Board of Parks & Recreation

Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 4/22/2024 BOARD PRESENT: Jeremiah Bennett, Jimmy Head, Thom Golden, Lee Peterson, Mahlon Hellman, Bubba Perry, Mike Pike, Ken Hesson BOARD ABSENT: Jill Rathert, Bob Montoya STAFF PRESENT: Andy Gilley, Dallas Long, Keith Bruce, Trevor Cole, Wade Evans Called to order at 6:00pm Motion to Accept the April 22, 2024, Parks Board Agenda Motion: Jeremiah Bennett Second: Mahlon Hellman Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Motion to approve the March 25, 2024 minutes. Motion: Mike Pike Second: Jimmy Head Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 CITIZENS COMMENTS: None ITEMS FOR APPROVAL: Beautiful Hendersonville Painted Trash Cans Discussion: Kathy Paschal stated that she is with Beautiful Hendersonville. Our mission is to develop and promote projects that help educate, beautify, maintain, and preserve the city. March is litter awareness month so we go into the schools and talk about litter so we can help prevent it and teach how to help clean it up. We thought this was a great way to keep that litter awareness going all year round by painting these trash cans with beautiful art. We would like to put some in the parks. Andy Gilley stated that he helped Ms. Paschal identify the best spots to place the trash cans. Kathy Paschal stated that they cost about $400 a piece to create, but we would like to place them very strategically in the park. The artist lives close by so he would be more than happy to help touch up the art when needed. With normal wear and tear the art should last about five years. Motion to approve placing Beautiful Hendersonville painted trash cans in the parks by Thom Golden. Second: Jimmy Head Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Elementary Cross Country Discussion: Wade Evans stated that Scott Wietecha has done a lot with the different levels of elementary cross country over the years. Our previous agreement with him to have races in the park was through Beech High School and he now works for Liberty Creek, so we are just bringing this back to the board for approval. Scott Wietecha stated that cross country is a lifetime sport, and he had a dream several years ago to start an elementary cross-country league in order to expose children to the sport and see if they like it. Since we started our races, middle and high school participation numbers have gone up. 1 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 4/22/2024 Motion to approve elementary cross-country races with proceeds going to Sumner Cross Country by Bubba Perry. Second: Jeremiah Bennett Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Fit Foundation Kickball Tournament Discussion: Mark Lowry stated that his non-profit is Fit Foundation, and they are asking to utilize the turf field at Drakes Creek Park to have a day of kickball for families who have someone with special needs. Its not a tournament and no fees involved. Keith Bruce stated that we won’t know the schedule for field 3 until later. Motion to approve event with the date to work with Parks staff by Jimmy Head. Second: Mike Pike Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Wheels and Thrills Car Show Discussion: Ed Neal is with Special Needs Sports Foundation. This year we are wanting to do a car show and I spoke to Wade, and he thinks he can get us at Sanders Ferry Park on October 6th with a rainout date on October 13th. This would be a fundraiser. Wade stated that the location in the park may be near shelters 1-3. Ed Neal said this is our first show so we don’t know yet how many cars will be participating. We will have a lot of volunteers to help. Motion to approve event with waived fees by Bubba Perry. Second: Thom Golden Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Namiwalks Sumner & Wilson Discussion: Katrina Gay is the Executive Director of NAMI Sumner and Wilson Counties. NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. We have 650 affiliates across the country, and we do community initiatives in CIT training for the Hendersonville Police Department. Namiwalks is new to this area, and I am delighted to be taking on this affiliate. Namiwalks is the largest fundraising mental health walk in the country. So far this year, we have raised $6,000,000 nationwide. We are requesting to have a 5K walk on September 21st from 9:00am – noon at Memorial Park. We hope to have around 200 people. Our goal is to raise $25,000 and this money will stay in the community to fund services that are free. Motion to approve event by Thom Golden. Second: Bubba Perry Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Mid TN Softball Showcase Discussion: Tina Gale stated that she is with Diamond Classic Fastpitch, and they are looking to hold a college showcase tournament at Drakes Creek Park and get on the approved list for renting fields. We have million-dollar insurance policies and can add your parks as an additional insured. Wade Evans stated this approval would be for them to be tournament directors moving forward. Andy Gilley stated that he knows that these ladies do good work with kids. Tina Gale stated that they have a great network with college coaches so they would bring a great program for the local players as they are trying to gain exposure for the college 2 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 4/22/2024 level. Motion to approve Diamond Classic as an approved tournament and showcase group by Jeremiah Bennett. Second: Jimmy Head Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 LPRF Heritage Park Grant Application Discussion: Andy Gilley stated that in the packet is a resolution and site map for Heritage Park. We are in the process of applying for a grant through TDEC to complete the site master plan for Heritage Park. We are right at the end of constructing a LPRF grant and are just waiting on light poles at rugby. When we get that we will be signed off and completed on our current grant and right at the crossroads of being able to apply for this next round. LPRF allows you to use the value of the property as a match. The current appraised value of that property is 3.38 million so that is the size project that we would be able to apply for. Part of the process is for the Parks Board to recommend that BOMA approve this resolution that is in your packet. Motion to recommend that BOMA approve this resolution by Bubba Perry. Second: Jimmy Head Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 RTP Bike Pump Grant Application Discussion: Andy Gilley stated that this is a different type of state grant called “Recreation Trails and Pathways”. With this grant we are not currently constructing it so we are certain we can apply for this. This is one in which 80% of the funding would come from the state and 20% of the funding would come from the bike community through the rotary club. They have already raised this money. This will take a few years to construct but this is the first step in that process. Motion to recommend that BOMA approve this resolution by Mike Pike. Second: Jeremiah Bennett Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 Soccer Turf Field Rules & Process Discussion: Dallas Long stated that we are looking to get your approval of these new rules and processes. On page 43, the policy of how we would schedule and allocate, we have a unique situation in which we have multiple groups within our soccer community that would use the field and we Invision most of those groups would really like to use a turf field. We have put together a policy of how we would allocate the use of the field to each of those groups. Everyone is on board with it. On page 44, are the rules which we would put in place at the turf field. There is currently A-frame signage out there. Our soccer groups are planning to educate their families on these rules. Motion to approve staff recommendation for soccer turf field rules and processes by Mike Pike. Second: Jimmy Head Vote: Unanimous Approval – 8-0 STAFF VERBAL UPDATES Recreation Coordinator – Keith Bruce shared Cindy Hamblen’s report. He stated that the RAPTORS 3 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 4/22/2024 Baseball season has begun, and they have 25 participants. Practices are Friday nights at 5:30 and Saturday mornings at 9:00 and 9:45. Kids Club Summer Program is June 10th through July 19th from 8:30am – 1:30pm. There are 35 spots, and we took the returning participants registration last week. We have a few spots left for first-time participants. Cindy is also looking for camp counselors for this summer camp. RAPTORS Kickball registration will begin May 1st and the season will begin May 17th. The special needs fishing rodeo is on Friday, June 7th at Memorial Park. Athletic Coordinator – Dallas Long shared Orey Fugate’s report. He stated that the adult softball, adult kickball and adult pickleball leagues are ongoing. Kickball and Pickleball will wrap up in the next month with their tournament and adult softball will run through the summer. We are in the last week of registrations for the Summer T-ball league and adult basketball league. Orey is also working with some potential programs that we can offer in the park. Special Events Supervisor – Wade Evans stated that we had Putting for a Purpose last month which is a fundraiser for Mary’s Magical Place at Bluegrass Country Club. Thank you to the people who putted. We will do this again on May 9th at Country Hills. We also had our Nerf Wars on Thursday night and got a lot of good coverage on social media. The Live Barn footage was great. The Isaacs Memorial Day concert is on May 27th. We have the Crisis Pregnancy Center 5K/10K race, Memorial Day race, lots of softball and baseball and we have a carnival at Veterans Park on May 19th – 25th. Parks Maintenance Superintendent – Trevor Cole stated that we are back in the swing of things, and we have been slowly chipping away at the tornado damage. We are also repairing things like water fountains that broke during the winter months. We plan to get those installed this week. We are slowly catching up. Assistant Parks Director – Dallas Long stated that this past weekend, we hosted the TN United spring tournament and had 210 teams in town for that and that was a success along with the grand opening of the turf soccer field. HSC is ongoing and have some makeups coming up this weekend but will end their season in mid-May. Adult soccer began last week, and it will continue until the beginning of June. Middle School soccer will begin their tournament this week and wrap up their season next weekend. On the turf field, we have sixteen games scheduled this week. Lacrosse will begin their playoffs next week. Rugby is still ongoing, and they will finish up with the state tournament in mid-May. Flag football is playing through May, and we have added eight additional fields to the rugby complex, so we have more fields for flag. For new programs, we have a new policy that we will come to you with next month that will make a little more sense for programs that are not athletic. Assistant Parks Director – Keith Bruce stated that fastpitch is going and they did a lot of makeups this past Sunday, so they are close to being caught up. The senior men softball league for 40+-year olds and 52+-year olds started last week. The 65+ division starts tonight. Civitan baseball is ongoing. The fast pitch middle school has finished their regular season and tournament, and their all-star game is Wednesday night at 6:00pm. Middle School baseball is doing makeups and their tournament. HIHA is ongoing and the Live Barn program has been a big hit with the hockey people. Beech softball, Hendersonville softball, and Hendersonville baseball all have home games this week and then the district tournament will start. The senior men and women SPA groups are coming up the first two weekends in May. Parks Director — Andy Gilley stated that we already gave an update on the LPRF grant, the turf soccer field is up, and we are waiting on the lights for rugby, that will hopefully be installed on both fields in May or June. BOMA approved lights for the second rugby field to go with the first one that was funded through the grant. Next Wednesday, we will open submissions to do the shop plans for our new maintenance shop. We hope to get a good set of plans to start that process for it to go out to bid. We are making plans to announce the closure of the Sanders Ferry Park boat ramp for the summer due to the TWRA project which will begin June 3rd and hope it will reopen no later than August. This will be a huge improvement. Sanders Ferry Park 4