all right whenever you're ready okay so welcome everybody i'd like to call the meeting the order of the to the meeting to order at what time is it it's 6 33 p.m for the parks and recreation board uh do we have any additions to the agenda this evening to approve the agenda make that motion i second it motion carries um next up on the agenda we have first up in the engine we have uh the approval of the last meetings minutes so does any with this does anybody have any changes to the april 13th 2021 meeting if no one if there aren't any i'll need a motion to approve them make that motion nice second motion carries oh we have to vote i suppose right oh yeah just say um all in favor fall in favor all right motion carries so uh first item on the orders of business is the cold water crossing request to consider a new park all right um in front of you is uh in your back it is some information about um a request for a new park so this isn't the first time that we've received this request and i will kind of provide a quick summary as to kind of the background of the cold water crossing development that's where some residents would like to see a park more so on the west side of the development so the the history of this is that a little over 20 years ago when cold water crossing was developed into phases the developer at that time in the city chose to do park dedication fees instead of a actual park lane position so per city ordinance developers have to either dedicate park land or they need to compensate the city and the comp the money that the city would get through park dedication fees would go to a neighboring park to to further develop that one um so the the city had uh has already received park dedication fees for that entire development therefore the current owner developer has already met those requirements and has no obligation to dedicate future park land to the city of mayor so with this request the park commission could look at some options um one option is to to not do anything um another is to wait into the future wait for the cold water crossing development to get developed even further it is it does have a few more phases to it right now the eighth edition is in is kind of moving forward but that's more to the north east side of the development so it would probably be a while until they get it could be i don't even know i'm guessing it could be five years or more before they get to the the western side of the development [Music] and further along when that part does get developed something that's pretty common and has been a theme with other parts of this development is the planned unit development process it's kind of a it's in the city code and it allows the developer to develop under kind of a specific or special code that allows kind of negotiations so they can say well we want smaller lots uh we want the city to consider smaller lots so we can fit more houses in there um and with that then the city can say well we'll give you potentially we could ask we'll give you that variance to our code if you maybe consider parkland yeah um so it that's kind of one approach we could take otherwise [Music] currently if we wanted to to move forward in the present the city could purchase land from the developer it would have to be rezoned into parkland and then developed into the park um this is this this is kind of a long process as well it's not as long as waiting for it to be developed but it does have its anytime a city purchases land it can get a little complicated where would it go you know what piece would we purchase and then also how much how would we finance that um so i don't really have a recommendation at this time i'm i this is just kind of more so a discussion what are your thoughts um on and maybe some direction as far as what do you want me to research more into as far as this request did the so it says here that you know at the time they paid the park dedication fees and those those went to support old school house park was were there any improvements at the time or is it was it more of a maintenance you know basically it's our in our general fund or how did that i believe improvements were made to that park throughout the years with that money sure i think it's worth looking into i mean old school house is a ways away from you know western cold water yeah i guess i'd be curious uh what the you know for people for other areas of the city what the walking distance is to the nearest park for all the cities you know for different areas of the city for example so like how long do these people have to walk to get the old school house well though hidden creek's only park is meadow park yeah metal that's quite a ways from the furthest west side that would be no different than cold water really yeah i could look into um we do have our however in our comprehensive plan we do have a park i think i remember seeing that like that you know yeah you usually have there was a map like a map of ideal distances the problem too with cold waters there's every open spot there's holding ponds yeah right i mean i don't know it would have to be the furthest west possible almost or northerly i guess but that would be then getting close to the school house when the river so i mean you're not i don't think you're gaining anything there yeah and i know one suggestion from a resident was why don't you know can we purchase one of the lots the um the the problem with that is um i think it would be too small i was gonna say that's pretty small i mean you can't really fit quarter acre or third i don't know how big they are over there you need at least two yeah yeah so we would have to even two is a pretty small park right but you know field stones isn't giant either pocket park sure thing you know like nice old i think it's something worth looking into but the best option is when they further develop it you know and i can talk just adjust with the developers see if you can do the two lot you know when they want to gain more lots you kind of negotiate that way and we can even talk to the landowner you know as he's selling off chunks to the developers maybe he can personally dedicate a section and is that even possible he can he can go through that process because i mean he's probably if he's not going to ask for any variances though he probably already has and it's zoned properly he probably doesn't really have to ask for anything no in in furthering the development yeah he doesn't have to but it's been um like with the other sections of the uh development um i believe every other phase has done the pud process and so i wouldn't it'd be beneficial to do that yeah i would make the assumption that they would ask for it again in the future phases but that's the problem too they might not right so then we won't have any really leverage there i mean i think any time we're gonna if we're gonna be building a new park or or whatever like that's always gonna should it should be a little longer process and you know just to make sure that we're not just buying a chunk of land and throwing it down so well what about this expanding school school park just a little bit um or is there talks about built out okay yeah it's already kind of has the okay yeah so we yeah so old school house i think already has its blueprint but um because i think ideally a park would have been best like by big oak lane which is kind of centralized in the development and that's not even feasible now yeah right it's a little late i think i think next steps for now i might re i do know the developer i might just reach out and have a discussion with them and then see where that goes and then um i also might talk to the land owner before i mean the landowner oh okay yeah yeah because i know him personally as well so just to see what he has to say yeah maybe we can sit down with him right just talk about it you know see if we can work something out or maybe bring something to council or park commission or right yeah i think that would be probably the the most make the most sense that's where that's where we're gonna go with that then if you if you all agree i think i think so yeah i mean it's worth looking into for sure yeah because um we'll just see kind of what if there's any interest and then i maybe know with that i'll do a little bit more research on um maybe ideal locations like what's feasible yeah and i think and yeah just verifying that maybe you know maybe there's other maybe this isn't the area of the city that's most you know uh has the most disparities in terms of access you know it might be somebody who's who's more vocal here but you know it's possible that that might not be the best place for us to put the city to put dollars either i think that makes sense to look at that map map again kind of okay how close are all the property okay okay sounds good do you need to do anything to move on to the next item or we just move on just move on uh next item is the park signs all right so at the last meeting um we did discuss replacing all the park signs um the current signs are outdated and some of them can't be reinstalled because they're essentially rotting um so staff has been working with indigo science to create concepts for new signs and then we did get input at the april meeting um and so included is the concept i believe that we all wanted yeah looks good so that with that each sign each one of those signs would be about two thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars and ninety one cents for a total for five signs of ten thousand four hundred ninety nine dollars and fifty five cents so this would be paid for out of the park capital fund that currently has a an unreserved balance and of 504.700 and two oh sorry five hundred and four thousand seven hundred two dollars and twenty one cents so staff is recommending that the park commission approve the recommended the recommendation to counsel moving forward with purchasing the signs in that amount to be paid out of the park capital fund just one question before we do that um did we ever decide what's happening with the name of old school house or are we just putting a dedication sign i the lions beneath it yeah the dedication side on earth i think that's what we ended up guessing yeah i think it would be more the approach should be more so a dedication okay i have been yeah i think i might have provided an update in the later um that i am still researching that whole process um it's it's definitely more complicated than i thought every city kind of does it a little differently whether you have um i think some cities say if they contribute 50 towards a project then they get to name that section of the park but the actual na renaming of an entire park i i still haven't gotten like clear clear boundaries on it exactly so i'm still researching that and i will bring it back but i think i think it does make sense to do more of a dedication yeah right one more question is blue jay park the basketball court yes okay do we really need a sign there i'm not trying to be mean but really there's nothing really there yeah there's no there's a shelter picnic tables or anything that really have anything yeah i know we'll have picnic tables there eventually and we will have the parking true i just don't know that it offers enough to warrant a three thousand dollar sign two thousand dollars sorry isn't it two thousand nine hundred and something and it's always something we could do down the road oh it's always something we could do down the road yeah we already have the concept i just i don't know and now with basketball courts going in two more parks and stuff is it really going to get used all that much the only thing that would be nice i could see is maybe for the car show at blue jay park but then the question arises which side the water treatment facility do you put it on yeah i don't know i i agree with the rest of them but i don't know if i can i don't know if i like spending all that money on a sign for blue jay when there's not much there to offer i mean anybody else no i can understand your point i i disagree i guess only in that if it's one of our if we list it as one of our parks i think it should be signed as such i mean i kind of get that you can go online and look at a map and figure out where it is but if you just drive by the the basketball court i mean you might not know that that's there's even a park there is is there even an option to put like a like a little gazebo thing like we did in westridge is there even enough room there there might be like something we could even do like a small shelter like you know one of those ones that have like the post with like um oh umbrella top or something so there are options i know one thing i i was going to mention too is like um i mean i think most people know it's a public park that's kind of what i meant like like it's a that people can use it because it's a public space and see when when we were kids it was i mean the water treatment facility wasn't there it was a huge band shell underneath the water tower we served all the food and stuff for our days and everything i mean it used to be huge that's why i guess to me that's not a park i'm just having trouble with i i i want the sign but like i wanted to offer more you know and i think you know that's a good point and i think now that we have a full commission again it makes sense to bring back kind of the big discussion right what what do we want to see in each future things with blue jay part well then let's maybe let's go ahead with the sign and then the signs and then we can discuss further renovations of the site moving forward yeah i think that i would agree with like a shelter you know and just like pick a couple picnic tables yeah something that a family can go up there and you know i don't know it just so it feels more like a park i guess yeah i think that's good i mean we're we're getting our parking which is huge that's huge but you know who's gonna use it all yeah and now i know and then but then now we can um visualize i think more there now that we have that parking do we know if like snap fitness will they be finishing any more parking with them tarring and stuff there um not as far as i know i can reach out to the engineer to see if they've requested um any additional because i know um it just would be nice to look nice you know tired all the way to the end for parking for that juice bar and yeah the juice bar that area that's in front of it right it's all gravel it kind of looks what is what is that area is it you know i think it's actually parking oh it is okay but at least that's what i've always seen it used as but yeah is it just they didn't build up the rest of that future building or something like that well at one time when it first built it was just a storage facility right so then apparently they didn't rent it out enough and they had to change it into everything else so yeah i'll reach out to the engineer because i know part of this project would just be nice to look finished yeah cause i think i even spoke with another owner on that street considering doing to the building and you know so it's just aesthetic purposes that's all just just asking yeah and sometimes these work so projects um money is the factor yeah property owners can request the contractors who do it and then charge them yeah and usually you can get it done at a reduced rate yeah it's a big project because i know there's plenty of residents that were asking about that too highway paving and stuff makes sense when they're here yeah okay so uh so i guess we would need a motion or a motion to approve uh purchase and construction of the signs yep i'll make that motion i second it uh all in favor all right uh motion carries building signs and next item on the agenda is the community festival and we have an update all right so i did do a little research i i i think i might have been looking at some of the some limited websites but um eric did provide me an email with some good options this is kind of what i was originally looking for something like this yeah this thing's cool um so it's kind of like it's like a competition thing like you all stand underneath it everybody pumps and whoever i think i think like maybe you're connected to the person across from you so you're trying to pop everybody else's balloon oh that's cool and uh so yeah four you know four people could do it at once instead of just yeah that's one yeah what about like the water balloon launchers i didn't find anything for that yeah because the boy scout toys have them suckers i don't know they're fun they look fun well you could just buy some launchers but i was thinking like those the cages or whatever like maybe you could build something but right i couldn't find anything for rent anyway yeah either i could only find the dunk tank like that for water yep so um it's just a standard i think that's something different and or don't think well the kids would get a kick out of that oh yeah and usually it's hot during the festival so i mean that'd be perfect okay both of those are good ideas yeah if you agree you could make a motion to recommend a council [Music] renting this from your rising community festival um what i would do then is before i bring it to console i would just confirm with my rising committee that like they're okay with us doing this and there's enough help to take care of it then too we would have to commit to we would may have to man it yeah basically yeah okay yeah well is that where we have like a little tent area then too to talk about you know that is things that are coming up and get inputted and stuff like that from community yeah we can definitely provide um information like about like the park board um come ask us questions about what we're working on yep or what would maybe even a box like what would you like to see or i thought they could stick their comment in there yeah i think that'd be a good idea too um what's the date festival i think it's july 20th 10th um now we'd also have to purchase a lot of water moons i'm assuming yes i wonder oh i wonder if it's included anything i didn't see in the notes whether or not they included them and we should probably find either a farmer or a place we can rent it does say balloons included stock tanks oh so we can have 10 tons of water balloons ready it says um a hundred come with it what if uh we talked to the fire department have them bring out the tanker and put one of the things out yeah that would work i mean they're showing off although somebody would have to eventually get in and walk around in that which i don't think is a great idea okay because if there's anything sharp on the ground or anything i mean those things are pretty tough but yeah generally you don't walk inside of them that's why i'm thinking some you know 100 gallon or something stock tanks if we could rent or borrow a loan um this is that a hundred are included and we can buy more i think we need to buy uh yeah i mean do we need to confirm that the rest of the commission is able to commit to some time on during the festival for that i mean because it just sucked to have to have stick somebody there next to it for six hours or something yeah i guess we would have to decide like what hours we would want to do it yeah and um you know uh shifts like would it be yeah exactly yeah hour and a half shift or whatever um yeah i mean we can bring this back i think i think we have time to talk about it again at the june meeting yeah and just talk about commitment um i can at least bring it to mayor rising community and just say this is what we're thinking what do you think yeah i think we should uh the only thing i would worry about is if if because we've got basically like when i was looking there's maybe like four places in the metro that like rent out dunk tanks or things are similar like i just would maybe be afraid if we wait until june right okay the stuff's gonna rent out yeah i can ask them availability okay okay is that does that sound good yeah okay and then okay all right so that's kind of our plan and then we will bring it back i'll bring it back in june and we'll kind of commit see if we cannot commit to that you know when looking at this they do sell the kit for water bottle launchers you know the straps the pull uh-huh i wonder if you know i would think that with we would want to have cages because we don't want to be liable for anyone getting hurt oh come on hey we're a city [Music] [Laughter] then with the cars and everything like that nice my job is to think about these things and i'm not it's fine until some kid looks like you're the anti-fun police some kid loads of rock into it that's true i'm just kidding it's okay okay yeah i think then we put our sticker in there put that okay see this looks very secure and she's momming us [Laughter] uh is there anything else that's that i think we got some good enough direction on that one that's project updates oh um so just the lions park again still working on that name change requests and how to approach that splash pad pavilion i did meet with that other company they did were not able to get me any concepts back yet because it does kind of take a while for them to draw those up but um we had a good meeting and i think we'll be able to kind of visualize um i was able to go over some concepts with him and things i liked and things that i wanted to bring to you all and so we're gonna it should be done by june so we can then kind of get a feel for which designs would prefer and move ahead with um and then basketball court again that's for discovery um staff is still coordinating that i think um i think we're hoping that that'll be done in june but i know we have a lot of projects going on right now so we're just trying to get that coordinated and i think one of the people that we want to use is working on the street project so one more question with the blue jay basketball court um with the new addition of the parking uh will we be putting fence then along that side just as we did along the alley because we don't want basketball um let me ask yeah we can look into that chasing basketball why don't we we should almost cage in three sides yeah other than the water treatment facilities because then it's not flying out in the blue jay it's not flying into the cars parked there and it's not you know i don't know i think that oh i think that's worth looking into that's a good point um sorry no no no it's good for you but it's just no i mean that's why we have you know different moms thinking about these things because um i mean not that a basketball is going to do much but i you know in some of these newer cars the metals like tissue paper yeah dent right um yeah no that's a good point we will i'll talk to kyle and then we'll probably bring it back for discussion and then the only other thing i was asked by a council member to do we want to reach out to so we have uh mayor lutheran high school using our baseball fields a lot right now and then i think at some sometimes we get uh the school district uh watertown mayor that uses them to for recreation purposes do we want to reach out to them and ask them how it's go i i was i think it makes sense to you but just ask them how it's going like do you want to see anything else like what are are there any improvements you want are we grading them are we like grading them and stuff yeah so public works has been so we have an agreement at least with mayor lutheran high school to um that we mow and we we maintain and prepare the fields before every game they have their own responsibilities so it's kind of a team effort sure but and i think that's been going really really well um but i just had a somebody asked if we wanted to reach out to them and see yeah for sure you should reach out and just see if there's anything city can do or they can do or you know meet in the middle yeah i can do together yeah okay so i'll do that and i'll report back what they say sounds good great back at the shelter yeah my question is because he sent me those plans my thinking was to if we can try and reuse the old shed but we the what i need to know is does it need to be a storm shelter or does it need it can it be just a shelter it doesn't have to be a storm shelter because if it doesn't have to be a storm shelter then we can make use of what we have probably if it needs to be a storm shelter then it's then it's just tear down and rebuilt then because it's it needs to be blocking that sort of thing so um i'm when i have time here hopefully this next next month for the next meeting i will try to mike has keys in the building so i can get in there we can measure things up and trying to just do a rough sketch of stuff of ideas i saw your plan i i think we need to add maybe uh area for um a vendor type of thing so people can you know like the lions they could have burgers and that kind of thing and hot dogs that sort of thing maybe i've talked to some other people with the bathrooms as that we could downscale the bathrooms a little bit you know they need to be handicapped accessible but we don't need as much as they do not need showers we just need to have flushable okay i wasn't sure if we put the splash pad in yeah wasn't there something about changing rooms or something um yeah they can be like bathrooms so you want to have changing rooms like family rooms then type of thing family bathroom i think that would be ideal just so like if people want to yeah so have a men's women's but have a family bathroom then too yeah okay um i think yeah just with a recirculation system we would need flushable bathrooms yeah yeah would you think that building is big enough like if we'd take half of it and do like what you're saying the bathrooms and then like a recreational area with where we could grill and sell burgers and stuff do you think we could save the roof and stuff and still have like part of a band shell almost i'm thinking yeah we still need to expand this way a little bit just to that would be an office that way we could put bathrooms there that type of thing because we're not digging into the old concrete we can just dig our trenches put that stuff up and use the old concrete stuff we might have to do some patching type of thing of course yeah we'll do epoxy or something like that yeah for sure sweet yeah that looked great that'd be awesome huge cross savings yeah so whether you know you know sell the tin or something like that you know have someone come you know i mean some people some people you know right a few thousand dollars it's a few thousand dollars to put towards the cost so um and have them take it down type of thing and then just go back to the six by sixes and modify the roof a little bit and put new trusses in make it probably a hip like what is was on the plan but just make it broad maybe get some you know dewy i was thinking too do we want to make it kind of old school where it's straight up and has the notches like the old buildings do do you want to go that route i mean they're kind of cool i mean just to throw something else in there make like yeah heltz's roof line or the other one across the street with the i see what you're saying or even like bob's bowser prayers got that too i mean so i mean think about that and let me know next time we talk about school park yeah i mean that would be the thing that way you could have it's more area to sponsor them you could have the old school park up there but then sponsored by lions and would this be big enough to put like a small stage in it if there was a dj ever or a band yeah i think so i mean if we brought that out far enough i mean there's plenty of room in that other other part of the building i don't know why not i was thinking too is actually if you could divide it off then so if you whether or not you had a curtain in there you could pull that way you have two family get-togethers they're not yeah you know i mean just i'm just throwing stuff out there but that was the quick things i was thinking about you know you know whether or not you were talking like the the shell the place that people would sit would face obviously the ball fields yeah that way you could have picked the tables watch the games while you're sitting there right and then have all the concessions parts at the man the back of it and that way the um summer festival you know another thing we can use it too if we wanted more outdoor seating and shade i'm where were we god was that buffalo we were playing a ball game and they they had their concession stand centralized but they had these those huge like canvas sheets off the ends so you could have picnic tables oh yeah so you just had to put the post up and you'd obviously take those sheets down in winter and stuff yeah okay but that that was really neat and inexpensive yeah exactly i actually had the guy um gain a lot of extra square footage that way yeah um you could still have your concrete pad but with the with the shades um just so you can yeah you can have the shelter shade but then you can have sitting shade too yeah yeah that would be sweet with them triangle looking yeah that was pretty sweet yeah that was pretty sweet to see all right i mean that's what i just wanted to mention to them yeah no that would be yeah that'd be great i'll just get well i'll just sketch something out roughly and then you know bring a copy and you guys make your tweaks and go from there sounds good um you have any other comments no sir unless there's anything else uh i'll ask for a motion to adjourn the meeting i'll make that motion i second it all in favor all right motion carries done thank you very much no thank you i like the idea