Order the March 25th work session with park commission. Who is lead? So we have four topics that we want to bring up to you guys this year. accomplishments of 2024 uh free USA what we're looking to do in 2025 and then the bigger discussion of land acquisition which is the documents in front of you document in front of me I don't have a documenting oh I guess I am I thought yeah I don't even need my computer for us so with that being said um 204 yep so I'm Carrie. Hi. Nice to be here tonight. Um, as far as just an overview of what we've worked on through 2024. Um, we implemented the adopt a park program and four parks have been adopted so far. Um, the choices made to do irrigation at some of the city parks, five of which have been worked on this year. Hayden Hills, the well was drilled. Um we're waiting for power to be run to the site and the irrigation installation will be started um once the frost is gone and the soil conditions are firm. River Hills Park, the well isn't drilled yet. They're waiting for road restrictions to be lifted at the late April, early May and power still needs to be coordinated. Elsie Stevens, the existed well was upgraded and improved and they're still needing to confirm if electricity needs to be updated there. Sundance Wood, the irrigation extension power is existing. They're going to do irrigation installation again when the soil is firm. And then I gardens um is being hooked to the moonlet so full pull water instead of doing a well. Um, as far as parks go, we've had um four parks that we've mainly been focused on. PSA 21, Iron Gardens, and Elsie Stevens. All of them had big bid packages that went out March 3rd. Those bids are due March 27th. Um, they're going to be contracting awards hopefully by April 8th. and then substantial completion should be the goal is November of 2025. Along with Elsie Stevens, um they've been working on the bridge and the prep work has been been worked on in April. Um they're working on the footings to get those installed and they're hoping to complete in early May of this year. And for Leather's Park, um, they have to redo all of the seating. The contractor is waiting for the ground temperatures to improve so the best germination can take place and he's going to be there for the on-site um seating. And we don't have an exact date for that because it all depends on the soil. Um they there's also we talked about getting restoration in progress signs made and installed so people will actually know that something's happening at that park because Is this a re seating? Yes, it's a reeding. The first seating did not take. Okay. And so they're redoing it without any charge to us, but the first didn't take. Did they say why? So dry condition. The only thing they took was the crack grass. That does a good job. And that wasn't even seated in just it was a volunteer. And then as far as trails, um we had identified many trails, but a lot of them got put on hold to go along with street that were being redone from the county. Um but the one that is going forward is a trail along North Diamond Lake Road. It's our last portion to be able to connect all the way down to um Elm Creek Park. And so the engineers are working on those documents right now and they're hoping to get bidding out in the spring and then work on it and complete it in 2025. So that's kind of just a quick update of the things that we've been working on this year. Are we John? Are we getting that right away for that? Um I'm sorry. This is right away for this is the one inwood. No, there's a little Oh, in between the two houses. Yeah, we're in conversation with the homeowners about that currently. Okay. Ideal route. Yeah. Once that's completed, then you'll be able to go basically from LC Stevens to Kun Rapid Dam. Because my understanding is that the alternative route, which is not ideal, that there's another homeowner there who's also not wanting to have the trail in front of their house. So, not only is the other one ideal, it's also ideal. Probably ideal. Yes. Does anybody have anything they want to add to the 24 list with Carrie? Hit it. Nice work, Carrie. Tree USA. Let's go, John. We're excited about this one. This is an item I had brought to the parks commission a little while back and um I I thought it would be a good opportunity for our community to show uh passion or you know preservation of trees. Um Tree City USA is a designation. It's free but there are some requirements. Um I don't have a print out. I think I' I've shared that in the past but um it's essentially you make a proclamation that you you know an Arbor Day proclamation. You celebrate Arbor Day in some way, shape or form. um you spend $2 per capita on uh tree related things, but that can include large equipment hours. So, it's generally not difficult to hit that. Um I think we hit that right. Yeah. Easily. Uh and then um and then the final one or a tree board which we again we have with with Murray's department. Uh and then the final one was um I already said that a proclamation uh or ordinance rather. So the ordinance that protects trees what we have protects them like during redevelopment but I think the organization they lay out the specifics and my understanding is that it's already been maybe in front of legal and maybe you guys but um it just needs to be a little more broad in the protection or preservation if you will of trees. So um yeah that was something I thought would be a good opportunity for our city to explore. Marty is that still with legal tree ordinance is actually with planning at the moment. and we're going to pull that together. I've had the uh attorney look at the second draft of it. Um and so once that's pulled together with planning, then we'll put it in an ordinance and put it in front of you guys. What's different about it? Let's just um you've asked me a question that I'm really no prep. I can get back to you in a minute. It's not I don't It's not anything crazy, but it's it's basically the ability for the city to take care of nuisance trees if necessary. You know, if someone has a a pest tree or disease tree that they just won't take care of and it's going to, you know, fall or the disease we're concerned about spread to other trees or something in the area, it gives the city a little more uh authority or latitude to take action. Um it's may not shall it's my understanding but that was one of the things that wasn't in there currently I believe. Sure. So so I I guess the question I think for the council is you're whether you have support or reservations about the city going out on private property and saying you have to take down your disease tree who decides that it's diseased uh the city would so and I would say it's a city arborous. or so currently what we're doing with residents with the emerald ashbor is um we're offering a service where the arborist goes out and checks the trees for residents. Um we will take out any trees in the rideway but we're not going onto private property to do any of that removals. Um if there's if it's you know a few inches out of the rideway then we we will probably take that but I'm not going into somebody's backyard to take the tree out. So that's kind of currently how we're managing it. I've got about 50 of them in my woods that are dead or dying. Okay. You can come and get them all if you want. I just cut six of them. It's a big job. Yeah. So, if you got equipment, we would take them out at our cost. Yeah. Well, then we hit our $2. Well, well, what other cities have done, I was speaking with I think Golden Valley, I was volunteering with tree trust down there. Um, they will like put it against the homeowners tax for like the 10-year period at the longest. So maybe they charge them, but then they just assess it over time or something. Um if if it comes to that if the city were to choose to do that. I don't know what it cost to take down the tree, but depends. Well, it depends on the size of the tree and stuff. Can be a lot. Do we have a lot of trees in the rightway that do need to come down? Well, we can do that. Yeah, we can do those. I mean, we're dealing with those currently. There's a a bunch of them in the old village that we're going to have to take down. some more mature trees down there on Columbus Street um that need to come out because they're just totally diseased and going to come down anyway. So, we will take care of those, but I don't you know, costwise, I don't know what that would would be. I just had two of them dropped. It was 1,800 bucks. Yeah, they were they could have went on the house. I didn't feel good about dropping them. So, Mhm. but currently for the you know the tree inspection, we're not charging anything for that. I mean, well, and it could be a much more expensive thing if we don't do anything about it, right? So, yes, I think that's the whole point is to get ahead of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things we need to maybe coordinate a bit more is with Three Rivers Park District and their their trees in the the the park that are infected already. What they are they going to do about them? Um because I'm not sure what their maintenance program is on the trees in there. There's thousands of them in there. Nothing. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know for sure. And that's a conversation of this this one, but especially through Rivers isn't. It seems odd. Mhm. They're not doing anything with their trees. I mean, they may take them down where uh you know, any buildings do, but where nature take it course. Not in the old woods. as far as out in front of our house. I mean, there's thousands of them out there that are dead. Okay. Is there any education happening right now, too, to let like people in the area know not just about the like emerald aforest and stuff, but the kinds of trees that they should be planting that are more resistant to this kind of stuff? Well, we did do something on that at last year's open house. We had the arborist out and he had a bunch of information out there. That will be the same thing this year. Um, it could be something that we put in a newsletter or the county has a lot of stuff you could probably just reshare too. Yeah. Free tree giveaways and stuff. Yeah. So, it's that kind of an outreach currently. Could we do more? Yeah, I'm sure we could. Yeah. Is there any way we could just limit it to the rightway? We can do We're just not doing anything. You're just not doing anything because right now we can do the right way. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean it's three isn't concerned or or maybe they think the battle's lost too. I personally think battle I think emerald ashbor killed every I think it's endemic at this point. It's not just but the ash trees though in tree rivers I mean there's oaks and everything that are bad. Well, there's some not a lot of them, but or the next one to come out that might not be too late to get ahead of. Okay. Well, I do think it's worth a conversation with Pre Park and maybe what it is is more about like um thinking about where there might be trees that are worth saving near like so not asking them to do the entire park, but like if they are near a private property that does have like a nice stand of trees, it's like can you at least do these, right? But like if they're across the street from um an open farm field, it's not as I had exactly that situation. Yes. So I was meeting with a resident Kevin Folds over by Nature's Cross in there and his part his property butts up to the parkland. Yeah. And so there's a bunch of trees that are infected and coming down and he's concerned on what they are actually going to do with that. So he's going to reach out to them as well. But I think as a city it might be some good information for us to how they manage that stuff. Yeah, and that's what I would put the pressure on. Like you don't need to do the entire park, that's whatever, but can you focus on the ones that border up against people who have trees that they are trying to save? Um, so how much say do we have in like what is put up in new developments and stuff? The type of tree, right? a lot because so one of the things in I'm in Hayden Hills and they put the exact same oak tree in everybody's front yard and you shouldn't put the same tree right next to each other because then if one gets diseased they're going to spread so easily and so I don't know if we're able to like share with development developers that they should be varying the trees and what and I think that's all part of the landscape plan that they come in with um and and what inevitably happens is they plant all those trees. It depends what the nursery has got available and that's why you see all the same trees going in. That's unfortunately the way that that that goes. Yeah. Um I don't know how much control we have over you know that particular situation whether we can say well you can plant that tree but you can't plant it the one next to it or and I don't think we have actually currently got the staff to be able to manage that part of it either. Can we though in the development agreement, you know, specify that that that there needs to be a variety? I mean, we've got a list of approved trees, right? Yeah, the easier thing have to pick more than one. We have a landscape plan and you know, it can be kind of subject to change, but you know, just doing a better job of reviewing the tree species and going through that. But, you know, again, we haven't had the staff. So, we've had a arborist for about a year. No, not even yet. Wow. So, so there's not a lot of history work on top of it. Before we haven't been able to do the landscape inspections properly, um, just because we haven't had staff to do it. Um, we have tried contracting that out before, but um, that didn't work out so well. So, we got behind with those landscape plans. Um, now we're playing catchup with that as well. So, that's where we're currently at. Hopefully, it's going to improve as we go forward here. I think a couple years back we were behind and everything just volume. We were doing got off almost. One of the many reasons to be a little bit more paste on that. Going back to the tree ordinance, I guess two questions. One is is there support in going onto private property to identify trees that are diseased or dead? Is that is that what the the requirement is is to proactively seek it out? There is nothing now. Right. Well, I'm just I'm looking at like one of the example ordinances and it's I guess if it's deemed by the director I I I maybe didn't interpret it as we are the police of trees to go out and and and look in your backyard for them. But if a neighbor says, "Hey, there this is disease and we can inspect it from I guess that was more of my interpretation of it. I don't have any support in telling somebody that they got to cut a tree down. Yeah, I'm not there. I mean, I don't think that we would say that. We would say to them, you know, this tree is diseased or whatever and get, you know, give them that information, but we wouldn't dictate that you've got to take that tree down now because it's down to the homeowner. Anybody would most most people would know that because Yeah. any asht tree now has got half the bark off of it. The woodpeckers are after it. Sure. Yeah, but you know, there's still people out there that need to have it confirmed. You know, there's I mean, particularly in first time home buyers, like if you haven't like you don't know what you don't know, right? And if you like just came from an apartment situation where you had absolutely nothing to do with it and now all of a sudden you have a yard with trees and you're like, it's very possible that they have no clue that they have a diseased tree. Um, so I'm all for education and getting out there and I have no problem with someone going on to to look at the trees. I'm not necessarily at cutting them down or forcing them to cut them down, but I have no problem with going on the property to observe the tree. Is there a cost to having the arborist cut out? And we don't currently charge for that. No, that's See, I didn't know that cuz like Yeah, we would love someone to come check out. We just started this program since we've had the arborist and people are phoning in and it was something that was offered last year at the open house and some people took a card and, you know, followed up on that. But yeah, it's not that would be good to know. share one. John, did you have another question or Okay. Well, it it it was the first one answered it. So, all right. So, moving on. Uh 2025, Gary touched on some good things like the bike crossing on Park. Uh doing a lot of work at Elise Stevens. We talked about a shelter area on the north side, so not where the band is or anything like that. Um along with some freestanding fire pits since Marty's got a whole bunch of wood from taking trees down. Um and then we all know parking is an issue down there. So talk about expanding the parking on the north side as well. Back up. Where are those fire pits go? They would go next to the shelter area that we were talking about. Just little tripod freestanding fire pits. It's just past the where the parking lot is now to the east of that. Sit around the fire pit. Look out on the river. So on the east side on the east side. No, that's a barbecue. Oh, you're okay. You're talking on the east side. On the east side, you know where the parking lot is currently and where the canoe launch is going to be is to the east of that area there. There's an overlook there on the west side of the west side. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Okay. Oh, I Yeah. And you guys always have plenty of wood, right? Oh, all the time. Although splitting and making sure it's not green, that's adding work. Yeah. But it still would be nice though. And if you're talking ashboard trees, you got to take all the bark off. Are you guys going to take the bark off too? Well, we basically what we do with that stuff, you know, most of that stuff goes through the wood chipper anyway because you have to cut it down to, you know, 2 in sizes. So you kill all the the grubs on the inside of it. So when it's emerald, when it's ash trees, we don't generally use that for burning. It's not not a good plan. And people wouldn't have to get firewood from right there. I mean, there's like five gas stations around people got stuff in their yards and stuff like that all over. So yeah, drag it out. Get it started. Mhm. Um, so yeah, a nice little shelter area, picnic tables, gathering, that kind of stuff. We did talk extensively about a band uh shelter area, but there's just a lot of contingencies and I know not everybody's in favor of it. So, our vote as a group was to just buy one of those tents that Marty and his free time can put up when there's people who want to hold a concert. You're welcome, Marty. They're relatively cheap and get the job done. We've rented them before, so we figured that until we get more details on the master plan. How big a tent is this? What we're talking about? How big a tent do you want? Think like a wedding reception. So maybe whether it's a something to fit 120 or without depending on the event. We just figure if you looked at the cost of building, you know, doing a full buildout, it seems to make a lot more sense to just have the rental available when we're renting the space for our wedding. So people are saying, "Hey, I want to do my wedding at LC Stevens." Okay. Well, if you want a regular outsource setting, we've got room for X amount. If you want to have it be a backup plan, depending on weather, cuz we don't know what weather's going to be. Here's your different sizes. Here's your different rentals and do it that way rather than just build a huge shelter for or are we going to do it cheaper than a rental place? And maybe we won't. Maybe we just advise them to or we say, "Hey, we could add it in or you can get it on your own depending on how they want to do it themselves." The big thing was cost, right? We need to expand that area, really make it nice, bring down power, look at the flood plane, what type of roof we put on. All of a sudden, we're at a half a million dollars. Well, we don't have that kind of money in the budget and it's just buzzy numbers right now. Or we're literally only going to do that and nothing else. Some people would like there's numbers coming, Nick money there. Okay, there's numbers that we're excited to see, but that's just what we gives a lot more flexibility to the space cuz now you're not committed for the whole year. You're just committed for a night or a weekend or whatever it may be. So, we thought that that idea seemed to be better than just putting a huge, you know, something that's always going to be there. Well, and then would it be usable at other parks as well? Obviously, if Yeah. Yeah. Wherever Marty wanted to to cover ice skating rink in the winter, whichever. more metro tent myself, you know, get them to stick it up and rent it out. Pickup truck. Maybe the new events uh whatever the best event place in Minnesota, what what are they called? The the new winery event place. Oh, there's Yeah, the off. Maybe they'll already have one and we can bar hills winery is one large step that's going to have to be anchored. So, there's Oh, yeah. concrete footings, you know, a steel I beam for support. You're making this idea sound way and way worse. Anything I can do for you, Marty? Seems seems like there ought to be opportunity to, you know, establish a relationship with one of the rental companies that do this, right? Kind of what we were thinking. It's on the menu of stuff, you know, that you want to rent the park, you want, you want power, you want some firewood, you want, you know, all the things you go down the list. tent rental could be one of those, but we don't own it and man it and set it up and take it down and you know, it's a cost we've established with somebody and you can pick it if you want and they'll come out take care of the setup and tear it down. Would the city need three vendors though for that to make it correct or could we just pick one? Not for that kind of money. Not for that. We we currently have an arrangement well a relationship with one tent vendor anyway the metro tent who we do oh for yes that's true well actually yeah I don't know that that's it's not bad you're covering city might get a better deal and yeah I mean I can tell with sherry down there like I said on the eighth perfect actually I I can like see if we had some leverage to get more cheaper rates. Uh so moving on, irrigation, we talked about we talked about Tree USA and then the Arbor Day proclamation for April. We'd like to have that signed, Mr. Mayor, and move forward and I can give you this. You can read it on there. We'll disagree with Well, Marty, you have a copy of this, right? Just uh John brought it up. So, Marty, I'll be bringing it to you. Okay. Um, and the group here is excited about MSA, having them on board. 2024, I think I speak for all of us. We were a little bit upset that our certain vendor wasn't around after so many times we talked about the parks improvement plan. And then we got the letter from him saying that he was too busy to do anything with Paul. Oh. And so, we're excited for MSA. No reason to be that horse. And we're hoping to work with them on other parks. I'm not sure how that arrangement works, but yeah, I I don't disagree. I just confused about how that arrangement works. All right. Um, go for it, Brad. The last topic. All right. Community park. We could go as far into this as you guys want. However, I would like to start off from the very top. And we've spent almost a year and a half, two years now throwing this around. Um, if you guys don't want to have a community park, then we can just stop the conversation now. And that's in my most serious I could see either way. We're getting prices ranging from anywhere between maybe as low as 5 or 10 million and maybe it could be 50, 60, 70 million just for the land. For the land. Oh. Depending on how it all shakes out and what exactly what we decide to do. But um again, land would probably more in that 5 to 20 building the whole thing out etc. be maybe 40 50 whatever it looks like. We've been approached by the CDAA um to so yeah multiple times to to do this and maybe you guys have as well and um I I understand where they're coming from. Um but there's again this can go a ton of different ways. So if you guys want to talk about it, if it's something you guys want to talk about, great. But I guess the first thing if you guys do want to talk about it then would be we really need to focus first on where we would get 50 to 80 acres and is that 2030 money 2040 money 20 you know what's the what's it going to cost um and then what's the buildout and then obviously from there who's funding it how are we funding it all those types of conversations what does it look like are we doing exactly what Andrews has done over in Champlain are we fine with just telling people hey go to these other This is it. It really depends on what direction we're a lot from CDA was to build something out that looks like Andrew's Park. Um, and I don't I'm all of us are kind of, hey, we see both sides. We really want to make sure that it's something that people question mark and as we've asked multiple times and haven't gotten the answer yet is like what is the actual cost? We still haven't gotten that cost nailed down. I don't know what you're going to cuz it's going to vary greatly by where that land is, right? 100%. And so my whole thing is well if there's that much because there does seem to be a ton of variables in this is it even worth pursuing because it's a lot of time and conversation that keeps going back to it and are we where are we actually going to find 5080 acres is my initial question and if we're going to find it and we're going to be able to do it and everyone's going to be able to pay for it great but if you look at some of the facts that we've done a little deeper deeper digging for example CDA has told us that Dayton's participation in CDA has gone up significantly. I'm which makes total sense because we have younger families in Dayton. Guess what though? CDA as a whole is not growing right now because the Champlain numbers are going down because you have a lot of people that are 50 to 70 kids are gone. No more kids playing sports. So, it doesn't really, you know, their thought process is, hey, we want to make sure that you guys know that Dayton's growing, but ultimately the numbers aren't growing. And I've continued to push back with, well, what about our current fields that aren't being used? and they have different rules because a lot of our fields sit empty, a lot of N that are in Dayton and they could be used and they said that they have certain expectations of what the field should be and basically park what we what we had suggested is well what if you retrofit if you guys have funding because they've told us that they have funding to help support this and go what if you took the funding to retrofit and it's not going to be what they want they want more parking they want they want brick and mortar they want it all they want all of that and that's fine. But, you know, me living here and being a sports fan with all of those things, I still don't personally see it. Uh, just because of everything we have around us and have no problem going to Champlain, going to Maple Grove, going and supporting those other places. That's me personally. I'll support it if people support it. I'll do all the back work, whatever it is. We never if we need to do levy, you name it, whatever it needs to be, I'll support it if you guys support it. But, we just wanted to get the conversation going with you guys and see what you think. There's a lot here. We've talked a lot. It's it's a lot, but just like realistically, are we going to get 50 to 80 acres? What does it look like? How are we going to do it? Do we want to have where we're trying to make revenue off of it? You know, what do we want the concessions? All those different things, right? What do we want to look like? Do we have people that want to work concessions? Like all those different headaches. And obviously, most cities sub it out to someone else. But, uh, just wanted to get that on your plate. So, it's a lot to digest. And it's been talked about for years. I mean at the council even before I started here. So, we know it's on everybody's mind, but we're just trying to get real. You know, do we want to go down this venture, spend the time, we'd be excited about it, but there's only a few land owners in Dayton that have 50 to 80 acres. That would be ideal for this. Half of them want the dollar. Talked to them CDA yesterday. Okay. Um, so what I what we kind of told staff was keep your eyes open for something that you and if it looks good then maybe we'll look at it. Um, we had one thing that popped up and it was some god awful amount of money and so it was gone. Um, I I so I don't see any problem in that just keeping our eyes open for something. Um, but yeah. Yeah. I I I don't know how much of a I know some people that want it really want it. Um and I understand that it is going to Champlain for soccer or or you know it can be a pain. It's just that is a boatload of money. Mhm. And so I was looking at the map uh this morning. I don't know where we're going to find even 40. I mean you can find 40s but um finding anything above that which seemed to be a criteria if there's although one of the people said sent me a message saying that they understand that 40 may be hard to do. So you know is it is a good size park. It's is 38. Yeah it's they want they want more. CDA wants more. Yes, they want 60. That's their minimum. Somewhere along the line is where you this is what you got and if you don't like it, you're right. They might say the money we were going to give to help build things, we're not going to do that now because that doesn't meet our stipulations. And then we just move on with oursel, which is fine. Pretty vague about what that actually is. And in terms of purchasing land, it I don't know. I did read that long tutorial that they sent around how to do city planning. Again, you may want to take a look at that just refresh yourself. But, uh, it it it seems like they're more inclined to invest in, you know, dugouts and, um, parts, fences, and, you know, things that that u kind of the buildout of the space versus the space itself. And I think we've been, you know, at least passively looking for as long even back probably before I was on the parks commission, right, that this has been the idea that we that we do see the need for this in the future and that when the right opportunity comes along and it hasn't. And so I think, you know, us being a little more aggressive about pursuing it, but it's probably got to be in 2050 land or we're just never going to get anywhere on getting a price we can afford. Is there a appetite? I'm not going to mention the piece. Um, for a about 50 acres in two pieces, a joint 20 being across the street, 30 being across the street, you know, it's there. But is it a main road? Yeah. How would you get carry people back and forth? You need a car. They got to get to you. Don't got to carry them. Other people can walk. cross our roads without crosswalks because the county won't give it to us now that I think about it 10 years 15 20 years from now might be a problem. I'm not saying no I'm not saying there might be some chunks of property properties we can combine but I just know I looked at the map and it's not going to be easy. I I did find some open 50 acres but it's on Brockton and I'm pretty sure the CDA would say not that too far west. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that brings up another point, too, is we only ever talked to the CDAA, but we've got three school districts in this town, and we don't even know what the other ones are interested in or want. Interesting. What other program Rogers? I mean, Rogers has their both of them have bas Well, Rogers is building their giant Yeah. dome or whatever. Is that what that is? It's going to be a football. No longer Northern Palms. It's no Yeah, it's no longer a M golf course. Well, it was it was a driving range uh when I was in high school and we had a friend that ended up playing on the tour that was golf ball whacker guy essentially and he in the first couple months took out like four different cars. Um and their insurance plan wasn't ready for that. And that was part of what started the brother problems. Yeah. Awesome. Um but like yeah it's a big the heat it's a big giant arena that they're building there but they have their park um their north let's see here is that what's the name of their park in Rogers? Um but it's the one by the high school. Yeah it's the one my husband and I go to all the time. Middle school. Yeah. Yeah. North community park. Um and that like but like that's right like that's pretty darn close to us. So yeah that one. So, um, but yeah, I agree. Like, we're not We have other neighbors. Um, that's a very good point. We should be talking to them. If nothing else, maybe they'd be willing to chip in. Like, no one person is able to chip in enough to actually make this duo. Maybe they'd all be willing to chip in a little bit if it is a shared something. That would be one. Personally, just 100% personally, I have no I have zero desire for this. Um, talking to residents, there was some, but like it was nobody's like top. Like there were other things that were more important. Um, this was no one's absolute top thing that was like, you know, cuz it's not here. Like if you wanted that, there were other cities you could have moved to that have this. You moved to Dayton usually for a reason in most cases. So that's kind of what I think a lot of us moved or a lot of people I've talked to anyway who moved here moved from the cities and we're used to driving or like taking a little everything's 10 20 minutes and that's not the end of the world. Interesting part is the the data they provide us with their athletes is that they are getting plenty of athletes outside of Champl Dayton. Yeah. Which most of it was Brooklyn Park. Yeah. And so if you're going to tell the people that live in Brooklyn Park, specifically south of 610, that they have to come out to either here, we don't have 80 here. So if we're going over to Brockton, well, now they're what are we doing? And so again, I don't mind the idea. I just don't think it's realistic. And that's like I said, we could spend we have spent hours and hours and hours. My opinion is just getting the feel from you guys and saying, "Hey, if someone ever comes up with 50 80 acres, then we'll talk about it then. In the meantime, pass." That's just kind of what I wanted to do so we could just move forward unless you guys felt really strongly. Okay. Yeah. And it would be the same thing like if something falls falls in our lap and maybe there's a land owner who doesn't want development and comes to the city is like I want to sell my land but I don't want a sea of subdivisions. What are our options? And like well actually I'll sell it for less because I just want to make sure it's not houses have the name of the park. Yeah. Name it after you like that. If that happened, great. Yay. Let's do it. But um no, I don't see any reason to actively put anyone's time and energy into this personally. But so if the CDA I'm sorry go I was going to say if the CDA comes back to us and says hey you know what about this land where we at are we at a point then we can say well we want to help you but we can't do land but we'd allow you to upgrade our current fields. Absolutely. All day long you want to upgrade they want to put the money. The question the where I kind of struggle is that I don't get like when I'm literally look at proposals there's a dollar amount behind it. There's never a dollar amount behind. They kept telling us they could support it which is great. That sounds great. But what does that mean? Cuz if it's a $50 million cost and you can put in 15,000 a year, we're not talking here. But if you're saying, "Hey, we can put in half a million a year over 30 years or whatever it is." Okay, well that's a different conversation. And they had access to different funds and grants and stuff. I'm like, "That's great, but what are those?" Yeah. And since we don't have that information, it's really hard to say yes to something. So then the second time they came back was kind of the same thing we said and we're just not getting we need more concrete stuff to be able to actually make a vote or make a decision on how we feel. So in my opinion, it's a nice pipe dream. If we get if some land falls in our lap, we'll we'll discuss it, but otherwise we're we're not talking about it. The one thing they did bring up that I don't know if I don't think there was any sort of like deadline or it wasn't like a threat or anything like that, but they had said like they might have to consider like charging us out really pay the fee because it's C day. And so even though it's the CDA, so like we've been a part of it for Yeah. Whatever. But so I don't know if so you pay 20 bucks extra for your kids baseball. Like at least you're only the people that are doing it are the ones paying the money rather than taxing all the other people that live in the city that don't want it or weren't that's mean somebody mom and dad are paying for it or I mean you're probably talking 5600 a year from every household in the city easy 100% and that's where like we even said if you had to raise our rate we have other option we have I9 we have different ways the thing is the CDA is still very cost effective when you compare it to everything else I don't people are going to bat an eye and if they do that's their that's their thing. This is the same when we got approached by um uh snowmobiles and horse trails and I was like I don't want to be a jerk here but like it's like a 955 maybe 9010 like why are we talking about it because we should be thinking about the greater and if the 10% of the people here would use it that's not a good way to use the money. It's the same thing with the sports thing. Like it'd be a higher percentage, but yet how many of those people are going to say, "Hey, I want to pay all these extra taxes to get like you're not going to get married." So probably just move on is, you know, whereas if people say, "Hey, let's try to connect LC Stevens to Kunap." Okay, that sounds cool. Yeah. And that seems a little more feasible and more people can use that. And you can use that at all stages like because other thing with the sports complex is even if you have kids, it's for this short period of time in your kids, not even from the moment they're born to the moment they graduate. It's the shorter window. Whereas those parks and the trails, you can use that from the moment your kid is born. You can go out for walks and you can use it once your kid is gone. Like it's for everybody all the time. And it's only certain sports. That's the other part, too. It only affects three or four sports. There's all sorts of volleyball, golf, hockey, all these other sports that will never happen. Swimming that will never happen there. So, it's like you're not even getting all the sports families. Yeah. That's why I love the park that's on um fair hill, whatever the one is that has the pickle ball and the the volleyball. And there's like a back here. Yeah. Rivers. Is that what it is? Okay. Um but yeah, it's got a variety of things, not just four giant baseball fields and four giant soccer fields. Right. But these are but the difference with that is those are for personal use compared to actually being in a organized sport. And so we do have to look at it different for that reason. The other thing is in here it does talk about the fact that we do receive money from CDAA every year. And so if we don't ever give anything in response, we do have to be aware of the fact that breaking that relationship means we're not going to be receiving. But we are letting them use our fields currently and we're also letting them talk to us about updating them to whatever standard they need to be. So I don't think we're giving them like the they just want something nicer and we're not going to fund it is I think we're kind of where like no I agree with you there could be some push back on 20k a year. Yeah somewhere around there. Yeah but they do also put in funds for improvements like you know the dugouts and the scoreboard and you know they put in additional funds for that. So the 20k is basically for field maintenance, right? Um dragging chalk in, mowing, yeah, all that stuff. So Sure. So they're getting something for that. Which fields do they use currently? They use this field, the SA and the Dayton Elementary. Um they use Rivers Bend. They use W Diamond. These Rivers Ben a little bit, but not they use it a lot last year. Did they last year? Okay. But they already brought it into So I think the main problem they have with Riverb was not enough parking, right? Is that what they said at one point? I think the problem there was it's difficult for people to find and it's in the middle of a neighborhood so it's not ideal. But now there's that path from the parking area. Is that helping or something? I don't know. I don't think that that was a real thing. That was more for handicap accessibility to the playground. So we're still good with passively looking for land. Sure. If it falls on our lap, discuss options, you know. So, so a question. So, a community park, I don't have the slide up. I'm just going to use round numbers is roughly $10 million and we have one. Um, so the idea of is there any support to increase the the levy amount that we're currently it's $150,000 a year towards a land purchase? Is there any interest in increasing that? Not for me, but I think before you started asking, you got what four community parks in the comprehensive plan for when at the ultimate buildout. Mhm. It does seem like, you know, we I mean we I support that plan and um I think that we need to put dates on those things. You know, it's not telling us when we can uh necessarily acquire because we've not done so well at that. But I think that, you know, we're not going to buy 160 acres and build our four community parks all all in one chunk. At what population level should we be starting to hit those those milestones and make and make progress along the way? I think we must be at the point where we should have more than one. Mhm. Right. And what's our one LC Stevens? Uh well, Central Park owned by the school district. Okay. And that makes sense. So, a second one that that sort of caters to the stick and ball kind of sports, I think that um not everybody uses every park, but you know, we've through that plan committed to having these kind of facilities over time and and uh so I guess for me, I think we continue to look for land and and uh you know, maybe a little more aggressively. Yeah, I know we've been working through a broker to, you know, try to keep our uh intent out of it so that the price doesn't immediately double on us, but I don't know how successful we can really be at that when you talk to somebody about your 40 acres and I'm not going to tell you why. Yeah. Not building anything out of something's going to happen here. Who's that? Regardless, I think it's it's still, you know, in our best interest to be starting to acquire some of these things sooner than later. I think we ought to try to follow the plan. It just doesn't have dates on it like the staging areas do. And maybe we should put a little bit of thought into more of a stage plan on how we develop the park system. Yeah. When you say 10 million, John, you're talking about developing the park. You'll never get it done for 10 million. won't get the land. You're talking 30 or 40 for sure. How long did it take us to get that one? Because it was 150 a year, wasn't it? I don't know when we started levy for which was the one million. Yeah. I thought we put away like 150 a year. Is there any way we could take that money and then escalate finishing up Alise Stevens? So it be beautiful and done. Uh yeah, Mayor Parks Commission, we started at in 2018 collecting that money. So but we started off with a more a larger dollar amount than 150 right away. I think it was like 300,000 right away and then we slowly brought that down. That was to get Stevens kicked off. Yeah, we borrowed against that to get Stevens. Yep. I certainly wouldn't be willing to up it unless uh you a question went out to people. Yeah, we're going to we're going to tax you because we think we're going to buy land. But you got to tell them the whole story. You're going to raise the the 150. Just say you raise it to 250 indirectly. You got to tell them 10 years from now we're going to be 600 700. I mean to me you got to tell them the whole story. Do you want number one? knew you wanted. It's not what I want. It's what everybody here wants. If they're willing to pay for it, go for it. Didn't we find out? We did find out in the survey that people want. Yeah, but we didn't put a dollar. They didn't have a dollar. Everyone wants everything if it's free. Yeah, this is free. I'm like, of course. The questions were asked is, would you be willing to be willing to pay more? So, we didn't put a dollar amount, but they did say it. But, yeah, with police fire, we did put a dollar amount on it, and I think it was a little bit of surprise if people weren't willing to put up there. So, I think a park would have the same response. I mean, when I when I maybe you guys, you know, can chime in here, too, but parks weren't being scraped for. Trails, yes, were there was a higher interest though in that kind of community park than there was for parks in general. I people generally felt like we have enough parks build them as the neighborhoods are added. Yeah. But there there was a higher number and I don't remember it off the top of my head toward the community. Well, in the survey it was it was pretty high. 85% of the 400 that were But the instant you put a dollar amount on that, you're going to see it go from Yeah. But I would be interested to know what that dollar amount was. We're doing a a survey again next year. I think refining that question that would be one get some direction. Yep. All right. What do we have? That was our four topics. Oh, cool. Okay. Do you guys have anything for us? Any other direction you'd like us to go? I say keep up the good work. It's been um just you know cuz not all of us are connected to each commission in the same way and it's nice to get these kind of updates. Uh we ask for them from the other commission but you guys have done the best job so far. So and I think it would help too that we finally set up a split on the park money for you know right so now you kind of know how much money you have for certain areas. Mhm. That should help a lot cuz watching the dollars is hard when you're buying plates. So, um, and FYI for me personally, I guess I really hope those bids come come out way better than what they were before cuz I am I am not in favor of what if we didn't have the ball in progress last year through the vendor. I'd be interested to see what MSA could come up with for bids for some of that stuff we put out. I don't know if they're going to bid on it or not, but I'd be interested to see what they say. Yeah, I had a hard time with that. That's again. All right, so are we good? Right. So we'll be a journ