community. [Music] >> Yeah. Shoulder surgery. [Music] Welcome everybody to this Monday, August 25th, 2025 meeting of the City of Savage Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources Commission. I call this meeting to order. Katie, would you like to call roll? >> Sure. Chair Sorenson, >> here. >> Commissioner Heinaman >> here. >> Lond >> here. >> Peterson >> here. >> Sheer >> here. Shoggrren >> here, >> Straer >> here, >> Mason >> here, >> and Chiao >> here. >> All right, we will stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, you all have the agenda in front of you. Are there any additions to the agenda for tonight? >> Nothing from staff chair. >> And I have a motion to approve the agenda. >> Motion to approve the agenda. Strayer >> and a second. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All those opposed. We have approved the agenda for tonight. You also received the minutes from our last meeting from May 27th, 2025. Does anyone have any additions or corrections to those minutes? All right. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> Motion to approve Heinaman >> and a second. Shear second. All those in favor of approving those minutes say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. >> Minutes are approved. Uh first on the docket for tonight is um a recap of the summer 2025 program offerings and preview upcoming recreation services for fall and winter 2025. And I will turn it over to you, Mr. Bman. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. Good evening. Uh welcome back. haven't seen you in a couple months, but actually I've seen lots of you out in the park. So, I think that's a great thing. Uh, tonight with me, I have our recreation services manager, Chris Dill, who is sitting over at the staff table, and our administrative assistant, Katie Levvenick, uh, in parks and recreation. So, what we're going to do tonight is we're going to kind of tag team a presentation. Um, this is going to become an annual thing that we're going to do for you here in August. Uh, we kind of look at this as the end of the season, end of summer, uh, turning over a new leaf into fall. Sorry for the pun. Getting back to school, what you might have it. This is really our time of when our end of our major year ends for all of our programming and our facility uses. Uh in May, you received a presentation on the sports center. So every May we will be coming back to you and giving you a sports center presentation. Uh that is our intention is to get that on the calendar on a regular basis. So in May you'll get sports center kind of recap how the year went, what our plans for the next year are. In August, you'll get parks and recreation and facilities update. And then hopefully uh right now we don't have our natural resources coordinator in place. Uh that position is vacant. Uh Jonah, our wonderful natural resources coordinator, uh flew the coupe and went to Hawaii. Um he and his family relocated to Hawaii. So that's very exciting for him. Uh we are in the process of hiring our new natural resources coordinator. Hopefully then when that person's in place, both that person and Jesse Carlson, our water resources manager, will also come and give you more of a robust natural resources update uh in August or September. We'll kind of figure that out as time goes along. But tonight, we wanted to give you kind of a recap or a season end of all of our programs and facilities and a little bit on natural resources. Um and then we'll stand for questions. But like I said, Chris, Katie, and I will be working together on uh giving you this presentation. So, we're going to start off with recreation. Um, please take uh real close notes uh in actually a close note to the slides. Uh Katie is the one who put this PowerPoint together. So, you're going to see lots of great slides and much more artistic flare than when you see my presentations. Um and you do have a print out in front of you tonight for notes as well as so that you can read along if you need be. So, we're going to start off with our active adult programming, things that we do for adults. And I'm gonna let Chris kind of give you a lowdown on some of our leagues that we offer. >> Yeah, thank you, Greg. Um, Madam Chair and commissioners, we offer cornhole and but bags um for our adult leagues. Uh, the Cornhole League actually is picked up a little more steam. We had a few more teams uh enter this fall. So, uh, Dan created a 12 team schedule, which was more than last fall. And that's played at Community Park on Thursday nights. And then the botchi league, you may recall, was at community park where the pickleball courts are. We relo relocated those um courts. They are now at Shorters Acres. And that is still very popular um with 12 teams for that league as well. That that league is on Wednesdays. >> And that's some of the greatest displays of recreational sports you've ever seen. Uh I played in that league this year and it was really a lot of fun. Really a lot of fun. >> It's not quite there yet. It's not quite there yet. Uh but we do have a commissioner who participates in our bags leagues. Commissioner >> Shear. Yes. Team Cornholio. >> Team Corn Holio. I like >> Holio. No, >> we have a blast. >> How was your team this year? >> Pretty decent. >> Pretty decent. >> I've improved. My husband's always been good. I've I've been improving. >> So you anchor. >> If you have questions about any of our adult leagues, you do have people who actively participate in those leagues in the room tonight. So, if you have questions about him or whatever, you can ask him at the end. Moving on, we've got some more things going on with pickle ball. Chris, >> pickle ball. Um, pickle ball is still going very strong. Um, we have our tournament coming up in October. Uh, you'll see some more information on that. There's the past tournament in June was again very successful. Uh, Dan does a great job. I can't say enough how much he's really um puts into pickle ball. If you ever get the opportunity, if you want to learn how to play pickle ball, Dan Germaine and he will give you as much time as you need. So, um do you want to give us a little recap on your graphic that you put in here for us? >> Sure. Yeah. Unless Chris had more to say. Um but yeah, this is just a comparison of 2024 for the Dan Patch pickle ball tournament to 2025. So, as you can see, uh, it's pretty on par for registration as far as where we were for 2024 and 2025. Unfortunately, weather did impact 2025 this year. So, although registration was great, uh, the weather was not so great on Saturday for the tournament, so many of the matches did end up getting cancelled. Um, but otherwise, it did have a good turnout on paper. So, that's fun to see as well. But like Chris said, uh, pickle ball is going strong, very much so in Savage. >> Chris, you want to talk about our lessons and some of the other pickle ball programs? >> Sure. Uh, Dan also, um, teaches, he's a teaching pro. Um, so he will teach, uh, some classes throughout the summer. This particular summer, uh, he did offer, um, intro to pickle ball for people wanting to learn. And then, uh, next step, so after you take the first class, you can, you're getting better. Um, so you can take that class. And then the final one was uh drive and drop your way into the cook uh into cooking in the kitchen court. So our camp. Um, the kitchen you may know is the the short area between the net and the uh the first line. So that's called the kitchen. Uh, that's more technical. That's for more of your advanced play. And uh, so th this year we had 12 participants amongst the others. So, we'll take a look at those, re-evaluate and see if uh we either need to change something up or uh maybe put it to sleep for a little bit and see if the interest is there or not. Uh the mix uh Fridays um it's it's very popular. It's mixed doubles and that's run through May through June. Um we had 26 participants and that's 50 plus uh age and they're either paired up amongst your skill level. So, you play somebody similar to you and then he'll do a rotation with a deck of cards as Mr. Boltman has experienced. Um, if you um actually Greg, you can probably explain the card more than I can. >> Sure. So, the what they do is they draw he gives you there's uh four kings, four queens, four jacks, four tens, and so on. Depending on the number of of pairs that you can make up, you go draw a card. All right. So, I'm going to draw and I draw a jack. Uh Chris draws a jack. So, we're teammates. uh Katie and Kevin uh Commissioner Chow, they draw jacks and so we play them. Okay, the kings, that's the key. You want to stay on that court. It's called kings of the court or king's court, whatever. So if in the jacks game, if we win, we move up to the queen's court. The loser of the queen's court moves down. And so then you whoever wins moves up, whoever loses moves down. So that way you get a chance to play everybody. skill level does kind of ultimately balance itself out so that the kings and queens and jacks, maybe more advanced players are playing a little bit and those that are the tens, nines, eights, and then you come down and play me down at the twos because that's where I usually end up. Um, but it's a great way to get out, you meet new people, and you test your pickle ball skills. Uh, and quite honestly, it's really fun. People have a blast with it. So, it's one of those great ways to do it more informally. we do have a sign up uh so that we do know how many people are coming and can plan a little bit but it's it's really what it's designed as is a mixer you get to know all kinds of people and if I can real quick commissioners um and chair Sorenson speak to the statistics on that slide as well um all the numbers that you're going to see before you come from our system that we use for recreation it is called WCT track it comes from Vermont systems and I know Chris and Greg could speak to that system more than I can but I spend pretty much my entire day in it every day. Um, so all of the numbers that you'll see in front of you are coming from RecTrack. Uh, but what that doesn't reflect is that like human element or the person element, uh, because recreation is built off relationships and the work that we do is built off relationships. And so even though it says four classes held, we know that Dan is on the regular doing one-on-one classes or doing things with people on the side. um and 12 participants doesn't necessarily reflect what he does uh in the work that he is doing constantly. So, we just wanted to admire that as well as we speak to the work that we do with pickle ball and the numbers that you'll see because that human element isn't necessarily reflected, >> right? And I think Katie nailed it on the head when you're talking programming. That's what the numbers tell us, but the numbers don't tell the whole story. If you go out there tonight, oh my gosh, I would guess there's probably going to be 100 to 150 people on those courts. Uh, it's gorgeous out. People want to play, so they go out and play. Excuse me. All right. Savage Recycle Day. I'll take this one. While not necessarily a recreation program, it happens in one of our parks. Uh, and it is run by some of our staff in public works. So, I wanted to share a little bit about that with you. Um, this report was given to us by Jared Hullberg, our parks and recreation, sorry, our public works street maintenance supervisor. Uh, we had approximately 160 cars, trucks, and trailers. You can see a bunch of other statistics on your report in front of you. Um, but really the design of this is to allow people in Savage an opportunity to clean out their garages, their houses, their basements, their atticss, and get rid of their stuff. Uh while a great service for homeowners and residents of our community, it also serves our entire community well. It helps keep down dumping in our parks. It helps keep down illegal dumping of trash. We recycle things at this event. Uh it also keeps our homes in better shape, allowing people to be able to at no cost or low cost get rid of items uh out of your home very conveniently. Um during the COVID years when we were not uh able to have this event, we were concerned about increase in dumping in our parks and we did see that. Uh now that we've had this event, it's back down to regular dumping in our parks, not in the increase that we normally saw. Um any questions on Savage Recycling Day? It's a cool event. If you haven't participated, we encourage you to do so. That usually happens in May every year or right around that time. always seems to occur on the same day we're taking the dome down to or close to it. Um, but again, this year we moved it out of community park and over to public works. That worked out really well for us. Uh, we have our memorial tree and bench program or memorial bench and tree program as it says here. If you have not seen some of our memorial benches, there's a great picture of it represented here. They are all throughout our park system. There's quite a few at community park. Um, but the memorial benches, we're having five installed yet this summer. Uh some have already been installed, some are going to be installed. Um and then we are also doing a lot of replacements uh from back when the tornado went through a couple years ago. Uh as well as um a few that got damaged along the way. Um so some of them are at Hidden Valley Creek Hill Park. Uh we have at a brand new park out there, Okonnell Park. And then we're putting two new benches up here at the library uh next to the Peace Pole location there. Uh those two benches were paid for by the Savage Rotary um and their program uh in collaboration with other Rotaries as well as Rotary International and the city of Savage. Uh so we've got a bunch of new benches coming in and we have a new memorial tree being planted in sometime in September, October whenever good planting time comes um out at Creek Hill Park. Um those memorial benches uh and trees, not as much of the trees, but the benches you can go and see on the plaque it'll say in memory of. Um, and many of our benches also have a QR code somewhere on the bench that you can zap with your phone and read about that person a little bit more. We leave that up to the family or the people who have purchased that bench. Uh, so it's not just a name on a bench. Um, and if that's what you want to sit on their bench, great. But if you want to learn more about that person, you have the opportunity to do so. Uh, we think that's a pretty neat way to honor the people who are memorializing our bench. Um, just so you know, the one at Okonnell Park um, is being was in memory of the former firefighter from Savage who was killed in the line of duty during service uh, for the city of Burnsville. Any questions on our memorial bench and tree program? Arbor Day tree sales. I'll take this one, too. Arbor Day is one of our programs that we kind of look at as a natural resource/parks and recreation type program. Um, we believe that to we are very honored and we believe that we want to keep up our Tree City USA designation. We've had that ongoing for many, many decades here in Savage. Um, and Katie, do you want to talk a little bit about the numbers here? >> Yes. Um, I was able to pull the numbers from last year, 2024, and we sold a total of 321 trees last year, and we had an increase for this year in 2025 to 345 trees sold this year. So, more trees planted on the earth making a big difference. So, >> and this program is where we buy the trees wholesale and then we are able to pass along that same cost to the residents. They are there's no markup. There is nothing. It is total service to the residents. Our intention is to reforest make reforest our urban forest here in Savage. South of the river recreators is our next topic and I'm going to turn that over to Chris to talk a little bit about what is soar and what do we do with them. >> So SOAR has been around a very long time. Um it's probably going on 30 plus years. Um the the idea behind it was at the time a lot of the south cities south of the river were smaller and so uh a combination of Savage, Burnsville, Apple Valley, Egan, Rosemont, and Farmington started doing joint projects to try to if somebody wanted to have a a kickball league. Um they knew they would have to pull in other people from other cities. And so, um, they all got together and they said, "Okay, let's work together. Let's not compete." And so, the idea with Soar is, and it still stands today, is we all work with one another, uh, to, um, the point where Lakeville um, runs a soccer league. Well, we're going to help them promote it. We'll stick it in our brochure. If we get a Savage team interested, we'll send them over to Lakeville so they can have their soccer league. Um and so the it's taken on a number of different faces throughout the years. Um now people are um getting to the point where we don't necessarily need to rely on each other from a uh programming standpoint, more informational and working with one another. Um but yes, we still do um a handful of programs and work together on various things. And so the summer program is soccer, kickball, and um a ground pounders running race, which we no longer are part of that. Now we've kind of moved our series into a different event. Um but we still send staff to some of these activities. They'll send staff to us if we need help. So it's a great program. It's worked well um over a long time. >> Collaboration, efficiency, wise use of government funding. We try to use our smarts when we're doing these types of programs. Any questions on sore programs or the things that we do there? Seeing none, I'll keep going here. We work in more in collaboration. We're offering CPR and first aid classes with the Savage Fire Department. Katie, you want to talk a little bit about those numbers? >> Sure. Yep. Um, in March they had a class and they had six in attendance and as well in June had six in attendance. Uh currently they have two classes coming up and as you can see the attendance is going up and I actually believe for September there were a few more uh that registered even today. So that number might not even be correct. It could be a little bit higher. Uh December, nobody is thinking about December yet. I hope so. I assume that number will go up. But um for those who are thinking about December and worrying about CPR for December, I would recommend signing up for that class if you are interested. And the picture uh on the slide here is actually one of our seasonal staff. Uh Chris, do all of our seasonal staff go through CPR first aid training? >> Yes. >> So every staff member that we hire seasonally um will get trained by our Savage Fire Department as well. So that's a service that we offer for all of our program staff, not only as a benefit to them personally, but to a benefit as a staff member working in our programs. So we think that's a really good benefit. Can >> I ask a question? >> Absolutely. >> Where is this? at one of the fire stations or where where is that? >> Yes, station one, I believe. Yep. >> Which one is that? >> Uh the one that's over by Mchugh's off of 42. >> Yep. Fine. >> One that is being renovated right now. So, it may have to take a different location in September. Um but mostly they take place at the big station which is fire station number one. >> Okay, great. So, what's coming up for our active adults? We uh we're going to do this in sections. We're talking about all of our active adult programmings. Here's what's coming up next. Um, we've got some uh Friday AM friendly doubles mixer. Um, Katie, you want to talk a little bit about the details that you put on here? >> Sure. Yes. So, earlier you saw that we had an offering of this same program in the spring uh and had a great turnout for that and now we have this similar program again in the fall. Currently there is a registration of 21 and we have a capacity of this for 24. So, if you're interested in registering for this class, I'd recommend doing it very soon. You can see the information there. Um, you can call me on the phone tomorrow if you're interested in getting signed up. I can help you out. Um, as well as there's more pickle ball. This whole slide is dedicated to pickle ball. So, pickle ball 101. For those who, like myself, have never played pickle ball and are interested in learning more, uh, you can sign up to learn from Dan, our expert, about pickle ball there. For those of you who do know how to play pickle ball and want to test your skills, there's the pickle ball tournament coming up in the beginning of October as well. So, we'll be doing that again. And there's some teams already signing up for that. So, all of these events should be well stocked with some good people ready to play. >> Our pickle ball tournament is very busy. Um, Chris and Dan spend their entire weekend at Community Park. Um, and so I'm gonna look at you commissioners and say if you want to learn about pickle ball and get a crash course lesson in how to run a tournament, we welcome you to volunteer with us. Um, it would be kind of cool so you can see firsthand. Come on out and join us. We'd love to have you. You can help write names on the board and report scores. Uh, Chris knows that it is an intense day when you've got players saying, "I want to report my score." And you're trying to write down everything. The more hands on deck, the better. So come on out and join us if you'd like. Give us a call if you are interested in volunteering in October. Chris, you want to talk about our history tour of Savage? You know a little bit about this one. >> Yeah. So, um, our former mayor, Janet Williams, um, started this probably four or five years ago. Um, given that she was born and raised here, she knows a little bit about Savage. Um, her and the Historical Society get together and they do a bus tour. Uh, this year's, um, tour is September 20th. They will be meeting at the Savage Library. It's from 10 to noon. They'll be hitting the Savage Finn, Camp Savage, Boiling Springs, The Depot, Hidden Valley Park. Um, and then of course back at the library. Um, our max is about 25, but so we are there is interest. So, we may actually look at getting a bigger V a bus. So, um, please register or spread the word, um, because we can certainly use more people if we're going to fill a big bunch, a coach bus. So, um, the deadline is September 14th. If I could encourage you at all, commissioners, if you have any interest uh, in the history of Savage, it is a fantastic tour. You'll learn lots of things you and it's way more than just Dan Patch. You'll learn more than just about the horse. >> Uh, there's lots to go on. Chris, you're up next. Let's talk about what's happening in our dome this winter for adult leagues. >> So, we have a very popular softball league that can really only run November and December on Wednesdays in the dome. Um, it's sort of a it was a slower time of the year. So, we started this league and it it's taken off. I think we've we maybe have had the exact same eight teams every year except one um because we can only have eight teams because we only have two fields. So, um it's the same teams. They register every year and it's it's silly but it's fun. They like it because obviously you can hit the dome um physically the structure so um they like doing that. Um but uh it's a good league. They have fun. Uh it's easy. Dan runs the league on Wednesdays. So goes November through December. >> Talk about the ball they use. They're not using a >> Yeah, they do. They do use a restrict restricted flight ball that >> it's restricted, but you can still hit it pretty good. So, >> but when it hits things, it doesn't necessarily break them. It's really It's much softer. >> Squishy. >> It's a a really squishy ball. Not like a Nerf ball, but it it still works and the players love it. So, this came out of, like Chris said, some downtime, some creative use of the dome space and getting our adults another opportunity to stay active and recreate. So, that's our adult uh uh active adult recreation programming. Um we'll head into our youth programs now. And again, this is going to be the Chris and Katie show. So, I will turn it over to them to talk about some of the things we do. Oh, as a note, our Savage Sports Center programs, Chris gave you an update on many of our youth programs and youth offerings over there back in May. So, refer back to that presentation. Uh we're not going to go into those in details tonight. >> Go ahead, Chris. >> Uh what do you want to do? >> Moving on numbers. you can talk about pee-wee soccer. >> Sure. So, we offer uh lots of programs for little ones. So, these first few slides are going to talk about the littlest ones that we have programs for. So, these are ages three to five. And so, we have a pee-wee soccer program. Now, this happened the first one was in winter and it began in January. Uh and there was seven participants and that happens in the dome. And then there is also one that takes place in the summer as a camp and there were 23 participants in that this summer and they had a great time. I heard from a lot of parents about the fun that they were having out there running around and if you have seen uh three and four and 5-year-olds play soccer. It is awesome. Um te-ball is also something that we offer in the summer and so there were 10 participants for that. Obviously, soccer is the more popular, but whichever way gets the energy out, I think is great for parents. Um, as a parent of young kids, I agree. And then, uh, summer camp, we also offer tiny tots that takes place in the mornings at Okonnell Park. It's a seven-week camp. Uh, most of our camps are seven weeks long and had an average of 10 participants for that. >> Chris, can you give us a little background on the philosophy of our pee-wee sports camps and why we run them? >> Sure. So many many years ago when I had hair, um we were looking for something for the younger kids to learn the basics. And so I started a program called Peewee Sports, which they just it was young kids. They could just learn soccer, T-ball, which one they had the interest in, and then mom or dad could sign them up in the future for whatever program they thought they had interest in. So pee-wee soccer has been around for a long time. Um basically just learning the game. What's their interest? if it are they going to sit and just pick dandelions or do they actually get um involved with it. So um very simple u if they have the interest and they can move on to a um soccer and or t-ball. >> And how about our uh tiny tots camp? Talk a little bit about what that is and why we run it. >> Sure. So Tiny Tots is is a similar a playground program. Kids will go there. Um like Katie said, in the mornings, 9:00 to noon, uh staff will they'll play in the playground. They'll do crafts, um games, and things like that. It's very simple. Um each week has a different theme for every um program. Tiny Taj Playgrounds. It's all the same theme. At least it gives the kids uh like um one of them is water week. So for that week, they do water activities um water balloons and stuff like that. So, um, this particular one is just for younger kids. Uh, so that's why it's only in the mornings. >> And one of the philosophies we have is that that Tiny Tots camp gives young kids that maybe first exposure away from parents with young adults as leaders. Uh, kind of a prechooly, not preschool, but preschool like concept. Um, where they're getting out and trying new things and getting to interact socially, have fun, get the energy out. When you hear about programs like that, I want to make it very clear to you commissioners, these are not child care programs. They're not designed as child care. We don't run like a child care. However, if our camps provide care for families, that works for us. Does that make sense? So, when parents come and say, you know, uh, you know, with the little guys, it's a short camp. It doesn't really matter. As we talk about our older kids camps, those go longer throughout the day, you know, uh, you you you didn't put sunscreen on my kid and whatever. Well, we don't because we're not child care. There's so many reasons why we don't put sunscreen on kids. Uh, for a hundred that I can think of off the top of my head, but we don't because we're not that child care. If you're looking for that option, that's why they cost what they do. why our programs can remain at the cost that they are is because we want that opportunity for all kids to go and recreate and have fun. So, giving you a little bit of background as we start moving into our little bit older kid programs here and I'll let Chris and Katie take it from here and talk a little bit about our program. So, Chris, do you want to start off with Playground Pals? >> Okay, so Playground Pals is similar to Tiny Tots, but like uh Greg said, it is older kids. Um it is again another seven-week program. this particular program we do allow uh you can either just sign up for the morning or just sign up for the afternoon or you can do an all day. Um uh we do get quite a few people who want to do the all day, kick um Bobby or Cindy out of the house so I can go do my chores, they're gone all day and then they are there. Um but we do get good numbers for playgrounds. Um, again, similar. They have a theme every week. They'll um transition to water week to um save a hero the following week. So, um, adventure camp is a little more by far. It's our busiest and most uh attractive camp. It's held at the Savage Sports Center. So, there are indoor restrooms, which is huge. And of course, there's the turf. Um, people love playing on the turf. It doesn't matter if they're just standing there. They like being on the turf. Um, this one is a little more uh structured. They focus on four different areas. Fun and fitness, athletics, crafts, and then outdoor adventure. So, each day they transition to these different uh uh sections and participate in that activity. Uh, this one does get a we max out at 85 and we could certainly take a lot more if if we had the room. Um, we don't want to get to that point. Uh obviously we would need to hire more staff at that point too. So um but this this is by far the most popular program we have. >> Katie, in terms of registration for our youth programs that we're talking about between Playground Pals and Community Adventures Camp, would you say it's been pretty consistent over the last year when you were here last year? >> Yes, I would say so. And speaking of the popularity, like Chris said, uh these are are very much our popular programs and community adventures camps specifically. uh we have a weight list that is 15 persons deep. That's how the capacity of it and all of these camps uh meet those community adventures camps specifically is always uh at that weightless capacity. And a big part of my summer role is moving that weight list around as people figure out their summer plans and maybe cancel a week and then I'm calling families trying to fill fill that 85th spot. Um so it is it is a popular camp and people want to be there. So, it's very popular and um as a parent who sends her kids to this camp, I can tell you that turf is popular and now there are pieces of it all over my house. It's great. >> Speak about the days before registration. Are parents calling you and talking to you about registrating for camps? And what are some of your stories, you know, about registering for camps? >> A lot of the calls we get before camp registration opens are about preparation for that registration process. um getting their accounts ready for the process. Those are always the best calls we get because they know that when they do log in, it's all going to go smooth and they can just be registered. A lot of the panic calls the day after are that somebody's birthday wasn't entered correctly and they couldn't register. Uh because all of our programs are based off of age. So if you don't have a birthday entered, it isn't going to let you register for a program. Um and so there is a lot of those kinds of calls the day after. This year, our programs went very smoothly thanks to our communications team. They put together a video of how to register for our programs and how to set up an account and those live on our registration page right there in the center. So, I think that helped with a lot of our traffic this year. Um, but from what I hear as a parent in the community, there are are groups of parents that will stay up until midnight that night and get ready to register and they just keep hitting refresh on their computer to make sure that their kids can go to community adventures camp with the city of Savage. >> Yeah. >> Chris, we're moving on to Fabulous Fridays. >> I'm sorry if I may ask a question of either Katie or Chris about the adventure camp. What hours does that run? That's an 8 to4. >> 8 to four. So that's what we consider the all day. 8 to4. No, that's good. That's better than >> many of of the others. And uh how many weeks? >> Seven weeks. >> Seven full weeks. And people can register. You have to register for the entire seven. >> No, you can do you can register one week at a time. >> Yep. Week by week if you wish. Or all of them. Yep. >> That's great. >> And what ages on that? >> Grades one through five. one through five >> entering in the fall. >> Yep. >> All right, we're moving on to Fabulous Fridays, Chris. >> Fabulous Fridays um is is generally focused on a on a field trip. It is a mixture of playing games once you get there. Uh field trips usually leave about 9 or 10. Um and so kids will get there. um they'll play for a little bit, jump on a bus and usually go, as you can see, Valley Fair or the zoo, excuse me, the zoo, um a number of places. And so, uh they can come back, they usually have about a half hour or so, and they just play again. So, the this is generally focused on just the field trip for the day. >> Katie, how are our numbers this year? >> Numbers were strong as usual. Um all the programs, a lot of them were at capacity as well with a weight list. Um, some of the lower ones were just the ones that didn't have the big wow factor. Like Valley Fair, of course, is wow, that's exciting. You get to ride a roller coaster. But either way, all of them are great programs and they're fun for the kids who go. There's great stories I get to hear from the parents when they call and tell me how much fun their kid had um playing kickball against a police officer and things like that. So, yes. >> Oh, there's a question. Oh, >> Commissioner Peterson. >> Yes. Thank you. Just just curious. uh when I I see some of I think of one one to five that's those are still youngish kids and then I see some of these numbers uh how how many what is the staff to kid ratio or does it vary >> so if I heard you correctly it's actually first grade through fifth grade not one >> yeah I'm sorry yeah >> okay >> so yeah >> um we have generally speaking it's 1 to 10 >> staff to kid ratio >> just curious thank you >> and like We said if we provide child care for a family that's awesome but we are not childare. We are park and wreck programs. Kids who are coming to these programs you know again if they uh we want to give them that opportunity to show some autonomy to learn how to go on a field trip to learn what it means to ride a bus, how to behave in a group. Uh a lot of what we do isn't just about going to Valley Fair. It's about building that social social skills and those interacting skills with young adults and a bus driver and the the staff at Valley Fair and so on. So, we give them a little bit more autonomy than what they do in a child care or school setting. They have their place and those are great. Don't I'm not disparaging them. They're just different than what we do in park and wreck. Moving on here, we've got some specific skateboard stuff. Chris, let's talk about our skateboard stuff. >> Sure. So, we work with a company called uh Third Layer Escape um Third Layer Ecate Park is what they're called. Uh we contract with them. They come out with their staff. And what we do um for Damp Patch Days is we have a um free skills clinic. Uh kids can show up uh for about an hour or so and they can learn different uh tricks from the staff and then we'll move into a competition. Um later on it's more of your elite skaters, if you will, but they certainly do break it down by division. Um we we even had um older people, 45 year old gentlemen who did very well. Um but it it's for all ages. Um and the third layer uh camp that we just held, it's a little more expensive. It is $200 per child, but we did get eight participants and that was for a week. And then I will talk about our latch key program. Uh our latch key is in collaboration with our Savage Police and Fire Department. I don't know if you saw any of the advertisements that were done, but they got highlighted on Fox 9 uh local news um talking about our Latch Key program, which is a program designed to teach young kids how to be home by themselves when it's actually legally okay for them to be home alone. Certainly up to parents to make that decision when their children get to stay home alone. But what do you do if an emergency comes up? What do you do if you can't get in your house? What do you do if there's a fire? What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? And our police and fire department, our our staff there are so awesome with kids uh in terms of teaching them. They they were went like gang busters this year and filled up very quickly. The local news advertisement helped a lot. Um but Jackie from our uh police department who is our school resource officer uh as well as John Burrow our fire chief who does all most of leads most of our public education uh they work collaboratively together to run our latch key program. We participated and helped them out by taking registrations for them. Um and we may even next year begin to help them out a little more in terms of how to manage large numbers of kids. Uh our staff are very skilled in that area. Police and fire. There may have been a kid that got thrown in handcuffs. No, I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. >> All right, so that was our youth programs for the summer uh for the family. Um and as you notice, there really isn't an upcoming slide here for youth programs cuz kids are going to school. Uh and so we don't have a lot offering in the fall for kids. But for the family, we've got some things that we did already this summer. Um so let's talk a little bit about some of the things actually summer and winter. Let's talk about those things. Chris, do you want to talk about that? >> Sure. We have um the glow and skate party. Um very simple um glow sticks and it's um obviously darker. Um and then uh Dan will have snacks and things like that on site. Um they'll do little activities and so forth. Um just make it more interesting to skate than just skating around in a circle. Um ranks this year. Um, just to plant the seed with you, we are going to spend a little more uh time and collecting data data, excuse me. Um, we're going to work with Andy Weldon, our assistant superintendent, and really track um time and expenses on what it takes to um do the rinks. Currently, we will be offering uh the same rinks that we have in the past. uh Canterbury, Okonnell, Tro, and Woodill. So, what we'd like to do is maybe get the information and maybe reduce a rink or two um depending on what the numbers are like. Um it's we haven't been able to staff the warming houses. So, Dan created a >> QR code >> QR code cold, excuse me, code. Um so, kids when they got there, they could click say they're there. And so, we were able to track numbers that way. Well, we want to get a better idea of how many people are actually getting out to our park skating. Um, is it worth the expense or do we just try to focus on two rinks, make them awesome, and then go from there. So, we'll get that information probably presented to you March or April here in the spring. Um, but yes, if we are not staffed, the lights do go on a timer, so they just automatically go on. Um, and then uh the warming houses would be closed. But if we do get enough staff, obviously we would staff it uh regular hours. >> Coming up in the spring of this next year, late winter, early spring next year, uh we'll be coming to you with a plan for, as Chris said, for the following skating season. Um so we want to get ahead of it, get out early to you, get you to chance to digest it, give a recommendation to council on where we want to go with our uh skating rink programs here in Savage. Um, and so then, uh, as Chris said, we have great numbers at some parks and we get pretty much no numbers at some others. When we have talked about reducing skating rinks, there's a lot of um, we get some feedback of, well, don't take my rink away. Um, and there's also the demographic change. as kids grow up in a neighborhood and grow out of skating and are they getting replaced by younger kids that maybe tend to be more active at the skating rinks than the older kids or even families. So, more to come. We'll be talking about that. We'll be doing some evaluation and bring it forward to you. Um, more family fun events. Chris or Katie, whoever wants to take this, go right ahead. >> Sure. So, this spring we had the flashlight egg hunt for those who have been part of that before. This last year we were full. Uh we maxed out on capacity again. So I feel like I'm a broken record at this point. Um but it's a very popular event and so had lots of kiddos for that. It is just chaotic when the lights go out and those kids run around with flashlights. So if you've seen that, it's it's something to see. That is for sure. Um community cleanup day. That is not something that I necessarily have been at, but I have those numbers for you. I was able to get those for you. So, there are 14 locations that groups are assigned to go and help clean up in the spring and this is in collaboration with Arbor Day in that celebration weekend, which I know Chris can speak to. Um, but there were about 120 participants that weekend that went out and helped clean up parks and different streets and um, one of our admin assistants was pretty key in making that happen this year. So, >> and then we had our Arbor Day celebration. Chris, talk a little bit about the content of that celebration. Yeah. So, in conjunction with the sale of the tree, um we had Jonah, as as Greg had mentioned before, who moved to Hawaii, but um he did a section uh a session and talked about um a uh >> Emerald Ash. >> Thank you, Emerald Ashbbor. Um so he did um a session and worked with about uh I would say about at the time is probably about 60 to 70 people on how to treat your trees, what to look for. Um we also did have um um a petting zoo there. Um we came in and walked around some animals and uh then just nature hike. Um they could go out and look for different uh trees and basically bingo if you will. Um, and so just sort of to embrace the Arbor Day theme. >> Most of the participants were able to go home with a little seedling, uh, that they could plant in their yard as well. So, uh, we really try to focus that Arbor Day celebration and all of that around Earth Day time, all of that. So, the community cleanup is a really neat event, um, where scout groups, uh, neighborhood groups, interested residents come in and they pick an area and we help them pick out an area to go clean. We give them the PPE, the garbage bags. They throw everything in the garbage bags. We go around on the following workday and clean everything up and pick everything up. Night to unite is a time when we work together with our police and fire departments uh to go out to the community. We just had our night to unite on August 5th. Uh myself and Andy Weldon were in a big plow truck and made it to about five or six parties. Chris, Dan, and some seasonal staff went out to various parties uh with us and played games with the residents at their night to unite parties. Um police, fire. We're I mean we were at I think 53 parties this year throughout the community. The whole goal of the night is to get out and unite as a neighborhood. Get to know your neighbors. Get to know your city staff. Work together. I mean, we we even stopped over at Glendale United Methodist Church. They have a large party there and our very own Katie Levick was singing there as part of that church. Uh so it was a fun event to get out and meet members of our community. And let me tell you these kind of outreach or public engagements events pay dividends huge. Katie mentioned it before. I think you've heard it from me. Everything we do is all about relationships. And so building those relationships of hey I saw you at night to your night. Um, and many many many other stories I could tell you about, hey, I saw you at can I you help me with this information. Um, that's really what we're here for. Uh, treats and tunes. So, just a little history on this one if for those that may not remember. Um couple years ago we had the issue over at Riverbend Park and um at the time a group of residents wanted to have a group neighborhood um garage sale and they were worried that people weren't going to come to the garage sale because of the events that occurred at Riverbend Park and the perceived reputation that some people might think that would go on at that park. Uh and they asked can is there any way we can get food trucks or do something and this was like the day before. Uh, and they were asking for all those details and I said, "No, but let's do something." So, what we decided to do is go buy a bunch of ice cream and go over there, play some music on the radio or from Spotify, which we have a license for, by the way, uh, and to be able to play music uh, and have people just come and get to know each other. Kind of that same theme as Night to Unite. Well, it went like gang busters. We never imagined how that program would go. We had people from the senior living facility by the memory care facility. We had people from across the street coming over, kids of all sizes and shapes and colors, residents of all over getting together and eating ice cream and having fun. So, we thought, let's do it again. So, last year we did our treats and tunes program uh in 20 we started in 2024 because it's 25 right now. So, we did a full season where we moved from park to park to park and we brought our music in the park series out from behind the ELC out into the parks and same concept. We get together about for an hour, hand out ice cream, play some fun kid music where people can dance, play games, play um uh kick a soccer ball around, play parachute games, play bag toss, whatever, but get to know each other. And then usually about after that hour is up, the musicians come. Chris books a variety of different musical acts from kids groups to this last one was Irish music. Um, we get our biggest group which is the panhandlers which is a steel drum band. If you have not seen them, I highly recommend them. When you hear Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses played on the steel drums, it's a sight to behold, let me tell you. Um, but it has worked out fantastically. Um, what do you think, guys? two to 250 easily each night. >> Easily. >> Yeah. So, we get and and and different people. Some people follow us around and go from park to park with us, but it's different groups that come out to their local park. Uh just last week, two weeks ago, last week we were over at Trust Park and I was annicing that it's called Trrost Park, not Trust Park like many people say it. And I was educating them saying it's named after a family. Uh the family's name is Trrost. and they I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around and there she was a 90 some odd year old member of the Trrost family who lived on that property and was remembers her dad donating that land to the city before it was developed and uh it was really fun and multiple generations of the Trrost family were there just one of the side outcomes of Treats and Tunes. We do have one more coming up here. We'll talk about that and when we talk about our upcoming events so what's next for families here in Savage? We got a whole bunch of stuff. Chris, you want to talk about the who done it hike? >> Yep. So, again, this is a sore activity. This is something we all try to promote. It is held in Lakeville at Ritter Farm. It'll be September 6th. It's free to attend. Essentially, uh somebody um we uh Lakeville contracts with somebody to write a mystery story. Um so, when you arrive, you get a slip of paper and you literally have to find out who done it. So, um it is obviously kid-friendly. um you know maybe somebody um let the dog outside. Well, who who done it? Um so it is a variety of the story changes every year. Um but we do serve light refreshments. We send a staff person and it's usually about usually takes everybody about an hour to an hour and a half to complete the the trail. Um and it's very simple. Um again it's a collaboration with the other cities so it works well. Treats and Tunes, as I mentioned, is coming up on September 16th. Normally, Treats and Tounes is from 6:00 to 8, but because we are in the school year, and it starts getting darker earlier. Yes, I'm sorry. We're at that time of the year. We move it to 5 to 7:00 p.m. Um, and you can see the asterisk there, but that's directly out of our brochure so that people can see that it is a different time. Uh, and we're going to be at Creek Hill Park. We figured we would end up the year uh getting to celebrate that park. By the way, uh little side note from Night to Unite, they had their neighborhood celebration, which hands down by far is usually the largest neighborhood celebration in the entire community. Uh they used to have it in people's in a culde-sac. Now they moved it to the park and they were thrilled. I only didn't hear any concerns. People were thrilled about the park. Uh took a picture of the entire neighborhood all over the playground equipment. So it was pretty neat. So, we're going to do our last treats and tunes of the 2025 season at Creek Hill Park. Little Fall Festival on Apple Dash is a great program. Go ahead, Commissioner Peterson. >> On something a question on that with the large numbers you're getting for treats and tunes and a a park like that is a neighborhood park. It doesn't have lots of parking, things like that. How how is parking being managed for these events since they are so popular? >> Great question, Chair Commissioner Peterson. The answer is for a one-time event, they're parking all over the place. They're on the streets and all legally parked. Um, so like at Trrost, we had a very small parking lot and people were lined up and up and down the streets. We don't typically do that type of programming at these parks. So, one time a year and we don't do it every year at those parks. We rotate it around. It's a way to get people who don't normally go to those parks to be able to experience them, get the neighbors out to experience their park. Uh but again with that outcome of just trying to build community, we we feel that it's okay to do one time a year a a larger program at some of those neighborhood parks. But the parking has not been uh a a problematic. Sure, it's a challenge and you may have to walk a little ways uh to get to it, but we encourage people to ride their bikes and walk and and such to get to the park if they live close by. >> Thank you. >> A little fall festival in Apple Dash. This is one that we do in collaboration with Wildflower uh Early Learning Center, which is the Big Red Barn out on 154th Street, right by Murphy Handraan Park. Um and it's coming up here in September. Actually, we did it last year in September. Uh no, that is upcoming. We also did it last year. Um they came to us several years ago said, "We want to do something collaboratively with you." Uh recreation supervisor Dan Bret Schneider said, "Okay, let's do something fun." And so we do it kind of a Halloween fall type theme uh where they go out and they have lots of programming. Uh they do a a little apple run where the kids get to run throughout the the farm out there um and get a chance to win a little cool prize and it's just a really fun family event designed for little younger kids and it's free. Our Halloween bash, Mr. Dur Halloween bash is probably our biggest event. Um from a programming standpoint, from uh registrations, we you do have to register. Um this year it is October 18th uh at the sports center. We get we're probably pushing a thousand people um for that program if not a little more. Um we have a variety of stuff. Um, in the past we have had uh petting zoo. Um, we have inflatables. We have face painting, magicians, the horse and wagon. Uh, food trucks. Uh, you name it, we have it. So, if you haven't been there, I highly recommend at least poking your head in. Um, it is complete organized chaos, but it works. And, um, it's it's it's a quick event. It's 5 to 8:00 p.m. >> And we have table sponsors and games. >> We do. Yep. So, we also get communities uh organizations that will sponsor. They'll if they're going to sponsor uh they have the opportunity to host a table. If they're going to have a table, then they have to do a kid activity. So, uh if an insurance company wants to be a sponsor, they then have to also then provide a a game for the um participants to play. So, it helps us not have to create everything. Uh the sponsors then create their own activity. Also coming up this uh winter season, we'll have our our tree lighting ceremony in December. We've been doing that for the last several years now. Uh and that's a talk about a quick event. This one goes really fast. Um but it's again another one of those opportunities to bring the community together around the holiday season. Uh light up a c a tree out here on city hall's parking lot. Um and then in collaboration Santa Cop or Santa night uh where uh people can bring toys for toys for tots run by our police department. We do those two events in collaboration with each other. The Secret Holiday Shop. This is Chris Dill's favorite activity of the year, let me tell you. >> Oh, the smile on his face is >> Oh, the Secret Holiday Shop. Um, you know, it's a simple, easy program. Um, if you if you're unfamiliar with it, it allows the child to do their own shopping for their family. So, uh, the parents can drop them off at the sports center. They'll hang out in the lobby. Uh the child then can walk in the sports center um and pick items for whomever they're buying for. Uh we have volunteers uh usually from the high school that will work with uh the child. Um they have a list and they try to um pick an item that is convenient or relatively something that they might find of interest. Um the items are questionable sometimes depending on um what it is, but the kids have fun. They get to pick the item out themselves and um surprise their whoever they're buying it for because they then the volunteers will wrap it up. But it's it's it's a good event. >> It's one of those events that Chris and I look at each other every year and say, "Really? Are we going to do this again?" And then after the event, we hear from parents who say, "This is the greatest thing in the world. Our kids love it. They look forward to it. Uh, you know, they want to buy their dad the world's best dad mug or that uh minion stocking cap that they just think is the greatest thing when they see their mom or dad wearing that on Christmas morning or grandpa and grandma's wearing whatever. Uh, it's really a fun event. We're always looking for volunteers. If you want to go help kids shop, come on out and help us out. Give us a call. We'll give you more information about coming to our secret holiday shop. You can make Chris's Saturday morning just be that much brighter by showing up and helping us. >> I have a quick question. Where does the stuff come from? Where does the greatest dad mug come from? >> So, I don't know that Chris heard you. Where does our stuff for the secret holiday shop come from, Chris? >> It's a company called Fun Services. Um Okay. >> And it's Yeah. So, we um >> we used to actually go and look at the items. Now it's we've been doing it for so long. They just send us uh um the items range from a dollar to 13 $14, sometimes 15. So we keep it very reasonable. Um so they just send us a bunch of boxes. Whatever we sell, we pay for. Anything we don't sell, we just return and we're not responsible for that fee. So >> it it works out nice. >> It does. and we do a little bit of a markup on it to help cover some of our program costs, but not as much to make the the the things cost prohibitive for the kids. >> Yeah. I just want to add that I'm always impressed with the number of high school volunteers. I believe it's usually the National Honor Society, >> correct? >> And they're required to put in volunteer hours and it's it's great to see some of those kids bewildered trying to help the younger ones and really >> they actually enjoy it. >> Really good experience for them. And the Santa is is the best. >> Yeah. the real beard. >> Yeah. Yes. >> Great. All right. Now, we did that's all of our programming. We're going to move on to our facility rentals. Um and we'll get start talking about here. So, as we mentioned before back in May, you got your report from Chris um uh back in May about the Savage Sports Center. So, if you have questions about how the sports center performed this last year, refer back to those minutes. If uh if you have any questions specifically, give us a call at the office. um we'll help you out there or shoot me or Katie an email and we'll get it to the right people to answer for you. Um staff, you want to talk? Go ahead, Chris. >> Well, I can just I'll note um the sports center does get inflated Friday, October 10th, and then we are scheduled to open Monday, November 3rd. So, >> okay. >> We have several other uh facilities that we want to highlight for you today, the ELC, park shelters, and our community gardens. So, Chris and Katie, take it away. Sure. So, uh, these are again reports from RecTrack, like I said before. And as I ran these reports, uh, especially for the ELC and the park shelters, as I looked at them, I said, "Oh, that's what I do every day. There it is on paper as I look at these numbers and the names and all the things that come through with these statistics." So, this was fun to see for me on a giant spreadsheet as it came through. Um but the environmental learning center um starting at January 1st up until today uh we currently have uh 340 reservations to date uh and those don't show the number of hours of those reservations. It just says of households. So a household reservation um internally those are anything that's with the city of Savage or fire or police. Uh those types of reservations. 92 of those were internal. So 92 of the 340. Um you also see added to that is the self-guided tour reservations. So what that is is a lot of times we get a call from someone that says, "Hey, I just got engaged and I'm thinking about having a wedding reception at the Environmental Learning Center. Can I come see your facility before I drop a lot of money on it?" Um and we say, "Sure." And uh what we do is we set up a self-guided tour. And so they book a reservation with me and they are given 30 minutes to kind of go walk around the facility. I gather their information as far as like phone number, name, all this stuff. Give them a key that is programmed. They come back. I answer all of their questions that they have and then they go from there and then usually call me a day later and make a reservation. So that's typically how that goes. So we've just started tracking that. That's newer for us. Um so those are internal reservations. And then external is listed there as well. So those are anything that is not within the city of Savage. And we do have a number listed there for revenue. That was a quick addition at the end of the day. Um so it may not be exact down to the right penny. Um but you can see that number there as well. Um and then so that's the environmental learning center. >> I'm going to jump in for a second, Katie. >> Please do. those reservations, those 220 reservations, the ones that Katie were talking about with the those that go on the self-guided tour, they come back and ask questions. She kind of breezed over that quickly. Sometimes it's two, three, four phone calls of questions. Sometimes it's weeks on end of answering questions um with people. So, one reservation can take up a tremendous amount of staff time. Uh, it speaks volumes of both Chris, Katie, Dan, and many of the recreation staff's time and commitment to serving our residents well, but it's also a lot of work to make those reservations go. Um, and we have a a loyal following um, who want to book uh, years ahead, but we don't allow that. We only do one calendar year ahead. So, the rolling calendar as it goes throughout the year. So, you can imagine come graduation season, we have people waiting outside our door on a Friday morning, a Thursday morning, and a Saturday. Well, in a following Monday morning to try to get those weekend uh reservations taken care of. So big following, really great service. Uh the ELC is very popular. All right, Katie. >> And if I can, I'll just speak to that too as well. As he said, sometimes it is multiple phone calls. It's very fun for me when a reservation does come around and I have talked to these people probably four or five times already and I can say, "Oh, Tracy, have a great reservation this weekend. I hope your daughter's wedding is wonderful." and I know them and their story and everything that's going on. That's really an honor and a privilege to enter their story in that way. So, it is a lot of work, but it's joyful as well. >> I just want to commend the city. I can't count how many times I've been to the ELC, and it's always run well. I'm impressed that the people clean up after themselves well, but the the facility is in top shape. And I'm I'm wondering, are you increasingly having to turn away people? It seems the demand is has been climbing. >> I mean, Katie can talk to it more. We will get people that are parked out front because you can do it 365 days in advance. >> Yeah. >> They'll be in front of the building at 4 in the morning waiting for us to open. >> So, you'll get the onesie twzies trying to fight for time. It's nothing like it has been for any of our uh recreation where they would stand in line for six hours waiting to get in. But it's two or three people who will be waiting to get in and they kind of amongst themselves they actually kind of work out their own >> timing so they can both do it the same day. But K, am I close? >> Yeah, we did have a few this year where they a few came in to book a grad party and the day was already taken. Um, so they had to come back the next weekend and by the time they came in, the date was already taken and came back again and again. But that's just how it goes sometimes. So we tell them, you know, try to be here at 7 a.m. That's all we can do for you. So, um, it is very popular and I can say too, uh, right now most of our weekends are booked all the way through beginning of November. Um, so we are very well stocked going into the fall as well. >> Picnic shelters. >> Yeah. So, for park shelters, uh, it's been our obviously our very busy season for us. Uh, the park maintenance crew has been very busy keeping up with it. Uh, we've had 101 reservations since January 1st. Uh, and you can reserve in the winter in case you were wondering. You are welcome to do that. Um, and 60% of those reservations have been at Hidden Valley Shelter. It is by far the most popular shelter. Um, and that is the one with the fireplace. We do not rent out the one that is by the playground. And I can let Gregor Chris speak to that. Um, but it is definitely the one that people want and I get calls about all the time. And as Katie mentioned, we have a second shelter down there that is nonreservable. And that is for the people who want to just go and have a shelter place to go and eat, have a picnic, play on the playground, walk in the park. What was happening in years past is that those people were sitting in the park, the reservable shelter, um messing it up. Not, you know, not intentionally, but when we have a reser reservation that comes in at, let's say, 1:00 and they're in there at 12:30, they're still there. They're having a good time. it comes to be kind of a potentially contentious situation and so we have very clearly marked a reservation at one you know don't use this shelter we have a shelter over here for you that was part of the reason why we put that second shelter in been very popular uh as Katie mentioned this whole site is incredibly popular um and I all of you know Hidden Valley is one of our gems here in Savage our community gardens Mr. Dill, I'll let you talk about community gardens. >> Sure. So, this is our third season at Warren Butler Park and our second season at Riverbend. Um, actually, maybe it's our fourth season at Warren Butler. Um, again, it's they're very popular. Warm Butler is very popular. We only have one open plot. Um, and everything out there is 9 ft tall. The the soil is phenomenal. Um there are sunflowers that I think are 10 feet tall. They're they're it's creepy. Um they're huge. Um riverband. Uh we did have to do some soil amending uh this spring. Um it it's the the produce is growing much better. Um it's not quite to Warren Butler uh levels, but um it it is um certainly very popular and they are produ it's producing what they're wanting. So um I I anticipate this not going away anytime soon. >> And with the change in state laws uh this year we had something we were we kind of thought about but we really didn't think it would come to fruition. But >> I wasn't going to bring it up. Well, I'm going to bring it up because it's something that the commissioners need to know that we have to think about these things. Um, is somebody just started to grow marijuana in one of our garden plots. And so, it wasn't something that we thought was going to be a big deal. We thought it maybe somebody might try to do it because it is legal to have it. And there's certain laws. It is not legal to grow it in our community gardens. And we will make sure we highlight and big bold that next year when they sign their agreement uh for what they can and can't grow in their community garden plots. Did any of you have a garden plot this year? And uh if I may ask, how did your plot turn out? >> Um great. Yeah, we have we have two plots actually at Warren Butler and it's fun. It's another great way to build community and um just a fun way to be outside in the summer. >> Excellent. We are looking to do some more creative things around our garden program where we may bring in some master gardeners, Commissioner Shogrin, um, and others to come in and, you know, if we we hear of people who don't know how to garden. If it naturally happens with the person next door to them who has a plot next door and they can work together, that's wonderful. But we're really looking to uh help people meet each other, grow some food that they may not have a chance to grow in their own yard, or even augment their own food budget. Um there are several other private community gardens in this community and that's kind of the mission that they have is to get a place for people to augment their uh food budget themselves. We're seeing a little bit of that. We want to, you know, we're open to more. U these two sites can grow if the demand grows. Uh it's a very relatively easy program for us. We till up another lane, mark off some new things, and get some new signs. Um so it works out really well. Very popular program. We're going to continue with this one into the future. All right, that's our facilities in a nutshell. I'm going to talk briefly about natural resources. Um, emerald ashbor is the acronym and EAB is the acronym dour. Uh, it's pretty much everything EAB right now. Um, we have removed the trees in the right of way. R O stands for right of way. Uh, we have removed over 500 trees in that area. um uh since our whole process started we removed some trees 35 25 I can't read real well 25 trees in parks um and these are trees that are in the visible areas around playgrounds around shelters in the more active use areas we haven't even touched the EA are often more the natural area we are letting them go letting them be I'm not sure what happened to my presentation but hopefully it'll pop back up here in a second uh but you have it in front of you Uh we've replanted a bunch of trees. We have not and will not be replanting any trees in the right of way. The trees that are planted in right of way become city's responsibility. Um and when the homeowner wants that tree removed, they come to the city to remove it. And that's a cost that everybody in the city has to pay for. So unless intentionally planted within the right of way wanting to be planting in the right of way and actively discouraging residents to plant in the right of way and their own property. So we asked them to plant the trees back in their yard if that makes sense. We have to remove trees right now diseased emerald ashbor ash trees uh in people's yards if you will. It's in the right of way. So we have to as a city take on that responsibility. Um, so what else? Uh, there's a lot of public tree monitoring going on. Um, we have about a bunch in good condition, a few in fair condition, and a bunch more on the removal list. Um, so our plan is to continually monitor them. Uh, remove trees uh that are either in that poor or dead condition. Um, we're strategically trying to use our staff and our ICWC, the institutional community work crew, very strategically. Trees that are easy to take down, easy to dispose of, um, easy to get to, we will do ourselves. It saves overall taxpayer dollars to do that. When it's a more challenging tree, one that's in a more precarious situation, we hire out the tree experts to come in and do that. They have different equipment than what we have and so on. Um, so we got lots more going on there. The thing that has been brought up at council, just so you're aware of, is council has asked um what about residents who are struggling to take care of their own trees on their own property and remove those diseased trees. If you uh uh live anywhere in Savage, you can drive down streets and see dead trees in people's yards. Um council is looking very carefully at options, what could be done to assist homeowners with the cost uh and management of those trees. So, uh, we don't have a program yet, but we're looking at what other communities are doing and what that investment would be to help our homeowners to deal with these types of trees. We encourage every single person who has taken down a tree to come to our tree sale and buy a new tree or visit one of your local tree uh, nurseries in the area uh, and buy trees from our local uh, brickandmortar stores. We want trees in in our neighborhoods and in our uh, residential areas as much as we want them in our parks. Um, let's see. The treatment program has been going really well. Um, we treat our trees on city property that are ash trees and uh residents have been treating them. The concern is that it's a long-term commitment. If you do it one year and expect that tree to survive uh in perpetuity, that's not going to happen. Uh they're not even guaranteeing anymore if you do treat the trees that they will survive. What we know is that there are many trees that are surviving. Um, I'll tell you anecdotally, uh, in my neighborhood, every house had an asht tree in their front yard. Mine died years ago. My neighbors just went to, um, um, just died this last year and it went dead quick. Neighbor on the other side of me has a beautiful, fully leafed out asht tree. He's been treating his for about, I don't know, six years, and the rest of us have not. And so, um, that's something to be aware of. The city sponsors that program. Uh, traditionally our contractor has been Rainbow Tree Care. Um, and they get we negotiate a price um that we get for our treating of our trees and we extend that same treatment uh price to the residents here in Savage and we do it in collaboration with Prior Lake as well. >> Greg, >> yes. >> We treat our asht tree. It's probably the only one left on the road. >> Lots of dead trees. Yeah. >> Mhm. And I do catch people stopping to look at the little thing cut nailed to the tree. They're like, "What is on your tree?" >> I got I got five of them I've been treating since 2017. >> Wow. >> They're big. >> Yeah. >> It's expensive, >> but >> Well, it's cheaper than a new tree >> cost to remove them >> than to remove them. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. We we've heard stories from some residents depending on the size of the tree, the location of the tree, how to get the tree out of their backyard, uh so on in the neighborhood of tens of thousands of dollars. So 10, 15, $20,000 to remove those trees. Uh and that's just I mean that's unbearable for a lot of people. So again, why the city is going to be looking at some options. Uh moving on with our natural resources report, we have a solar uh panel program that we applied for a grant. U we're going to be putting some solar panels on another city building. We currently have solar panels on the ELC. We are going to continue with this and try to see if this can help us and defay our cost of energy use um and looking at some alternative sources. Our council has strongly encouraged us to do this. So the water treatment plant 2 u will have some solar panels uh installed on it later this year. Um the panels are not to augment or offset the cost of energy in producing the water. It is in the office space and the the spaces around that. Um, we want to make sure we're not messing with that energy for producing water. That's just way too important. Um, but we're going to try it in the office space there. And if it works well, we may extend this to other places within the city. How we're paying for it, it's about a $100,000 program uh project, I should say. 60,000ish dollars are coming from a a grant that had requires to have a 60% match. So, a $100,000 uh grant or $100,000 project. $60,000 is funded through this grant. Another $30,000ish dollars is coming from the federal funds and then the city is kicking in $10,000. We believe that the return on this investment will be within three years. Um that's what we're hoping for. Uh that's what we've been told and that's what we're projecting. So we believe that this is going to be potentially a really good thing for us to go into. Um yep, the city moves a little slower, some places move a lot faster. These are tax dollars. We want to use them wisely. We don't want to invest into something that could go away really quickly. Uh we want to think carefully, thoughtfully, and that's why it seems to take us a little longer to do it. And then storm pond maintenance. This is coming directly from Jesse Carlson, our water resource manager. Um I just had a young kid in the office today and he was talking about uh um he was taking a tour of public works, and they said, "Why do you have to go dig out the ponds?" Well, that's one of our big things we do is we dig out all the sediment in the ponds. And where does the sediment come from? It's things kids don't think about, but we have an active program in maintaining our storm ponds. And not only is that in dredging them and keeping that the water um basin itself working well. It's also the surrounding area around the pond, the buffer. We have to keep woody vegetation out of there. So the grasses and the right kind of vegetation grows in those areas so that it filters the water as it's coming over land into that pond. It filters it, right? Um and so it's an active program. We have well over 300 storm ponds. well over 300 storm ponds that we have to maintain. It's a very costly investment. Um, and we are playing a lot of catch-up right now. Jesse has done a fantastic job of prioritizing which storm ponds need to be maintained. Um, and we do it in collaboration with Jesse at public works. Um, so city staff, mostly crews from our street maintenance, when they're not doing as much street maintenance, they jump into the storm ponds. We also use our institutional community work crew to go out and do a lot of the tree removal and and vegetation removal as well. So, lots going on in natural resources. [Applause] Last couple of things for you is we're in the process of hiring our natural resources coordinator coordinator technician position. Uh, as I mentioned, Jonah moved to Hawaii. Hello, Jonah, if you're watching us from Hawaii. Um, the position has posted and it was closed back in August, a little bit earlier in August, and the interviews are being set up now. We hope to have somebody on by October. takes a it's a process you get them on board. Some other highlights um let's see the city manages several other areas throughout the community. If you notice some of our natural areas in our active use parks like at community park behind the environmental learning center those are actually natural uh prairie biomes looking at what the natural areas of Savage looked like before it was um established as a growing community. Um so we keep those as natural as we can. You can't just have a natural area and have it look the same from year to year to year to year. They change and evolve over time. Woody species grow become a forest and then we those plants get choked out. Um in back in the day when we were all fields and prairies and forests in the United States um they could just move those species would move to another area and keep growing and developing. For us to have these areas and name we need to maintain them. So, in collaboration with our own city staff as well as hiring out um contractors, excuse me, um they come out and help us manage our natural areas throughout the city. More to come on this into the future. You'll learn more about this as we go expand our natural resources presentation to you. Uh but we wanted to give you at least a taste of what we're doing for natural resources. And with that, that was a long presentation, but hopefully a good and informative one. What kind of questions do you have for Chris, Katie, or myself? Commissioner Peterson, uh, have we evaluated the success of the Clover experiment or is that still an ongoing effort? >> The Clover experiment. >> Oh, uh, down at it's an ongoing process. The, uh, chair, Commissioner Peterson, the what she's referring to is the grass that we planted or the seeds that we planted near the archery range, uh, down at Community Park or sorry, at uh, Hidden Valley Park. Um, and we have not had a full season of that yet to be able to say success, failure or not. So far, it's looking good. Um, we've had to mow a little bit less. Uh, it's maintaining the traffic, the foot traffic of the archers, that area. Um, so we'll continue to evaluate that as we go forward. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Other questions? [Music] >> Anybody? >> No. Very comprehensive. >> Yeah. Thank all three of you for this incredibly comprehensive report. It's really um fun to see all the things that the um department is doing and accomplishing and um focusing on. So, thank you. That was great. [Music] Anybody have anything else? Well, our um Did you have anything else, Mr. Bowman? >> I do. I have an update for you and a couple questions. Uh Katie has been sending you oodles of emails over the last month. Um and one of them was about our Highway 13 visual quality committee. I know we had many of you uh submit uh that you'll be willing to step up and be a part of this committee. Did any of you get selected for that committee? >> Great. Have you had a meeting yet on that? >> Yes. >> Do you mind sharing with us a little bit about what you're doing and uh and what you're learning? >> Sure. It was uh we had uh it was meeting two of the committee. There were 1920 people on there. Uh city of Savage um >> Burnsville, >> Burnsville, uh Mandot Scott County, uh ex Mayor Janet on behalf of the historical society. That was interesting hearing her talk. I did not know that Highway 13 was originally along McCull. um and Williams Drive. Um and then they we're we're talking because it was they were focused on the visual. I don't I let you try me. Um the perspective of from Nicollet to um Buffalo Tap um >> Quinton >> Dakota >> and Dakota I guess you can say Dakota all the way. Yeah. Uh so they are I guess they would be it's mind and then uh taking into consideration I would guess the what you will be currently now I'm taking note of like when you're driving east and west and how that will potentially change with overpasses and such with the road you They don't have a final plan yet. >> So, they're taking those things into consideration considering some of the historical sites. Um, so, and then just some of the things that like the Dakota Bridge, the if you if you do drive underneath that, it is interesting some of the minor aesthetics that they've done with the concrete work. So, it's just not plain concrete. So they do have built into the budget some things for how some of these things look aesthetically. You'll notice at some overpasses they'll be rot iron artwork and stuff like that. So I think that what they what we'll get to is like the city of there they will be deciding if it's a cohesive uh visual aesthetic if there's things that are occurring like in uh the ports area or in historic downtown Savage versus uh Burnsville. Um and the pure linear aspect of it basically from Menards to Dakota was if you think about it you know we drive there all the time and you know you're like oh yes it's a real long straight line so I don't know if you have anything else to >> um yeah just a little recap was like they talked about how to like you said cohes make it cohesive from Dakota all the way to Highway 5 and they talked about like um you know a lot of people drive through Highway 13 there in Savage and not even knowing you're going through Savage like, "Oh, well, I'm just going 13." So, adding landmarks that would identify that this is like downtown Savage or, you know, talked about how Highway 5 bridge has like Burnsville markings on it and such. Uh, maybe adding that over the bridges in through Savage and such. >> Was there any mention of above or below grade crossings? We haven't gotten to that yet because I that's that's what caught my eye is uh on the initial read of what was going to be happening is from a mobility pedestrian uh aspect. Um I mean they talked about things like lighting and such. So that's encompassed in here. I'm hoping we get to the point of okay, what's it gonna how's it a pedestrian gonna interact because you do see folks especially like at Nickel it 13 crossing all because we're through that interchange a lot and it's dangerous and I can imagine the same thing happening probably at Washburn and um >> Lynn >> well >> if if Lynn you one of the, you know, if you've seen one of the plans, Lynn will, depending on what kind of interchange that is. Um, so, um, yeah, I'm curious to, I didn't, I didn't want to like interject that scene. >> No, you no more. >> I was asking questions. J man, ex-meor Janet Williams was asking questions and I'm like, I'll step back. >> Thank you, commissioners. We really appreciate you giving of your time to be on this and representing the parks, recreation, and natural resource commission as well as your residency and your neighbors and so on. Um, as we go throughout the the season, if you have updates, just, you know, shoot me an email ahead of time to of one of our meetings and I'll make sure I let the chair know that we'll just even have a time for updates for you. So, you I'm not putting you on the spot like I did tonight. Uh, you maybe will give us a little bit more of an update. >> Thank you for the opportunity. >> You bet. Also coming up, uh we have our community development bus tour. Uh I know that we may have one person signed up so far. If others are interested, it's Wednesday, October 1st, uh from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Uh that'll include a walking tour of downtown Savage. The Gallery Project, which is out in South Savage, uh which is a large apartment complex. Uh Creek Hill Park, uh going to I'm going to give a little update on that park, what we've done out there. And then South Park Drive improvements and more. Uh this is for all the commissions. Uh it is sponsored by our community development uh department and the economic development commission as well as uh the planning commission. You guys and and several others are welcome to attend. So if you are interested, please RSVP back to Katie no later than September 2nd. Um the reason why we need that lead time is because if we get a good response, we have to get a different kind of bus for our tour. Um, I would encourage you to go if you ever want to learn more about Savage and look at all of this from a parks and natural resource perspective. Uh, when we do Gallery, the the apartment complex, how does that impact? Uh, when we do South Park Drive, how does that impact? Um, a lot of those types of things are great things to educate yourself on of the ongoing projects as well as uh future projects that are to come. And then also coming up on September 2nd, we have our library mural ribbon cutting ceremony. Uh if you've noticed as you drive out tonight, look over at the library on the new addition part, the mural is mostly, if not all the way done. Um but it it looks really cool. Um from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., we're going to have a ribbon cutting ceremony. That is pre council meetings. So the council members and the mayor will be there. Um and then at that same time, we will be also unveiling the peace pole that is located over at the library and the two benches and the new concrete pad that it's sitting on. Um if you get a chance to go over there, you'll see the concrete pad. We think it's going to be a nice amenity to have uh at the library. Um the Rotary was so generous in donating the benches uh and as well as the peace pole to that location. Another kind of a peaceful area to go and reflect, contemplate, read a book um or sit and have lunch. So those are things that are coming up. And with that, I'll stand for any questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Bman. Does anybody have questions, comments? All right. Well, thank you everyone for this um fullformational meeting after being absent for a couple months. Our next meeting will be Monday, September 7th. And with that, our meeting is adjourned.