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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPRMinutes_2025_03_03 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Notes Monday, March 3, 2025 5:30 PM 1. Call to Order Chair Erika Saunders called the meeting to order at 5:30 PM. Board members Present: Erika Saunders, Jay Larsen, Nathaniel Condelli, Steve Berseth, Stacey Zerfas and Brenda Andersen. City of Brookings Staff Present: Park, Recreation and Forestry Director Kristin Zimmerman, Assistant Director Parks, Recreation and Forestry Joshua Bauman and Park, Recreation and Forestry Office Manger Ashley Johnson 2. Approval of Agenda Erika Saunders mentions that the Board would like to amend the agenda to include a motion to go into executive session. This would become the new item number 4. Brenda Andersen motions to approve the amended agenda, Jay Larsen 2nds motion; Motion is carried. Steve Berseth motions to approve the agenda as amended. Brenda Andersen 2nds motion; Motion is carried. 3. Approval of Minutes Steve Berseth requests the date for the dedication of Martin Luther King Jr. Way be changed to February 25th and not February 5th. Jay Larsen also would like to add the correction of the spelling of Optimist Club. Steve Berseth also notices a phrase change in number 10. Corrections will be made to the minutes. Jay Larsen motions to approve the minutes as corrected. Nathaniel 2nds motion; Motion is carried. 4. Executive Session Nathaniel Condelli motions to move to Executive Session, Brenda Andersen 2nds motion; Motion is carried. Board Members moved to a closed-door executive session with City Manager Paul Bresino. Nathaniel Condelli motions to exit Executive Session, Brenda Andersen 2nds motion; Motion is carried. 5. Skate Park Informational Session: American Ramp Company The design and information meeting on the Skate Park will be held March 4th in the Highschool Commons from 5PM to 7PM. We are working with American Ramp Company and Julia Brueckler is here to represent them. Julia is a professional skater and a designer for American Ramp Company. They are out of Joplin Missouri and they have built thousands of parks in 45 countries. They build skate parks, bike parks, dirt parks, pump tracks, really any park that uses wheels they build them. In Brookings we are in a preliminary design process, there is not a one way fits all kind of approach. Tomorrow we will present 3 different designs that showcase 3 different types of skate parks. This will allow the public to be able to give their input on the designs and wants they are looking at. They will put stickers on the parks they like and the must haves they are wanting. The 3 different designs are: traditional, which includes half pipes, mini ramps and bowls. Street heavy design that includes more handrails, stairs and ledges. The third design will be a mixture of both. During the meeting they encourage the public to voice their opinions, wants and details. There will also be an online survey that will be launched on March 4th for people that might not be able to make it to the meeting. After the meeting/survey, usually a week they will take the information and come up with a custom preliminary design for Brookings. We will then present an online forum. People will be able to again give their input. We will then present our final design probably in mid-April. Once it is approved and everything is signed, they will need about 3 months to gather constructions documents and then hoping if everything goes quickly, we can start building this Fall or next Spring. It will also depend on the weather and our crews. A lot of users will utilize the parks October through April depending on the cold. Skaters will remove snow from the park and utilize the park year-round unless it is unbearably cold. Snow is usually the only factor that keeps skaters from the park. The public Art Commission will also be there, and we will also be giving out pizza! Julia was very interested to know what Brookings is famous for so they can incorporate that into the design. 6. Discussion & Possible Action: Park Board Member Recommendation Page 2 We are looking to fill one position and both candidates we have are great applicants. The Park Board went into discussion about each applicant. The Board decided to do a vote. Jay Larsen nominates Paul Meyer. Steve Berseth 2nds Paul Meyer; the Park Board members unanimously voted for Paul Meyer so the motion is carried to add Paul Meyer to the Park and Recreation Advisory Board. 7. Discussion and Possible Action: Upcoming Events in the Parks We are starting to get more request for using our parks for leagues to come into our parks, we get a lot of sports leagues, and we need to make sure that they aren’t competing with our partners, and we need to also make sure that we are checking into insurances and polices. Kristin Zimmerman recommends to not approve this application because they are wanting to utilize a park that isn’t really build for programs. Where the soccer fields and ball fields are maintained for the different leagues. If we allow groups to use our facilities the coaches need to have background checks and insurance policies. We would also need to have a conversation if they are profiting on city property. Do we need to have an ordinance that states you can’t profit on city parks? This is a larger conversation. We do have requirements through our risk department and can always fall onto that. 8. Discussion & Possible Action: Invite Sustainability Council to upcoming meeting to discuss and plan Bee City USA initiatives We are currently in the process of filling out our Bee City application through the sustainability council and 75% of that will impact our parks. Kristin Zimmerman thinks that it would be really fun to invite the Sustainability Council to one of our Park Board meetings and workshop together to come up with ideas. Jay Larsen motions to invite the Sustainability Council to participate in the April 7th 2025 Park Board Meeting. Brenda Larsen 2nds the motion; Motion is carried. 9. Discussion & Possible Action: Urban Forestry Initiative Kristin Zimmerman’s recommendation for the 2025 Urban Forestry Initiative. We have 25,000 allocated and she believes that it is important to offer a credit to community members that want to save an ash tree. With Emerald Ash Borer, we are going to lose a lot of trees so we really want to save some instead of removing them. So, this would be per address only, like in the past. The homeowner would get a $100.00 credit to plant a tree and be given an additional $25.00 to plant in their front yard. We would really like to have people planting in their front yards. They could also get a credit of $50.00 if they inject and ash tree. So, the maximum credit for a household would be $175.00 if they plant the tree in the front yard and treat an ash tree. The injections do require a treatment every 2 to 3 years depending on the chemical. We can add a good faith statement that the trees need to be treated again onto our form so they are aware they need more than one treatment. This will roll out on Earth Day. We will also be helping spread the word through our press releases about the native plants and rain barrel program that Public Works and Storm Water put on. Brenda Andersen motions to approve the Urban Forestry Initiative as Kristin Zimmerman explains. Steve Berseth 2nds the Motion; Motion is carried. 10. Bicycle Sub-Committee Report Josh Bauman updates the Park Board with the Bicycle Sub-Committee adding a new member. They have been discussing what they need to start looking at and planning for as far as ongoing maintenance goes for 2026. They have been discussing outreach and education opportunities. May is National Bike month. Different things we could do with educating students, community members and partnering with different programs like the library, bike rodeo and safety town. They have also discussed adding different trail amenities, like fountains, bike fix it stations and benches. We will be doing all new trail head signs this year. We are also looking at organizing a time to get together to ride the trails and take a good look at them to get some more input on areas that we need to work on. 11. Sustainability Commission Report Sustainability Council has a waste subcommittee and they are exploring recycling in parks and water fill stations. No mow May was officially rescinded. The resolution for the Bee City USA was passed. An update on the food forest we are looking for grants to build a fence around the food forest to eliminate rabbits from eating the berries and other Page 3 things that could be grown in the food forest. This will also separate the food forest from the community gardens. We would like people to know that if it is outside of the fence, it is someone’s paid garden, if it is inside of the fence, it is open to the community for free. Currently the food forest is a little over an acer. It is on the east half of the gardens on the very north end. 12. Directors Report February overview: We have 2 new CPRP’s this month, Darren Hoff and Daniel Timm. We now have 4 CPRP’s and 1 CPRE. CPRP’s are Certified Parks and Recreation Professional. CPRE’s are Certified Parks and Recreation Executive. Kristin Zimmerman, Josh Bauman, Greg Redenius and Darren Hoff took a tour of the golf course in Vermillion. They checked out their club house and maintenance operation. It was very nice to see how anther municipal golf course offers. Our forestry crews attended the State Forestry Conference. This week Greg and Daniel May are attending the Golf Conference in Sioux falls. Open RFP’s: We currently have two open RFP’s. One is for the golf course club house management and the other is for the playgrounds. They both close April 18th. We have had a lot of interest in both RFP’s but we aren’t aware of who has submitted because they typically go up to the city clerk’s office. Grant Outlook for 2025: As you know we are always looking for additional grant funding. With any turn over with presidency there is always some turn over with the federal and state grants. Currently there aren’t really any out there. But we are hopeful for a turn around. Golf Course Water Sourcing: We are finalizing numbers and time lines for the different options. Department Updates: We have an open forestry tech position. We are going through applications right now. Kristin will be out of the office from March 13th through the 24th. Josh will be acting Park, Recreation and Forestry Director. Kristin is also speaking with the rotary club tomorrow and then she also has a cost-of-service analysis. Josh Bauman and Ryan Burggraff are going to be speaking with the meadow green neighborhood. They have some concern about the ash trees in their neighborhood. Josh will be able to give some information on our Urban Forestry Initiative. We also have SDSU Students that have designs for rain gardens for the BMU property and the other two are designs for the Nature Park. Our staff just requested that we have more plants that aid in the Butterfly population. These plants are Milk Weed and Golden Rod. These will help the butterfly habitat. Our partnerships with SDSU are growing. 13. Adjournment Steven Berseth motions to adjourn meeting. Brenda Andersen 2nds motion; Motion is carried.