We'll call our parks and trails commission meeting to order. It is November 21st, 2024 and it is 7 p.m. And we'll do a quick roll call. Um Friedrich here, Anderson here, Schmidt here, here. Nel here, Staylor here. Great. All right. And the wall pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Uh, did anybody have any question on the October 17 minutes? We have to move to the agenda. Oh, well, sorry about that. Thank you. Can we get a motion to approve the agenda? I'll motion approve the agenda. Second. All those in favor say I. I. And now we'll move on to minutes. Anyone have any additions or changes to the minutes for October 17, 2024? I will make a motion to approve the minutes. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Great. And moving on to open forum. Um, we don't have a lot of people present tonight. Anybody online? Uh, they can't speak online, but yes, there are. Okay. few of us two and a council member. Okay, sounds good. All right, and we don't have any presentations tonight. So, we'll move on to number seven, unfinished business, winter trail maintenance update. Sure. Thank you, commissioners. Um, uh, for those that are new and haven't I haven't had the opportunity to meet you, I'm Kevin Matson, the public works director. Uh we have kind of a goal where I try to attend one meeting a year for the parks and trails commission. I think we've been fairly busy so I don't know I have any meetings this year. So I apologize for that. But tonight's an opportunity. We have three items on the agenda that relate to parks and also relate a lot to public works. So I'm happy to be here tonight and happy that you would have maybe a little bit more agenda with me so I could come to one meeting instead of two. So I appreciate that. So, the first uh item that we're we want to update you on and then kind of have a discussion about um would be the current status of our winter maintenance on our trail system. Uh a little over a year ago, I was back in front of you guys and in a very similar spot where we were hoping to have taken over some more trails from the developers and we started laying out some maps and presented the information that's in the packet a draft snow and ice policy and that went through council and and some of the or the ordinances in that report were adopted, but we basically paused um the discussion and the decision on winter trail maintenance primarily because we didn't accept trails. And so um I probably made promises. I anticipated that we'd have them. We don't have very many new ones. Um, with the exception of the Hackmore Road Trail. So, I I do want to let you know that on the DIS, we have an updated trails map. So, it's an updated one from March 2023 that was in the package that is presented. The primary shift in that and those trails are just classifications. So, ones that were anticipated or easements that have now been built by the developer. So you would see a lot of blue dash going to red dash. The red dash means they're constructed, but we haven't accepted them. And then like I said, the exception would be on the very southeast corner with our half more road improvements on the north side. As part of that project in the grant, there is a bit trail that is now the cities. Um so that's that's part of the biggest change between maps. We can answer more questions later specific to that if you guys have them. Um so that being said, really where we stand today as we have in in the 2025 budget, we don't have any money or investment for winter maintenance. Um the developers, the council has initiated more aggressive um project closeout measures. So we are very close to accepting Vast Lake Crossing and Ravenia, at least portions of trails. Ravenia is a large development. So, I'd say half of Ravenia are probably close to and likely to accept some some of the phases this winter. So, just they're huge projects and they take some time, but the council's made some efforts to to try to bring closure there and the developer is responding over the last couple months here in the construction season to kind of gear up. If you haven't noticed, I believe all the trails in Ravenia have been the ones that were damaged have been repaired. um and the developer installed some roof barriers um in the areas that the roots were the problem. So um that was some things that they did to kind of step up and and help out. Um and then we have changed our detail plate to include those barriers in lowland areas as directed by our field staff. So we continue to bring process improvements to our standard detail plates. Um uh so beyond that we we have the challenge of how do you pay for an expensive uh obligation such as winter trail maintenance with all the other competing interests we have. So again just full disclosure we don't have anything budgeted for 2025. Um, you know, tonight's conversation would be, you know, it what is there's some information here of a year ago's parks and trails commission. They they were in favor of, you know, finding ways to potentially do that in specific areas and it wasn't finalized, but is that affirmed tonight? Is that changed? And you know if it is affirm maybe some discussion on priorities within the parks and trails commission that we can bring back to council and say these would be our priorities. You know because building out parks and building parks and trails and there has to you know there really has to be some discussion on on budget because it does it is a real number a fairly significant number and when's the right time to do it. Um, and I guess we're looking for reinforcement or change in direction on on policy that we could bring back to council. Who's the ultimate decision maker? What do we have for equipment or doing the trails? So, we we've kind of been kind of putting our toe in the water with equipment. So, you know, it really depends on the trail we're going to do. If we have to trailer there, um, if it's, you know, we've sidewalk in St. Teres now, that's our responsibility. piece that's narrower than the 8ft trails, so we can plow it with a truck. We have a blower that can attach to a tractor um or other pieces of equipment. So, smaller pieces. Yeah, we have some brooms that we could use. I mean, we're not fully set up, but we've bought a couple of pertinances that could be used in different with different pieces of equipment that could that we could deploy. Um, are there like certain then paths that you would recommend based on the current equipment if we were going to want to maintain paths that we're putting in over winter? Are there certain criteria we should we should think about or any a pickup truck through it with a plow and just that might be good to consider if we're thinking about putting anything new in that we want to maintain over winter. Yeah, I think we could I think that's maybe a detail that we could dive into. I mean, I think the difference the primary difference is width. Like one of the biggest distinguishers is width and and how much looping you have for the piece of equipment, right? So, as your as your trail systems connect and you can trailer to one spot and do a loop, that's super efficient and helpful. And the piece of equipment that does that might be different than if you have to stop and pick up and do shorter segments. So I think generally I think it'd be I guess I would redirect that to prioritizing the trails that we want to have winter maintain for the specific purpose. And then we would if we don't have that we're already kind of gearing up for that already. But I think that would fall in behind the priority of the trail if that makes sense. The connectivity of the trail the use of the trail I think is a my is a higher priority than what equipment we use for that if that makes sense. But it's a good question. the back to what you said earlier, there is no money but budgeted for this for this. We don't have a staff time or priority. We pause that conversation. So, we don't have that budgeted. Um and and part of the reason to address the budget issue is we receive pretty clear um guidance to maintain a flat rate. Uh so, as things are changing, in order to maintain a flat rate, you you can't really bring in new service lines. So when you bring in a new service line, you're bringing in a whole new cost center, a whole new expense. We have some pieces of equipment, but like Kevin said, we don't have any dedicated personnel. And so people cost money, right? We don't have all of the necessary equipment. That costs money. And um in in order to maintain the budget guidance that we received to not have people's taxes go up 14%, uh we needed to make some decisions. And that combined with that we hadn't had the turnover of of the trails in the timeline that we were expecting. Uh it it made sense to to land conservatively. I I did want to um address the question about priority of trails. So what's unique is the pro the bulk of our trails are recreational. So, um, when I was a parks and recreation director in another city, we had some safe routes to schools and we also had, uh, routes in which people got to major transportation arteries to get to work. So, they're they're using, you know, they had to get to the bus stations and stuff like that. And so, in in Shakipi, those were the ones that we plowed. Uh, the recreational trails, for the most part, unless we had extra time, we did not maintain them in winter. Now, what happened then is people go snowshoeing and they they do Minnesota winter sports. Uh but that also I acknowledge that some of these neighborhoods have an older population and uh going across slippery spots. That means that we are also buying materials. We're salting them. So, it's not just clearing them because just clearing it in Minnesota isn't going to keep it from being slippery. Um and and so the the service standards is an important clarifying but then the budget question becomes the constraint. So uh we are not going to be able to to add uh winter maintenance of trails and I had I had a we had a meeting with three rivers park district recently and I pressed them on it. So for example a 19 along 19 that trail um they emphasize the fact that they they maintain their trails during the other seasons. they will not provide winter maintenance on trails, right? And so even as we're talking the Three Rivers, sort of the Devil's Lake, Independence Regional Drift, Diamond Diamond, the Diamond Lakes Trail that's that's beginning and coming through and that we're planning for. Uh they they will help with maintenance during the other season, but the winter they will not maintain uh during the winter. And so, um, that that to Kevin's point, we need to be really clear on what we do because I don't see how we can afford to do all of them, especially as we we got another regional trail coming east west. We had some bikers in here earlier that I'm confident would would prefer to have that cleaned off in the winter, but you know, 12 miles of trails going across town, uh, which which that those regional trails will eventually be, if they're not maintaining them in the winter, do we do it or do we not do it? Those service standards become really important. So it's fairly common in other communities not to maintain recreational trails in the winter. So it depends. So for example, I live in Chaska, right? And uh through my neighborhood, they're maintained by the HOA. Okay. So part of my HOA fees maintain the trails in the winter. Uh but it's a very large HOA. So that that shared cost is easier than it would be. Some of our HOAs are pretty small, you know, so when you've got 12 houses in an HOA, the expense of trying to maintain a trail would be pretty expensive and that's not what they signed up or agreed to. Uh so we had a conversation, for example, with um Fast Lake Crossings because that was what we expected to come in this year and uh and they were disappointed that it wasn't the budget for this year. And so when they had their HOA meeting, they're choosing to have their HOA pay for it for another year. Uh but they're anxiously awaiting, okay, what's this look like for the future? And then like in my community, we have Wildfall Park. So I think the HOA covers some trail maintenance, but that becomes I guess a city trail. So that's even again a different even different situation because that's a city trail that we then currently are is maintained at least somewhat. but may not be midday. And Kevin and I have talked about that point. I'm sorry. It's okay. Go ahead. So So Kevin and I have talked about that point that if they're city trails, it's important for liability that if we are going to have HOAs allow, and I won't even say have them. We're going to allow HOAs to maintain them. We have to have some agreements in there in terms of who has liability is things break. you know, if they run into something unforeseen and destroy their their winter plow, who's responsible for that? Or if they destroy the trail and when spring comes and now there's a huge gap, who's responsible for repairing it? So, if we were to allow Has to do that, we we need to have agreements in place, agreements and walkthroughs with staff. I would say, you know, once a year, okay, this is clear, we sign off. And even would we soul source I mean it just becomes it gets complicated even how you roll it out so I don't want to get too far into details but would you allow each individual HOA to do it probably makes the most sense some of the HOAs would just want us to send you know I've got company A for X amount and this you know the other HOA says I want the drivers in the trails wants to be done at the same time right so up in bellweather we have the trail that cuts across driveways we have one vendor doing the trail. So, let's just say we do the street that creates a window row, they blow out their driveway. Then the trail person comes in, that creates two winds, they blow out their driveway. So, synchronizing the maintenance and the timing of the maintenance gets really problematic. So, we'll we'll probably get some complaints that we're maintaining the snow and putting money into the snow. We'll probably we'll get more comp we'll generate more complaints on the timing of the winter maintenance. So that's kind of the after effect that it's important to keep in mind. So you know, how do you roll out a plan that minimizes expense and achieves what your goal is? And so I don't know that we have that dialed in yet. And and the more disconnected trail systems that we have, it just elevates the challenges. So the more that you can absorb that inhouse or create a large drought or something of that nature, it helps control, you know, all those elements. And then maybe you're only battling two in terms of, you know, looping plants. I shouldn't say battle, but addressing two in terms of taking place because when you're talking trail, trail maintenance, there's going to be concerns, complaints. It's it's a really tough standard to achieve because you can't time it the way we want. and we're coming from northwest Corkran to southeast Corkran. So, you know, that's expectation setting is almost goes hand in hand with budget solutions with uh service standards. So, it's a lot of wild and and I wanted to be fully transparent. Absolutely. There's a lot of cities that maintain all of their trails, but they're not maintaining a flat rate on the taxes. And so, so people are they're saying, "Yes, I want that." and they're happy uh about paying for it, you know. So, for example, several cities around here have passed referendums that have dramatically increased their taxes to to improve and provide a lot new amenities in terms of parks and recreation. Uh and and so a lot of our parks and recreation amenities are coming through development agreements and then paid for by park development funds. uh because increasing the taxes hasn't been the way that the what's been communicated to me that has been the desired strategy to do that. But that there are definitely a lot of communities. Adina would be an example. They they spend a lot of money in order to to have some of the amenities that they have. Uh and and those are things that people want. I want my trail and I'm happy to pay for it. Uh, and not everybody who has, to Kevin's point, if you look at the map, threearters of the city won't have access to trails for a long time. Uh, and some of those folks have been pretty vocal to me that um, they're concerned about their taxes here. I think too we should think about like what you want want the city to be too as far as like walkable trails even like is that something that we have a desire to do with Corkran with all the trails that we've kind of planned? Is it something that you want to have all year round or just in the summer and fall? And make a decision on what that might look like because that would be helpful, I think, for determining what that maintenance program would look like if that's what we even decide what we want because some cities do have like walkable places everywhere. Corporate isn't there yet. We have a lot of spaced out neighborhoods and so I mean maybe winter trailing is something that we don't look at for another five years or so. And do we have residents that maintain their own sidewalks? Yeah. So, our we have an ordinance that says if it's a sidewalk, either the HOA and the new developments tied through the HOA. Um, but yes, a sidewalk by our code defines it by maintained excuse me, by the property owner. Yeah. So, for instance, St. Teres out here, the new road that we built, there's sidewalk on both sides. So it's it's literally a definition as a 5ft concrete sidewalk or an 8 foot patumis trail. It's distinguished that way in our code. So a good example is on the west side or the inside of that road. St. Teres owns most that property except for the ends where the linear park is. It's their obligation to maintain that portion of sidewalk that abuts their property. On the east side of the road, the wooded side of the road, the wetland side of the road, that's still city of Corkran property. Like technically by ordinance we'd have to maintain the east, north and east side or do we have like a plan like what what would it look like if we let's just say that we did have a plan in place like would it be we would plow the main roads first and then secondary roads and then as time permits you do the trails or specific trails. Is that how that would be planned out? That's step two. So first one we want to make an investment in trail. Step two of the question is what's the priority of the trail and the timing. So in the draft uh snow and ice document last year we took a step just to see that I think it wasn't adopted. You'll see in there that we had identified some and this was mimicked off the city of chain gas into a larger community you know two and a half and less approximately population. So um you know they have priority A which is really just streets. So, we're envisioning some at some point we do priority A. Currently, we're all priority A for them. But priority A would be streets and you know 12 hour shift overtime eligible. Uh and then priority B would be you know neighborhood streets, side streets and trails. So then they would in that second run they would add trails. So let's just say the the operations team went out at 2 in the morning and they did a 12-hour shift. They would all be focused on the roads under that scenario. They come back, go to get some sleep, they come back. Some of them would be deployed to neighborhoods or clean up or whatever is necessary. And then you'd start your trail that next morning. Now, depending on the snowstorm, ice storm, whatever, you could have a huge variety of what you're dealing with on those trails, let alone what the, like I said, the trails that cross driveways, what you're dealing with in terms of what the property owners or the HOAs did with driveways. So snow maintenance is really challenging. Where you park in the winter, educating the public where to park to help make it more efficient. They're all huge challenges that, you know, that was some of the ordinance uh adjustments last year was to allow us to better effectively do that. And we we you know, the the approach of the city has always been educate, try to educate on our practices so we can be more efficient with our maintenance. Um, but we do have the ability to remove vehicles if they're if it's for a public safety reason. So, like streets would be you want to get streets cleaned off as soon as possible. So, there could be overtime, but like for trails, we wouldn't have overtime because we would just do it as we had time to complete them. That would be a So, that you bring up a great point. That's what happened at Shaki, right? Is that we had two teams. So, parks maintenance was different from streets maintenance. uh you came in and first priority was everybody searched to the streets. So everybody got in a dump truck or in a plow truck and then you would shift over to trails and then what they discovered is now an overtime status and we're paying for people overtime to plow recreational trails and some folks got pretty upset about that uh that that wasn't their priority. Uh and so then we had to set the priority that we did have to have safe routes to schools and we did have to have transportation corridors in order to get to uh public transportation. And so that was acceptable for overtime. But to your point, folks said, yeah, you get to trails eventually uh especially if it stayed cold. You know, sometimes the weather cooperates and takes care of it for you. And how much of this do we want to build like future proof? Because that was one of my notes was we don't mention like school routes or school pickups. That was one of my concerns was is there any trails that are I I don't think there are but is there any trails that service kids that either go to their pickup spot or we don't have a safe rout to schools program because we don't have any schools in the city when even to like a school bus stop I wonder if there's any trails that are required sidewalks we'll see okay but that would be I guess if I was going to give like a priority I would put anything that is servicing a student to a pickup spot I would want a consideration for maintenance of that trail. I mean, we don't have it now. I'm just trying to think of how you want to build this for future proof. And then, yeah, I think trails in areas that don't have sidewalks would be, I think, worth a consideration. I think majority of our big developments have sidewalks you can get around in the winter, and that isn't as critical to me. Um, but those are a couple some of my thoughts. I I live not far from from 117. So I had a nice little walking route. Another failed attempt to get some exercise where I go up to the little neighborhood park in Rogers and follow their trail around the park and then come back through the street and they they plowed, but they would plow once and it was exposed to some wind and so it would drift shut. I mean, you could plow that that trail kind of every day, you know, and and then it would get icy and that was no better, you know. It seemed like just folly. I think they would have been better off to put a little chain across it, say winter trail, use at your own discretion and and not pretend that they were plowing because it really didn't serve anybody very well. Um, and so I, you know, if we can't, if you, if you can't plow a trail pretty darn close to the to the black top, it's I don't think it's still slippery, it's still icy, it's still a hazard. You just It's just sort of waving your hand and pretending you're doing it. That seems not very satisfactory to me. I would and we should be cleared. This either we're going to out or we're not. That would be and if I almost said and we if residents in a particular area want a trail open then they they should make that known but the other hand boy you could spend you know hundreds of hours in a winter dealing with people arguing about whether you ought to plow a particular trail or not. So I don't I don't want to go down that road either. It does seem like real character doesn't it? So, so to your point, when when you do plow it, it's open to getting blown shut or it's even it's gonna get slick. Yes. But if you don't, you can still go on the trail and it's not going to become unless it becomes really hard packed, but you can maneuver it easier. That's been, you know, I'm a big snowshoer, so I like to go snowshoeing. Yeah. And so I don't like it when it's plowed. Yeah. Because it it makes it harder. And I think that just adds to her point of like what do we want Corkran to look like? Like maybe it's a winter fun trail city, right, that people do winter sports on or whatever. Um, one one other thing I was just thinking that might be helpful in the conversations is and this might just be because I'm newer to this, but like what is the cost when you say budget like general a number that we could use for like future planning of if you want a mile long it's a we're talking 10 grand or something like I have no concept of how much but a cost would be for say a mile of trail. That might be something helpful so that for our discussions when we're planning things we kind of have that in the in our mind. One of the things I'd say with that it's that's harder here. So so cities that we would go to that that more like Kevin was saying they loop it and so you're able to use it more efficiently. Uh I don't know of other folks who are trucking their equipment like we would have to back and forth across town. uh which is an expense both in terms of time because the person who's operating the truck's being paid for to load it up, deliver it, unload it uh and and so but we can definitely get some stats in terms of just actual Yeah, it' be a range probably I can pull some stuff together because it's completely dependent on a lot of factors. just to give us a general ballpark so that we know kind of where I mean looks like there's a partial you could potentially have in Romania that looks like a pretty big like oblong a number four if you look potentially at some point I know the dotted lines are still not paved yet but that could be like one big circle that you could do go down the back even that's just a correction I don't know if I misspoke the dotted lines like a red dotted line means it's paved we just have accepted it. The blue line doesn't mean it's constructed. Okay. Isn't that Gleon Parkway? It is. Yeah. So, it's constructed. We haven't accepted it. And then there's a trail on the side of the roads. Yep. Actually, both sides on that. Both sides. Okay. And that's not considered sidewalk. That's Yeah. So, the black top or the pavement, that's a tray defined as a trail. So they're they're typically 8 feet wide and that's a you know intended to be a city uh route trail by our code. Wherever you see like a five four or five what's concrete sidewalk that's intended to be classified and taken care of by the property owner that it crosses. So it's it's really the material and the width in our system. But Michelle to your or commissioner uh reader to your point that is probably the first location that's starting to develop a loop and over time once Steve Ro gets finished up on the north end we're starting to develop loops there um so we keep you know I don't know we have it figured out but the more we can refine where we want to go on a probably more frequently than an annual basis we kind of do an annual basis But that's where it gets more and more real and you get to experience it. We have more feedback in those areas. Um, but we're starting to, you know, loop some trails. But then, but then the question comes, what happens with, you know, that we actually probably get more requests to plow the trail on 19 than any other trail. Yeah. Now, we have an, you know, once we take over some of the HOA ones, I think that will shift back, but we actually get a lot of requests to plow 19. Um, we are technically allowed to plow a Three Rivers Trail. They give you very small amount of money to plow it and staff is not recommending it. We are receiving that. Yeah. Yeah. You can receive a statement if you do it. Yeah. But it's in the terms of hundreds of dollars, right? So, it's not it's you could probably do it twice a week all winter. Yeah. And to do it correctly. And the drifting I mean the drifting in corporate in terms of windiness of our streets is significant. Like we if we have like we have like if we get six inches and we have these winds that we've had the last couple days, we're out hitting key spots with our trucks. Now it's a reduced amount of staff on the roads and other people are fixing equipment, but we're not one and done when you see snow where you guys probably experience that. We It can be challenging in a rural setting, let alone gravel. Then you throw in gravel roads and sometimes the sun melts them differently. A lot of times we have in the spring where you'll have a rain and then it gets cold and it freezes and it's sunny and then literally a car can't stay on the gravel roads and we're out there with graders. We're putting grit down and we're scraping and we can't even keep our equipment on the roads and then a day and a half it's gone. But we mobilize for that. So, we're a very unique community that has maintenance challenges. And so, setting expectations with trails when we have to jump on a two straight days of gravel roads, which is half of our roads in our community, like we just expectations is going to be something we really have to manage if we were to go into winter trail maintenance. Is there a way that we could I don't know if there's a way that you mark trails like say that you want to do snowshoeing. Let's say that's what we want to promote that we're a snowshoeing community. Is there a way because it's like trails get lost under the snow too. So is there a way to and how much money would that cost? Is that more maintenance or is that so so there's different ways that that I've done it. You can do the wood stakes which which I would recommend because they get hit by mowers and they get hit by um so you have you ever seen those the orange ones or the different colored ones they use for? So, we used colored ones and then you actually can put stickers on them in order to talk about your route. Um, so we we didn't use it so much for snow juice. We primarily used it for mountain biking. Uh, but we were trying to find a lowcost, lowmaintenance solution because they're like two bucks a piece. So, when they get broken, you just pop another one on there. Uh whereas the to plant a a wood one and replace it was was more than we wanted to be painting. But is that like a a public works maintenance thing then of putting those out and then is that have to go keep like mark corners or so much distance we do yeah we do that in some of our areas where it's harder to street sometimes. Sometimes residents on a curvy street will do it on their own and mark the curb because they they just want their yard to look nice and we work with them. Um so sometimes the property owner does it and that would appreciate that. Sometimes we have to mark it. So we do marquee areas. That is an option. That's quite a bit less expense than maintain the trail in perpetuity, but it is an expense because I I understand what you're talking about the snow drifts like in my driveway and I live just off of 116 and I'm hoping that once the development goes up across from me, it'll help with some of the wind, but I literally get drifts where I can't even get my car into my driveway. It's like up to my knees. The drifts are huge. So, I just think that if we were to say that we were going to maintain trails, you could potentially be out there every other day from if we get a lot of snow trying to maintain a trail. And I don't I just don't know if that makes sense right now for Corkran. I wanted to clarify what Kevin was talking about with the thin ones. That's not what I was talking. I'm talking they're they're about two inches wide and and they're about three feet tall. So, you seem around like electrical. Yeah. More like a flat. It's a flat post and they're flexible, too. So, somebody hits them, nobody's gonna get hurt. Um, when would when would we be accepting like all of the trails? Is that is that like a penny thing? Because maybe we should look at coinciding what our plan is when we're actually going to be accepting all the trails. And maybe that never happens because your city continues to develop. But I mean at some point I would think we would say okay on this part of Corkran all of these trails are completed. We can maybe look at a plan for doing two main trails that maybe connect neighborhoods or something. I think it'll be a road collection of trails. I think um I think I anticipate going forward it's less of a gap from when the trail is done when we take it over. Um, but it will be rolling because it's dictated on when everything's done within the developments because Raven started what, 11 years ago? 2013, I think. Yeah. Can I throw a weird uh potentially unhelpful question? So, something that Kevin and I have talked about too is what happens with snowmobile trails um as as the city continues to develop and and it hasn't been a conversation a lot, but I grew up as a snowmoer. Uh we used to have a council member who's no longer here that was a big advocate for snowmmoiling. Um, and so as as we think about the rural character and we talk about trails, that's another type of trail that that we need to think about uh and and this body should probably talk about at some point uh because as development continues to happen the space that that's available. There's ways to be conflicted, but that probably needs to be part of the plan and to communicate that upfront if that's still a desire to continue. Does that make sense? Um, so for example, when I was in Shaky, we had a development that was coming in and the ma it was a major artery along 169 for snowmobiles. And so in our development conversation, we talked about maintaining the easement the ability to allow the snowmobiles to go through there, but it's right next to an apartment complex. Uh, so I'm confident there's some people that live there that aren't super stoked about snowmobiles going past their windows. Uh but in terms of wanting to maintain access, that was one of the things that we got on the forefront. So when you're saying the 10-year plan, what do you want? Is it is it walkable neighborhoods? Is it the rural character rugged winter park? Yeah. Well, in City Park could be something different, too. If we finished a trail in City Park, maybe that would be a full loop. Yeah. And that would be one that everybody would use. Maybe that's one that you could focus on having more control over and maintenance over and we could put a piece of equipment down there that makes sense that we don't have to trailer across the city. So that would be a great example of a supplementary location that's for people who want to walk know they can go there safely. Yeah. Do we plan on clearing the trail at least to that building we're going to put in like in a city park for instance when that when the community building goes in, right? But I think it makes a lot of sense if you got to follow those trails, you can do a loop if you got to keep that building accessible in the winter a little more. It seems like more feasible in the short term here is have more isolated following. Is the Northwest is it Northwest Snowmobile Club? Are they still they still come through? And Mark Trails he feels like we need to they I think we've been a pretty good partner over the years Corkin West Trails Association. Northwest Trail Trails. Thank you. Continue that relationship. work on that for snows because you know it's something seems like not so long you know a lot of the snowmobiles be electric they will not be so noisy we'll have charging stations in the park how do the snowmobile trails make it into like the apps to tell or the maps is that run by does that come from the city which ones or is that coming from these organizations their organization doesn't if you go to website they have a trail and they mark the trails for the community. Those are all their trails that they negotiate with private land owners. Okay. Sometimes they they cross, you know, the rightway here. They used to cross St. Teres, but that got kind of squeezed out. They used to go through Bell Weather by Mama and G's that's been pushed to 116. Um, so they they're getting pushed out in the urbanized areas, but we're still like a a grant. I don't know what the term would be. There's a grant that they get. It has to go through a city is my understanding. So we're still a partner with them in terms of the grants that they receive, but the formal trail identification is independent of the city. Okay. We our master trail plan has no designated roads, right? Yeah. Not in our 20 44 plan anywhere. It's something to think about. I mean, if we decide that we wanted to be like a a city that you can do snowshoeing or crosscountry skiing through the marshes or the wetlands. Yeah. Yeah. Open parks. Then snowmmoiling would go right along with that. But like what do we want it to look like? I guess is a bigger question. And do you think corporate will ever be like a walkable community? Like do you think that people will be able to walk from their home to work or walk from your home to a restaurant or well be more rural kind of like we are now but just a little bit spread apart with our development in our neighborhoods. So then that kind of helps us decide well we probably won't be a walkable community. So maybe we do focus on some of those other more rustic snowshoeing and things like that. Yeah. destinations to my personal opinion you get localized walkable that's probably best case in the my career here yeah some some people can walk to do right when you know if you look at our downtown plan you know Stri's in the north end of it and city park and you look at that plan somebody in there could walk to a restaurant to work in the industrial park to the city park when that builds out. Um, that's a a localized walkable area. Um, you're not going to walk east. And a a great example to build on that. Like where you live right now, uh, you probably don't want to go out and walk along 116 and it'll be a while before that that trail comes down through. But absolutely folks who moved into for example bellweather or verinia it would be their desire to be able to go around with their neighbors and stuff and so that raises the question do you allow HOAs to do it if that's the desire of the community um whereas you on 116 you're not going to Ravenia to walk in the neighborhood trail right but we maintain maybe city park trail so that it's accessible to everybody I think we're all saying the similar thing. Yeah. What do you need from us today? I think we'll we've taken notes probably just provide your direction if there's anything you specifically want to make sure that we advocate for something clear now this position we but I think we take consensus of the conversation this year with council can I do a quick summary both for my minutes and so that Kevin can hopefully update his staff report tonight for council next week next Monday. Yeah, Monday do it tomorrow. It's due at midnight tonight. I'm just kidding. Let's get him out of here. Oh, we did. Sorry. We have one more comment because I was reading through the like property damage you were talking about. I was It doesn't say anything about easements or like what if someone damages property that's in that easement. I know it mentions like uh sprinklers and mailboxes, but I don't know. As we're putting in trails, there's going to be things that aren't like road. There's going to be fences or there's going to be landscape. I don't know. So maybe consider when we talk about property damage what that looks like when we if we do do winter maintenance trails that that's a good point. So a kids card standard easement detail for a trail is 20 ft and our trails right now standard is eight. So we'd have six feet above snow and in theory if we're managing it right they shouldn't have a fine easement or landscape easement. So if we notice that we'd probably reach out to them and send letter saying you're non-compliant. We're not responsible for damage. I but we certainly doesn't hurt to include language but that I think how we try to good consideration. So overarching themes that I have heard um it sounds like with the wind gust we are a little concerned about continuous plowing because it might be counterintuitive. Um so with that once there are some looping systems that can be explored maybe exploring those a little further but for the time being really a focus on destination or localized plowing um maybe in the future city park but for 2025 it doesn't sound like there's budgeted funds and it doesn't sound like there's a strong desire. Um as far as HOAs go it sounds like as long as there's some coverage and the liability is shifted we're open to that. I would be an advocate for that. Yeah. If they Yes. Does that help answer your question? The only thing that I put down as a due out is uh for us to come back with some statistics uh in terms of cost assessment, cost estimating. Um and I I think the note about uh that was brought up will we be walkable or are we going to be more rural outdoor adventure? That's the way that I can hurt it. Um, and maybe it's a timing thing for now. Would that be something we'd include in our comp plan? Thankfully, we got some time to answer that question. It would make sense if you're designing something to be winter maintained. We should plan it that way. So, like you said, there's probably considerations for maybe some ways we can make that easier first. I'm not a planner, but I think that's a good topic to bring up in in the comp plan conversation. I'm out of my lane, but but it does help when what I was thinking about when you're talking about for spaces like is that a new thing that we actually create a new amenities? So, it's four season. So, those outdoor parks now they're more of a rugged. Now, let's be honest, there be a lot of skeers, you know, so it might not be super active during the winter. It it might be a really cool snowshoe loop. Uh I don't know that we want to get into Well, no, I know we wouldn't want to get into the cost of grooming cross country scale, but but still if you if you market as such, if if you market, people will show up sometimes and use it. But cross country skiing sucked here about the last four years with water. Too much snow two years ago last year. Okay. All right. Does anybody have any other comments they want to add for the winter trail maintenance? Okay. We have what you need. All right. It sounds good. We'll keep moving on then. Um eight number eight, new business. 8A is a boardwalk and build weather design. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Uh, another topic that's been out there for a while. Um, uh, and it's the boardwalk, I'll call it boardwalk/bridge at Belleather. Um, for for those that don't know, it's uh, there's a drawing in here, but it essentially spans uh, the wetland area that's owned by the city um, between the open space park and the community center in Beler. It's the last piece of that rail system that uh was really a commitment of the developer, but at the time the final design wasn't approved. So tonight, we've had extensive conversations with the developer over really the last year to review a lot of information and and establish what we believe as a city or the minimum design standard. So that was including the engineering memo. We can walk through any of those if you'd like. Um but we've really worked with the developer established that minimum design standard that would be the developer's responsibility to pay for. So um the repres the images up on the screen and in the packet are really the closest picture to that baseline design that we could get. So it's the final design but it's going to look similar to the final design if it would be that the B standard. They give you some optics there with the railing and and some of the height. So it's in the memo, but due to the we have a requirement where the trail is 1 foot above the high water level. So when we have a rain event, we don't want our trails to be submerged for a period of time. In this area, this wetland area that this boardwalk spans is actually a a storm water reuse area for the bell weather irrigation system. So, it's really designed to collect water and it's a large area. So, it will take a little while for that to draw back down and we don't want a boardwalk uh underwater. So, when we set those standards, it's, you know, in some cases, not all of the spans. In some cases, it's a five foot drop from the top of the wood to the ground. And that if you if you haven't been out there, it's a seasonal flood plane area basically. So it will you can almost walk across it sometimes and there's five feet or four feet of water sometimes. So it's got a lot of bounce we call it. Um so just kind of set the visualization. So that's where we design designed the standards the railing the height and that's why I kind of alluded to it's really a bridge in some cases almost as much as it is a boardwalk. Uh so we went through that exercise, met with the developer, refined that we're presenting that minimum standard to you. Uh with that uh in discussions with the developer um there's an opportunity to maybe add a little bit of additional features to it above the minimum. We highlighted three in the packet. uh a viewing area, a little lookout viewing area of the natural area, educational science related to uh plants, insects, water reuse systems, envir environmental benefits that are ongoing in the area. And then a third option that we brainstorm with some sort of total electric coal lighting. Again, those haven't been detailed and we'd have to bring those back to the developer and we're fine. But if there is interest in any of those or if there's other ideas, um, I would suggest we try to prioritize them because we're not going to define them. But if there's a priority, also ask the students if there might be some opportunity to incorporate them. And then lastly, and I want to point out that this baseline design is for pedestrian use. Um, and so if that were to change, so that basically means it's really, unless someone's out there hand shoveling it and it's 600 feet long, uh, it's not being set up for winter maintenance, um, or even uh, golf cart usage. So, we would restrict it some way to to minimize that. But that's the base design. So if we wanted to not do that to jump from a structural element of pedestrian to some sort of loading um it's going to be a significant cost and that cost would be a burden a burden of the city and so this is the time to have that conversation. Staff's recommending a baseline with some supplemental uh but if the commission would like to advocate for more we would suggest identifying how we would possibly suggest paying for it. we bring that back to council that would under the baseline scenario and supplemental scenario the developer would be responsible to build it. If we go above and beyond I'll call it then it it complicates things a little further and we have to basically come to an agreement and we are likely being the person building it um just due to statutory regulations. So a lot there to maybe go through a pause and take feedback. One quick question. Oh go ahead. I just was going to ask like if is there a difference between how long each of these would last? Like is there one that's more robust? Like example one looks like something you would just maybe use for construction or maybe that's just because of how these are in there right now and this is just preliminary but it doesn't look finished really to me in that picture. But so if that's what it's going to look like if I lived in that neighborhood I would be very upset. So this example one in the back and just like the wood look a little more detail. I understand what you're saying, but maybe a little more on what element doesn't look finished. The wood. Yeah, it just looks like it's a framed like a framed wall almost that's not finished. That's best I can describe it. And if I lived in that neighborhood, that's part of it. Yeah. Whereas the one boardwalk 3 that looks more finished. And maybe it's just the angle. I think maybe there's a kick on that one that's different. Again, this was intended to give you a representation of the railing. Okay? Maybe the the wood primary components with a like a layer in between. This isn't finalized. We're trying to lock down the main design so we can put it the cue for who's doing what in final design. I mean, so whether we could bring back something related to we like this, but can you focus on some component of it? Okay. I I don't know what that it kind of we're trying to hone down the 90% decision and the little details get worked out in the design. Is that one just as sturdy? I guess is it as reflected as like the one that it looked like in example three was my question too. I without knowing exactly I think they're all similar. Okay. Um the strength really comes from the the spacing, the size of the member that comes from your soil conditions, your loading. So, you know, if we're going across pete or poor soils, your members are going to be larger. And I think that's going to look more formidable to you. And this is crossing an area that there hasn't been soil boring done yet, but it's crossing the wetland and flood plane. There is a chance that the soils are poor and that would result in larger numbers or a more robust design. So, there's a chance it naturally takes care of itself. But again, I think we want to focus on the 90%, get back to them when they meet that condition. If we don't like it, then we can have a conversation about an alternate or something. Again, anything above the minimum is going to result in the city expenses unless we can work something out with them. So maybe your alternative other in here is to make it more aesthetically pleasing in lie of a lookout, in le of tolling. That would be valuable information for us to bring to council and then ultimately get direction from council and go to the developer because there is that opportunity to supplement the minimum design to a certain point. Okay. Tom, did you want to add something? This is really dreary. We we've looked at, you know, many examples over the several years. had some that had a nice arch to them, a nice nice curve. Um um as I look at this at this spec sheet, that's wood sighting. Yeah, that that Oh man, that's that really is this the stainless steel wire I think is just much to be referred to. Um um I they have to look this is a long a long bridge and to not have something to break up that I think just just strikes me as wrong. We need we need something, you know, we had a we had a jog in it which I thought was wonderful which was at one point. Um we had yeah a little bit of an arch at some point seemed great. Um we need I just feel like we do need something somewhere towards the middle that will sort of break that long ordinary expanse. someplace that we can even if it's just just a break, someplace to sit down. Yeah. Some some place where you're not you can sit down and you're not going to be in everybody's way. Um just seems pretty minimal in terms of what needs to needs to happen. Yeah. And I Yeah. My recommendation would be some type of sitting area in the middle like a bench. I when we were out there and looking at it, that's just a gorgeous spot to sit and look and it would be I don't know if the lookout area would include a sitting area, but that would my spot if it could jut out and have bench. I would prioritize that pretty high. And I think since it leads into like our open space park, I would not be an advocate of making it roadw worthy for any vehicles. I don't want um golf carts going on that into the open space park. I just from where it's accessing on the city side, I don't think that makes any sense to do any of that. So, I prioritize the sitting area and then like you said, if it could be aesthetically pleasing a little too because it is leading into our our park, so it should reflect what we want it to look like. Even like a composite material would, you know, those nicer decks, the composite look just look much nicer, you know. I think the composite yeah just a little bit of different in grip um you know with it so that's something that I mean not we're taking feedback now but there's you know some give and take between the materials so maybe there's maybe it's a composite railing with a wood base that just breaks up the you know some sort of combination or something that we can get to I have one more question for you said it required the sides on it and everything that was up to like 30 inches above around. How far towards the edge does that go? Cuz when we were out there, that wetland's probably might not be 30 in below where that will be. I'm wondering if this fence is going to end end like oddly short of the two edges or do we have any idea where that the railings would stop like in that picture? Um I understand. Yeah. Um it would not span the whole way. So you're correct. Technically by the 30 in. But we we'd have to um transition down and make it work or we'd ask them to extend it and we would have or the supplemental if that's important that it stays the whole way. But um I know we can get that information. I don't have a schematic for that. I'd say I just be just saying be careful when setting their minimums if that all of a sudden is like a 10 foot span in the middle that hasn't the max minimum is dictated by building code. Okay. So that wasn't arbitrary. So when you're over 30 in, it kicks in that you have a railing. So that's that was where that was being derived from. Okay. But then wet land below it is that Yeah. is that ground level that 30 inches to the wet land because that's still not something you want someone falling off into. It's it's to the ground, not the water. Okay. I would argue um I just we had a comment here in the um text. So I don't know the answer, but I I'm just going to read the comment. was um related to the pedestrian bridge only spec or structural component and it's council member Nichols to clarify which is why we are taking the comment. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Um is he wanted to make sure that it could uh equip you know wheelchairs or handicap. So I believe that I don't know if you I believe that it would because that's pedestrian. Yeah. So that's a good question and I believe it would be covered. I would have to any other comments. So, but it will essentially be an only it will not be particularly passable certainly in our wheelchairs when it snows. Yeah, we we were talking about do we even just for the sake of safety? Uh is that something that we like do something to close it down so that we're not having any risk on there? Those would be operational questions we have to ask when we actually see what it looks like and what the conditions are. Um, but having somebody slip and fall in the middle of it, heading over to the clubhouse, uh, is less than desirable, too. That would be nice to have some sort of lighting on the bridge so you could walk it at night. Is our city park is the open space park supposed to have close after dark? I think they close at 10 usually or 9. 11. 11 for city parks. Which is quite late. Yeah. That's much after usually quite a bit. Some go dusk to dawn or are close dusk to dawn. Uh some go with specific hours. Yeah. And then some change their hours for the seasons consistently. What you see? Uh 6 to 11. So if they did lighting along there, which it would look beautiful. I like it. But would it be the solar being we I mean that could be something you advocate for. This is brainstorming at this point. We'd have to go back with the developer and trying to value it. But you could say lighting only if it's I mean it's a recommendation from what I mean it would have to be solar I think it would look great you know but either paying a bill of some sort and we still got to maintain solar when they go out or whatever but I I do want to commend Kevin and the team as as they've been working together with the developer to come to a conclusion. So, uh, when I first came on, what was envisioned, the city was paying for twothirds of it. And then that meant that much expense wasn't able to be invested into some of the other parks and priorities that we have. And so through through the collaborative partnership there and in clarifying what the design standards are, that it is in fact a bridge and what that means. And and so many of those new residents in their development really really planning on this amenity to be able to access some of the other things that they want to. So, they've got an interest in partnering with us. But this this frees up a lot of funds. This this could take a lot of money that can do other cool things in other spaces. And so, the efforts here to be able to pull this off and and the developer to view it is is a big help for us to be able to make sure we have those resources available for other stuff. Good job. be really nice to be done with this timing. So if if we go with a minimal supplemental approach and council is supportive or gives us on Monday, we're planning to bring this on Monday. If that's the scenario, then we go to the developer and say finalize the design and in their queue that's been solved. is technically the condition of the preliminary plat required to go back through parks and trails and the council before we go. So, uh if in the next 72 hoursish, not coming weekend, we get some direction, you know, we know it's back in there and we can work with them to go forward. We won't know yet exactly when, you know, it could be done. I know they want to go as fast as they can, but there may be permitting, there may be an unknown with soil barns, but it's at least a path forward where we have conclusive like direction. And so, we've been really working to get to that point. So, quite honestly, the next time we do a boardwalk, we'll do it differently. We've learned some lessons learned, but to be frank and clear, but um they don't last forever. So Parker will be significantly more built out and our tax base may be able to do something better the next time. But there might be other future developments with wetlands. It's true. A little bit of Yeah, it's true. But I I mean I would I don't know if I guess a closing ask of me would be of of the I guess just affirming that baseline is what the recommendation is if that is the case and then some sort of priority of any of the supplemental elements just you know if one doesn't work we you know even a rating and we come back with a final design and say here's how we got to this point and what we thought but some sort of prioration of the supplemental would be helpful to both council and then the team as we work with the developer you know because say option A might be too much but we can do the second and third option at the same time which might that might be an outcome so I do think some some tiered approach or or it's just look out and bend and bench and nothing else may railing and nothing else matters so some sort of direction on the supplemental would help us if there is inside. So, I would put lookout and bench like Yeah, number one. And then and then the lighting. I agree. What is there a number two? I like boardwalk example number two the best. It just seems more sturdy and more robust. Yeah. like visual upgrades or so maybe number two would be so number one would be some sort of breaking up of the of the boardwalk with a lookout and a bench and maybe a railing convertation and then the second one would be some sort of aesthetic improvements to maybe a composite substitute in one element or something. Um, and those will be and then maybe electrical will be third and I'm seeing educational signage is fourth or off. Yeah, fourth off. Okay. If you do want to go see it, the second example is 9 mile creek in Bloomington. It's a three rivers park trail or if it's not that it looks like we have to be and three rivers has a pretty good ro like a corridor boardwalk design and theirs is all wood to my understanding. So they kind of avoid the composite but doesn't mean we can't just giving you an example of maybe an entity that has a lot more of these conversations and experience than we knew. So it's a good resource. Is composite gonna be more expensive? Yeah, it's more expensive, too. Yeah, when I look at that first one, I think it's like all the knots. The wood just doesn't look as nice as the other two. Just something about it. I agree with you. Yeah. Number one just seems like a rough framed wall to me. That's what it reminds me of. I don't know how else to describe it. Yeah. Well, it could be one that one's maybe the other one's a little bit more brown or maybe it's got a coating on it or something. But it's more along the base and the toe. This looks like there's, you know, 2 by10. Yeah. Going along the base. Looks a little more finished. Yeah. I think the direction there is helpful and we can work with this. Got to go through council first obviously, but we can helpful for us to focus our conversation. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Kevin. Okay, moving on. Item number eight. Uh, I'm sorry, B, former crop land seating. And it's still Kevin. Still Kevin. All right. Thank you, commissioners again. So, the last topic um really relates to the the egg land portion of City Park. So, you can move up that map when you get a second. That'd be helpful. So, screen um I don't know if the commission's familiar, but um over the last couple years, Kim County has really changed their tax policy on city property that's rented out for egg purposes, unfortunately, or what I would say is the worst. They they're now taxing that fairly significantly. And so it's resulted in a conversation about what we do with some of the land that we rented. Um, and really the conversation is kind of twofold. It's maintenance. So by having a crop land, we are able to maintain the land and keep weeds down and uh it'd be part of our community. And now we can't really do that. So there is a cost to even, you know, plowing a field or uh, you know, give us a brief on the Henipin County situation with the crop land is it just real brief on the changes. It's just that they're they're taxing a consumer if they produce product on okay essentially a very high level. So before they wouldn't wouldn't I guess pay attention to it and they flagged it as a policy change and so now they were assessing a tax. Um I believe the producer um and then that was that was a change in our contract and then the city council elected to cover that and then we wanted to revisit a plan and it was fairly significant. NSA was in the Michelle my was like 15,000 so not insignificant in one year of attacks for for doing that. So we identified you know we had city park we had where St. Teres is as I feel and we had the properties north of city hall here up by 116 that's primarily our flood plane. So St. Trees and converting that to a linear park in St. Trees kind of remove that problem from us. Um but we still have city park and we have 116. about uh 6 months ago, nine months ago, we were council focused on the conversation on what to do with the 116 properties. That's this information you have in the packet. It was really just carried over from that. We looked at a bunch of different options. Uh the reason we focused on there was we wanted more conversations to happen at city park with all the mass remaster planning happening. Let that get a little further along and really that area out there is quite a bit more natural and disconnected. So, we thought that that was an easier lift in the beginning. So, actually at the last council meeting, we approved a grant agreement with Henip County um to convert that to and that this information is in the packet, but basically to to have a 10-year program where that's 90% paid for by grants through the wershed, we pay 10%, we get in county work. So, if we do any maintenance work or plowing, it counts as a match. So really for on a annual average basis of $1,000 a year, we can maintain that and it's also converted into a habitat, wildlife habitat, planned habitat. So um we can get out of that in that scenario. There's a like a a bio, but we don't envision anything really happening there for 10 years. Um and and like I said, if it did, you know, we can negotiate that bio with anything that happens around it in terms of future development if necessary. So we thought that was a good viable plan. that just got approved. Uh it's too late in the year to really do anything, but come spring, you'll see action out there and it will be converted into a natural habitat as as the information that was in here. We put the work in. I think there's an appendix if you want to review it later um and let us know if you have more questions. So now we're pivoting back to city park. So we get to today is um what do we want to do with the property in city park? There's really four fields here. Um, we know field four is likely to be part of the project, so we're not really talking about that. But what do we want to do with fields one, two, and three on the screen? Is there a plan? Is there a goal? Is there any desire to to do some sort of um program a grant assisted program and commit one of these fields to if they're eligible to some sort of program um where maybe significant part of that could be offset through a grant. So you know the steps would be as we work with those agencies apply really staff investment only they bring back a plan and we know what the commitment is before we move forward. So, it's it's a staff exercise to find out if there is a viable plan, but but would you support it? Would you support, you know, a only a specific one? Would you support a long-term one? Do is it have to be 10 years? like it doesn't it just give us some boundaries so that we can bring that to council and say this is this is the field that we really don't see using for a while and or it's a field that's um closer to the creek corridor or I I don't want I I want to hear your feedback and stop putting ideas in your mind but that's really what we're looking for today is direction on fields one two and three in terms of maintenance until they become a park amenity or or like a a formalized park amenity because these actually could be a park amenity and be in a natural state. I'll pause there and take feedback or question. Anybody want to go first? Sure. Um I know this is just absolutely project creep. But between those three fields, there's there's the creek running through there and it's a mess. Um it it it's pretty sad. It is a totally underutilized tremendous resource for city park. And my my feeling would be that wrap it all together, see what we can do about um remeandering that creek if it if it's if that would be appropriate to um uh work with the watershed and let's make it a bigger project and let's get something that we we put some trail have some trails in there. Um do all of that sort of stuff. um so that it really really shines. I think that I'm I'm a big fan fan of the prairies. I spend significant time out there and it's it's wonderful. This will want to go to woods because that's what Corkran does. It wants to be all woods all the time. So, it is a it is a neverending chore to keep the trees out. Um, but it as I looked at that plan that's dealt with burning every three years would be would be good. I don't know how long this cork develops should continue to do that just when it's completely surrounded by houses. Maybe you maybe this local residents object too much. But but for a while it's it's it's great. Bottom would probably like to have some old trees in there and call it a savannah. Um, and that would be if we if we look at the at the long range plan and put what might happen there eventually and get some trees in the right spot, we could actually have some decent sized trees. But by the time we finish phase four or phase five of the city city park not very much investment here. Sorry, but the demand is really interesting. It is. It's It's very very interesting and they're really pretty and just has lots of I haven't I haven't seen any agencies that have been intentional about starting actually. Well, three rivers on the on the north end of uh of of Crohass. Yeah, they they what I I thought those trees had been there forever, but no, those were planted by three rivers 40 years ago. And it's handsome space. Is there an oak savannah? kind of started down 116 by Betol in that field. There's like six or seven oak trees that are sort of close together on that corn in somebody's in somebody's yard. Yeah, it's like in a it's in a field. Yeah. Yeah. But they they plow around it. It's like six or seven trees and it is really pretty. There are some I mean each when you meet with the the grant you know folks at the head of the county environmental or there's other ones with the wild you know the national wildlife organizations um you know there's different like we don't I don't know exactly I'm not an expert in that area but they will recommend certain you certain places I know it did come up when we were meeting on the 116 properties of a potential of some sort of tree program that really didn't get score the highest because of that area was a little more swine and whatnot. So if one of these areas scores high in some sort of tree plan, we could in theory if there's interest we could bring that back and isolate it to even a portion of one of these areas. So, I mean, I don't know enough now other than we're seeking like what is what would be a goal or an idea to chase basically and that plan will not be refined, but is there an appetite to do that? Uh, Commissioner Anderson, your suggestion uh is I would I would describe as the long play, you know, because we we have a part of the reason bringing it to you is we still have to decide, you know, next year how we want to maintain it. So, there's a cost on an annual basis and then there's a long play cost. Like I think to pull off that would be, you know, we'd have to invest in it and then wait for the grant and then the grant might be three years out. So it's it's a it's not off the table, but it's a long playlist of investment and then where's the priorities with all the other parks. It's not a bad idea. Uh Plymouth just redid stream restoration right behind um not too far from here by the high school. Behind the high school they did two phases. The waterershed helped out a lot. Those were 750 to million dollar phases. El uh Maple Grove just get together a stream restoration by um the temple with some of that new development. I think that was kind of millions of dollars. So I'm it's crazy what it costs to do some of these restorations and and not you know that is something that I would advocate for in your master planning from an engineering and water resource perspective. But I think it's the long play and I'm just trying to be true. Yeah. Well, I know that you just at the last couple of watershed meetings. Derek Ash and Maple Grove gave a little dog and pony show on on the project they did there. And it's quite spectacular. I mean, it was a million dollars, but they it was it was a $7 million project that the Maple Grove paid$1 million on, but it was a mile of it was a mile of creek that they rememeandered. Um, and he included the the trails and the and the prairie and it was I just I just sent him a note today saying, "Would you consider coming out here and showing us what you did?" Something that we could look at that at that long play because it's something that's I mean that's that's a lot of money for Portland. Sure. It was probably was a lot of money for Mel Grove if they pulled it off but I think long term it serves the city well. It's a good enhancement. It just where you place your bed at this point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in my yeah, in my mind, I liked when we were talking about putting a big trail around that whole area. And we talked about putting fields as future steps, but my mind, could you activate that area early by just turning it into prairie or doing that and putting trails alongside of it? And even if you did want to do the restoration of the creek years down the road, do you still want to have that process started on those two fields now? It wouldn't prohibit you from doing that in the future. So, like we're building a big parking lot there. We're building connecting trails of Diamond Lake. To me, it makes a lot of sense to have utilize that area as like a trail for walking, a big loop that you could go on. I know we want to plan potentially putting in like fields there in the future, but I don't know when that would happen. If that would happen to me, you can get a lot of use out of that area just with putting in a walking trail through a nice maintained natural state. So then if that's the long game then the answer you're looking for is next year is that come within these four. So do we think about of these four options what might be the best to set up that long game if that's what we're focused on? Is that kind of what you're looking for? So I guess maybe the options in here are maybe a mid-level game not to add Yeah. So the long game is a larger project with more investment. I you know so I think these are a 10-year option this some of them might be longer but some of these maybe a 10-year commitment where that's what they're asking you for a 10ear commment they can do longer than that and if you look at your maintenance over time over those 10 years keeps getting less and less right so if you look at some of the payouts it's more the first year it just keeps getting reduced so if you if you keep it in that state I can't you know you keep getting less it's never going to be no maintenance but it shrinks and So, and you don't have any more real capital. So, start the longer you keep it in that state, the more the investment gets an ROI. Um, so it would be it's even a combination. Do you want field three to be that and field one to be nothing but what I was looking for in the short term is if you guys have grander ideas or strategies you want to focus on operationally, we come back and figure out what we got to limp by for another year or two. We try to minimize those costs at a staff level and we just disclose that yes this is what it's made maintenance and we have a longer plan. We want urgency to move a mid-level plan forward but if there's a real desire by parks and council to investigate that we try to identify something that limps us through for a year or two obviously shorten that as much as we can and then get the ultimate outcome in there. So it's it's kind of moving pieces. So it is important to know where you want to go but then depending on where you want to go we have to figure out how how we bridge that gap in the short term. So if there's a strong desire to do a short mid or long then staff would identify a plan that would just cover maintenance until that could be implemented any council approval. Okay you've got it up there as fields. What are we talking about in acres? Um I have that not enough information I don't think. Um I feel like it was like 27 acresish. I don't that feel right. And so what and then what are they charging to are they charging us to plant the those acres or are they so example the example you can maybe look in the um the staff report I think it was almost 50. If you look at the staff report we had an acreage in that old plan. Maybe it's even in the which uh this parcel two fields one through three on that metro third page 8B1 says 16.8 acres right? Oh down here. Yeah. Thank you Michelle. That's at 16.8 acres as fields one two and three. Thank you. Um and then so then what's the so how does it work? What's it what's it costing us to put this native grass in? So we don't know yet for this. So, a relative comparative example is what we just signed with the 116 properties. Yeah, we do have this program just officially in place for that. That is a 10-year commitment. The whole project is roughly just under $100,000 for a 10-year commitment. That includes field prep, seed, planting, and maintenance over those 10 years. We're paying 9,000 and change. of 10% of that and then the other agencies and grant folks wershed hip county environmental are covering the other 90. So in that case they're buying the seed for for our field and we're really just covering the maintenance. So if we go out there and maintain it with our operations team we have standard rates. We keep track of hours and we use that as a match. It's called an inkind m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m r m ranch. Um, if we need to do something else or buy something, we might have to have a small contribution, but over the 10 years, it's projected that we have a 9 thou it is we have a $9,000 commitment over 10 years. So, roughly, it's costing us $1,000 and that could be in kind work for that field that the rest is all covered by other agencies. That one program with Henip County is typically a 9010 split if you're eligible. So they evaluate your field, they evaluate the benefit, they bring it to a board, they vote on it, watershed votes on it. So it's like gets a It took three or four months to get through and approved. They had to do a site evaluation, they did soil testing, they have to prove that it's grant eligible. So there's effort, but we don't pay for that effort. Okay? We don't pay until we sign a contract. So other than staff time, how about the burn? What does that cost us? How often do their obligation? They have people that go and do it. Um the burn is just staff time. They really manage it and um they do that pretty routine. You usually notify the fire department and they're you know they help you. You don't do it on yearly every whatever the program every three years and and that's because of the plan that they identified. So if you do like some sort of tree plan or prairie and that's eligible and there's a program out there, you might not be doing a burn. So it's customized to each property and project. So that I know I'm trying to compare what's going on 160 to here. I there's probably some similarities on the creek, but if there's an upland area or something, they might be a whole different maintenance zone for that investment. So that gets established by professionals that know more than me. But we would not be committing any resources until we sign the final contract, which would be months from now. And we have a detailed plan before we sign that contract. Go ahead. They come out and they maintain all the they do the dirt work, they they do the planting, they do all that or we do that. We It's a combination. So we work with them and identify who's doing what and really there's some things identified like they're buying the seed like they're paying for the seed. We might plant it. Um do we have the equipment to do that? We could rent it and plant it. We could we could quote it out to someone and plant it and that would be an expense that we pay for. There's different ways to achieve that work product. Okay. And and and just to emphasize part part of the reason we landed here was, you know, the preferable being the community that we are was partnering with local farmers and allowing them to plant and harvest those spaces. Uh but not only, you know, it was becoming detrimental to them because they're hit with Right. Exactly. I get that. And and then we tried to go out by council direction this past year to in in January with crop land bids that would cover the cost because it cost in 2022 or sorry in 2023 it cost about $15,000 in taxes. Uh and so to try and forego that uh we were looking can we find anyone that would and we got no bids. And so then we were in a bit of a pickle like okay what are we going to do with the land? And so then as we were looking at it, all right, if we're going to come up with a solution, we need to come up with a solution not just for 2024, we need to come up with a solution that's going to be able to to be sustainable uh over time. And and then as we looked at the different proposals or the different alternatives, it was what aligns with the vision of the community. And so restoring it back so it becomes a natural habitat, natural environment seemed to align with with the community's identity uh rather than some of the other alternatives that we talked about, you know. So we talked about just planting grass. Well, driving down 116 and then seeing three fields of grass is a little weird. It takes a lot of business to do. It sounds just like corporate. Yeah. And I would argue it cost thousand dollars to you know basically that it's kind of interesting when you actually put numbers to it but um so that with the but this so once you once you do the land once you plant then are you going to be fertilizing are you do they have to do any weed you know weed maintenance do they have to do any of that because that's all expense too. Yep. It's mowing. It's It's mowing and burning primarily. And that's what I was talking about. At first, there's more maintenance in year one. Once you establish the native, they're designed and they're able to not rely on those treat chemicals or supplements or um that's uh you know, fertilizer. They don't need that. What do they do for fertilizer though? You don't. None at all. You basically mow down the bad stuff, let the natural stuff grow, and then it's burning it is kind of their fertilite, right? There's different ways to do it, but you're not That's where I think if you if you look at that program, you have more maintenance commitments early. It's more to keep the other stuff down while the natives grow and then once they're established, your maintenance kind of plateaus or minimizes and eventually it won't go away, but it starts shrinking. You driven down 50 lately and seen some of that native grass But I mean, this isn't a program for 10 years. So, I mean, I think Yeah, I really like Aren't all native grasses in a program? I mean, because because you really can't Once you plant native grass, you can't you've committed to it, right? No. I mean, you can't dig it out and decide that you're going to put a lawn in. It depends. I depends on your native grass is part of a wetland buffer, then no, because it's part of a development package, right? So it depends if you just go in your yard and convert to native grass and then don't want it anymore. You can rip it out and plant grass. You know, you know there's programs like lawns to legumes, which is a private ownership where you can convert your front yard into the former mayor's front yard was this. You know, there's programs that will let you do that. The next person that buys it could rip it all out and irrigate it if they wanted to. So there's different ver, you know, different options contractually. you know, someone's helping us maintain that for 10 years. After 10 years, we have to do it ourselves, but at that point or roll it over into something else, but at that point, the maintenance is it's not zero, but it's way less than it would be if it was like it is today. How do they decide what they're putting in for the first part for the first plant? I mean, are you they decide it all or? Yeah, they basically go and evaluate it. They present a plan and you agree to their plan if you want that thing, you know. So, they identify all that. They do soil boring according to what the soil that you have and the habitat the flood I mean they evaluate it they bring it to a board of professionals the watershed type technical agencies depending on who's contributing to the grant would have to say so the grant has rep people that manage the grant and they follow their grant process so we I think that we'd find a grant of some sort out here but in theory they could say nope none of this applies sorry you got to do on your own I mean See, are we going to get there's lots of programs out there. So, the program that we picked was one of four that were reviewed that would work for the space. Okay. So, so went out there and saw what will work for the space based on what we discovered about the space. Four programs would work and then all four were proposed and council chose the one that they thought fit best. Okay. Because it gave us the greatest flexibility uh for the future uh and and kept our costs low. And so the whole strategy was to do something with the space that aligns with our vision and values that also didn't have a lot of overhead. Um and we we do better in this case kind of talked about we're bringing other partners to the table uh that are bringing their expertise instead of us having to pay Yeah. for that expertise. Okay. Yeah. The over cohassor they've had reintroduced for 40 years now. Um they don't do any mowing, they don't do any fertilizing. They do walk it in the spring because it keeps wanting to sprout trees and they will spray individual trees uh to just keep them in keep that in check. But by burning it, it re it refertilizes itself. Oh, there they add new seed every time they burn to replenish that. And that's not a bad option. And then they have a program where where you know volunteers pick seed in the fall, sort it and then and they make a new mix that they spread and it after it gets burned. So that's pretty self. I mean if it's maintained I I agree it is beautiful but when it's not maintained well in those drive down the road and look at it. There are some there are some plants it looks when we planted this little garden out here the the marta the bbal grows much faster and it shades out other things. What what we should have done and what I saw the plan head is that you mow it at when it hits 12 in you mow off a couple inches and that gives some of those slower growing plants a chance to thrive in those first years. That's the tough years and then once it all hits sort of balanced then then things work really pretty well. Mhm. So thinking like 15 years on the foresters of Henipin County like how long is it going to be before that field one is starting developed with the city park or is that like years down the road? Because it's like I wouldn't want to put trees there like do a oak savannah if that was a good area for it and then have us come in in 15 years and say okay now we're going to cut these trees down. I would scream. Yes. So like maybe think about that. That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. But if it's going to be 30 years, here's what I'll say. Keeping in mind that once we get through phase one, we then have how many other parks that still have to get developed? That's right. How long have And to be fair, will it take as long to develop those future parks? I don't know. I can tell the future I wouldn't be working here. I'd have a lot of lot of things. But you you would probably have 15 years. Yeah. Because then you still have to get the money to develop that area as well. And depending on what the vision is because it might be nice to have that in field one, more trees and then maybe the grass in field three. And then field four is that whole area. Like I'm having a hard time envisioning where the per That's right. It's right where the um pickle ball courts would be. Yeah, that's how those pickle ball courts on the on the bottom, right? Like on the top part. Would that be an area that we could maybe turn trees make trees into circle pile of dirt and make it a sledding hill? Keeping in mind there's lots that's like under I think that's housing development. What you guys want? What's the envision of the park? I think it's close enough to the action that I would probably we're showing it taken off of the conversation because it's close enough to the actions whether it's dirt balance, whether it's a temporary sledding hill, what I just think it's close enough to what's going on that it just makes sense to take it off. And so, you know, focusing on more restoration ideas, fields one, two, and three might make more sense. I feel like trees would make sense in that field one because there's a neighborhood behind there. you you still have to do something with what's between the trees at least for several years. Mhm. Another potential way to think about it is is field three if you're talking long-term stability plan might make sense because of where it's at and there already is some that that's going to potentially be able to stay Oak rather than uh you know field one lends itself pretty easily to PE to athletic fields. Yeah, I agree. Is there a way I know some of the timelines were like permanent or 15 years that would be my question is is there a way we can restore it to like prairie for instance so that it's usable now if we put a big trail but if we change our mind we want to start putting in fields we're not excluded from that option 15 years from now because I know I think at least one of them said like permanent stability is required for the grant so I think as long as we're not signing up for a grant that says now you're locked in so there's strategies that's what you said about the other one so I think that makes sense for so that's a practice we can just tell them anything in perpetuity is off the table so research grants allow us flexibility whether it's 10 15 20 years whether it's if it is 20 years we have a bio clause and to identify it ahead of time and the bio clause usually means you just repay back the commitment to the grant so you would be able to make a choice right like I want to remove that for x amount of dollars and the beats feedback of the But like there, you know, we make sure that we understand the contract that we're signing up for. And so, you know, with it being part property, I would always advocate and we've always done this as a philosophy today as uh we try to keep as many options open as possible. We don't know what the future is. So, that's what my recommendation would be would be is what's in line with what you said. But we these are just ideas to the 116 properties. So if you if there ideas that you would like staff to pursue, we would ask council to also pursue them at a staff level and it's a minimal commitment to do that. So I don't you know it's really minimal staff. It's it was a really easy experience for the 116 drop. I think I had an hour over four months and I think Kelsey, our public works assistant had maybe six hours which is really minor for the dividend and the benefit we got. Yeah, I think we're just setting ourselves up for a really good option in the future if we take care of it now and start prepping it for if we want to keep it natural. It's there and we can do treatments. One more question. What about noxious weeds? So that's what we're trying to do is to that's the maintenance component. So if we did nothing with these fields, it's going to generate noxious weeds and that's going to be an expense for us. So the whole point of this is to not have that and reduce the cost of keeping it away. That makes sense. Did you know the courtroom is called the thistle capital of the world? This would be an example of trying to handle that chain. So what we just to let you know what we know will happen if we don't do anything. It will be fistles and we will, you know, we will be impacting the community and the negative perception of it. Oh, I thought that's that's what we're trying to solve. One of the farmers, we're going to get a bumper sticker and do it because we got them everywhere. So, what about then field one if we had option three, which restores native prairie grasses, wildlife habitat, maintain natural landscape of historic forefront, although that is a field right now. And then maybe number three has more trees. The foresters of Henipin County. Well, I would if I may suggest just even ideas of what you want there in each field, not worrying about the grain specifically, but yeah, that's what I was thinking. You could have trees over on field three. That might be nice. Yeah, that is kind of close to the rest of the We could take future trails through there, but I sure can. You can feel the one without just prairie or something. So we have that flexibility. But two and three. Yeah. That's kind of what it naturally looks like it is anyways without trees in the middle. My suspicion just based on is it where there's trees is where it's flood planish because typically in Corkran these are down. It's just upland. for any purposes. So I think I think those are lowlying areas and so you know part of this is what they're going to look at. What's the existing vegetation? I think council member or commissioner Anderson said that. So maybe we identify a pocket of good stuff and then we focus around there because that's where it's been established. Yeah. So some of this will come out and flush out the analysis. Do they look at like historical what that looked like before it became a field? kind of like across from me where the new neighborhood went in. When I talked with um our old mayor about that, he said that what had happened was was farmers pushed dirt around and created ponds that didn't really exist there before because there used to be a huge wetland area over there that completely disappeared when they started doing the development. And that's when he said they actually looked at the slope and what the grading was historically and tried to move those things back to create more of a general water flow. for that parcel, which made sense to me because I mean, if you're restoring something to a more of a natural or you want to make sure that your your flow is going correctly, especially with all the water issues we've had in Corkran, but do they do that with this or is this what we get? Like what you see here is what they base it off of or is it more restoful what it may have looked like 50 years ago? It probably depends on the grain. Okay. Okay. And what you're trying to accomplish uh there was at least in the 116 it was low lines. There was no conversation about that. There were smaller fields with those. So these these are it's going to be a different conversation because of the size of the field. Um so generally this is low area that's south fork. There's a tributary that comes through Cork and Trail. There's a tributary that comes from 50. There's a there's a the South Fork tributary that goes through in the so it's a lowlying area historically I would presume. Um but but those are what the experts so I'm not answering today because I'm not an expert. Those what the experts come out they will not give us a grant until they they understand what's happening. And like I said I'd refer you back to that sample that's pretty dialed in detailed specifics that we approve for 116. they would formulate a plan to that level before we that we could sign off on in the future. So, it's more of what's the vision for these fields? What's the timing for them? I think if you don't really have a planned option for 15 years, it's definitely worth looking at something to even know if it's especially at the expense of a dozen staff hours approximately. Uh it seems like a smart thing to research and then if nothing transpires then we operationally figure out what we want to do either converted into something or you know we figure that out but you know right now we don't know if there's a grant to compare to an operational solution did you need a motion for that or just direction I guess yeah I think it's just direction to say we support reviewing fields one two and three for any eligible grants that aren't in perpetuity. We'd like some blend of seeds, seedings or grasses and even trees in three. So a really wide direction to say what would apply to these fields. Put trees on three if we can and then the grasses on fields one and what we got on two. Was that grasses or trees or whatever works? the door, but just general support to pursue an ideas of what we could do there that would a perpetual or a contractual perpetual time. We can choose to you can figure out the design details later. For curiosity, I just pulled up comparative imagery uh on our GIS going back to 1957 because I was curious about triangle field two and there's like no trees. It's all farmed and you see where the creek is coming through clear. It was the Elson farm. Remember, Jessica, I'm sorry. It was the Elson farm, right? I would have to pull it up. Yes, I think. So, that one's named I don't I feel like it was something else. Don't Don't member. Yeah. Does it I just saw one of these minimum 10 acres. So if we are splitting them up that might change things, right? So I think I'll cast those wide as we can to find out what options there are and really focusing on really off the tables, you know, a full commitment because it is a park space here. Any more comments? Van Le. Vanlith. The Els. [Laughter] L I T H E L L I T. It is referenceable for those in the audience. Um October 17th parks and trails packet. Okay. Um, let's keep moving here. Uh, 8 C be my legacy park enhancement program. Just Kevin, thank you. You're done, right? Oh, yeah. Takes that and then preps it for Monday. For Monday now. Yeah. So, thank you. Thanks everyone. Thanks, Kevin. Thank you. You didn't tell the nice comments that the Oh, yes. Um the residents, some residents in Rush Creek Reserve wanted to pass along that they were very excited to see the public works plow trucks coming from the city because they had differing experiences in the previous years in the first edition. What? They were very excited. They were very like texting the neighbors. Yeah. Yes. So yeah, like like I said, hopefully over time we're we're shortening those windows um with the walkers, but I get no credit for that. I can't drive a flower truck, so we have a phenomenal team like that in the middle of the night. And will you pass that on them? Yes, I will. They would appreciate that. Thank you. My turn. Finally. I'm okay with that. If Kevin wants to come every time to bunch. Um, so I'm coming to you all tonight with kind of a different request. Not one that we really anticipated if you would have asked me back in October. Um, but following the city council meeting on the 24th, it's very clear we need some additional funding for our park projects. I think we're all in agreement on that. Um, and as part of that, I was actually exploring some options on what that would look like and where do we find this extra funding and grants are an option, but what else can we be doing? And I found See my legacy and it kind of intertwines with our park enhancement program, with our park projects that we have coming up, with volunteering. It kind of encompasses everything. And so I wanted to bring it forward tonight to you all. And then on Monday, it will be going in front of council. Unfortunately, I won't be in attendance, but Natalie will be taking it over for me. Um, so we're originally looking for your feedback once I get into the details and then if you have a recommendation to council, either yes, no, maybe. Um, that's what we're looking for tonight. So, to get into it, um, you all saw the park enhancement program in your packet tonight as well as back in June. Um, the addition in your packet has not been updated. So, if you're looking for changes, I have not had a chance to do that yet. I would envision that I would then update that in between now and the next parks and trails commission meeting. This would include your feedback from June. This would include any feedback that you have tonight that maybe you'd have missed in June. Um, and then bring it back to you in December to hopefully get the recommendation to move it to council or hopefully later approval. Now moving into See my legacy and how it kind of intertwines with all of this. They have different kinds of campaigns. So three different kinds. There's one on memorial items which would be our park enhancement program. Um they have a heavier focus on in memorial of someone but it can be expanded well beyond that to um site furnishings, benches, trash cans. We'll have to explore that further. Go ahead. Right. I do I need to start more back at the beginning. See, my legacy is the name of a company. Yes. And I'm gonna get into that a little bit more with the campaigns, but I wanted to give the background on the park enhancements so that you know that it's not off the radar entirely. Um, so, oh no. Oh, look at pretty. Oh no, it all went downhill. Be hungry. Me too. Look like frost. Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. So, see my legacy is an organization that has campaigns. They have three different kinds of campaigns. Uh the first one is memorial items. So, that's going to be like your park enhancement program. Uh the second one is going to be sponsorships and fun and fundraisers. So, that's going to be the park projects. Um and those can be categorized by amenities. And then volunteer events. So, kind of a centralized location for your volunteer sign up. going into these a little more deeply. The memorial items, it would be one place where you can have everything mapped out. You know, this bench would be located here and this is the one that I want to donate to and this is the one that I want to make my mark on. They also have the option for QR codes on these amenities. So it takes what is normally just a plaque of maybe 160 characters and it makes it a QR code that someone can scan takes them to a page and you can create this whole story. They had an example of someone whose grandmother had passed away and they ended up actually sharing the her chocolate chip cookie recipe on there. It allows someone to express more of what this person, the impact they had on someone's life, on the park system, on whatever it is than just that 160 characters. These QR codes would be good for about 10 years. Well, they would be good for 10 years post the contract. So, it fits about the lifespan of the furnishings that we've been talking about. Um, additionally, it just keeps everything in the same spot. um as a staff of one for most of the year. It's it's going to be really challenging to manage this program. If I'm being transparent, I with the applications coming in and out, we're going to have to find a really good system to manage that. And I think that this system could fulfill that need. Now, this is where we get into kind of the nitty-gritty of like the finances and everything. Um, in speaking with their sales team, we did get a discounted rate in our quote of $1,529. So, $1,52910. Yes. Now, I am proposing, and please chime in if there is something wrong, but uh that it would come from the recreation budget for 2024, and we would start it up in 2025. This could help get funding for city park. This could help get funding for future parks in other areas that might have more specialized amenities. Um, like if a neighborhood had a specific thing that they wanted, but it maybe cost an arm and a leg, this would be a really good opportunity to fund raise that way. Um, additionally, it could help jumpstart our uh, city park furnishings. So the things like benches once we have an actual location we could be putting those on a map and that could be furnishings that down the road we might not have to pay for as part of the park project. So the volunteering aspect of this program isn't why I'm bringing it to your attention. That is an added benefit that we might be able to utilize. It's probably not something that we would go out of our way for this system. The other two campaigns of memorial items, sponsorships, and fundraisers, those are kind of the bread and butter of this. There is an added charge though of processing payments. Um, so that is a 3.65 for credit card pay payments and then 65 AC. So those bank direct payments. Um, this would allow me some other time to focus on other funding sources and other projects that I have going on. Um, so I could look for other grant opportunities. It just it would allow for a more streamlined way of doing things, but there is a cost associated with it. Now, my other caveat to this is if we find out that we do this in 2025 and it doesn't work for us and it's awful, I would be one, very surprised, but two, the QR codes would be good for 10 years beyond that. So we would still have that. So it could almost be posed or poised as like a kickoff to the park enhancement program like leave your mark early. We're starting this program. Here's how you can do it. A QR code in this first year and then it this could be the trial run. Maybe if we don't like the QR code style, maybe if we don't find that people are really jumping at the opportunity, then we move forward to a in-house program and we say this wasn't worth the try, but it wasn't worth it. Go ahead. The QR code, say it's a bench. I'm donating bench and it'll just have a QR code or will it still say in memory of Val Nel? I can pull this up for you. I hope you're not dig, but you know what I mean. Or you can just have just a QR code. It looks like she'll probably pull it. Oh, yeah. Or you can have a little I'm sorry. I forgot in there. I read this a long time ago. Oh, okay. So, they have three different options for QR codes. Um, they are additional costs. So we would the QR code or the the plaque thing itself would be an additional cost and the plaque comes with a QR code. So they are um the smallest one. Oh man, I know I have these written somewhere. I'm sorry. Thank you. 199 and 89. And those can be incorporated into the cost of the amenities. These don't generate any revenue back to the city. That would all go to the company, right? Like if they pay for the bench on the website, the 89 any of the Oh, the 89 that goes to this. Correct. The plaques themselves would go back to the Excuse me. Now, the beautiful thing about the blacks is that we can choose to go more the story tag route, which would only be the QR code, the story dedication, which still gives you the short and sweet version, but then allows for that expansion. And then there's the story board, which truthfully I would not envision for almost any furnishing that we could think of. It's just a little too big. Um, you could see it on the side of a large building like on a building maybe. Yes. But not like a bench is more what I was saying. What if someone down the road sponsored like a like the splash pad for instance, if there's a big sponsor of that, I could see that being And something else to note is with the fundraising and sponsorships section that can be set up so that multiple people can put money towards it, whereas the furnishings would be a oneperson payment, if that makes sense. Because if you're going to donate a bench, you're probably gonna pay for the full bench so you're not sharing a plaque with someone. So, I'm confused. So, it's it's it's kind of a dual purpose, right? It's it's to try to get people to if you see a bench and you're like, I love that bench. You scan the code on the bench. No, it's specifically for memorials kind of. So the QR code plaque would go on the bench after someone already got the donation like after they had the bench also. Right. Correct. So the QR code will not be there unless someone has donated that option or that object. So why do we need the Q code on there? So the QR code can take you Give me one second. The QR code will take you to a story page. Okay. But like I'm just trying to think of myself like if I go sit on a park bench and I read to our grandmother Helen, thank you for the joy share, which I think is very nice to have on there, but I'm not going to go scan that Q code just to find out more about their grandma. I'm going to look and say that's a really cool story, but I don't think I I don't think I So I'm just wondering like what the benefit of I can see the benefit if it's like someone wants to donate money to to get a bench and or something and that's what we have. But I just don't understand. I thought I'm missing something. I think Can I make a suggestion? Yes. So So I think a helpful example that wouldn't be able to tell the story would be the little girl uh who passed uh whose family wants to donate some money towards the playground. So rather than doing a large plaque that tells her story, it just says donated money donated in her name. Now you hit the QR code and it takes you to a landing page that tells her story. Sure. Or or an example would be, you know, uh a family wants to dedicate it towards the fact that their family is a a century farm family and they're paying for the tractor and the playground. And so when you do that, then it takes you to a landing page that tells their family's Century Farm story. So in and you have a plaque that says this is who did it. And then for those and a lot of people might not be interested, but it also provides a way for people to to tell more than you can put in 12 characters on a plaque. I think that it's not that I shouldn't say I'm not interested, but I I feel like I'd be more inclined to read a plaque than scan something, especially if I'm in a park area because you're in a natural environment. If you're a museum, yes, I would I think that would be useful, but I just I don't know if in a park. I just don't understand that. If it's for to raise funds, like if we were doing fundraising and you had to scan a code to donate money, like if we had park benches out there or something and you wanted to buy one, you could donate money to the park to get more park benches for our community. I think you could advocate in the same way that if someone did scan the QR code and found out that, you know, someone did put a story up there and they go, "Oh, I could put my story on there." Like my might be motivating. Yeah. And and and and to to be fair, I I was totally where you're at. We were doing a park development project uh along the corridor that was trying to tell different stories. And one of the things I became aware of is how much technology is being leveraged in parks for Gen Z and millennials. And and so as you're trying to attract other generations to not only help finance it, but also to participate like it becomes another level of engagement in the park. So So that's a curious Pokemon Goational. Like they had these ones where you could go up and you hold your phone and it's 3D hologram. Those those are some of the things that we were looking at doing along this corridor, the cultural corridor. And I was like, when I'm going to a park, I wanted to put my hiking boots on and I don't want to break my phone out, right? That's that's my experience. Uh but what I what I learned through that is there's a lot of people that that enhances their experience. are curious and it takes their curiosity to a different level and so like the little girl story which I think is cool. I think that's neat that like it's anformational thing. I just I don't know like for memorial it just seems so likemorial. It's not just for memorial either. It's park enhancement program. So, for instance, which I think is cool, the press box would be a really good opportunity to elaborate on Kevin Dale's story, right? Or even I guess I picture like maybe this is the bench that Papa and Susie sat on every single Sunday to have ice cream. Maybe they want to tell that story. They have a picture. Yeah. Huh. And have a picture. There are Yeah, you can put pictures on there. You can put Right. Well, now to be clear, staff can review it. I was ask so it's appropriate. Yeah, but I was just even thinking of where we passed on the the boardwalk the educational content and I saw that here code on the boardwalk and whatever. But I think it's a really it's a novel idea. It's really a cool idea. One unfortunate truth of our this day and age is that a lot of people are using QR codes as scam opportunities, right? So something to consider. I personally I myself and my daughters I see a QR code and I want to go scan it. I want what's that about? Right. If I'm interested to your point of like I think the generational like that is the direction that it's heading augmented reality, virtual reality, all that kind of stuff, right? But uh yeah, that one unfortunate truth of just kind of scams. So something to consider like Well, I think it'sational. Yeah, too. Like I I love that idea. I for just like personally me for memorial. I just don't think of a cute code and think I'm going to scan. I don't know. It'sformational. I guess that's what it is. Chip for years, which is a great scan for your real quick like on the scam type thing. It's if it's part of a trusted on that thing like if it's on a bench, well that's probably not gonna that's not super suspicious, right? It's when it's on a gas pump and in the middle of the night and you know you're like what's that about? Right. So that one. No, don't scan that. So, one of the things that I I like about the proposal is that with QR codes, we tried to incorporate it in my last agency. And there's there is some maintenance to QR codes because sometimes things get hinky and we really don't have the capacity to maintain them. And so through this agreement, someone else is ensuring that they're fresh. If we have a problem with one, we're calling someone else to do it as opposed to uh oh, you know, Jay Coin's calling because grandma's bench isn't working. You got a what are you gonna do about that, Jessica? So, how it works, uh, the person who does the donation would be able to enter in all of the information that they want to include. Then I myself and if there is like a subcommittee or something that wanted to be on it, uh would review it and go, "Yep, looks good. No vulgarness, no profanity. Seems pretty PG. Clear it." Appropriate pictures. Um and then you can shut off the access to edit it. It does keep it kind of locked down. Any other comments? Oh, you got just go ahead. It's 1,500 or whatever for the first year and then it goes up to the 25. Yep. So that's where I'm saying I think if nothing else it would be a good trial run and a kickoff to the park enhancement. So see how much action we get on it. Are there are there other companies doing the same work? I did look around and there's some that are similar but they don't all hit the same points. It seemed that this one fit into what we needed the best. And do any of your colleagues in the business have this same product that they're using and they have gold fivestar reviews? Not that we heard from. Oh, we're the first ones. No other no other to the point that she's so so I created a new position and it became a full-time position that managed this sort of stuff volunteers. We we don't have the capacity to add a fulltime position to do it. Uh and so this this gives us uh the way to provide the service without all of the extra stuff. Absolutely. But but to your point, we did this and it was robust, but it was a full-time person's job. Yeah. Yeah. And but you did it without the software, right? Yes. Oh, yeah. The advantage of having some somebody else do the software is is huge. It's why would you do it any other way? And there will be front-loaded work on on my end, right, to get things set up and make sure that we're putting things into the mapping and everything, but long run, I would see the workload substantially going down. Long as there's work up front still for you. They'll be that's that's it's a bargain. That's why would we not? We'll request for a motion. Yeah. Does someone want to make a motion? So moved. We recommend this product. Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. I do want to give a heads up real quick. Council member Nichols had to pop off. So he is not on the call. But we have the administrator to open so he can answer. Okay. 9A reports and information planning projects. Anybody have any questions on that? So what's the status on Donald? I see I see it's turning into an empty lot there. progress. I I I don't want to over because it's it's out of our hands now. You know, the developers are doing with developers. Okay. Um so so one of the things I think this is will be a future discussion, but I also think an exciting one. Talk to Jessica about this is uh on the plans if you look at them, they have a refrigerated area that's kind of fenced in and it's not very attractive. And so as a as a collaborative partnership, uh they are willing to at their expense wrap that space with something for us to promote the city or our programs. And so you know what might a lot might make a lot of sense is for us to use that as a way to promote what's happening in the park and the timing of it. Uh, and so that that'll be a future discussion, but that's something that's special about this site that I thought was also showed kind of the spirit of them and in which like you don't like this, how about this? And then they'll they'll refresh it over time, too. So, you know, it's not just a one and done. They wrap it, make it look cool, you know, so um and, uh, buy our design at their expense. So, you know, as as we're getting ready to do what we're going to do in the park. Hey, grand opening or whatever the case may be. And uh three years after that, they'll do it again. I think it's a three-year turn around. That's the only thing that really stood out for me about the dos. Okay. Uh it's all I can order. [Laughter] Okay. 9B parks, recreation, and trails update. Yes. Uh, so the city park engagement survey is live. It is open until tomorrow at midnight. That's been one of the big things on my list. Um, if you haven't filled it out, please fill it out. Uh, if you need a paper copy, let me know. I can do that for you. Um, other things that I've been working on, special event processes. So, I'm working with uh I think I said this before, Dwight, our planner, and Ryan Burns, our deputy director of public safety, um on updating the special events processes and forms and kind of how that's all handled. Uh prepped your packet, coordinated with multiple uh agencies on the holiday toy and food drive, which is coming up on Tuesday, December 10th. you have not registered your neighborhood and you want to, please do. Um, if you're not sure if your neighborhood is registered and you're curious, please send me an email or a text message or a phone call. Uh, city council items. Ken Gunner was recognized for his time on the watershed commission. It was beautiful. Ken is a wonderful human and we're sad to see him go. Um the city park remaster was a topic of discussion during the October 24th meeting where council approved schematic uh design and DD and CD. So we are moving forward with that. Um and then at the 14th meeting there was a community development department brief and 2025 budget. Uh that is relevant here because I fall under community development recreation does. So the other thing was watershed commission vacancies commissioner and deputy. We are looking to fill both of those positions on the wershed commission. Uh I believe commissioner Anderson is currently serving as deputy and we'd love to pass the I am. Yes, I am. One meeting a month. Do you have a QR code, sir? you get and you get pizza lunch and you get to learn a whole bunch of new acronyms. It's really it's really important. You know, if you screw up the watershed stuff on a development, they hate you for a hundred years. It just absolutely it is just so critical how things roll in the in the community. Um, and it's it's very technical and there's a I think a really good technical staff, but they need to have the community involvement and it's one person from each town and we get the same exactly the same vote as Maple Grove and Plymouth do, you know. So, it's so it's kind of cool, you know, sort of like sort of like the Senate, you know, and so yeah, let's keep going. It's it's an it's an agreeable it's an agreeable bunch. the the technical language they use is a little bit a little tough, but uh but but you know, you catch on eventually. I'm doing better now than I used to. So, yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a job that you could do for for many years in really because it's just not that big. The packet is large, but uh the the hard lift is done by the packet. Anything else? That's all I've got for you on item 10. I have an update. Unless I said this at the last one. Um, I got our nursery dealer stock certificate. I think at the last one I had said I reached out to the department of egg. They said we needed it. This year we have gone down from $225 for the permit to $56 and some change because we're so good. No, because they changed the statute. Thank you so much. It's about time. It's better than what it was. Fingers pays attention. Huh? What can I say? It's not me. I think they just have a lot of questions that are very similar. So, excellent. I like that. Awesome. We get to order more trees though the same way. All right. Uh the park dedication fund. Any questions? Still the same. Same. Okay. Item 11A June 2025 parks and trails commission meeting. Yes. So, in June 2025, uh the meeting falls on Junth, which is a city holiday. So, I won't be here. You won't be able to get in. Doors will be locked. Uh I am proposing that we change it to Tuesday, June 17th. Um if that works for you guys, I don't need a motion or anything. I might be dead. Our city months away just in case. I am all those. So, Tuesday the 17th seems to work for folks. It'll be reflected in the city calendar. We I just wanted to run it by everyone if we had the chance. So, Any other questions for tonight? Will anybody make a motion to adjurnn? I make a motion to adjourn. Second. Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. I.