Parks & Recreation Advisory Board

Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services Advisory Board Meeting Minutes Tuesday, February 4, 2020 | 6:30 p.m. | 5th floor City Hall, Canty Conference Room Members Present: Shawn O’Keefe, Kathy Dermanis (w/Buckroe Improvement League), Velva L. Goodman, Michelle Griffin (small business owner), Steven Raudman, William C. Kotheimer Jr. Members Absent: Jennifer Colton Dr. Norman Merrifield Jen Parker Staff Present: David McCauley, Alison Eubank Guest(s) Present: David Imburgia Opening Business  Call to Order - Mr. Shawn O’Keefe called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m.  Approval of Minutes – Mr. Raudman motioned that the minutes for the December 4, 2019 meeting be accepted as amended, Ms. Griffin seconded. Minutes accepted. Events & Items of Interest Event Date Time Location Ceramics Studio Various Various times Fort Monroe Community Center Oyster Gardening at Sunset Boating Feb. 14 11:30am–12:30pm Sunset Boating Center Center – Let the Bay be Your Valentine! Trail behind Y. H. Thomas Solar Light Pole - Ribbon Cutting Feb. 18 4:00pm 1300 Thomas St. Bee City USA – Hampton Steering Feb. 20 1:00pm-2:00pm Clean City Commission Committee Meeting Tour de Trash Express at the Steam Feb. 20 9:00am-11:00 am Clean City Commission Plant Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services 22 Lincoln Street | Hampton, Virginia 23669 www.hampton.gov | P: (757) 727-6348  Director McCauley welcomed new members. The advisory board is now complete with nine (9) members. Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. in the Parks’ Canty conference room.  Eubank provided recap / update on projects for new members. • Parks Master Plan The existing plan was adopted in 1997/1998. Working to get plan updated; taking a broad look at the whole City and the Parks system. A public meeting was held in August 2019. An inventory of assets and an analysis was done. Working with a consulting firm called GreenPlay. A survey was conducted both statistically valid and open. The results will be shared at the next public meeting on February 20, 2020, at the Hampton Convention Center from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Please attend and invite all your friends and neighbors to come and provide input. Surveys – received 10% back from statistically valid survey, the online survey was the most popular. The survey was also sent survey out to middle and high school students; the response was huge. • Buckroe Board Walk / Improvements A public meeting was held in October 2019. A survey followed to get input on what people like to do at the beach, what they use the boardwalk for, does sand going over top of the wall bother people, etc. All that information was presented to council. We are moving forward with more engineered designs and improvements. Small improvements in the Buckroe Park area will be completed by this summer. Larger improvements will occur after the summer. Some improvements include: Re- surfacing the bike path in the boardwalk section; adding some amenities (benches and swings, possibly foot wash stations); repair of the wall (will stay same height – 2ft); adding 16 ADA ramps; replacing lights (underground wiring); adding, planters at the northern end near condos. The boardwalk will be extended to the fishing pier after the summer. The replenishment project is done. The sand that was taken from Indian River was bleached correctly put there were some rocks in the sand. Parks & Recreation and Public Works are working to remove the rocks. A soil test was done on the sand. • The Bike Advisory Board meeting - Held once a month on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall in the Community Development conference room 5th floor. The bike ride is scheduled on the fourth Sunday of the month at various locations/neighborhoods (five mile ride). Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services 22 Lincoln Street | Hampton, Virginia 23669 www.hampton.gov | P: (757) 727-6348 Director McCauley introduced special guest speaker, David Imburgia with the City of Hampton’s Community Development Department (CDD). Here this evening to provide a brief on Resilient Hampton. David Imburgia – Presentation / Resilient Hampton Newmarket Creek Pilot Project Mr. Imburgia is Hampton’s Resiliency Officer. He works directly under Terry O’Neil Director of CDD. Mr. Imburgia, the CDD team and others have worked diligently on the Resilient Hampton Newmarket Creek Project since 2015. The most exciting part as a City, and particularly as the neighbors of those who have been experiencing flooding issues is that we are now transitioning from the planning stage to putting projects on the ground and actually making a difference in our community. This presentation was presented to City Council on January 22, 2020. Resilient Hampton Newmarket Creek Pilot Project 1-22-2020.pdf Partners in the region and across the state are key in assisting us in achieving our goals and pushing our projects forward. A few examples of partners: Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Virginia Tech, NASA, Old Dominion University, Wetlands Watch. • Dutch Dialogues Virginia (2015) In 2015 we invited the Dutch in what we call the Dutch Dialogues. The first one was done in New Orleans, post Katrina. In their new water plan they were trying to determine how they would approach the future to become more resilient. We decided to try to do that before the storm. So, we invited our consultant, Waggonner & Ball and their Dutch colleagues from BoschSlabbers (does a lot of work in the Netherlands around water issues) for a week-long design workshop. This brought together Norfolk, Hampton and Newport News along with stakeholders from a range of organizations in order to look at what we are dealing with as a region and what that means for our future. Thinking about opportunities and what we should be focusing on as a resilient project going forward. The idea of “Living with water not just dealing with water.” • Resilient Hampton Phase 1 (2018) A report about who are we, what are our goals, values and plans. Worked with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, trying to anticipate what we will be dealing with in the future. A third of the city is in a flood zone and we are Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services 22 Lincoln Street | Hampton, Virginia 23669 www.hampton.gov | P: (757) 727-6348  sinking. This can affect home loans. If building a new park facility or emergency operation center do we want be planning for a level that’s sort of in a newer term and less risk or should we be making a better investment choice. These Goals were identified and now adopted by council into our community plan o Address the challenge o Embrace the initiative o Adopt resilience standards o Solutions at multiple scales o Educate community o Follow guiding principles o Evaluate o Lead the way These Values and Principles were identified and adopted by council in our community plan • Hampton-Langley JLUS Addendum (2018) We want to keep Langley Air Force Base (LAFB) brack proof. Make sure they do not leave due to flooding. The Senator sent members of the Government Accountability office to meet with the team. They want us to show the Pentagon how to do what we did for the rest of the country’s installations. Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services 22 Lincoln Street | Hampton, Virginia 23669 www.hampton.gov | P: (757) 727-6348  • Resilient Hampton Phase II Newmarket Creek is the first pilot area. Council selected this area to start with partly because it is really complicated, lots of forces of water that are different, runs right through a lot of our residential areas, right through our major commercial node (Coliseum Central), and then falls out at LAFB. January 2019, a design workshop was held with stakeholders, people from different agencies, DOD, from our surrounding communities, neighbors from Newport News and Virginia Beach, Dutch returned and people from New Orleans, multiple universities from all over the state. We reviewed our options, what might work, what are our assets, where are they located and combined that with what we were hearing to start thinking what we might put on the ground in certain places to make a difference. A community meeting was held on January 14, 2019. A great turnout and we received a lot of feedback. We asked them to tell us what they were experiencing and where, and what are the most important to address. We discussed possible actions for these priorities. o Slow the water where it falls so that it’s not gathering so quickly and running off into our system. o Store the water temporarily where we can so we can get past the rain or storm event and then release it. o Redirect some of the water flow. o Adapt - we will not be able to solve all the water problems but we can still change the way we interact at that interface with smarter development, smarter re- development so it’s safer. These are intended to be pilot projects for use to test as replicable projects in the other parts of Newmarket Creek, other parts of the City, the region, the state and the west coast. We are trying to create innovative resilient projects that demonstrate a way forward for others to use in similar situations. o Big Bethel Blueway – Widen the ditch to hold more water and create a linear park. This may increase neighborhood value. o Armistead Avenue – Elevate major street, treat water with Lake Hampton o Public Spaces o Parking Lot – concave pavement o Resilient And Innovative Neighbors – Incentive to plant tree(s) or put in rain barrel(s). Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services 22 Lincoln Street | Hampton, Virginia 23669 www.hampton.gov | P: (757) 727-6348   Director’s Updates – Aquatics Center – Moving along, still in design phase - 50m ten lane pool w/two bulkheads, will be able to do two simultaneous events, program pool, diving board and splash park. Fox Hill Neighborhood Center – Moving along, the Fox Hill Neighborhood Association has taken ownership of the process and the board; establishing the 501C3; they are going to run it and we will assist and advise along the way. Center should open March or April 2020. Old Hampton Neighborhood Center – In the design and construction phase; the steering committee is meeting tonight to look at the design and approve plan. There may be a few more changes as we move forward. Will be moving into the governance phase to determine who in Old Hampton will run what and how that will work. NEW - Neighborhood Centers Manager Position – Ms. Tina Banks-Gray, the executive director of Y. H. Thomas, was selected. She will now be the manager of Y. H. Thomas, Little England, Fox Hill Neighborhood Center and soon to be Old Hampton Neighborhood Center. This is a full-time position by its self; going from two neighborhood centers to four, establishing the 501C3 and managing and assisting the boards. James T. Wilson Fishing Pier – When the barge came down it clipped the observation pier which is now repaired and reopened. Public Works is the lead on the repairs for the pier; looking to open July/August timeframe. Challenged Members • Requested members to attend the Master Plan public meeting on February 20, 2020. • Provide recommendations and suggestions to Mr. Imburgia regarding the Resilient Hampton Newmarket Creek Pilot Project. • Visit the community centers and share your total experience from greeting to exit with Director McCauley. Kathy Dermanis recommended not increasing the fees for the J. T. Wilson Fishing Pier this year. Director McCauley will take the suggestion into consideration. He did point out that our fees are already lower than our competitors and we are open 24 hours. Financially Sustainability Work Group – Director McCauley plans to have advisory board members review the draft recommendations for new fees. Meeting end – There being no further business, Kathy Dermanis motioned and Steven Raudman seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 8:09 p.m. Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 @ 6:30 p.m. 5th floor City Hall, Canty Conference Room Parks, Recreation & Leisure Services 22 Lincoln Street | Hampton, Virginia 23669 www.hampton.gov | P: (757) 727-6348