Parks & Recreation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. And first order of business will be a pledge allegiance. And welcome, everybody. I'm glad everybody made it back safely from Thanksgiving. And we need approval of the minutes or any suggestions for changes.

I'll move to approve.

Second. Anybody opposed? Hearing no objections, it'll pass. Which means we're presentation.

Good evening. We've got the latest sales surtax revenue and expenditure report for your consideration. As of 11/19/2025, we have collected $5,670,165 in surtax revenues on a $5,000,000 revised budget or 112% of the budget. Since inception, Wellington has collected $45,153,668 in surtax revenues. This is the last year of collections of those revenues.

And the projected expenditures for fiscal year twenty five-twenty six through 11/19/2025 are outlined in the chart included in the report. And the main projects, of course, have been the community South Shore Park, the aquatic center, and then we have approximately $5,800,000 in the general sales surtax funds that have not been designated for a specific project at this time. The plan for those funds is to replenish the general fund for monies that were used from the general fund for construction of the aquatic center. And we'll be bringing that to council when the sale of surtax officially ends and we have the final collections on it, which should be in the next few months. Months.

So it was general finance dollars that were budgeted and spent, and now they're looking to recoup it from this?

Because the goal was to use the sales surtax dollars construction of the Aquatics Complex.

Oh, but it was specified that way in the beginning? Correct.

And we spent to get the project started, we used general fund dollars to fully fund it and would use this to offset when collected.

Okay. It didn't it sounded more like it was a backfill job.

It's like, wait a minute, is that legal? No.

Right. Wow. Hey, I got to make sure you guys are doing your job right, right? I assure you she is.

What what causes the sales surtax collection to end?

When it was originally started, which was 01/01/2017, It was approved as a referendum question to the voters, and it was stated in there that it would end earlier of 12/31/2026 or when a certain amount had been collected. That amount has been collected for Palm Beach County as of the 2025, and so this will be the last year of those collections.

So Palm Beach County people in Palm Beach County have been spending?

Whoever came to Palm Beach County as well. Whoever came. Correct, yes. Had originally expected projected the top amount to be a little over $38,000,000 And as stated here, we've collected $45,000,000 to so that's fantastic, the additional funding that's been collected for all of Palm Beach County.

Is there anything being done to promote a new referendum to have funds extended into the future?

There was some discussion of that last year. It did not go anywhere with Palm Beach County. I do believe the school district has put forth for theirs to continue, but there was nothing else for the other parties to it.

Other questions, comments?

Is there any way to suggest that they continue?

Certainly. And I think you're aware, probably this year, the big focus is on what's happening with property taxes. There's a great deal of interest and concern regarding that, but that certainly would come back up again and have those discussions. We usually have that conversation with the League of Cities. All the cities then can look at that because they were all parties to this as well, but certainly.

And from a Parks and Rec standpoint, we would fully endorse the Penny's Health Act.

I think the question though is more, do we have a direct request line that we can use as this committee for them to look into that?

We can certainly Assuming Yes. Yeah. Okay. Bring that forward to counsel. Yes. Absolutely.

It was just a

Mhmm.

I think we can tug on that thread, but I don't think I gonna say, I

don't know that there's a real belt. Don't know that there's something actually tied to the other end, but that doesn't mean we can't pull on a thread. Mhmm. I I think you're right. I think it's all gonna be dependent on what's going on with the whole property tax issue. But the problem then comes in is they're gonna need that penny sales tax for other things. I am sure that just the small focus of what they're trying to use them for now. It's a plus minus, I guess.

Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing all of you on January 3, if not sooner, for the grand opening. So we're very excited about that. It looks fantastic. Yes.

I'm sure that will be included in the staff report, staff update.

She literally just segued me

to It is so nice.

You're

all set

up. Motion to move to staff update.

There you go. Go right ahead then.

All right. So our update on our aquatic center, as Ms. Quickel just said, we will have our grand opening on January 3. That's the day after the thirtieth anniversary here, which will take place January 2. So the Aquadex Center grand opening will be January 3 from eight to one. You guys are all more than welcome to attend. You're you know, you're already invited. We'll have a ribbon cutting at 8AM with council, and then we'll do the plan is to do some tours after that. A ninja cross challenge. We'll probably have our lifeguards do that.

That's the new fun element at the new facility. A cup of water polo exit exhibition matches, dive exhibition matches. We'll have food from eleven to one. It's a free day to the public, so anybody can come that day, enjoy the facility for free, check out our programs. It should be a really exciting day and it's a really big deal for Wellington and the Parks and Rec department. We'll have DJ there. It should be a really exciting day. Like, we're really looking forward to it.

What is the projected time frame? Ribbon cutting at eight? I'm assuming that's the start of it. And four hours the whole day?

After that, it'll just be open to the pool. Anybody can come throughout the rest of the day for free, but from eight to one will be the activities that we'll have And we review this with counsel, but just so you guys all know, you should see the new fee structure for the aquatic facility in front of you. We raised our fees, the the new base from $5, what we're calling the new $7 base. It's a nominal increase across the board. But this puts us where we should be for the new facility compared to other facilities in the area. Does anybody have any questions on this?

Annual memberships that are currently in place will roll over to

the Yes. New Anybody who has a membership now will roll to wherever that duration of time ends. Anybody who buys a membership now, thank you again for another segue. December 1 through the grand opening, we're offering 20% off all of our annual membership. So to entice people to come to check out the new facility, you get 20% off now through the Grand Open.

That's at the new rate.

At the new rate. Are there blackout dates? Or is there always lanes for lap swim?

Always open. The only time we would black out a day would be a massive swim meet, which would require us to close to the public. But there's very few of

those. I was going say that's not a very high number of those if No. I

the beauty of this facility is you have a split facility. You have the competitive side on one side, building and the recreation side. So it would have to be a massive meet in order for us to close the rec

side.

To take over the whole space.

Will the annual pass holders have access to the competitive side?

Yes. Yes. It's one fee for all the amenities.

And if we get the same participation, how much of the upkeep budget do these fees cover? Like do we think it's going to be self sufficient from what you make up?

I mean, we're going to you're gonna lose with Aquadex in terms of we offer service. We don't look at it from a revenue standpoint. But an example would be with this new price structure, it would cost us approximately $2,248,000 to run the facility with a revenue of about $1,000,000 So we're at

a debt That's about 50%.

Right. So our cost recovery is about 44%, which across the standard industry is really good.

That's standard.

That's what I was trying to figure out was where our number fell, so about 44%. We're in line.

Would be similar to what we do now, cost

recovery Yes. Good.

And as Ms. Quickel said earlier, the aquatics complex was paid for out of the sales surtax.

Correct.

And the new thing we'll have now, obviously, we have cabana rentals and a birthday party room, which will increase revenue. But we also have a nonresident fee, which we don't currently have. So that will be another revenue source that we'll be able to.

Any questions, comments or other parts?

Just with the participation, what level before you like to address prices? Or do you think about that at all, which is staying standard fixed the whole way?

I think it will for at least a year or two, it will stay this way. And then we always look at industry standards across the board, what other markets are doing every two to three years, all of our programs, all of our prices we look at. So we're constantly aware of what's going on. And we can we I have, along with my department, the ability to raise those fees without going to counsel for approval. The only thing I have to go to counsel for approval for is rentals.

We have a facility rental fee structure that is adopted by council. But things like daily admission, swim lesson fees, things like that, I can we have the ability to change as needed. And if we did, we would give the we would give the residents a heads up before we do it. And

Since there doesn't seem to be anything else on the aquatics complex, Mr. Juckett, there has been a tremendous amount of Parks and Rec programming recently and coming up in December. Can you maybe review quickly some of the upcoming dates or recap any of the past recent?

Absolutely. So December is a huge month for Parks and Rec, all of our holiday events and other elements that we have. So I'll highlight some of the special events that we have coming up as well as the athletic events. Our first big one is this Thursday is our Wellington Hall holiday cultural celebration. It's our fifth annual of that. It's here at the amphitheater from six to nine. That's when we have our tree lighting and all the other cultural events and holidays that are celebrated at the same time. We'll have some videos and presentations on the amphitheater, but that's a big deal. We light the tree right at 06:00. You guys obviously are all welcome to attend.

That's the first one. We have our holiday boat parade on December 13. That takes place behind the community center on the promenade. That's at 06:30. That lasts about an hour. And the new thing we've done is we've combined that with the vendors in the Lakeside Market, so it's not just a boat parade. So people can come out and buy some products from vendors that we have. That's a nice event. We have the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce Wellington holiday parade on December 14 from 01:30 to five. That's a big deal.

Anybody who's ever come here, we shut down part of Forest Hill for three to four hours, and we have our floats and we have other elements. That's always an exciting event. We have our grand menorah lighting on the same day, December 14, here at the Amphitheater at 05:00. And then we have our Wellington Holiday five ks Run Walk. That's the thirteenth annual '1, December 21 at Village Park, Sunday at seven a. M. That's a great event when it goes to charity. Everybody wins. People tend to bring a toy for the run. It's a nice gesture.

From an athletics standpoint, standpoint, we have our WCFL All Star game this December 6 from eight to four at the Greenview Shores Park, also known as Wellington High School. That will be a nice new element to the WCFL. We have our YNC Battle Football Tournament, December and December 13 through the fourteenth, 8AM to 10PM each day. That takes place at Village Park. That's a nice event or tournament, I should say.

We have our annual fishing holiday tournament, the thirty fifth tournament on December 13 from eight to 11:30 at Village Park. It's a great event. Kids come out, fish, you get a prize for first, second, third. They get excited. They hold the fish up, take photos. It's a nice event for the kids. And we have a new program coming on board. It's called AI Kids. It's a new program where children learn foundational AI through creativity, teamwork and play. It's an exciting new program that will be starting hopefully in the January, assuming we have enough participants.

How's rec basketball this season?

Rec basketball is awesome. Actually, I just came from that. My son just played, scored eight points. I'm very excited about that. We won the game. It's just rec basketball, though, so it's not about winning and losing. It's about learning and building sportsmanship. But winning is always nice. It's going really well. The rec program is going really well.

You can smash them at any time.

Okay. I'll limit it every day.

Forecasting to February 7, the Wellington Brewfest. Yes. That's on the calendar?

Yes. Tickets are on sale now. We just put out a press release, I believe, today. $95 for VIP, dollars 60 for general admission, same concept as before, same time, same hours. Fantastic event. If you even remotely like beer, you're crazy if you don't come to the cinema.

I just come for the pretzel necklace.

I'm gonna say, what's the date for that?

That's February 7. Seventh.

A father daughter tickets went on sale today.

Father daughter dance?

No. Are selling like hotcakes.

Like hotcakes. Sells out.

And we since we started selling things online, it's like it's out of control. Things are going like that. We can't it's it's insane.

Do you find the the the website or the online sales cumbersome in any way? Or it seems to work with no problem?

Exact opposite.

Yeah. The murder mystery dinner thing went like this. The father daughter dance always sells out.

Mhmm.

I don't find any challenges with the access.

No. The only challenge it would be would be to people who would normally think they could slow roll it and come sign up in person. They may be at a loss because we might fill up. But other than that, there's no there's no negative to the online platform.

I was going say that I think you probably have a higher turnout than we go through things faster.

Yes. We didn't When fill up

the rec sports went that way, a lot of people got knocked out that were long term players. We're trying

to get creative and add participants. So we're adding tables, adding chairs, adding teams, adding players because the demand is clearly there.

Alright. Anything else from staff that we need to be?

Don't have anything else for you. Do you guys have any other questions?

Alright, we can go to comments from the board then. If anybody has anything they'd like to say or add in.

What is the status with the Wellington Academy?

It's coming along nicely. I was just there last week. Oh, no. I wasn't there last week. I was gone last week, the week before that. TCO? Temporary CO? Yes. They have TCO for a portion of the building. It's coming along nicely. I don't know when their grand opening is gonna be. There's still some things they gotta get done in there, but it's they're moving. I mean, they're moving. Them and Aquatics are they're flying. It's just the finishing touches now. But that should be another nice element to the Parks and Rec and Village Of Wellington when it comes online.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

When it comes online. Yeah.

Yeah. I know there's discussion about membership with the community. Has that been established? Is that still in the works? And

They're gonna have a membership to use their facility. So say you're a parent with a kid in the program there or an activity or whatever it may be, academy, if you want to utilize like their gym, their workout gym and stuff like that, they'll have a membership fee to use that, yes.

But that's for the people who have a child in the program?

Or if it's a parent that wants to, I think anybody who wants to have a membership of that facility, they'll have an open membership to that.

Oh, so they are doing that as well? I thought it was only for families of the people that were there kind of idea.

I believe it's open.

But there's no cross between the village and their programs now are more on the higher level, like you guys are going to use their fields at times, they're gonna use our fields at times, but there's no real crisscross between Village Park The center the way it's currently set up, correct?

There shouldn't be. They can utilize our fields until five p. M. Is the way the contract is listed now. And we have access to the gymnasium at a certain time, Monday through Thursday, for certain time and hours. Other than that, they operate independently at their facility. We operate at our facility. And we have to coexist and communicate to not overlap or do like two tournaments, which we will on some days, and we'll have traffic plans and work with PBSO. But it's really more just communication between the two parties.

Branching off, has the Village ever created any programs or have any programs that are not sport specific for kids, but more agility training, cross training, conditioning? Have they ever offered anything like that?

Yeah, mostly, a lot of those happen during the summer as camps. Okay. So like during the summertime, some of them will be run by some of our providers because that's what they specialize in. Soccer program specifically runs the speed and agility camp usually, and those sorts of things.

I was about to say, when you said speed and agility, we actually have a program called speed and agility camp during the summer.

But they're just camps, it's like a week long or it's like, you know, things like Typically,

it's not as developed as you would think, like general fitness class or program. It's not as developed as you would think we would have with as developed as our whole program is.

Talked specifically with a provider once,

They've it just never struggled to fill it.

And

there's been some, yeah, mean, back in history, we've had different programs that have popped up like speed and agility and that one happened to come from the soccer programs. And that's what we ended up filling on because we couldn't keep anything established long enough. And like the football players would never go to a soccer conditioning program. And the basketball players would never go to a football or soccer program. So you it was really a struggle to get enough support to be like a CrossFit kind of setup, which is too bad.

And then when wrestling popped up for and was strong for a while, there was a little bit in weightlifting for a while, but it was more weightlifting, not really

Well, it's also there's only so much time a day in the year. For example, summer, most parents are looking for long durations of time to drop their kid off so they can still work. During the fall and spring or winter, there are hours that they can come and enjoy the facility where programs is later, five or 06:00.

You can't have it during the soccer season because you can't do, you know, and the seasons. So it became a struggle and I think that's why it really hasn't taken off. However, there's there might be a place for it to start popping up.

Well, if we have a partnership where we have access to that facility's gym, if we could try to structure some type of a program to have more of an organized use of that.

I agree a 100%. And I also do believe Wellington Athletics is gonna do the same. So but, yeah, that is something that we should absolutely look at and tap into.

So when are you looking at opening? Do you know?

If I had to venture a guess early next year, very early next year.

Got it.

Changing gears a little bit, what's the status on the expansion at the tennis courts and our fabulous Paddell partners?

They have broke ground on the tennis courts. I anticipate that opening probably the first quarter of next year. And Paddell, unless I'm incorrect on this, is expected to break ground imminently, pretty much soon now.

So the tennis expansion will happen first and the Padel will complete second. Right. Is there a food venue at the tennis courts?

Yeah. There's going to be a cafebathroom locker room area.

That's at

Padel. At Paddell, yes.

At Paddell.

It will be so if you look at the tennis facility, you have the building and all the courts behind it. You'll have the new tennis courts on the South side, the Paddell on the North Side. And then in between those two is where the cafe will be located. So everybody will be to enjoy. It's not just for Padel. Anybody who goes to tennis facility can use the cafe.

Padel has been in permitting and it's getting wrapped up in permitting. So you'll see more activity on it shortly.

Is there any discussion about adding a food venue on the water here?

It's been discussed. I mean, when we talked about developing Town Center, they talked about putting a restaurant in or renting one of those buildings out for it, but I don't know if anything has progressed with it.

I don't personally, I would love to see it. I'd love to see boat rentals. I'd love to see a cafe. I don't know that there's enough user base for it when there's not a function. And then when there's a function, there seems to be a lot of success with the food trucks.

Food trucks. The food trucks are still doing extremely well.

And there's a new the more recent addition to the parking lot allows the food trucks to plug in and be more accessible.

And then a few months after the grand opening of the new aquatic center, we'll demolish the existing aquatic facility. The building and structures will remain, but the pool and everything else will be demoed and will be turned into more open green grass area to be used. So I add another element to Town Center for people to hang out and

enjoy. More green space.

Are

they doing tables and stuff there or is it just green space?

We talked about putting a couple maybe shade and table.

I was going say because for some reason I've never remembered seeing what the plans were. So I didn't know if they were still toying with a new building there, which was one of the plans for a while. Okay.

Is it still possible to put some type of a splash pad open structure?

That's still on the table. I don't think we anticipate doing it in the imminent future, but it'll be available if we want to add to it later.

We might look at some grants for some of those type activities.

Or an additional sales surcharge.

Exactly.

Come on.

I fully endorse the penny sales staff.

So what is left for you guys to do? I mean, there's things that you're refining. I'm looking here, you have the Greenview Shores, Community Park Village upgrades, Green Park Skate, it's all been done, the aquatic center. We are rocking The and

next thing we actually have, was an expansion in Scotts Place as part of the Town Center redo a couple of years ago, so we're going to be adding a new playground element that's on the council agenda next week to go into that expansion area. It'll probably be in the $400,000 range for that. It's half funded with a grant, so we're excited about that. There are several other grants we're looking at, one for over, we're applying for, that's 1,000,000 point dollars with an equal match, to redo

A portion of Village Park.

A portion of the playground in Village Park, where the rock is, and the skate park areas over there, the hockey rinks in those areas. They're older, and so those type improvements are very expensive. And so we're looking at grants for those, but those are fantastic projects. And trying to spread them out so they don't interrupt because they're such heavily used facilities, people have a fit when we close down those facilities to renovate them. So we try to spread those out so only one is shut down and they can go other places.

And I think to answer your question, Mark, the big thing we need to make sure we do and we Wellington does a very good job of is keeping up with our current infrastructure. So we have all these new elements, But which are you can't forget what our bread and butter is, fields, elements, activities. So we still need to every year redo a field or two, completely redo it, the substructure and all that stuff, and we do a very good job of doing that as well.

Was going say the infrastructure takes a lot and it's it's an important part of why we've always been good. Mhmm. And we can't lose that. It's not always build and expand. Sometimes it's just

Redo and everything.

Fix and maintain is just as important.

The other thing we're doing is we're getting, creative from a maintenance and usage standpoint. Ryan, our athletics programs manager, and Alex, the maintenance supervisor of fields are working together very closely to maneuver programs off fields, on fields, where where they're on the same field, move them to the left or right five, ten feet. Yeah. We're trying to get creative to maximize the growing and grass, and it's they're doing a very good job of it. We're doing things differently, and you're actually seeing the improvements.

And people don't realize how much abuse the substructure takes in just the soccer season or a football season, and it does take a lot

to We spent a substantial amount of money on new solid last year, and we're trying to do everything we can to not have to do that again.

Is there a lot of mystery in the budget and the finances? It seems to me that in a sales surtax expenditure detail report, these things exist in the sunshine. The budgets are published. There just there seems to be some hubbub about dissecting the village finances and really going into these reports. When you break out miscellaneous vendors for the pool's construction of $400 it seems like we're drilling down pretty deep on a $28,000,000 price tag. Am I missing something?

You're not.

Okay. Important. Well, everybody has to look for their next gotcha somewhere.

There you go. And

then final, we sat here for years talking about what to do with old Boys and Girls Club. Now that we've done something with it, what are you guys' thoughts on how that space is being utilized? I know it was important to have open play areas. I go past there a lot.

Well, passive nonprogrammed programming is a big part of Parks and Rec, and it's catching more and more on where people don't want to just register for a program. They want to have open play, the ability to go do whatever they want, unscheduled, unprogrammed activities. So I think South Shore Park hits that right on the head. The usage is growing. I think people are figuring out that it's there. Basketball courts are are heavily utilized. Always popular. The two softball slash baseball fields are getting more and more used, and the two multi fields use are constantly being used by people. Yeah. Whether it's adult, soccer, or whoever's going out there, they're they're using it.

We can we can access it from the cameras, and we go out there and travel and look at it from time to time. It's it's very used, highly used. So you're happy with it? Very happy with it.

Yeah. I think I think that's huge for me to have that. I think that's just

No no other no other local Yeah. Municipality, county No. Nobody touches that. Nobody has that. Nobody has that large of an open green space that you can just play whenever you want. An actual, not just Bahia, legit celebration, multipurpose fields, grass, that's maintained.

Well, it gives our kids a play if you play soccer, it gives you a place to go kick a ball on a night where you just didn't have anything to do, and now you get to go outside and do that.

That's where all the

creativity It's just like it is huge for them to be able to do that. And it's

I mean, if you gotta shoot someone off the fields and that's available

Mhmm.

This is perfect.

From a from an open play standpoint, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll listen to somebody if they complain about it, but there's nothing to complain about from an open play standpoint. We're offering more than anybody else. All

right. Well, with that, I can take a motion to adjourn because I can't believe anybody has a closing comment after all of those board comments.

I had a question. How did the pickleball turn to go?

It went really good. The first one we had, we sold out. We're going to do another one. We're actually talking to people about it now to put it together, but we're going to do another one. And the clinics are so successful that we actually had to go to a registration because we couldn't accommodate all the people that were coming. So now we had to cap it with the registration. But the pickleball courts are always used. Early morning and before the sun goes down, they're heavily used.

Mr. Chairman, I don't have any public comment cards.

Sorry. We'll have to call for an adjournment motion.

Motion to adjourn.

Any second? Second. All right. We will adjourn.

Thank you.