbands for now, and then we'll work on getting the RFID so that they can be scannable whenever people come into the park. That is something that we want to be able to

What's the advantage of the scannable tag versus just a wristband?

Mainly to prevent people from just passing it around. So it would bring someone's name. Not that our parking passengers are going to know that person's name, but if they come often enough, they probably would. And if they're like, well, you're not Jamie Lee Case, who are you? So that way we would be able to track if they're passing or selling their wristbands.

You know, inside the gate, handing it through the fence. Yeah, exactly.

I told Jamie, I said, have a workmaster just pretend.

We'll also be able to get data from those numbers.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Calling the teacher will now be X amount of books against the door. Right.

Yeah, because we'll be able to track that with at least the tickets. And part of the ticketing system will be asking people to provide their SID code so we'll know where they're coming from in real time. So that'll be very helpful for us to kind of monitor as well. So, yeah, we were hoping it was going to be worth the wait to save some time and We're doing this as fast as we can. So everything else is ready to rock and roll. It's going to operate just like our other holiday weekend. So Marshalls are in place. Our public works team will have Cheatham Street closed there in front of the Long Rio Vista. And, you know, we're ready to rock and roll.

First weekend. We'll get back up with the flooding information. alarm system. Can you refresh my memory on what means what? Oh, for the emergency?

I'll have to pull that up because each siren does mean something different, but if we don't operate the emergency sirens, they are different tones. So the periweather system that we have in the parks is different from what our emergency operations team operates. But theirs is the one that has the different tones and the different sirens. Ours is the same as the one siren, and it also makes an audible announcement that says there is lightning in the area.

So, and I remember asking via this discussion, and I could be wrong, but are we having issues with Spanish as well?

Yeah, yeah, they are. That is in their development right now. And they are working on that. We did bring it up as a concern because she can speak Spanish. I say she because it's a female voice, but she can speak Spanish or she can speak English. Well, she has to be set to one or the other.

Currently just says one thing.

Correct. Currently right now she's only speaking English. We did try to get her to Ablof. We had the English setting, and it was worth that.

Well, we're trying to fix it.

Yeah, that's the development team of the software company. But they do know, and that is on their development list. And I'm using with them pretty often on some different – because there are some other development requests I've asked for. So that is one of them, and that is on their list. Hopefully that isn't the year. So the outdoor warning system that you're talking about, Ben, is the various sirens that are stationed around town. So tornado and severe warning is a single pitch that is long and steady and lasts for about three minutes. Wildfire alternates between high and low tones, lasting for three minutes. Public safety threat, that would be flooding. wavelength pitch that will change in tone every 16 seconds for three minutes.

These threats include flooding, hazards, or mineral.

I can send y'all this email because it's on the website. It is on our website, on our emergency management page, so I can send this link to y'all because it does have a video so that you can hear what those tones are. You've probably heard or you may have heard if you live close enough to one, they'll do like Saturday they do testing and it's called growl. And you hear this like low tone and it does sound like growl. I hear it at process.

Or this sounds like siren head to the little kids.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true too. So that we can, I can send that link out to you guys so that y'all have it. There's a guest in the lobby.

I wonder if it's Dan.

It is staying. I don't know. He's back.

He's back.

We have 20. So 20 again this year. Once we start generating some of that revenue. We're not reliant on it right now. We have budgeted for 20 market assets. So once we're able, we'll be able to tap into that additional revenue stream through the ticket sales to fund the additional personnel. So right now, 20 works really well for what we need right now. But the result, that still frees up enough to do the roaming. But once we get the additional money, then we'll be able to add more. You probably don't necessarily need to add a whole lot more. But, I mean, a whole at least five to six would definitely help.

Do you know if they got any active shooter training?

I don't know, but I can find out. Let me text Tiffany.

The park rangers.

Do you know they're following right there?

I mean, there is comfortably staff, given that we have managed access. They're not. I don't want to pull up the. Operate. You look for Tiffany to be sent to the Osmond. Oh, they're just like that.

So they will have public safety. They have. 1234 Looks like they'll have 4.

Mark, so they'll have two marshals and two farm rangers. And additionally, they'll have. Uhm, off duty St. Marcus PD and fire marshals.

So they'll have a total.

67 They'll have seven officers out there Saturday. Looks like they'll have five on Sunday and they'll have six on Monday.

No, I was not going to ask this. So that we are aware throughout the next year, we can make sure that they're getting what they need.

Right. And Tiffany's feeling good with what they have because we have managed access. It makes it a lot easier for them. And having the street closures, they're not having to deal with parking. challenges there because people would just start stacking up, trying to unload, and it was creating a lot of unsafe situations.

So they have... Those are two A-pluses.

Yeah, so that'll be good. And then, yeah, she's at the end of overtime for fire and maybe... What about the... What would come out?

I'm sure you guys haven't had

after action on the uh senior party day oh yeah so i worked um fridays um it was so we haven't heard about three weeks ago we have our first senior skip day that was advertised to south san antonio schools and they were nice enough to invite st marcus uh since we were hosting um pure irony was that the honor Society kids from St. Marcus High School were out there for their River Day. They were doing an active litter cleanup. And then at the end of that, they get to kind of relax and enjoy the river. Well, there was about 2,000 kids that came from San Antonio that were having lots of fun. And by fun, I mean fights and lots of drugs, lots of alcohol. We didn't have the fences up yet. And so it took a massive response from PD. Multiple agencies came to help. We actually had SWAT on standby to blow tear gas at one point. It was mass chaos. Our farm ranger described it to Jessica. It was girl fight, mosh pit, girl fight. And there were two arrests. There was a 17-year-old girl that was arrested for assaulting a police officer. He had helped her up from the fight. And I guess she was rattled. And she slapped the officer. And he was like, okay. And then there was another 17-year-old male that was arrested. He had a backpack full of drugs and cash. So he was opportunistic and everybody knew who he was. Well, it did seem that the bus for the honor students did leave before it got to them.

Yeah, they loaded the kids up and took them back to the high school.

Yeah. So they got our St. Marcus students out of there. And at one time, the school district was getting a call because they were like, what the heck, y'all bused St. Marcus kids down to this state? And they're like, no. Oh, that was our office society. They've been there before the party. Then we had another, I guess, scare on Friday that was going to be for North San Antonio schools. So we learned about that about 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. We stood up, managed access with as much staff as we had. All of our graders and deputy marshals that were on duty reported. Me and Bert went and deployed. We were sitting at entrance points. And it worked out really well. We only had about 20 kids. And we had PD making active patrols and actually making traffic stops, which I think deterred a lot of people from stopping in, too. We did have an informant that was actively communicating to our PD. She was tracking her friends and ratting them out. And she's like, oh, never mind. There would be brothels. And so we started communicating with New Braunfels PD, and then all of a sudden, New Braunfels was like, well, we lost sight of the kids. We don't know where they are. They could be coming to you. And so we waited until 5 o'clock. Nobody showed, so we went ahead and, you know, disengaged at that point. But the first one was really, and it was definitely, hey, we have to get these fences up soon if we're going to potentially have mass gathering events that as school and approaches so yeah so one other advantage is that our parent weather system can make customized announcements so during all the craziness and the fights i got a call from one of the park rangers and he knows that i have access to make those announcements and so we started making announcements uh you need to leave the park now the park is closed yeah And so I think that was a big help. That was ultimately what got the crowd to disperse. And so SWAT did not have to engage with tear gas or any other mass gathering tactics. So it worked out really, really well. But it was crazy because they were using bullhorns, telling people they needed to leave and all these things. But ultimately the trick was the carry weather system announcement.

That was the best case scenario. 100%.

Yep. They could have been buried. It's already that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. There was, there was calls that somebody had a gun and that was, they did not find that. They hadn't told me that they had like, they shot little, some sort of little beads or something. Not like a BB gun. Airsoft. That's what he said that was out there. And I think that's why that really was started. So we're ready to rock and roll as much as we can be. It was a wonderful exercise for our team. It was very swift and it was really good.

Any other questions about our plans for this weekend at all? We'll provide you with an update following.

Thank you. It looks very nice. But anywho, it looks better than last year. The council wanted a temporary fence. They didn't want a permanent fence.

Nobody will please approve. Yeah. Yeah. Last year, they made a video.

Any other questions? No, ma'am.

Next, are you ready to move on, sir?

Yes.

Receive a staff update and hold discussion regarding current parks and recreation projects. Uhm, so just real quick on the projects. I guess the biggest one is the Kate Stanley. We finished our public engagement and now the engineering firm is compiling all of the community feedback in developing the report. I've had a meeting with them and this afternoon and the deliverable for the draft is the second week of June to meet. So then being based County will review the draft. Once we review the draft, that's just for the survey no this is the whole feasibility study okay yeah so they'll receive if you um sorry yeah um if um you weren't able to attend the open house the video is on our website um and we can send that link to y'all if y'all want to see uh what was presented because we did a recorded presentation because we ran it on a leaf so that anybody that logged in could just watch that and then go engage in reports.

So I can send that out to you guys.

Yeah, you bet. Happy to do it. Neighborhood Commission met last night. I have not received word that they adopted a recommendation related to our park plans. So I'm waiting to hear back on what their next steps are. Valerie did have some insight and said that they did not vote. They did not vote on it last night. So yeah, well, hopefully maybe their next meeting. So still in limbo there. Not yet. Well, we were we were shooting for July because Council only has two meetings and three. They have one meeting, the first meeting in June, and then they have their first only meeting in July is July 7th. I have them slated for July 7th, but if I don't have a recommendation from the neighborhood commission, I'm going to have to push it back. So we're not really on a time-sensitive situation because of any bonds associated with building. It probably won't be until 2030 at this point, so I'm still not quite a bit of time, but Definitely want to get the board council so that they can start having a conversation with one. Let's see. I think the most of the main, the main big ones that we have right now, everything else is kind of just on pause until we kind of get to the small thing. We have had various playgrounds and stuff breaking. So we're just been working on getting Slides and swings and stuff like that. A lot of those things are running in order. It's waiting for them to come in. A lot of those are breaking because adults are using the equipment. And, you know, exceedingly. I know it's not you. So anyway, so we do have, if y'all hear of any questions, Piece of equipment that might be have been removed, especially to get children's part. For example, we did have to remove a swing because it was broken and it wasn't safe. There's still other swings there. It's just I think it's one of the ADA swings. So that's been learned. But these days, unfortunately, take a long time. So.

Purgatory entrances. Mm hmm. roadways okay we'll look at that i was talking about we don't have no that's our guys how does city room city might want to start take those with maintainers and we have we have one so we will uh we can go out there and break it and um so we have one we're going to be hearing about um

The access roads in the purgatory.

Yes, ma'am. We discussed that this morning in our meeting. Unfortunately, our one, our grader that we have is being used by streets at this time. And as soon as we get it back from them, we'll go out there and grade the road. Tell them to hop on that and let them use the grader.

Before they bring it back.

So good evening. Perfect. Thank you for making sure that was on our list. It sounds like Bert and the team are already on.

Is there anything else?

Everything.

Thanks. All good. Dan.

Okay.

All right. Perfect.

All right, well that that is my update and I will get the cake stand video sent out to you guys will get that emergency management. Now it's all over. She's ready to send it out. So Tiffany wrote back and she said she's waiting on clarification from starting that bridge. But if we did not, we still have options. I will say that. HR does have a video that everyone has to watch. So, of course, it's a little different. It's more of an office setting than the video is. But it's a great thought. We do camp staff, like our summer camp staff, and we do additional active shooter training on top of the video with them. But Tiffany's on it, it sounds like. So if we haven't done anything, then they'll definitely... get some more information to the parking master. So that's a great thought. Perfect.

Without seeing any questions or answers, questions or discussion. Sure, so long.