Parks & Recreation Commission

LACONIA PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION MEETING Tuesday, February 21, 2023 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: Matthew Mansur, Assistant Recreation & Facilities Director ROLL CALL: Mitch Hamel, Deanna Guyer, Arthur Kirk, Laura Ringer. Absent Rodney Roy. PARKS AND RECREATION STAFF PRESENT: Amy Lovisek, Director of Recreation & Facilities and Matthew Mansur, Assistant Director of Recreation & Facilities. Absent Liza Kelleher ADOPTION OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS: 1. Regular meeting minutes of January 17, 2023 Commissioner D. Guyer moved to adopt the minutes from January 17, 2023. Seconded by Commissioner A. Kirk. The motioned passed unanimously. I. FACILITY USE REQUEST FORM: A. Lakes Region Cancer Support Team, Inc.- Weirs Community Park Parking Lot- Saturday, September 23, 2023, from8:00am to 3:00pm for Dragon Boat Festival 2023. Commissioner A. Kirk motioned to accept the request with all of the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner D. Guyer seconded. All were in favor. B. Living Hope Lakeport Local Outreach Ministry- Leavitt Park Field- Saturday, April 1, 2023, from 9:00am to 6:00pm for Easter Egg Hunt. Commissioner D. Guyer, motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application noting this does not include the park house. Commissioner L. Ringer seconded. All were in favor. C. Piedmont Print & Frame – Rotary Park Pathways – Friday, April 7, 2023, from 9:00am – 3:00pm – Good Friday Art Walk. Commissioner A. Kirk motioned to table this request due to lack of representation. Seconded by Commissioner D. Guyer. All were in favor. D. Laconia Lacrosse Club – Bobotas Field – March 14, 2023 through June 9 th, 2023 – Monday -Fridays 5:30 – 7:30pm, Saturday – Sundays from 8:00am – 6:00pm – Lacrosse practices and games. Commissioner L. Ringer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner A. Kirk seconded. All were in favor. E. Meredith Center Freewill Baptist Church – Robbie Mills Parking lot – Sunday, April 9, 2023 from 7:30 – 8:30am for Sunrise Easter Services. Commissioner A. Kirk motioned to accept the request with all of the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner D. Guyer seconded. All were in favor. F. The Belknap Mill – Rotary Park & Gazebo – Sunday, June 4 th 2023 from 10am-5pm for the Garden Play Festival. Commissioner D. Guyer motioned to accept the request with all  the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner A. Kirk seconded. All were in favor. G. The Belknap Mill – Rotary Park & Gazebo – Friday, June 30, 2023 from 8am to 4pm for Riverwalk Festival and Toy Boat Races. Commissioner L. Ringer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner D. Guyer seconded. All were in favor. H. The Belknap Mill – Rotary Park & Gazebo – Friday, September 8 th, 2023 from 8am to 4pm for a Sock Hop. Commissioner D. Guyer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner L. Ringer seconded. All were in favor. I. The Belknap Mill – Rotary Park & Gazebo – Sunday, November 26, 2023 from 9am to 5pm for Yuletide Traditions at the Belknap Mill with Santa. Commissioner L. Ringer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner A. Kirk seconded. All were in favor. II. OLD BUSINESS: A. Laconia Youth Soccer- Robbie Mills, Leavitt Park, Opechee Park (fields A, B, C,D and Soccer fields)- August 1 through October 21, 2023, Monday through Friday from 5:30pm to 8:00pm and Saturdays from 7:30am to 4:00pm for Laconia Youth Soccer League. Commissioner L. Ringer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner A. Kirk seconded. Commissioner D. Guyer abstained. All were in favor. B. Lakes Region Girls Softball-Opechee Field D- April 1 st to August 31, 2023, Monday through Friday 5:00pm to 8:00pm, Saturday & Sunday from7:00am to 8:00pm for Girls Softball Season. Commissioner A. Kirk motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner D. Guyer seconded. All were in favor. C. The Belknap Mill-Rotary Park and Gazebo- May 26, June 2,16 & 30 th, July 14,28, August 11,25, and September 8th, 2023, for Arts in the Park summer concert series. Commissioner A. Kirk motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner D. Guyer seconded. All were in favor. D. The Belknap Mill-Rotary Park & Gazebo- July 3rd through July 28th, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9am to 12pm for Kids in the Park 2023. Commissioner D. Guyer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner L. Ringer seconded. All were in favor. E. Laconia Historical & Museum Soc.-Rotary Park, Gazebo and CH parking lot- Saturday, July 15, 223 from 9am to 4pm for Laconia History Day. Commissioner L. Ringer motioned to accept the request with all the requirements listed in the application. Commissioner D. Guyer seconded. All were in favor. F. Discussion regarding athletic field lighting. III. ADMINISTRATIVE APPROVALS-ROTARY PARK, BEACHES, WEIRS AMPHITHEATER & PAVILION A. Sophia Jones – Rotary Park & Gazebo – July 23, 2023 at 12:00pm for a wedding. IV. NEW BUSINESS:  V. ANNOUNCEMENTS: Commissioner Hamel would like to enter into the minutes a congratulations to Commissioner Roy for winning the 2023 Debra Bieniarz Memorial Award – an honor awarded annually to a Laconia resident based on their work with the youth of the Laconia community. VI. NOMINATIONS, APPOINTMENTS & ELECTIONS: VII. PUBLIC COMMENT: VIII. COMMUNICATIONS: IX. OTHER REQUESTS REQUIRING COMMISSION ACTION: X. PARK ASSOCIATION REPORTS: A. Leavitt Park Association- February 8, 2023 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 We have finally seen some winter weather in our region of the fine state of New Hampshire! It didn’t last long, but we got to experience it! Kids of all ages were able to use the sledding hill if they were so inclined to do so. The ice rink was open and in great shape for a while there. Unfortunately, that did not last, and we have had to close both for now. The maintenance crew have been busy with interior projects such as painting and re-organizing the maintenance garage to make things more streamlined and safe. Dane has begun this month preparing a report for you to see all they are doing. I attended a webinar put on by Primex on use of facilities. This was good information and confirmed that we are doing things the correct way! We are working on changing our job descriptions and titles of some of our current jobs before hiring for our next employee this month. We are looking to make the next employee a Parks Technician II. The regular crew are Parks Technician I. The Tech II position will have more responsibilities such as supervisory and filling in for the foreman. They will also be more versed in all tasks that the Tech I’s are responsible for. This should give the crew a role to strive for to be promoted. This position will go out in the paper soon. After speaking with Kirk regarding our budget that he is going through now, it sounds like we will be getting the additional employee that we are asking for. We are looking for a Parks Tech I maintenance crew member that would work mostly with facilities to do the interior jobs all year that the regular crew just doesn’t have time to get to especially during the spring, summer and fall. Most of our interior work is done during the winter months and that isn’t fair to the facilities and their users. It will allow us to focus on what we need to focus on. The regular Tech I’s will be able to help the facilities Tech I when needed and vice versa. This will be huge for our department if it passes. Liza has been on vacation and will be gone until February 27th. Matt and I are covering the office and doing AP vouchers. This gives me an opportunity to learn more of that job, which is a great experience. I will be going on vacation with my family to Florida at the end of February. I will be gone from February 24 – March 7 th. We are having the doors between the Weirs Community Center and the fire department ADA compliant and we have awarded the job to Granite State Glass. The City was trying to be good stewards and wanted to give an easement to the 90 unit affordable housing complex off of Province Road. However, at the 11th hour I found out about it and let them know that that is park land and was purchased with LWCF grant money. This put a kink in the plan. We have met with the state regarding how we can proceed with this plan and it will not be easy. We will need to jump through many hoops and add new park land to our current load. This could be as simple as turning already owned city land into a park or as hard as purchasing new land adjacent to a park. Needless to say, this is going to be quite the process. We met with a company to get a quote to replace the bleachers in the gym as well as the scoreboard for Robbie Mills baseball field. We have not heard back from him at this time. I met with the Conservation Commission this past month regarding the removal of invasive species along the waters edge at Bartlett Beach. They have an individual that will come in to teach the crew how to properly remove the invasives as well as disposing for them. This person will then help us plant a few relatively small trees that are a bit more established as well as many bare root trees that are only about 8 – 10” tall. These plants are to help keep the shoreline from eroding any further after removing the invasives. Most, if not all, of this project will be paid for through a grant for the Merrimack River Watershed Network. We have just recently put out the request for bids for the cleaning contract for all 6 city buildings that we are responsible for. The bid is due in mid-March, and we will need to go through them all to find the best candidate for the city as a whole. Respectfully submitted by: Amy C. Lovisek B. Assistant Director’s Report submitted by Matt Mansur Greetings! Summer Prep I went to a job fair a couple of weeks ago and we got some interests. Unfortunately, many were 15 years old. Dane, Amy, and I have brainstormed a way to make working with youth a possibility, but I haven’t been able to take steps forward on that yet. Over at Bond I’ve got a few pokers in the fire and may be able to tie off that whole area rather quickly…. I am being optimistic which is always a little dangerous. Weirs is always the struggle in terms of staffing. Skip seems like he would like to return. We raised prices on Opechee Day Camp this year as we found we were offering camp at 56% the cost of the next Day Camp program. We’re hoping this will help us be able to bring back some Field Trips. I have two pokers in the fire for our Day Camp Supervisor replacements – I am hoping that these take shape. Community Center Programs Pickleball is driving me insane. There’s just too many people – and now there are too many people that are frustrated with there being too many people. It seems like I’ve had multiple 15-20 min long conversations about pickleball with disgruntled patrons multiple times a day everyday this week. I think we may need to look at considering what limiting indoor pickleball to Laconia residents only would look like. There is a large demand for a beginner pickleball class. This has largely been drummed up by an individual who wants to be the one to teach that class while using our facilities to do so. We would rather use some of our local longtime pickleball gurus to teach this class. We are talking to a possible instructor to teach some fitness classes here at the community center. We are just working out how to pay them. Which is a conversation we’ve had before, but we are hoping this will solve it for us. Operations and Administration Liza has been gone for the last few weeks, so I have become very familiar with the transmittal sheet process as well as invoices and setting up the Commission Agenda. It has been a nice change of pace. Jay and Justin have spent some time touching up the office and the hallway of the community center – which looks great. Dane has had the team working hard to re-design the facilities garage. It looks incredible. I am excited to show the city council how our department has stretched its dollar a bit by completely redesigning some of its space. C. Foreman’s Report submitted by Dane Anderson XII. PRESENTATIONS XIII. ADJOURNMENT: Commissioner D. Guyer motioned to adjourn at 7:15pm. Seconded by Commissioner A. Kirk. All were in favor. Respectfully submitted, Matthew Mansur Mitch Hamel Ast. Dir. Of Recreation & Facilities Commission Chair