Parks and Recreation Commission

PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES MEETING DATE: October 28, 2020 LOCATION: Virtual Zoom Meeting CALLED TO ORDER: 6:30 p.m. MEETING ADJOURNED: 7:37 p.m. NEXT MEETING: January 27, 2021 ROLL CALL NAME PRESENT ABSENT David Addison, School Board Liaison X Vacant X Tracey Downing X Ben Eckler X Tammy Hoyt X Lindsey Michaud X Erica Morrison Peg Pedersen X Jim Shearburn X Scott Davis, Staff Liaison X Sarah Richardson, Council Liaison X APPROVAL OF MINUTES Peg moved to approve the minutes. Ben seconded. Minutes were approved by voice vote with no dissent, abstention. STAFF REPORTS-presented by Scott Davis PARKS Tennis courts are complete and playable. There are still some small repairs before the project is completely paid off. The department is still waiting on some grant funding. St. Louis County approved the plan to reopen playgrounds. Staff are cleaning the equipment regularly 2-3 times a week. There have been no issues so far. The Parks Department is currently working on winterizing all of the parks. We are allowing the public to pick up plants at the service center on 145 E. Waymire that would otherwise be discarded (tropicals, elephant ears, etc.). The plants will be set out on Friday, October 30th at 3:00 and last through Tuesday, November 2nd. They will not be potted. RECREATION The Recreation center is still very slow. Some small classes are running. There is a core group of people who use the fitness center, but we are still running at about one third capacity from normal usage. Youth sports are returning as approved by the county. Volleyball has started renting the gymnasium again and the ice rink has had continuous usage. The Rec center will be a polling place on Tuesday, November 2nd. We did not renew our agreement with our concession company this year. We are looking into other options to run the concession stand with a more flexible schedule. The hope is to open the indoor concessions in November. Tracy asked how the decision would be made to close down recreation activities in the future because of Covid. Scott replied that the county mandated the spring closures and that he is hopeful that we will not shut down facilities again unless the county requires that we do. Peg asked how much Covid closures were hurting the budget. Scott said we have definitely lost money due to cancelled fitness classes, etc. Full-time staff are taking on jobs that part-time staff used to do, because they have more flexibility and time in their schedules. The finance department is still cautiously optimistic that we will meet our budget targets this year. Ben asked if the Recreation center has ever considered rolling fitness classes into the recreation center usage in order to compete with gyms like Club Fitness. Scott has looked into it but it would impact the way instructors are paid and scheduled. It has been researched but no action has been taken to change the model at this time. COUNCIL REPORTS-presented by Sarah Richardson Sarah reports that council is still working on the plans for the SG Collaborative. There are more public meetings coming up in the near future. The council meeting will be next Wednesday instead of Tuesday because of Election Day. An ordinance was passed this week that it is legal to post campaign signs at the rec center and library. The council is currently interviewing for the new city manager. Peg asked if they are getting a lot of pushback on the SG Collaborative project. Sarah reports that they are getting feedback from both sides. Nothing has been put into motion yet. Everything is still in the discussion phase. OLD BUSINESS A. Election of Chair (Ben, Peg, and Tracy volunteered)  Tracy asked that her name be removed and let a more experienced commission member volunteer. Peg would like the commission to work on some projects as a group. Tracy volunteered to work with Peg to organize this. Scott is in support of this initiative. Ben Eckler volunteered to be the chair. David motioned to make Ben Eckler the chair. Peg proposed the motion. Lindsey seconded the motion. No oppositions. B. Election of Vice Chair (Ben, and Tracy volunteered) David nominated Tracy for vice chair. Lindsay motioned for the nomination. Tracy will be the vice- chair. NEW BUSINESS Peg asked what the sunshine laws are about email communication. Scott says anything that happens in this forum is an open meeting. Regular communication via email should not be done often, because Scott needs to be privy to all business. No discussion can happen over email, because it is not an open meeting for the general public to view. David said that for the school board, they can have conversations one-on-one without it being subject to Sunshine laws, but once the majority of the board is involved in the email message, then it is subject to sunshine laws. Peg asked about having committees. Scott said 2-3 people could be on a committee. Sarah said that the meeting would need to be on the public calendar 48 hours before the meeting occurs and that the meeting is done in a way where it would be open to the public. Peg asked Scott to send out a contact list. Scott would be the one to publish meetings on the public calendar. David advised that you not have the majority of the commission on a sub-committee based on his experience with the Board of Education. There cannot be a conversation with the whole board over e-mail. It must be listed on the agenda for a public meeting. A. Proposed 2021 Daily Admission Fees (see backup spreadsheet). Scott said we have been gradually increasing our fees over the past several years to account for the increase in minimum wage. The plan was to make increases in daily fees and rental fees in alternating years. This year we will propose a small admission fee increase (most about 50 cents increase for residents). There may be $1.00 increases for non-residents. Other cities around us are increasing their rates in similar increments and our fees are in line with the fees of surrounding cities (Shrewsbury, Kirkwood, Maplewood, etc.) David asked if there is a punchcard available for the fitness center. Scott said we only have one for gym usage used mostly by Hixson students for after school programs. Peg asked if Scott thinks attendance will be impacted by the fee increase. Scott says we have not seen attendance decrease significantly from these slight fee increases in past years.  Peg asked if there were alternative sources of revenue to look at instead of fee increases. Scott does not know of any other revenue sources that would adequately cover the minimum wage increase funding. Ben asked about data on annual memberships. Scott said he did not include that information for this discussion, but he can provide it. Peg asked about Silver Sneakers funding. Scott said that the revenue from that program did not change our revenue stream greatly. Sarah asked if there was any benefit in reconsidering the sponsorship requirement for non-residents in order to increase pool usage and revenue. Last year we allowed non-residents to buy an annual pass without sponsorship, but we are still requiring sponsorship for daily usage by non-residents. Issues with allowing this could include overcrowding. Ben asked how much taking away the sponsorship requirement would change our revenue. Rock Hill is the one surrounding city that does not have access to another pool, but in past years the city has declined all proposals by Webster Groves to allow them to use the pool. David clarified that this issue is a city council decision. The parks commission can make a recommendation to the council, but the council ultimately makes the decision. There are plans to propose a bond to residents in spring 2024 to build a new pool for the summer of 2025. Scott asked the commission to vote to approve the fee increases and the commission’s recommendation will be taken to council. David proposed the motion to approve. Ben seconded the motion. All committee members approved of the fee increase. B. Amend By-Laws for Meeting Date (4th Wednesday of even numbered months). There is one commission member who has a conflict with the 4th Wednesday. Tammy would likely need to resign from the commission due to the meeting conflict. Peg proposes meeting once a month on the 4th Wednesday instead of only meeting every other month. Tracy seconded the motion. All members agreed to meet monthly. All members agreed to have our next meeting in January after the holidays beginning January 27th. SET NEXT MEETING The next regular meeting scheduled for Wednesday, January 27, 2021. ADJOURNED David moved for adjournment. Tracy seconded. Meeting adjourned at 7:40 p.m.