The issue before us tonight is what concept plan would the parks commission like to see implemented and do they have any suggestions or changes they'd like to make the concept to the uh to Bolton Mink.

Looking at the designs, a couple of things came out to my wife and I right away were the pickle balls is a very big concern from the noise standpoint.

I I don't know when the last time you were to Ridge Park. There'd be no reason to go to Ridge Park to be honest because you know you had a ball field with no no place to sit, just a backboard and just a little bit of dirt to play on.

I guess my thought at this time would be to request Bolton and make go back at to the drawing board and look at some different options and maybe rethink some of these a little bit.

As we talk about pickle ball noise in the near future, which will come up in our next session um meeting, you know, one of the things that we do got to take into consideration is the fencing that does surround that. Right. So one of the things is is the fence that's currently there likely will not hold the weight of the items that we have to put on there to barricade the noise. So we may be in a situation where we have to replace two sides of that in order to incorporate that. So, you know, at that time, is that a better time to incorporate permanent fencing? Potentially.

I don't really have any issue with with them building them as long as they're safe and they they look sturdy... I I'm personally not comfortable with the fencing though.

I'm in in favor of having a legitimate vendor supply park amenities and parts AC pretty much across the board. I 100% into people utilizing a donation process to do that. But uh whether it's park benches or whether it's gazeos or whether it's rack holders, we should be buying from a vendor.

Um the you know Neil was an avid user of Sunfish Lake. He loved the trails and so uh their request was to put it near the entrance of the trail. um um right at the entrance of the park where the first trail uh begins there for the for the bike ride. So um so I thought uh very appropriate very similar to what we've done in the past.

During that session, the city council directed the car parks commission to explore alternatives to full playground replacements uh in neighborhood parks uh encouraging more inclusion of unique and diverse amenities in their place and maybe looking at more uh centrally located um playground sites.

I guess I'm asking is it too late to tap the brakes a little bit here and back up? ...we're talking about resurfacing um courts that we're not even sure should be there at this point, right? Or whether a rank should be there or is the concession stand in the right spot?

So, to me, those are a couple steps that could be done in this. Okay. and how that timing works out with the money. We'd have to figure that out. Okay. But that to me is is the approach to take is to start working on this systematic approach.

I would just be cautious if we did the playground and we do a long range plan and say, 'Oops, that's not where it was supposed to go.' Or parking gets rearranged. I think you want to make sure if when we do a new playground, which I think one is would be suitable there, it just might not be in that location that it is now.

One of the main reasons for this was to really talk about our GIS and our trails applications though. I know this was one thing that we talked about and you know Pat has brought up uh throughout the years. Uh just more interactive and trail mapping and um you know it's not going to be directly you know way finding while on the while on the map but gives people an idea of of our community um and where things are at.

In 2018, our organization was the first adopter of a park in Lake Emmo. And George Johnson at that time decided to take on the the idea of clearing out the buckthorn from Sunfish Lake Park.

What this enables it, it enables native plants to come back. It enables you to see the deer. It enables the insects that would live on the on the native plants but can't live on buckthorn to return.