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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPRMinutes_2024_12_02 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Notes Monday, December 2, 2024 5:30 PM 1. Call to Order Chair Erika Saunders called the meeting to order at 5:30 P.M. 2. Approval of Agenda Doug Smith motions to approve the agenda. Steve Berseth seconds the motion; Motion is carried. 3. Approval of Minutes Discussion to remove names mentioned in section 11. Discussion of Future Topics and Directions. All agree to amend the minutes and remove names. Doug Smith motions to approve the amended minutes. Jay Larson seconds the motion; Motion is carried. 4. Call to the Public No members of the public were present at the meeting. 5. Bike Subcommittee Jay Larson and Brenda Andersen will be the park board representatives of the bike subcommittee, the first meeting was held the end of November. They will meet 6 times a year. Members will be Gail Whitney, Evert Van der Sluis, Erik Stasa and Lawrence Novotny. This will be a wide representation in the community. We plan to reach out to see if we can find others with family that would be interested as well. There will be 4 key responsibilities for the committee. 1. Infrastructure 2. Program Development 3. Community outreach 4. Policy Advocacy The group will be discussing community outreach in January as they believe that is the most important at this time. They will also be looking at state laws. 6. Event Reminders 1. Mayors Awards on Wednesday December 4th. Erika Saunders will be there to represent Park Board and give out awards. 2. Friday December 6th, we have the Mayors Holiday tree lighting. This will be our official Holiday tree and it is located outside of the Activity Center. Allen Kruse and the Mayors granddaughter will be flipping the switch to light the tree. This will be at 6:00 P.M. before the Holiday Light Parade. 3. On December 10th we will have two Park Board related items on the City Council agenda. 1 is for the renaming of the Pioneer Park Road and the other is the golf cart release resolution. We added the golfers experience to our carts. We will be getting 50 carts; the carts will have a 10-inch touch screen that will have different modules that we can add to over time. The golfers experience will give distances to tees, distances to golfers a head, and hazards. The company will come out and use drones to map out our course. Through that we can also do advertisements. It will be like GPS but more intuitive. The batteries will be lithium and gas carts. So, we will have 10 gas carts and 40 lithium battery carts. 4. Allen Kruze will be retiring at the end of this month. We will be having a retirement party for him on Saturday December 14th. He has been with the city for 42 years and we are sad to see him go. The mayor will be proclaiming December 14th as Allen Kruse day as well. It is a surprise, so Allen doesn’t know. 7. 2025 CIP Project List Page 2 Two Projects that we will be continuing from this year. 1, is the golf course water sourcing. 2, is the Sara Renee Playground reconstruction. This should happen min 2025. We do have some equipment replacements, a fleet truck, and a forestry dump truck. For the Golf Course we need to replace fairway mowers, a sweeper vac, workman and sprayer. In addition to those items, we do have the splash pad, resealing of the nature park building, skate park replacement and we need to convert to a recirculation system for the aquatic center. Tennis court resurfacing and park replacement. At the Larson Ice Center, we need to replace a generator, HVAC Controls, roof membrane, electrical room upgrades, fire suppression system. Improvements for the golf course which included. Continuing the cart paths. We will be working on the Urban Forestry Initiative as well as the bike master plan. Some of these items are smaller and some are larger, but we are always improving and updating. 8. Director Report All of our 2024 projects are in progress or are completed. The two that are in progress are the two that we are carrying forward, the golf course water sourcing and Sarah Reena Park. We added an ADA accessible path from the bathrooms to the shelter at Pioneer Park. At Sexauer Park we poured a new path that connects 11th through the park to the walking bridge. We also replaced trails at DNP. Kristin discussed the onboarding process and how they will be working on Chapter 4 for CAPRA Accreditation. We need to really look at our on boarding process with our new employees. She presented our “one Pager” that goes over our Visions, Missions and Values of the City of Brookings. We want to really make sure that the residents of Brookings know that we are here for them. Kristin also spoke a little bit about what the Forestry Departments info graphic, these give a little more detail as to what has been getting done this year. These are generally easier to read and understand than your normal reports online. We will be doing these for the Hillcrest Aquatics Center, Larson Ice Center, Activity Center, Forestry and Edgebrook. These will be put out through social media. We are going to be rebranding our recreation guide. It will be called “The Playbook” or “Your Brookings Playbook”. We hope to have a mockup of the guide in January or February so that you can see it before it goes to print. We will likely be bringing back the fall and winter guide as well. Kristin went over the Economic Development Master Plan. This will help check our progress, how much is being spend. It will help us keep a running total of our Park Master Plan. The strategic plan for the city is going to be adapted into this as well, so it won’t be an additional cost for us. It will be more transparent to the public. These plans are also required for CAPRA Accreditation. This will be tracked year after year. The financial sustainability plan, this is a beneficiary service that will show us the common good vs individualized benefit. It will help us determine where we would offer more subsidy. More common good would be more subsidized. Individualized benefits shouldn’t be subsidized. They are actually going through all of our information and looking to get a very comprehensive picture to see what it cost it for our activities and or our rentals. They take everything from fees to cost of running facilities like utility bills. Jay Larsen brought up what we will use to determine what will be subsidized. We are hoping that this will help us to determine what the industry standard is and if we are able to lesson our fees. We always want to make sure that what we are offering is affordable. Nathaniel Condelli would like a list of definitions for the of categories that are a part of the financial suitability study. There are areas that we felt should be combined some definitions that are too similar. It is a very in-depth project. We have met with the school district, as you are all aware the 5th street gym is up for sale. Our concern was programing and making sure that we have a home. Our programs that are being held in 5th street gym will be switched at some point. The School District assured us that they would have space for us. They believe that the Middle School will have the most space however there may be times that we will have to have a week or two off here and there. The gym will be used until it is sold. The golf course had another record year, we don’t have the final numbers, but we will have them by the March meeting. We normally close out the end of February. Over all our revenue have gone up about 13% since 2022. Our expenditures right now have increased about 8%. It will probably go up by 10 to 15% because we do have some end of season costs as well. 9. Adjournment Doug Smith Motions to adjourn, Brenda Andersen seconds the motion; Motion is carried.