Parks & Recreation Commission

LACONIA PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION MEETING Monday, April 18, 2022 Laconia Community Center 6:00 P.M. CALL TO ORDER: Commissioner Mitch Hamel called the meeting to order at the above date and time. RECORDING SECRETARY: Secretary Liza Kelleher recorded this meeting. ROLL CALL: Commissioner Hamel called the roll with the following Commissioners in attendance: Laura Ringer, Deanna Guyer and Arthur Kirk. Absent- Rodney Roy. PARKS AND RECREATION STAFF PRESENT: Director of Recreation and Facilities Amy Lovisek, Asst. Director of Recreation and Facilities Matthew Mansur and Secretary Liza Kelleher. ADOPTION OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS: 1. Regular meeting minutes of March 21, 2022 Commissioner Kirk moved to adopt the minutes from the March 21, 2022. Seconded by Commissioner Guyer. All were in favor. I. FACILITY USE REQUEST FORM: A. Laconia Lacrosse Club- Bobotas Field- May 28, 2022, Saturday from 8:00am to 5:00pm for North-South Lacrosse Tournament. Commissioner Ringer motioned to accept the request pending upon the payment of a $300.00 tournament fee for the Lacrosse All-Star tournament. Seconded by Commissioner Kirk. All were in favor. B. Weirs Community Park Assoc.- Weirs Community Parking lot- June 10, 2022, through June 19, 2022, from 7:00am to 10:00pm for motorcycle week parking. Commissioner Kirk motioned to accept the request pending upon the submission of the certificate of insurance and final approval from the City council for the annual motorcycle week parking fundraising event. The special event fee has been waived. Seconded by Commissioner Guyer. All were in favor. C. Laconia School District- Smith Track, Field and Opechee Cove Bathrooms- Tuesday, June 7, 2022 (June 8, rain date) from 8:00am to 2:00pm for the 5 th Grade Track meet. Commissioner Kirk motioned to accept the request pending upon the submission of the certificate of insurance for the 5th Grade Track meet. Seconded by Commissioner Guyer. All were in favor. D. NH Children’s Business Fair/Acton Academy NH- City Hall parking lot- Saturday, August 6, 2022, from 8:00am to 2:00pm for NH Business Fair. Commissioner Ringer motioned to accept the request upon submission of the certificate of insurance for the NH Children’s Business Fair. The special event fee has been waived. Seconded by Commissioner Kirk. All were in favor. E. Advantage Kids- Memorial Tennis Courts - June 18, 2022(rain date June 19 th), Saturday from 9:00am to 1:00pm and June 27 through August 10, 2022, Mondays & Wednesdays from 9:00am to 11:00am for Advantage Kids Beginner Tennis & Yoga. Commissioner Kirk motioned to accept the request pending upon the payment of $10.00 for non-residents participants. Seconded by Commissioner Ringer. All were in favor. F. Weirs Action Committee- Weirs Beach- July 3 to July 4, 2022, from 5pm until 3:00am for July 3rd Fireworks for the 4th of July Celebration. Commissioner Guyer motioned to accept the request pending upon the submission of the certificate of insurance, key deposit of $25.00 per key if needed, special event fee has been waived. Commissioners required that the beach should be cleared of firework debris no later than 7:00am. Seconded by Commissioner kirk. All were in favor. G. Evangelical Baptist Church- June 27, 2022, through July 2, 2022, Monday~ Saturday from 8:00am to 4:00pm for On Goal soccer camp. Commissioner Kirk motioned to accept the request pending upon the payment of the non-resident users fee, the submission of the certificate of insurance and subject to field conditions. The no cooking rules and the use of 20lbs. propane gas has been waived. Key deposit off $25.00 per key is needed if required. Seconded by Commissioner Guyer. All were in favor. H. Lakes Region Girls Softball-Opechee A, B, C, D- May 7, 2022, Saturday from 12:30- 4:30pm for the opening day event. Commissioner Guyer motioned to accept the request for LRGS opening day event. The no cooking rules and the use of 20lbs propane gas has been waived and the special event fee as well. Seconded by Commissioner Ringer. All were in favor. I. AJL Babe Ruth Baseball- Memorial Baseball Field- May 1 through July 31, 2022, Monday through Friday from 5:00pm to 10:00pm, Saturday & Sunday from 9:00am to 9:00pm for AJL Babe Ruth Baseball. Commissioner Guyer motioned to accept the request conditioned upon the submission of the rosters, payment of non-residents (if they accept any) and upon the submission of the certificate of insurance. Rosters and light fees will apply. Seconded by Commissioner Kirk. All were in favor. J. Wilkins-Smith Post 1 American Legion Baseball- June 1 through July 31, 2022, Monday through Friday from 5:00pm to 11:00pm, Saturday & Sunday from 9:00am to 10:00pm for American Legion Baseball. Commissioner Ringer motioned to accept the request pending upon the payment of storage, non-resident fee, light fee (if use) and the submission of the certificate of insurance. Seconded by Commissioner Kirk. All were in favor. K. Northeast Bass Assoc. of New Hampshire- Bartlett Beach- May 8, 2022, Sunday from 3:00pm to 5:00pm for a fishing tournament. Commissioner Guyer motioned to table the request due to lack of representation. Seconded by Commissioner kirk. All were in favor. L. Lakes Region Community Services- Opechee Cove- June 4, 2022, Saturday from 10:00am to 2:00pm for Fishing with families. Commissioner Guyer motioned to accept the request for fishing with families. The special event fee, the no cooking rule and use of 20lbs propane gas have been waived. Seconded by Commissioner Kirk. All were in favor. M. Family Resource Center of Central NH at Lakes Region Community Services-Opechee Park, Track and Smith Field- Sunday, June 12, 2022, from 8:00am to 3:00pm for Choose Love Movement Community Fair. Commissioner Kirk motioned to accept the request and waived the special event fee. Seconded by Commissioner Ringer. All were in favor.  II. OLD BUSINESS: A. USDA Forest Service White Mountain National Forest- Opechee track- Wednesday, April 6, 2022, from 8am to 11am for pack test for Wildland Firefighters. Commissioner motioned to take out the request from the table. Director Lovisek mentioned that she denied the request administratively due to no insurance provided. III. ADMINISTRATIVE APPROVALS-ROTARY PARK, BEACHES, WEIRS AMPHITHEATER & PAVILION A. Meredith Center Free Will Baptist Church- Robbie Mills Sports Complex- Sunday, April 17, 2022, from 7:30am to 8:30am for a sunrise service. B. Kimberly Defeo- Weirs Pavilion- Sunday, May 15, 2022, from 10:00am to 4:00pm for a family reunion. C. Lakes Region Girl Softball- Opechee Field D- April 16, 2022, through July 31, 2022, Monday through Friday from 5:30 to 8:30pm, Saturday & Sunday from 8:00am to 4:00pm for Youth softball 2022 season. IV. NEW BUSINESS: V. ANNOUNCEMENTS: VI. NOMINATIONS, APPOINTMENTS & ELECTIONS: Director Lovisek congratulated Commisioners Kirk and Roy for their re-appointments to the Commission. She stated that there will be elections at the next months meeting. VII. PUBLIC COMMENT: VIII. COMMUNICATIONS: IX. OTHER REQUESTS REQUIRING COMMISSION ACTION: X. PARK ASSOCIATION REPORTS: A. Leavitt Park Association- April minutes of the meeting. B. Weirs Community Park Association- No report C. Tardif Park Association- No report XI. DEPARTMENT REPORTS: A. Director’s Report submitted by Amy Lovisek Welcome to spring and our departments crazy season! This is when we get all the parks and fields up and running. We are doing spring cleanups, ball field preps, bathroom set ups, irrigation set ups, playground set ups and all the projects that need to wait for spring. The good news is that we have hired one new full-time employee and her name is Fay George. She comes to us with much experience, and we hope she will be a huge asset to our department. We have also hired one new seasonal employee who we are hoping will be a full-time employee if the proposed budget is passed by the Council. The bad news is that our foreman is still out on medical leave, and we don’t know when he will be back. His backup person is now going out on paternity leave very soon! This leaves us in a very big hole as a department. I will be taking over the role of foreman for the time being, but things are going to have to be prioritized. Please be patient with us. There are going to be a number of community spring clean ups happening this month, which is a great help to our department. We will just need to pick up the debris from their efforts. The police department’s building is now completely mold free! This was quite the process, and I would like to make a shout out to Lt. Gary Hubbard who was a huge help with the process. He is even replacing all of the ceiling tiles that needed to be removed. Normally, this would be our job, but as the we were getting into spring the P&R crew didn’t have the opportunity to get back inside to do work. Thank you Gary! As you are aware the Belknap Mill is installing a new larger patio into Rotary Park. We have been working with them to accomplish this. The landscape architects’ plans are attached to this report. We are having more electrical work done for Rotary and Stewart Parks to hopefully prevent the electrical tripping that occurred this past Christmas season with the trees in the parks. Eversource has worked with us to beautify the area in front of the Belknap Mill. This area was destroyed by them when putting in a new transformer and left. We have asked and received for them to install some trees and plantings in there. The trees are in place and the plantings we are still waiting for. The Muskrats have stated that they would be willing to pay for a banner to be placed on the Green Monster wall this year. Ours will be placed under the paid sponsors but will be 30’x4’. We have the city logo as well as the P&R logo on this and it says, “Welcome to Robbie Mills Sports Complex”. Very exciting. We worked with DPW on extending the ADA ramp at Tardif Park. This new area will be paved and will provide a designated ADA parking spot. I met as part of the WOW board, and we discussed the Opechee Loop as a possible new addition to the trail. This loop takes the user into very different areas of our city and will be another route. The map is attached to this report. We currently have RFP’s out for the Riverwalk, the Opechee Roof replacement and the gym floor new surfacing. We have awarded a contract to a company to come out and blow playground mulch into all of the parks to get the levels up to where they belong. We asked the company to come in this April to get this done. We have also awarded bids for our field amendments and such. We have already fertilized and overseeded our fields. The departments plan is to use a post emergent on the weeds as this will be more efficient with the clover. Have an amazing spring. B. Assistant Director’s Report submitted by Matt Mansur Greetings! Summer Preparations Beaches Things are not looking good for Lifeguard staffing. We have gotten a few people come in looking to be Beach Caretakers, but none of them are interested in being Lifeguards. We have one returner who has committed back to Bond Beach. It does not help us that Gilford is offering $15.75 - $17/hr for Lifeguards at their private beach. We are offering $15. I am going to get into the High School early next week to make a final push. If that doesn’t go well then it will be my recommendation to make the switch to Beach Caretakers. The Huot is making new Lifeguard Chairs. We got a little hung up on how we would go about getting them the material, but I believe we have cleared that hurdle. Opechee Day Camp I was expecting a rush, but we didn’t really get it. We are currently at roughly 11 campers a week (out of 40). This does tend to fill up pretty quickly as “last minute Laconia” is looking for places, but I will recommend that we move the registration date up next year. Stephen, Anna, and Victoria will all return next year. We have another applicant names Raven who we are excited about. Stephen has recruited a friend of his named Kegan who has expressed interest. That would round out our team for day camp. I do have a back up in mind if Kegan cannot make it happen. No update on trips yet. Community Center Programs Morning Activities Pickleball has chilled out a little bit in their requests, but as Liza said on Friday, “There’s always something”. We have almost two distinctly different groups that utilize our facility each morning. We have been getting a lot of requests for lessons. I am not sure when we would squeeze it in. Both Line Dancing and Bingo will have returned by the time of our meeting on Monday. We have not found a solution to our shades yet. School Open Gyms These always seem to be running well. We are hoping to use them as a way of recruiting some future employees. Evening Activities These have run smoothly over the last month. Spring Clean Up We will be short-staffed and unexperienced pretty shortly here, if anyone has any time and they want to help out our Parks Maintenance crew, please let us know! Amy and I will have learned some of the mowing equipment on Friday the 15th. XII. PRESENTATIONS XIII. ADJOURNMENT: Commissioner Guyer motioned to adjourn at 7:36pm. Seconded by Commissioner Kirk. All were in favor. Respectfully submitted, Liza Kelleher Mitch Hamel Secretary Chair Commissioner