Recreation Center Governing Board

CITY OF TALLMADGE RECREATION GOVERNING BOARD Minutes For TEAMS Meeting of April 8, 2021 @ 10:00 a.m. Rec Board Members In Attendance: Mayor Kline, Law Director Raber, Finance Director Gilbride, Svs. Dir. Rorar, School Rep Mosher, (Manion absent) and Community Member Salerno Rec Center Staff In Attendance: Park/Rec Superintendent Simons, Adm. Assistant Enos, Rec Program Coord. DeLapa (non-voting TRC staff) Meeting Chaired By: Mayor Kline Minutes: Karen Morgan Call To Order and Approval of Minutes: Gilbride moved to approve the RGB minutes from the February 4, 2021 meeting; seconded by Rorar. Vote to approve: 6/0. Old Business: Past Event Updates: Simons: Our main past event was our Drive-Through Easter Egg Dash that we hosted at the end of March. That was in lieu of our normal Easter Egg Hunt. It was sponsored by Serpentini Chevrolet and it was very successful and popular. I thought it went thoroughly well. We handed out 275 bags of eggs that day to kids who were driven through the Rec Center parking lot and we handed them a bag of 5 eggs that had been pre-packaged with a piece of candy and a little toy. That worked out very well and we might explore doing that and maybe having fewer eggs for our normal Easter Egg Hunt in the future because it was so much easier to prepare for and having those pre-filled eggs helped a lot. Sam was out there as was President of Council Kilway passing out eggs that day so I think it was very well received by the community and had a lot of good support. Mayor: I thought it was a great event, the kids really enjoyed it and our thanks go to Serpentini Chevrolet. Staff Updates: Our biggest staff update is sitting right next to me here. We have brought on Samantha DiLapa as our Program Coordinator so she right now is “kicking butt” getting ready for summer camp. She’ll be taking over summer camp, all of the little programs and events that we do, and the before and after school care when that returns in the fall. She’s kind of getting her feet wet right now but I’ll let her say a little bit, if she wants to. DeLapa: A lot of you already know me I think, I’ve seen lots of you at Sammie’s (the restaurant). I’ve known Mark since I was little and I know the Mayor. I don’t think I’ve officially met Mollie or Megan, maybe once or twice but so far I’m loving the job and really, really happy to get things done. Hope Covid will soon be coming to an end so we can really get our programs and events back on track. Am excited about coming up with new ideas and Jess has been super helpful along with Dan and others at the Rec Center so I’m very pleased to be here. Thank you Dave for giving me this opportunity. Mayor: Thank you, am looking forward to your doing a great job at the Rec Center! Simons: Sam’s got a lot of good ideas and we’re already thinking of ways to improve some of the events that we’ve done in the past especially since we’ve had this year off to push the “reset” button on a lot of things. We’re having a lot of brainstorming meetings and a lot of good stuff is coming out of them. -2- New Business: New Youth Open Basketball League: Simons: This is a basketball league that came about through a suggestion from Mollie to look into doing an AAU-type of basketball program in the summer months. We tasked Randy Keen with contacting all of his basketball contacts from Community All Stars as well as people who rent court space from us for their AAU league. The attachment, “new program proposal form for youth open basketball league” is kind of what he came up with as an initial offering to see how it goes. So we’re looking at a 6 week season on Wednesday evenings (a pretty quick thing) for 5th and 6th grade boys teams and they can be from any community, AAU, CYO etc., a little different than the community league that we offer in the winter. We went with this age group because from the feedback that Randy got, this would be the biggest potential to actually be able to get teams and be able to fill a league. That’s why we went with that specific age, grade and gender. We’re looking at $500 a team which is a little more than our other league but admission will be included for this as opposed to our community all star league where currently they pay the admission the day of the program. That’s pretty standard for any of these travel leagues or high competition leagues. So, we’re pretty reasonably within the ballpark on all those things. I think this will be successful and we will get 6 teams on there so this is our first new program proposal. Mayor: I think this is a great thing and I hope Randy can fill the teams. What will you do if you only get 5 teams? Simons: We would still run the program with 5 teams. If we only get 4 we would call the teams and ask them if they want to play the same teams multiple times and if that is ok. With it only being 6 weeks, you only play 6 games so you’re not repeating games as you would in a longer season. So, I think really, if we get 4 or more teams we’re still fine to run it but I’m confident we’ll get at least 6. Mayor: Great. Anything else? Rorar: Yes, I’d like to thank Jessica and Randy for doing this work and getting things started. I’m looking forward to seeing how successful it will be! I make a motion to approve this youth open basketball league as a new program for the Recreation Center for the weeks beginning May 5 through June 9; at the rate of $500 a team and as stated on the form; seconded by Mayor. Vote to approve: 6/0. Price Change For Outdoor Tennis Lessons: Simons: This is fairly straight-forward. We’ve offered outdoor tennis lessons for quite some time and this year their instructor has different availability than he normally has so we’re going to change it to just a 3 week session or 6 classses as opposed to the 4 and 8 that it used to be. So we’re just changing the price to reflect that. Raber: I move to approve the program pricing change for the youth tennis summer program for LaTuchie Tennis; seconded by Rorar. Vote to approve: 6/0. Price Change For Jump Start Sports: Simons: Jump Start Sports is who we contract with to do our pre-school sports. They have been asking for a price increase for a couple of years now. Really, the last price increase we gave them in 2019 was not as much as they had asked for. They’re facing rising instructor costs as well as we all are so they’re asking for an increase to be effective in the fall of 2021 on their programs. They really wanted to do a $15 increase but I don’t think the market will support that high of an increase so we are asking instead for a $10 increase on those prices. Mayor: So do you think we can get a $10 increase? Simons: I think we will. -3- Some of their other competitors like I-9 Sports is the big one that does something pretty similar to this. They actually charge quite a bit more and right now would be a decent time to change it because people are anxious to get their children into programming. Just for example, our Jump Start sports programs that were running in the spring, had a completely full youth soccer program and we had to open it up to more kids. Our basketball program which generally does not get more than a handful, had pretty good attendance as well. We have a lot of good luck with our soccer programs, they generally fill up when they are offered. I don’t think this will hurt too much, this is on par with what they charge in other communities as well. Mayor: And what is our percentage on that? Simons: We get 30%. Gilbride: I move to approve the Jump Start price change; seconded by Salerno. Vote to approve: 6/0. Other: Simons: I have one other thing. I believe the original Governing Board rules called for 5 voting members from the City and 4 from the School system. With that being said, we have 2 openings for the schools – one from the school and one from the community. I’m not sure if the schools were aware of these vacancies or just chose not to fill them. Mayor: Tim maybe you could ask the schools if they wish to fill the 2 vacancies. Mosher: So, if I understand this correctly, we have been operating with 2 school members but have the ability to have 4? Simons: Yes. Mosher: Obviously I had no idea about this. Mayor: I understand that Marc Salerno is the city’s community member. Simons: Yes. The way it reads is that the schools have 40% representation on the governing board. Mayor: What I would suggest is that I pull the original agreement and then get with Megan and then we’ll get with the schools. Mosher: In the meantime, I’ll talk with Steve Wood and make him aware of this. You guys have been doing this a lot longer than me obviously, has it always been 2? Simons: My understanding is that you guys always sent 2 but I thought you had the ability to do 3 and you just weren’t filling your community representative but the way this amendment to the use agreement that was passed in 2008 reads is that the school board is to appoint 3 representatives and one individual at-large who is a member of the facility. I believe this amendment, adopted in 2008 is the most recent use agreement that I myself am aware of. Mosher: Jessica, can you please send me a copy of the use agreement? Simons: Yes. Mosher: I’ll talk with Steve but I don’t know if the intention was to have 3 or we just decided on the AD and one of the principals and then we never filled that other one nor the community member, but I’ll talk with Steve and make him aware of it. And then we’ll go from there after we hear from you Dave and your understanding of the use agreement as it now stands. Mayor: Ok. Raber: I’ve already looked at this and what’s on the paper is on the paper and they can fill it however they want. I have a feeling that over time, they just chose to not send that many people but they are welcome to add 2 more. Mosher: Sounds pretty black and white and straightforward, I’ll talk with Steve and see if he wants to fill these remaining positions. It’s one from within the schools and then one from the community who is a member of the Facility, is that right? Simon: Yes. -4- Monthly Reports: TRC Membership Report: Simons: As you can see, we’re still down a little less than 50%. Those numbers though are skewed and continue to be skewed because the memberships that were put on hold for the pandemic have different expiration dates and all of those things. The one thing that I do want to point out is the Maca membership area on the sheet. We have currently sold about 1,500 memberships for Maca. That was our maximum number of memberships that we were going to sell at this point this year. So as you can see, in creating that kind of cap on the memberships and the sense of urgency, we far exceeded what we generally tend to sell by the end of March. Normally we’ve only sold 70 or so passes in March and so far we’ve sold 1,500. Kudos to the front desk crew because the first day we began selling them the crowds were in a line that extended way out the door. And then when they went on sale for non- residents the same thing happened. We have a very long waiting list for memberships and I don’t anticipate being able to open up to more people at this time because the social distancing requirements of having 6 feet in between the pods of people still exist so I still kind of think we are capped out where we were at 500 guests per day at a time so at this point I am not comfortable opening up more memberships and then have those people potentially not be allowed in. So I think we’re kind of stagnant at 1,500 for the time being but we’ll keep an eye on where we’re at with that. Mayor: Of the waiting list people, how many are Tallmadge residents? Simons: I do not know, but I can go back and look. I know that there are residents on the waiting list, just not how many. But we put resident memberships on sale a whole month before we sold to non-residents so we did give residents priority in purchasing memberships. And it’s the same thing with our summer camp, we opened that 2 weeks ago to residents first and opened it just this past week to non-residents and our 7-9 age group for that is already full with a waiting list for that so it’s definitely a sign that people are anxious to get out there especially in our outdoor programs and activities. Rorar: The holdup with summer camp is the bus right? You can’t get that many kids on the bus? Simons: Correct. They are telling us right now that the limit is 40 kids per bus and we’re also leaving room for our counselors which is imperative to making sure that kids are behaving and all that stuff. And that’s why our limit is what it is right now. If Peterman ends up saying you can take 50 kids on the bus then we could always expand and open up more spots. Rorar: So we’re just abiding by the rules that are being given to us by Peterman? Simons: That is correct. Mayor: Could we for the Day Camps just meet at Lions Park? We are doing that 2 days a week, that’s not the problem but it’s the field trips or getting the kids from Maca back to Lions Park. So there are 2 days where we plan to do before and after care at the park as well, to help keep the costs down since the bus is one of our largest expenses for the program but even in doing so, we still need the bus for some of those other days of the week and that’s kind of where our limits come from. Mosher: Is Peterman letting you guys sit two kids per seat? Simons: I feel like in order to fit that many people on the bus they would have to. Mosher: Right, cause usually a standard bus is 24 ft. I ask because for us in the schools, it’s one kid per seat and -5- everyone must be masked obviously. Simons: They have to be doing two kids per seat because they said 48 but to be sure there was room for our counselors, that’s why we set the limit at 40. Mosher: I was doing the math in my head and if you have 10 seats on each side available, you’re talking about 40 kids then with your counselors up front. What’s your total daily capacity at Maca in a non-pandemic year? Is there one? Simons: Yes, it’s 880 people. Mosher: The only reason I ask is in the new order put out on Monday is frustrating to say the least as a lot of them have been throughout this year. What is so frustrating is they say there is no limitation and again, I’m talking about spectators but you still have to preserve 6 ft. of social distancing and I don’t know if you guys will get “push back” in the days and weeks ahead if people say hey, we need to be able to have more in here. It really makes it tough on all of us to try and absorb the social distancing while for instance, #6 on the order says organizers can limit what they see fit in order to make sure they are not having too much congregating on the grounds of wherever you’re at. It is never very clear and I look at things that people are going to want to do this summer, case-in-point, Maca and with a waiting list already, it puts the pressure on you guys to have to say we can’t take in any more people. Simons: It’s definitely a challenge that we’ll be facing but at the end of the day we just want to keep people safe. My goal and I think the city’s throughout this, is to keep our public spaces from being a center of an outbreak and following what the guidelines say to keep our community safe and that’s what we continue to do. But I agree, that order is written in such a way that it almost contradicts itself in a lot of areas because it does say you can open but you still have to maintain the distance and because we have constraints on the space itself, that’s why we have to continue to set a limit. All these things have been and continue to be difficult to explain. Mosher: I think you guys have been doing a great job and as we come down on the back side of this, I’m hoping by June or July things can return to as normal a time as they can be. We’re kind of in that between phase when we’re still trying to preserve the safety of everybody but at the same time, trying to expand things a little more and it really makes things tougher when places like Texas have full capacity at baseball games . . . Mayor: And one thing we have to keep in mind is that Maca, even though it is outdoors, is in a confined space. We have the fence, the deck, the square footage of the water surface so that is really what plays here. Is there anything else for membership? TRC Financial Report: Gilbride: I emailed everyone the financial report as of the end of March. As expected, since we were back in operation for January, February and March, as of this year we’re still behind revenue-wise and membership-wise. We’re starting to see the effects of the closure last year coming through the basketball league that we’re having this year that we cancelled last. Children’s activities and summer camp will soon be starting. I expect to soon see the deficit shrink significantly. Expenses are still down as we expected. We’ll continue to watch everything and looking forward to adding more programming and trying to get back to normal. Overall, we had gotten pretty deep in and are starting to make a comeback. Rorar: And I see we’re covering our salaries now, right? Gilbride: Yes. Rorar: That’s a good thing because we were not doing that 2 months ago. Gilbride: Yes. Simons: When I broke it out for just the month -6- of March, it appears that we’ve made an $1,800 profit, so that was encouraging to see. Mayor: Yes it is. Anything else for Mollie? TRC Donation Request Report – Enos: I have not received any donation requests since our last meeting. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 a.m. Minutes electronically provided to Dan Enos on April 28, 2021/km