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HomeMy WebLinkAboutDraft Minutes - Recreation and Parks Committee - 01/13/2020 RECREATION AND PARKS COMMITTEE MINUTES MONDAY January 13, 2020 5 PM-6:30 PM Medium Conference Room, City Offices Present: Jon Pence, Mike Simoneau, Jennifer Kochman, Lauren Wedam, Katie Langrock, Christy Pilsucki Absent: Glenn Sproul, Rebecca Poquette Staff: Holly Rees Guest: Allan Strong, Travis Ladd, Bill Barber The meeting was called to order at 5pm by Katie. Holly reviewed safety procedures. Changes or additions to the agenda Approving of December meeting’s minutes – Jennifer approved, Lauren seconded. Allan is coming to today’s meeting to do the IZ report. Travis is here for update on field and facilities. Comments from the public not related to the agenda None Field & Facilities: Travis Policies, Protocol and Procedures One aspect of Travis’s job is to do facility requests and scheduling. He said they sent out their usual users request form on January 1 to start planning field schedules for the period of March – June. Travis said it is usually a first come, first serve basis, but they usually have the same users, so Travis have a good sense of the needs and the schedules. He said they have 20-year round users and a handful of event users. Travis will then look at all the requests and schedule them in a way such that they can utilize the field space in the best way possible Travis said they usually need to use Marcotte field as well. Once the calendar is in place, the schedule goes to the Parks Foreman (Joe Gay) and seasonal staff, The calendar gets updated as needed (daily, weekly). Joe and the seasonal crew get the parks ready for practices, games and tournaments as scheduled. Ideally, there would like to have a direct line between DPW and Joe. Travis said the City took over the upkeep from coaches because Joe and the seasonal crew can take care of them with the longevity of our fields in mind. Joe is only the one who knows how to do this and he is seasonal from April to October. What is back up plan if Joe is out or retires? R&P does not have direct supervision over the people who oversee the parks they are overseen by DPW. Would like to address this issue with DPW. Meeting to be planned for February. Ideally, R&P would like to supervise Joe directly including work flow and quality control. Revenue & Expenses Travis said the field use was limited this year This FY brought in just over $50,000. By the calendar year, which is how Travis does invoices, the amount was $39,000. Most of the income was from the athletic fields, plus a few event users (about $5000). R&P is looking at changing some fees – planning to remove the deposit fee and include a $50/hr maintenance fee which will include garbage removal fee. There are not separate resident and non-resident rates at this time. Though other towns have lower fees, South Burlington prepares their own fields rather than allowing it to be up to coaches. Travis and Holly reviewed expenditure report of special revenue expenses (251 account). Other departments share this fund, however all purchases need to be communicated through Holly. Holly said it is important to know what money we have in there so we can plan for field needs. The approval process needs to be firmed up. Parks Foreman planned outage, Supervision of Seasonal Summer Park Staff/Athletic Fields Andrew is having surgery next month, will be unavailable for 3 – 5 months. R&P hopes to have supervision over Joe and in the near future. There is a plan to hire more seasonal employees, but we did not fill all seasonal positions last year, so we aren’t sure if we will be at capacity this year or not. Final Report on IZ Open Space: Allan Presentation was with PowerPoint which was given to planning commission last month. Allan (Chair of IZ) said IZ reviewed their mission, set up the framework for identifying parcels for conservation. Approximately 190 parcels were identified for consideration that were a minimum of 4 acres and less than 10% impervious. Then, to narrow it down, they did an assessment of five priority areas: large scale connectivity, forest blocks, river corridors, wildlife and agriculture. After this, we had 127 that were in those priority areas. Of the 127, 92 contained natural resources attributes in at least 3 out of the 5 categories. Of those 92 parcels, 73 were not already conserved or were conserved only through regulatory means. The committee ended up with 25 priority parcels ( 5 owned by UVM and 20 owned privately) using two criteria: 1. Current and planned land use and 2. Parcel acreage. 5 owned by UVM, 20 owed privately Public meeting to discuss this is scheduled for 1/23 at 7pm at SBHS cafeteria. Update on Land Trust Cents for Conservation: Katie This agenda item is related to conversation at December meeting. Katie received feedback from one councilor in agreement and one is listening to us. The CC might be dialing this proposal back a bit due to the push back from R&P, Affordable Housing and other stakeholders. Will need to reconsider or provide equity to other groups. There is an ad hoc group forming to discuss with three affordable housing and two open space members on it. Indoor facility update: Holly Ilona is planning to meet with R&P next week to look at initial operations information and work through those details in preparation for CC meeting in February. CC would like to have an update before March ballot. Ilona will come to February committee meeting with a slide show. Dog Park Update: Holly & Mike Justin planned to come to Dog Park meeting last week to provide some maps to see wetlands so we can start engineering the park, but he was unable to come so plan is for the next meeting. Overall plan is to engineer it, develop site plan, obtain permits, begin site work by possibly May or June? Dog Committee has been on hold for about 6 months. Question about Farrell Street dog park – What is irrigation plan? It is currently covered in ice. No way to address this as the park is surrounded by wetland. It is not a great site for a dog park and does not work for most people. Holly is hopeful once bigger dog park is completed; it will be better. There is more t consider for a dog park than just an open space – need to engineer it for safety and wetland purposes. Budget update, CIP adjustment: Holly Tom is presenting to CC tonight. More of a general fund than CIP. Asking for a 3.31% increase currently and hopeful it will get approval tonight. There was a new vehicle request that was cut from the budget but will get one from DPW as they cycle an older truck out. The budget will be presented the night before town meeting and then voted on at town meeting. Discuss any questions re: Director’s report No questions, very thorough report. Review Mission Statement: Katie Mission statement was read. Wheeler House & Common Roots: Katie Common roots has a lease for the use of Wheeler house. They pay utilizes and make improvements to the building. The use of land outside of the building is not covered by the lease and Common Roots would like to hold events there. Questions raised - Is it zoned for that? What revenue do we want to make? Can we have other groups rent it? Should we limit the number of events because it could interfere with public access on the weekends if there are many tented events? Should we ask CR to present a usage plan to us first then, if we approve it, send it to CC? Could this be done at other places like Red Rocks? Holly said Common Roots is open to revenue sharing. CR has installed a licensed kitchen in the building as well which prohibits use from anyone else using it unless they are specifically trained and licensed. CC approved without taking with R&P, but Council should support R&P being involved as it is an R&P asset. R&P’s objective is not to undo anything, but to know where they want to expand and that it needs to be approved. Over the years, CR has grown and developed their programs at no expense. This is a great organization to be supported, but space needs to be shared, revenue needs to be shared and R&P needs to have a say in it. Holly recommends: Katie reach out to Carol and say that R&P reviewed their annual report and would like to invite CR to next R&P meeting to hear their plans, set norms and revenue expectations. Action step: Holly will get leases to committee. Katie will reach out to Carol to invite CR to next meeting. Jennifer moved to adjourn the meeting and Mike seconded at 6:34pm. NEXT REGULAR MEETING: February 20, 2020 5:00 P.M.