Parks and Recreation Board

222 West Main Street City of Pensacola Pensacola, FL 32502 Meeting Minutes 3 - Final Parks and Recreation Board Thursday, January 21, 2021 8:00 AM Hagler-Mason Conference Room Members of the public may NOT attend the meeting in person, as City Hall is closed to the public until further notice. Members of the public may participate via live stream and/or phone cityofpensacola.com/428/Live-Meeting-Video. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 8:04 am. Chairperson Hicks read a statement about how the public can participate in the Board meetings. ROLL CALL Present 8- Chairperson Rand Hicks, Vice Chair Maranda Sword, Antonio Bruni, Alejandra Escobar-Ryan, Gabriela Garza, Leah Harrison, Jarah Jacquay, and Michael Wolf Absent 1- David Del Gallo Chairperson Hicks asked to move the Pensacola Police Department item up, following the approval of the minutes. There were no objections. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. Minutes for December 17, 2020 Attachments: December 17, 2020 Minutes - Draft Chairperson Hicks had a few corrections on the minutes from the December 17, 2020 meeting. 1. The Emerald Coast Resource Council did not bring up the desire for the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) to reconvene, but they wondered about the status of the BAC. 2. The sentence "Chairperson Hicks thinks that the BAC should be responsible . . .", should be "Chairperson Hicks thinks that the City will be City of Pensacola Page 1 Parks and Recreation Board Meeting Minutes 3 - Final January 21, 2021 successful in achieving the Bicycle Friendly Community status, and that the Administration would be receptive to the Parks and Recreation council-appointed board's collaboration . . . ." 3. The question to be answered should be "Should recreational bicycling be governed by the entire board, or should we ask the Council to reinstate the BAC? 4. The item was postponed instead of withdrawn. STAFF REPORTS 4. People in parks after hours Lieutenant Erik Goss from Pensacola Police Department (PPD) addressed the board. For a time, he had to pull Officer Alex Bell off of visiting the parks, but as of January 25, 2021, he will be back. PPD is limited to what they can do. People cannot be arrested for being homeless, but they can be arrested for drugs, alcohol, loud noise, etc. Moving the homeless out of parks in the night just moves them elsewhere. Officer Bell will be attending the monthly Parks and Recreation Board meetings to answer any questions, address any issues and bring issues that he is encountering in Parks. Discussion followed. He mentioned that he will be working on finding solutions to some of the problems. Director Cooper mentioned the new park ordinance which addresses the hours parks are open was done to help PPD with enforcement. Due to COVID, more people are homeless. In order to address the issue of the homeless, there have to be more available resources, some of which had to close due to COVID, but are in the process of opening back up again. 2. Athletics presentation - Cheryl Fox Attachments: Athletics Presentation Alex Odee, Athletics Coordinator, brought the presentation. Both he and Superintendent Fox oversee both youth and adult sports. The presentation encompassed various parts of athletics, and focused on things that "normally" happen during a non-COVID year. Staff is broken into three sections - Administration, ball field maintenance, and the Vickrey Center (basketball and volleyball). Most of the tournaments that are hosted, take place at Exchange Park. Programs that they would like to introduce are a youth flag football league, adult volleyball league, over 40 basketball league, ultimate frisbee league, and a wiffle ball league. Although the YMCA runs the day to day operations at the swimming pools, the City does oversee and assist as needed. Discussion followed. Chairperson Hicks would like to see the number of participants in each of the sports alongside the costs of the program. City of Pensacola Page 2 Parks and Recreation Board Meeting Minutes 3 - Final January 21, 2021 3. Capital Improvement Project update - David Forte Attachments: Capital Improvement Project Update 01/21/21 Manager Forte mentioned that their is a dashboard of capital improvement project's on the City's website. He encouraged the Board to review the document which was attached. Discussion followed regarding the crosswalk at Roger Scott Tennis Center and McClellan, and reconfiguration of Summit Boulevard. Florida Department of Transportation will be conducting a study about the multi-use path along Scenic Highway. There will be a virtual workshop on February 3 regarding the A Street project. DIRECTOR'S REPORT Director Cooper brought the following updates: * Everyone should be receiving an invitation to the ribbon cutting at Bayview Senior Center for reopening, and the new Resource Center opening. * The Hitzman Park project is coming along great. * We are still working on the Kiwanis Park project. Bids should be going out soon for the dog park project. * We have purchased six new playgrounds - Vickrey Resource Center, Woodcliff Park, Operto Square, Catalonia Square, and Alabama Square. * Hunter Pool design is coming along. Discussion followed about the new community center at Tippin Park. Funding has been found for the design phase. Manager Forte will be working with Director Cooper on getting everything together for the Request for Proposals to select an architect. Discussion followed. OLD BUSINESS 5. Park Assessment Form Attachments: Park Visitation Checklist Community Park Audit Tool Chairperson Hicks encouraged the Board to find a neighbor and get their thoughts on the park that is being visited. How to decide who sees which park? Chairperson Hicks suggested covering the parks close to where they live. Several members live pretty close to each other. They will still get some close by, and then be assigned to others as well. Director Cooper will assign the parks. NEW BUSINESS City of Pensacola Page 3 Parks and Recreation Board Meeting Minutes 3 - Final January 21, 2021 OPEN FORUM Chairperson Hicks mentioned that some Board appointments will expire soon. If you are up for reappointment, please be mindful of it if you would like to continue serving. The only request was to possibly ask Council to get people from all parts of the City, more people from the west side. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 9:23 am. The City of Pensacola adheres to the Americans with Disabilities Act and will make reasonable accommodations for access to City services, programs and activities. Please call 435-1606 (or TDD 435-1666) for further information. Request must be made at least 48 hours in advance of the event in order to allow the City time to provide the requested services. City of Pensacola Page 4