Parks & Recreation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

My big job. Thank you. Well, it's not your job. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Well, welcome, everybody, to the next version of the PRAB committee. And I think we see enough new faces that we should do formal introductions. So, Eric, if you'll start, we'll go down here and then across here, I guess.

Absolutely. Thank you. My name is Eric Chuck, and I'm the Parks and Rec Director.

I'm Darrell Boyd. I'm the Assistant Parks and Recreation Director.

And we have Brandon Miller, who is our customer service manager.

We don't give him a microphone.

It's better that way. We try to keep him out of it. He's too chatty.

He's the one that does all your emails, though. So all the contact back and forth on the committee usually goes to Darren.

He's the liaison for the department and you guys. And then you guys want to...

Yeah, we'll start over on this end and work around. Sure.

I'm Roger Pollack. I've been in Wellington since 2012 and live in the aisles. Three kids. Last month in high school, now goes to Wellington High. I know Steve Levin, and he mentioned about getting involved.

Thank you. Welcome. We look forward to it.

Good evening, Elizabeth Rochein. I've lived in Wellington. I've kind of been in Wellington on and off for 10 years, but back in Wellington for about three and a half now. I have a almost four-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old, so they like going to parks and playgrounds, and they're very excited about all the new developments. So just looking forward to being part of this great board. Awesome. Welcome.

Sam Felzone, I moved to Wellington in 97 and started with soccer rec then and have been part of park and rec ever since through travel soccer, through this board and five kids through the programs here. The last one just graduated. So she just finished rec soccer for the last season. Oh. so you don't have to deal with the Fell Zone name in any of those anymore. But happy to be back, and hopefully we can continue the good work.

Good man. Anthony Forgione, been here with my wife and four sons for 26 years. I am proud to be a resident and member of this committee for, this will be my 10th term, which means 20 years on a parks and rec board. And I say that I'm privileged and honored to be part of it. And I'm just glad my wife picked Wellington to move to. God bless.

Hey, Ryan McCarthy. I grew up in Royal Palm Beach and Tangential to Wellington. I moved back here formally with my family in 2021. I spent a great deal of time in the parks. I have a six-year-old. Can you start over again? Oh, yeah, sure.

Is that better? You just got warmed up.

Yeah, exactly. Again, Ryan McCarthy grew up in Royal Palm, was always involved in Wellington, moved back here with my family after law school where I met my wife at UM. I have a four-year-old and a six-year-old. We spend a great deal of time in all the parks and in the programs that are so great that Wellington offers. And I'm happy to join the committee. I was previously on public safety. That's great. Excellent.

Normally here we would do the approval of minutes, but we need to select a chair and vice chair for this committee I make can I make a nomination for the name? Yes, sir. That's exactly what we're gonna do.

It's the easiest thing I'm gonna say all day and I'm gonna itself our zone TO BE THE CHAIRMAN AGAIN. THIS MAN, LIKE I SAID, I'VE BEEN HERE FOR 20 YEARS AFTER THIS NEXT TWO YEARS AND HE HANDLES THIS COMMITTEE AS WELL AS ANYBODY I'VE EVER SEEN AND I'D BE PROUD TO NOMINATE HIM AND IT WOULD BE AN HONOR FOR HIM TO ACCEPT.

SECOND.

We have a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? It's a beautiful thing, Dr. Falzon. Back at it again. Sorry, I had to. That was great. I was like, well, we got to. I had to. All right, now we need a nomination for vice chair, and then I'll let Dr. Falzon take over the meeting. So we need a nomination for vice chair. Do we have a nomination for vice chair?

No. I would nominate Anthony then.

We have a nomination. Second. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Let it be known.

My God, we didn't plan this. The dynamic duo is back out. I don't believe in politics. That's what's done in politics. But I accept it with an honor, and I will do my best to be, which I'll always be. I never miss a meeting. And whenever you need anything in between, don't hesitate to call.

All right. With much respect, I turn it over to you, sir.

Do we need to pick the emergency one anymore? No?

No, we've had to change how we do that.

I was going to say, I thought it was changed from the last time, but I wasn't 100% sure. Okay. There's a subcommittee when there's an issue with coaches and some of the things. And we used to have a subcommittee that had to be able to meet on 24-hour notice and during the day kind of thing. And it was a subgroup of three, but has changed. So that is good. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes from the last meeting. And I know that I was the only one there at that meeting. Yeah. And it does show what we had and had discussed at the meeting. So I do think it's appropriate and is worthy of passing. So we need a second, even though none of you guys were there. Second. Second. Any objections? So our minutes pass, and I have your signed copy waiting for you. The presentation and discussion.

Yeah, so I have no outside presentations for you at this time. I'll just review some items that I would like you guys to be aware of. So this is really staff updates. And just so you know, I want to welcome you all as Dr. Falzon did. I want to welcome you all. It's nice to see new faces. Nice to get some fresh blood. And moving forward, if you guys have any thoughts, desires, comments, ideas, feel free to run up by us. You can tell me directly whenever you feel like it. I'm always around. You can run it through Brandon Miller, who's the liaison. But we're here for a collaboration to make sure that we have the best parts and rec department in the area. That's what we strive for. So summer is in full swing. We started our all-day summer camp today. It was super exciting. It's absolute joy to have several kids at our facility. It's going extremely well on day one.

What's the size this year?

About 260. Yeah. It's a lot. It is a lot. We have several sports academies that I think you should be aware of. So even though we have 260 people in our camp and there's a wait list, everybody wants to get in it. But we do offer something for everybody We have several academies, including basketball, soccer, cheer, dance and tumble, fishing, volleyball, lacrosse, speed and agility, rugby. So even though our all day summer camp is full, we have many other opportunities for other people to utilize. Our fields at Village Park and Olympia are getting some much needed rest right now. Our fields are closed at Village Park. We're redoing sod in places not nearly as much this year as we did last year. We completely resided Olympia. It was time, and that was the last field that kind of needed that. And now it's just, you know, goal mounts and center places on the fields right now at Village Park, but it's going very well. They're residing as we speak, so we'll be ready to go in August. Summer's the only downtime that we get to do this. We added a girls softball fall league again. The number's kind of dwindled down, but now we brought them back up, so there's enough to have two leagues again, so that's a good thing for the program.

Divided by age or ability. Age.

The aquatic center is going fantastic. So for those of you that aren't aware, I came from aquatics. I worked at aquatics for several years before moving to Village Park and the athletic department as a whole. But the aquatic center is going extremely well, just more than we possibly could have imagined. It's slammed. The cabana rentals are going very well. The birthday party rentals is packed every weekend. It's a beautiful thing. Swim lessons started today for the summer. And aquatics is going very, very well. So we're very proud. If you haven't had an opportunity to check it out, I highly recommend it.

It's unreal.

The Ninja Cross is a nice feature that everyone seems to be enjoying so far, too.

I have not gotten to see that yet.

Yeah, we've got to give it a shot. We've got to try it. And the relationship with Wellington Sports Academy is going well. We started Open Play Volleyball actually today. I just came from over there before I came over here. That's Monday through Thursday from 6 to 9 PM. 14 and under is 6 to 7.30. 15 and up is 7.30 to 9. We began that today. I think we had, before I left, we had like 30 people over there already. So that's going to go well. I think that's going to go very well. With all the programs and amenities we offer at Village Park, volleyball kind of gets sandwiched in between basketball and everything else. So now with the addition of Wellington Sports Academy, we're going to utilize our portion primarily for open play volleyball. We'll do other stuff with it, whether at rec or travel basketball and other stuff. But the open play volleyball is a cool feature that we think is going to go really well. And then now I'll review events. What I typically do with events is I don't go over the whole year. I'll go between now and when the next meeting is going to be, and I'll give you that snapshot of what's going to be occurring.

If you're not familiar with any of the programs, say something so that we have a chance to try to catch up on that.

And there's two things I want you all to do. All of this information is on our website. We do a great job of promoting and marketing. Christine, Gerald, and Damien, who work for us, do a great job with it. If you're not already on our newsletter, Let us know. Get with Brandon after this. We can add you. I can have Christine add you. And it's just once a month newsletter that has everything in it. It has Parks and Rec and Community Services and tennis. So it gives you everything you need to know from a kid standpoint to an adult standpoint to a senior standpoint of what we're doing. So the events coming up, we have the Sickle Cell Foundation of Palm Beach County's Leaders Forum on June 19th from 11 to 1.30 at the Community Center. The next event after that is our Red Teeth and Celebration of Juneteenth. That will be on June 20th from 6 to 10 p.m. And that's an event that the Village of Wellington and the Sickle Cell Foundation of Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast partner together for our annual Red Teeth Celebration of Juneteenth event. There'll be several speakers, artists, bands. It should be a nice event. July 4th is the largest event that we do every year. If you don't get a chance to come out, I highly recommend that you do. It's from 6 to 10 p.m. It has everything from bounce houses, food trucks, crazy games, petting zoo, bingo, and obviously... Bands and a fantastic firework show a beautiful firework show. This is the one event that we have that You got to get there at a decent time the park tends to fill up around 7 7 30 now we have an additional 250 300 parking spots from aquatics and WSA which is going to help offset some of that Demand and there's a mass exodus at the end of the event so when you come in there you need to come in and just be ready to To stay in for the long haul. We figured out a way to put the fireworks in a different place years ago. So you can get out both entrances off of 120th and Pearson. So it kind of helps with the mass exodus. But if you don't get a chance to come, if you've never seen that event, I highly recommend coming to that event. It's fantastic. The fireworks show alone is incredible. Back to School Party in the Park is on Friday, August 7th at the Amphitheater in conjunction with the Chris Aguirre Memorial Foundation, who sponsors the Back to School Party in the Park event at our amphitheater. That is from 5 to 8 p.m. On August 7th Our 9-11 event we're doing a little different this year. It's the What is it the 25th Right 25th year since it occurred. Oh, that's right. So everyone's kind of doing it a little bit more. So what we've done this year is We're going to have, it's twofold. We're going to do an event in conjunction with a countywide in conjunction with Palm Beach County. And we're going to have an event for 9-11 at the amphitheater beginning at 9 a.m. We'll have PBSO, fire rescue, a whole ensemble. It's not just our event we're doing in conjunction with the county. And then what we're doing differently, that's a little bit differently because we're doing it with the county. The biggest difference we're doing this year is our more intimate event at the evening. It's the evening of remembrance. And we're going to have WPTV anchor Ashley Glass will join us as the MC. And our guest speaker is Todd Beers, who piloted Air Force One for President George W. Bush during the 9-11 events. So he's going to tell you what he experienced on the flight, what he heard through the intercom, and share his version of what occurred. That's a – Ticketed event only it's free. You can register for it through eventbrite and that should be a very very Different and cool experience I think for a lot of people to check out Can't believe it's 25 years and it's crazy Everybody remembers where they were that day And that's what I have for you guys

Did anybody have any questions? Yeah.

I have one. Can you expand a little bit more on the relationship with WSA and Wellington? And isn't part of the building supposed to be for residents?

Yeah. So it's a great question. This is Wellington's first endeavor with a public-private partnership. We also have another one with Padel at Tennis, which will be on board in the next couple of months. But this is the first Triple P public-private partnership that we've gone down. And yes, so from an agreement standpoint, our use for the public is Monday through Thursday from 6 to 10 p.m., we get one full-size court to use for whatever we decide. So we decided, along with council, a few weeks ago to go with open play volleyball. Like I said before, we're also going to have, you know, travel basketball and other programs in there. But we're starting, especially with this summer, with open play volleyball. And the rest of the facility, like he has a – workout gym, which is about to be on board. It's coming very soon. There'll be membership packages associated with that for purchase that the residents or anybody can use as long as they purchase that. But the public access is that one court, which you do not have to pay for. If you're a Wellington resident, you get to use it for free for the open play portion. If you're not a resident, it's a $5 fee.

So the rest of the amenities will be a membership?

Correct. Or for his internal programs or whatever it may be. And then he gets to use some of our fields as well as part of the agreement.

that we can use their fields during special events that we have, but they have to be arranged individually. There's a core amount of time that is set to be shared, and then the rest of it is as available. And since it's so new right now, we think the intention is still going to be followed on both sides, but obviously it's new and we're working our way through.

Yeah, it's not fully operational yet either. There's still one Core component that needs to be done, the room when you first walk into the left, that was going to be a medical slash wing, but he pivoted to something else. It's going to be a multi-purpose room now for whatever he wants to hold meetings, coaches clinics, birthday parties, whatever it may be. And the workout gym is still not completely finished. He's still waiting for some equipment.

And the decision for the volleyball is their decision. We just get the court, which is part of the agreement. But it's our team that decided that volleyball would be the best use, which makes sense because we can get two or three courts on one.

Yeah, we can get two volleyball courts on one basketball court. So we can run two games parallel.

The other building is still rec and travel? The other basketball courts?

Yeah, the other basketball courts. He has a variety of programs. He has a basketball academy, a volleyball academy.

I mean, our building.

Oh, Village Park? Village Park. Correct. Yeah, that's still our rec basketball, rec volleyball, travel basketball, our bread and butter programs, yeah.

Being that all my kids play sports, and I know people that are using the academy, you do get a lot of questions like, well, we've heard the public can access the academy's weight room. And so I was just wondering, when is that going to be, you know, when I hear that question, when is that going to be rolled out? Is that something he rolls out for the marketing of the building? So. And will that be an email blast or an announcement or somehow that?

Yeah, that's a good question. So John Bostick, we have a bond with them, so we help cover the cost of the facility, which he pays us back on an annual basis. He's permitted to do... For the most part, what he wants inside that facility, as long as it's during operational hours, doesn't conflict with anything we're offering. Like, he can't do a tournament in conjunction with something that we say or I say, hey, that's not going to work because there's too much happening at the same time. But for the most part, he can do whatever he wants from a programming and sports aspect out of that facility during the time frames that he's allotted.

The weight room, I think he was referring to.

You mentioned the memberships. When would that be actually? I've had people ask me, because we know people that use the academy, like when will there be availability if you're a travel baseball player to use any of the facilities, you know, batting cages or the weight rooms? We know that he takes, it's his academy during the day, obviously.

Yeah, so right now, I misunderstood your question. I'm sorry, Roger. So he has two workout gyms. He has one that's going to be open to the public, which is membership-based, which is on the website now. There's three tiers. I forgot what they're called, but one that allows you to use the workout gym as well as the basketball courts, one that allows you to use just a workout gym, and one that allows you to use something else. The other one, the other workout gym is for his academies, for his internal programs that the public will not be in. The large one, if you haven't been in there, we can give you guys a tour at some point, too. The large one, the one that's two-story that's going to have the cardiovascular stuff on the top with the weights on the bottom, that one will be membership-based. In terms of our programs using it, that's not something that's on the table right now.

I'm saying the local resident at some point will be notified the memberships are available. Correct.

And it's actually available right now on his website. It's available. It's just not open yet. It should be open in about a month or two.

And that's a different website than the Village?

Yeah, that's not through the Parks and Rec website. That's not through the Village of Wellington. It's the Wellington Sports Academy website.

Thank you. You're welcome. Clarifies a lot.

You're welcome.

Questions about any of the stuff? Not about those ones. I have other questions. Okay.

So I was just wondering, in terms of sunshades, I know it's a very exciting topic, but if there's a plan to put any additional sunshades at, like, Scott's Place or some of the other parks that don't have them currently.

It's funny you mention that. We are in discussions internally to do that now. Yeah, but the works is looking into it.

Okay. Yeah, I think that would be helpful. And then one other question. So for the village park, I know you talked about all the congestion that happens when you go there. Is there ever a consideration to open it up to the side kind of by – Stribling and Pearson, like more of a pedestrian access behind there, because there's a lot of neighborhoods that are right there that could potentially access Village Park without having to go all the way up to the entrance off of, I guess, what is that, Pearson?

I'm trying to understand what you're saying.

Basically, there's like, you know, there's Castellina, there's Oakmont Estates, a few of the other communities, Isles and all of them. Is there ever consideration to open up like a pedestrian access point on the, I guess, the east side of Village Park?

We have not discussed that. What we have discussed, and it's on the ballot, if you will, moving forward to do, we're going to hopefully, with council approval, increase the number of parking spots that we have at Village Park to accommodate everything that we're doing because it's a lot's going on and potentially put in roundabouts at the front of each entrance, which would help with congestion and expand the road slightly so that people don't have to stop and But I hear your pain. It's going to remain. They never work the way they think they do. The engineers would disagree. The engineers would disagree. That's hopefully coming soon to help with congestion and free things up.

I just know a lot of people who live in those areas would like, it's kind of where the industrial park is. Like there's a fence right there.

I just don't know how we could, we'd have to, that's not our fence either.

That's their fence.

And it's public land just on, or private land just on the other side of the fence.

That fence that you're talking about that wraps around the industrial complex and it goes towards the WCFL where the storage units are, that's their security fence for their side. So that would be a little more complicated, but we could look into it.

Yeah, I think it would just be helpful to add because then people can walk or golf cart that way versus taking up parking spots or driving down shriveling. I think there's a fair, even people from Olympia might want to cross the street and walk or take a golf cart. It's just something that I've heard from other people. Okay. So.

Thank you.

No, I'm not. Okay. I do have one more question.

I'm sorry. I saw the beginning of the land clearing of the K Park, and I think that's being sold to Stephen Ross's. Correct. Will there be any types of parks? The related group. That Wellington will be involved in?

They're fencing that off now. They're in the process of breaking ground on that. That's going to be a multi-year project. That's going to be a very, very large, wide-scale project from a parks and rec standpoint that we can utilize. don't i don't really foresee that they're going to have a private school on one side and the rest of it's going to be i don't want to call it something that's not but like a city place type feel it's going to have apartments condos restaurants shops they put out some uh is the whole land sold is there the village does the the village the whole the whole the whole k-park parcel is sold the church will remain and the rest of it that we had the crops and stuff on that was used for farming is no longer.

So no parks are that Wellington village is involved in to create a park there. OK. Not that I'm aware of, no. No future. It's all his.

No.

Any traffic that comes with it. Yes. It'll be good. The 250 celebration. Go ahead. It will be, you know, make Wellington that much more desirable.

Should be a destination point for sure. Mm-hmm. I've seen the I've seen the mock-ups it looks I mean it looks incredible and they do nothing but top tier work so should be should be a nice feature that want to get.

The 2.50 celebration of a doing anything different or is it just I want to say the same old because it is one of the greatest events and one of the best for the July celebrations in Palm Beach, but are they doing anything different for this year.

For the 4th of July event, no, not really. It'll be primarily the same concept. We're bringing in a different band than we normally do. That should get some people's attention. But no, for the most part, it's still the same concept, the same makeup. We have a different firework company this year, so we're looking, and I think that's going to be another nice feature.

And the 9-11 event, when does that start to open up for registration?

I don't know if it is. I don't think it is now.

I doubt it's open now. But do we have an idea when that opens?

I don't. I don't. But we'll let you guys know. I'll get with Michelle and let you guys know.

Just for clarification, when we talk about the academies for the summer programs, like the Soccer Academy, Speed and Agility Academy, they're usually run by our different sports providers as a fee-for service. Some of them are run by our Park and Rec Board. They're all for fee services because they have to hire the people to... run the program and they're hiring in specialty training events for them. But they are all run under our ruling and uh you know through their uh jurisdiction on it unlike when we say Academy with Boston program under on that it is a independent situation there are certain things that have been negotiated between the two entities but outside of that it is a private building just on public land

Gotcha.

Unlike the swimming, that is our pool. Any events at that is run by these gentlemen here in our programs.

Yeah, I think Dr. Falzon said it very well. So essentially, there's three ways that we provide programs, either internal, which we provide through the Parks and Rec Department. Our staff handles it through us. Independent contractors, which is a 70-30 split, a third party that we have an agreement with that offers programs at our facilities. And then we have our sports providers. They run programs in sports. that we don't run internally, but they're extension, like an olive branch of us. We still work with them very carefully. Actually, we're having a meeting with them tomorrow night to discuss things coming up.

ALTAI Sport meeting?

Yeah. Those are the three core ways that we provide programs to the Rosas.

And then all the recreational events as well that are outside of the sports. The open play volleyball I thought was interesting because that's one of the areas that we've always struggled with is open play and free play. Are we getting into any more of that or any plans for the upcoming summer next year for the other sports or just park space?

I wouldn't say from a specific program standpoint, but the old Boys and Girls Club, now known as a what is that, South Shore? South Shore Park is our primary open play. That and Greenbrier, the dog park, aka the dog park, are the two primary open play facilities. We don't run coordinated scheduled programs. Drop and play is a very important thing. We've talked about this many times. Drop and play is a very important aspect of the Parks and Rec Department. And I would say, I would put this up against any other city, our open play facilities are quite robust compared to other places. At South Shore Park, we have two baseball slash softball fields and two multipurpose fields, one more than full size, one half a field.

And it's being used right now because I keep getting notifications on my phone. We have cameras that are setting off the sensors. We have cameras out there. And when a group gets large enough, I get notifications.

15 or more. We get an update about every five minutes, which is really exciting. I get about 27,000 emails or texts. And then Greenbrier Park, AKA the dog park, has two multipurpose fields, six pickleball courts, four volleyball courts. Those are unscheduled, unprogrammed, go play, have a good time. We don't we don't run programming out of it.

So if those are well used as well Oh my god, it's they're always crowded. We did do a pickleball tournament there this weekend And I can tell you while we were there Fairly large soccer was playing soccer as well.

Yeah South Shore Park is getting so utilized that one of the fields we had to close for a few months to let it get so much needed to rehab the other ones still open So to answer your question, are we doing specific open play for those other things? No, but they're always available.

Yeah. No, I know they're being used a lot. I was just wondering if we were thinking of like a soccer day or whatever, just sort of like we're doing with the volleyball. The volleyball sets up to not work if you don't do an open play event, so to speak. Right. But I didn't know if we were doing that in any of the other ones or any – if there's any chat board so people trying to play soccer together, let's say, can say, hey, what about next Friday? Something that helps to promote to get more than your four friends to show up to see. And I just wasn't sure if we had started to branch out since we had that going.

No, we have not branched out to that. But it is certainly something that we could entertain and put out there to allow people that opportunity to coordinate it through us so that you can get a larger group to show up.

We worked hard to get these open spaces. And with the co-management with the high school and with Bostick and them, we've been able to carve out more than I've ever had before, which- And I don't know what Daryl's about to say, but what we found at South Shore Park is they're coming with groups.

So they're coming with 17, 18 guys.

Oh, so the numbers have increased because it used to be like five on five all the time for soccer.

They're playing 7v7 with guys waiting on the side. They're bringing their own chairs and sitting or going underneath the shaded trees. The group has expanded to where it's not just four or five guys going out there. It's large-scale numbers going out there and playing, which is what we want.

Exactly. That's what I was wondering if we needed to help to encourage that a little bit, but maybe we don't.

We know that some of the outdoor volleyball use, those groups are using Meetup apps and things like that. So they're doing what you're talking about on their own, and that's how they're pulling that off.

One of the things that I find and have always found during people who stop you and ask questions, most of them don't think there's any open play or any drop-in anywhere. because as well as they do to advertise everything, People tend not to be able to find, like, schedules. Like, if you want the schedule for South Shore Park, I don't think that's easily findable for them. But the announcements are all there and all the notifications, if you can follow what I'm saying.

If someone's willing to go to our website and spend 10 minutes, everything is there. Now, some people don't do that. Or some people aren't on our Facebook, don't follow us on Facebook or any of the other social media platforms or our newsletter. If I could get every single person to follow our newsletter, they would see every single thing that we offer. And some people are old school. They want to just come into the facility and say, hey. And we'll hand them an open play schedule. We'll hand them a calendar for basketball. We'll hand them a calendar for volleyball. We'll let them know where the open play facilities are. And those things are always available at Village Park for people to walk in and pick up.

The people at the desk there are usually very helpful in getting people to where they need to be, which is great. um if no other questions the you had a topic of meeting time and i will let you direct that since you had an idea of that and then i am going to broach an idea yeah see and that's why you're here because i said because that's why you're here because i skipped that i skipped that item so

So it's been talked about over the years, at least since I've been doing this now for seven years or so, a discussion of we meet quarterly, and we need to continue to meet quarterly. If there's not items worth discussing or if it's a slow part of the year, we may say, hey, guys, we can pump this, or if there's not a quorum because some of you guys are out of town, rather than picking a different meeting date, we might just say, hey, we'll skip this one. We'll see you guys next time. But there's been a discussion before about doing this earlier. So right now we meet at 7 p.m. quarterly every three months. There's been a discussion about doing it earlier, maybe 6, maybe 6.30. Every time we talk about it, it sounds like a majority of people want to do it, and then there's one or two that don't. I'm good either way. So is Daryl. We work for the city. We're here to serve. We don't care what time we do it. Right now it's at 7 o'clock, but if you guys would like to discuss amongst yourselves about potentially doing it earlier, we can entertain that.

So floor is open for discussion.

Fortunately, I'm retired, so I'm flexible. So you're good either way. So he wants to do it at 9 AM. Yeah, I agree.

I have no preference.

Yeah, I don't really either.

OK. Do you guys have a preference then?

So that's a great question.

Earlier than 6 is bad. 6 is about as early.

And that's what I thought. I assumed that 6 o'clock would be probably the sweet spot, if you will. 6 is fine. Are you guys all good with that? Yeah.

That's fine with me.

Brandon, that shouldn't be an issue, right?

No.

If it works better for the people working to not have to go home and then come back, that's the type of thing that we're playing with.

So what we can do, if there's consensus, then we'll move forward with 6 p.m. time slot, and we'll let you know in an email when the next three meetings are going to be for this year. And what we'll need to do is double check with Mr. Zomer and Chief Romero and make sure that that coincides with their schedule. If it does, beautiful. If one person says they can't do it, then we're going to stick with 7 o'clock.

Okay. And in case it's not clear, we meet on the first Monday of the month that we meet on, with the exception of September always ends up on Labor Day, so we'll usually change that date.

Which is always a comical rescheduling. But hopefully, they're going to make the schedule and email it out. And if you cannot make that day, let them know. And if so, we're going to put out the Outlook invites and make it the official meeting. And then if you can't make it, it's like tonight. If you didn't make it, it's a miss.

And then what we'll always do about a week or so before the meeting is we'll send you the agenda packet, remind you of the meeting, any other comments or things that you'd like to have on there. And then we usually try to just give you a brief update of what's going on. We used to do the penny sales tax update with Ms. Quickle. That's no longer. That period, we're no longer. Oh, so there's no.

I figured there was going to be a little. We've collected all that we're going to collect.

So there's no. She's not going to come here anymore and give you guys a present. She misses you guys. She sends her regards, but she's no longer going to come. I'm going to miss them. She's no longer going to come.

If you have a topic that you plan on bringing up, that is a good time to send it to them. Because if they don't have an opportunity to look into it, it's a, gee, interesting question. And it doesn't help anybody. Especially yourself for getting some information.

100%. And if it bypasses you, if you don't think about it and you come to the meeting and you have a thought or something you want to talk about, just bring it up here. And if we don't have all the answers to you, we'll give them to you next time.

I was thinking, though, that it is time to at least attempt another tour to try to get everybody out. We have so many new people on it. It's probably a good time to do it. The pool is open, all the different things that have changed. Is there a bad time to try to do it at, like, a lunchtime during the day? Or should we aim for an early evening? Should we aim for a weekend? Is there a preference in that? And then I'll try to work out a time with them. Usually I have the worst schedule, if you're going to find.

Yeah, if there's a desire to see the new aquatic center and Wellington Sports Academy, I would need to coordinate that with mr. Bostick so that he's right there for us to come and The pool we can do whenever so if you guys come up with a day and time or two or three that works We can certainly get that scheduled.

But if is there a preference to do weekend weekday evening day just not lunchtime not uh other otherwise i can probably be flexible yeah so we could we could shoot for you're free you're you and i talk more than anything we do yeah it won't be a meeting so there's you and if you feel like you don't want to drive around and see everything that's fine but it would be a good opportunity for you guys to ask just some of the general questions too on some of the things that you might not be familiar with um and To get a better idea of the whole thing and you guys can Maybe fill them in on the award that we usually have been getting on a regular basis now And actually there's probably a website that we can send out to them just so they see what that program is Which would probably not be a bad idea

Yeah, we can. We hold a national accreditation. We hold basically the highest accreditation we can. We've had it since 2009. It's something we're pretty proud of, especially me and Brandon.

And it's, what, top 2% of all the park and recs in the country or something like that?

It used to be very, very select. A lot more agencies have gotten behind their parks and rec departments and allowed them to kind of go through the process. It's quite a process. You re-up every five years. And it's basically a best practice, just like any other accreditation that I'm sure most of you have been involved with. But we think it's a big deal. It's a thing that we're telling our residents that, hey, we're trying to do this at the highest level according to the standards.

One of the requirements for it is that it's a past, present, and future accreditation. So if you don't show that you're making decisions with planning for the next three years, five-year windows, then you lose the accreditation, no matter how good the program is. So it really is, I was part of the original one, and obviously getting it originally is a lot harder than maintaining it, but... It is definitely worth everybody on the board knowing about it and understanding it.

Yeah, we could send you some information on that. And we could also, so if I'm, just if I may, it sound like for a potential tour, not lunch, You're retired, so you're down for whatever. And the three of you, I'm thinking we could do it mid-afternoon, early evening, maybe 3 o'clock or something.

Yeah, I think I could do that.

The evenings are challenging because we have a lot of meetings already. And then so I could do like early morning Saturday or something or something else like that or like a 3 p.m. type of thing. That would probably work best.

Anybody can come and go at any part of it as well.

I'm thinking we'll do something during the week. We'll send you guys a couple of options.

That'll give everybody an opportunity to see Village Park Gym inside and the Bostick site.

If you haven't seen South Shore, it's worth seeing.

We could do the quick. We could do Aquatics, Wellington Sports Academy, Village Park, South Shore, Greenbrier. Come home.

I think it would be well worth it.

It's going to take a couple hours.

right closing comments usually we get an opportunity to go through from one side to the other and you can make any closing comments you want and then we we kind of join the board comment and the closing comments together just because it's usually not that contagious since I'm new on the board anything specifically you guys want us to do between meetings is there a

No, I mean, really, you guys are our committee. That's our whole goal. So if you hear anything, see anything, give any ideas or suggestions, just let us know.

Well, I'm real excited to be involved and appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Am I allowed to ask one more question or is it too late? Okay.

Your closing comment, you can ask any question.

I saw in the minutes that it was brought up before about the food options at the town promenade or the village promenade. And I'm sorry to belabor it since you already discussed it last time. But since there's some of us who are new, is that ever a possibility to have food options there? Is that unrelated to Parks and Rec and that's a different?

When you say food options, you mean like restaurants and things like that?

Yeah, like by the lake and by the promenade.

Yeah, that was that so that used to be a portion of parks and rec community services now runs the lakeside market or I think they call it Thursday nights now and there was we briefly spoke about putting restaurants and something that I don't know how how like putting it to paper and actually putting structures in there if it's feasible. So I'm not going to say no, but I don't think it's on the forecast right now. I think the Thursday nights is going extremely well. The food trucks are killing it. People love the concerts and the bands as well as on Saturdays and wherever else we do there for the other random special events that we do that we do through Parks and Rec and or community services offers. So to answer your question, it's nothing on the radar as we speak.

Okay. I just, I know that, you know, like Royal Palm Beach, where is it? Veterans Park or one of them has like that Seeds Cafe. That little cafe. And people, people I know choose to go there over Scott's Place or over other places because there's food options. And I think that's what I hear from everyone is that, you know, Scott's Place is great. All these areas are great, but it'd be so nice to have. Something there like a little cafe or something that you could get outside of the food trucks on a Saturday Sunday And so just and there's no lakefront dining or any you know waterfront options around here either So it would just be nice to have something there to even utilize because it's such a nice area and it's such a nice promenade So it's nice to have something there the current phase of that town center project is the demolition of the old pool

So I would say as far as town center goes, that's kind of what's going on now. But we're required once you guys make comments and things like that, we report those up to senior leadership who reports them up to the council anyway. So those comments will go directly to them.

Great. Thank you. Sorry, one more question and I'm done. The park that's supposed to be over by Elbridge Gale, are there any updates on that? Is that still happening or is that, was that, I thought I read something that there was going to be like a walking area.

I haven't heard anything about that in a while.

It was by Elbridge Gale, like behind the elementary school over off Forest Hill.

You're talking about the golf course.

Maybe, yeah. I just read something about that at one point, so I wasn't sure.

I wouldn't say anything's 100% on that at this point.

Okay. That's helpful. Okay, I'm done. Thank you. You're welcome.

Great first meeting. I'm happy to be here and look forward to working with everybody. I think we have such incredible parks and rec, and I look forward to taking the tour and seeing what more I have not seen. But I feel pretty confident with my young kids. We've been to most of the stuff, and I look forward to staying involved. So thank you.

Thank you. Anthony?

I look forward to being on this committee, on this board. Looks like it's going to be very promising.

A lot of questions, which is always nice.

And I like that. And I think the people sitting in front of us are a class operation that they perform. And it's a privilege to be part of this. Thank you.

I just want to say welcome to all the new people, and I look forward to, I can't believe 9-11 is 25 years, but 250 and a 25-year celebration for our summers. I'm sure we're going to do our usual great stuff, and I'm encouraged to see how it looks. Thank you. But with that, I would take a motion. Oh, sorry.

Well, Dr. Falzon, our crack research staff has confirmed your assumption. And yes, 2% of agencies have accreditation. So there's just over 200 in the country.

Wow. I mean, it's really limited. Is that Mr. Miller? And we've had it since 2009. Wow. Yeah. Well done. Well done, Brandon. Yeah. Good job. Even though you don't have a mic. And we'll take a motion to adjourn.

I'll make such a motion.

A second. I'll second it. Any opposed? And with that, our first meeting is done.