oh yeah good evening welcome to the city of oak park heights park commission meeting today is monday may 16th and we are going to call to order at this point i would uh ask for an approval of the agenda so move say moved and seconded we'll approve the parks and trails commission minutes from february 28th and the work session on march 21st yeah i'll approve you'll approve both of those yes second approved and seconded we go on to a department and commission liaison reports so first is arborist lisa danielson i've just got a couple items to update you guys on quickly um april 29th was arbor day here in oak park heights and the month of may is known as arbor month so there's a activity book on the front counter out there as well as on the city's website with some different family activity ideas or fun things to do individually at home in the parks or really wherever it's similar to the one that i had put together last year just with a few additions and this year we are required to have the tree planting last friday a black hill spruce was planted at autumn hills park on the south side of the shelter so when we do the parks walk through we can take a photo at that time and then the last thing i have to update will be for the 2021 true city usa application we received that award along with the extra the growth reward they sent us a nice little 40-year plaque for being a city too um it's actually on the trophy case just outside the door over there and then we got a 40-year flag and um what was the other thing oh the stickers for the road sign so those are all updated now so that's all i have to report tonight i have a couple of things for lisa sure so i have a list for you tonight just a couple things okay i noticed that you um are starting to replace boulevard trees right we had replaced some of that you cut down ash and now you're replacing them they were just general tree removals from the fall last year they weren't necessarily ash replacements yeah okay so you're just out of your selection of trees you pick the four or five that you like and then you plant those yeah we've got i don't know i think there's like eight or nine selections this year um basically it's anything on there but maple because we have too many maple trees here in the city um so that kind of um makes it difficult for us when applying for grants because we have to be at a certain percentage of different species of trees so we're right now we're trying to work towards that goal so and to work towards that goal it's kind of not planting more maple unfortunately okay the second thing is uh on the newsletter do people know how to contact you for problem trees if they want an opinion yes because someone asked me and i said well i think it's in the newsletter it is that you have your little cup it's on the i think it was the right side of the page this time okay so i'll tell them look at the newsletter yeah and you'll go on their property and give them opinion on their tree yep as long as they're a resident here in oak park heights okay oh and i guess i could mention too um that's in progress since i presented it at the council meeting um we applied for a grant for emerald ash borer and well that was like the process of getting that all finalized so we should be able to begin in july with that we propose to remove 100 trees and plant 100 replant 110 and all these trees have to be on city-owned boulevard right-of-ways or within the park's mode areas why don't you tell them how much that grant was lisa oh just under 120 000. oh nice hefty that's great did a great job on that thank you my last thing on the list is uh invasive trees like buckthorn and all that stuff are you still doing that around some of the parks and stuff oh are you done with all that well it's always going to be a work in progress um yeah as of like today there's nothing that we're doing but it's a work in progress we don't have an active project right now removing buckthorn thanks and thank you and congratulations on that kind of grant it's doesn't come easy these days thank you thank you does something like that get in the gazette then that we were awarded that grant or i think when we can do like a press release on it probably we'll do it probably should yeah 120 000. it's not like somebody gave you a couple bucks right yep yeah we're we're it's not supposed to be public yet but uh okay so whenever yeah we just can't she basically said we can't advertise it like we can't have it out there like on the website saying oh we've got this project going on obviously reporting to commissioners and councils is a different story okay well we'll keep it in mind though because we appreciate it that's for sure all right uh we move on to the public works director andy cagley yeah i wish i had something exciting for you but we really don't um it's business as usual parks are open a little bit earlier than usual we'd like to open them around memorial day weekend but we're open as we are here and uh staffing has been an issue we do have two on board one for sure and one likely so we'll get them started as soon as possible otherwise we're just continuing to maintain parks and trails thank you i have one question for you sure lately i've been having receiving notices from neighbors and people within our city about the number of motorized vehicles little hearts and things like that that are going down into our parks and what i talked to one of the officers because some of the people are calling the police about it and then the police come and you know look around for the young kid on the motorized bike going down the street and stuff like that um and they said one of the problems is that there are no more no motorized vehicle signs at the entrance to our parks because they were replaced with the warning about the bear cub oh really and so i'm wondering if there's some way either we could just make it more of a priority because we're getting to the season where the parks are full from dawn to setting sun with a people walking and taking their kids down and all of that uh and uh those motorized vehicles are really quite dangerous even for the p the kids on them when they're on the streets right but going into the parks is really getting to be a problem so i was hoping absolutely we can certainly pause yep thank you so much no problem see andy i got a couple things here uh one that's totally unrelated to our commission i'm still going to mention it because i just came up are you done doing a street overlays program right coming up uh we do have a really rough shape somewhere yeah in your neighborhood in fact we have a project this year yeah so yours your neighborhood will be mild and overlaid this year these microphones so that's kind of unrelated but the second thing is is uh i forgot where we left the discussion last year about crap for lack of better where the cracks in the trails like bought well and you gave a lot of term when you put a strip down or filled in are we still on top of that yeah we're working on that as we can um our staff myself and jared marks actually we've been working on a similar plan to what we had for the street maintenance plan um it takes time uh it takes money and so i'm sure mr dougherty here is he's getting a sneak peek of what i'll be asking for uh during budget time but uh yeah we're still doing what we can the weather really affects that doesn't it it does okay how about how about equipment in schwager yep uh that project uh has kind of been pushed to the back burner we do have a lot going on this year but we haven't forgotten about it so okay and how about that replacement we did at brekkie uh the replacement the little uh train train oh my goodness take a look at it jared uh jared mark's rebuilt the whole thing it looks fantastic it's in place and ready to race i just got a video sent to me of my grandson playing on that channel we actually got a couple of pictures too from mom's taking pictures of their kids in it they love it that's uh that train is a institution in itself absolutely i i don't understand why it's so popular but it's been there forever last time i was in brecky talked to this young couple that had a toddler on the train and they said they live the other side of hudson now but they still bring their children back because of brekkie and the train boy that's her that's neat i loved it yeah now jared did a a fantastic job on that dream so we'll give him kudos tomorrow and uh uh although we already have but i'm sure he'd like to hear it again we'll see it at that parkour yeah it is it's wonderful anything else no move on to the commission liaison report and and councilman chuck dougherty um the only thing i really have is a party in the park we'll be at brecky park on june 9th starting at 4 30. thank you glad glad you mentioned it because i have it at the end of the informational list but it's bears repeating twice because it's always a cool event and hope that a lot of people do show up for that all right um we have visitors and public comment next is this they are all here for uh new business item a i've got it and that's what i thought so we're going to move on old business parks and trails commission vacancies and as you can see this should be a team of five and we're missing two but we've had two applicants and both of them very impressive with their backgrounds and and their enthusiasm for the job so where do we go from you know the legal standpoint of how how do we do this now sure so madam chair members of the commission your role with that is to if you're satisfied with your candidates to make a recommendation that the city council appoint those two candidates to the vacancies that would be a a term through december 31st 2024 2024 both of them same term december 31st 2024 correct and e do we wait until actually that is moved through the commission or to city council before we even use their names is that correct you can certainly use their names now okay um application information candidate information is public and yes so the city council meets on tuesday may 24th i will bring it to them on their agenda that evening for appointment um i don't see any issues so by that by june by your june meeting you'll have uh and you know you won't require motion and here's the names jennifer van dyke it's the first one location number are you in uh we're on page seven of your packet um jennifer has been committed to the city for a long time and done extremely well is part of what's the official name planning planning commission that's pretty easy and she now is going to join in and offer us her enthusiasm for city work here and the other one is tom thietz uh tom has been a member of our community for a long time and um is very active within the community and the church and um i've known him for a long time known the family for a long time so to sort of a little bit of old homework to even have him come here and talk to us and both of them i think will really add a lot to our commission here so um very happy about that and all we have to do is have them now to do a motion to uh appoint both of them both of the two people i just mentioned on jennifer van dyke and tom thietz to be appointed to the parks and trails commission do i have this i'll make the motion to recommend that jennifer van dyke and tom thietz be appointed park and trails commission for terms ending december 31st 20 20 24. thank you would you like to second second sure thank you and that motion has been made and carried and we will welcome them at our next meeting thank you for that all right uh at this point it's new business and we are going to talk about mountain bike skills park proposal yes madam chair members of the commission the city was approached by a resident and then saska the group that put in your your parks put in and maintain the mountain bikes force over at valley view park they approached the city about an idea for a mountain bike skills course and um they tested around a couple of different options for location and they felt like our crossing park was a great visible nice spot that ties in real close to their trails at valley view park and so they came to the city they met with city staff they're aware of the process of meeting with you and then potentially the city council if it moves forward they also are aware of budgetary constraints and king plant coal ash site constraints i did ask them to come here tonight and provide a presentation to you to let you all know what a skills course even is how much real estate that takes up what that might look like and answer any questions you might have you can certainly ask them any questions they may have questions for you i will ask whoever is doing the presentation to come up to the podium and all right hello thanks for having us um my name is neil swenson i've been oak park heights resident for 26 years live on 56th street and in 2014 i was part of part of um xl when they were looking at getting rid of the i sat in on a couple of those meetings looking for a good use for that site and the last three years i've worked with calvin and love and matt on the mountain bike team for stillwater high school and it became apparent to me that that site would be ideal for a bicycle mountain bike skills course and i think before we get going i should introduce or have people introduce who they are and what their role is starting with love hi i'm live i'm the stillwater mountain bike head coach of the high school and middle school team calvin jones one of the minor coaches matt layman i'm an assistant coach as well and then i do lead the effort in maintaining valley view the single track came out i'm clay echols i'm a retired public works director in the area and i'm just excited about uh working on a project with the kids and and the older kids too the stillwater mountain bike team i think you guys realize what a tremendous success that's been there's over 100 kids on the team seventh grade through twelfth grade one state the last two years so it's it's been a very successful team in order to keep the team being successful you obviously want to get young kids involved with it and kids are flocking to mountain biking people are flocking to mountain biking carver is built to skills park in woodbury built to stills park in carver park um very high level skills park over there and we're looking for just a rudimentary thing to start that we can branch off of and i'll have diagrams in here that shows what a skills park is so how do i launch this here we go got it so what the goal of the skills park is is to safely introduce riders to mountain biking and talking to jennifer when she first got into mountain biking she had some wipeouts and didn't know how to do things and got afraid of certain things out on the courses when she's riding the goal is to learn these things in a controlled environment so that when you actually get out on a trail you're competent with the different skills that you need in order to safely ride them transfer my screen and then we also want to provide a course for existing riders to enhance and develop their skills so it's something that mountain biking if you start out as a beginner just riding on a sidewalk is tough and then as you get more and more skilled you can have more and more different obstacles that you can overcome and then the last goal is to build a stronger outdoor community in the saint croix river valley area there's a lot of forces that keep kids at home on their computers on their screens and i want to make sure as a citizen that we get kids outside as active as possible too so the skills development park is and we've had discussions with jennifer and eric and lisa about where to locate the skills park and the most obvious thing is there's a playground in crossing park that you could have a nice beginner's area off of that and you could actually extend that on to intermediate and more advanced too so the first part of the plan is to by the existing playground have an introductory 160 yard course with five to seven different features in the course that the kids can navigate or they can choose to navigate around if they don't like it once the course is up and established we could add hundreds of yards of extra features that provide different challenge levels for the riders and further addition we could have something like carver park built on on on that crossing park too which carver has a really really high level skills part built and developed in woodbury and then plan b or c is to augment the existing trail system i think i got to go to the next picture so talking to eric he advocated that we go down the hill to the south and that's where the blue line so this is the existing white trail that is mountain bike trail that largely was built by sasco matt and calvin did a lot of the work so the white is all existing and it gets written pretty hard there's probably every time i go there there's several riders on it and it's a kind of a hidden gem in the community because they did all the work they developed the park kind of tucked back and nobody gets to see it so it's it's really a nice little little part so there's a couple of options here and matt sent off to eric an example of what a bench cut is bench cut would be required in order to use this part of the park for the more advanced features so we're not going to be talking about that tonight but that is in the works that changed so there's two different options down down here you would come off the trail the pointer works so you come off the existing trail go up the hill and then you could do some features then return on the road or continue on to the trail and then you could have two levels so you could have an intermediate level skills course and a more advanced level skills course and that's something that the high school team would use emits or use significant yet significant use in the fall of the year where would it be would you repeat that last okay we'll go up to this map so here is the playground right up by number two right you go down the hill here's one of the pavilions right there yes so when you go down the hill there's an existing trail system in there that's all the white that's drawn here the road that goes from what's what's name of that street but that xl has access to is point number three right there that's where they access the site and they can drive down and service the manholes and the pumps that are in the system so when you say go down the hill which hill are we talking about can you point that out this is in crossing park mm-hmm can you point out that one because it's not showing up okay so here's the playground right here's the trail system there's one of the pavilions right here's the manner there's an entrance that excel uses to drive down to service to existing van holes and lift stations and it would be right down along that road parallel to that road where's where's the walkway that if you don't take that upper level walk and you go down through the woods and then there's a bridge down oh the wooden bridge yeah where is that on it's over here it's way down it's down it's all below this yep that's why i was wondering too really what i'm wondering is how you get down from the main circle route on there by the pavilions where there's two pavilions and the playground how do you get down to this new area there would not be a path there would be a path coming off of the existing mountain bike trails okay so everybody should be entering at valley view park which is up on top of the hill riding the trails there's also a walking path right here and there's a short spot right there that we can build a little connection trail so people could ride down that path and that would be a way to get at this area without having to ride thank you and for now we're really not talking about this because this requires a bench cut in that area in order for the bikes to get up and use elevation so people when they bring their mountain bike on the back of their vehicle however and they unload them for the the skills and mountain bike where do they park currently most people park at valley view and unload their bikes and then ride them um if we had a beginner's park associated to the playground they would park in the parking lot behind phil's tarot right at that parking lot yes to get to this they wouldn't park at number three no definitely not there won't be any access from number three that's like a locked gate right there that's what i was worried about if that could be quite an issue if they decide to park there and get on the trail as quick as possible then you get yeah an issue they wouldn't be able to yeah the trails have been existed for a long time and people don't use that most people enter through valley view or off one of these trails there's a slope there too so it's fences so that's b and c which are contingent upon excel saying there can be a dutch cut in that area right so largely what we're talking about is area a today which is the beginner's course can you point out where that is again there you go is it next to the playground right next to the playground immediately to the east of the playground if you go to in your package you go to page but you say we're mainly talking at what today that one the beginner section so why do we have b and c then what are we doing with beans playing b and c b and c are being talked about so it was just informative to you to let you know it's being talked about and it'd be desirous for us to put intermediate and advanced level skills part down there adjacent to the existing trails if excel buses is that when you come back to us again then for bnc yes at some other time some other time anything else on bmc my concern is that we had problems a couple years back with uh the whole contingent coming with a couple of adults and uh riding the trails here which are full of walking people and having a hard time having room for both of them on the trail and then we also had the same groups from saskatchewan coming down the hill there and uh we had to put a stop to that because they were riding down the side of that hill where you want plan b and c and you know it would just can't be allowed because of what happens with excel property and what was there to start with so i have to be concerned when you have that many people coming into it that they would respect the property and what's there already that's all so getting back to the introductory skills part so if you think of your little three-year-old five-year-old beginning to ride on a bike you can take them to the playground and then say here jimmy johnny karen or whatever ride bring your bike along and you can ride this loop while i'm here too and it's a good way for them to learn skills and grow up not afraid of mountain biking and the different features that are there i think some adults should take that i was just going to say 42 year olds i don't think it's just kids on that deal okay i mean well started some point in time but so the skills part would be five to seven features to start with um be enhance the playground so that people can use both of them and supervise the kids in one one location um the real estate there is such a nice piece of land with so much potential that when this is successful it can branch out to more more features more things that we can put in for the people for the riders so it would be volunteer build use mostly rocks clay weather resistant lumber materials and equipment budgetary price 7 500 and the maintenance would be largely mowing and then seasonal national maintenance which is what sask has been doing for the existing valley you trail very skilled up keeping that if your bench cutting it what would the mowing be what mowing would be required it wouldn't be pretty much dirt around it it is pretty much dirt around there but you don't want tall grass being right up next to the riders don't want to be to have visibility so it's not mowing down the grass level but it's just maintain it so that it's not obtrusive so here's an example of a feature which would be a beginning type feature so these are made out of two by six true dimension rough cut cedar so it and this is in minneapolis at their bike park so basically this one is relatively wide 40 48 inches and it teaches kids how to ride up a little slope down a little slope and they've converted a lot of their existing tennis courts to mountain bike parks in minneapolis so that's an example of one of the features that we would want something similar to that um lebanon had a has a nice skills park that's very similar to what what i'd be envisioning which uses a lot a lot of the same things just skinnies and this is an example of how the trails would diverge in the future so you have a branch in the trail where one way is labeled intermediate one way is labeled beginners and then you ride your course level and typically how the kids learn is when they see an intermediate person doing a different more skilled feature they watch that four or five times and then it's like okay i can try to do that and they do that too so there's an example of signage and there are some difficulties with putting posts in the ground at that part so that would have to be worked around but you want to label things beginner intermediate and advanced and keep the people on their appropriate skills course here's an example of three small hills that are just built out of compacted clay and then they allow the kids to learn to pump a bike and ride through and do that that type of riding as i said most features offer a ride-around option so if it's something that's too difficult when you're on the course you can see that there's a way that you can take that path instead of the one that's easy intermediate et cetera here's a in-ground treated lumber track this one was at carver and all this is is some posts on the ground that are sticking up an inch or two just to provide you things aren't always smooth when you're mountain biking so this gives you a taste of what that's like then some skinnies and the world of skinnies is the better the biker the skinnier they're able to ride so you want to be able to ride on a as a high level biker you'll be able to ride on a three or four inch wide thing the beginners may need 48 inch wide my piece of substance to ride on the beginners have about six inches that if they fall off the skinny they're not going to get too hurt the pros do significantly more here's a rock skinny that can be built using rocks which are pretty low maintenance and typically you have compacted areas to get up on these um this would be an example probably of an intermediate because you've got a six to eight inch lift there to rise up and then fall down on the other side and just successfully navigated then there's rock gardens and those are literally what they sound like is you just put rocks in the ground and it's uneven paved uneven pavement and you figure out how to navigate your way through that and catch the line and there's one real nice couple of nice rock gardens in the existing trail system then on the corners i put this picture in because it shows some 8x8 they used to build it they didn't use posts in the ground in order to support it so there's potential to not dig deep into the soil which is one of the requirements and crossing parts and make a corner corner like that so that's what a bicycle skills park is and what questions do you folks have and a few here got a few well that's good you ready yep okay can we open up to your cohorts here so i was in another community i want to say where mountain biking came up and we packed the room people on all sides of the issue mountain biking and and one of the things that i experienced as a commissioner that community was um what was mentioned there's a user conflicts and how do you police people that are going out for a walk and also the mountain bikers screaming by them i'll be blunt and i came up a lot how do you how do you um deal with an area when the people when you're not there to self-policing a little bit but that was that's a big issue it has been here too yeah so it answers some of my other comments if i can just run down can i do that sure so on a deal like this uh what's the liability to the community on a course like this or something like this when someone does get hurt on a on a deal like this you know let's say even though it's beginning let's say a little kid goes out there and goes the wrong way and you're skinny gets high-ended and gets and gets hurt commissioners clay echols good to see y'all um worked in the valley for my whole career as a public works director um partnered with park heights on many projects over the years um that's a big question that comes up on pretty much every project that gets built and i think kind of to keep it high level um cities really have a great uh insurance system the insurance trust where we as cities we all put our money into a collective league of minnesota cities and then they deal with all of our insurance issues and in a situation like this um your insurance trust adjusters are going to look at how much does this increase your overall risk in your park systems and i'm certainly not an insurance adjuster but um i don't think that there has really been a major issue in any community that that has these systems in place where um increased liability has has erupted or been a part of that um the last city i worked well no it's actually not the last city the last city i worked as a public employee was uh city of woodbury and we were i was part of that uh at carver lake i remember yeah yeah and and you know woodbury really didn't you know that just went right onto their park system it was just one more of their many many assets and uh the insurance trust dealt with it now over time if like there was a series of reoccurring incidents your insurance trust would certainly want you as a community to look at that issue and potentially it could affect your you know your your risk level and so your insurance could go up if there was some inherent constant issue that kept reoccurring but i guess to answer the question um directly um in my experience it would have very very uh impact little impact on the city's insurance and i think as a volunteer group we would look for the city as the owner of the park or the operator of the park to ultimately take care of the insurance so let me ask jennifer is this something we can ask the city attorney just give a quick opinion then sure um the city attorney was present at one of their presentations in the city we kind of talked a little bit about you know just there's risk with climbing structures and playground equipment in our city and so it's kind of challenging all under that in a general way yeah but where does saska come in then because sask i know had trouble getting the insurance that they wanted for them the own organization back in 2016. well you know i think one way to look at it is that you already have a pretty extensive well-used mountain bike trail system in your park and and this would be you know if you've got two and a half miles of trails already um this adds another quarter of a mile to that so um i would say that uh there's probably higher speeds um maybe tighter turning and more aggressive riding happening on the trails than what would happen in the skills park which tends to be very slow controlled you know learning balance and control is really what that's all about in the skill spark okay so it'd be the younger kids in the skills part though compared to the older kids that well maybe some really old kids too you so that leads that if you lose you have the mic whoever wants to take this one that leads to nice a couple i got a few more questions is maintenance so you some of these features are going to require some maintenance and is that something that you folks do or we don't want to burn our city here with having to maintain the skills course so i think maintenance we can break into two categories one is maintaining the features themselves so if wood starts deteriorating and then the maintenance with regards to grass trimming and all that i'm not sure here that that will figure out who's going to do what if we need to know if it makes sense or how about some of those wooden treads if they become loose or something right so would that be an understanding be important to me um you know i i uh i went up to kyona and your coach will know that i mean when you talk about features up there i i'm not gonna say this scared the heck out of me some of the features up there but that's all under into the spectrum you know but that's there's some features up there so i guess i'd like as a commissioner to see what features you have planned what what features you have planned in there just to see what have you done a layout rather than a box we're seeing on a match have you done features lay out on your planning we haven't we haven't put together [Music] yeah i mean absolutely before this before we would start spending any money or go to the city council i think we would want to have a more detailed plan yeah right okay i have another question in the same way i want to know where saska comes in if this is sort of where you learn it are saska people going to be out there helping people learn even the very rudimentary kind of actions on in this park area um that's what i wanted to know um it's going to be there there's going to be features that are obviously easier and then we'll start those that goes along with the question i had down here what what would be the say at the beginning of practice for the youngest kids what would be the largest number of bikers you'd have at any one time at that playground i mean are you know are you talking 10 kids 20 kids three kids i would say 10 to 20. and that would be like an after is it a coach after school is it so three o'clock tuesday roughly thursday and we would start the high school so it would take 20 minutes for everybody to ride there friends friends you know they probably would only spend an hour we have difficulty with that i get a lot of comments about um the team coming down there with only one adult and i was told by that adult last year that you can't find more chaperones if you will guides and so you have 70 kids riding the trail there the asphalt trail and um i've had elderly people there handicapped people because there's this senior citizen high rise right there a lot of people are on that trail all day and the kids come in with one person and two senior citizens were one who had a cane and a boot on his foot and they were yelled at by that one single adult chaperone with 60 70 kids and he yelled at those people that those two men and said hey i got 70 kids here you got to get out of the way we need to know that saska if you're going to even invite more people in are teaching the youngsters the way of things and the laws here and that's that pedestrians have the right-of-way on the asphalt paths they can't be throwing people aside i've had a young mother with a three-month-old in a stroller being told the same thing hey lady get out of the way it's it's a problem for me because they come to me and want to know why that's happening just uh one thing you know just a personal note the reason i'm involved in this is that i'm excited about the fact that we get kids outdoors we get kids playing outside get them we get them active if if we get a agreement to work with the city on a project like this we'll have what i see is a triple win we take a we take a waste area we turn it into a park area an asset we engage our youth and some of our older youth in a volunteer project to build this thing that that right there addresses some of what you're concerned about that civic responsibility um getting kids out and help having them help build something like this and take some ownership take some pride in it that's a big thing and it doesn't happen a lot these days and you know we have trouble finding people to run for for commissions these days because we don't teach civics in our our schools anymore and this is one way to do it and so to me this is a great project because it involves you know city in your goals of getting recreation getting people active it engages a piece of property that really doesn't have a good use it's kind of a waste product and it engages our youth and some of our older youth myself included in um getting out there and making a difference and building something in the community that's an asset so um kind of a triple triple win it's one of those things um it could it could see some use um usually we got a a problem with a lot of use in a park that's the right problem to have versus the [Music] spray painting and graffiti those kind of problems those are the hard ones to deal with and you're right you know maybe we need to have a little civics lesson amongst our high school riders before you know they they send off on their first ride um so that's i think that's a good topic we could we could work on with our high schoolers and your guides your adults um so i'm the head coach of the stillwater mountain team and last year was my first year doing it and with our organization at the time nika which is the national interscholastic cycling association which is now being now we are in the mca minnesota cycling association so they departed from nika we need to have two coaches per eight riders or one coach that's a level three certified uh coach per six riders so that ratio needs to happen in order for liability stuff with the stillwater and mount play so the in the last two years since i've been there the pods that we called um with the kids were separated amongst their abilities and each pod had a location so the pods ranged from you know 15 to 20 cyclists and each of those pods would have to have three coaches minimum right so that's our goal um you know that's what we have to do that as stillwater mountain biking for liability issues on the trails as far as the efficacy or the respect on the trail that that's unacceptable if riders are or other coaches are yelling at citizens so that i'll make that stop right away that's not a problem but um yeah we are when we send groups we are organized in terms of okay this group is going to valley view this group is going to sunfish park this group is going to ride um gravel roads around the stillwater area or park heights or this group is going to say the skills part and then all the coaches have radio so they're in communication if they're within that mile radius so then we can kind of switch and negotiate things that way so we're always looking to improve as a team but yeah that's kind of how the practices are run um with the coach leaders and we can i can have the coaches lead a discussion before they leave practice emphasizing the rules of the road and the respect for others and riding a single file and not speeding on the trails or anything like that so i'm happy to do that and make sure that it doesn't i've never seen less than 60 kids with one or two adults coming into oak park crossing park never it's never been what you just discussed so i'm happy that you're going to change that can i ask a couple of questions um it would really be cool um if you have an events like a rodeo or whatever you call them like you do at rare falls and i've been over that and all that stuff where you have like even this basic thing we're going to do a workshop or event that'd be a lot of fun to do right and you folks would probably take charge of that and come back to us and say we're going to have an event whatever you're going to call it biking event rodeo whatever the terminology is the other thing is i can speak openly the commission that i really want to go out and look at this i'm one of those people i like to see what voting in uh ups i'd like to go out and have one or all of you actually will walk the site i think that's a great idea and actually let me take it a step further and that includes your i don't know all the letters b and c okay so i think we can we can do that too and the third thing is i'll ask jennifer is is it proper for us as commission members to contact uh woodbury lebanon hills carver just have them get back to us and say okay you folks have these what do you think what's the ingings of one of these i think that would be proper for us to know yeah and madam chair members of the commission you can certainly direct one of us staff members i'd like you to give us a list of your questions i will reach out to woodbury well the question is real simple would be and i'll tell you right now for me anyway the question's real simple woodberry clean you know woodbury you folks have one of these what do you think what's a plus and minuses can you give us an endorsement what would you do different now you know have you ever been to the woodbury park no well i've been on the edge of but the ones that are particularly talking about i haven't been on that we we should go yeah and also in carver is that's the carbon right the woodbury one and then lebanon hills i've been in the lebanon hills one that's cool and then i'm not sure about minneapolis but those two would be in our neck of the woods where i think we could benefit by and what would they have to hide i mean they could say yeah we love it and is what we do different and da da da da da if there is a problem we would have the benefit of knowing what the problem is ahead of time and not getting into issues with you folks there's also um somebody sent me some links to youtube videos of some of these parks and yeah there's a good good feel for what they're good at like so i don't know if you can get those options yeah i sent that link to chuck i can send the link out to the members of the page but speaking as a commission member i can tell you right now that i'm not in a position tonight say a year or me until i look at it i just gotta be honest with you and that's just not a statement coming i believe in looking information think of the skills park it wouldn't be anything it's possible that that someone's going to oh here's a little boardwalk we're going to walk this little half up on top there they're really in the skills part that we're talking about i couldn't see user conflict it's it wouldn't be a clear this isn't a walking path you take the stroller on you saw the little features oh there's a burn that would be kind of fun but access to it is still one of the concerns you know it's one of the things that i'd suggest you add to this is some park benches let some of the senior citizens who live in the area be the ones who can applaud the kids doing this you know bringing them in rather than have them be at opposite ends of the happy spectrum which is what i seem to deal with with people within this community you know taxpayers within this community yes i know there is yeah what's your timeline on any of this but we want to do it the right way too i'm sorry to hear about your difficulties and as an assistant coach you always try to teach the kids respect and rules of the road because a lot of these kids don't have their driver's license you know cars yield to bikes bikes deep fields and pedals and that's just the way the world should work and we should be very courteous because that's what we got i've got a couple questions uh first have you approached stillwater or lake elmo or bayport is this the first try you know park or and if oak park would say no do you have a backup plan or where where are where is oak park in your pocket start it there and see what happens because crossing park is such a wonderful location it's great for walking that's where i walk each day exactly that's the problem we have senior my second question is would this blue square be enough space not including the area down by the uh playground and then not a gazebo but on the the picnic area if you will is that blue area enough in there to set up an introductory area or no it is enough but it's far enough away from the playground the mother wants to watch one kid on the playground and one kid on a bike that is not really close enough to do that or it could be marginal depends on the age of the kids but that blue area is quite quite large large area that's the same area as carver park is and they built a really really high-level mountain bike skills park in that area right in there without this yeah without what without the green and orange and just the blue okay thanks for answering so what another question you know we're just kind of talking now what triggers you to say okay now we should pull together up a plan for this area now we're at a point where we should show or we should design our features on this thing i mean what that's just the protocol yeah happens with any of these projects randy so you know don't worry about that at this point you know they've they've got their basic stuff here and it gives us now we have to make some decisions and uh to move ahead so one like i say the one of the things that um i think is a good question is why here why now because i wondered if um swagger park has a lot of flat empty land and isn't as overused as oak park crossing um even autumn hills might have a lot more land and but of course my question right from the start was have you asked the school district if you could build this kind of area on school property rather than take it to a city park you know has that been even thought of why wouldn't this their own um and regulations they need to deal with that make it a little bit complicated um you know schools are kind of open to public but not really and so the liability is structured at this point you don't know we'll okay thank you all right i i think we've got enough to at least well appreciate you coming and talking yes thank you thank you it's um really encouraging to see so many people from this area dedicated to help helping these kids grow strong and wise and polite and all of those good things that come from any kind of outdoor activity and athletics in involved so we appreciate that always all of us as individuals even here when do you think we can do uh go and look at it we'll talk about that when this is done we'll we'll do some planning okay well i think it'd be important oh yeah a couple sure are there to explain yeah okay so uh jennifer is there anything else that you can suggest to us that maybe we missed uh madam chair members of the commission i think you had some very good questions for them and i hope their answers were good for what you were you know hoping to to get out of those questions the next steps from what i'm hearing is that you would like to see the site possibly you'd like to get some answers from other cities on liabilities pros cons and you know maybe eventually see an actual design and some actual features that they're planning for this site so uh at this point i think what you what we like is emotion directing staff to ask those questions of the other cities and then we do have next on our agenda to set a park walk through um and maybe at that time we can incorporate this walk through with them as well i think that's a good idea so for this item i would just entertain i would have you ask for a motion to direct staff to ask some questions i ask for that emotion well i don't know if i can word it right jennifer i'll try so if i if i move that we uh direct staff to uh do a couple of things i don't know if i can glue it in the same motion i would still like an interpretation of city attorney i think that's a good idea on anything um on something like this and they're things i would like staff to reach out to and i do want the specific areas like carver and woodbury and lebanon dakota county i don't know if we need to go to minneapolis but those are two good examples just to ask them if you want to know what the question is very simple just you know plus or minuses with uh your experience with that within your community is that a basic enough question and kind of good enough that's my motion second second shirt motion has been made and seconded uh we'll move on to schedule the annual parks walk through yes madam chair members of the commission annually you do do your walk through sometimes we split that into a couple different dates because we do we are lucky enough to have a lot of parks here in the city um so typically what you've done in the past is maybe meet an hour before your your next meeting or your next couple meetings um i do know that some of you may be missing for our next meeting um so we could maybe push it out to dubai or i won't be here for the next okay or we can pick a day not associated with the commission night um just ask you to take a look at your calendars decide whether you want to get them all done in one day or if we want to split it up i do suspect that meeting with this group at oak park crossing park and maybe even into valley view at the trails would take a significant more amount of time than what we usually have at that park so that's something to keep in mind so perhaps we could do the other four parks in one evening or whatever time uh we're used to meeting at 6 00 p.m is is that acceptable to both of you gentlemen to meet at five instead of six at five years through the walk that worked before i think it helps i don't know about you i like to stay knowing that we're doing this on mondays you know so i think the day has some appeal i don't mind as long as i get enough notice okay yeah yeah just from uh years of doing this i don't know that one hour is going to be enough to visit four parts no okay so but if we can do two hours and be done with it the only thing i'm concerned about is uh my mind's on this now and i wonder if we you said wait until later on this i almost like to do this first but um we've got plenty of time to do this well do we have to wait for a one of our commission meetings can we go some other monday during the month i mean i'm retired yeah about the rest of you absolutely we've even done them on a weekend before if that works i know that's kind of tough i'd say get them done yeah yeah there's no reason to push the park walk through off or this question about oak park crossing sure yeah okay so what do you suggest from the professional standpoint so what i'm hearing is that you would like to hammer it all out as as many parks as you can in one evening whether that takes two hours three hours one hour and it doesn't necessarily need to be on a meeting night but you would like a monday well that's what i said i don't know about that yeah that's fine right that's fine with me too okay so daytime hours i don't know if that's i know you guys are busy during the day should we stick with the evening and would you rather me yeah would you like to do it in two nights two mondays or talk to jennifer jennifer go ahead i'm sorry i'm sorry andy well i said whatever you folks choose will make work like if we said four instead of five for example sure you can live with that chuck yep four o'clock and yeah yeah yeah as long as you're sticking to before the meeting that monday those mondays are blocked off okay so monday may 23rd is the next or yeah next monday how's your schedule i'm here shall we uh plan to meet at what time on monday may 23rd can we get the other two uh new commission members oh that's a really good idea yes it is the city council will be meeting on tuesday may 24th to make that appointment okay so then we have to wait yeah let's and the next monday is monday morning right so what's the next monday july 6th june 6th the 6th yeah can we do it june 6th at least put it on the calendar if something comes up i'm sorry i'm too cumbersome that's okay yeah you need to discuss this so monday june 6th at what time and then what park well andy usually i think you're the one that pulls together a little thing for us with the parks listed and all that stuff you can do that again sure so uh what do you think i mean i we're here as staff so whatever works with your schedule so fortunately yeah it's great clock start at cover yep started cover and work our way uh to the west it's a good night yes so we did yep there you go yeah perfect it's a plan yeah and chuck that's all right with you yep that works and i like here let me see it for the second time i like when you give us those uh cheat sheets sure for lack of a better word absolutely yeah that helps so if we could get a motion setting that date i'll make that motion to have a annual parks walk through see how far we get on monday june 6th at 4 pm we'll start at cover and work our way west do i have a second second motion has been made and seconded and we are to informational parts to vote on the motion oh we did i'm sorry um all in favor hi hi so before we're off this subject we still haven't gotten to them when are we going to walk with them how about we have a walk through on june 20th before our meeting with them i like that you're not going to be here i'm not going to be here oh didn't you just have them meet you on june 6th when you go over to that part of the park i think we'll run out of time aren't we all right well tell them to be the park at 4 30 and and we'll be there be there okay i guess yeah so then we go east before we go west now start at covert you're still going west oh covered in never mind i'm still arizona time here okay sorry yeah so we inform them jennifer i will do that and as many as they want to bring perfect okay no thanks siri that'll fit in so the park's walk through now has been scheduled the next meeting is monday june 20th as i say i will not be here i have a funeral so that raises an issue sorry if you're not here that's two of us because you haven't appointed the new ones yet that's not a quorum but they'll be appointed at your meeting won't they on the 24th yeah so they're fine okay so in theory we'll have a full slate it's a missing one so who's the vice chair that's going to run that meeting george george right here he'll be in charge that night and i'm sorry you know i don't miss very often but uh we're flying out west for a family funeral yeah and that's one i can't miss and do we have anything else now i got one other thing okay i'm just well you're fine go ahead so what's what's the status with their planter boxes i i sent carly a let a note and i said uh we're not going to do it i was with someone and i think it's a great idea they put the time and effort into them i think i didn't get it i didn't see it but i think it was a new newsletter about planner boxes uh and i guess there's some according to carly there's some people interested and i think i'm still helping out as a disney union or whatever done that so what's the status of it great question madam chair members of the commission all beds have been claimed yes that's good yes so um i suspect we'll start seeing things being planted very soon we're finally into that that's good growing season so um one of our boxes is designated as a community bed that's bed number one out there so uh tomatoes peppers those kinds of things will be planted in there for anyone to come and take and then the other beds have been claimed by residents so can you make sure that someone walk runs out there and gets pictures of them planting them oh you like that idea oh yeah because that's perfect for the newsletter yes uh that picture says a thousand words if you see them and out there run out there and take a picture yes put in the newsletter all right make somebody famous that's really good news that's great yeah all right uh the upcoming council meeting is tuesday may 24th at 6 00 pm at city hall and do i hear a motion to adjourn so so moved seconded yep that's been made and seconded we're done thank you you