Board of Parks & Recreation

Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 9/23/2024 BOARD PRESENT: Jimmy Head, Lee Peterson, Mahlon Hellman, Bubba Perry, Mike Pike, Ken Hesson, Bob Montoya, Mahlon Hellman, Thom Golden, Jill Rathert BOARD ABSENT: Jeremiah Bennett STAFF PRESENT: Andy Gilley, Keith Bruce, Dallas Long, Trevor Cole, Wade Evans, Cindy Hamblen Called to order at 6:00pm Motion to approve the September 23, 2024 Parks Board Agenda. Motion: Bubba Perry Second: Thom Golden Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 Motion to approve the August 19, 2024 minutes. Motion: Mike Pike Second: Mahlon Hellman Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 PUBLIC COMMENTS: None ITEMS FOR APPROVAL: Research Study on American Crows Discussion: A Allsup is in AP Research at Hendersonville High School. She is doing research on the effect of urbanization on cognitive abilities needed to solve a puzzle box in American crows. Andy Gilley stated that she has done a great job explaining what she wants to do for research in the packet and her teacher has also written a letter. Allsup said there is an app called “E-birds” and it shows that there is a large population of crows in our parks. She will be filming in Memorial Park to conduct this research study on the week of fall break. Motion to approve filming for research study and waiving fee by Jill Rathert. Second: Thom Golden Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 Ball Hockey Program Proposal – Ashley Mouzon Discussion: Ashley Mouzon spoke in front of the Parks Board two years ago when the Ball Hockey tournament was approved. We are looking to start a youth program at the rinks at Volunteer Park. Ball Hockey is hockey in sneakers. You use the same equipment otherwise. Andy Gilley stated that she came to us for a tournament but are now wanting to run a league. The first item you are considering is for them to run a league program here at our hockey rinks. Motion to approve youth program at Volunteer Park at Arrowhead by Jill Rathert. 1 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 9/23/2024 Second: Bubba Perry Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 Change of Application: Ball Hockey – Ashley Mouzon Discussion: Andy Gilley stated that once they are approved as a program, they need a change of application. Keith said they are still looking at Sunday afternoons for the camps around October or November. We would schedule around anything with HIHA. The ball that is used is safe for the facility. Motion to approve change of application by Jill Rathert. Second: Jimmy Head Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 Middle School Dodgeball Tournament – Wade Evans Discussion: Wade Evans stated that we do a lot of stuff for our youth but something I thought about was that we don’t typically have anything for our middle school students. When I was at Hendersonville High School, we had this thing called “Pin Dodge” and it was a big fundraiser for the basketball team. This would be a one- night tournament. We have some interns that would go with me to the local middle schools and help me recruit. Parents will be involved in this, and a parent will have to be with each team. It will probably be too cold in December to do it at Volunteer Park so I may move it into one of the local school gyms. I hope to have both a female and a male division. Our high school interns would also be assisting me at this event. That Tuesday is the last Tuesday before Christmas break. Motion to approve this Middle School Dodgeball Tournament by Jill Rathert. Second: Mahlon Hellman Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 Bearpaw Lacrosse Event Site Map Approval – Wade Evans Discussion: Wade Evans stated that this was approved by the Beer Board last year. This is one of the first times that we had an Adult Box Lacrosse tournament. It’s the same set up but just to make sure we are covering our bases I’m just bringing it back for reapproval that he can use the same site map as last year. Mr. Levenberg has done everything he needs to do. Motion to approve alcohol site map for Bearpaw Lacrosse event by Bubba Perry. Second: Thom Golden Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 Sumner Fest Site Map Approval – Wade Evans/Sydney Ray Discussion: Wade Evans stated that Sydney Ray took over as the Event Director at the Chamber of Commerce. Sumner Fest was originally in August but was moved to October this year. Sydney stated that in the packets is a map that shows how things will be fenced off for the alcohol sold at this event. This event is October 20th which is the Sunday before Pig Fest. Motion to approve alcohol site map for Sumner Fest event by Jimmy Head Second: Thom Golden Vote: Unanimous Approval – 7-0 2 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 9/23/2024 STAFF VERBAL UPDATES Recreation Coordinator – Cindy Hamblen stated that Preschool Track Meet will be Sunday, October 6th. We will be doing three different time slots for the different age groups. Check in will begin 30 minutes before the start time. Pre-registration ended on Friday. Any High School students who are needing to get hours for Beta Club, National Honor Society, or that type thing, they can email me, and I will let them know if I have spots available to help at this event. The Trick or Treat at Drakes Creek event is October 29th. We still need volunteers for that as well. The special needs group will enter first and will meet at the end of field 3. Breakfast with Santa will be Saturday, December 7th. There are three sessions and Hendersonville Civitan helped sponsor this event. The Special Friends Visit with Santa will be on Monday, December 9th here in this meeting room. Raptors Basketball registration will begin at the end of November. Athletic Coordinator – Dallas Long provided Orey Fugate’s report. Fall Baseball is coming to and end. We have a couple of weeks left in the season. The Kickball championship will be this Friday, weather pending. His adult softball tournament will be next month in October. We are going to have our first Pickleball league at the new courts. High School Basketball registration is now full with 22 teams. Adult Basketball registration has been extended so we are still taking teams for that. Special Events Supervisor – Wade Evans stated that the Highland Games was a great successful event. Price Waterhouse Cooper is a big accounting firm had softball teams here over the weekend. This is their third year bringing their softball tournament. Coming up we have the Buffalo Wild Wings state kickball tournament. The Spencer Bristol Heroes Day softball tournament is coming up. Pig Fest is coming up and will have a trivia night on Thursday, October 24th, the concert will be on Friday night, October 25th and on Saturday, October 26th, it will be open to the public for the Barbecue judging and pig races. Parks Maintenance Superintendent – Trevor Cole stated we have been working closely with the IT department to try to get the camera’s up at the rugby complex. If you have driven down Gallatin Rd, you probably noticed the work we have done on the volleyball courts. Hopefully the work that we did over there will deter water from settling. We are working on the lights over at the Pickleball Courts. We will be working on replacing boards on the pedestrian bridge this week. Assistant Parks Director – Dallas Long stated that middle school soccer is coming to an end this week. The adult soccer league season is beginning this week. Last weekend we hosted the TN United Tournament and had about 250 teams in town for that. HSC is about halfway through their season. They are having a community fall festival this weekend. Rugby is about halfway through their season. Tackle Football has about one month left. Flag Football starts their season this Sunday. Assistant Parks Director – Keith Bruce stated that Fastpitch Softball is ongoing. HIHA has another week or so and then takes a week off during fall break. Full Count is starting their tournament tonight. They’ve had a great season. The Civitan open league is still on Wednesday nights full force. The senior men age 65 division starts their tournament tonight. The fall league for the other senior men age 40+ and 52+ senior men divisions started last Tuesday, and they will go through mid-November. Youth Basketball for the Civitan group still has about a week of signups left. We are looking at doing some major re-dos for the infields at Drakes Creek Park. We hope you see some major improvements with the field conditions once they open back up in February. Parks Director — Andy Gilley stated that we were able to come in under budget with the rugby lights and turf soccer field project. This is in large part to the clubs that made donations to the projects. With those funds we are going to install a lighting detection system at the rugby field We are continuing to work on the relocation of our maintenance shop behind fields 12 & 13. Great work has been done at our Parks maintenance staff who cleared off the area and has saved us a lot of money. I have a meeting this week with 3 Parks Board Minutes APPROVED 9/23/2024 our consultant before we put that project out to BID. The current LPRF grant for Heritage Park is going forward and hope to be under contract with TDEC by December. The Pickleball courts are up and running. We are still adding some amenities there including benches and shade. We are going to install a better gate at Heritage Park that will help greatly with security. Our insurance company, Public Entity Partners, came out and did risk evaluations and there are several items we must address at Heritage Park, things we have to have in place to project the city. Some of our playgrounds are 30 – 40 years old so we are going to have to start taking some of that old equipment out in some places. We are going to have to have things like bridges that needs to be evaluated by engineers. In the next two weeks, you will see a lot of activity at Drakes Creek Park with paving. Public Work has done a lot of work with the design to help make the parking lot flow better. We hope to have that work finished by the end of fall break. That Thursday night of Pig Fest will also be the Parking Palette will be a great way to kick things off. Our goal is to raise $50,000 for our non-profits including Mary’s Magical Place. I also want to highlight the Tunnels to Towers 5K that will be coming up in a couple weeks at Sanders Ferry Park. That is a great event with a great cause that has invested in our community. Lastly, Mr. Neal was a sweet man and a great guy who would have ideas and want to do things that would help the community. ROUND TABLE Bob Montoya – None Bubba Perry – None Jill Rathert – None. Lee Peterson – None. Mike Pike – None. Ken Hesson – None Jimmy Head - None Lee Peterson – It is exciting to have a high school student doing a study on crows. I’m excited to see the results. I want to encourage everyone to go to the Parks and Recreation website and vote for Drakes Creek Park. We want everyone to know what we have right here. Mahlon Hellman - None No Motion to Adjourn. Ken Hesson prayed a closing prayer. Adjourned 6:41 p.m. 4