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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPRMinutes_2025_02_03Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Notes Monday, February 3rd, 2025 5:30 PM 1. Call to Order Chair Erika Saunders called the meeting to order at 5:30 P.M. Board members present: Erika Saunders, Steve Berseth, Jay Larsen, Stacey Zerfas, Nathaniel Condelli and Brenda Andersen. City Staff Present: Kristin Zimmerman, Director of Brookings Parks, Recreation and Forestry, Joshua Bauman, Assistant Director of Brookings Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department. Ashley Marler, Office Manager of Brookings Parks Recreation and Forestry Department. 2. Approval of Agenda Steve Berseth motions to approve the agenda with a change to table number 5. Introduction of High School Student to next meeting. Jay Larsen 2nds; Motion is carried. 3. Approval of Minutes Nathaniel Condelli motions to approve, Steve Berseth 2nds motion; Motion is carried. 4. Call to the Public There were no citizens of the public attending the Park and Recreation Meeting. 5. Introduction of High School Student Tabled 6. Discussion & Possible Action: Brookings Car Club & Summer Sol Coed Volleyball Tournament 32nd annual car show put on by the Brookings Car Club. Event is held in Pioneer Park. Sunday June 15th from 8am to 3 pm. Summer Sol Coed Volleyball Tournament is also one that we have approved before, the only change is that they would like to move it to Pioneer Park. It will be Saturday June 21st from 9am to 8pm. Kristin is in support of both events. Jay Larsen motions to approve both the Car Show and Summer Sol Coed Volleyball Tournament. Stacey Zerfas 2nds the motion; Motion is carried. 7. Updates from the Sustainability Council We wanted to let you know what other boards and commissions are doing, especially when they relate to us. The storm water incentive program was extremely successful. They are still trying to figure out the rain water barrel amounts, but it will likely be the same or greater. BMU has agreed to be a partner and will be donating $12,000.00 to the program. They will again be offering native plant vouchers. Anyone can plant native plants in their yard and receive 50% of the cost reimbursed back to them up to $500.00 reimbursement. If you plant a rain garden it is up to $1,000.00 reimbursement. These reimbursements will be made through our office. We will get more information out later. The sustainability council would like to partner with us to provide water bottle filling stations in our parks and along our trails. Between the Sustainability Council, BMU and us this will be a great thing to do. Kristin Zimmerman let the board members know that no mow May has been rescinded. So, there will be no more no mow May. We are going forth with the Bee City Application. The reason no mow May was rescinded was that it didn’t really make sense for having a no mow May in our area because it doesn’t really have an effect on our pollinators. So, with us being a Bee city were going to be going through more sustainable and environment practices when it comes to chemical application. This will be a great benefit long term for our Bee population. Kristin Zimmerman drafted up and integrated a pest management plan. Some of the things that we do that are in line with the Bee City Application is we release lady bugs in the downtown area to feed the aphids in our hanging baskets. Stephen Hartung, one of our park tech’s experiments with different seasonings such as cinnamon, baking soda and those types of things that are more environmentally friendly that can act as weed killers. This will not impact our actual no mow zones. They will still stay no mow. We are constantly looking at other areas to include the no mow zones because it cuts down on our maintenance and improves our environmental suitability practices. 8. Construction/Project Updates Page 2 Golf Course Water Sourcing: We should have the final numbers for the cost estimates this week. There are the 5 options they are still weighing. One is the cost of going to LG Everst, we don’t think that this will be financially feasible, but we are still looking into the option. Two, connecting to the rural water line at the rail road crossings. Three, connecting to the south side softball field wells. Four, the wells on the private property and 5 what it would cost to connect to BMU potable water. Just for a reference point, our utility bills would be close to $100,000.00 a month. RFPs: We did put out request for proposals for all of our playgrounds and splashpads, it is set to close for April 18th. Skate Park Plan and Design: We really want to encourage the public to come out and have a say of what’s in their parks. We would also invite all of our Park Board members to attend as well. Please spread the word it is March 4th from 5pm to 7pm. We will have pizza and snacks; we are really trying to gear towards more of our teen population that utilize our parks a lot. We will have 2 professional skaters coming out to help us through the design process. This is also a great opportunity to talk about public art in our playgrounds. We have a donor that has agreed to pay for security cameras for the skate park as well. We have $315,000.00 in the budget to go towards this project. American Ramp Company has a purchasing coop. They have already been completing bid, so it is a design build project. This meeting will be in the High School and the skate park will be in the same area of the current skate park only we are going to make it a larger scale. 9. Brookings Activity Center 2024 Year in Review We talk about the services that we provide and the Brookings Activity Center is just a snippet. Right now, there are 370 members, when we took over the management of that there was less than 200 members. A lot of our members are visiting every day. There have been 1,010 classes, 800 hours of community group use. One of the most important things is that there are over 30,000 meals served. That is over 17,000 home delivered meals and over 10,000 meals served at the activity center. Angi Strofus and her team do a phenomenal job at the Activity Center. If you haven’t been there, you should check it out! With that said we are stretched for space. We are looking into other options to expand our programs. 10. Summer Recreation Programs We are starting to put our summer recreation guide together. Pickleball programs officially start tomorrow. We have two great interns from SDSU and they are teaching the seniors pickleball at the activity center. We have social events and tournaments planned for this summer for all ages. We will be doing some pickle n pint events, so beer and pickleball. Movies at Pioneer Park, we are working out the details but free movies in the park on designated days at the Pioneer Bandshell. This will be the last year that the Optimist Club will be putting on the kite festival. We don’t want the kite festival to go away, so we have agreed to take it over next year. We are in discussion with SDSU to have an ice cream competition. We do need to refresh to get more people out. Kristin Zimmerman, ask the Park Board if they would like to start doing a ground breaking and ribbon cutting for our larger projects. The board agrees that they would like to do that. We are working with the hospital to get a walking program, so like a hike for the health of it, walk with ease for seniors. We are also still moving forward with the year-round ice at the Larson Ice Center. We will have more adult and senior offerings and a lot more offerings for the kids. These will all be listed in the summer recreation guide and we will have a draft for everyone at our next board meeting. 11. Directors Updates: Just wanted to give a quick update on Parks and Forestry staffing. We have typically had a park tech position, now we will have a Park tech series 1, 2 and 3. It will offer some progression within the positions. We were able to afford this due to Allen Kruse’s retirement. We are able to reclassify those dollars. So, we are adding park tech series 1, 2 and 3. A forestry tech 1 and 2. Adding a new full time forestry employee. We are reclassifying a park tech to a natural resource’s specialist. That will help with our Bee City Application but they will be housed at the Nature Center. That will also allow us to have regular business hours there. The reclassified positions will have additional training, education and responsibility. Darren Hoff’s office will be moving out to the Larson Ice Center. We believe that will help with ice rentals, programing and also help with our communication between our maintenance staff as well as the people that are programing that ice time. So, there are some big changes with staffing that are happening. We are only hiring 1 full time staff. Most of our staff will be moving up in that progression series. Some have been here for over 12 years and they haven’t had the opportunity to move up. They will need to have certain certifications and trainings that we will pay for. If they have a bachelor’s degree or Page 3 higher, they will be able to bump up. The progression in the Forestry area will be a certified arborist. We are going forward with having year-round ice at the Larson Ice Center. We could do a lot of different things with the rink that has no ice as well. We are getting a proposal from the SoDak spurs regarding the holding barn. They would like to turn that space into a turf area. But we need to make sure that we would be able to do more recreation programs especially if that could be a turf area in the winter. Kristin Zimmerman included a bid packet to host a tournament. Friends of baseball put in a bid to host the American Legion Baseball Central Plains Reginal tournament for 2026 and 2027 which would be held at Bob Sheldon. This was submitted with a letter of support from the city. The mayor signed a letter of support. The dates are reserved on our end. We just haven’t heard anything on this, we just wanted you to see what goes into these proposal bids. We work with Visit Brookings regularly to put these together. We do them for any sports tournament groups. We believe the decision will be made later this month, but Mike Lockrem will be in touch if we get it. This would be a great opportunity for the city. Teams would come from different states. We have an opening for a board member on the Parks and Recreation Board. Erika Saunders and Kristin Zimmerman will be going through applications and will have a recommendation at the next meeting. We believe there are 10 applicants. The Brookings Area Transport Team is having an open house on February 19th from 4 P.M. to 6 P.M. They will be discussing trails and bike paths and bike ways. We will get the location to the bike subcommittee and also the Park Board. Seasonal jobs will be posted this month. So, if you know anyone that is looking, we have openings, we start hiring kids at the age of 15. The dedication for Martin Luther King Jr Way is February 25th at Pioneer Park. We aren’t sure of the time. Garden plots and golf memberships are now open. We are also going out for requests for proposal for club house management services. It has been 10 years since we did an RFP for the management of the club house. This is a procedural decision and doesn’t reflect the current management of the club house. This will include that management will be responsible for pro shop, food and beverages and maintenance in the club house. It also includes paying employees. Kristin is asking for a business plan. We are also going to put together a proposal to see what it would cost us to operate it in house. The biggest difference is that the last time the contract was renewed there wasn’t an RFP sent out. We will be looking at the pool opening and closing again this year. We will open it around the same time as every other year, and we will keep the pool open as long as possible. We also have to be mindful of the weather. Its hard with our lifeguard population, they have school programs that start earlier in the summer. 12. Adjournment Jay Larsen motions to adjourn. Nathaniel Condelli 2nds motion; Motion is carried.