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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPRMinutes_2024_11_04 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Notes Monday, November 4, 2024 5:30 PM 1. Call to Order Chair Erika Saunders called the meeting to order at 5:31. Park, Recreation and Forestry Board Members Present: Erika Saunders, Steve Berseth, Jay Larsen, Doug Smith, Nathaniel Condelli, Brenda Andersen and Stacy Zerfas. City of Brookings staff present. Parks, Recreation and Forestry Director Kristin Zimmerman; Parks, Recreation and Forestry assistant director Joshua Bauman and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Office Manager Ashley Marler. 2. Approval of Agenda Steve Berseth motions to approve the Agenda, Nathaniel Condelli 2nds motion; Motion is carried. 3. Approval of Minutes Doug Smith motions to approve the minutes, Brenda Andersen 2nds; Motion is Carried. 4. Call to the Public Members of the public were in attendance for tonight’s meeting but there was nothing that was brought up that wasn’t on the agenda. 5. Discussion & Possible Action: Naming Rights- Pioneer Park Road Kristin started off by explaining that we had received an application requesting the renaming of Pioneer Park Road, in reference to Martin Luther King, Jr. Our department is neutral in the topic and it could go either way. There are some things to keep in mind that it is setting a precedence for renaming other park roads and there will be an additional cost for signage. We estimate that to be around $600.00 including ongoing maintenance. The other thing that Kristin wanted to note was that providing a sign people would think that it is a through street and that could require additional signs regarding traffic and speed. The applicant Thomas Reynolds spoke on the purpose of the application to change the name. He stated that he sees people of all races, religious and ethnicities and different back grounds living and working together. He sees Brookings as a melting pot like Dr. Kind saw, people can work together, live together and they can build a beautiful society together. Dr. King was a pioneer of human rights, civil services of everyone and not just certain groups or classes of people. Thomas feels that pioneer park, where the Juneteenth celebration is held every summer, the arts festival and community band are held make it a great gathering place for everyone, where no one is excluded for any reason and he believes it to be the perfect place to rename a road where no one would have to change any addresses and Brookings is the perfect place to call home and the perfect place for anyone to live. Steven Berseth asked if city council has considered naming avenues or byways in the parks? Kristin Zimmerman explained that this would be a precedent for consideration of renaming roads or avenues, however city council hasn’t seen this yet because it does require the Park Boards recommendation, and the next step would be going to city council. This would be the first park road to be named. Doug Smith states that he opposes this because he feels there needs to be a criteria for naming rights, it should be City or State donor otherwise it should be someone from the city or state. Kristin did explain that this is adhering to the application policy and the applicant did follow the necessary steps as outlined by the city. This is the first step. They are following the policy and procedures that the city has set forth. Steve Berseth asks if in forwarding it to City Council would the motion be in support or simply to forward to City Counsel for their consideration and decision making? Kristin explained that the board could support it, oppose it, but whatever the board decides it would be a recommendation to city council. Steve Berseth states that his opinion is that we shouldn’t set up a roadblock by not forwarding to city council. Thomas Reynolds stated that Brookings has streets named after the Jack Rabbit for SDSU, Harvey Dunn the painter, they have a street named after the children’s museums mascot Ka doodle. He wants to point out that he talked to Billy Mills about the idea and Billy Mills said to follow his dream and that he supports Thomas. He also said that there are only 9 states left in the United States that do not have a street named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This would not be in support of just people of African descent but it would be in support of all people. Brenda Andersen askes if we have other parks that would have a precedent for renaming the park road. Are there roads that we need to be concerned about? Brenda is also in support and thinking how Thomas Reynolds is thinking. Its really about what Martin Luther King did for everyone, not about who is living here currently. She just wants to get an idea of what park we would be setting Page 2 a precedence for. The discussion turned to the name of parks and how renaming the road would affect that. Steve Berseth makes a motion to forward to city council for their consideration. Discussion led into naming rights. Erika Saunders explains that this is a good way to start the process of considering and honoring more people more broadly and it is something to think about not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to have things to consider. Doug Smith mentions that this sets a precedence for a naming right but no money being received for it. A member of the public did comment that there shouldn’t be any funding needed for the road. The road is already there and the city already maintains it. He doesn’t understand why there needs to be more money coming in for the renaming of the road. Doug Smith mentions that its not to maintain the road but park and recreations only funding is through taxes, so anytime that we would give naming rights it would be an opportunity to make some money to do more things. Erika Saunders mentions that there would just be a cost associated with making a sign for the road in and putting the signs up. Another member of the public stated that we can’t anticipate what the economic benefit that this could be for the city. There could be people that would come precisely because we have the first street that is named after Martin Luther King, this could actually be a boom to the city. Kristin Zimmerman did explain that the money is not why we do or do not do something. Parks and Recreation is a community service and we are here for everyone. She just noted the cost of the signage for full transparency, it could be absorbed with in our budget. A member of the public did speak that the renaming of the road was of great importance to him. As a Navy Veteran he serves for everyone’s opinions even those that have a different opinion. He appreciates the message that Dr King put forth and believes it’s a big opportunity for a demographic that doesn’t look like your typical Dr. King demographic and he is in support of having that in Brookings. Jay Larsen mentions that in true consideration the issue is whether or not we would be meeting the city’s comprehensive plan, because there are a lot of zoning requirements when you have a street or a road. Jay Larsen is in favor of a due pass and it be referred to the city council for the definition of how the street or road be called. Whether its park way or whatever it may be. It is something that he believes is very positive and needed. There is the motion on the table and Doug did 2nd the motion. Brenda Andersen is really supportive of the diversity and inclusion that it would bring to our city, especially since we are already know for that in Brookings. She believes that it is just another layer that adds to the support. She likes that idea of a parkway. A member of the public also stated that if we are able to get this passed, then other roadways and parkways could be nominated and the city could receive donations. This would be laying the pathway to other ways of receiving donations. Nathaniel Condelli would prefer to motion and support the current motion that is on the table and then we can see if we need to fall back and let the city council take it to vote. Nathaniel Condelli sees the naming rights as an opportunity to really embrace the Park and Recreation in Brookings aligning with our community values that Brookings already has, as well as the accessibility pieces that we have had staff go to trainings for. This is heading in the right directions to say that our parks are welcoming to everyone. Just like Dr. Martin Luther King was welcoming to everyone. He thinks that supporting the naming rights is important to do, he also agrees that this could be an opportunity for people to come to Brookings, and decide to stay in our community. If we could welcome more people into our community, we are going to create more tax revenue eventually and hopefully those pieces would all contribute to our Parks and Recreation revenue source. He agrees that Dr Martin Luther King would be a great first step in sticking with our community values. Stacy Zerfas agrees that Dr Martin Luther king would be a great way to introduce our philosophy. It sends a great message. Steve retracts his motion to forward to the city council. Jay Larson motions for a due pass recommendation for the naming rights to be determined by city council by definition of what it would be called regarding (Martin Luther King) parkway or road at the location of Pioneer Park. Stacy Zerfas 2nds the motion. There were 4 yeses and 1 no, motion is carried to forward to city council. 6. Discussion & Possible Action: HS Student Applicant Kristin Zimmerman went over the high school application from Chloe Barber. The question Kristin pays the most attention to is #5, the reasons why someone wants to be on the board. Chloe has lived here for two years; she has worked in our department and she currently does work in our department at the Larson Ice Center. She is a figure skating instructor. She is a tremendous employee and I believe that she would be a great asset. Her schedule is busy as she is a high school student, so it will be hard for her to get her due to practices and other commitments. She is pretty excited. Our formal recommendation from our department would recommend she be approved. Josh Bauman mentioned that when he was working in the Larson Ice Center the Barber family has been out their pretty constantly. Chole is one of those individuals that is very respectful of our facilities, of our staff and they were always a good Page 3 family to work with out at the Larson ice area. Brenda Andersen motions to approve, Jay Larson 2nds; Motion is carried. 7. Discussion 5th Street Gym We were asked to add the 5th street gym to our agenda for this meeting. In August the park board discussed it, we still had a quorum, there were 4 people here and it was voted at that point to not take any formal action on the 5th Street Gym. Just to bring everyone up to date, we did have our city building official run some basic numbers, the list of the differed maintenance cost shows that there has been very little money being put back into the 5th street gym. The roof membrane, the air handler and the sprinkler fire alarm would need to be handled immediately. Those are some very big-ticket items. The bathrooms are not ADA compliant. We could get around the entrances by having people with mobility issues come in through the back area just not the front. In full transparency the money would have to come from the Parks and Recreation Capital Plan if we wanted to move forward. We do have some big-ticket items that we could pull from, one of which is the Golf Course Water Sourcing. The other would be the splash pad and playground. Steve Berseth stated that at the last board meeting the board of education decided to put it up for sale. Kristin Zimmerman did state that they have elected to put it up for sale. Her recommendation would be to do a full feasibility study with the condition of the building. Banner did say that they could do it between $35,000 and $40,000 dollars. They think they could have it done with in one or two months to get a good look at the building. We really need to keep in mind that the repair cost would have to come from the Park and Recreation CIP budget. So, we need to have hard conversations about what we would have to cut. At the last meeting, City Manager, Paul Briseno did mention that there are some items on the ballet that could impact the city’s budget pretty significantly. I don’t think that we can take a double hit and we do not want to lay off staff. If we did decide to go through with this recommendation it would have to go to city counsel for approval. And then the next option would be to not pursue the 5th Street Gym. Doug Smith asked, why the money has to all come from the Park and Recreation budget. Kristin explained that the Park and Recreation Board only has advisory over the Park and Recreation budget. So, we can say we need to do this or that and take it from someone else budget. Doug Smith wanted to know what we would do with the programing that is taking place at the 5th street gym if we don’t move forward. Kristin Zimmerman explained that we do have an agreement with the school district to utilize other gyms. It will look a little different and the times won’t look the same but we do have an ongoing user agreement to utilize their gyms for on going programing, that includes our open gym, basketball, volleyball and any other programs that are needed with in our community. The school district does have two gyms. Brenda Andersen reiterated the cost to fix the 5th street gym will be 2.6 million and we also know what it would be to operate it. The feasibility study would tell us if its actually more than that? Kristin Zimmerman stated that it is going to be more than that and Banner would be able to give us a real cost of operation. Steve Berseth asked if there are other things that the 5th street gym is being used for. Kristin Zimmerman stated that the Special Olympics and GAP uses the gym. Kristin fully supports that we need an indoor recreation space, but at the end of the day she needs to watch the budget and determine if costs or feasible. We can’t over extend ourselves to the point that we can’t afford our facilities or the maintenance to our facilities. Stacy Zerfas asked if it would be an additional cost to use with the school selling it? Kristin stated that we would have to pay the asking price and go through buying. Jay Larsen believes it’s a difficult decision because if its structurally sound it could last another 100 years, the location is ideal but how structurally good is it. It has a lot of other expenses. Nathaniel Condelli asked if there are larger items that Kristin would be deciding against or not? Kristin stated that isn’t really the issue she just strongly recommends a feasibility study. If we moved forward with the feasibility study it will go to city council. We can probably absorb the cost. The issue is we don’t want to buy this building and not really be able to afford to run it. Doug Smith believes that the City of Brookings should have some responsibility in the cost of 5th street gym because it can be used for so many other things, other than park and recreation activities. Again, we have to also know what the results of the election will be. The food tax could impact our funding. Doug Smith makes recommendation to move forward with the feasibility study pending budget availability based on council’s recommendation. Steve Berseth 2nds the motion; Motion is carried. 8. Update Golf Course Water Sourcing Working with the land owner south of the golf course. We have an agreement with them, just a no cost agreement so that we can be on their land to do some water studies for water sourcing. We did have 4 test drills. Two were Page 4 found to have water, one was found to be viable and the other one was questionable. They are estimating that one of the drilling sites is pulling 400 and 450 gallons per minute. While that may seem like a lot, for the golf course operations, the pump would have to run 16 hours a day. We would have two pumps running. The well driller will be back on site this week to put in a casing to really see how much water is pumped out of that well. We will put together a budget. The property owner is open to long term leasing with permanent easement or possibly just selling us that portion of land that that well head would be on. That way we wouldn’t have the ongoing water cost. Part of the project would still include lining one of the ponds. We wouldn’t have an issue going under 20th, we would need to have a wellhouse and an additional pump house, but it should be pretty minimal. The other option would be a connection to the BMU rural water system. The number that I received was bout 1 million to start up the system and then we would also have to purchase the water from BMU. They don’t have a rural water rate, but we would still be paying and it could up upwards of 400 gallons of water a day. We will need to aerate, so we will have some fountains. Our back up plan connecting to the softball wells is also about 1 million dollars. Also wanted to keep you in the loop at other options that we have looked at: capturing water runoff from the north side, west side, connection from LG Everist, expand the holding ponds and drain tile through the course. Purchasing water directly from BMU, and also looked at 6 well sites on the property of Edgebrook, none of them had water. We are looking at spring construction. There may be a couple of holes that are offline for a little bit just because we may need to work around golfers. 9. Current Park Fees and Financial Sustainability Study Kristin presented the board with the Park Fees. The only changes for 2024 were that we added the Moriarty Park shelter. We wanted that to be in line with all of the other city park shelters. We also added fees for pickleball court rentals, they are they same as tennis court rentals. We also did add fees for abatement work. Our maintenance staff are sometimes asked to do abatement work on code violations. We increased the community garden fees due to water rates; we are actually not making any money on the gardens but we did need to increase. We also did some increases due to staff cost for the EAB and DED tree removals. We are not going to clear out people trees at a reduced cost. We will also look at the fees again after the financial sustainability study is done. That should be completed in January or February. The activity center did go up, but they also have a different board and those fees went through to their board. Doug would also like to discuss the possibility of lowering the price for a raised garden bed since they are technically smaller. Kristin wanted to let the board know that we do have fixed cost and we need to also keep that in mind. The financial sustainability study is in place to find out how much everything is really costing us and what are we subsidizing. Our next step is a beneficiary of service workshop. That will be on November 15th. That will go over what we find is most important for the community and programs that we should be subsidizing and not subsiding. 10. Directors Report The shelters at hillcrest have been moved. In our meeting in September, we did select the candidates for the mayor’s awards. They should have all gotten a letter regarding this. The mayor was also happy to see that we mix it up a little bit. The parks, recreation and forestry department are receiving two awards, we are receiving one from the Sustainability council for non-profit/ Government and we will receive the Award for Historic Preservation, excellence in restoration for the Pioneer Bandshell. Everyone is invited to the mayor’s awards, Wednesday December 4th. The farmer’s market is renting the community room at the Activity Center so that they can have a winter farmers market. It’s a great way to use the facility when the seniors are not. Trails update, trails projects are being completed now. Dakota Nature Park trail repairs should be poured on Thursday. The Sexauer Park trail, it will go around the dog park and connect Western to 11th. Pioneer Park we are adding an assessable round to the bathroom from the shelter. The big trail project for 2025, we will be partnering with storm water and we will be addressing some needs at arrow head park. They are replacing the valley gutter by someone next to someone home. There are portions of the trail that are pretty rough, so after the improvement are made for the storm water, we will be repouring. We are planning on having a neighborhood information meeting to inform the homeowners so that they do know what is going to be happening. That will be after the first of the year. They will extend the valley gutter from the walking bridge to the pond. We also plan to be putting up bat houses. We are not done with the golf course shelter belt. We have been planting trees on 8th street because we have lost a lot of trees due to vandalism. There were a lot of trees put in at the golf course along 20th St. There were 67 trees put in. The nature center trail will be concrete so we shouldn’t Page 5 have any issues with cracking. Capri Accreditation, is the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies. It basically takes a hard look at our policies and procedures to make sure that we are using our best practices. We are going to move forward with this, it is a multi-year process, but it will help our process and formalities with polices and procedures in place. We have recie3ved three application for the bike subcommittee. There members from SDSU have expressed interest but have not applied. Jay Larsen and Brenda Andersen will be on this committee we will be sending out meeting information soon. We would like to revisit the bike master plan in 2025 and really focus on that education safety and outreach. 11. Discussion of Future Topics and Direction Nathaniel Condelli would be curious about a marketing plan for recruiting more adult teams for some of the adult leagues. He thinks it would be helpful for our adult programing. Brenda would like talk more about the big picture of having an indoor recreation center. It is very expensive, but how are other city’s doing it. Brenda believes that a recreation facility would benefit the entire community. Doug Smith would like to start reaching out to optional donors for a recreation facility. We are looking at doing a sponsorship catalog. Doug Smith is wondering if we could even do a Go Fund me page for help. Jay Larsen would like to see an improvement on the space that would help people get to the bandshell for He would like to see a sidewalk. 12. Adjournment Doug Smith motions to adjourn, Brenda Andersen 2nds motion; Motion is carried.