Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

I call this a regular meeting of the beautification commission to order at,

05:04PM.

Present in the room are commission commissioner Nielsen, commissioner Weaver,

okay, and minor online. And commissioner Lane is absent and excused. There are three sets

of minutes for approval this evening.

05/05/2025, 11/11/2023. Is that correct? No.

And 01/26/2023. Are there any corrections or objections?

Move to approve. Second. Okay.

The minutes and

approve. Right? Done.

We can just do it like a consent. Yeah.

This is the time for members of the public to address the commission on non agenda item.

Is there any public business?

Alright.

New business. We have

three discussion items under new business this evening. We will start by discussing how to move commission commission priorities forward. For our first item, we have city manager Nate Dubois present to participate in the discussion and give an overview of the city projects process.

Alright. Good evening. Good afternoon. State policy manager. So Elise had asked me to kind of outline the current CIP process. It's fairly similar to what it's been in the past. It's got a few modifications. I don't think she's fairly different. Anyhow. So we have we've evolved to we now include the capital budget, the capital projects within the within the city's annual budget.

And so the timeline has shifted somewhat. Most of that is because in the past, we had more money. We had we're able to get projects completed on a faster timeline. And so we would appropriate projects, get them out to bid, and go to work. We now require a longer timeline, so it really doesn't matter when.

It's less impactful to have the appropriations done in the springtime. So now we just appropriate the funds with the annual budget in the January 1 when he's available for projects, and we start our design process, etcetera. So big picture, working backwards from that. What I do well, I guess it's not me. What the future cap facilities director will do, probably me until we have one, is we're gonna we send out we've we've decided to use a new program called ClearGov.

The project list used to be a spreadsheet that lived on my, shared drive at capital facilities. So now we're gonna use ClearGov. That's a cloud based software where everybody can have access to the capital projects list. We send that out to stakeholders. Those are all the departments in the city. Those are all the I guess I don't know what to call them. The stakeholder groups, meaning schools, hospitals, senior center, museum. We send it to them. We send it to all the boards and commissions as well for input. All new project requests are gonna be put into that system.

It requires doesn't require we ask for a little bit more information if there are photos or brief project description. It saves all that information in a much cleaner format than what it was on just my little spreadsheet. There's still a scoring matrix. We had to adjust the scoring based on what the capabilities of the software program were. So everybody applies for their project or puts a recommendation for a project in.

It goes through the process of being scored and evaluated. We put a dollar figure to it. The ranking system still holds true where, the highest ranking projects have the the most release points depending on how we've we've set it up. And then from there, we we take how much money council has available. What we've done in the past is we've taken what was called the carry forward money, the money that wasn't expended in the prior year's budget.

We put that into the CIP planning reserve, and that's the basis for funds available for project work moving forward. And so, essentially, that money sits in the bank for about six months or so while we do this process. And then those funds in the plan reserve get appropriate to specific projects with the January budget. So all that occurs, should be occurring now. It will be occurring soon where we solicit projects from everybody.

We'll get the the list built. And then as we go through budget work sessions, one of the work sessions will be about projects, one or two perhaps, and then we'll appropriate funds to various projects. We've been looking at a model projects have just cost more in the past, and we've tried to go after some grants. That's been a little bit more difficult. A lot of grant programs are very specific as to what types of projects are eligible, and we have a lot of square pegs for round holes or analogy, but a lot of our project needs and scopes just really don't fit the grant programs as we found over the course of these last couple of years chasing projects.

So a number of projects have been deferred to try to get them funded with grant funds. That just seems to be somewhat unrealistic at this point. And so we really haven't had a lot of movement on the top of the list pulling projects off. So that's kind of the current status of where projects are. We've been able to get some done, but available funds is just less, significantly less than it has been in the past.

So that's the overview of projects. How does that affect you? Well, there's a couple of touch points. One is you all will be sent the the request for projects through at least, to add various projects onto onto the list. But it also opens up a conversation about I've talked to a couple of members on the commission about perhaps rather than having standalone projects for the beautification commission, it may be more beneficial to have some guidelines for all projects or various types of projects that meet the beautification goals.

And so then it's not so much you all requesting a specific project, but having your, you know, fingerprint on various types of other projects around town so that they can just have automatic criteria for whether it's landscaping or art, those types of things that are within the purview of the beautification. That's that's a thought or a suggestion. It just seems with the with our current with our current trajectory and current funding, it's seems more it's not very articulate today. Your projects are getting done in a fast in a longer timeline is the the short answer. So that's, I guess, where I'm somewhat advocating for if there's a desire to incorporate beautification to various projects.

I I think the easiest way, it's it's a lot easier to have one or 2% of a fingerprint on a project than to have a project that languishes on the list just because it never rises to the top perhaps. That's not to say don't put a project on the list. I know I don't know. But I I believe one of the topics of conversation was related to park strips and stuff like that. It's not to say that rehabilitation of park strips isn't a project that's meritorious and needs to be looked at.

So certainly advocate for those types of one off projects and solicitations, but I I think finding some kind of criteria or desire for input from beautification commission might be might be helpful for the various other projects that will be funded just from a different perspective. Does that answer your need for project process? Did I miss something?

Yep. Oh, go ahead.

How soon does the ClearGov cloud access actually come online?

So it's technically available now, but I haven't sent it out to all the stakeholders yet, but it it's gonna have to happen pretty soon in the next realistically, probably the next two weeks.

And one more question that is to do with, you know, it's it's always interesting to look at the lists the city has come up with for capital projects and, you know, it's, you know, that $50,000,000 list. But where is that? I have I've been looking all over the city website, and I wish I'd kept my copy how many years ago when that, you know, the the green, the yellow, the orange.

Yeah. So that long range plan spreadsheet, it it still technically lives in the, facility share drive. It's it's still an active document. It's all been uploaded to ClearGov, so it it exists in that form. And so once it's released in that fashion, it'll be available.

But, if you need it, you can certainly request it from from myself or department has it. It has not been I don't say it hasn't been updated, but due to funding and project completions, it hasn't been changed since 2020 since appropriations were made in 2023. That was kind of the last iteration of it. We just carried you know, continued on and carried forward with all the projects that were appropriate in '23. They've either moved from design to construction, but nothing of significance really has been added since since that version of the list.

So there would be, like, a process for different entities will be involved? Like, I just don't know how we would attach. I like the idea of attaching to the projects that we would get something done. But just kinda don't see it where we would be involved because, like, if you are working on it now on the list, then we're going to get a list and then, port window to come up with something that you have to add.

So what I think I think that's one way to go about is that you all could review the list and and, you know, give your opinion on on what's on the list. I think another way to do it would actually just be more categorical and say, beautification commission is concerned with these types of things, art, landscape, etcetera. And that way, really doesn't matter which project's on the list. When it rises to the top, if it has these types of components in it, then then it comes to you all for, you know, for your recommendations as to those specific criteria. So that that would be the other way perhaps to go about it.

Not saying that one is better than the other. We haven't really done it either way, and so I don't know what I don't know. But I think, you know, to your point, it may be easier to just have an established criteria. That way everybody knows what to expect going into it regardless of which project is going to get funded or not.

Just to comment about you know, we have we have this policy that we've been Timmy and I have been going to work on for about six months. That has to do with acquisition of art and how it's acquired, how it's disposed of, how it's maintained, all that. Because it's kind of a missing piece in, a project like us saying, well, if there's an art component, let's do let's do our process, which is nonexistent right now, but could be if that was, something that would that would be acceptable and and appreciated or, you know, that would be a good working manner to approach that kind of thing. Don't have a process now, but it would be great to have a process because if there is an art component, how do you choose the art? How do you maintain it?

All those little pieces.

Yeah. No. I think that's a great point. And and I don't wanna besmirch any of the project managers at at the city, but of the folks that I've worked with and hired, we're not really wired for the majority aren't really wired for left brain thinking art skills and such. And so it's good to have a different opinion or or thought process on it.

I think to that, you know, the process piece, I think one one program that a lot of folks are familiar with that hasn't really been active for a long time is, you know, the percent for art program within the state as it relates to school facilities and and stuff like that. A program like that is really easy because and a project manager knows, like, I'm doing a school project. 1% of my budget is dedicated to art. I can worry about the building all I need to, but this money is dedicated and set aside. We can work on that separately and apart from what the the scope of the project is.

And so and I'm not saying that that model has to be the exact thing, but what's what's nice about that is it's it's well defined. Mhmm. And it's just part of the process, and it can be naturally incorporated into the the project management step by step process. So I guess I'll just leave it to whatever you all want to do if we need to have a a subsequent conversation. I if I get to advocate, I think something along those lines of saying, these are the areas where beautification is important to us.

These are the areas where we'd like to advocate for within all projects or these types of projects. I think that's I think that's the I don't wanna say the easiest way because it may not necessarily be easy, but I think that's the most straightforward approach. And I would I would probably advocate for that. That's not to say that some of the other considerations aren't a good idea.

I I like the idea of, like, a percentage to be assigned in each project, maybe, like, the beautification, and that would trigger discussion with the beautification committee. Because often, when everybody gets busy, parts get forgotten. So there was a process and, like, let's ask dirification committee if they want to add something to that. That would be but so they don't forget about it, and we don't forget about the project because it's a lot.

Yeah. It it yeah. And and that's that's exactly what ends up happening is we get in our zone. We just start going through a project, and our goal is to get it done and get it out to bid by the next window. And it just kinda gets forgotten, neglected, whatever you wanna call it.

But yeah. And and I think it would be it would be good to be very intentional about which types of projects. You know, again, for example, I look at the some of the various projects we have going on right now, like replacing the windows at the library. Probably not worth y'all's time to to say, you know, make extra cent for art, whatever. However, Pioneer might might have been an opportunity for for some something that could have been missed or at least considered.

You know, because we looked at the scope of the project, it's not applicable. We'll move on. Rico said some benches over here would have been nice. I I don't know. Like I said, I'm making stuff up at this point, but I think I think being intentional about which types of projects and which categories, I think that's the I think that's the real key to making it be successful. Mhmm.

I have one question. There's a. But I see the new signs at Old Town. Is it? Yes. Those are very cool.

Yeah. They're nice.

Have you seen it? Mm-mm. Very nice.

And that's part of the the continued way finding efforts. Martha really kind of drove the drove the bus on that one getting those put up out there. Mhmm. She has another phase, and I believe she has talked with y'all or is going to come talk to y'all about kind of some of the next phase. She's applied for a couple of grants at Rasmussen and T Mobile for some more beautification type projects. She was very conceptual in the grant application, but if if awarded, she'd be certainly coming to

get your opinion. Yeah. But this stuff is very can I jump Can I jump in? So

just so we don't miss it, one thing just going back through the priorities of commissions that through the last few years, there's a lot of kind of high end of projects. Right? Like, boardwalk out, dock point out on the flats. But then there's a lot of concern about maintenance and like there's been a lot of discussion about the arch or the light poles and those kinds of things. So I guess like how does this group you know, let those needs be known when they hear from community members and when they notice something?

And then how do they advocate for getting those maintenance needs funded for kind of the projects they've done in the past when they were the task force?

Yeah. I think I think what would be helpful, not to add a bunch of process and bureaucracy to it, but I I think miss Nielsen point out just having a policy on your all's end and incorporating that into it of identifying identifying the owner and stakeholder. The example I use is the arch. I kinda went around the table and said, who's responsible for the arch? Nobody raised their hand.

I said, okay. I'm responsible for the arch. So he who has the gold makes the rules, so we we just paint it every now and again and take care of it. But I think on the front end, as we're having the conversation, you you get everyone in the room, and they they nod their heads and say, who's responsible for this? Whether by natural subject matter expertise or whether even it's by being voluntold by the city manager that says, hey.

Parks and Rec or public works or capital facilities, you are responsible for this. I think just being intentional about it on the front end, I think that helps clarify a lot of that. It eliminates that finger pointing down the road when when the people are responsible for it or who were responsible for it are no longer around and the new people have to pick it up, it's a lot easier to pick up a document that says, hey. Here's here was the plan. Here's who's in charge.

Go forth. So, yeah, I think having I think developing that into one of some procedure or policy that you guys have, especially if it's something that you're advocating for. If it's just a project component and that process doesn't happen, it's prob I guess what I'm saying is if you develop something, we probably ought to copy and paste for all projects, whether it's through your body or another body, to just say, here's who's responsible. Here's how this is gonna go down. It's not exactly a formal step that we have right now with all of our other projects.

Mhmm. A lot of them are pretty straightforward because the building owner has requested the thing, or they're involved with the selection of it or the area. For example, the the Kelsey Dock is a fine example of that's a Port and Harbor facility. Therefore, Port and Harbor is responsible for maintaining. Whether that was something they wanted or something they asked for, doesn't really matter if it's on your facility.

It's where you go. Where it gets a little bit complicated is some of these public art pieces. Again, Arch and Rec kinda took the bull by the horn, so to speak, on the wood carvings. It was never explicitly stated like these are a Parks and Rec asset. Thou shalt take care of them.

You had some good folks with drive and ambition and said, we're gonna take care of these. We're gonna set them out where they need to go, and it just kinda happened organically. But you can't necessarily guarantee that into the future. Right? I I think that's I think it just having a process, and, if if you all not necessarily dictate it, but help guide and make sure that it happens, that helps ensure that the things that you guys see and and are requesting and advocating for don't just become dust on the side of the road, but they actually get taken care of, and there's somebody advocating for them. The other example I have is the gazebo on the pullout. You know, it's it's a fine example of

It's passing

the book.

It's a it's a polarizing object, and if there's nobody's really in charge of it. Right? And so it it becomes a comes a talking point. And at some point, it becomes a hazard, or it somebody's gotta have ownership at the end of the day. So if this commission can help guide that ownership, I'm I'm all for it.

I think we did a few years ago, and it was

get rid of it. Yeah. I wanna take You wanna take it? Yeah.

So, apparently, it was, it was somewhere out the road, and Judy Londo was responsible for getting the city or whoever put it on flatbed and brought it into town. And it was a nightmare because

it was too high for the, you know, the existing power lines and stuff.

So it's quite a to do to get it in. And, yeah, it's

got quite a history.

Two of the of the former task force members were determined to keep it, and they offered to keep, you know, painting it and upkeeping it. That was after the VCBB was responsible for it, and they got rid of it and passed it back. It's it's just been a yeah.

And and some of it too is as part of Martha's application, she has a component there for a disposable art. Or essentially, it's no maintenance art where you you commission it, it happens, but you don't maintain it. And so that when the time comes for it to be painted over or thrown in the trash, it's it's on a schedule. It's defined. Now if you when you get to the end of that lifespan, if somebody wants to do something more with it, great. Go ahead. But on the front end, the the understanding is this has a five year lifespan. We are not going to replace it when the time comes. It's documented. Documented.

It's it's well stated and established. So I think, again, something similar, some some guidance and guidelines similar to that is is helpful for for any project. Anything else?

Anything else? Let me let me

thanks, Nate.

I don't I don't know that we came to any solutions. But

No. You just, you know, put the prod back in me into me to get get started on that. It's it's something to start with,

at least.

I would say too as as the project process comes along this next go around, if there is there there is a project that rises to the top, certainly don't be bashful about saying, hey. I think we we wanna we wanna stay in this or we wanna at least be in the conversation again. So we get something formalized. That's probably the best mechanism I I can think of now. So what what will likely end up happening is as projects come in, what I've done historically in the past is I bring all the stakeholders into the room.

I let them all down at the same time and say your projects didn't make the cut. But that that time is certainly opportunity for the commission to say, okay. Well, we see what the top projects are. We would like to have an interest in x, or z again until we have an established precedent of these types of project, these types of beautification are incorporated in various different projects. Types.

Okay. Thank you.

Next discussion item,

follow-up on needed repairs to concrete deep walls and decorative planters on Ingen Drive. Oh, you

are in?

And you're hearing.

Oh, you're hearing questions.

Comment? Well, this is one of those projects that it's it seems to me anyway that it's not mine, it's his department. And I think with your your last statements that that would clarify a lot of stuff for the departments and for us of who to go to. So maybe this will fix itself. But are we going to have them all fixed? And granted, I haven't looked in the in the past several weeks.

Yeah. So the the short answer is the MOU we have with the state is one point of it says, the city were responsible for all maintenance. The very next bullet says, the state will be responsible for any damages. And so, similarly, there's there's some finger pointing on on that. I I think I've got an idea of how to maybe fix those or address them in a somewhat cost effective manner. Right now, they have a lip that overhangs on the bench, and that's what gets damaged more often than not. I think if you were to cut down that lip and just grind it

Mhmm.

You can still maintain the bench without having to pay a bunch of money to replace the entire top. I had that idea back in April, but, unfortunately, we have not done anything with it. Just we got busy doing other stuff and it kinda fell fell by the wayside. So that's that's on me. I'm not doing something, but we'll we'll certainly get with public works and perhaps capital facilities and see if we can get a general cost idea of what something like that might look like for repair.

I don't think it's gonna be overly expensive as far as repairs are concerned to do something like that. Now if we want to replace them or or something like that, if that was the desire of the commission, that would be we certainly price that out too, but I'm that would be significantly more expensive than perhaps a repair would be.

I believe Timmy was part of repairing a couple of them a few years ago, and I don't know how much work. It sounds like there was some work involved. But the main one over by we turned to go to the post office, that one's in bad shape. And then even if we can just get a Band Aid on it until we can have a solution, would be nice. Yeah.

Yeah. No. I I don't disagree. Like said, it's it's on me. I just didn't get something done and get it coordinated. But we're still with a lot of summer left.

Do you need me or want to say something?

Yes. I will say, yeah, the ones that we damage, we usually do try to fix. And, also, cutting the lip off, Nate, I think that's a great idea. I really do. So Yeah. We don't usually go and fix the state damage, though, so I think that kinda loops us back in this, like, who fixes what issue.

Yeah. And I I hope they're not listening, but I think at the end of the day, the reality is we're gonna have more resources than the states ever gonna have. So if we want it to look nice, then it's gonna be incumbent on us to make it look nice. I don't I don't like to just blanket absolve the state of any responsibility of stuff, but it's it's probably a small enough thing that at the end of the day, it's the juice isn't worth the squeeze to fight with the state about it. We did we did approach the state about fixing it, and they said, yeah.

We can do that if we had some money to do that. I don't think it was gonna go anywhere. So I've I've again, my thought process was we'd look at it from a cost perspective and time and see what it would take to just do it. And then it's not overly burdensome. We'll just make it happen, move on with the life.

Next. Number three, discussion item, updating application, guidelines and eligibility criteria for 2026 beautification matching grant program.

So, should we have a a short work session for something like that? It's gonna take a little

bit of hammering, remembering all the

things that we talked about during the

process that we wanted to

maybe address. And like

I emailed you guys all earlier, I think it would be beneficial to have a work session on this topic and on the grant program overall. We've had less utilization of it in the last couple years, and it seems like there's just folks who have centrally located businesses who aren't interested in taking advantage of the program. For whatever reason, I don't have a sense of what that is. So I would be I I would if if the commission was on board with having a work session on the grant program to talk about it more big picture, and maybe how we can get more interest in it or get public input from businesses on what they need.

I think that would be helpful for me.

And you had mentioned maybe a flash boat that we could

send out at least get some feedback if

there's a reason people aren't fine.

Yeah. Yeah. We could use the we have the FlashVote platform. We don't use it enough. We pay for a certain number of, like, questions a year, And I'm certainly not the expert on exactly how it works, but we could probably pull in our new communications manager, Sarah, to,

you know, walk us through, you

know, how to design that questionnaire so it gets Mhmm. The answers. You guys get the feedback you need too. Because there's, like, certain questions that work well with it and certain ones that don't need needs to really explain it. That's why he's here.

Yeah. If I could, I I I've talked to Sarah a little bit about it, and I think I think doing a flash vote on it would be would be super useful. Just from the city administration side of the house, I I think I think it'd be, you know, at least this point, it'd be beneficial to take a step back and look at what is what is the goal, and is this the proper program to make that happen, or is should we do something different? Are there there are dollars available for beautification? And and putting it into the hands of the business owners to is is certainly a good thing.

I just don't know if if this grant is is the right answer. And so asking the questions, you know, what are the impediments? What what prevents you from utilizing this? Or what what would you or could you do if it was different? Finding a way to wordsmith those types of questions with the FlashFold, I think, could be extremely beneficial. And the folks that we deal with the flash vote are surprisingly, many of our problems are the same as problems everywhere else in the world, so they're pretty quick to respond with, hey. These are the five questions I would ask. And more often than not, they're pretty well worded and kind of drive to the to the point. So you don't really have to reinvent the wheel in many cases. So, yeah, I I would I would certainly advocate for a for a flash vote.

And and I would also advocate for finding a way to utilize those those funds to help beautify Valdez, whether it's this program or or some some variation of it. I think it's a it's a worthwhile endeavor. I hate to see I hate to see money just sit in the reserve account not being used.

Mhmm.

So would would this group be okay with doing a work session on the grant program overall in lieu of our regular August meeting? Is August 18?

That thing? Are you okay with the work session on August 18?

I'm sorry. Are you talking to me? Okay. It was just really quiet and cut out. If I can make it, yes.

I'm okay with that.

And then, hopefully, just on that same this is the commission as of this moment. It was just reappointed. Magdalena has reapplied. We still have one additional vacancy. Donna Lane is not planning on reapplying. So hopefully, if and and I know both Kathy and Magdalena have mentioned that there's some folks who are interested. So hopefully, we get at least one or two more applications. I

sent a link from the website to the applicant and I did self work. Was that today? Yeah. She

told me today. Today, the Internet was totally

calming out. Yeah. So I told them to go to go and see

We have paper applications too. We can make

it work. Yeah. It didn't didn't work, and I checked it, and it wasn't working. It said it was redirected or something. Mhmm. Yeah.

Yeah. It was really it was a mess. Even my our

cell phones weren't working for about an hour.

Anybody who got the new upgrade?

I'm on the app. I just clicked on it, and it's opening just fine now.

Okay.

Commission business from the floor.

This is the

time for commission members to share additional

thoughts. Anything?

I'll save I'll save it for the work session.

Yeah. I

have some ideas about

the grant

program. Uh-huh. Give me? Nope.

Seeing no more business, come before the commission. We are

adjourned at 05:44PM.

Thank you, Magdalena. Thank you, Nate. Thank you, Elise.

Really helpful. Thank you, Penny. Being online. Rode my bikes.

I'm glad

she's