Board of Parks & Recreation

Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 5/22/23 PRESENT: Ken Hesson, P.A. Bowler, Jimmy Head, Bubba Perry, Lee Peterson, Thom Golden, Mahlon Hellman, Andy Gilley, Keith Bruce, Trevor Cole, Wade Evans, Orey Fugate ABSENT: Jill Rathert, Jeremiah Bennett, Mike Pike CALL TO ORDER / OPENING PRAYER: Ken Hesson called the meeting to order. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Thom Golden led the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: A motion to approve the agenda by Jimmy Head, 2nd by Thom Golden. All in favor. CITIZENS COMMENTS: • Mr. Russ Edwards – I am the City Judge and a former City Alderman. I wanted to speak just briefly concerning the hours at Mary’s Magical Place. I would like to thank my current Alderman, Mr. Garza, for advocating for these special hours at Mary’s Magical Place. I think it’s very important to have this. I would also like to thank the Mayor for pushing for this and for Mr. Gilley, staff members and the Parks Board for taking this into consideration. I have a special needs son and I’m very involved in the special needs community and I can tell you that there are a lot of people in that community who support these special hours at Mary’s Magical Place. I think what the Mayor proposed is a very reasonable pilot program of two days a week, from 8:00am – 9:00am when Mary’s Magical Place opens being dedicated to the special needs community. I think although this doesn’t solve all the problems that the special needs community faces, this is a good gesture on behalf of the city and shows the city is willing to try and help out. Nobody would be there to enforce these hours, but it would be posted that we are asking for these hours to be set apart. I’m strongly in favor of this and I’m going to stick around for the discussion on this issue. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: A motion to approve April 24, 2023, minutes made by P.A. Bowler, 2nd by Bubba Perry. All in favor. OLD BUSINESS Park Project Updates – Andy Gilley • Mary’s Magical Place Restroom – After the fire in the restroom, we finally got all the approvals from the insurance and sent the declaration. The city will get a check back of about $14,000 from insurance to help cover those damages. As of right now, the Finance Department has told us to do those repairs within our own operating budget so I’ve asked them and our COO if we can have that $14,000 appropriated into our Parks FY 2023 budget for some different things. • Wind Damages – We discussed this issue today as a staff and we still have about 40 repairs we need to do. We are working our way through that list. If you continue to see trees or tree limbs down, please let us know. 1 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 5/22/23 • Soccer Fields - During the month of June while we have our soccer shutdown period, we will put down about 40,000 square feet of new sod in the Drakes Creek soccer complex and at Volunteer Park. This is a $30,000 investment from the city and another $3,500 coming from the lacrosse tournament via the tourism office. • Country Hills Golf Course Cart Barn – Today if you go by the golf course you may have seen a bunch of guys on big equipment. They started the demo of the cart barn so that is a step forward and we hope to start the rebuild in a couple of weeks. • Rugby Restrooms – We opened bids for site work in May and they come back about $100,000 more than we expected so we are putting them back out to rebid those and make some adjustments. We are still hopefully on track to have those installed by this fall. • Pickleball Courts – We have a meeting this Friday with a design consultant to kick off the design on that project. We expect the construction to go over the summer and into the fall. • Grant – The grant for turf soccer and lights at Rugby is moving forward and we are about to send our design plans to the state and as soon as they are approved, they will go to bid. NEW BUSINESS Elite Sports Football Camp – Glen Deveaux Glen Deveaux explained that he is with a company, Elite Sports Camps and Combines that is based out of Charlotte, NC. We hold fundamental football camps specifically for big boys, offensive and defensive lineman, ages 8 – 18. We partner with NFLPA and a lot of former players come out and help lead these initiatives. We have been coming out to Knoxville, and more specifically, Farragut High School the last couple years but we are looking to transition to Nashville. We started looking at the facilities that Hendersonville has and we would like to host our camp at your park. Ken Hesson asked to verify if that per the application, 75% is going to charity. Glen Deveaux confirmed that and said the other 25% is operational and they also give all the kids t-shirts. We partner with a non-profit called STEM athletics that offers tutoring weekly. Glen said he was afforded a college education through athletics and so were his children and this is his passion. Motion to approve the football camp by Thom Golden, 2nd by Mahlon Hellman. All in favor. Baton Twirling Proposal – Brandie Holland Brandie Holland stated that she has taught baton twirling for a while and recently moved to Hendersonville in July. I am a third-grade teacher during the day, but baton twirling is my passion as I’ve been twirling since I was three years old. I’ve taken twirling to different community events, including parades and when there is opportunity, I will take twirlers to competitions. There are teams that have twirling lines and sometimes that can lead to college scholarships. I would like to propose bringing baton twirling starting in June and it will run through August and this would start once a week. She is looking to do this at the new hockey facility through the summer. Andy Gilley stated that we really don’t have a financial mechanism for these types of programs yet, but she will be making a donation to the Inline Hockey Association for the use of the rinks for her class. Motion to approve by Jimmy Head, 2nd by P.A. Bowler. All in favor. A Step Ahead: Summer Bring Back – Christy Sayne Christy Sayne is the Manager of Client Relations with Step Ahead Orthotics and Prosthetics. On August 19th, we are looking to host an event at Mary’s Magical Place to have our special needs kids come and play safely and have some fun and easy carnival games and some bouncy houses, food trucks and a live band. I’m hoping to have around 100 families come. I’m a special needs mom so I know how important it is for this to be an open event and have the park remain open. We are doing a rebranding of our logo and thought this would be a fun way to do some things that our company hasn’t done in the past. Andy Gilley stated that we are looking at the space beside the playground or the area of the old hockey rink for them. They really aren’t reserving anything but the reason why this is coming before the board is that they will have food trucks, a band, etc. Motion to approve by Bubba Perry, 2nd by Mahlon Hellman. All in favor. 2 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 5/22/23 Yoga with Kali – Kali Wheeler Kali Wheeler explained that she was a gymnast in her young years, and has done competitive diving and dance. I have had two back surgeries and I have found that Yoga has helped my life more than anything else. My background is as a gymnastics coach and my husband, and I recently moved to this area. I have a job currently with Small World Yoga in Nashville which is nonprofit. It is an outreach program which is what I would like to do in this area. I think doing Yoga outside by the lake would be great. We discussed the possibility of other parks as well. I would charge half the price of a regular studio. We decided upon a $500 fee once year to go back into the park system. I’m looking at offering Tiryaka Yoga first to adults and then if that is successful then maybe we can open it for children or have a summer camp next summer. Andy Gilley stated that we are working with the Corp of Engineers to get her by the lake but there is an approval process with that so right now we are looking to have her at the hockey rinks and Heritage Park. She has agreed to have her donation go to both the Friends of Indian Lake and the Inline Hockey Association. Motion to approve by Thom Golden, 2nd by Jimmy Head. All in favor. Outlaws Danglefest – Jonathan Totty Jonathan Totty stated that he is currently the Vice President of the HIHA but will be the President starting on July 1st. I would like to propose having my own hockey tournament on October 27 – 29 from 9:00am – 10:30pm. Wade Evans explained that even though he is donating money back to HIHA, this is not an HIHA event. The insurance is separate, etc. Andy Gilley stated that he would be paying the regular rental fee for using the rinks. On top of that, he is donating $100 per participating team to HIHA. The age groups for this will range all the way from 6U up until adults. Motion to approve this tournament by Jimmy Head, 2nd by Bubba Perry. All in favor. Reserving Pavilion at Mary’s Magical Place – Andy Gilley Andy Gilley stated that to the right of the Mary’s Magical Place playground is a pavilion that when the rinks were built was excluded from the design because there were two hockey rinks beside it. Since the rinks have gone away, we have requests all the time, for reservations for the tables inside the playground. We have refrained from doing that because we have noticed that that is a spot that a lot of grandparents go to sit in the shade. Our proposal is to redo the fence and make the shelter to the right of the playground, part of the playground, and begin opening it up to be reserved. It would probably be reserved a lot for birthday parties. We are just asking to get the Parks Board’s blessing on this and are proposing a rental fee that would be the same as reserving shelter 8 at Sanders Ferry Park. Also, our COO recommended having all the fees that we acquire through this rental go to the MMP Maintenance Fund. That would have to be approved through BOMA. Motion to approve and recommend that the funds be dedicated to MMP maintenance by Mahlon Hellman, 2nd by P.A. Bowler. All in favor. Discussion of Mary’s Magical Place Hours of Operation – Andy Gilley Andy Gilley stated that we have met multiple times, with multiple groups for multiple years on this subject. What you have in your packet is a proposal to make designated hours on Sunday from 6:00pm – 8:00pm and Wednesday mornings from 8:00am – 10:00am for the months of June and July to see how it would go. We are not going to clear out the playground. We are not going to tell people they can’t come in and we are not going to ask people if they are supposed to be in there. The Mayor has requested that we staff it. We will do our best to have our program supervisors there to do no more than just hand out information about what is going on. We will put signage around the playground. There are Pros and Cons to this but I’m neutral on this issue. P.A. Bowler stated that the playground was built with the intention of being all-inclusive, but he does not believe these special hours does anything to impede this. Motion to approve by P.A. Bowler, 2nd by Jimmy Head. All in favor. 3 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 5/22/23 Thom Golden stated that the long-term fix to this issue is to have more all-inclusive playgrounds all throughout the city. Parks Budget Discussion – Andy Gilley Andy Gilley stated that he will not go line by line through the budget. I appreciate the Mayor and our COO giving us a budget that we can operate with. There were some increases in some areas that needed increasing. The Maintenance and Parks line item has increased a lot due to a need to maintain the soccer fields and the other is taking around $35,000 that had been designated for resurfacing tennis courts and putting that in the actual operation budget. It will be up to us as staff to designate that money for the tennis courts which we have. For Special Projects, I requested about 9 projects and basically as a city, there are no other projects. We are lucky to have even one. There is no budget for new employees and a proposed 6% cost of living raise for our current employees. This will have to go through two readings of BOMA and the firs tis tomorrow night. Your job as a Parks Board is not to approve the budget, but rather to recommend or not recommend this budget and add any proposed changes. Andy Gilley stated that the proposal right now is to remove special events from the parks budget and for hotel/motel tax to cover all of our proposed events that we are contributing funds to. There are 100+ events in the city that we contribute nothing to bring in revenue. Motion to recommend this budget to BOMA by Jimmy Head, 2nd by Bubba Perry. All in favor. FOR YOUR INFORMATION: STAFF REPORTS Recreation Coordinator – Cindy Hamblen stated that RAPTORS Baseball just ended, and they had a good season. We had weather issues so Raptors Kickball will now begin this week. Kids Club is coming up soon on June 12th and runs through July 14th. The spots are full right now. I’ve been hiring camp counselors for the Kids Club and they will be working from 8:00am – 2:00pm. I’m looking forward to getting to know all the new workers and setting up for camp. The special abilities fishing rodeo is scheduled for Friday evening, June 9th at 5:00pm. Athletic Coordinator – Orey Fugate stated that the tournament for Adult Kickball is this Friday. Adult Softball still has three weeks left of their regular season. Registration for Fall Baseball 6U – 12U starts May 29th. Quickball will also be offered for 6U. Coed Kickball and Softball registration for the fall season will begin June 12th. Special Events Supervisor – Wade Evans stated that we had over 120 kids at our Nerf Night. This event was very successful, and we will have it again in the fall. Last weekend we had the Middle School state championships for both softball and baseball and it was all hands on deck, but we got it done. We have the Memorial Day Issacs concert on Monday and there are free tickets online for that. We also have our Hendersonville Jam concert coming up on June 20th, the Frontmen of Country are headlining that one and tickets are on sale now. If you need any help getting tickets for that, please let us know. Parks Maintenance Superintendent – Trevor Cole stated we just got the football security cameras up. We are now scheduled to install the other ones at the Civitan complex and then we should be covered for security cameras at Drakes Creek Park. We have a couple of big concrete projects coming and right now we are just waiting for the purchase orders to come back from Finance. We are going to add a pad over by the tennis courts for a picnic area and then over at Volunteer Park we have sidewalks going over there, a small grill area and another picnic area as well. Wednesday, the tennis courts 9-12 will begin being resurfaced. We have the guys doing some tree trimming going along the paths and sidewalks at the parks. 4 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 5/22/23 Assistant Parks Director – Dallas Long stated that Civitan flag football will finish up their season this week. Their championship will be Tuesday and Thursday of this week. The spring rugby season is finished, and they will host a large tournament in June. They will have kids coming from all over the southeast to participate in that. Rec soccer and TN United finished up their season this past weekend. The adult league soccer is still going for three more weeks. Next week we will host the TN United tryouts and Lacrosse America’s tournament will host the high school soccer tournament on the high school field. The following week we will host the TN United camp, the Hendersonville High School soccer camp, and the 3v3 soccer tournament. After that on June 12th, we will shut down the soccer complex for about 6 weeks for sod repair and will open those back up the last week of July. Also, the Memorial Park field is also closed through mid- June for the light installs on that field. Assistant Parks Director – Keith Bruce stated that regular season hockey got finished up on Sunday. The fastpitch regular season finished up and they are doing tournaments this week on Monday – Wednesday. Civitan baseball is a little bit further behind because there are so many teams so tournaments will probably be this week and then a few days after Memorial Day. Civitan open baseball teams are still playing their regular season games and still have a few more weeks left. The senior men softball is up and going and there are three divisions going strong. Starting June 1st, the college Rhythm baseball starts their summer season. Congratulations to Beech High School for winning the district softball tournament. The Full Count Baseball camp and the Hendersonville High School baseball camps are in June and the Hendersonville softball camp will be in June. Parks Director — Andy Gilley stated that we have a whole section on our website where we try to keep up with all the sports camps offered in our parks and at the schools and that is a great resource. Our tennis coordinator, Brannon Jones, has got his boys tennis team playing in the state tournament tomorrow so we wish them good luck. I believe Merrol Hyde and Station Camp soccer are also going to the state tournaments. I want to thank Jason and the IT department, for all the work they are doing at the parks and for Jason helping us every fourth Monday at these meetings working the camera back there. There will be no open pickleball play on courts 9-12 the next few weeks due to the resurfacing project. Our office and maintenance staff did a great job hosting the Middle School Softball and Baseball tournaments this past weekend. There are things tonight that were approved that are programs for the community that we don’t have the staff to offer. We are trying to work with people who come to us with ideas that can offer programs that we can’t. I’m going to get with our staff and come up with a more concise fee structure for these types of programs. Lastly, I’m going to sit down with the Mayor and our COO to figure out a way for our office to handle some of the permits like sound permits and even filming permits. ROUND TABLE P.A. Bowler – None. Thom Golden – None. Jimmy Head – None. Mahlon Hellman – None. Bubba Perry – None. Lee Peterson – I would like to thank the Parks Board for addressing the special hours for Mary’s Magical Place but I do wonder if four hours is enough. I would like to get some feedback from the families if this will 5 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 5/22/23 work but maybe the hours can be adjusted at some point. I think this will benefit everyone involved. We really appreciate all the hard work of this department. Ken Hesson – I would like to congratulate Keith Bruce for 25 years working with the City of Hendersonville. Motion to adjourn by Thom Golden, 2nd by Mahlon Hellman. All in favor. Meeting adjourned at 7:06 p.m. Respectfully submitted, __________________________________ ________________________________ Ken Hesson, Chairman Kristen Emerson, Administrative Assistant II 6