Parks and Recreation Commission

PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES MEETING DATE: October 25, 2018 LOCATION: Webster Groves Recreation Complex CALLED TO ORDER: 6:30 p.m. MEETING ADJOURNED: 8:05 p.m. NEXT MEETING: Dec. 12, 2018 Boards and Commissions Holiday Party Feb. 28, 2019 Regularly Scheduled Meeting ROLL CALL NAME PRESENT ABSENT David Addison, School Board X Liaison Elizabeth Bailey X Marijn Braadbaart X Toni Hunt X Tammy Hoyt X Erica Morrison X Jerry Pinkner X James Shearburn X Benjamin Stark X Scott Davis, Staff Liaison X Laura Arnold, Council Liaison X APPROVAL OF MINUTES Hunt moved to approve the minutes. Braadbaart seconded. Minutes were approved by voice vote with no dissent. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT PARKS Barbre Park is substantially complete. We are still selling pavers and installing them as needed. Sculptures is less than $10,000 unfunded. Should be install about May 2019. GRG hosted a grand opening of the Deer Creek Greenway on October 13. This project is substantially complete. We have our final inspection next week. After that GRG should be ready to turn both the trail and Marshall Avenue Trailhead over to the City. There is still maintenance that the contractor has to complete until mid-summer next year (such as keeping new plants alive and weeding planting beds). Southwest Park renovations are underway. The pavilion has been installed and a portion of the sign has been built. Project should be completed in the next month. Our parks were chosen to assist in the collection of data for the Urban Wildlife Biodiversity Monitoring program sponsored by the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. For the last few years they have been collecting data on the wildlife that lives in and around Chicago. Recently they have expanded the monitoring to several cities around the country. We have set up a handful of trail cameras and scent disk in a couple of our parks. The scent disk attracts animals and then the camera takes their picture when it detects the motion. The images are retrieved once a week and cataloged. We should get a report at the end of the monitoring that shows the type and frequency of species in our parks. Deer Creek, Shady Creek Nature Sanctuary, Blackburn Bird Sanctuary. The Sustainability Commission asked that the City be involved in the Green Cities Challenge, which is an offshoot of the St. Louis Green Business Challenge hosted by the StL Regional Chamber of Commerce and Missouri Botanical Garden. The P&R department was tasked with completing the challenge for this year and to determine if this might be something that the City continues to do in the future. We attended several meetings, had someone from the Garden come out and do a Green Inventory of our department, completed some green projects, and turned in our submission application last week. We fully anticipate getting the award in December. RECREATION Dave Garth retired from the ice rink superintendent position. We hired Phil Zamora. Phil previously worked in the Anaheim Ducks of the NHL organization. He managed a 3-sheet ice facility in California and was one of the Ducks game day Zamboni operators. He has been a great addition to our team! Installed LED lights in the ice rink, which have a 1.6 year payoff. Installed LED Cosmic Lights under the ice surface. We are only aware of one other commercial rink in the USA who has done this. We will be hosting Cosmic Skates on our weekend evening public sessions. The first session was this previous Saturday night. We saw a 100+% increase in revenue over previous weeks. We were awarded our Muni Park Grant in the amount of $475,000. We will start the design and document phase in the coming weeks. Would like to get this out to bid before the holidays. Construction should be after the spring tennis season. Glen Park hosted its first concert on October 10. There will be more concerts there next summer. Make a Difference Day is this weekend. There are still plenty of opportunities to volunteer to help you community. Steve Clark is coordinating so if you are interested give him a call tomorrow. We have purchased new fitness free weights and circuit weights as well as new carpeting that will be installed by the end of the year. Waiting to see the delivery date of the carpet and we will time everything off of that. The fitness center will be closed for about a week while we remove the old equipment, install the new carpet, then install the new equipment. We are working with our sister cities to find temporary fitness facilities for all those hard core folks who can’t a week off. COUNCIL UPDATE: Council is currently working on goal settings, public engagement sessions, taking a look at housing stock in the City with a particular interest in multifamily housing. There is a new pizza place coming into the old San Sai location. The Community Police Engagement Board is seeking board members, applications are available at City Hall. CHAIRPERSON UPDATE: none OLD BUSINESS: Aquatic Center Membership Discussion: o Summary of June discussion by Davis o Review of requested data provided by Davis (see attached) o Commission discussed various options and scenarios that might lead to different outcomes. o Braadbaart thinks Rock Hill residents should go to their council to discuss this if they feel there is a need. o Hunt thinks Rock Hill residents should go to Rock Hill council to figure this out. Doesn’t like the idea of Rock Hill residents getting resident privileges without financial compensation from Rock Hill.  o Shearburn wants to know who is willing to pay? Council should discuss with Rock Hill about funding. Rock Hill residents need to discuss this issue with their government. Is the onus on us or on Rock Hill to figure this out. Webster Groves should not subsidize Rock Hill. If surrounding cities want to swim they need to pay for it. o Pinkner thinks this should all be coming from Rock Hill and not from Webster Groves. Questions where does it stop? Is it just Rock Hill or all local people from neighboring communities and county? o Hoyt believes if Rock Hill residents want to swim then Rock Hill needs to help subsidize. If we do move forward with anything we should phase it in with small increments. Memberships should come first then daily admission second. o Addison would like to see Webster Groves council reach out to Rock Hill council. Would like to see pool membership be open to all at non-resident rates. He noted that this is not a WGSD issue, but thinks that a lot of this issue could stem from the unified school district using the Webster Groves name, which gets confused with the City of Webster Groves, which is an entirely different group of users. Willing to try anything staff thinks would be appropriate and easy enough to manage and maintain. Following all of this vigorous discussion several motions were made and voted upon. 1. Braadbaart moved to recommend council reopen discussions with Rock Hill. Hoyt seconded. Voice vote all in favor. 2. Braadbaart moved to recommend non-resident memberships be sold, for a one-year trial, at current prices but without the need for resident sponsorship. Hoyt seconded. Voice vote 5-1 (YES-Addison, Braadbaart, Hoyt, Pinker, Shearburn. NO- Hunt). 3. Braadbaart moved to recommend no changes to the daily admission structure. Hunt seconded. Voice vote 4-2 (YES- Braadbaart, Hoyt, Pinkner, Hunt. NO-Addison and Shearburn). NEW BUSINESS: none SET NEXT MEETING Boards and Commission Holiday Party will be on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at the Recreation Complex. The next regular meeting will be held on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. at the Recreation Complex. ADJOURNED Hunt moved for adjournment. Pinkner seconded. Meeting adjourned at 8:05 p.m.