Heat. Heat. here. >> Samurski >> here. >> Kowski >> here >> and Sher >> here. Uh, next item is uh approval of the agenda unless anyone has any comments or changes. So, do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Uh Christie, >> uh yes. >> Hanley, >> yes. >> Cadet, >> yes. >> Larman, >> yes. >> Schultz, >> yes. >> Samurski, >> yes. >> Kowalsski, oh yes. Sorry, you don't have a vote. Apologize. >> Let him vote. Let them vote. >> Give it to you and take it away. >> Thumbs up. >> Uh and Sherham. >> Uh yes. And then uh next item, item four is the approval of minutes from our February 4th meeting. Unless anyone has any com uh comments or discussion, do I have a motion to approve those? >> I move that we approve the minutes from February 4. >> I'll second. All right. Uh Christy, >> yes. [clears throat] >> Hanley, >> yes. >> Cadet, >> yes. >> Larman, >> yes. >> Schultz, >> yes. >> Samurski, >> yes. >> And Chair Ingraham, >> yes. Item five is citizens wishing to discuss items not on the agenda. I don't think we have any tonight. So, we'll go on to uh all of our items by way tonight are justformational for comment only. There's no mo no motions now that we're done with motions on approving agendas. Um our first item is the Three Rivers Park District Bryant Lake Trail update. And Matt, you're going to kick that off? >> Sure am. Thank you, chair. Thank you, park board. Tonight, we're honored to have two project managers from the Three Rivers Park District. These are folks u managing a new regional trail that'll be coming through the city. We're lucky lucky enough to have a partnership with Three Rivers and we have two amazingly um valuable regional trails that come through the city already and they're looking to implement a new one in the upcoming years. So, they're here tonight to give you sort of a background on that process and a bit of a timeline and what to expect in terms of uh outreach to the community, engagement opportunities coming up, and just sort of the decision-m process and the features of these two trails that'll come together on sort of the east side of our city. I think you'd say mid east side of the city. So, I'll turn it over to you fellas. Please introduce yourselves. >> Hi, I'm Blake Hansen. I'm project manager at Three Rivers Park District. So, we're going to talk about the Bryant Lake and Eagle Lake regional trail system that we're uh working on right now. Get my slide clicker here. There we go. So, the trail runs from the north end of the city all the way down to the south end. Um you can see in the dash green line there's the proposed alignment. So, north of the Lake Matonk Regional Trail, we're calling it the Eagle Lake Regional Trail. >> So, north is to the right. >> Yes. Sorry. North is to the right. Yes. >> Okay. Um, >> probably makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it? Yeah. >> Uh, south of Minnetonka Boulevard is the Bryant Lake Regional Trail project. So, the Eagle Lake Regional Trail will run all the way from Eagle Lake Regional Park uh down to Minnotonka Boulevard and the Bryant Lake Regional Trail will run from Minnitanka Boulevard all the way down to Bryant Lake Regional Park. So, it's a north south corridor. So this project has been uh quite a while in the making. Um there was quite a bit of engagement done previously. Um the trail itself goes through four communities. It's a 16-m long corridor and we ultimately did one plan for both trails as kind of a a tandem. Um West Metro's trail study was on 2019. Public engagement was done in 2020. The long range plan was approved by the city of Minnitonka in July of 2021. Um, and the park district is responsible for development and maintenance and long-term care trail. So, high level, um, this is a little more detailed, so kind of a timeline. West Metro Trail study, we did 12 public events and, um, 2,000 project website visits. We identified we had uh strong support uh from the community for a north south regional trail. Long range plan was approved in 2020 2021. Park commission uh also did an alignment evaluation. Uh the public engagement was pretty intense on this. It was four virtual meetings with residents. Um 30 step-in signs directly directing residents to project information. 700 postcards were sent to all residents within one and a half miles of the proposed route. And then there really we got overwhelming feedback, positive feedback for the project. Um and then back in 2021 also we received and addressed comments um and got the alignment approved. So in December 2021 is when uh the city, Three Rivers, and Met Council approved the final plan. And then in 2020, 2022, the park district was awarded $5.5 million of federal grant for the Bryant Lake project and $3.1 million for the Eagle Lake Regional Trail Project. That kind of brings us to today. Um so 2025 through 2028. Um in 25 we started engineering for both the trail projects and construction is scheduled in 27 and 28. These are some examples of what our regional trail system looks like. Generally we aim for minimum of 10 ft wide. Sometimes depending on the conditions we have a small grass boulevard as you see in the lower left. Sometimes if we're going through green space um just simply a trail. And then on the right there, you can see, you know, if we're tight up against the road, we have to pave kind of all the way to the back of the curb. These are some of the site amenities you'll see. Um, you can see our typical kiosks, benches, bike racks. These are placed strategically along the corridor based on connections, um, areas we expect high use, and also just simply for wayf finding so people know where they're going. We will be coming back to the city for a cooperative trail agreement in 2026. Um the agreement will include the approved route. Um it'll outline property rights, design, construction, operation, and maintenance responsibilities. Um it'll include example easement and permit language. It defines the allowable uses, acknowledges cross jurisdiction enforcement of ordinances, and lastly, it establishes details for any immediate projects. um for example, a city-led project that may impact our trail system. With that, I'll hand it over to Josh to talk about the Bryant Lake project. Hi, I'm Josh Boie. I'm the senior manager of engineering and the interim director of design for the park district. Um I'm leading the uh Bryant Lake Regional Trail as the project manager. So, as Blake said, this is uh both projects are federally funded. Uh we started designing in 2025 for both projects. Um the design is intended to minimize the impacts. So along Baker Road, which is County Road 60, we will be moving the uh curb line in. We're going to narrow up the shoulders, narrow up drive lanes so we can get the uh regional trail placed within the rightway um and try to minimize the amount of temporary and permanent easements we may need. Uh we're going to utilize retaining walls to minimize um disturbance and also improve the storm water quality with the project. Um we do have a crosswalk that we're working with the city engineers on to um improve the crossing at the middle school and the trail um which will go along Baker Road um connecting to the uh Lake Minnitanka regional trail on the north um which is the green line goes down Baker Road south to Roland and then it goes along Roland and then through Lone Lake Park where it will ultimately connect with the uh Bryant Lake Regional Park. Um the trail [clears throat] from Excelsure going north is on the west side of Baker Road. Um it crosses to the east side at Excelsure and goes south to Roland. So it'll stay on the east side there and then it'll be on the north side of Roland Road. Um there's a approximately 8/10 of a mile existing trail on the north side of Roland Road that will be reconstructed to uh provide a 10-ft trail. >> Um that's like along like by the church and firehouse that area. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Uh this is really just some [clears throat] the new sections that we're going to provide. We don't have to spend too much time on this, but in Lone Lake Park on the lefth hand side, the we're following the existing alignment that's there is a 8ft gravel trail right now, and it'll be a 10-ft pave trail. Um, we're following the same grades to the greatest extent feasible. There's some grading that's required to uh improve the trail alignment for ADA and regional trail requirements we have to meet, but we're trying to minimize disruption as much as possible in the park. Um, same thing on Roland Road. So this is uh shows the existing conditions with the 8ft walk on the north side and the curb line along Roland Road will move to the south and we'll narrow out the lanes there as well to uh allow for a wider trail. Um the Baker Road segment currently it's 12t lanes with 6ft shoulders. There's some asphalt curb out there. Um, when the road is on the west side, uh, in the upper right, uh, we're gonna ideally we're going to have a [snorts] 10-ft trail with a 5-ft boulevard, create a little separation from the road, a little more, uh, comfortable for the trail users. Um, so the lower left is the proposed section on the east side. Same 10-ft trail, 5ft boulevard. uh the lower right there are some areas if you've driven Baker Road there's a lot of topography and steep slopes off of the side of the road. So some areas we will be putting the trail on the back of curb which will essentially be paving a 12t wide asphalt surface which allows for a 10ft trail and a twoft paved shoulder from traffic. There will be retaining walls to help um minimize the disruption um to private property, but we do anticipate um over 70 temporary easements for construction to help us tie into uh private property and have a nice smooth transition. Here's just a couple exhibits that just wanted to kind of show you how we're crossing Excelsier. So, north is to the right on this one. Excelsure and Baker intersection. This is where we transition from the west side, north of Excelsure to the east side, south of Excelsure. Um, this segment will be uh it's a really tight corridor. It will be constructed with a county project. So, our our project in is a it's a big project. It's two years of construction. We plan to, if all things go well, start from the north and work our way south with the trail. The county will come after us the following year and and basically do a mill and overlay of Baker Road. So, it'll be a brand new road after, but it's a a multi-year project as well. So this segment at Excelsure, the trail will be constructed with the county road project because there is some curb and gutter that needs to be shifted around and it just makes sense to uh minimize disruption at this intersection uh to one construction year. But it will be a there will be a a a narrow paved surface that allows people to utilize the trail prior to the county coming through the following year. Quick question. Yeah. So that's going to be at street level. There's no overpass, pedestrian overpass or bike overpass at this intersection. >> Correct. >> Was that considered? >> No, it was not. Just the uh the skewed angle of the intersection and the amount of rightway available, it just wasn't it wasn't really feasible. It might have been considered during the uh long-term plan process, but I don't think it gained traction if it was. >> Okay. significance of the pink. >> Oh, that that just shows um new construction. So, there's currently that's um a concrete island. >> There's currently concrete islands in there and to get the trail to fit. We're reconstructing those and narrow narrowing up the islands and shifting them a little bit. >> Okay. Is is there a um I probably should have caught this on the previous slides, but is the U bike lane on the with on the same plane as the cars. Is that staying or is the bike lane going away? >> Um so the shoulders will be narrower. Um we're going to have four or five foot shoulders. So that'd be really narrow to have an on street bike lane. The uh the objective is to provide a safe off- street alternative for all users, bikes, rollerblades, walkers. >> So, did you say there was a curb separating the road from the the trail? >> Yes, we will be adding um curb and gddard concrete so we'll sit up higher than the roadway. >> Is there um are there ways to make the trail stay smooth longer? Um, as a bicyclist, um, my preference is often to ride in the street because it's smoother, the pa the surface is in better shape. >> So, the park district, we have a kind of get into our preventive maintenance plan. Um, all of our trails, we [clears throat] try to get 30 years out of the life of the trail. So, every 7 years we have what we call a microsurfacing project where um it consists of a pre-repair project to seal large cracks. Um we might remove and replace some of the trail if it's damaged or settled or if there's root damage and we'll install root barrier if there's damage. So, we'll reconstruct it then resurface it. And it's a you've seen driveway sealers. I imagine it's more of a beefed up version of that that helps um minimize some of the smaller >> um type cracks and and bumps. So, every seven years we will do a microsurfacing project to give it a basically a brand new surface. It's not a mill and overlay where we're taking off any asphalt and resurfacing, but it's kind of a a thicker surfacing. Um we also every two to four years try to do a routine crack filling. So any any cracks, we try to seal those up to help prevent those from getting wider or causing severe bumps. So that's >> okay. >> What we've been doing. >> Great. Thanks. >> Uh this is the trunk highway 7 bridge. Uh north is to the right again. >> Um currently there's >> two southbound lanes and I think one northbound lane. Um the plan is to have the trail on the west side and we're going to install a concrete barrier that separates the trail from the roadway and and then the the black striping there is basically going to be the yellow striping that you see. So vehicles will be about 12 to 13 ft away from the barrier from the trail as well. So it'll be a wellprotected crossing um of trunk highway 7. So, there's kind of a blind turn in a vehicle at this bridge location. Are are you looking at different sight lines to make sure that it's a safe crossing for bicycles >> um >> or other non-motorized vehicles? >> So, which which turn are you talking about? Is it one of the on-ramp the on-ramp to the south or >> you sounded like you were you familiar with it? I thought I heard someone. So, it's um coming from uh 7 West >> 7 West >> to go to Baker um south >> by the church. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, when you're getting off of the hill >> Yes. Thank you. >> I was trying to sound really fancy with my directions, but >> it's a it's a blinded and it's almost really scary in a car. >> The trail's going to be on the other side. >> Yeah, that'll be this will be better. >> Yeah. So, the trail won't be in front of that. um ramp. It'll be on the west side. Um vehicle-wise, it should be an improvement because on the [clears throat] left side of the screen, you see that dashed black line. That's a left turn lane and a through lane, so there won't be uh two lanes of traffic, so it should hopefully make it easier. I I don't know about the sight lines. We're not changing the grades of the road. Uh but we are changing the configuration of the lane. So that should hopefully help um with seeing a few two vehicles coming at you and and finding the gaps. >> Uh this is at the middle school, Hopkins Middle School West. Uh this is a very preliminary layout that um city engineering staff is working on. Um and it'll be incorporated with the project. Um most of it with the county roadway project, but currently there's an existing crosswalk that aligns to the south side of the school entrance with the sidewalk. And the school is doing some internal work, too. They're going to be adding a sidewalk on the north side of that entrance drive. So, the idea is to narrow up that crossing so there's not a a wide shoulder. So if somebody stopped for a student to cross, nobody can drive around that vehicle. >> Oh, that's good. >> So it'll be a narrow road. Um safer. The crossing will be on the north and it'll just be uh an improvement from what's there now. >> And again again your trail is going straight down the the left side. >> Yes. And our trail is on the west side. >> Yep. >> Um so this is just kind of a our construction progress. This is from a a project that this was actually constructed last year. Uh a similar type project where starting in the upper left and going across the top. It just shows an existing condition, our removals, our new curb and gutter being placed as it moved into the lane of traffic. And then the lower left, it shows just some grading, some base course and some top soil, then paving and then restoration. So, it this was a project that converted a 5ft sidewalk um into a a 10-ft trail with a 5ft boulevard. Just kind of a if you're not aware of how the construction it is messy. It is more disruption than what we anticipate, but just wanted to kind of give you a preview of that. Um our schedule, we kicked off design January 2025. We're expecting it to be completed by January 27. We're we're going to be acquiring easements. If you drove along the corridor, you might have seen some stakings out in people's yards. So, we're in that process of appraisers and reaching out to uh property owners and and negotiating with them. That'll happen through the rest of this year. Um, as Blake mentioned, there's trailway agreements that the park district will have with the city and we also will have one with the county. So, we're we're developing those this year as well. Hoping to bid early 2027 and then have construction start um spring of 27 as well, maybe once load restrictions come off and and possibly earlier. There's there's some trees that will have to be removed and we need to do removals um outside of the uh threatened species, the long-eared bat. So we are working through all the natural resources and and mindful of endangered and threatened species as well with this project. So construction will begin major construction probably the the May April time frame and then two years and then we'd have a ribbon cutting at the end. >> Yes. >> Um do you plan on using condemnation or eminent domain for your >> We're hoping everybody's just a willing seller and we're able to work through that on a case-by case basis. Um, we I haven't had a project where I've had to use it in the past, but the park district has in the past, but we do not. And we're hopeful that everybody is just willing to work with us on this project. >> And I'll just >> Is it too early to ask about signage? >> For example, when the path changes sides of Baker Road, so are will there be some indication to PE? I guess you'll be able to see it, but if it's not clear to the person on the path that they need to cross >> both Excelsier and Baker and then proceed. >> Yes, we we will have signage up. We have we have a few different types of signage at at that intersection. We have some smaller 12 by 18 inch signs with some arrows. So, it'll be guidance to show the proper crossing because we want people to cross on the west leg and south leg of that intersection. Mhm. >> So, we'll we'll have signs that show the the preferred crossing route for the regional trail. >> You're still going, right? You're still you're still presenting. >> Um Blake will be I'm going to hand it over to >> Blake. Let's hold questions till the end. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thanks. Sorry. >> Oh, that's okay. [clears throat] >> All right. So, we'll talk about the Eagle Lake Regional Trail a little bit. So impacts, similar to Josh's project, we're we're really trying to minimize our our footprint and our impacts. Uh we are going to we're proposing to narrow a couple of county roads. So Plymouth Road um south of Ridgdale Drive and then uh Hopkins Crossroad just north of Weisetta Boulevard on the north side of 394. Um so on the left there you can see the the green is the proposed improvements. So along Zachary Lane uh on the north end is purple there. You can see that's where we're connecting on to the city of Plymouth uh partnership project we're doing with them. They're constructing a portion of the trail up to Loose Line. And then from there to the south we're constructing it down to the south fronted road on the south side of 394. So somewhere in there, city limits. I think it's Fairfield is the the crossroad there. But um so that'll be primarily on the east side of Hopkins Crossroad and then it switches over at Fairfield actually to the west side and that'll carry you all the way down past the County Road 73 Transit Station and then along the South Frontage Road. So there is quite a bit of existing trail along that stretch. Um, we're reconstructing it, widening it out where needed. Um, most of that, I think, is getting reconstructed, if not all. As we go along the South Frontage Road, all of that will be reconstructed. Right now, I think there's like a sixoot sidewalk there, asphalt, 7 foot maybe. Um, all that will get reconstructed until we get to Ridgdale Boulevard or Ridgel Drive, excuse me. >> And then the city actually did quite a bit of work in that area recently, as I'm sure you guys are aware. And the trail there is in excellent condition. So, we won't be touching that. So, we're going to pick up that little green segment that he's pointing at now. Um, we'll do a little bit there from Ridgedale Drive down to Hillway and that'll be reconstructed. And then from there, again, um, the the trail south of there until we get down to Minnetonka Boulevard is actually in quite good shape. It's not end of life yet. There's not a need to reconstruct it at this point. So, >> sorry, sorry, sorry. >> Oh, okay. [laughter] >> I'll get into it. We'll get there. Um, >> you're going too slow. >> Yeah. Yeah, I got to speed up. Got it. Thank you. Um, so point being, a lot of it is in place where we are doing work. We actually currently don't expect to need any easements. We're not going to be approaching anybody hopefully to get property or anything like that. Uh, utilities uh, relocation is is minimal. There are some areas where we will have the trail to back a curb like we showed before just where it's a little bit tighter so that we can avoid uh further impacts. Uh we are also because we're doing some lane drops and some other work, we're actually going to be reducing our impervious footprint which is better for flood plane impacts and water quality and everything like that. So it should have a close to a net benefit to the to the area. Uh tree removals, last I looked, there's a a pretty small quantity of tree removals. Again, we're using kind of the existing footprint, so we shouldn't have to take too many trees. So, I've got a bunch of these in here. I'm going to buzz through them really fast. So, uh, so on the top, you can see the existing sections. So, North Plymouth Road, this is from city limits down to, uh, oh, excuse me, did I skip a slide? No, I just got it. Uh, North Plymouth Road. So, this is from Hillaway to the library driveway. So, this is one area. You can see in the top left there are three lanes and this view is looking north. So, there's a turn lane that goes into the library [clears throat] driveway or the parking ramp there. >> We're actually going to drop that lane if the county approves it. It's not really necessary. It doesn't seem warranted based on the use it gets. So, that'll provide us with a nice healthy grass boulevard. >> Um on the right there, you can see we can't really drop a lane in that area. We don't really need to, but we will have to tighten things up and put that trail at the back of curb until we get to Ridgedale where things really open up for for the trail south frontage road. You can see that uh 7ft trail there that's existing. Pretty steep drop off in some areas on the back side. We're going to separate that by narrowing up the road a little bit. So right now there's um was it 5 foot shoulders? I can't remember. Six foot shoulders. They're quite wide. Uh we'll be reducing those or eliminating them. um providing reasonable travel lanes and then being able to provide a a nice green space and a wider trail 10 ft. These are a couple of different circumstances you'll see along that south road. Some areas with we obviously want to avoid any impacts to wetlands or crane lake if at all possible. And so you can see where things get really tight um like on the lower right there. You know, there are some areas where there's an existing retaining wall or there's simply not space to widen out the trail. So we'll use combinations of retaining walls, fences with steeper slopes, um different circumstances and different tools in order to mitigate any impacts to the wetlands or lake. Then as we go north, so this is just north of Weisetta Boulevard on Hopkins Crossroad. On the left, you can see that the trail is I think there's like 3 ft there, something like that, between the existing trail and the curb. And then there's utility poles in there. It's kind of tight. It's not laid out very well. Uh it doesn't feel great riding along there. So, what we're proposing to do is drop a lane as you can see in that right section. So, there's only two southbound lanes. And then we will widen out the boulevard. The utility poles will stay in a similar similar location, but they will be further from the trail. So, it won't feel so congested. So, the left is the existing, the right is the proposed. And then going north from there, like I mentioned, a lot of existing trail. Not a huge change there. We're pretty much just widening out the trail and putting it back where it is, just 2 feet wider than the current conditions. Similar to the Bryant Lake project, design started in 25. We hope to wrap it up by early 2027, bid um in early 2027, wintertime, early spring, and begin construction in May. This is a one-year project. It's got a much smaller scope, so we can condense it into a single year and then we'd have a ribbon cutting in fall of 27 or spring of 28. >> Well, I guess one more thing to add, um, community outreach, Bryant Lake, we had a uh open house uh in February this last year. We had over 40 people attend uh walked them through the project, um, answered any questions they had. Uh, Blake will have be having an open house for Eagle Lake coming up in the next probably month or two. I don't think a a firm date has been set because we're waiting on that lane drop information from the county, but um you know, we had public engagement during the long-term plan and then we did we will be holding at least one we one open house for each project just to inform the public um give them a little information on the design where we're at and progress from there. So, >> and I recall you had a survey too, right, for this project at some point? Did they complete an online survey? >> You may have um >> that was probably during the long range plan. I would think there might have been something asking for some input. >> Thank you. Other other questions questions, discussion. >> Um is um thanks for explaining all that. That was helpful. Um there's I not notice there's going to be some grass strips. Um, is there any possibility that could be native plants that are short? >> You know, that question did come up at the city council, too. We we we would consider that there's there's um there's a couple things that we're thinking about with that grass strip is, you know, it's along a road. There's a lot of salt put down. So to be salt tolerable, I don't know how the native plants would hold up on that. Um we would also want them to be, you know, lower as well just for visibility. Um in Lone Lake Park, we are looking at using a uh native natural uh reveation for areas that we're disturbing. We don't need to turf it. So we'll do some native plantings there just because it doesn't need to m be maintained. So, in Lone Lake Park, we we are um I think we're still determining what we might do in the that grass strip and I probably a tolerant turf is probably what we end up going with grass seed. Um but we haven't made our final decision on that yet. >> I was just thinking if it was if it could be something that was naturally low growing, it would need to be mowed and that would save a little money somewhere. >> Yeah. And I think we're we're still looking at that. If there is a uh natural vegetation that does not need need to be maintained that is tolerant to salt, that would be a great option, I think, because then the homeowners don't have to mow it. Um well, I've got a few question. First, I want to thank you. This is a terrific project. Um it's one the city's very interested in. Our first we talk about as our first north south trail. Um and uh and he put a lot of work in this and it's a a great plan. Um my questions are f first I'm really happy because I was a little concerned on trail width and it looks like virtually everywhere you're going to 10 ft. The Eagle Lake part that goes from Ridgedale down Plymouth Road to Minnitanka Mills. You're not doing any Is that wide enough? Is that 10 ft now? The city the city path. >> Yeah. So, we're taking that over from the city. It is not a large portion that is 8 ft currently, but as I mentioned, it's >> it's great pavement actually. It's in it's in good shape overall. Yeah. So, that would be when we come back or or do future projects, that would be once it starts getting closer to end of life and it's not maintainable anymore, that would be a reconstruction at that point. But, >> as of right now, >> some of those spots look a little narrow if you've got pedestrians and stuff with bikers. So, >> yeah. >> I'm just curious. >> Um, and then, uh, >> Bryant, you call it Lone Lake. So, when you get to, um, the entrance to Lone Lake where you transition from the street trail to the existing area. Uh, are you going to maintain that as whatever it's called, limestone, or is it going to be paved? >> No, that that that would be paved. So, how far the will the pavement extend all the way to the to the Bryant Lake pave trail then? >> It will. >> So, that whole section will be paved. Okay. >> Y >> that's interest. Good. That's great. Um let's see. I had another one here. Man, okay. I got it. Uh oh, two last two. One that's a question and one that's more controversial probably. Richale, um I'm really familiar with a lot of your trails. I I tend to think about them particularly as biking and I'm not familiar with a lot of your trails though that go through a kind of commercial high traffic area like Ridgedale and I'm kind of are you do you have other examples where you've got a trail going through that a section like that and what that's been like because you've got you know a lot of people going in and out of the library and the government center and you all those other I'm just kind of curious how you feel about that part. >> Yes, we have some other ones. the Shingo Creek Regional Trail in Brooklyn Center that's up um kind of by Highway 100 and 694. >> Okay. >> Um that's through a similar type area, very urban. Uh it it works pretty well. The the pavement striping I think helps define because we we stripe our regional trails with the center line and and depending on on on um the need, we might put a edge stripe on it to really define it. It it's been it's been pretty good with uh you know interactions between people coming and going from the mall area or a high commercial area. Um we have some trails through Richfield too along I think it's 60th Street or they have they have a Richfield Parkway. It's there's some I think it's by 66th Street. There's a urban area with um homes and um I think a six-story apartment building, Target, Home Depot. So, so there it it works pretty well. It's it's pretty well defined. People both on the trail and driving, they do have to be on the lookout and you got to be very >> very attentive. Um you can't just put your head down and go. So, there is a little more u awareness that's needed in these type of situations. But we're not we're not concerned um going through there. Um, we do have a uh trail crossing guidance that that we utilize just to be consistent for our regional trail. So, if people are on the trail, it's consistent about when when is it safe to cross, whether it's a stop sign, yield sign at a crossing, and then how we treat the commercial driveways, too. Some are treated, you know, as a stop condition. Some are treated as, hey, the trail user has the rightway and walkers. So, we try to be consistent as we can through those situations. >> Okay. Um, ebikes. Um, I know you're maybe constrained by the state statute on ebikes, but I I'm concerned personally concerned and I guess as a board member concerned about ebikes existing already like on the Lake Mitaka Trail, but I'm particularly thinking about, you know, this trail going especially being paved now versus uh limestone and being closely adjacent to a major street. Uh, is there anything you can do to restrict ebike usage on your trails or are you you stuck by the state? >> So, not an expert on it. I usually defer to Danny McCulla on the ebikes. However, what I've how I understand them, there's there's we're restricted by the state. Ebikes are allowed on the trails. Um, but there are restrictions on ebikes. I think it is it 15. Yeah. >> And younger. So, so that the enforcement is different because you know some bikes look like ebikes but they're basically >> motorcycles. It's all based on the class one, two, and three. And >> um >> I think there's an educational component and then the >> you know we we only have so many police officers. Um you know, it's hard to stop them. There's educational component, but we do allow ebikes, the legal ebikes rode by legal individuals on the trails. Um it it's a concern everywhere. I mean they it can go fast and if you're not >> I just was curious >> anything that way. >> Okay. Other questions or comments? Jennifer, >> I thought it you did a nice job on the presentation. I didn't really have a lot of questions uh or that you answered them, I should say. Um I'm curious about the funding source. Was it FHWA or what who was the funding source um for these projects? >> It was a uh a stip grant a uh so it's a state transportation. So the park district um applied for it was awarded it. Um park district when we do these projects we we will 100% fund it with you know us finding grants or using our own um general obligation grants. Um so we fund it and then if um you know our city or county partner has um you know add-ons, hey we want to have a local trail connection or something then our city or county partner would fund the additional service or additional scope. So you know as so so we fund it and we work with our partners city and county to uh help implement it too. I mean there's you know when people see a construction project they're going to call the city first. So, we're we're working to help them. Hey, direct them to our park district website and information into us so we can maybe handle some of the questions, but um yeah, the park district has the federal funding and then the match as well that's needed. >> Okay. Is there much city funds that are going towards this project? >> Depends on the project. I know we're talking about utility burial. >> Yes. >> And that would be paid for by the city. >> That's not cheap. >> No, it's not. >> Couple hundred,000 I believe. We take those opportunities to vary them when we can talk boulevard for instance and this one too. >> I I guess I do have one last question maybe for you or might even for for Darren. Um the Lake Minnitanka Trail is three river parks but we plow it, right? Is that a contract or just an agreement? We do do that. >> No, we have a winter maintenance permit that we apply for. Uh we have an option to do one to three years. Uh we do the three-year option. So yep, we we do the plowing from No, I get it mixed up. November to March. November 1st to March 15th, I think it is. But yeah, and and uh the current I'll call it the roll in to Bryant path today. the city does from roll into the underpass and Three Rivers does after that or not. >> The Say that again. >> The trail maintenance today on the the limestone path that goes from Roland Road or down south to the to the >> down to 62 on the Three Rivers Trail. Yeah, we go Yeah, we follow that >> the uh River Bluffs Trail from Hopkins down to 62. Uh, >> no, I don't mean that one. I mean literally from Lone Lake Park south along, you know, where the trail goes today? >> Yeah. So, we don't do any plowing in Lone Lake Park in the winter. >> No, I mean, I'm sorry. >> We just do the trail Roland Road. >> Okay. >> We plow this we plow the trail on Roland Road. >> Well, I guess my question is who maintain who will maintain the trail that's going to go in from under Roland Road down to Bryant down to 62? We haven't done those agreements yet, but I assume we will do the winter maintenance on this. I was just curious stretch >> because that's that would be, you know, with it being paved and all that'll be really nice to have open. So, >> yeah. >> Great. >> One more question. >> Um, yeah. So, I thought I thought it was cool to see that you're using mostly existing RLW, not maybe even reducing some of the impervious footprint. Um, and I know someone asked a little bit about like native plantings and some of those boulevard strips. I wonder if you could talk a little more about like the building materials if there's any chance of more significant um reduction in impervious surface or sort of some storm water infrastructure there. >> So for the Bryant Lake project, we're still finalizing our storm water treatment. Um there's there's uh two different wersheds we're working in. Uh, Highway 7 is a split between NM Creek and Miniha Creek. So, different rules and and so we're we're balancing everything trying to minimize disturbance. Uh, material-wise, I we may have to get creative depending on what happens um with I'm entertaining pvious pavement. It It's not great for trails. We We do have some pavements at uh one of our parks. It's a walking trail. um holds up pretty well, but it's not it's not something I want to jump to right away. Um there might be like a filtration system that's under the trail, which would be a aggregate that has voids that can help um treat water before it gets discharged. Um we're we're not we're not finalized. We're still exploring what options we want to use to meet the requirements. Um but Blake could talk about Eagle. I don't know where he's at. Yeah, because we're kind of at a net zero almost for impervious. Uh we don't have to do a lot. We will be doing some minor swailes with some native vegetation along uh Hopkins Crossroad. That's the the current plan anyway. There will be a small amount of vegetation that's uh native planting. That'll be I think on the back side of the trail, so away from the road. And again, like Josh was talking about, it's salt salt tolerant plants are uh most of them are not. Let's put it that way. Um so there's a little bit of that. We could reduce impervious more, but it's kind of a balancing act of how much money do we have and what are we trying to achieve. Um, as far as materials go, we're we're not planning to use any pvious pavements or anything like that. Again, there's just not really a significant need on our project. We already have a lot of green space and really we're adding quite a bit of green space and reducing that impervious. So, that's our current plan. >> Cool. Good job. Thank you. >> Okay, Caleb. Uh, does the Bryant Lake Trail connect with Nine Mile Creek Trail? >> Um, no it doesn't. It It would through So to connect that way actually just Oops. I moved the wrong way. >> I think we might have overall map in here. I don't know if we >> there. that might. >> So, the Bryant Lake, it does connect with Lake Minnetonka and nine and um Minnesota River Bluffs. And both of those trails, if you take those to the east, will connect in Hopkins, and that's where you could hit the Nine Mile Creek. >> Yeah. >> So, it's more of a roundabout. It's not not through the Bryant Lake Regional Park. You wouldn't be able to get over there that way. Maybe there's some local trails that I'm not aware of through there. [clears throat] Um there might be, but I haven't looked. But at on the park district system, you would utilize um those two trails and kind of go to the north and then over to Hopkins. Well, thank you. We're looking forward to uh what is it 2028? >> Yes. [laughter] >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you for having us. >> Thank you. >> All right. With that, we're on to 7A um natural resources division outreach plan. >> Yes. Uh parkboard uh members and chair. Um just to give Christine a little bit a minute to get settled here, I'll start. So, as you know, every year uh we like to uh present on our natural resources engagement efforts. This includes outreach, education, volunteerism. Um obviously, this goes beyond what happens in our parks. So, this is more citywide, but it it it does provide some definitely some opportunities to engage with residents in our parks, help them understand what's in our parks. Um, specifically related to natural resources. Um, since obviously the park board has an interest in protecting uh natural resources and stewardship, this is a nice um uh connection to that work. So, I will turn it over to Christine Peterson. She is our uh natural resources engagement coordinator and she's in our natural resources division which is in public works. So I work with her closely and I will turn it over to you. Thank you Lesie. Good evening chair and park board. Glad to be here this evening to give an update on public engagement. Um, I thought what I would start at kind of a high level for new new park board members and any members of the public who uh might be unfamiliar with what we do in terms of natural resources public engagement. I uh tend to think that we have three pillars that hold this up. Um or you might think of them as a scaffold. We turn that on its side. Uh that we start with outreach that creates public awareness. build on that with education that gives residents uh information and skills and then that leads to the broader education that allows them to take action once they're really uh invested in our parks in their own property uh or wherever they are thinking about natural resources, natural systems. So engagement has the value of empowering our community to protect and enjoy natural resources wherever they are. That may be as a volunteer in the parks. It may be as just a park a park not just but a park user might be at their home at their place of worship on a school campus. Uh just about anywhere. And the priorities and themes that we try to emphasize through the engagement program um overlap the priority areas of work for natural resources as a division. So if you think of our mission of water quality and water conservation, protecting our community forest, building habitat, um controlling invasive species, improving soil health in our urban uh environment, all of that leading to community resilience, um and overcoming barriers that might keep people from engaging in our parks um and taking these actions on their own property. And while we want to reach out to everybody, we certainly take different strategies for different audiences that might go from residents and park visitors to folks who work here, including city staff. uh emphasizing particularly youth, educators, underrepresented populations, and uh availing ourselves of partnerships whenever we can with other across city divisions and departments uh with our overlapping watershed districts, the county, the state, uh nonprofit organizations. We do a lot with Ridgedale Library promoting events with local businesses and then our wonderful volunteers. So just as a broad overview, those strategies might include everything from a social media post, a highway billboard that somebody who's not even will never stop in Minnotonka, but maybe they get a message. um our website, flyers on a community billboard. We do a lot of articles, blog entries, infographics, posters. We have some interpretive signage uh and increasing numbers of online resources and learning modules and multimedia in general and then hold a lot of presentations, workshops, workshops. We have a technical assistance program in addition to volunteerism. So looking at how that all played out in 2025, uh I I'll kind of hit on three main areas. So volunteerism, uh pollinator awareness, and community resilience. So we engage volunteers for a lot of reasons. They increase our capacity of course, but also when they volunteer, they um connect more to our parklands. They can see on the ground uh how invasive species can be removed and and replaced with something that is more resilient. They meet people they might not meet in other circumstances. Uh and of course they're just outdoors. Lots of reasons to engage volunteers and we're so pleased with the response we get to volunteer uh efforts through. Uh there's a a long list there of of folks in ongoing roles like our adopt a spot person who might just work on their own um on invasive species control or habitat restoration to groups. Uh you've seen the new park signs of course and around those are little uh pocket gardens that we've got volunteers working on starting last year and and at this year again as more signs go in. Everything from Cargill to Boy Scouts. uh lots of folks participating in volunteerism and by the numbers that looks like 334 volunteers. 79 of those were on ongoing volunteers, people who uh commit to a role for that year and come back uh for many hours over the course of the year. 3,300 plus hours of volunteer service. That's the equivalent of one and a half full-time staff members. And the value to our community calculated at about $15,000. That's based on a number produced by uh a nonprofit called Independent Sector uh that tells the average value of volunteerism every year looking at pollinator awareness. Uh this is 2026 will be our 10th year with the National Wildlife Federation's mayor's monarch pledge which basically is a framework to help us do pollinator awareness and habitat protection enhancement creation um across city departments and bringing in uh p the public and partners and uh since 2020 we have been nationwide leaders in this program uh five times. We'll do it again. And community resilience is based in our resilient Minnotonka program that um offers education and resources, incentives like a a native plant sale or a compost bin sale uh at reduced price, technical assistance and funding options to help people identify and set goals and implement them on their home landscapes. And this is valuable and has a great intersection with the work in the parks and the the broader strategic planning that happens in natural resources because um we know that more than half of the natural areas in the city of Minnetonka are on private property. So, we want to get folks participating, aware of of what we feel the priorities are, the opportunities, and then availing themselves uh of all the benefits that can come from diverse, resilient habitat. 79 participants last year. Folks participate in many different ways in this program. I wish I had a way to draw a concept map of it for you, but basically um some people just want a discount coupon. They want some information. They want to be pointed to uh say our Buckthornne learning module and then they will take it from there. They maybe take a discount coupon for native plant plugs or seeds, but some would like a a free site consultation. Some want buckthornne pickup, which we also provide for free. uh after a site consultation that opens a door for assistance with design and planning of a of a a planting uh goal and potential rebates for project installation. looking at 2026, uh digital access accessibility citywide is a priority this year. And so we are taking a lot of the uh PDFbased and print resources that we've created for folks over years and converting them to digital formats and blogs that are uh more accessible. We heard from residents and others that uh natural resources was sometimes a bit of a mystery. What do we do? Who are we? Why is it special this this division that Minnetonka has? Um and how does it relate to their lives and their priorities at home? Um, so we now have a digital resource that we rolled out, I think in May called Get to Know Natural Resources where folks can explore and learn more and link to many of the other resources that we're creating. Direct uh feedback from Resilient Minnotonka participants told us that their priorities moving forward were more education and more funding to make things happen. So, we will do that. This is one of the households that uh did a planting in their front yard last year as a turf replacement. Of course, we want to maintain our role as a nationwide leader in pollinator education and protection and share that expertise uh and model as much as we can. This, for example, is a monarch butterfly in and out lot that we're restoring at the intersection of Plymouth and Inesse Roads. We want to keep engaging folks in new ways and in person through workshops, presentation and events. We had a community reads last year. We'll do that again. Lots of workshops and whatnot. And then we want to find sort of surprising ways where um people aren't really looking for education or or um engagement and yet they get it. Uh we did these drain stencils that only show up when they're wet. >> A little message there. We have photo stations in three parks so that people can uh take and submit photos that are added into a time lapse. So, um we can watch restoration in progress and more so ways that folks can participate. Uh again, this is just a a reiteration of the kinds of things that we do from year to year. Um on our website is a page called natural resources events and that lists all of the upcoming uh volunteer events and workshops. For example, this coming Tuesday we have a buckthornne workshop, one of three we'll hold this year. There are bird surveys, there are garlic mustard volunteer opportunities, and we have a monthly e- bulletin that folks can subscribe to in order to learn uh you get an article every month um but also to learn about upcoming events and opportunities both through the city and we often promote things um for our partners. And that's everything I had, but I'm happy to answer questions. >> Thank you. questions, comments. >> Thank you. Thank you, Christine. This is great. I think the outreach is just wonderful. Um, I have some ideas and just some comments about how we as a park board and our constituents and stakeholders can be more involved. And so, I'm just going to throw some ideas at you um in addition to what you've already got laid out here. So the grungiest time of year is springtime uh where everything all garbage is laying under all the snow banks and it emerges just like dandelions and uh we have done in our neighborhood spring cleanups on a regular basis and we make it sort of a fun event for kids and neighbors to get involved. Is that anything that you can help do outreach, project a little bit more uh enthusiasm on on the reason that that's so important for the biodiversity? Because um I carry a garbage bag with me every time I take a walk now because there is so much trash in our parks and I see a lot >> and it's a it's really pretty disgusting. So, how can we do that? Because it's a very participatory activity and it's easy to get people involved if you ask, >> right? Uh and certainly litter is always an issue and and always will be. At this point, our volunteerism and events are mostly centered around habitat restoration. Um it's not to say that we couldn't do those things. Watershed districts sometimes do. Um, and uh, it's not impossible, but I I think we tend to lean toward events that um, folks are contributing to something that then will when we do litter, there's always more litter. When we do restoration, we see change and it helps people participate in a long-term change that they can watch. And so that's but also the focus of natural resources is habitat and that's so that's kind of why we've we've leaned that way. I would not rule it out. Um but I do think that that the opportunity to do uh habitat can be really powerful for people as well. >> And I don't disagree. A couple of thoughts in terms of feedback. Um I think that neighbors working with neighbors is very powerful in terms of moral persuasion. uh that peer pressure is really helpful and it can be very good for their kids as well to see the parents modeling that kind of behavior. So you're getting people engaged with their neighbors who say, "Yeah, that's a good idea." And if if Brad's doing it, then really I should do it, too, because I'm going to look like a lackey if I don't go out there and pick up a few bags of garbage. So I I I really think it's a powerful process with the neighborhood associations. Uh I think you increase your volunteerism. And in terms of habitat, um, nothing is more powerful, I think, for people to see habitat that's clean. Uh, nobody wants to see gloves and scarves and paper towels and and all the garbage that you see, especially now in the springtime. So, I'm I'm going to strongly push for you to consider that as an activity. >> Let me mention, >> so we do have an adopt a park program. So, people can >> form a group. If an association has something by a park, they can adopt that park. It can be a long-term thing, a multi-year thing where uh they can we can put a sign up that they say they've adopted the park and then every the the amount of time you want to put in is unlimited on our end, but you know, like a springtime cleanup, people can do that. We get uh approached by cub scrout groups or different volunteer groups that just want to go in and clean a park. >> We'll take anything. But yeah, we have that available through the through the parks. Great. Thank you. >> And I think I'm listed as the contact for that, but we really I haven't done much [laughter] yet this time. So, I should mention um the adopt a drain program. That's actually a state program, but that's where you adopt a a storm drain. Yes. >> In your neighborhood or wherever >> um and regularly clean it. And that's really closely connected to what we do in that we're getting organic litter, sediment, and sometimes trash out of storm drains before it goes directly into a waterway. And uh actually can then report that to so that the folks who are in charge of that program can determine the impact, the amount of nutrient for example that did not wind up in a waterway because of and and families often do that. Yeah. Do you have flyers that indicate the benefits of doing that? Because uh we we we have about eight storm rings. Happens to be in my neighborhood. I have adopted one and another neighbor has adopted one. So we have two people, but nobody's has one bit of interest in the other six. And it's gucky work, you know, to sometimes thankless work. >> It's thankless work, but it's great to see when it's clean. And so is there something that, you know, we could do to increase participation through flyers and education as to why it's such a good idea? Um, I think we could probably hold a uh a field day sort of event where we we sort of explained not only how do you do this, but why does it matter? What what's the outcome? >> I wouldn't even need a field day. I just need a one pager with some pictures on it and I'm going to go around my neighbors and knock on the door and make them feel guilty. >> Sure. I think the adopted drain >> there's a flyer. I think the adopted drain website has information, but I'm sure that I have a flyer and would be more than happy to provide that to the park board for your information. Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Just jump in to tag on to Brad's idea. Just a additional thought. Um, my kids do baseball at the Glen Lake parks and little guys are given a bucket to walk around and collect trash from people in the stands and then they get to go up to the stand and get their slurpee, their their freezy freezy thing. >> Yeah. >> And that's a big deal. They're really excited about that. [laughter] Um, and we've done the Yeti Yeti search in [clears throat] the park. And I just to build on Brad's thought is, you know, if you had a this weekend at the Big Willow, bring your kids in a and and we'll provide bags and they walk kids if if you collect stuff and bring it back to the parking lot, we're going to give you, you know, >> something. >> Give a coupon to the Dairy Queen. I'm telling you. Yeah. >> Give a $5 coupon code at Dairy Queen. will work for you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Just a thought. Just a thought because I thought that's an interesting idea. >> So other Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. Um I wanted to ask a little bit more about some of the like digitizing efforts that you've been doing. I think the the sort of QR code photo thing in the park is really cool. And then I also saw a screenshot from like story maps. I'm wondering what other what other sort of websites or platforms are you using to share some of that information that used to be a PDF. >> Right. So, mostly at this point we're using uh story maps and story map products like briefings um that uh folks can interact with and move through uh to get the information they need. And sometimes it's a broadformational message like what is natural resources and sometimes it's a training tool. For example, a thousands of people have gone to our Buckthornne training module to learn how to why it matters, how to control it, what to do after it's gone, how to dispose of it. Uh and so we we use those in a lot of like that and the simpler messages article style things happen um through the blog mostly or through the the e-bulletin and then I do quite a few tableabling opportunities every year. So we have posters, handouts at those uh lots of presentations and talks and um just chatting, you know, sort of like we're doing right now, sitting down with a group of people and and talking about something. Um multimedia it is mostly with uh story maps. We would like to do more video, but it's pretty labor intensive and so um bit by bit I think we'll build into that. >> Cool. Do you do you maintain a lot of like public natural resource maps on the on those as well or is it mostly sort of >> the right so the story map is the is the the resource only a couple of them actually avail themselves of the mapping portion of that program. Um but in get to know natural resources that new one about our division um there is a map that folks can use to explore where can you see where we're actually trying different strategies that are in our natural resources master plan. Choosing the right tree for the right place building soil health protecting water quality. Those actions we're taking. We have an example of that on the interactive map. >> Oh, that's good to know. Yeah, it is really great to be able to sort of see the place that you could visit the the natural resource concept at. >> Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for your interest, >> Christine. I enjoy your presentation every year. Such great passion for your job and [laughter] enthusiasm for spreading the word to many people. Um I also appreciate that you're tracking metrics, volunteer hours, number of volunteers, your participants in resilient Matonka. >> Yes. >> Um it'd be helpful in the future to see like the trends over time. Are those are those all growing over time or are they are some plateau, you know? Um >> yeah, >> that would be interesting to see. >> I don't disagree with you. I'm not sure based on on what I've se for several years of resilient Minnotonka for example now the ups and downs I'm not sure how to interpret them and when I get a handle on that we've seen like tons of people the second year there were almost 200 people who applied but how much that goes to action is what I really want to start seeing I think we're going to need some time on that and we're still I feel like we're still piling it piloting it in some ways in that uh we changed the amount of funding available in different portions of the program every year including this year it's going to jump a lot and that can affect participation and word of mouth and whatnot but I'm with you on the metrics and as soon as I start seeing trends I will be pleased I can for example on volunteerism it's interesting we had more volunteers last year more people participated. >> Cool. >> But the a number of the average number of hours per person was exactly the same. We had 450 volunteers last year for whatever reason compared to this year and we had about 4,500 hours. So the participation seems to be fairly steady. It's going to vary based on where are we. For example, some of our parks are coming uh to not a conclusion necessarily, but but some uh midpoint on restoration that maybe doesn't need as many volunteer hours. Um, so we'll be finding new ways to engage people and I think it's just interesting to see that the commitment is still there and I really love seeing the numbers of ongoing volunteers who are participating month after month, year after year. >> Yeah, that's awesome. >> Thank you, >> Christine. Are those volunteer hours um all adults or does it also track children who may be involved? >> I do include in the main number. We do uh have some events that are suitable for young people. We do a lot of buckthornne control which is less suitable for kids. >> Um but we have families that come to events. I know uh n some of the neighborhood events uh Minnesota off-road cyclists, friends of Minnotonka Parks, geocachers are all on growing ongoing big groups that sometimes have families. I've worked with Minnetonka High School. I'm working with Lionsgate Academy this year. So, we do have uh young people who are participating in one way or another. And I do include them in that in those numbers. >> I really like the idea of that crossover events to people who are using the parks. Like, wouldn't it be great if the all the pickle ball players went out and cleaned up the park before they had a tournament sponsored by us? >> I mean, the crossover affinity and crossover interest. I think that's a I think it's sort of a layup too with all the people who use the mountain bike trail, >> tennis players, anybody who's using the park, hikers, bird watchers. >> Yes. >> That's great. >> Exactly. >> Um, are you also using any form of social media? I want kids to be tree huggers. >> I know I know the parents are going to do what they're going to do, but I want the kids to be tree huggers. >> Sure. >> And they're going to be on Instagram and Tik Tok and Snapchat, and we need to be where they are. >> Are we doing that? I do social media. Um, we don't we've done some campaigns. The engagement is not uh everything I would hope that it would be. And I have had that conversation with our communications manager and the general sense is that probably the city of Minnotonka is not where folks are looking for that kind of information. And so they wouldn't if you're, you know, and and teenagers might not be following us because uh might be follow not be following the city account because it seems like a government account, not where they would be looking. But that's where, for example, when I was working with a a group at Minnitonka High School, they had their own social media and when I would come and give them a talk or do an event with them, they would promote it. And um >> well, we now have a new student, you know, hipster here. [laughter] and uh yeah and they're just thinking about different ways to do outreach. >> That's not the right term. >> We do use social media. >> Okay. >> It's not I wouldn't say it's the biggest tool in our toolkit, but it's there. >> Is it um under resilience or is it the city of >> It's the city. We don't have a separate at this point. Uh we don't have a separate social media presence. Okay. What one of the challenges I think on the is [clears throat] like on reviewing the material for this meeting like the chronologue is I would say a chronologue. I wasn't even aware of that. I think that's pretty pretty nice. >> Um and as a city we have a lot of substance buried inside the city website and it's just it's just really hard to mine and get get that up and out. And I don't know and I'm not putting that on natural resources or or or but in general it's sort of um you know maybe a question for the communications area about what is our social media strategy in terms of how we prioritize what we promote and how we you know cross-promote because you don't have to have the kids looking for city of Minnotonka if we're hashtagging content um things like that. Uh but there's just a lot of there's a lot of content in this city website on a lot of different topics that are fascinating. Even Minnitanka matters I think a lot of people don't understand how to access it as well as they might even though we get a lot of activity there. Um it might be something worth you know when the people all department heads all get together and talk about how how we maximize communications of that and >> I agree with and Dave but that also presents an opportunity which is everybody on this board should be an ambassador. >> We need to be an ambassador. We need to pluck that information out and share it with our neighbors and with our colleagues. We can't let people assume they're going to go in to the to the website and find it. They're not going to opt in that way. we need to we need to bring it to them. >> We do get a good response when, you know, I I put volunteer events and workshops and whatnot in the the monthly e- bulletin and and we'll instantly see a spate of of uh signups and uh so you know the the word gets out bit by bit. Um we'll keep keep plugging away at it. Thank you, >> Jennifer. >> Um, great great presentation and again this group is really fired up because we're really support you behind your mission. Um, one of the programs I had saw and participated in Plymouth was with Blue Thumb. I noticed they were mentioned um with rain gardens and grants. So they had a program where you could get their book uh to help with the design and planning of a rain garden in front of uh your residents and then they would did some cost sharing as well uh for the plant materials. Do we have something and then I think that ties into what you heard from the citizens which is to have some funding available so that individuals and residents can do that in their own properties >> and we do have that funding. That's what Resilient Minnotonka is all about. Yes, absolutely. I'd love uh if you look at the packet, the report or the the outreach uh the update document has some links for example to our brand new annual 2025 annual report. >> Um and the work samples document also has links that go for example to resilient Minnotonka. There's a whole orientation module that explain breaks down what that what that's all about. um and a lot of content there. Uh but Blue Thumb is actually through Met Metro Metrolooms. Yes. Uh is is a partner. They help provide a lot of our uh site visits and design assistance. And I do point people. I work one-on-one with these applicants um over the course of how however long >> uh they participate, however far they take it, sometimes year over year as they go from just getting a a discount coupon for the plant sale one year to coming back and saying, you know, I'm going to I'm going to deal with this buckthornne here. What do I do? Well, get them to a workshop. Get them a learning module. Get them a pickup of that buckthornne debris. Get them some seed mix to replant. Yeah, just going to the workshop, you you met neighbors and youworked and you were like, I'm I'm really green. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I want to learn and you know, >> how did it go for you and what are some other So, it was a really good networking opportunity in those workshops. >> Keb. >> Yeah. So, I was um [clears throat] reviewing your goals for 2025 in anticipation of this meeting. >> So, it was last year's goals. >> Uh cuz it was March 2025 when you spoke with us >> and I'm looking at your um you know, from tonight's meeting the the goals for um for the rest of this year. Um, and uh, if I focus in on the volunteer program or volunteer work, uh, I just wanted your assessment on a few things. Um, specifically, some of it's already been raised actually, like, you know, maintain an increase individual participation in hours. If we don't see year-over-year data, then it's hard to make it's hard to determine, right, if that's been accomplished as a goal. Um, and uh uh we we talked about already the expanding youth involvement, right? Uh you mentioned that with like the neighborhood cleanup and then that goes in with working with neighbors. DE uh multigenerational community groups doing. And so that was another goal for 2025. Um one that I didn't hear you talk about yet was the collab a volunteer program where you uh seek collaboration with the police department's engagement specialists to identify and connect with underserved communities. Um I don't know if you made any progress on that, but I also don't see it. So, I'll let you speak to that first, but I also don't see it for 2026. >> Yeah. And I did not go line by line from last year to this year. [clears throat] Um, I took some some big examples of of what was done and what will be done. Uh, but I did meet with the uh police department's engagement specialist. We had a great conversation and uh she connected me into some opus communities where I've made some outreach. it's a little hard to make inroads. Um, but another thing that came from that was uh a reminder of Lion's Gate Academy, which serves uh a lot of neurode divergent middle school and high school students right over by Green Circle Park in Opus. And that uh I went over in the fall and did a presentation for them and chatted with the students about what they're concerned about. Green Circle Park is sort of their outdoor classroom. >> And uh so we now have actually next month a volunteer event for them. They're kind of adopting a a portion of uh Green Circle Park where they'll come and do some herbaceous uh weed control and some seeding. We'll mark that area off and so and put some signage in so that both the students as they go by and the public as they walk that long uh trail in Opus can watch the progress of that. And that's part of what um is powerful about ongoing engagement or sort of adaptive style engagement is that um people can see the impact the change over time. So, we're excited about that. >> Um, and then another uh goal you had was to find meaningful ways to acknowledge individual volunteers and groups. >> Yes. >> So, I'm curious how how you were able to accomplish that or what progress you made on on that acknowledgement. >> Yeah, it's a great question. Uh, early in the year, we had um volunteer meetings. So for our volunteer group specifically, we had volunteer meetings um where we were able to celebrate the volunteers and some provide some training and connection to staff. Uh we sent out cards to each volunteer and uh which was a really fun project because I got to use my own photography, hand make those cards and everybody got to contribute to everybody on the staff got to contribute to that and we sent them out with the badges that we made sort of like your badges that we made for ongoing volunteers. Before I uh forget to respond to your question about building volunteerism, a lot of the volunteers that we see are one-time volunteers. So, those numbers are a little bit out of our control. We can promote, but it sometimes takes uh a big group like Cargill, uh Lakewins bringing in 50 volunteers um to do that. And if we have that one year and not the next year, it can look like we don't have as much engagement. So, I really pay attention to our ongoing volunteers. Uh, Miss Hanley, I will, you know, is a great example. Uh, having been a a bluebird monitor for many years, participating with Friends of Minnotonka Parks and and, um, so we have a lot of folks like that who come back over and over again, maybe put in, you know, 10 hours, a hundred hours in a given year. And that's kind of what I'm watching is those folks who are really sticking around. some of our adopt a park sign even though things were a little up in the air last year with the new signs going in um >> had been work working on that for for years or decades and came back and and continued to be excited about it. So uh those those are kind of the things that I'm I'm looking at. One one one other uh thought I had. I recently read an article [snorts] uh about uh pollinator uh pollinators and how there was some concern about whether we're uh helping the right pollinators. Uh and you know people were thinking I should make um a honeybee. I should start raising honeybees. And the honeybees were in fact crowding out other pollinators that were actually more endangered. So, I'm wondering in the pollinator program when people want to, you know, turn move away from turf, turf grass and the like, um, is there any updates to recommendations on what's planted that actually tries to perhaps target these truly uh kind of endangered or uh, you know, much more closely uh, to endangered level pollinators >> as opposed to just kind of a general uh a general seed sample that is >> again generically pollinator friendly but may may actually crowd out or preference pollinators that aren't struggling. >> So we don't do any emphasis on honeybees. Uh I when I have I don't do any anti-honey bee. promotion. Many many times though, I have conversations with people and this is sometimes the best way to overcome some of the challenges and the misperceptions is those one-on-one conversations where somebody calls me up or I'm at a table talking with folks and somebody says, "I'm thinking about getting a hive." And my first question is, "Are you looking for honey or are you hoping to help pollinators?" And my answer comes from that. If you're looking for honey, it's b they're basically livestock. You you can do that. You're allowed to do that. If you're thinking about pollinators, the focus is habitat. And one of the big messages we try to get to people from with the pollinator um angle is right plant, right place, diversity, healthy soil, food web. So almost every conversation I have, every presentation I do on this topic, um every article I write is saying we have to think of these an these different um interconnections. We have to plant the right things to bring the pollinators we want and the other beneficial insects to feed the songirds and and it all is interconnected. You can't love plants without loving pollinators and wildlife. And and the same would be true on all angles of that triangle. Um and and in that way, thinking about diversity, we can get it's really hard to know which pollinators are threatened. There's a couple that stand out because their populations have been studied. Monarchs, their migration is threatened, their overwintering is threatened, and therefore they're threatened where they breed. Um, rusty patch bumblebees we know, but it's it's actually possible that many of our especially wild bees are threatened and some pollinators are threatened by the fact that people are afraid of them like wasps or they don't know they're pollinators like certain kinds of beetles and many kinds of flies. It's getting people to kind of appreciate the diversity and that when you build that habitat it will come. And it's one of the reasons we chose the mayor's monarch pledge as the framework and the monarch as sort of the ambassador because when you build monarch habitat, you're actually building the habitat that supports many other kinds of pollinators. Yeah. >> Thank you for your questions. I appreciate it. >> Well, if there are any other questions, really appreciate you coming again this year and appreciate all the great work. Um, I'm particularly impressed with the outreach you do like when your group is interacting with consulting with homeowners and that when they come asking for plans and stuff. That's that's I'm not sure a lot of cities would do that. So, I thank you for that. >> Thank you very much. See you next year. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> So, that must bring us to 6B, which has Darren's name on it, I would guess. [clears throat] >> Yes, it does. Just to clarify, it's 7B. >> Item >> 7B, but not honeybee. >> Not honeybees. [laughter] >> Not really. >> All right. So, we'll talk a little bit about uh the park investment plan and trail >> rehabilitation. >> Can I just say one thing that's that has been bugging me. So, I I want to point out that the title of this uh item is not entirely correct. So, it says park investment and trail improvement plan. The trail improvement plan is actually something different and that's not what Darren's here to talk about. So, he's talking about the trail rehabilitation plan. So, I apologize for that. When you see the CIP, the budget that's coming in hopefully in May and June, you're going to see a trail improvement plan section and you're going to see a trail rehabilitation section. So, I just wanted to clarify that was my error. >> I should have made >> start with the definition. I should have made >> I don't know the difference. >> Yeah. Well, he'll he'll explain it a little bit, but I just wanted to say the title's wrong. That's why this title doesn't match what's in your packet. >> And we I should have done I should have done a correction to the agenda. >> Uh I Well, I could have done that actually. >> Yeah, we haven't done it before. >> Sorry about uh that. >> All right. So, give you a little background into the how we bake the cake for our uh CIP process and and for our park investment and for the trails. So to go back to 2001, uh there was a $15 million bond referendum passed by Manitonka residents for park renewal and open space. So remodeling, basically remodeling, revamping 25 parks and then setting aside money to purchase vacant or you know purchase properties. Maybe some had houses on them, some were vacant. Uh part of this was the money set aside for the Cullen Preserve property was out of this $15 million uh bond referendum. So some of it took several years to get there. Initially a lot of the a lot of the work was done in the first 10 years of the of the referendum. Uh so the planning master planning was done for 25 parks. So, similar what Matt is doing now, uh, coming up with concepts, neighborhood meetings, refining plans, uh, bidding out projects and building the parks. So, uh, 25 parks were done. Uh, predominantly those were done between 2003 and 2009. Uh and the improvements included play equipment, amenities, you know, so you know, benches, pergolas, horseshoe pits, tennis courts, hockey rinks, uh board rocks, and then along with that infrastructure, improving drainage, you know, putting in storm sewer, different things like that for the improvements. Uh so there's a list of the 25 parks that were done. Uh, so then after after doing that, the city said, "Well, we just, you know, okay, we did this $15 million bond referendum. Oops, I'm advancing two different ones. My vision ain't that great." Uh, so we don't want to come back with a bond referendum hopefully for a very, really, really long time. So goal was to develop a funding mechanism to continue the upkeep of the park. So that was now through the capital improvements program. Now we identify things to replace and improve on a larger scale uh in the parks. So uh generally that's replacing playground equipment and amenities, reconstruct tennis courts, maybe put new color coatings on, uh replace hockey rinks or hockey boards, remodel buildings, uh lighting at athletic fields, uh hockey rinks, and then athletic field improvements. uh when we schedule the playground replacements, so we generally try to keep the same number of play elements that are there on the playground structures and then we're always looking for ways to add accessibility features to the play equipment. Uh oh, I did it again. Uh look for ways to add accessible features of play equipment. So sometimes this might be a standalone item. So, here is an example of a xylophone that's in uh liner park where it's right up to a by a sidewalk. So, like a kid in a wheelchair can roll right up to it and and access the uh xylophone or uh it's kind of hard to see in this picture. Uh it doesn't work to use the pointer. Yeah, right there on that bottom right there's a little table. Come on. Uh there's a little table there where kids can sit down and you can interact things on the outside of the structure. So there's different things on there's things you can spin, there's wheels, there's bongo drums, there's different things that are accessible from the ground level that people can play with and interact with. uh in the parks also uh we've generally taken the idea that the community parks is our best place to make the big investments for the large scale AD improve ADA improvements such as poured rubber surfacing or specialized equipment ramps uh things like that. So uh we recently did Meadow Park a couple years ago. Uh other community parks with playgrounds is Lone Lake, Civic Center, and Big Willow. So those will be ones that we look at in the future as those playgrounds come up. So now these these are all also part of the master planning process. So uh Metal Park was master planned several years ago. So that's why we did the playground replacement and the big one there. Now, now Lone Lake has also been master planned as far as that playground area. Uh big willow is a next step now that Matt's working on now for master planning. So as we get through that, you know, might be opportunities where we look at opportunities for expanding or, you know, making those improvements to that playground at Big Willow. Uh here is a picture of Meadow Park. So this uh equipment in the front is the by playground use. There's different playground structures. So there's structures intended for kids in the 2 to 5 year old age group and 5 to 12 year old age group. So this this one in the front is a 2 to five age group. So uh the picture is standing from coming from the the trail in the parking lot to enter into this area and that whole area had the poured in place rubber surfacing so you can you know use the stairs to get up to the the play equipment, the slides. But then we also have there's an accessible route to the 5 to 12. But then with the uh before we did this, there was just steps that was between the 5 to 12 and the 2 to 5. Well, with that grade change, we were able to put ramps in so that that's now fully interconnected for uh kids in a wheelchair to get between the two different play areas that they didn't have before. Uh so moving forward for the planned uh playground equipment what we have coming up is Groveland, Sunrise Ridge, Orchard, and Wilson will be this year. Uh we're doing four this year just because I screwed up last year and last year's ones didn't get done. So that luckily the money just is there and carries over. So uh 27 is Cington and Woodgate. 28 is Boulder Creek and Nway. 29 Spring Hill and Westwood and 30 is Elwood Strand and Civic Center. And I left out 31 because we get to say I don't want to get steal all the thunder for our May and June presentation. So, uh, so that's a playground section. >> Didn't we didn't we didn't we just put new stuff in Groveland, too? >> No. No, that was that was scheduled for last year, but >> Thank you. I'm thinking time. I'm thinking about time. Thank you. Yeah. Put in the big structure there. >> Uh to to ask a few playground questions because I see we're going to >> I guess it's trail improvement, but I'm not sure if it's rehab or improve. Anyway, >> we'll get there. >> With regards to playgrounds though, um or maybe you'll come to this and if you do, then just say just wait. Just be quiet. >> Don't wait. Uh but you know when it comes to the the neighborhoods are getting uh a rehab, what outreach is there to the to that neighborhood because presumably that's who's using it other than these, you know, larger parks where you've got people coming in and out from all over the city or all over the metro. Um and you know, I'm saying this because Wilson parks up. That's my park. So obviously more money should go to that park. Mhm. >> Uh without without question, but uh you know, I know I would like to have input. Um I I was just actually thinking about Gro Tonka because we would frequently my my kids and I would frequently go there or it would be a dual use like I'd have a kid so playing soccer uh have a have soccer practice and then my other kids would be up on the playground. So they loved this train that was there. >> Oh. At Croatia. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Do you remember that, >> Darren? >> They loved it. >> Yeah. >> And then with the uh new stuff, it went away and I remember the first time we went there, they were like, >> "What?" >> So, uh I'm just curious, right? You can't make it. >> So, you want you want to know if you can put it into Wilson. So, if you still have it, [laughter] uh, so anyway, how do you get feedback on are there features that the the neighborhood has fallen in love with and loves and loves coming to the park for it or or not, >> right? Uh, so so for the train, there was no way that was going to get replaced. That was that was wooden play equipment. It was a nightmare to maintain. So, uh, it it had a good run, but it was time to go. Uh, so we generally don't haven't been doing outreach just because the we're not making changes to the spaces that the equipment goes in. So, we don't have a lot of flexibility in what we're doing. So we're kind of in a same playground box where you know where the swings are nine nine times out of 10 the swings go back there the 2 to five and the 5 to 12 those are they're kind of set in stone for where we can fit things in for the you know the we call them tanks you know where those areas are. So we don't have a lot of flexibility you know we just try to say okay we have three slides and you know four ladders and you know whatever the the um features are. So we try to just replicate that. Maybe it's just in a different configuration. So there's not we're kind of in a tight sandbox. So, and we could get some input, but it's probably not going to change much versus if we're starting with the clean slate like we do in other parks, like when we did Robinwood Park, we built a new park and we have Timberline Park coming up in 2028. That's when we're we're starting with the clean slate. What do we want to have? We get the feedback. Okay, now we can take those features and we design around them. So, you know, we can make those tanks to fit whatever configuration get on the feedback from residents. So, there's not a lot of flexibility to really accommodate much change. We certainly could. Um, but we just haven't just because there's not a lot of opportunity to really accommodate much for for comments. >> Yeah. You don't really want to ask people their opinion and then be like, "Yeah, we can't really honor any of your opinions, right?" >> Yeah. Yeah. we're we're in a tight box to really we want to >> disingenuous if that's what's happening. Um is there any mechanism let's say >> or advertisement or or outreach in in case families don't know but I guess if a family's in this situation they're probably already actively engaged in advocacy on behalf of a child with disability. So to say to the city, can you do better on our neighborhood playground because my child, we live in this neighborhood. We plan to be here, you know, 15 years or whatever. And so when it's up next, can you do a bit more ADA than you normally would because you know you have a resident here that would like to you would would definitely utilize it. M >> has that come up or is there a mechanism for that or is it more like I said just parents already aware that they want this for their child they're advocating out of that you know devotion and love for their child to to the city or you know as many people as that put their own play systems in their yard maybe that maybe that's >> that's the route some people end up having to go or feeling like they have to go. >> Yeah. Uh I can't really think of a mechanism that we have that's a public way that everybody knows, you know, something about a park. I guess we just kind of lean on, you know, just uh if a family is frequently using a park and noticing a deficiency or something to bring it to our attention, I guess is that's all we have set up for now. Not to say that we certainly couldn't do better at that. uh you know since we aren't doing the outreach on you know getting feedback for you know the plan improvements so we don't really we're not notifying everybody say hey we're going to be replacing the playground equipment don't bug us till we're done kind of thing. So we don't you know we'll just put up notice when we're going to start the replacement project you know say we'll put up a sign that you know the playground will be closed something like that. So, uh, you know, when the master planning was done for these parks, the ADA stuff was looked at, you know, providing handicap stalls, the grades on the trails, you know, getting from the parking lot to the play equipment. So, you know, there's really not much changes there that I'm aware of they would need to make. So then it's just a matter of, you know, when we're doing that playground equipment, like I said before, look at what we can do to improve those things and add more, you know, accessible type features to those playground equipment. >> How how long does it typically take to to to turn over the >> A two weeks. >> Two weeks. >> Yeah. It's pretty quick. >> Yep. >> And along those lines, do you have a preferred vendor? Do you go out with an RFP for them? >> We so the we pick two three vendors that we are familiar with and we know the equipment that you know we do the repairs on them. So we'll reach out to two to three vendors and then you know meet with them and say because we're back into that same tight boxes. Here's our space we want to replace this and we'll get then we get quotes. So most of them are part of what's called source well cooperative purchasing. So we don't have to publicly bid the work. We can direct select with the source well just because of the purchasing has been vetted by uh the state or these other groups. We can purchase directly not have to like I mentioned before we don't have to hire a architect or designer uh you know advertiser bids all that stuff. So it it makes it much more flexible and we are still getting competitive pricing. >> Other questions or comments on the playground section? >> All right. So moving on to trails. [clears throat] So just to be consistent with the thing I I called a trail improvement plan. Uh so our improvements to the trail system are done in two ways. So rehabilitation of trails or construction of new trails. So the construction of new trails is through what our formal plan is called the trail improvement plan. That's where we have our list of 70 trail segments we have identified throughout the city to close gaps in our trail system. So predominantly uh the top part of the list is along county roads or uh higher volume city streets uh so we can get people off of the streets and onto a separated trail. So uh most of them are there. There's not too many without going through list in my head that are you know through some green space area like we have in purgatory or meadow just because those spaces don't exist much anymore. uh each of those. So then that trail improvement plan each of those segments is re rated on different criteria. So based on difficulty, effectiveness, difficulty to build, effectiveness of the trail, nature of use and the community access. So all those and there's separate uh subsets of those that are given rank and then it gives us a score and that's how we rank that 70 uh trails or missing links in the trail improvement plan. [snorts] But more fun is the trail rehabilitation plan. So, [clears throat] uh, in our trail and sidewalk system, so we have 12 miles of gravel trails, 30 miles of concrete sidewalks, and 48 miles of asphalt trails. >> And this does not include the Three Rivers Trails, correct? >> Yeah. This is just what we own. >> What you own? >> Yeah. So like the the three rivers trails there's three segments and there's about uh eight miles that we maintain in the winter time. Yeah. So this last this list is just what we own. There's another of private and different and county or the the three rivers. I think there's a total of uh about 106 miles if we include bunch of stuff. But we really don't focus on what we don't own. Uh so the gravel trails are uh groomed annually. Uh the concrete sidewalks, they have a much longer lifetime than the asphalt trails. So we don't have a really an active rehab plan for those. Those are done as part of either a larger project or uh each year we do concrete work throughout the city when we rehab streets and then we'll address sidewalks in there and fix bad panels or trip hazards or cracked concrete, things like that. So we'll do that on a on a smaller scale. Asphalt trails. Uh so we generally look to overlay trails every 20 years. Uh our trail system is inventoried in GIS. So we keep track of the surface type, age, ownership, condition. Um that's what we use mainly for our planning purposes. We also keep track of, you know, who owns it? Do we maintain it in the winter? how do we maintain it in the winter? So, we have other categories that we use to generate our plowing maps and things like that. But, and then our GIS staff, they developed a trail rating app that uh we can use so we can walk or bike or drive a trail. uh as we go we can use our phones or iPads and note you know cracks, potholes, root intrusions and take pictures, you know, assess that whole stretch. We'll identify, you know, from this street to this street or these defined lengths and then score it and then give it a condition rating. So then we'll throw that all in and use that to help generate what we're going to do in the future. And then it also takes uh we can take the pictures as we go. And that's all stored in there. Also, uh I just took a little snippet here of from our GIS of our trail system. This is an opus. So it shows the black lines are asphalt trails. The tan or yellow lines are gravel, which is very little in opus. On the far left hand side, we catch a little bit of the mountain bike trails in Lone Lake Park, which are shown in green. >> And there's a few uh gray uh sections and that's concrete. So, we know just looking at the map, we can see what the trail types are. The numbers are what the widths are, how wide they are. And then, oh, okay, >> we can keep track of all of our quantity. So, when we're looking at, >> okay, we're going to do this trail, I can just in GIS highlight those. it's, you know, 2,000 ft long and it's 8 ft wide. We can come up with our quantities and see what our cost estimating is all that going to be. I goofed that up. I skipped over. Uh, and then pedesting ramps and crosswalk push buttons. when we do do the trail rehabs, we look at getting those up to current standards uh for the trail work. So, plan trail overlays. Uh nothing for this year because this year is is a design year. Next year, County Road 62 uh from Townline Road to Baker Road. So, that's a three milesish stretch. So, that's going to take a lot of design work. So that's a big stretch there next year. Uh well some small segments. Hilloway Road, Orchard Road, Dwight Lane, which is a little connector up to comes behind YMCA. Uh Lynwood Road is along the north side of Highway 7 going west of the target, the entrance off of Highway 7. There's a short trail segment there. Uh and then the trails in Ford Park, uh Oberlin in 2028. So, I have a significant number of trails in Overberland Park. Uh, Jadana Park, there's a few short segments. Uh, Orchard Park and Big Willow. Big Willow is just a couple of short segments there where we have the hills. So, there's not much paving really to do in Big Willow, so it'll be an easy one to knock out. Uh, 2029 is Purgatory Park. Similar to Big Will, there's just some short areas that are asphalt. Otherwise, it's mostly gravel. uh Covington and Meadow. And then 2030 is Boulder Creek, which is a decent amount of trails around that park. Uh Groonka Nolan Drive trail, which is from goes from Shady Oak Beach along the south side of the road tracks underneath Shady Oak Road. And then uh the trails uh the Shady Oak Beach trail in the trail and then over the bridge going out to the west out to Dominic. So that'll be that trail segment. So that's what we have coming up for for those and that's those are getting to be our like the the talked about for the trail re or the park investment plan we did all those parks you know they're 20ome years now so it's not the time to do a lot of those parks and the park trails. So uh so wrap it up. So funding, so park investments and trail rehab is funded through the park and trail improvement fund and that is funded through park dedication fees that are collected through new housing developments, apartments, uh, and I don't remember if commercial developments pay park dedication fees or not, so I left that out. They might. Um and then the trail improvement plan for constructing the new trails that is paid that's through the uh uh franchise fees that all property owners in Minnetonka pay on their gas and electric bills. So those fees, you're paying them to the utility companies and the utility companies give them back to us and that's how we're building the new trails. So that's trails. Any questions on trails? Do we got it cleared up? Trail improvement and trail rehabilitation. Get anything tonight? We got to set our goal. Uh if no one else has I I have one question. Um the consistency of this is my favorite topic of mine. consistency of the crossings where the major trails, bike trail, I'll call them bike trails like like the Lake Minnetonka trail or the trail that goes uh south by Luns over off of across whatever street that is. You know what I mean? It's not not Lake Minnitanka, but it's it's another big limestone one. Um Yep. >> I'll take the Tonkadale one. Tonka wood one first. It very clearly has stop signs for the people on the trail. And the sign for drivers is trail crossing, not pedestrian crossing, trail crossing. And so technically cars do not have to stop, but because there's a crossw there's lines on the pavement and a trail crossing sign, you get this where someone going northbound slows down for a biker. biker looks think it's okay and coming to the southbound goes hey I don't have to stop >> um but at least that one says that but I think the sign that go but if you go further out on that trail not in Minnetonka but out in the deep deep haven I think you've got some of the same crossings that say uh trail crossing and it's got a pedestrian you know sign >> oh person so that you know that same trail there you need to stop for and I just think in the city where we hand control stuff cuz I think the sign I'm apologize whatever the road that goes behind Luns where their trail crosses it. Do you know which one I mean? >> I'm going to talk to Mills Road. >> Well, it's down that way. No, it's Anyways, we have a sign there that I think has got where the it's got it's got it's indicated like it's a pedestrian crossing. It's got the lines. It's got the thing, but you got stop signs for the riders, walkers, but you've also got So, just if if we can as we're looking at all this stuff, we can make sure that all the signs are consistent because, >> you know, it's it's it's not invariably always have an issue. And I go take Tonka Wood Road two or three times a day. And in the summer, particularly where there's a lot of bikers and runners and stuff, you always get in this circumstance where uh especially now with my favorite topic, ebikes, um where the kids go blowing across there. Uh it'd be great. I would actually prefer if it indicates it's it's a crosswalk, but I understand that maybe that's not appropriate. Yeah. So, yeah, the the signage for the trails is really up to the three rivers and then how we sign the streets is we're responsible for. I guess I would have to compare >> uh look at the one you're talking at in in Deep Haven. Is there a >> further out? It's either Deep Haven or it might be out pasture. Does traffic stop for that? >> Well, it's actually even one that's got the flashing lights. >> No, >> but it's just flashing lights warning that there's people crossing. >> Yeah, it's nothing. >> It's Lake Matanka Trail and it's signed as a pedestrian crossing with you have to stop there. As a driver, you have to stop. And so just, you know, >> and the bikers turn it on, right? They turn on the flashing light if it's the place. >> But I think they might still indicate they have a stop sign just for abundance of caution. Is there an inconsistency between Three Rivers Park District, the state, and the city as far as who stops on a trail? >> I'm not I get I'm I I know zero about their trails in the other city. So, I can't I don't >> It's just a caution. It just be something to at least look to see if all of our crossings like that are consistent or not consistent. That's all. >> So, we wouldn't we wouldn't put a stop sign up on any that's our city for the drivers. No, right. Uh, and it depends on the cross. Like the Tonka wood crossing is a mid block, right? There's nothing anywhere near there. Uh, so it's really just >> there's a cover there's a there's a culde-sac within 30 ft and there's a street within 30 ft on the other side. >> Right. Right. But they're low volume, not a major intersection. >> Yeah. It wouldn't be a stop sign. >> Yep. Uh, you know, then we have the crossings at uh Baker Road, Shady Oak Road, so they're right by traffic signals. So, there's been a lot of uh questions back and forth on, you know, we get calls, we get calls that we eventually pass on the three rivers about, you know, why aren't there stop signs on the trail? Well, because they're right at the signal. So, we don't want stop signs where there's signal because they have to really follow the signal. So, there's >> different situations for each of those street crossings of what they're by and then >> and then where they have different warning signs. So, it's we'd have to do a little investigating to see what >> Yeah. Just just >> the other cities are doing for what that consistency approach would be. >> Yeah. Well, the one I'm thinking in particular that's different is the one that's off of whatever that street is >> heads over towards Hopkins. >> I noticed that the park district does put signs on the trail because their opinion is that the trail users should do that. I I'm not sure the DNR, which is the loose line, which is a state trail, >> Yeah. >> has the same philosophy. And I'll just >> They have stop signs here too, don't they? I think when you cross >> they do. >> Anyways, I know that was really substantive, but anything else, Caleb? >> Yeah, Caleb. >> So, I was wondering. >> Thanks. you know, there are some communities or, you know, like I think of neighborhoods in Eden Prairie with housing stock as old as parts of some parts of Minnotonka and those neighborhoods have sidewalks all over, right? And much of Minnetonka, it's it seems to be different, you know, it's it's it's different. So, I'm curious, you know, what where that where that originates. And I also then am curious if and how the city responds to neighbors neighborhoods that are like we need a sidewalk. You know, we need, you know, we've got this busy street that people are cutting through, you know, vehicles are cutting through all the time and I'm dodging as I walk my dog or whatever. Um, how how are those handled? Because again in some of our neighboring suburbs, they even back in the 60s or 70s, but still it's still happening in new uh developments, they're they're full of sidewalks, uh concrete sidewalks. So curious about that history, but also nowadays if if there's a neighborhood or an association that's saying we feel like we need this for for safety. No, >> I can't give you a concrete answer. I think it just more has >> What about an asphalt answer? >> I was going to do that. >> The uh I think just has more to do with how the city developed. I mean, just in in the way just the way the city is being more rural kind of a city tree, you know, heavily wooded winding roads. when the developments got approved, they just didn't have sidewalks in the 70s and early 80s and then as new development has come along, they're filling in little gaps. So then there's no sidewalk to connect to or put in with these the newish developments. So it that's my just my gut feeling on how I've learned the city in my time here is probably just how that those early developments got done because I think because Minnitankka I think is a much older city than than Eden Prairie. There might be pockets of Eden Prairie that are >> same age but a lot of Eden Prairie >> is much newer and we're sidewalks. >> They even have concrete curbs. >> Yeah. Right. And as far as if somebody wants sidewalks, um our engineering department would probably be the main contact for those and or our park and trail our trail improvement uh uh gatekeeper uh Matt. Uh so he we you know if we get I get calls or engineering calls a lot of it we funnel through Matt. Then we have our we have a internal trails team. So when we have developed this trail improvement plan years ago, recreation, police, public works, uh fire, admin, we have people from finance. We're all are all part of this trails team. So then as requests come in, the trails team will meet, review it, look at how is it is it feasible, how it connects, you know, different things like that. So, >> as as a longtime resident, um my parents always used to say people who lived in Minnetonka specifically said to the city council, "We don't want sidewalks, >> that it's um we don't want it to look like St. Louis Park or Hopkins. It's different." So that's it was a >> conscious choice at that time. >> I think that's right. >> It's like when they went to do re redo Libs Lake area. >> Yeah. >> You had the oldtime residents saying I don't want to I don't want a curb. I don't want you know you know why you I don't want my street redone. I don't want a curb. And now they have curbs and street redone. So because we had to do the sewer. >> Mhm. Right. Any other questions? Thank you. Hopefully covered it for you. >> Thanks, Jar. >> One thing I'd like to add just to kind of wrap this up is um hopefully this was helpful for you to understand about you know park uh you know especially playground rehabilitation, trail rehabilitation versus trail improvement planning. Um, but this you will see this when this capital improvement plan comes to you. The CI what we call the CIP, which is part [clears throat] of the budget. We're already starting to work on it. And the CIP specifically looks at a 5-year time frame. So, it'll be 2027 to 2031, which is why he didn't want to he didn't show all 31 because he wants it to be a surprise, but we're still working on it right now. Um, but you'll see that uh hopefully you'll see a draft uh in May and then you'll see it again in June. And as a park board, that is something that you will re make a recommendation on to the council. Um, our CIP is much bigger than just parks and trails. Park and trails, a section of it. Um, so that's the part you'll see. Uh, but you will make an actual recommendation to the council. So more to you'll see more on this. So hopefully this helps you understand when you get to CIP review time, you'll understand what that is, too. All right. Okay, that brings us to an 8A information items. >> Uh yes. And so we have uh the first item which is uh an update on KidsFest and Sarah will provide that. >> Yeah, I'll take that. Pictures in here too. >> Oh yeah. Good evening park board. Um just a quick update. Kidsfest is an annual event that we put on every February. This year it was on the 1st, Sunday the 1st. It was 11 to 2:30 at the Mitaka Community Center. And if you've never been to this event, it's both indoors and outdoors here. We've got we had bingo in this room, for example, and we had tumbling in the room next to us. Um, probably the biggest highlights for kids are the dog sled rides, which we were able to have thankfully this year. That is hit and miss a lot in the last few years. Um, and horserawn um, trolley rides are very popular as well. So, it was a big hit. We had about 1500 attendees. We kind of estimate that. Um that's about average, maybe a little below average. Um we had had really cold weather weather leading up to this and it was a nice day. It was a beautiful winter day. It had snowed the night before um and the morning of. So it was a really nice event. So we're happy to have that one. And then the other thing I was just going to hit while I have the floor is in the upcoming schedule, you'll see we had registration this week for summer. So this is our summer brochure. Um, and we had our first day of registration yesterday. And just to give you an example, we did 2,000 enrollments yesterday alone. And that's just for general registration. We have several registration dates to spread it out now. So, tomorrow we'll do seniors and we typically do 800 enrollments for the senior registrations and we did 1,500 in the first hour. However, most are online now, which is fantastic. Um, so we do take phone calls. I take phone calls. Kelly takes phone calls for the first hour. We all get on the phones so we can answer all the calls. And the seniors are actually the most fun. We'll do that tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. Um they have lots of questions and they want to talk and it's actually we all like leave those that first hour and we we all smile because actually it's it's quite fun. They have lots of questions and they want to talk to you and so we'll do that and then um actually ice skating registration is next week. So >> thank you to throw that in. And then we also have an update on Big Willow from a restoration standpoint. There's a lot of activity happening. >> Um so Matt, were you ready? >> Leslie, can I just >> Oh, yes. Um, so I was I was one of the I was five of those 2,000 yesterday. And I want to I want to say that the registration process and system, the program of putting stuff in a in a wish list is is awesome. We are my family is on multiple different registration systems throughout the year and this one is the most um well it's the best. So, I appreciate what we're doing in this regard and I wish others use the same program or whatever the thing whatever the thing is because it can be a major source of chaos when it doesn't go well or when there's a huge uh uh crash or a major glitch or whatever. So, uh strong work. >> Thank you. Because it they're not perfect. recreation software is not perfect and we have our issues with ours but it and but it typically works pretty well. So, thanks for that feedback. >> Thank you. And uh Big Willow Park has ongoing restoration. So, timing up with the Big Willow master planning. Um you've previously seen the restoration and maintenance plan. While that work is underway um on the north side of Minnitonka Boulevard in in Big Willow around the house that is recently demolished, there's been a bunch of Buckthornne mowing in that area. So, we're utilizing um our staff to do mowing on the south side of the creek and we've hired a local contractor Ed's Buckthornne to start mowing on the north side of the creek through that area. So, you'll see a some impact of the the Buckthornne mowing happening in those areas. We're already putting down native seed mixes in that area. It does open the views up quite a bit, but we'll be assessing those and those areas and seeing how they respond to the mowing and and the new seed coming up relatively soon this year as the weather gets warmer. So, big impacts as the restoration gets started, but you really get a lay of the land through there as we're talking about the master plan and some of these new elements. It gives us a chance to sort of see see what we're dealing with with the topography and the features through those parks. So, it's exciting work. Stay tuned. Great. >> Okay. And [clears throat] then in terms of upcoming schedule, um, so we have April off, so there's it'll be two months before we get together. So it's hard to imagine that we'll be smack in the middle of spring next time we meet. Um, so for business items, we're in uh the goal is uh a item on the Glen Lake Park. Um, so that will be Matt presenting. Um we had talked about this park areas of need kind of a deep dive. We're as I mentioned before we're talking about that internally. So we'll bring that to you um for I think some from for some good discussion in May and then as I mentioned before the draft 2027 to 2031 CIP you'll see um and then in June that will come back to you sort of the final draft and then you'll make a recommendation. Um we don't have anything scheduled yet for August. Um, we do have July off, so you know, for the July 4th holiday and then in September, I wanted to put it on your radar. That is when we typically have our joint city council meeting and tour. Um, so if you do have tour sites that you are think would be interesting to go to, we can usually fit in two to three um uh for the tour, please let me know. you can either um email me or however you want to let me know, but we're taking ideas, so happy to have them. And then Sarah, do you want to talk about upcoming events? Did you cover all of these? No, I don't think you did. >> Yeah. Um SA on the Park is just a continuum program. Very popular. Sign up now if you want to get in in two months. But I think that wraps up in April. Is that what I have? Yeah, >> through April. >> Yep. And then like I mentioned, we've got registration this week and next week. And then we have our spring extravaganza event that takes place here. Again, that's a mostly indoor and some outdoor uh egg hunting. So, if you've got little ones, that's a great one. You do need to register. So, >> great. And that's all we have. >> Well, that brings us to nine. Any park board member reports? Any park board members have any reports? If not, we can move to number 10. like a motion to adjurnn. >> Sure. If you want to make one. >> I move wejourn. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> Thank you. Good meeting. >> [music] [music]