Nice. Okay, it's 6:30, so we are going to call the meeting to order. Welcome everyone. Sarah, if you wouldn't mind, can you do roll call for us, please? Sure. Laura Greenley Karp here. Sarah Zeratka here. Lloyd Grachek here. David Andren here. Ben Hansen is not here. Ingred Kohler here. Rachel Lucas is not here and Cassidy Schwar Rachel is walking in right now. She is perfect. Oh, okay. Okay, perfect. Wonderful. Sorry, I'm just making a note. Full house. Full house. Full house. Okay. Can I have a motion to adopt the agenda? So moved. I'll second. Wonderful. Uh, do we have to do the voting on that one? Okay. Um, all those in favor of adopting the agenda say I. I. All those opposed. Wonderful. Can I please have a motion to adopt the approval of the minutes? I make a motion. A second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. All those opposed. Great. Uh, meeting open to the public. No visitors. Okay. So that means that we can move right into commission business. Um the first thing that we have on this is the recap and goals, which is a portion that we talked about adding at the last meeting. Um Lloyd, you weren't there for that, but basically it's just like a we're going to be really explicit about overviewing what we talked about in the last meeting and then also um making sure that we have any upcoming events for the next two months listed so that we're aware of them. and the sorry there's one more thing. Um and then having the 1 3 5-year plan that's in our park improvement plan kind of front and center so we can reference that as we're talking to you. Good idea. So with that in mind, um for the recap, uh I just want to highlight that the upcoming events um for April and May, just kind of like the first few. The on 417, there's a guided art night, which I believe is in partnership with the arts commission. Correct. Um, on April 22nd, that is the park cleanup day, and we're going to talk more about that later in the meeting. May 1st is the citywide garage sale. May 10th is citywide cleanup, and May 17th is parks cleanup. So, I just want to give you all props for being so strategic about how you're how you planned all of those events in May because they just build off of each other and people can slowly but surely get rid of their unwanted things as the month goes on. So, any questions on upcoming events? Would you mind just repeating those dates one? Yes, I will go slower. It's okay. Okay. So, April 17th, okay, is a guided art night. I'm not sure specifically what the activity is. They're painting terracotta pots. Yes, they are. Terracotta pot painting. Love that. Okay. April 22nd is parks cleanup. Oh, why did I say May? That's wrong. Yeah, sorry. That's That's wrong. Okay. Disregard. Okay, let me pull up the events. You were right about the other ones, though. Okay. I was moving I was working off of an old document. Sorry. Okay, so May 1st is the citywide garage sale. Okay, got it. May 10th is the citywide cleanup. Is that What's that? That's the uh the car everybody cleans up. Like you bring all your stuff down to public works. Oh, it's amazing. Save the date. Yes. And prepare to wait in line for two hours, but be grateful you're getting rid of stuff for free. I got in line an hour before it opened and I was like the 50th car in line. Yeah. Yeah. Be prepared. I was not prepared. I thought I just could roll up and I was sorely mistaken. There are folks that'll go at like 8:00 a.m. Huh? There are people that'll go at 8:00 a.m. Yeah. And people rent like U-Hauls and stuff. Yeah. It's like it I was the first Doing that this year. I'm going to do that, too. This was the last year was the first time I went and I had no idea what I was getting into, but it's so strategically planned out. Like you pull into the lot, it's all divided in a bunch of different sections. They've they've got it figured out. Yep. That's good. Um, and then May 17th is going to be the parks cleanup, which is what we're going to talk about later in this meeting. So, April 22nd was just a date that I was working off of the I was working off of Ava's document from January and she had changed um some stuff to do it in April. Yeah. Okay. So, that is it's not April 22nd. It's May 17th. Correct. Okay. Okay. Yep. Correspond with the Earth Day. Earth Day. Yeah. Yes. Um, and I will send out the updated event sheet that or have Sarah send it out in our next thing that Ava sent to me because there's um there's a couple more things that are added on there, too. Um, as we're highlighting these events, uh, I just want to remind us all that Ava has asked us to volunteer for one to two events. So, um once that sheet comes out or if any of these items are speaking to you directly, send her an email um so that you can participate in that. Will that list of um updated events show who's volunteered for it currently? No. And we can see if there's any gaps. No, but that's good feedback. And I did ask her today who she has volunteered for parks cleanup. And right now she has Dave, Rachel, Ingred, and Ben. Um, and then she originally had an idea for a spring 5K that she presented to us in January. That has since um been cancelled with the hopes of doing it next year, and that event had pivoted to a September community cornhole tournament and soup giveaway. I know. So, Seems like the same. Yeah. Instead of running 5K, you eat you eat soup. What if the 5k has soup stations along the way? You just pour it on you as you drive as you run by. Okay. You don't want to lose time and then you end it with getting some soup if you'd like. And all the proceeds go to the food shelf. Ah, got it. You're still keeping that part but had to keep it on the activity. There's ones where you get beer. Oh, okay. Okay. So, if you feel passionately about soup and cornhole, save your volunteer assignment for September. What's the date on that one? You know, let me just pull that up for you. I got it. September 27th. Okay. And when we do send out this event schedule, there are some on here that say parks like Jazzer size in the park um or other fitness things in the park, she does not need volunteers for that. So um I'll have Ava um put together something where she still needs volunteers so so we can actually visualize it. Yep. And she does have the commission that each one of the events is assigned to on the document too. So you can look at that as well. Okay. Um, any questions about that right now? Great. The other item that we wanted to have front and center was the park improvement plan short-term and midterm goals. And I will own that I did not get that to Sarah in time for it to be a part of the agenda. Um, it will be a part of the agenda going forward. Uh so I can just highlight briefly what we have already. This is your book. Do you want to talk about what we've done and haven't done? No. Okay, great. Um so when did we make this plan? 2022. 2022, we made a plan and our short-term priorities were park signs, signage at Rotary Park, Howy Park, tennis court, trails and ballfield, Polar playground and trails, downtown park master plan, Mcnite master plan, Casey Lake master plan, east side of the park, Northwood Park master plan, and Casey Lake hockey ring improvements. So, we have implemented park signs at both at Rotary and all of our other parks. We've done the tennis court, trails, and ball field at Howy. We've done master planning for downtown Park, Mcnite. And so that's going to leave us with Polar Playground and Trails, Casey Lake master plan for the east side of the park, Northwood master plan, and then Casey Lake hockey rink improvements. We made all of those decisions three years ago. So, um, one, I wanted to bring this up because we are doing things. I know sometimes it feels like we've stalled out and we aren't actually doing them, but we are in fact moving forward on this plan. Um, and then also to remind us that as we continue these discussions, we were hoping to um do some improvement at Polar, figure out the east side of Casey Lake and master plan for Northwood and hockey rink improvements. So, that's just front and center of our minds. Any questions on that? Great. Yes. Oh, you know what, Cassidy? I'm curious. How long does the HGA consultation uh improvements go to where we would have to rehab somebody come in? Because I know it's going to take if we ever did uh Mcnite, it would be take several years to even get $15 million. How long do you think they're that's going to be in effect? Well, they drew up the plan for us. They didn't give us pricing. This was all just, okay, quote unquote, this is what they were um thinking that it would cost. It was all a projection. So, what they drew up for us is what the plan looks like. These weren't full costs. It was projected costs. Thank you. I have a question. So, um, how does it work? So, you're saying we need to talk about Northwood, Polar, and Casey. Mhm. How does that work? Like how do we talk about it or how do we make decisions? Yeah. So like in a future meeting, do we make an agenda where we're like we're going to talk about the improvement for this and then Yeah. We were originally going to do some talking about that today, but uh Sarah shared that both the city manager and the finance director are coming to our next meeting. Okay. So, it would probably make more sense for us to talk well, we're going to talk a little bit about it today, but like as far as decisions being made, it'll be next um next meeting. And sometimes it's on the agenda, but other times it just kind of comes up preform and you say, "I I I'm ready and I feel passionately about talking about the hockey rink improvements at Casey. I'd like to bring to the commission like that. We make a motion to spend money on improving those. Okay. And then we would all we would talk about it. We would vote and then that motion would be given to city council to ultimate right to ultimately say yes. Overall decision would be brought to city council. Trust and a lot I mean really comes with questions on the city council end. Okay. Um, but as all commissions, we trust that you're making the proper decisions and we then come back with questions and bring it back to you guys and once it's been established, then we vote on it as a council. Okay. So, that's kind of the process. We the board says we think we should focus on this and we advise city council and then city council proceeds from there. Yeah. Okay. We don't have to actually like have all the plans and like No. Okay. That's what I was thinking of like that's a lot of No. Um, and only you only you have to We started all the first year. So once we once we make that decision and city council says yes, then Sarah and the community development team, I assume Sarah the the team um they put out like the the process for bidding where that's comp there's rules around that. The city is the content experts in that. They'll handle all of that and then they'll bring it back to us that information. Okay. I will say too, we do plan quite a bit ahead. So, we have a CIP um a capital improvement plan um which I will say like Polar Park playground improvement in this last CIP is actually on it for next year. Doesn't mean we can't like push for it any time and it also doesn't hurt shouldn't mean that we can't like start planning for it if we wanted to do it in 2026. So, always keep and kind of piggyback off that this year we also had was it $500,000 set aside for Mcnite parking. we didn't use that. So the CIP fluctuates what that spending looks like and council helps determine do we want to put this off another year knowing that we were doing the HGA plan. We put off doing the Mcnite the dollars for the Mcnite uh parking. So with that said, are we also putting off uh doing the dugouts in the fencing? I didn't see that on the CIP. is well in our our u plans Mcnite Fields is scheduled for $60,000 to have the fencing redone. Of course, there was uh the sports complex redesign. We have money set aside for that. The parking lot and the soft ball fields dugout replacements. Yep. So, all of that would be put off. All put on hold right now. that would be discussed with the commission if that's something that we're moving forward obviously right now because we're looking at Mcnite uh as a master plan right we would put that off and Sarah really Sarah and Brian would look at each other and talk about that and then determine all right we see that this is supposed to be done but is this logical um and then we would put set aside the money right which would be my recommendation is to hold off until all construction's done do it at the same time. So it's, you know, once it's completed, it's completed. So in in in our new CIP too, they did push those projects up till 2027. So they did push them off. Yep. What plan are you looking at? What document? And you can get the cap the capital improvement plan is on um it's I'm trying to think of was it the last council? Yeah, page 74 of the capital improvement plan. You should be able to find the whole capital improvement plan um in the agenda meetings and notes if you guys want to see it all. I got it from the first planning commission this year. Okay, perfect. So, it's easy to find. Yep. But I can also send it out too if that be helpful. Yep. Yeah. I was just wondering being we don't know exactly what the price tag is for that development for that particular area. Um, I think a lot of that stuff should be maybe we can get a lot of stuff more bang for the buck if it was if it was all incorporated at the same time. Well, and that's something that the commission's going to have to determine is when do you want this to start? What does it look like in our budget? And those are great conversations with Dan coming in the next meeting and having Brian here. Um, the what HGA did for us, we definitely don't want to put off. We want to start somewhere. um whether it's the downtown park, it's the um the five corners park or Mcnite, I think we should start moving somewhere because we have the money. So, let's start spending that money because otherwise it's not it sits there. So, yeah. And I think that's some of the conversation that we'll have today and we can bring an informed like informed questions or ideas to um the next meeting where we can actually make decisions. Right. Okay, thank you. Okay, any other questions or follow-up items that people want to touch on from our recap and our goals? No. Okay, great. Uh Sarah, are you going to spearhead the conversation about park cleanup? I will, but since we have a guest that joined us, can we reopen the meeting? Yeah. Yep. Did you want to speak? Okay, perfect. Um, so we are just going to have It's David Nelson, correct? We're going to have David Nelson talk to us. I'm I'm sorry for being late. I just happened to find out tonight on my phone that meeting was otherwise I'd been here earlier. Life happens. It's okay. Um, I I appreciate you having, you know, uh, like Howy Park, a lot of people are using a lot. Mhm. Two Sundays ago, the traffic was so parked on both sides. I come through, if I met another car, I couldn't back up. I was 12 in my mirror. I was watching my mirror on my truck and these trucks that are on there, mutter trucks, their mirrors sticking way out. I'm 12 in here. I'm 17 in from here. A fire truck or an ambulance will not go through there. if there's a fire there right at the corner and the people parked right up to the corner and I had to make a turn. I had to back up and then go north in Charles because I usually go that way to get out to the light to get to 120. And it's great. It it it would be nice when you give the people the permits, you park on the park perimeter. You do not park in front of the houses because it was uh beyond West Charles and almost to Henry. They were on both sides. Mhm. You know, it's great that you guys, you know, do that. And a lot of people found out that's the cheapest place to rent rather than Casey. And uh but I hate to see if there was a fire call or an ambulance cuz an ambulance it's a heck of a lot wider than my truck and so is the fire trucks. They would not they they would be knocking mirrors down. Was there an event there or was it people using the park? There's an event. Okay. So your events tell them you got to park on the perimeter of the park. And I'm sure the people that was that lived there didn't appreciate it cuz the guy that that when you turn north on North Charles, three street cars all the way up to his garage was parked and they don't you're supposed to stay so back so far back from the curb. They were right up to the sidewalk. That's how tight it was. You know, I understand when there's a big group there, but I mean, if nothing else, put a parking lot down in the hole area since there's no ball field or anything. And uh the other issue is Southwood. You have 30 seconds. Okay. My wife and I, we worked there for uh 17 years and it's getting so we can't do no work anymore. Couple other people that used to work with us quit. I through the DNR I given the city grants for goats. Maplewood uses them and that but I hear North St. Paul says you can't have goats. Apparently the goat owner is supposed to be responsible for it. The goats watering and everything and they do clean up the area. They eat a lot of stuff that we can't pull no more. Yeah. So, but I mean there I don't know what happened. I I I have connections with the DNR. My daughter has connections with the DNR because she works at the feds. I turned it in here. I don't know if they trashed it or what. I never got no reply. Okay. Thank you for letting us know. Thank you, David. Thank you. Can I ask what the occupancy of a housy rental building is? Do you know how many? Off top of my head. The actual occupancy is 49. Okay. Does I'm not assuming we do this that often, but when we have events, are the police aware like those being rented? So, if there is someone like I don't know. I guess I don't know who's the um the hammer when it comes to like let's say you rent that building because it's cheap but then you have 150 people in it and you're because I just wonder if you really did have if you you'd have to have almost 49 individual cars to describe what he's saying which could be true but um I just just made me think of just do we have a gut check on like if people are overdoing occupancy because that was my first thought is well it's 49 in the building but you also get that outdoor shelter you can have people side. Then there's park users and yeah, I mean you just had the pickle ball courts put in. I mean this is a high desired park right now. Um circling back on the goats, you may talk with Brian regarding that. Yes. So maybe Brian can give you an update. Yeah. Um about the parking like do we have any ability to control any of the parking around uh housy for events? you know, when there is like a police thing if I don't know how they can patrol that, but that would be more of a police thing. It seems like a city thing, not so much a park commission thing, but it's good to be aware of uh problems like that because Yeah. Especially Well, maybe if people aren't aware that you can't park to the corner, like maybe having better signage up on our part saying like you can't park here to the corner or just because it's a way so people can get a get around. Um because if this is going to be a desirable park, this could be a potential issue and I would hate to see which that that signage would still be a police issue because they'd have to be the ones that enforce it. So, but it might you may not know like I think I parked there and I parked on the corner. Like I parked kind of close to the corner of like Charles and whatever by the pickle ball courts and I I'm now like is that actually illegal? I It's been like it's been like 25 years since I took a driving test, you know? So, I'm just saying it might not hurt just to not necessarily enforce, but just educate um or because like if I saw a sign said no parking here to the corner, I wouldn't park there, you know. Sure. I don't know. Just a thought. I think it raises a good point. Is that those things on they do that cow across across the street from cow? Lady couldn't get her mailbox in, so they put a sign up. No, the the lady put a the lady put a sign up. She did. Not the same. She made her own sign and put it on her mailbox. I thought there was a really nice one in there now. No, but it's she made I know she put federal law or whatever. Yes. Okay. All right. So, we're going to get back to our park cleanup plan. Yes. Um, so there's really not much to plan. Obviously, we know it's on May 17th and it's going to be from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30. What we need from the commission is it's not feasible for us to do every park that day. We can encourage people to go out, but we can't have representatives at each park. So, I think we need to come up with a plan on which parks the commission is going to focus on that day and who from the commission will be at those parks. Um, I won't be available that day. So, I just want to make sure we're all clear like that we have a plan going into it. Yes, I'll be at S. I think Silver Lake is a big one and I think because we have the lake association and I think you said that you had already talked to Yes. the lake association and they are willing to be on that same date. Yes, they I'll follow up with Ava because she talked to them. Um but it sounded like they were going to do the same date. Okay. I think that's an important one. um because we have some we have a lot of manpower pe person power with that um lake association and then also it's a big park and always use you know and so I'll be there for that one for sure I'll be um I can be the contact person for that that one perfect okay so it this also says that the Friday before bags and gloves will be available to commissioners to pick up from city hall so whoever is our liaison or our park person. You're also committing to getting that the Friday before. Is that something you can do? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, when you said not all parks are going to be um cleaned up, do you have a list of the ones that will not be No, that's up to you guys. Yeah, that's up to us. Okay. Tonight, and we can say encourage people to do everywhere. It's just we can't have people at every location. Yep. How many people have uh from the board have volunteered? Cuz four, I think. Okay. So, I think we should fit pick a maximum four parks then. Yeah. So, we have Sorry, just going back to who is confirmed. So, for parks cleanup, we have Dave, Rachel, Ingred, and Ben. So, uh Ingred, you're going to do Silver Lake. Mhm. Um Dave, do you have a preference of what you would like to do? Well, that's why I was asking which parks. I mean, you could spend a whole day just at Southwood going through there. Um, so do you want to do Southwood? That might be a nice opportunity for Southwood to, you know, there but I could do I mean that's one of mine. Mcnite, there's not much to do there. That one we could actually eliminate at this time. Mhm. Um, and so if there's more than one that you would want me to do, I mean, I could go through Southward, meet people at the observation deck, hand out what I can, scoot off to another park, do the same, and because some parks aren't going to have a lot to do, and some are going to need a lot of clean up. Yeah, I think we should focus on high usage. So, I think Silver Lake, absolutely. Casey is probably another high usage and large. And then how we were just talking about housy high usage, but that's pretty small. So you depending on how many people we have show up, that could be done in 20 minutes and then you move on to another one. Yeah. Years ago, we had volunteers that actually even raked up all the pine needles and stuff. I mean, it was a little overkill, but the garbage and stuff that was blown in from the neighborhood and stuff, it it only took a half an hour. You know, I would say probably I'm not going to be the one there, but like I would say Northwood overy. I would think any parks with more brush where trash can fly into. How's actually at least kind of nice and clean, there's not a lot of ground brush where Casey, Southwood, even silver where there's water where things can go down. Yeah. Okay. So Dave, if you're comfortable, let's have you do Southwood. Yeah. Um that'll be a big undertaking. Uh Ben, you mentioned Casey. Do you want to be in charge of Casey? It's his part. Yeah. Okay. And you're good to get the supplies ahead of time. Great. Rachel, Northwood for the last one. Yeah, I think I feel like Howy is really highly used right now. Um I'm hoping that maybe people are being stewards of that park already. Uh I feel like Northwood isn't as highly used. So, and there's more ground to cover. It's It's used. Well, all of our parks are used. So, I would I would recommend South Northwood, too. Okay. This is such a big It's going to get used. Yeah. Event once school gets out. It's just thinking about where the wind blows things too. Like the f this funny thing about Howy is like I was there when it was windy and the trash just kind of blows through to someone's house unfortunately because it's like a pretty clean landscape. Not that that doesn't mean there isn't trash there that could be used to clean up. But okay. So we have Ingred at Silver Lake with the Silver Lake Association. Dave at Southwood. Ben at Casey. There's a Casey Lake Association, isn't there? No, no. Okay. There's a Facebook page. Okay. I thought they were doing stuff with the water and the lily pads. Oh, there's a Oh, there is a group that that talked that was focusing on the focusing. No, you're not. You didn't wildlife. Okay. So, it's not an it's not an association that we need to loop into this. No. No. Okay. Great. And then Rachel, you'll be at Northwood. Um, so that gives space for other commissioners to support kind of our lead commissioners at those parks. Um, or service some of our other parks. And then I feel like we could also direct the community to say, "Hey, if you want to be a big part, if you want to be a part of a big cleanup, check out these four parks. If you want to do it on a smaller scale, we'd love your help on some of these smaller parks." I think that's a good plan. Does that sound okay? Yep. How does trash collection after the event work? Yep. So, um I am going to get hopefully like maps that I can send out cuz I like to be really specific. Um so, what we'll do is we'll just tie up the bags. Public works is actually going to come in special and pick them up that day at 12:30. Okay. Mhm. But, uh we've always just used the bins. We don't have like separate garbage bags sitting out by the curb or anything like that. We've always just used the garbage bags that are or bins, you know, that are provided in the park. We're going to provide more bags this year. If we're recommending citizens also go to the other parks, I want to make sure they don't get overloaded. So, will public works be checking the other parks as well? Yeah, I Yeah, they'll swing by them just to take a look and see. Yep. Um I'm I'm just thinking about housy and how, you know, that's not it's a it might be a great time to like um I love that park because there's people all around it. Um, and I was just wondering, is there a city, is there a resident right around there that might like to help lead that cleanup, you know, because it's not really something that's complicated and it's like picking up garbage and it's such a discreet, you know, yeah, space that it might be not such a big responsibility, but it might be a nice way for um them to take ownership and also just like um meet each other because that's what I've discovered at these cleanups. It's kind of a nice way to meet neighbors. So, um, well, if you want, I can I can pick up supplies and also drive by housy. Yeah, because that's kind of close to Northwood. I mean, yeah, that's logical. Yeah. So, and then I'll also drop off supplies at houses and if I can meet a resident who wants to kind of say yeah and I can direct them where we, you know, want the the trash to be put once they're done. So, I have no problem with that. Wonderful. All right. Is there any more discussion around park cleanup? And there is no tying it in with a high school team. We used to we used to uh have the track team and and North High track team. There's no there's been no discussion about that. No, there the track team isn't the high school is they're doing it during the week. It's like Thursday in for like an hour. It is still in May, so it's still going to fit in this cleanup theme. Uh but nothing special. Oh, that's good to know. Okay. Yeah. Used to do a a little bigger thing. Yeah. Okay, Sarah, please share with us all of the nature preserve research maintenance, sorry, maintenance re research that you've been doing. Yes. So, from last meeting, you as the commission asked me to provide some research on local nature preserves and how maintenance is completed and determined for the areas. Um, so what was found um that you'll see in the packet is most places operate in a similar fashion to the way we do. Um, so there's no formal agreement with any volunteer groups. Um, but there are volunteer groups that will make recommendations to their commissions or to the city. Um, and then the city ultimately makes the decisions on the maintenance or upgrades or anything like that. So that's kind of what we do now. Um, after talking with Brian, our city manager, um, we kind of feel the same, like we don't feel that there needs to be a formal agreement with the task force. Um, if they're going to continue to exist, but they can still certainly come and give recommendations, they can give them to Dave or Lloyd also, um, and come back to the commission, um, and then I can get that to public works. Um, there's also another document in there from 2023, so before I joined the commission that it looked like it went to council on a Southwood policy as well that got approved. Essentially, it's saying the same thing. So, um, the city will do the maintenance and um, monitor the budgeting. Um, but folks can make recommendations as they can for any other park. So, um I would recommend and the city's recommending that we just um find out if the task force still wants to continue uh to move along and if so making sure that our leaison who I know have tried to make connections with them um have those connections with them but other than that um move forward as we have been. David, I would like to maybe meet with them if they're going to if they're going to move forward with it and see if we can get some parameters that they can follow because it's been kind of a up and down thing for 10 year 10 15 years. Yeah, I um I talked to Daryl earlier today. uh he just has a suggestion for where they move removed a bunch of trees. But if you look through the document that Sarah has sent out to us for Southwood, um and this is something I'm going to bring in front of Daryl, so he's aware of it. A lot of the stuff is actually being taken over by public works, buckthorn removal, invasive plants. There's there's a lot um that's being taken over through this document by public works, not so much volunteers. So, and I have not talked to to Ron or anything. I'd like to have maybe a discussion with him prior to talking to Daryl, but it might be their task force could just start suggesting certain things without having to worry about volunteering their times or committing to a project that may or may not get finished. So, um, but I would like to have just a little bit more clarification from Ron from public works and then I would meet with Darl personally. I like I said, I did talk to him a little bit uh this afternoon. Did not go over the the statement policy that we have in place now that Sarah had sent out. Um so with that said, um this is something I think we can get resolved and maybe have the task force just make recommendations to us and then we can make sure that everything's in the budgets because if you look at it, I mean, the city is is willing to take care of the weeds. they're willing to take care of the the buckthornne uh all the other entities that go along with that nature preserve. So, um with that to me it looks like the city the public works is committing to quite a bit of this uh through their policy. So, um, without getting a little bit of clarification on what they what public works would expect either from volunteers or whatever and how they would like to see that forward. Um, cuz I know over time there's liabilities on certain things and stuff like that. So, um, but as I look at the document that was sent to us, um, it's I think more if they had a project that they want because there's it doesn't cover certain projects in this plan if you look at it. So, like I said, I'd like to get just uh from public works standpoint um a little clarification and then I'll bring bring this forward to Daryl who's in charge of the task force. I also have been talking to people from the task force, Tiffany, Brian, and they're more than willing to talk with you all and have shared that Daryl is kind of phasing out. So, I would add them into your contact list and also note that they haven't been doing um that much and they haven't been meeting regularly. Not because they don't want to, they just haven't had the capacity to do so. Okay. Can I make a recommendation? Would this work uh a twice because it's kind of it's seasonal these things that need attending to. Would it work to have two meetings a year with with public works um where two or three representatives from the task force or even one advises the public work, you know, if public works has a question? And it seems like, wouldn't it be logical to have a couple scheduled meetings so that it's not always like, oh yeah, we should we should find out about this or we should, you know, like um if there if if there was a meeting, it might just add some clarity to what oh oh yeah, we have to decide what needs to be done, you know, by March 30th because we're going to have that meeting. I do want to be really explicit and say that like we are not in charge of telling public works what to do in Southwood Nature Preserve and neither is the um the task force and ultimately public works is going to make those decisions and we're extending this as a courtesy to the task force and um I appreciate that you're willing to like talk with Ron about this and bring it to Daryl but I also think that like that's a a commissionwide thing not just something that you're doing on your own. Um, so that's information that you like I request that you bring here or we have Ron come talk to all of us because you are the park leaison which is great but I don't get to make decisions about howy park by myself. Well, we wouldn't I don't think that we would be making the decisions. we would be we would just be getting some information and like any other um group or whether it's fall cleanup or or whatever you need we need to come back and report to this commission before we move forward with anything at least to give an update. Yeah, because it's always been and has been. And if you read through the documentations, they have to bring something to us and then we would say, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea." And then we then pass it forward to city council. So, it's not like I would be making any decisions, Laura. But the thing is, they haven't had a meeting for over a year, and that's okay. Like, if they're Well, that's fine. But, but if they're not meeting, then they're not meeting. like we can't force them to meet and we are the city's taking care of the park, right? That's what the document says. So it's it kind of did clarification on you know one at one point like Darl had a recommendation which I'll bring up in my report for Southwood but back in the day they used to do a lot more there the some of the task force were doing a lot of um natural or yes we we know and that's all voluntary and again it's a task force it would be just like uh Silver Lake Association dropping themselves. So, it's it's what they choose to do and if they want to bring it to your attention, they can. Um, whatever Ron can help with, Ron's team will he'll let you know what they can help with. Ron's what I would like to recommend is if if this is so strongly felt, whoever is on this task force comes in, presents, we get Ron in here and develop what whatever needs to come up. I agree. There's it's I'm just trying to get because they have to come through the park commission. They haven't said anything. Um and if they don't, they don't. Right. We've made space. That's the point is we've made space for them to make those recommendations. They know how to get in touch with us. This policy is in place. You've tried multiple times to get in touch with them. They haven't met for over a year. We have these things in place and we're just kind of at a place where like they know how to get a hold of us if they need to get a hold of us. Y or are we going to keep the task force going or are we just going to let it go back? There isn't a task for I mean the task force is whoever chose to be on this task force. So we don't know even know who's on that task force. We don't assign those people. It's like you know Ben Lloyd and Sarah creating we're going to go straight to Northwood and this is our task force. Right. So they choose to be their own. They are now no longer. Okay. So that is my understanding is it's starting to fizzle out. And if it fizzles out and nobody wants to be on that task force anymore, that's what happens. I mean that's that's life. So we're just going to kind of ride it out and see what where it goes. We don't have to do anything with that task force. What what we need to worry about is what are the needs of South of Southwood right now. Uh, you choose whatever needs are out there. You bring it to um Sarah's attention. Sarah will take it to Ron and if they can do whatever they can do there, then good. If they are looking to spend some money, then it gets brought to council and we go from there. David, let's meet sometime. Yeah. And we'll bring it back to the commission. Sounds good. Perfect. Need need some clarification because it's kind of been an up and down thing. Mhm. As David knows for the lastif 15 years. Was there more that you wanted to update us about? Nope. That was all just that I got the research done and we're doing what we probably should be. So, thank you for pulling off research. One one quick question. So with yours when you were doing some of your research did it did it show that most of the because what I understand is about 90% of the parks or nature preserves that you did contact are all taken care of by their public works. Correct. Y and only maybe a 10% done by volunteers. Correct. So, the ones that are done by the volunteers, um, does it seem like when you were talking to them, did they have a good success from that or maybe not? It seemed like it. Um, but they're also way more organized than like ours would be. Um, even I was able to go on and find like web pages that they have dedicated to this and talking about um, every species that they have in there and donation thing and it was it seemed more like a formal um, type of agreement. Um, they did see success. Um, but most I found that just going directly through the city having public works do it was easier, cleaner and better for a lot of the taxpayers. All concerns. Okay. I just Yeah. I just wanted to know how that kind of played out. So, Sure. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Are we ready to move to commissioner discussion? Sure. I Does this include the park update or is that after this? It can. It's just an opportunity for you to speak. Okay. freely about um we talked in the last meeting wanting to make space an opportunity for if you have something that you want to share, this is the dedicated time to do it. Sometimes it's hard to get a word in as we're talking about other things. So, this is space for all of our commissioners to have time to talk about things that are important to them. Uh park update possible like programmatic ideas, just anything that you want to share and contribute to the conversation. Will this be in conjunction with reports? Mm- Yeah, we have the reports separate later. I don't know. We can change that moving forward, but this is our first time. So, um I think this is a great opportunity. I mean, what you're doing right here is a perfect opportunity to for your voices to be heard. Yeah. And then you jump into your reports. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, let me take a step back. We'll do park reports at the end. This is dedicated space for you to talk about something, anything or nothing that you want to bring to the commission. We ask ideally it's like 3 to 5 minutes or less. Um and if you don't need the time, you can just say pass. Is that okay? Good idea. Perfect. Sarah, do you want to go? Sure. Um, were we still going to discuss some of the projects tonight like like ahead of next month's meeting of like things we think money should be spent on? Would this be the time to maybe discuss that like ideas? Okay. Um, so I brought this up to Sarah before the meeting, but I did play pickle ball atY and one of the more pro players I was playing with had mentioned maybe having a windshield around it. That that's a really common thing. It's like a tarp that goes around half the court or something. Mhm. Um, so I did bring that up to Sarah. We were saying maybe just like my memory sees them, but I can't picture it. You know what I mean? I know exactly what it was a windy day and we were having trouble playing. And so Oh, it's about the wind. Oh yeah, it's about wind. So, um, just I brought that up. Um, something I think would be kind of lowhanging fruit as we talk about spending money this year is, um, how popular Gaga Ball is and how lowc cost those little octagon little things are. And I would love to maybe discuss like what the cost of those would be. I think I'm imagining they're pretty low cost, what parks we could put those in. Um I think that would be a great addition to some of the small parks, especially like when we think about Polar or Colby Hills that don't really have as much that might offer something else to do. Um something else I'm in charge of the urban ecology and I would love to see especially as the weather's getting nice, so many people go on that trail right there. an opportunity potentially for signage, picnic table or a resting spot kind of um maybe even a chance to educate people about North St. Paul, about our snowman, about our downtown, maybe even wayfinding of like, hey, get off the trail here to go see downtown North St. Paul, oldest bar, you know, I don't know, maybe just an opportunity to take advantage of the people who are on that trail. Maybe even have a picnic table more accessible if we clear some of the brush right off the trail on the park part that we own. Um, and I've always kind of envisioned like something fun or small like a balance beam or something like nature play incorporated that could be fun for kids because there's a lot of kids and families on that trail. Um, so that's my other idea. Um, something that fell off the wayside and I know we're talking about Northwood Master Plan. Sorry, my list is long. um Northwood master plan is we it fell off the radar a long time ago about ADA accessibility to that playground and um maybe that wants to be incorporated when we talk about Northfield uh Northwood, excuse me, as a whole, but I would love to go back to that. People with strollers, wheelchairs don't really have access to get into that park. We had also talked about making handicap accessible parking. Um so I just love to see that incorporated as we talk about Northwood and maybe that's part of the master plan. Um, I'm also in charge of KBY Hills and um, we have such a really nice, beautiful big park shelter there, but that playground is so tiny and small and it's new, so I don't recommend changing that, but I would love to maybe discuss, again, not a huge project, but could we add a climbing element or could we add something else? We do have that big space that used to be flooded. Um, I think they did flood it this year. I never saw anyone on it, but um, maybe is there just something else we could do? Maybe it's part of that gaga pit like to enhance that park or maybe give a little like older child. It's the only park walkable to me and it's a bummer cuz my kids are too old and they're eight, you know, like eight and 10. So I'd love to see maybe some other element in there that would be low cost, not the cost of like a full playground. And then just advocating for polar. I know that's on our list. So um excited to see what we can do there. And that's that's what I got. Perfect. Thank you. So maybe what we do is we take notes of the ideas that people have for specific parks and then once we all go around we can as a group talk about what um what we want to bring to the next meeting in regards to projects with the budget with the budget the people there cool thoughts okay perfect so Rachel are you ready to go I'm going to start with you and then we'll go down so are we talking about just the park updates we're proposing or anything? Anything. This is anything map. Um I was thinking um it could be a good idea if we put a flyer at each park saying, "Hey, this is the parks and recck commission. Here's a QR code um for you can put in a comment, a suggestion, um an idea." um just so it's better to have I feel like that's an easy way to get better citizen engagement because I don't think we have a lot of that right now. Um another uh citizen engagement idea I had is uh potentially emailing a flyer with people's utility bills like once a quarter or twice a year. Um and it can have a QR code of all the events that we have. Um and that could be beyond parks and recck too. that could include the arts and culture uh commission events and uh stuff like that because I I feel like we're not successfully advertising the events that are happening and I'm I'm not sure of a a great way to do that but I feel like this could be a a cost-effective start. Um uh I had an idea last meeting of doing a park passport uh where people would uh visit each park and then um take a selfie with either the the park sign or a notable feature of the park and then once they've uh collected a selfie of themselves at each park, they win a prize. Um I would like to proceed with that idea. I was thinking once uh I think selfie is the cheapest and easiest way to go about confirming they've been there and then I think once they've visited all the parks they could get like a a snowman pin or a North St. Paul hat or something like that. So I would like to proceed with that idea. I don't know if I need to make that as a a motion a like a motion for next month or whatever, but so definitely noted start it as super important something that you want to do and then once everybody's talked we can all talk as a group. Okay. Is that okay? Okay. Excellent. Okay. Um and that's all I will say for now. Okay. Thank you. Great. Awesome job. Dave, are you ready to go? Yeah. Only thing I have concern is on, you know, we've got earmarked 100,000 for uh the urban ecology part. Um 100,000 earmarked. Don't tell Sarah that. Right here. Dang. I'll start I'll start shopping. Well, I I was a little concerned. I could I could see us changing some signage up and putting I I agree. We need some I have no idea where that number came from. But I don't think we want to put like playground areas in that that spot. I think we want to leave it kind of as a natural reserve. So, um that's my only thought on that. And it would not cost that kind of money to put, you know, two, three, maybe even four picnic tables throughout the route. um and maybe a little signage um that we could do out there just to maybe to explain a little bit about the area um without going way over this. This is a huge budget. So, um we also don't know if there is something else in there like if I don't know if they're planning to clear something up or trees or I don't know. As Cassidy shared, the CIP fluctuates so that was that can be pushed off for the next 10 years. I mean that's the CIP is not a set, right? I'm just when I saw that I'm going that's we don't really want to make it into another playground area. But those are things to discuss too when you see things that are earmarked for money. Do we want to again this was last year we had budgeted for Mcnite. Yeah. Chose not to move forward with it. You know there's $100,000 here. This is where we have the discussion at these meetings is this year we have $100,000. Let's come up with a plan of how we're going to utilize it. Well, like I said, I I I saw something about putting some playground equipment in there, and I don't have that right in front of me at the moment. And my thoughts would be to keep it as just a trail and stuff so people can go out and walk their dogs or just go out there strolling with their kids or ride their mountain bikes. But if they say, "Hey, you know, I'm a little tired. I'm I'm not as young as I used to. I want to sit down at the picnic table." I think that's what we should do, but not to have another playground area or climbing area in that particular park. So, I mean, that's supposed to be open discussion. So, I'm just throwing that and that's something that Sarah can bring with these type of discussions, too. Sarah, can you bring that to the next meeting? Absolutely. Uh discussion on the urban ecology center. Right. Well, that's all I had. So, that's that's another piece of this. We don't have to make decisions. It's discussion. No, we're not trying to make decision. If it's one of those things like you feel passionate, again, Rachel, on your end, the park passport. It's something that Sarah can look into and if it's logical, bring it back to the table. Yep. So, that's all I got. Thank you, Ingred. Um, yeah, I just want to um piggyback on that. Um, and I I don't think anyone really wants a playground in that area, but I loved when Sarah mentioned the balance beam, something to, you know, kids, that's so simple. Uh, you know, you can keep the sort of natural um, and it it could even look like a log. It could be a log balance beam thing that the kids could climb on while you're stopping to have um, some water and a rest um, and a picnic or something. So, it's uh I I kind of love that. I don't I don't love the idea of a park there, but I love um you know, something like that. I I would wholly back that. Um uh I don't really have any um any issues. I I have something sort of just like still sort of I would need to process regarding Southwood. I've been on the commission so long that I have seen just how many hours and hours and hours and months and years and all all the effort that has gone into creating this um uh it's it's a nature preserve. It's different than just a park. And so I don't I guess the reason I was saying and and we're not saying the Southwood Task Force is going to boss public works, you know, around. I'm not trying to say that at all. I'm trying to say um public works doesn't have the same knowledge of all of the plants that they've put in there. So, I feel like that legacy Kathy's and all of the people who have worked so tirelessly down at Southwood. I mean, I've I've seen it over I don't I've been on this commission a long time and it's not so active right now, but boy, there was just a lot of passion and and knowledge and so I don't want to see that lost in this process. I would love to be able to, you know, the stakeholders who are in it right now who know about what's in there, what to watch out for, you know, that's really important information for public works to have. Yeah. Um, I'm not saying they're going to they're going to become naturalists. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying let's let's let's not lose all of those years of knowledge and um, you know, hard work. Uh, that's kind of where I'm coming from. So, um, and I I don't even know that much about Southwood, but I always appreciated Kathy's dedication and all of the neighbors that the and Dave Dave Lloyd Lloyd I know it was a passionate group. So, all that's all I want to say is I I don't want to see that part of it lost um in the in the shuffle about six 17 years. Yeah. That it's been going and that's and I don't have anything for silver. I don't um uh yeah I um I there is a an event that's happening and I'm a little worried about parking down at Silver uh if the event is big. That's a a steel drum concert. Um that's one of one of the events that um Ava has planned. But uh so uh parking is kind of an issue around there, but we can discuss that closer. But other than that, I don't I don't have any issues at Silver that I need to discuss or anything. Great. Thank you. Uh I don't really have a lot to discuss. Um, I my biggest thing is I don't want Northwood to get lost and pushed off for another 10 years. Um, I think it's an important piece of uh the city. It's a transition for a lot of people. It used to be a big transition for the middle schoolers that were there and they would spend a lot of time in that park. And I think it's important um and I think it hasn't had a lot of work done on it recently and I'd love to have it become something um that's special to that part of the community and um special to the city. That's all I have. Lloyd first. Uh Sarah, are we working still on trying to make uh exercise area in Casey Lake? If so, um I don't know if you're aware of the one that's down by in Oakdale. If you go all the way down, uh Geneva, threequarters of the way, and there's this uh you beyond Granada, there is this little park, and it's a huge nature preserve that's tied into uh the Oakdale Nature Center, and there are exercise type equipments throughout the park. Oh, yeah. In the Oakdale Preserve. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Number two, um, Southwood with all the removal of the trees, uh, just a curiosity as to whether we can get grants to replace the trees or what is the plan with all these trees going. That's a good question. I can get that answer. Um, as Daryl had asked, um, Dave if they could put wild flowers in there as a replacement. So, I will ask I have sent an email to Ron about that as well, but I can certainly follow up too and see. May I don't know if there's a grant with the DNR or whatever, but there could be. Okay. I think the I think the state legislature provided I don't know if North St. Paul already got that, but we did. Or Yeah. Okay. Mhm. There was funding for that. Sarah, could you check to see if for all the parks, not just I forgot which one you mentioned. Southwood. Yeah. Not just Southwood. Okay. For I feel like a a lot of the parks had trees removed. Yeah. Okay. and Ingred and my my suggestion would be when they have the the drums see if we got a park issue over there like you said and maybe when we if we have to address it at Howy we can address it at Yeah, that's a good idea. Silver Lake. Yeah, that's all I got. Ben, no discussion for me. Okay. Okay. So, um Oops. Sorry. Was that me? Whoops. Um, sorry. Collected my thoughts. Uh, I'm I'm just looking at the time and I want to be um aware of uh we've been here for an hour. Um, and all of these things are important. Uh, so I'm wondering if our next steps are to do what I said previously where we talk more in depth about things that we want to bring next meeting or if we bring this list next meeting and I'm open to hearing people's thoughts. Uh, I know we're having this budget discussion and that's going to be a long yeah an extension or a long time too. We might want to give about two three minutes from each person and say I want this. I want this. I want this. No other discussion other than I want this. I want this. I want this. And then make a list. And well, I think we should discuss the list because if one person wants something and nobody else does, then it's not quite in consensus. I think it would be nice. I also would be conscious of time, but if we're able to give ourselves 10 minutes here to like maybe give ourselves a time limit so we don't over talk on things, but just maybe make the list that we would like to bring to them, that way we're not spending two hours of their time next week. Sounds great. Yeah. Are we okay with that? To clarify, we're talking about what to bring to the finance meeting next month. What do we want to spend money on? Okay. And basically like we all just listed our ideals of what we do want to do. What do we Yes. What do we now want to put money to next month when we actually can say, "Hey, we're going to spend money." Like Sarah said. So, quick summary. Sarah talked about a windscreen outside of the pickle ball court at Howy Gaga pits in some of the smaller parks. Uh, urban ecology signage, picnic table, resting spot, some sort of natural play incorporated. Um, ADA path and parking at Northwood. Colobby Hills Park shelter. Can we add something for older students um, sorry, uh, kids, uh, advocating for Polar. Rachel has some programming ideas um, and engagements around making flyers accessible with QR codes. Wanting to do the park passport program, figuring out what that would look like. Um Dave, you uh talked about wanting to put more signage um into urban ecology parks, some picnic tables. You're hesitant about putting play equipment into um that area. Uh Ingrid, you want you like the idea of some like natural play um elements in urban ecology park, but are not like big playground structure. uh you have concerns about parking for Silver Lake, but we're going to just Yeah, that's and then it's important to you that the historical knowledge does not get lost um from the people who have brought Southwood to be where it is now and that that information is given to public works and somehow maintained um because that work is important. Uh Lloyd Southwood Tree Removal DNR funding DNR funding and just a suggestion to Sarah about Oakdale Nature Preserve because I started walking there and it's amazing what's in there. Yes. You had a question about fitness at Casey whether that was still a priority. Yes. Oh yes. Thank you. Yep. And then Ben, no discussion from you. Okay. So are there thoughts like what what sticks out to you? Yeah, just uh talking about that playground equipment in Casey. I'm I'm really for that. I I am for that fitness equipment. I mean um but I I just want to comment on I walk in the Oakdale Nature Preserve all the time and I I I love it. I'm there all I'm there several times a week. I don't see people on those discreet things very much. And we had a discussion a couple years ago about how what we're envisioning is um an an organized bunch of them so you can go from one to the next and you can really it's like an adult park in a way or you know um but those separate things I mean I will randomly see one person once a month on those. I just don't think they're getting used the same way when when they're spread out in an area. But I think when they're all together, it could make a really great thing. And I our demographics are dog walkers, uh, adults, I don't kids, kids, very few kids. Where we ended that at least because it was Tim and I that were working on that just maybe the spin because it is fitness related, but where we wrapped is what we thought would be more functional than like what you see at Maplewood. Like the outdoor elliptical would be more of a ninja style. So, bringing back the army park, which was kind of just like you could do pull-ups or push-ups, there was like a ladder, like it was like a make your own kind of fitness adventure, but it was more play related. I think that would be a lot more relevant, especially because we have a lot of feedback from people saying they miss AR what they call the Army Park at the east end or the west end of the park. That's what I I still think that's important. I don't think Casey to me is as important, but I would love to see that. I know people want that. I know it would get used. And maybe it's the instead of those elliptical things which seem cool and no one uses, kids will hang on a bar. Adults will hang on a bar. I try to do monkey bars. I'm terrible at it. Like just something that's fitnessy e but like imagin like your imagination can make it whatever you want. Is this at Casey or Urban Ecology? Casey. Okay. This this was on our like Yep. Yeah, I think it might have been more the midterm, but um it was something during co that we said the importance of outdoor fitness and I think an adult play aspect or even older children, teenagers, high schoolers, college kids. I think that's a need that's missing right now. I think that would be very valuable. Yeah, the ninja term kind of makes it more relevant when you think about jumping off of like things like parkour. Um, there's this the the new park in Shore View that's outside of their community center. It's um it it's like four different areas that transition and it's clear that it's for all ages, but there's a one section that's a Wharton Ninja Warrior park um that's really well done. And so if you ever wanted to go see what something like that, kids love it, adults love it, um I would recommend checking it out. I don't know the name of it right now, but that would be a very easy visual representation kind of what y'all are talking about. What city was that in? Shore. Shore View. It's outside of their community center. I don't know what the park is. I know we didn't discuss this too much, but I would love because we have a lot of money. We haven't spent it. in order to be able to like kind of equally distribute some newness to a lot of our parks like Tower and these ones that don't get a lot of attention. I would love to discuss like and maybe if anyone else thinks of anything in the meantime is like either low cost climbing structures or these Gaga ball pits which are probably like a couple hundred dollars like what could we do to like give our parks like a little something for everyone love for everyone and not just Casey or Silver whatever. Um what could we do with some of those spaces? I would love to like I mean it's probably only like $5,000 we'd have to spend in some cases to be able to give the parks like something little and new. Um I would love to see that and I think it's something we could do this summer and actually like get done. Um and I do think urban ecology would be great. The sign that's there from the DNR, which we don't have control over, is like really worn down and gross, but there's so much traffic that that carries just between pedestrians and kids. Um I would love to see like what we could do there. And I agree, Dave. I don't think $100,000 is what we need to spend. Maybe it's even a pergola with like two picnic tables under it. Just you don't see any of those until you get almost to like uh Lake Elma, like you get past Mameidi before you see any resting structures on the gateway. Um, and we wouldn't have to go that far off. And I do I don't think a playground I would not want to see a playground there, but I think there's a lot of these nature like crawling through the fake logs or just something where like the parents can have lunch and the kids when they start getting restless it would blend into the scenery hopefully, but again not that expensive. Um I would love to talk about that. Yeah. Okay. So, um, just kind of to summarize, some of the small our smaller parks need a little bit of love and we're looking for small things that have high impact and so I feel like we can do research on what those things would be for the next meeting. I feel like that one can go like we can come prepared for that urban ecology park. It sounds like there's interest in figuring out how we can enhance that park both in resting structures, natural play elements, and then signage for like educational purposes. And we can look at what that would look like. Do we feel like that summarizes urban ecology? Yep. Okay. The other ones that we have on here are um the you have the wind screen. I feel like that doesn't necess like can you just look to see if we can do that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm gonna that's going to be off of this off the big list. Um and then Rachel, let's talk a little bit about uh the park passport piece of it. Um is that something where you like have an idea, you want to make a proposal for us and be like, "This is how I think this program will work and this is like what I'd like to see." Sure. Okay. You feel like No, no, no. Cuz it it's make a presentation. No, no, no. It's something that's important to you now. So, can you come to the next meeting and say this is how I think? Yeah. Like start to finish ideally what this program would look like. Okay. surprise maybe maybe a budget like I need 300 bucks to buy the prizes like because that way we could actually approve dollars to be spent because if you want to do it over the summer or something then we want to get you rolling because we'd have to have it on the agenda in order to um yeah so I'll put it as a separate item. I don't think it's something that needs to be discussed with Dan or Brian or anything. Um possibly I need to ask where the funding will come from specifically because that's a different thing. But um we can do that as a separate line item for like after they leave we can talk about it and approve it. Y so just like your dream your dream program and then figure out what we can do. On her other topic would you be able to I know there was a thing about putting things in the utility bill not would you be able to look into can we put something in there and what the cost I know it's usually like a thousand bucks or something to like add to do a mailer but like what would the cost be just to stick it in and are we allowed to do that? So Rachel would know because I do think that's a great idea to be able to just even a bookmark with all this stuff that's going on because people could just hang it on their fridge and they would know. Sure. The grant part. I thought there was something about like them not letting us put stuff in the utility. That's why I just want to make sure a separate mailer is expensive. Some money towards flyers. It's all expensive. Yeah, Rachel, I will ask that if you have any documents or anything that you want to share, I will need that the Thursday before our meeting. Okay? So, you can send it to me. You can send it to me and Laura or me, Laura, and Sarah, however you want to do that. Um, but that would be like the hard deadline. Okay. Uh, okay. And then Silver Lake Parking, that's one I'm going to pull off and we'll we'll check in on that. Um, polar is the one thing I think we should bring up. It's on our short one to five years and that's a higher cost. Maybe we wouldn't just want to like discuss cost of the playgrounds. Yep. Maybe not doing something this year, but just before we do that, uh, the DNR funding Sarah is something you're going to look into us. So, we're going to pull that off of this list. Okay. So, yes, let's talk about Polar. Um, I don't know enough about Polar. I should. It's an old It's our oldest playground left. Is the funding going to get brought back up at the next meeting? I can bring it up as like a report. Yeah. Yep. Okay. It's the last playground that hasn't been touched. Okay. So, we need to update. We need to we need to do it. Which one? Polar. Yeah. We were there Jill and I were there several years ago and at the time we didn't think it was it wasn't as bad. It wasn't bad. But now it's it's 30 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Five years since we went over there and looked at it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, it's been a minute since we've planned a playground. So, do we just are we at a place where we do the bidding pro or you come up with some ideas? I can find that out. Okay. It's hard with staffing changes, which I'll talk about, but um, yes, we'll look into that for sure at next meeting anyway. We would get that answer. Okay. Um, 100%. Um, but I would assume that would be the next logical step is we would bring it to council and they would say yay or nay and we would get approval. Sometimes we've had the public involved too. Like usually we'll hold like uh like I won't say a town hall but like a meet at the park and people can give feedback especially because that's a park people live right behind they might have specific this is great this isn't great. Um we might want to hear their feedback. cuz I know this isn't like going to be done this year, but I think we should set aside or figure out. Okay. So, will is anybody opposed to updating Polar Park? No. No. Okay. So, we can say we're ready to do that. Let's talk to the people with the money about that process. Yep. We had to bid out the playgrounds, too. Yeah. And years ago when we did like tower and the rest of them, we would have at least three different contractors. We have to present what they had. So we could at least have something. The public works has a strong input on that because this is from Keith many moons ago, but it makes sense. if we keep inviting new um playground companies, which is fun, the parts become difficult because it's like this park has this and this park because that's the problem with Casey is like their parts come from somewhere else where a lot of them come from landscape or whatever, right? Um but yeah, we used to have the same issues when I worked for the school district. So, but uh yeah, I think we need to move forward with Polar and the one that we should being we're going to be which is also on our plan is uh the Northwood. What we need to to kind of change all of that cuz we when Sue was here, her recommendation was to move the playground a little bit closer to the the street and the sidewalk rather than being up by the uh water tower. So, I think being that's also on our our five to 10 year plan. Uh, and it would be nice to I think move that up a little bit closer so we can start getting an idea of what the true costs of those are because we got that earmarked now for a million4. So, um, it's it's on the short-term list of like getting the master plan. My only thought at that is I don't disagree that we should, but I worry if we start working on a master plan for Northwood when we haven't even started on Mcnite, which we just wrapped that master plan, that I feel like we're going to get council a little scared of all the dollars that are flying. But I don't know. I I don't want to ignore Northwood. I think you have a fair point, but maybe it's when do we want to do that master plan? This may not be the right year as we're trying to find the funding for Mcnite. I think that's the conversation that we had as we were starting the HDA was Northwood is important but it also like we had to choose three. So I think it's it will the master plan is coming. I think we just need more time to execute the plan that we have for the three parks. But it's it's also I concur with Dave about Northwood. It's Northwood's getting put off too and it's been getting put off several times. If that's a million5 and Mcnite is 10 million, like the city doesn't even have a million. So like we're going to spend all this money on a master plan that's going to get kind of tossed to the like it's Northwood is sadly going to get pushed aside no matter what happens based on how we prioritize Mcnite. That's why I think potentially looking at some of these low like little things like a gaga pit or maybe climbing structure, something that we could add in Yeah. in the meantime till we muster it all out because the ADA thing is still really important at Northwood, but do you want to do that before you if you're going to move the playground like Right. It Yeah, it's just hard. Well, there was a recommendation uh also about getting rid of the the hockey rinks, but they were playing hockey there just a month ago. So, at night there was quite a few. Mhm. Um I guess we would just have to have more of the consensus that like do you want to bring Northwood up at the budget meeting next week or do we not? My thought is I care about Northwood too, but I don't feel like this year is the right year to talk about it. And I think we we bring it up again next year and see how how and where we're at with Mcnite. Do we have funding for Mcnite? Do we get grants? Do we alleviate some of the costs from the city? Are we going to have to do a bonding bill? If that's the case, well, maybe we do bring it up. But um my my worry is that if we go down all these master plan routes, but we're not executing anything, we're just spending a lot of money without Rachel, it's yours park, isn't it? Yeah. What do you think? I agree. I think if we do like all the parks, we have a small little addition to freshen it up, uh put lipstick on the peg, um and then review it next year, see how the master plan for the other three parks is going. Um cuz yeah I feel like our attention will be too divided if we then have another master plan in the mix. Well, it's not another M. This is part of the master plan. That's the thing. Well, the I'm talking about the the three that the HGA did, right? Yeah. I will also note that it did get pushed out in the CIP anyway, which the commission did talk about last year to 2033 is where we have Northwood ear marked for. We do have to begin reviewing our CIP recommendations again here April, May. So, um, that will be coming up and can be a larger discussion then as well. Okay. Okay. Yeah, because I don't think we need to push back our other parks that do need attention for something we don't even have yet. You know, I would be okay with waiting with Northfield if we're going to talk about it in May as long as it gets discussed. Yeah. At some point. So should we So is April going to be the the finance month and then I think May would be better doing the capital improvement plan. Yeah. So he is what Dan's planning on doing is coming here and also directing what he needs from the commission and he will need those recommendations um for the CIP. Okay. So we'll move forward monthto month after that. Okay. Okay. So, for the next month with Brian and Dan, we're going to talk about a possible Army Park ninja play element at Casey. Um, coming back, uh, we are going to look for small additions that have high impact for some of our smaller parks. Uh, for the urban ecology park, resting structures, natural play elements, and signage. Um, Rachel, you're going to come with a program proposal and then polar needs to be updated and we want to make sure that we engage the community when we figure that piece of it out. Did I miss anything? Okay. So then in May, once we have that information, we can fold that into what we talk about for the CIP for the upcoming years to make sure that our CIP is aligning with the goals that we've set in regards to these other like four or five elements. Does that sound okay? Sounds good. Okay, perfect. Okay. Are we okay if we Oh, you have budget recap, but we don't have a budget recap. I actually have quite a few things on my list to talk about then. Okay, Sarah, let's let's let's listen for brief. Okay, let's It was kind of mentioned, but some of you may know may not know. Uh Riley Grahams, who is my boss, community development director, is no longer with the city. Um we're in the current process of hiring. Uh we had interviews today. So, when I mentioned that staffing is a little weird and we're trying to figure things out right now, it really is. So, thank you for your patience with me and the rest of our department. So, um, hopefully we have somebody in place here in the next month or so. Um, and hopefully they're long term. Um, okay. Uh, HGA update. I talked about this briefly before the meeting started, but, uh, council is responsive to the presentation that happened with HGA a couple weeks ago. Um, they really like the plans. um they're continuing at a higher level to discuss finances around that including like not just the cost of the development but the ongoing cost of maintenance of it and how that can work and the feasibility of it as well. Um because some of these parks are going to be more demanding than others. Um so they are talking about that. They are looking into grant opportunities. Um I would encourage each of you if you know of grants or have connections or anything certainly send them my way. Um we encourage everyone to take a look and see what kind of opportunities are out there. Um and then they are planning to have a city council workshop on it as well to do more discussion with the finance director, city manager, the rest of council. When that occurs, I'll send that out. We can have representatives from our group there as well. Um park and open space master plan. Our master plan got pulled from the last council meeting. Um it is set to go to the planning commission next week uh for their approval. Um I was asked to get somebody to commit from our c our group here to be at that meeting um because I cannot be when is it uh next Thursday at 6:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. here in the chambers. Um just in case there's questions. It's not for a presentation or anything. Um, but in the off chance they have questions, somebody that had been involved in this plan, um, we don't have to commit to it today, but you can shoot me an email and let me know. Um, or give me a call and we can figure out who who needs to be there, but at least one would be great. April 3rd at 6:00 p.m. Yes. April 3rd, 6:30 p.m. Yes. 6:30 p.m. Yes. Um, but anyway, after that gets approved, we're not anticipating any hiccups with the planning commission. it's more of a formality, then it'll go back to council and should be approved. So, just a little bit of a delay, but um everybody's liking it so far. So, um the other minor things, there was a prescribed burn at Silver Lake Retention Pond today. Uh we didn't find out about it till today. So, um they had Silver Lake Association had a group come out and do a a prescribed burn out there. Uh seems like it went well. So, that's all good. Is that on the um It's near the tennis courts. Near the tennis courts. Okay, got it. Um the pickle ball netting and post at housy. So that the the post did come out. Actually, there's several of them that have risen um from the frost. That's a warranty issue. So we are working with that company to come back out, but they have to wait till the frost goes. Um so it'll be a little while, but we are addressing the uh posts at the pickle ball courts. Um, public works told me that this summer they are going to be closing part of the north trail at Casey Lake Park near the small parking lot uh for some um utility repairs underneath. Uh they're going to repave it and they're also going to rework and redo the pond that's there as well. Uh they have pre-construction meetings coming up here in the next month or so. So I'll have more information as that goes along. Do you know how long it'll be closed? Uh he said most of the summer. So, it's going to be Yeah. Um, but when I get more information and I think I'll be in those meetings, I'll bring that information back. North side. Um, thank you. By the parking lot. Okay. And then ballfield rentals have been coming in. Uh, so we have all of North High booked. We have um at Mcnite and at the baseball field there. We have some booked at Casey for the summer, which is great. Working with a few other outside leagues for Mcnite. So, it's all going well. less teams from North High this year, so we're not getting so much usage from them uh this year, but hopefully we can get some more outside leagues coming in. Um otherwise, I think that's it for me. That was a lot. Yeah. Okay. Uh we're skipping the budget recap because we're getting that in in depth next month. Okay. Um we have our reports from commissioner and park leaison. This can be uh your park updates or concerns that we talked about. We'll go opposite this time. Ben, um yeah, just one no concerns from Casey. Uh I was Cassidy might know the answer to this, but um when the signs will go back in that say park hours just now that we're extending daylight time. Um, might be good just to think about that for um I think it was 7 a.m. to 1000 p.m. last summer that those were put in. Yes. Yeah. Y Wonderful. Wade, I'm good. It was covered in the other discussion, so I'm good. Perfect. Sarah, no reports for me? None for me. Uh I just have one concern about the beach uh beachfront um at Silver. Um, and I've talked about it in previous years. I just see this sort of um, whatever it is, whether it's buckthornne or something's encroaching on the the, you know, the the beach is losing some of its um, what am I trying to say? Real estate. Um, because of this encroachment on the, you know, as you're facing the lake on the left there. Um, so maybe that burn was part of I don't think they would have taken care of that because I think this is a massive polling effort that needs to happen. Um, so I don't even know if that's a a parks commission thing or is it just a public works thing? Um, I have met brought it up with public works maybe in previous efforts or years, but I haven't excuse me. Uh, I haven't really pursued it or or um I could um but I I don't really know how to proceed on that. Is that a just a public works thing? Do I need to just It would be public works and I can get a hold of them and get some answers for you. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Dave. Um only thing I got is uh they the city has cut more trees out of Southwood. Uh a lot of the the trees they did cut have been removed. Uh the only other thing is uh Daryl Meyer uh he would like to see that where the trees that they pull are cut down the most have uh wild flowersowers spread out just to help keep any other base of plants from taking over. So that's all I got. Um, same thing. Uh, but in Casey, there were several trees cut down. So I just wanted to see if there was a plan to plant anything else or new trees or whatever. So sure. Yeah, I can. There's a grant from it from the DNR. I can follow up on that. Usually they do replace them in those type of things. Um, but I will find out. Awesome. Back. Okay. Um, I believe we are ready to adjourn. I make a motion. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. All those opposed. And we are adjourned.