Library Board - Regular Meeting

Everyone, welcome to Monday, April 20 meeting of city of Waukesha Parks, Recreation and Forestry Board. We'll call to order with roll call.

All right, Alderman Camacho.

Here.

Steve Johnson?

Here.

Sarah Roth?

Here.

John Schmitz is absent. Alderman Wells? Here. Erica Yoss? Here. Now it looks like I'm missing a few. So Eric Hummer?

Here.

And then Jennifer Walner?

Here. Okay, great. Next time we will move on to public comment. If there's anyone here from the public who would like to come forward and make comment, you are welcome to do so now. Okay, no public comment. So we'll move on to approval of minutes from the board meeting on 03/30/2026.

I'll vote for you approve.

Second. Motion by Eric Hummer, second by Steve Johnson. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll take it to a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Okay, moving on to discussion decision items, review and possible action on proposed Greenway Terrace Park playground design and purchase as in the 2026 approved CIP.

All right. We have a full battery of presenters here to go through the project and also any questions, hopefully, supply answers for you as well. And so I think you know Travis McFarland, our grounds maintenance supervisor. He's part of the process. Megan Phelan, she helps us all with projects, special projects coordinator.

And and we have Erica here from Northland Recreation that is gonna tell us how exciting this new playground is going to be. And of course, Mark Schramm is involved with the public information meetings and certainly not last and certainly not least, Melissa Lipska with facilitating the process. So we have a lot of folks that are involved, but the playground projects have gotten to be pretty hefty. We're talking about $300,000 type budgets for atypical playground now. And Greenway Terrace is one of is our oldest playground in the system.

So definitely time Dua was built prior to 2000. I'll give you some insight on that. And I'll Mark, you're always involved in something, don't wanna forget you either. Alright. With that, I don't know, Melissa, if you wanna do a little or Megan. Yes. Alright.

So, Megan Phelan, as Ron mentioned, I've been helping, mostly Melissa with our special parks projects and playgrounds are always a fun one for me. So like Ron said, Greenway Terrace is one of our oldest or is our oldest playground right now in the park system. For twenty eight years, it's been there. So we decided to work with Northland Recreation, specifically Erica who can tell us a little bit about the playground that we selected. But we had a public input meeting on March 24 where we, invited any city resident as well as posting it on Facebook and then sent out postcards to the neighborhood, to sort of get some discussion on on what the neighbors were hoping to see with the new playground.

So that night, Erica brought us three different designs that would work with our budget and the space, that would be appropriate, and it was, brought to a or determined that the Eric Harle themed one that you'll see tonight was the most favored among all of the playgrounds that we present or that she presented. So with that, Erica's gonna be giving some more information on some of the special features that we have. I'm personally very excited about it. I think it's gonna be a great addition to the neighborhood and to our park system. But then something just to keep in mind, like with our last playground that we talked about or that we completed, the port in place will be a separate contract.

So we'll talk about that at a later date. Or it's contracted through Engineering department will be working with that. So Erica, if you wanna share some details.

Hello. As Megan has said, name is Erica. I do would like to say that I did go to the dentist today. So the whole bottom part of my mouth is pretty numb. So if I slur a little, I do apologize.

I was not cocktailing before the meeting. I just I'm a little numb. So as Megan stated, we presented three different kind of themes or identities for the different playgrounds and the people that the community that showed up voted on Eric Carle. One of the comments that I heard from the members was they liked this option in particular because it had a little bit of a larger two to five structure, and there's a lot of young families in the neighborhood. So a lot of times in the past projects that we've done with Waukesha, the two to five has been a little bit smaller, maybe like one or two decks with a climber and a slide.

This one's a little bit longer. We have this really fun, we call them days of the week fruit bridge. So it's Eric Carle, like the very hungry caterpillar. So it has the different fruit and they can crawl through it. We have sculpted, very hungry caterpillar that they can interact with.

Not only can you climb on it and do all the kind of fun things, I'm sure it will be a great photo op. So I'm sure you'll have a lot of people sharing pictures on the city's Facebook and other things like that. And it does have the two slides. And then on our our main structure, our five to 12 structure, I think the kinda highlight is the Very Hungry Caterpillar arched bridge, and it's hard to see in the renderings. But underneath the arched bridge, there's actually a monkey bars.

So just wanted to make sure to point that out. And another couple fun thing on the bottom right right now, this is our butterfly seat. You have the two pages that are kinda supposed to be opened up and look like a book. And the the butterfly wings are actually translucent printed. So if that light hits it correctly, you'll get kind of a a butterfly, you know, the nice color pattern on the ground.

It's once again kind of a social media, you know, picture spot, but it's also a great place for just somebody to sit and relax and be social as part of the playground. On the upper right right now, you can see oh, yep. Right there. We have our friendly fence and Calvin the caterpillar. These two pieces are six month plus.

They have a lot of fine motor skill pieces on them. Like the friendly fence, you can kinda see the orange handles. That's also meant for, like, those little tots, the six months to kinda start working on their walking. So we have, you know, eight foot climber and slide for the bigger kids, but then we have everything down to the younger kids as well. Play panels, interactive things like that.

And then, of course, we have a two base swing set with what we call our inclusive swing seat, one tot and two belts. And then the orange large orange swimmer. This is our revolution swimmer. It has two seats that have kind of a fully supported back that's a little bit more inclusive if somebody needs a little bit more support. It can be turned in the middle like a teacup, or it can be pushed on the outside. And it's it's quite large it's actually rated to hold 10 kids. So I mean that's kind of what I think are our main highlights. Does anybody have any questions or concerns?

I real I really like this playground. I love the I think my last comment for the last playground was looking for like a story with playground. I feel like this takes it very literally. So it's it's very good. My my only concern is I do hear a lot of playgrounds where around big drops.

And my thought is this is very much geared towards the younger kids, which I think is great. Bigger kids play on the two to five much better than little kids play on the big one. And my only concern is right there at the top of the slide, there's two kind of bigger drops. I'm wondering if there's maybe I think the rings going up is good, but I'm a little more curious if there's a better feature on the other side where it's, I guess

It it's a climber that kind of goes like this? Yeah. I mean, we could turn it we could substitute that with something that's, you know, more of like a a rung ladder or a snake climb or something that's a little bit more consistent.

Yeah. Or I think what makes the ring one a little better is it's got that pull there. Yep. So you're less worried about your kid running off the bridge. And then I guess as a parent with my kids are a little bigger now, but you do worry about them going up to the edge and not having anything there that they lean over or Yep. So if there's a feature it has

We do like to design the playgrounds with graduated complexity. Sure.

We're trying to zoom in here.

Yep.

Yeah.

So this one, I think, right in front is the one that they're talking about.

Yes.

And I do actually think that we do have this at Pebble Valley. So when we look at playgrounds, we try to look at graduated complexity. So that means that there's something for everybody at their ability. So, yes, you're always going to maybe have somebody that's kinda trying to level up, trying to reach and improve their physical ability. So this might be a little bit challenging for some kids, but they do have the little bit easier option of our silo climber that's directly to the left.

We could switch this out for something. My only, you know, kind of I think it would be great either way, but my only push for this is that if you don't challenge some kids, they're gonna start using the playground incorrectly because they're bored. Sure. But I think price wise we could have a couple of different climbers that I think would be more in line with what you were thinking of that we could do a switch out.

Yeah. Or even swapping the you've got that white flower panel.

Yep.

If that were to be up that taller one?

Yeah. That one is not available in the 92 inches deck, but we could have like a pedal climber that has kind of the little steps on it.

So I was thinking just the I guess that's a whole unit with the I'm seeing that now with the pedals up to the flower.

Yep. Okay.

It will have the port in place rubber servicing that is meant for the appropriate eight foot fall height. So I mean, safety servicing is to help or is to prevent catastrophic injury or injuries. Sorry. So not to say that somebody might not fall and break an arm or do other things like that, but they should not be seriously injured.

And

there was one other thing that I was gonna mention, but now I've completely forgot it. It'll come back to

me. Oh,

yes.

If you could go back to the white page that has the different Carle. So up on this upper left, we do have a find and seek your coral panel. So there's a it's gonna be about a panel that's about this, and it's a half size. You can see it right there. And on it, it says, very hungry caterpillars, food, and it has all the different food that was featured in the book. And we'll have these little medallions, and they'll actually be posted on different posts around the playground so they can use it as, like, a find and seek adventure.

Can I ask about on top of some of the poles, there seems to be like a picture or an image Yep? Of things. Are those like spinners?

Are they just They're just flat post toppers. They're from the Eric Carle book, Hello Moon, I think is the name of it. So you have the sun and then the moon that was represented in that book.

Gotcha. Great. And I mean, I never thought I'd say social media and playground together, but I think the idea of having the caterpillar and like the butterfly wings are great because I think those are those are just extra little pieces that people will love.

Yeah. Absolutely. I think people are gonna totally gravitate towards them, take their picture. We have a it's not very hungry caterpillar. It's just a caterpillar at our playground at Summerfest.

Half the pictures you see posted on there is little kids sitting on, you know, sitting on it. And we have frogs and other things, and they're always posted on the those playgrounds, Facebook pages, and that kind of stuff. So and the Very Hungry Caterpillar sculpture is carved, and it's hand painted, but it is coated in a material that is fire resistant. You can take like a graffiti remover and get like spray paint and other things off of it. And there's tests that have been done where it's like beat with a bat and other things like that. So even though it is very cool and it looks like artsy, it is very tough meant to be for playgrounds.

Any other questions from the board? Okay, thank you. Thank you. I will bring it back to the board. Will make a motion to approve the Greenway Terrace Park playground design and equipment. Oh, wait, do we have to go over equipment purchase?

No.

No, it's just all included in there. Yeah, okay, great. So I will make a motion. We have a second.

I'll second.

It's a motion by Jennifer Walner, second by Alderman Wells. Any further discussion?

I was just gonna add one more thing. Melissa, if you could kind of briefly go over the timeline for the project.

Yes, I can. So looking at kind of timing with other parks projects, different construction projects kinda going on in the city, working with engineering to time some of these things. When Travis still has seasonals on onboard to help with these as well, we are aiming for a community build date of July 24. So that is kind of tentatively. Once the equipment is ordered, then we'll be able to kinda lock that date in.

But we would be prepping the Greenway Terrace Playground to get the contractor in to do like the concrete band. We will probably pull the Greenway Terrace Playground tentatively June ish. So and then hopefully have a full playground ready to go probably by August I would say. So and those will kind of firm up as as we get closer and when engineering awards the port and place surfacing bid as well. So we will definitely you'll definitely be seeing volunteer opportunities for the community build.

I'm sure April will be recruiting. So she'll be sending that out too once we solidify everything.

Thank you. Any further questions or discussion? Great, we will take that to a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that passes unanimously. All right, moving on board president report. I do not have anything to report this month. So we will move on to the director and Staff Report.

All right. Big project that's been taking a lot of time staff wise is the Park and Recreation System Master Plan, which used to be called the Park and Open Space Plan. It's really our comprehensive plan for an entire park system. It's required for accreditation. And our plan, we've got a lot of mileage out of our old plan.

It goes back to 2007, but we certainly have accomplished quite a bit from that plan. It doesn't seem that long ago, but it is. And this past week, we were conducting tours. Again, kudos out to Megan and Melissa, Mark and Mark, Mark and Mark. And they were fantastic help with taking the consultants around town.

We three days it takes to get through the different parks and areas and give it some ten to fifteen minutes each. And that was just maybe about half of the parks. But we picked on areas that we call special interest areas, which fell into three basic categories, undeveloped sites like a Cardinal Ridge missile site would be example to partially developed sites, Meadowview would be a good one for that. And then areas that need to be rethought or significant renovation or reconstruction. Saratoga Complex is one that comes into that play, Lowell Park rethinking of that in respects to like winter activities.

So this is the first stage of information gathering, getting analysis. The consultant we're working with is Damon Farber. They've been in here for other projects, namely the way finding project and they're also doing a project with community development. So they're really getting to know the city, to say the least. On the tours last week, as you might suspect, it was like a tour of Waterworld with everything underwater, but it does really show quite dramatically how much of our parkland is one might suspect.

If you have a city that has a river that goes through it, you're going to have probably quite a bit of parkland along that. So, yes, lots of water, big challenges, but I think we accomplished what we needed to and much more to come. Park Board will definitely have an opportunity to express ideas and thoughts as we get through a little further along. Right now, we're just kind of gathering information, getting the consulting team up to speed of, you know, what's what within, city's park system. So that's a biggie.

Lot of activity in multiple projects, but I won't steal that from from Melissa. Melissa, or should I steal it from you? Go right ahead.

So Ron mentioned couple more projects going on both of the planning and the construction variety. So engineering is working to send the bids out very soon, for the Greenway Terrace, playground, and concrete ribbon, and then also Prairie Park improvement updates. So again, that one includes reconstruction of the tennis courts, the backstop fencing of both the baseball and the softball fields, updating the tennis court lighting to LED, replacing the antiquated football multiuse sports field lighting that is now, fun trivia, the oldest lighting in our park system as far as sports lighting goes. Actually, probably any lighting actually, now that I'm thinking about it. So that will be updated very soon.

That will make our maintenance staff quite happy, not having to try and get those to come on every year. So working with engineering on those. Another project of the more planning persuasion working with engineering on. Some of you may recall started probably a couple year more than a couple years ago now the RAISE grant which was for a planning grant for the two pedestrian bike pedestrian bridges over the bypass. So we finally have an agreement, a grant agreement in place.

Brandon Schwinn, the engineering department is spearheading that project and there's a large team and a smaller team and we're gonna be supporting in whatever way we can as that project moves forward. So that includes everything from your feasibility, your environmental analysis, your permitting through 100% construction documents. It's meant to get it 100% shovel ready. So that's over a million dollars just in design engineering fees for a project of that size. So not only dealing with the feds as far as the grant but also the state DOT since we're going over a highway.

So Brandon is very excited to have a bunch of us on board that are very excited about the project as well to help out. Another study that is still out there. We're working through the next phases. We'll call Saratoga The Lake study to remove the dam or to dredge. So working through the different options with the consultants, they do their hydraulic analyses and a whole bunch of other, technical flood terms that, I will not pretend to pronounce, but going through some of those as well.

Even though it had some flurries yesterday, summer is coming. Travis promised. So we have a majority of the more popular park shelters up and running. All of them will be up and running by May 1. The bubbler, things like that won't all quite be up yet, but working through those items.

And part of the fun opening this year is last Monday, we had a plumber start with on the buildings crew in our department. So we are very excited to have him on board. His name is Grant. He jumped right in, and he's very much trial by fire right now. We're like, okay. Here's the plumbing van. Here's the list. Go put everything back together. And he's like, yep. Absolutely.

Whatever you need me to do. So so he's been been a very good addition thus far. And he came back this week, which we're always excited about. We still have two openings on the forestry crew, two arborist position openings. So Aaron's been having some interviews.

Hopefully, probably seen some some progress out of those. And of course with summer coming, we are hiring seasonals. So lots of seasonals. So anyone who wants to plant flowers, water flowers, prune trees, cut grass, just be outside, get a nice tan, maybe like get a little workout. So we are hiring and we are competitive in the pay structure range, I will say that.

And then last but not least, just to address some of the flooding. So that the recent flooding undid quite a bit of cleanup that was done last fall from August flooding. So Travis and his crew are kind of going to be in triage mode this spring with addressing some of the flood areas when they can and then also making sure that we're getting the grass cut and trimmed because I don't know how many people started cutting their grass already but I've seen people out. Travis had the mowers out today that we are getting to that point and then getting the ball fields and everything up and running. Working through challenging April.

Those are kind of the main up and comings from GBF. Any questions?

Okay. Yeah. And those lights at Prairie Football, that's like one generation past Edison. They are incredibly old. So we're gonna be very happy about that. But overall, the entire park system with especially sport lighting is in very, very good shape. So it took took a little time, but, yeah, we're in good shape with that. And, yeah, thanks, Mel. Mark, you know, we got good news on the registration. Oh, I should say Mark. Schramm. Good news on the registration front.

Yes. Thank you, Ron. So you guys will all notice that you have an activity guide in front of you. So our activity guides were mailed out two weeks ago and I just wanted to highlight that we've updated our process recently where we are getting our activity guides out to the post office two days earlier and it definitely makes a change and an added benefit for our residents. So by being able to get the activity guide, I would say about six days prior to registration opening and having enough time to review it.

We saw on Monday on our resident registration day, a 100 people come into the office for registrations which was a significant increase from last summer's where we had 62 and that equated to this year $157,000 in revenue from registrations versus 113,000 from last summer for resident registration day. So really wanted to highlight that. Happy we're able to adjust things and get information out to our residents a little quicker than normal and I know they benefit greatly from that and appreciate that. So they're able to register prior to when our nonresident registration opens up. Also wanted to make note that we got a new digital display installed at our WRO complex.

So new this summer, we will have digital displays at our concession stands both at Saratoga and WRO. Also wanted to note that this past week, we submitted our annual review for CAPRA. So this spring we had to review five of our standards and go through any type of updates to ensure we're maintaining compliancy. Also wanted to give an update on some CIP projects for keyless and camera. Since we last met, we completed install of keyless and cameras at Rivers Crossing and Pebble Valley.

We did start at Bethesda, but things are going to be pushed off for a while now due to the flooding. So not going to finish up there. And this week, we'll be starting at Horeb. So we'll have some cameras by the restroom and underneath the shelter there. So excited. We'll almost be done with our backlog of keyless and cameras. So very excited on that. Last thing I wanted to mention for everyone is that next month is our annual meeting where we'll have elections.

Start the campaign.

Yep. Start the campaign.

You haven't gotten all my text messages yet?

Yeah. Thank you. Come on. Alright. Thanks, Mark, and we'll roll right into Mark Thompson.

All right. Thank you very much, Ron. So I can confirm summer is coming. The recreation team has been very busy. With our sports program, baseball, softball, T ball registration did end. We have 46 teams signed up to play this season. With our rental program, we kicked off a successful spring with youth sports and our rentals. We currently have 15 different youth sports organizations renting baseball diamonds and soccer fields. And we also just want to give a big shout out to the Grounds department. Our baseball diamonds we think have looked better than they ever have.

And they did an amazing job tolerating all the rain that we got recently. So it's definitely big kudos to the Grounds team on that one. With our special events, we executed a safe Trailbreaker event with 500 plus runners taking part in the marathon, half marathon 10 ks and five ks. We're also moving swiftly with planning for the Remember Our Fallen Memorial, which is going to take place August 19 through the twenty third. I know it's been a couple of months since you've seen me last, so just a brief update, Remember Our Fallen, I don't know how much I've talked about this.

But this is a unique opportunity where it is a traveling memorial, which is it honors anybody who lost a life in service, in training or once they came home from PTSD post nineeleven. So we're going to host this in the Shutsi Gym. It is going to be fully funded through sponsorship dollars. And it just it goes to serving our role in remembering. And it's going to be a fantastic event for the community.

Next with our volunteer program. We're actually in the middle of celebrating National Volunteer Week. As you guys know, we have nineteen forty four volunteers who contributed thirty four thousand seven hundred and thirty three hours in 2025. And for this week, we're wrapping up with hundreds of volunteers across several programs this weekend, capped off by the grand finale with us planting 100 trees and shrubs at Rivers Crossings Park. With our before and after school program, Gala successfully secured again the $3,000 grant for Screen Free Week.

So we're going to be partnering with Aurora. They're sending nurses out to us to talk to our before and after school sites to present and educate students alternative options other than sitting on their screens. Then we also provide a bingo game for them, and the first student who completes that bingo card at each site, they win a playground kit from Aurora. Additionally, we're gearing up for our annual five ks fun run for a before and after school. So students are in the middle of a ten week training program focused on goal setting and character development.

And the culmination event is our Fun Run, where students then meet with families at Frame Park on Saturday, May 9 to compete in that run. And it's just an awesome celebration of community and realizing and achieving those goals that they've been setting. And also with our before and after school, we had our financial assistance walk last weekend on April 11, and I participated with my family. I thought it was a huge success. We had 10 agencies and welcomed about a 100 families and close to 500 participants.

And the bottom line is we raised a little over $8,000 for our scholarship fund. With our SPARS program, Deb has been very active and also involving with myself and Ron in trying to secure that 6 figure sponsor for Mindyola. We did approach Generac a couple of weeks back, and we have a couple more that are slotted to be coming up here in the near future. Again, just anticipating us nailing down that big dollar, top dollar sponsor prior to us putting a shovel in the ground. And last but certainly not least, pools.

Chemicals have been ordered for startup. Cabanas have arrived. We've mapped out where those are going to go. We've finished two lifeguard classes. So we've had our Christmas break lifeguard class, we had our spring break lifeguard class, We have another lifeguard class that's coming up in May, and we're penciling in yet another lifeguard class for once the kids get out of school. It is we're seeing a lot of transition, a lot of turnover since we did kind of hit the restart button on our aquatics program in 2021. All those kids are now aging out. So last year and this year, we're seeing a huge turnover in our aquatics staff, but it is to be expected. But we anticipate having two awesome pools ready to go on June 6. That's my report. Thanks, Ron.

Thank you, Mark. Then Melissa, maybe if we can hit on two projects that are still in progress, carryover projects from last year, two very important ones. The formal gardens, in case you're wondering, they've been looked pretty ripped up right now, but they're going to look great. And also the Horb Springs and the new play elements that are scheduled and that's going to happen in the fall.

Absolutely. So rain delayed us a little bit, got a little muddy in the formal gardens, but the plus side is the new clear stone and subsurface drainage system is working very well. So that was nice little test of that. So working through this week in house, I'll get a plus of having an electrician on staff working through laying conduit for future electrical service in the garden. So hopefully having some lighting in the gardens in the future, possibility of people being able to plug into a sound system, a podium, things like that.

So just one little nice touch that would be coming to the garden so working through that. And then hopefully looking tentatively at next week for the paving of the pathways and again that's Flexi Pave so imagine kind of your pour in place rubber surfacing but with really pretty rocks. So it's all bound together again with the porous gonna help with the drainage, it's gonna have brick edging so everything will be very symmetrical, give it a nice formal look. And as part of that too, Travis and his crew, because they don't have enough to do this spring, are going to be revising some of the beds as well just to work with some of the grades, addressing some of the edging, just a little tidying up overall some of those. So very excited to have that coming to an end hopefully soon.

And then Horb Zero Depth Features, also the three lemon drops, the teacup and the arch depending on what you call them will be replaced this fall. So we do have a contractor. We have actually the equipment in our cold cold storage building. The features that we'll be replacing them. So that is lined up to begin as soon as horrible pool is done.

We had discussed, the option of trying to do it this spring, but inevitably, we thought something would probably go wrong because it tends to do that for us. So, we thought fall after the pool season would be a much safer option. So that'll be a very nice little facelift to the the front end of Horror Pool. And the frog will be staying the same in the same place.

Okay. Can't mess around with the frog. The other little piece, maybe I missed it, but back to the formal gardens is irrigation. We're not thinking about water much right now, but it does really come into play. Trust me. It will. And the gardens have never been irrigated, so this will be a big plus. And Melissa alluded to bollard type lighting throughout the walkway. It it really will take it to another notch, and that's one of the historical gems of the park system. It goes back to 1928. So part of the PRF trivia. All right, that concludes our report. That's what we got.

Okay, thank you. If there is no further discussion, we are adjourned. Thanks everybody.

Thank you.