Uh we really would like to do this the right way. Um, we feel like the ecological footprint is very small. Um, and as you can see from the kiddo pictures, we use this bridge all the time, every day. Uh, so that's my concern.

I don't know we take action here. I can understand the city's reasoning for that. Um but uh and I do know this bridge well.

I'm happy to to speak uh to her afterwards. This is um Luke Menden is in our natural resources division, so I am familiar with this case. Um I also on the land committee and so we've had discussions around this so happy to talk to you and just talk through some of these issues.

per direction, we looked at a way to sort of phase out if we were interested in opening the park to the public in the relatively near future, what would a phased implementation of the master planning look like?

So instead of putting in the CIP now it would be the first year we would start doing would be in 2030 or 2031. So instead of putting in the CIP as we go through the budget process this year we're going to look for adding in 10 to 15,000 in our park at uh operating budget and then we can start next year and just do a handful of parks each year.

Our fear is that will be misused that you know there'll be unauthorized trails uh you know disturbance of nesting birds I think again the tone is so important and that people need to understand that this is special this is will be our only designated nature preserve.

The direction we heard on areas three and four from the February meeting were to relocate the proposed off leash dog area from just east of the Mills Landing parking lot in area 4 further east along Minnotonka Boulevard to area three.

one of the things is that dog the proposed site sits directly on Minnitanka Boulevard with no buffer. Dogs escape parks regularly at gates under fences during chaotic moment of arrival when owners are getting leashes on excited dogs next to a busy road. We've seen it. It's It's horrible.

nothing here that's being proposed is to the level that would require some a formal like environmental impact statement. So that's not something we would normally do. Um, anything that's proposed certainly would need to meet the city's requirements related to storm water management, tree protection.

We also looked at park-like areas significantly schools that were open to the public and had playgrounds and made sure they were accommodated on this map... And then major roadways that limit walkability. So if you were to measure as the crow flies a 10-minute walk, we now account for highways being in the way.

I would like to see how we can be a little bit more formal with the nonopus remaining two areas in terms of our uh kind of gradients for what where do we get where do we buy land where do we develop it into a park as opposed to just talking about it.

if if there is a desire by the park board to ensure that this is a tool that's being used in decision- making, the strategic plan that you will review and update at the end of the year might be a a way to include this as an important tool that's used when decisions when projects are coming up or if there's land acquisition opportunities or donations that are happening.