Parks & Recreation Commission (Meets as needed/quarterly on 4th Thursday of each month at 5:00 p.m.)

PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION August 26, 2021 Room 204 Government Center & Via Zoom Members Present In Person: Keith Kern, Elizabeth Norén, David Kroll, Gene Rosburg, Jemal Broussard Members Not Present: Nick Ledin Also Present: Linda Cadotte (Director of Parks, Recreation & Forestry), Russ Behlings (Parks Superintendent), Jodi Saylor (Administrative Assistant, Parks, Recreation & Forestry), Shelley Nelson (Superior Telegram), Tyler Masseth* (Lake Superior Disc Golf Association), Jenny Van Sickle* (City Councilor) *virtual Councilor Kern called the meeting to order at 5:05 p.m. 1. Approve July 22, 2021 Meeting Minutes MOTION by Rosburg, second by Broussard and carried to approve the minutes from the July 22, 2021 meeting. MOTION by Kern, second by Broussard and carried to suspend the rules to allow Tyler Masseth to do his presentation next, which falls under the Director’s report on the agenda. Liz Norén entered the meeting at 5:09pm. Tyler Masseth from the Superior Municipal Disc Golf course gave an update on the course. This summer has been great! The tee pads were installed and have received lots of positive feedback from local players. Masseth thanked the Commission members and City of Superior for the support they have given over the last 3 years. All of the work done has put this course as a top course in the area. The course experienced no negative happenings over the summer. The players seem to be taking ownership of the course and taking care of the grounds around it. Next month is the Lake Superior Open Tournament, hosted by Mont du Lac, and The Superior Municipal Disc Golf course will be featured as part of that. The event will take place the week of September 20th with various events all week from Wed to Sun we will have event stuff on the course. Currently have 4-430 people signed up. Last year was 200ish players. Invite for Commission to come check out the event. Talking with Russ about doing some prep work before the course. The maps are our final cost/installation. The signs/maps should be up before the tournament. There are a few benches on order and some updated trash cans will be put out there as well. The Park Crew plan to also clean up the parking area before the event. Start times will vary each day based on which division is playing. They will begin between 8am – 3pm with tee times spaced out every 15 minutes. 1 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting August 26, 2021  The trails around the course are taking some impact so we might need to be more vigilant on closing down trails when they are really wet to save on more damage. Some trails have no vegetation at all from the heavy use. We may want to consider moving to a “pay to play” course to help with maintenance of the course and surrounding trails. Also talked about locals potentially having a discount on daily or seasonal passes for Superior residents. Currently, the course is seeing roughly 30 users per day going through. Tyler left at 5:16pm 2. Request approval to open Reservations in Spotz on a 12 month rolling basis. In the past, reservations for the year have opened up on the first working day in January. That was, in part, due to the way reservations were being done on paper and with carbon copies. It was easier to track one year at a time. Now that we have the new Spotz reservation system working well, we would like to begin opening reservations on a 12 month rolling basis. That will allow users to make reservations as much as a year in advance. MOTION by Kern, second by Rosburg and carried to approve opening reservations on a 12 month rolling basis. 3. Life Jacket Loaner Station location – Billings Park The Northern WI Regional Trauma Advisory Council (NWRTAC) provided a grant for 2 life jacket loaner stations. One was put at the Barker’s Island Beach and other was temporarily installed at the Barker’s Boat launch. That one will be permanently installed once the Sustain Our Great Lakes (SOGL) redesign project is completed next year. NWRTAC contacted us again to replace any missing life jackets and wanting to install one more loaner station. Director Cadotte suggested that the Billing’s Park Boat Launch would be a good place to place this final station. Each of the stations have infant to adult size life jackets. The Coast Guard Reserve painted “Life Jacket Zone” areas at the Loon’s Foot and Arrowhead boat launches to encourage the use of life jackets. MOTION by Kern, second by Norén and carried to approve the installation of a Life Jacket Loaner Station at the Billing’s Park Boat Launch. 4. Naming of Millennium Trail Loops No action was taken by the individuals who asked to have this on the agenda. The first trail loop was recently completed with user signage (mountain bikes) going up this past week. The volunteer group hopes to finish up the second trail loop next summer. MOTION by Rosburg, second Broussard to table the Naming of the Millennium Trail Loops until someone brings a name suggestion forward. 5. Signage (multiuse) for the trails At the last Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, the Commissioners unanimously approved keeping the bike trail loops as “Mountain Bike Only”. Henry Campbell, who 2 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting August 26, 2021  has led the effort on creating the trails, asked the members to reconsider opening the trails as multi-use. The members of the Commission felt for the safety of all, it would be better to leave these loops as “Mountain Bike Only” as they did not feel it would be safe to have walkers or people snowshoeing trying to share the narrow trails with bikers. Additionally, the blue multi-use trail is close by. MOTION by Norén, second by Broussard and carried to keep the new bike loops as “Mountain Bike Only” trails. 6. Carl Gullo Survey The survey was finalized and will be printed and mailed this week. There were some minor modifications made to it to make it more visual so people could picture the changes more easily. We decided to save on postage and have residents either pay to return the postcard, but assume that most will go online to complete the survey. Councilor Van Sickle thanked the Commission for their support for updates to Carl Gullo Park. MOTION by Kern, second by Broussard and carried to receive and file this agenda item. 7. Bench Sponsorships (tabled from August 22, 2021 meeting) The Commission recommended to update the guarantee and add a “first right of refusal” to allow original bench purchasers to replace the bench should it need to be replaced at the last meeting. The application was modified to reflect those changes. The cost for the installation of each bench, including concrete and labor, will be roughly $800-1,000. That and the engraved plaques did increase the price to $2,000 to $3,000 per bench, depending on length. When benches are sponsored, they will match the style that is currently at whichever park the donor selected. MOTION by Kroll, second by Rosburg and carried to approve the bench sponsorship program. 8. Richter Park presentation. Mr. Richter was not able to attend the meeting and so there was no presentation given. 9. Director’s Report a. The Webster Dream Park Sensory Garden was completed and looks great! The crew did a great job (4 members) and with the dozen or so volunteers from the Cenovus Superior Refinery that helped plant, they were able to get everything done in one day. (Typically that would take our crew a week or more to get all of that work done.) We will likely add some more plants in the spring. The signage is still being worked on and should be installed in the spring as well. There will be a total of 4 new benches installed - two with backs and two without backs. 3 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting August 26, 2021  b. Director Cadotte shared a story of how she was able to take a situation with an upset citizen and turned into someone helping support a volunteer effort. c. The accessible boardwalk connectors were installed at WI Point that will allow users to get a bit off of the boardwalks and closer to the water. These mats will not only solve accessibility issues, but will also hopefully help with beach erosion that tends to happen at the ends of the boardwalks. Barker’s Island also had an additional one installed, making a total of two there. d. There was a request by a resident to add an accessible lift at one of the boat launches. Director Cadotte is looking at adding one at Loons’ Foot for next year. This lift will help users with disabilities to be able to be lowered into boats. e. The American Lung Association funded yard signs this year that said “Welcome to our smoke-free, vape free zone” The signs have been used to set up a perimeter at all of our Bayside Sounds Concerts this year. There has been good feedback from people about these signs. f. There are two more Bayside Sounds Concerts this summer. The next one is on September 1 at Barker’s Island Festival Park. This is a rain date for the Mackie Brother’s whose original date was rained out. The final (bonus) concert, featuring G.B. Leighton, will be on September 8th at University of Wisconsin – Superior. g. The first Volunteer Appreciation Event was held this week in combination with the Bayside Sounds concert. We had about 50 volunteers show up and around 400 people attend the concert overall. h. The Makwa Ziibiins Miikana - Bear Creek Trail extension is moving along well. The Parks Crew has made it to the swamp so far so will be putting in boardwalk next week. i. The Heritage Park Court Consolidation project ran in to an issue with some water this week. The Parks Crew is working on locating the source. That will need to be sorted out before the project can proceed. j. Norén mentioned that she did notice the new “No Parking” signs that were installed at WI Point. Behlings said there are six more going in and they have large boulders on order as well to keep people from parking where they are not supposed to. 10. The next regular meeting of the Parks & Recreation Commission will be October 28, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. in Room 204 of the Government Center. Councilor Kern announced the meeting adjourned at 5:49 p.m. Minutes submitted to the Council Meeting of September 7, 2021. 4 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting August 26, 2021