Parks & Recreation Board - Regular Meeting

We're ready.

We're ready.

Call the meeting to order.

539. Okay.

Roll call.

Derek Rivlin.

I'm here.

Bob Eman.

Here.

Benjamin Peck.

Here.

Joe DeSoto.

Here.

Mitch Hoffman.

Here.

Brian Franks. He's going to be absent. Dan Alden is asked. Chair, you have a quorum.

Okay. Any comments?

We don't have anyone signed up, but I will get to our presenters in just a moment.

I see that. Motion to accept last month's minutes.

I consider approval by motion of the May 21st, 2026 regular meeting minutes.

So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor, we need a roll call.

Yeah, who's seconded? I think it was Ben. Ben?

I was second. Ben, you second?

Okay. All right, Joseph Soto? Agree. Mitch Hoffman?

Yes.

Derek Ridley?

Yes.

Benjamin Hack?

Bob, even yes. Good.

All right. So our next item is received a proposal from an Amber Graves requesting the installation of a community trinket box at Franklin Square Park and hold discussion. And it's great to hear with your daughter, Chloe. And this is Chloe's clever idea. And we did include their proposal within your packet. I don't know. Are we able to pull it up?

Yes. Let me share spring with you guys. Here it is. Thank you. Give me one moment to pull this up.

I don't know if anyone else has a trinket box in St. Marcus. We looked it up. This is the first one. And then there's a trinket like a I don't know if it's a festival or what they have downtown on Kissing Alley. Uh-huh. Some girls that get together. That's all we could find. We couldn't find a whole actual trinket box.

Yeah, so you weren't the first. Do you all see the proposal?

Is that cool? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. All right, it's all yours.

Okay, so I'm a little nervous. You're welcome. Okay, let me see. Where is it? Okay, so, yeah, we, since it's. Trinket boxes are becoming a very popular kind of thing, especially for children, her age. We decided that we wanted to have 1 at the park. We'll put, like, stickers, toys, key chains. We were gonna put, like, little things of bubbles, like, little tiny ones. And then we live right, like a couple blocks away from the park, so we can maintenance it, clean it up or anything like that. The only thing is I wasn't really sure what would be acceptable as far as like placement. I wanted to attach it to the fence, but I didn't know if that was something I could do in case you guys might be worried that might get damaged or something. But I don't know. Yeah. Or the other option would be to maybe put like a post with concrete and put it on that. But a lot of the boxes that people use, they're usually like a medical, like the gigantic medical boxes with it, but it doesn't have that. You can just put little like boxes of stuff in there and stuff like that. And then it's also weatherproof because it seals shut and stuff like that. And another option was like, I guess like a storage chest. I've seen those two because they have the rubber ceiling around it and that would be another option too. And then we wanted to put it like under the tree near where like the benches are or like just kind of close to the front part of the park so that the parents can monitor like their smaller kids and going in there and stuff like that. And then a lot of the videos and things I've seen, like there are occasionally people vandalize and stuff like that. But like I said, we're going to be making it like we live close by. And so and then, of course, there's probably some people that are going to be taking like more than what they need. But that's fine as long as they're like having fun. It's OK. But yeah, I mean, the only thing is just, I guess, trying to figure out where to put it. I wasn't because I read up on some things and the fence I was. hoping I could put it there somehow, like attach it there somehow. But I just wanted to check with you guys for this and see if that was something that you've done or if you suggest anything else.

First step is to make sure that the board in general is good. Kind of like whenever we have Eagle Scout projects or those kinds of things where they're building things to put inside the park, we always come and let them present and the parks board provides that directive. And then they work with me on the operation side for like location and kind of the completion of the project. So we're just kind of doing the general, you know, first step, make sure that the parks board is good. And then we'll work together on location, material, whatever. Oh, that's it. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

So we can work together on that part of it.

I'm going to stop sharing the screen now if everybody's good on that portion and that way you can raise your hand if anybody has questions.

Questions? I do.

Go ahead, Ben.

I was wondering, do we need to approve or do we

who approves what gets put in there as far as the decision making of, you know, how much is put in and what is put in.

Yeah, we usually don't monitor, well, first off, this will be the very first one. We don't have anything like this anywhere else in any of our parks. We do have little libraries, Within our parks, for example, we don't monitor, you know, those kinds of things. I mean, granted, little libraries are books. But, I mean, we don't usually monitor them. I mean, obviously, if that's something that y'all would, y'all want to provide some guidance on, you know, what you would prefer not to see. I mean, probably like confetti poppers, anything that's going to make litter. Yeah, probably not. a great idea, but bubbles, you know, those kinds of things are great. Is that kind of your opinion?

My main concern was sort of making sure there's no glitter or anything that's going to affect the river in some sort of negative way.

Yeah, and this is going to be at Franklin Square Park is where they're requesting to install it. So over there off of Bishop,

Where have you seen this?

Well, they have several of them in Austin. We've tried looking for them here and all we could find, like I said, was that there's two girls that have a TikTok that they do like an event on Kissing Alley that have a trinket trade. So basically what it is, is like you install the box and somebody will come with a trinket and they'll trade it out for another trinket. Or they'll have, they'll be stickers. It's all like positive stuff. It's nothing like, you know, inappropriate like that. But it'll be just key chains or like, even just little. Action figures, like cats, dogs, things like that. What else do you.

What other kind of things you want to put in there?

You don't know, or like little dolls or like, just things that kids like, you know, like. I've seen that at the very bottom, they usually put like a lot of little stickers and things like that. Just different animals, different characters, things like that. But it's fun. It's fun for them to bring like, it's fun for kids to bring a key chain and then they can trade it out for another one. And everybody gets to see what everyone put there. And it's just kind of fun.

How often would you monitor this?

Well, we live on Castle Gate Circle, so it's usually, like, it's maybe, like, a block away, and then she has a little friend named Henley that lives around the corner, so it's, like, really close. Like, we could probably walk there in, like, five minutes, like, if we wanted to, and they're always riding their bikes to the park, so we're there, like, a lot of times, yeah.

Yeah, and, you know, I think that would be a fun thing to do. I just, you know, like, in our world today, you know, I The things that people can do, that's the monitor be very necessary.

So maybe I was thinking about me locking it up at night. Maybe I don't know if that's another option. I thought Franklin. Park would be a better option than, like, the big part because there's so many people, there's so many different so much going on.

Yeah.

And, like, it's more like private there. It's kind of tucked away in a neighborhood and we're right up the street and I thought it might be better if we just, I mean, because I drive by there all the time. I take her to school. I'm passing by.

So, yeah, yeah, I think, you know, and. Maintaining it, you know, it's just a real important thing to me because I just. You know, all communities everywhere there are negative.

Yeah, we thought about that too. And unfortunately, yeah, there's people that do stuff like that. But my goal was to, like, kind of try it out. And if you guys are not with it after, you know, a while of it being there, we can take it down. But we're just wanting to see how it goes. Because I know people can be people and people can be how they are. But, I mean, what I see going to that park a lot are families. Um, homeowners, things like that, or I think it would be different. It was in a different area of the city. This is just a part tucked away in a neighborhood site. I feel like it would be. A lot better there, but I mean, I can, I can update you guys on things that are going on with it, like, take pictures weekly or. Email you whatever you want me to do.

Yeah. Updates on, you know, how it's working.

Sound like we're going to have anything really to do with it.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, you're going to have to deal with it first. And then if y'all are good with it, then Amber and I will work together on just the next steps.

Okay. JoJo has a question online.

Go, Jo.

Howdy, howdy. I think it's a fabulous idea, especially for our grade school kids. I've seen them all over TikTok as well and seen like owners do the trading with the kids. I think it's so cute. And it's guessing the only cost goes with it is going to be like the installation cost, kind of like those libraries that we have at the parks and things like that. My only question is, does that come from our budget or how does that kind of work on the financing side?

Sure. Usually the installer, you know, kind of fronts the materials. If we do a post, which we determine that that's the best course of action for, you know, secure stuff, we'll help out with, you know, installing and concreting in a post, if that makes the most sense, just because you don't need to do that. We have great Bro crew guys that can do that. So, yeah. So, I mean, we'll help out, you know, as far as with install and those kinds of things. But, yeah, usually it's not something that we front up front. We just kind of do in-kind services for it.

Perfect.

Any other questions?

Okay. If you just want to go around here, we'll make sure it makes sense.

Do you want a motion?

No, I don't need motion. If you just want to do a, is everybody good? Thumbs up.

Are you all good with that? Thumbs up.

Beautiful.

Good. Sounds like. Derek, are you good?

I mean, how much stuff are we talking about? How many, how many items are going to be in there all the time? Is this going to be like a like a skeeball spider ring prize thing with, you know, 80 or 90, 100 things in there every night or what? Because I can see, you know, kids trash in the park with this stuff every night is is what I'm seeing. That's why I'm wondering, like, how much stuff is going to be in there? Is this, you know, going to be a small trade deal or...

It's not going to be, like, overloaded with stuff, but it'll be, you know, a variety of, like, just keychains. It won't be, like, thousands or hundreds of it. It'll be a little bit of stickers at the bottom, some toys, things like that. It won't be, like, overflowing or anything. It'll just be a variety of things for them to choose from. But nothing that, like, is going to be where they could trash the park out or anything like that.

See, I think they would work with them because she talked about –

locking it up at night yeah so that'd be something that would that work for you derrick i mean yeah i that is just at some point there will probably have to be an exit strategy on there when the kids get a little older and this ain't on tiktok anymore but yeah i mean for now but i know you know the girls they're going to be nice with it they're going to treat it appropriately they're going to have fun with it but the little boys are going to go over there and they're going to

gonna wreak havoc on it you know but uh but i mean go for it give it a try okay i like we're all all willing to give it a try well like i said i don't know if this is something that we can try if y'all it doesn't work out i'll take it down later or like i don't know i mean it's yeah and um yeah so we can talk more next week

If that works for you and talk about, because I mean, I have the same concerns you guys have brought up.

Like, I'm worried about somebody messing with it, somebody trashing it, things like that. Maybe I could try to make friends with the parents that are the houses along the park. Don't you know someone that lives over there right by the park? Some girl. Yeah, there's a girl that lives right over there. Maybe I could get with her mom and see, you know, try to make a little bit of a community. Yeah.

Ben does have another question.

Yeah, I appreciate y'all being here and it sounds like a great idea. I can see where Derek's coming from with this though, and I would like to see maybe a little bit more polished idea of when it's going to be maintained, whether your idea is maintaining it once a week or maintaining it once a month, but just have a clear idea of when that will happen. And then again, sort of just to echo what Derek was saying, like If, you know, as we all know, one day TikTok is one thing and the next month is another. Do we have an exit plan for removing it and who does that if it doesn't work out? But like I said earlier, it does sound like a good idea. But I would just like to see those sort of thought through a little bit more.

We plan on doing like a couple times a week, especially because we live like right by the park within walking distance. So if it isn't me, it'll be her and her friend or all of us together.

Yeah, she did include a maintenance plan within her proposal as well. And that does include to regularly inspect the box. It sounds like they're going to be over there a couple of times a week. remove damaged or inappropriate items, keep the area clean and free of litter, repair or replace the box if necessary, and then remove the box if requested by the city. So if we're seeing that it's just, man, it is a good try, it's just not working out, then we'll work together to decommission it and go from there.

Okay, sounds like we're going to proceed.

Okay. Thanks guys.

We'll be in touch next week. That's okay.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you guys for your time.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your presentation.

Say something.

I have an art account on Instagram, so I'm on Instagram.

I don't know, like on TikTok. I've seen it. I've seen it on Instagram, too. Thank you, guys.

And our next item is to receive a staff update and hold discussion regarding summer 2026, all the reasons and managed access at Rhea Vista. This Saturday, we are going live with the ticket requirement for our out of town visitors. know Jessica can probably provide us a clearer update but as of yesterday we had over um a thousand residents that have already registered for their rio vista park pass and more throughout the day and then as of yesterday I believe we sold 62 um pre-sold tickets uh Jess I don't know if you've had a chance to look and see where we're at

I just looked and we have sold 69 now. So they're still coming in. And we have done over 1,000, like you said, passes. So we're up to about 1,080 passes. Thanks.

And just for point of reference, we went live with this last Wednesday. So that is, you know, a week and a day. So the word's getting out. We do review these just like we do the parking permits. So they're reviewed in person when people submit their IDs and other information. So they're reviewed by a staff member and we approve those, go through that process. Our locals do have an option of getting a reusable wristband as well. They have to pick those up from the Parks and Recreation Office. Those were available for pickup starting today, and we had several folks throughout today come and start picking those up. So we've already, I can't remember how many we've given out today, but we had a pretty, seemed like a pretty good handful of people that came in today to pick up wristbands for their families.

33. 33. 33.

Well, there you go. Then we'll have our park ambassadors. We're going to have gate attendance down there with our park ambassadors. Primary reason being that those gate attendance will be solely focused on processing people's entry via those tickets while the park ambassador is focusing on checking to make sure that folks are aware of the park rules, that they're not bringing any glass or charcoal or styrofoam into the park. all of those things. So additionally, we're going to have a ticket booth kind of set on the corner of Cheatham Street and CM Allen on Raymond Lucio Park side so that people can, if they need assistance with purchasing tickets ahead of time, we have staff members there to help walk them through that process. Keep them away from the gate entry. That way it just kind of hopefully relieves any crowding around those entry points. So again, we start on Saturday, so we'll see how it works and go from there.

But we're optimistic and ready to get this show on the road.

And that's essentially it for right now. I'm happy to answer any questions y'all have. Yes, sir.

Are those park ambassadors able to get a metric with that, with any equipment, like when they come in, they'll be able to tell us how many people came through?

They, so yeah, we can keep track of that with the tickets themselves. So people that are purchasing tickets and then our park ambassadors for our locals, they have a QR code on the back of their badge that they'll be scanning. So they will, ticket counters will keep track of those things and the park ambassadors already log all of their contacts. So they'll be continuing to log their contacts with people as folks enter the park.

And is that the generated income from this process? Does it go to the general fund or does it go back into the park?

No, sir. No, it goes into a special revenue account and it will be sent back into into Rio Vista. Primarily it'll go to support a managed access program. So supporting staff for park ambassadors, it'll go to supporting our litter abatement staff that we hire, our litter contractor, um those kinds of things if we are if we're able to it could potentially support um additional public safety personnel if that's what the city marshal wants to do um she prefers to have our own local law enforcement team work in the park because they know our community better We've brought in folks from outside of San Marcos, and they're not as familiar with our community, so sometimes they kind of let some things slide, or maybe they don't quite give the level of service that they expect. So she does prefer to have our locals, but if she does decide to bring on contract officers again, it could potentially be a funding source for that.

That's good to know.

Yeah. But it does live there. It doesn't go to the general fund.

Is there a goal? And you have a, what you shooting for?

so i am being very conservative and basically what i said was okay if we just have 2 000 people that pay you know i mean we could make 10 000 a day um but that is exceptionally conservative I we will see what this weekend does and we'll be able to have a really good baseline because it's it is Father's Day weekend. You know, it will be kind of we don't know what to expect with, you know, Juneteenth does fall on a Friday, so we don't know if people are going to make a three day weekend out of it yet. They haven't in the past, but we'll we'll see. Juneteenth hasn't fallen on a Friday in a couple of years, but it was pretty tame last time.

Does that include the picnic area?

Anything within the fenced area. It covers all of Rio Vista. Yeah, so it's just for Rio Vista Park. It's not for City Park or any of the other riverfront parks. It's just for Rio Vista. And I did an interview with the Houston Chronicle yesterday, and I saw it advertised. They published their story twice. And I'll be darned if the Houstonians weren't mad about it. They actually, it was very, I was very pleasantly surprised. They all were giving it thumbs ups and loves, unless there was a bunch of Sam Markins that were over there. I was very pleasantly surprised that it was being well received by the Houstonians.

Kind of different, a little different. So the parking, the city park, how is that?

Jessica, you want to provide an update? You have all the income numbers.

Well, I'll have to pull up spreadsheet if y'all can wait just a minute for me.

Yeah, she's she's been tracking it. So I know I think you can just probably give what we made in May. That would probably be the most recent since it covers a holiday and graduations.

Yeah, I do know that that holiday weekend that we had most recently, we made over $20,000 just in that weekend.

Last month, so Memorial Day. Yeah, Memorial Day. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we made it. I can tell you, Jessica, from ambassadoring down at the Hoover Hill, that I don't get any complaints from people coming in about paying for parking.

That's good.

But the complaint you get is, I can't figure out how to run a machine.

Yes, yeah. We do hear that a lot.

They want us to explain it to them. So anyway, so no, there's no complaints from out of town people paying for parking. I have never heard one, so never.

So our total that we have made between parking revenues and citation payments is $334,000. To date, since we began.

Very nice. That's this year.

That's since last June, last July.

OK, here today.

Or is that just this year in 26? Or is that that is that is everything, everything, everything.

Yeah, OK, since we since we began. Gotcha, OK, that's what I thought.

What year today?

Year today was what was the number one? $334,000.

And why didn't we run that down, Sam Allen?

Well, honestly, because we don't have the parking enforcement to monitor it. We'd have to look into it. It's just a heavy lift to launch a parking.

And Jessica has been doing that 99% of her time this past year. And I need my assistant director back.

So, so that number was city park.

Go ahead.

No, no, he was just saying he is it. Okay. JoJo just told me that she has to go.

I take it that's considered highly successful. I believe so.

Yeah, it exceeds. Oh, sorry. You're good. Go ahead. I was just going to say, you know, when we had our parking manager, it well exceeds his expectations. He was anticipating less than that, for sure. So that far exceeds what his expectations were.

That was year to date or was that year to date?

Year to date. So from July of last year to today. So we're not even quite in a year.

And July 4th was a washout.

Yes, it was. But we make 50 bucks.

make 50 bucks last till fourth of july how could they be back we had two people that paid 45 bucks well the fourth of july i mean the fourth of july all by itself parking will be enormous yeah three-day weekend okay enormous as long as it doesn't break yeah um

JoJo mentioned that she has to jump off soon, so before we lose porn. Does anybody else have any questions about that?

Okay. Oh, yes, sir. Sorry to keep bringing this up, but can you remind me, does that money again go back to the parks or does it go to the general fund? Because I'm probably trying to generate revenue for the parks instead of have it

It goes into a special revenue account that is earmarked for parks.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we made sure that any of these fees are being earmarked and deposited into a special revenue account for the parks specifically.

Are you all okay if I move on?

No objections? And so receive a staff update and hold discussion regarding current parks and recreation projects. So biggest one is that the park plans are going to be going to be presented to city council on July 7th during their 3 p.m. work session. So if there's any park board members that are interested in attending that work session, you're welcome to. And I'll be presenting the park sports recommendation. Additionally, the neighborhood commission did adopt a recommendation opposing the park sports recommendations. So it will be in the hands of city council. and i will take their direction from uh whatever you know conversation comes out of that um part of the neighborhood commission recommendation was requesting additional um community um engagement so we will i will get my direction from them on if that's what they want to see But we'll go from there. On the CAPE-STAM, I should have a draft of that report sometime this month. I don't know exactly when, but I'm expecting it at some point this month. And then we'll review that. I have to send that over to Hays County for their review. If you haven't looked on our website, if you were unable to attend the open house, the informational video, which is the presentation that was provided, is available on our website. So you can view that information there. And that is essentially all that I really have as far as our our projects right now. Those are the big ones.

Anybody have any questions about that?

Already and our next we are off in July, so enjoy your time away in July and our next meeting is, I believe, August the. 20th. Okay, that's what I thought. So August the 20th, and we'll be back at Grand Paris because the summer concert series will be over. So that's why we're at City Hall today is because the summer concerts are going on. So we'll be back at Grand Paris in August.

And that concludes my presentation.

I entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. Okay. At 614.

All in favor of adjourning? Aye.

Everybody? Everyone?

Yes.

Okay. All right.

All right. Have a great weekend. See you in a couple of months.

Good to see you guys.