Zionsville Board of Park and Recreation

Summary Minutes of the Meeting of the Zionsville Park and Recreation Board October 12, 2011 The Zionsville Board of Park and Recreation met Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 7:00 PM. Ellen Butz, Steven Mueller, Phil Howard, Scott Bruns, and Neil Clements were present. Matt Dickey, Superintendent, and Roger Burrus, Park Board Attorney were also present. Minutes Phil Howard made a motion to approve the September 14, 2011 regular board meeting minutes as presented. Scott Bruns seconded and the motion passed unanimously. Public Comments/Presentations Jack Horn, a Life Scout with Troop 358 in Zionsville, presented his proposed Eagle Scout project. Mr. Horn proposed using a downed tree in Turkey Foot Park to help illustrate the beginnings of the Town. Kirk Horn, Jack’s father, further noted the project needs to be vetted and approved through the Boy Scouts prior to the project commencement. A slab from the trunk would be preserved and displayed somewhere near the trail entrance with key historical dates indicated. Jack is here this evening to gauge the Board’s interest in the project. He stated that they are planning no park funds/resources to be expended for the project. Instead the project would be completed with the help of donations and volunteer hours. Board members indicated at least preliminary interest and stated their desire to revisit with a presentation by the Life Scout after he firms up a proposal that satisfies the details needed for a Boy Scout Council approval. Staff Reports The reports from the Superintendent of Parks & Recreation, the Assistant Superintendent for Maintenance Services, and the Naturalist were all part of the Park Board packet and available for review. Mr. Dickey began his report by updating the Board about IPL and their trimming project a Starkey Park power line easement.. There will be different contractors doing the work of trimming, grinding, and spreading the resultant mulch. The IPL contractors will be responsible for signing the Park closed during this work. Matt also noted the Boone County Health Fair used the rail-trail as part of a Health Fair scavenger hunt. Roger Burrus reported on work being done on the donation process with Family Farms of Indiana. The property owner still has a few action items to complete. Early next year is the new schedule for completion. The owner would like to include some restrictions on 1 uses (e.g., no path within a certain distance from their development). Mr. Burrus asked for comments from members. He will have a corrected draft agreement for the next meeting. Ellen asked for clarification on a couple of the proposed permitted uses. Mr. Burrus also reported the technical details with the Manchester Square agreement have been worked out. Lance Lantz has approved the construction design. Matt Dickey continues to keep in touch with the parties involved with this project. He noted there might be a temporary trail or parking lot closures during part of the construction. Mr. Burrus noted ongoing discussion with the attorney representing RL Turner. There was a proposal, to which Mr. Burrus responded. He has not heard back regarding those counter points. He will continue to keep the Board updated. New Business None Old Business: Joe Mays, with Rundell Ernstberger Associates, gave a presentation from the New Park master planning Charrette in August. Joe discussed the overall conceptual master plan derived from public, board, and staff comments. The main entrance would be from 875 South and the major elements include parking, shelter, playground, basketball court, bocce court space, open play areas, perimeter trail, and trail connection to, and continuation of, the Zionsville Rail Trail corridor. A three-acre potential dog park portion was also discussed. Mr. Mays discussed Phase 1 in more detail entrance drive 12 parking spaces croquet shelter plaza dog park infrastructure native plantings add alternates for shelter and playground. Many of the LWCF grant items are included in the Phase 1 design proposal. Some overall rough cost estimates were discussed but these will be further refined and will become more accurate as the Park Board nails down exactly what will be built, and what is included in the Master Plan for later construction. Those more detailed cost estimates will be ready at the point of completion of construction documents. Discussion then delved into individual features and/or components. Ellen Butz suggested not irrigating the dog park at first to save money. There was also discussion regarding how to develop, maintain, and manage the dog park component. Following this, it was decided that regarding the dog park component, Phase One will move forward in such a manner to not preclude the possible later addition of the 3-acre dog park feature . Steve Mueller stated in his opinion, a restroom shouldn’t be left out of Phase 1. However restrooms are not often built in conjunction with a park only 10acres in size and it was always indicated that if restrooms were to be built at some point, it should be after the construction of the future fire station, since that process would bring sanitary sewers 2 to/into the site and thereby potential save some utility infrastructure costs for the Park Board. It should be noted that if the Friends of Boone County Trails and the County Commissioners does at some point connect this trail to Lebanon, at that point there may be more impetus for a restroom in the park. Ellen noted that while some of the elements must be installed to satisfy grant requirements, both playgrounds (ages 2-5 and ages 6-12) may not be able to be added initially due to cost constraints. In all likelihood, if only one is built at first it would be the 2-5 apparatus as those are traditionally more heavily used. A couple of students in the audience asked some general questions regarding the features in the park and the sources of funding utilized during construction (did not come up to the microphone so was impossible to discern.) Scott Bruns updated the Board on discussions with ZYFL for field use at Mulberry Fields. Scott and Matt met recently with ZYFL representatives. The Football league wants a concession stand and a long-term commitment from the Park Board. Scott outlined two proposed options and asked members what type of commitment the Board would be comfortable making with ZYFL. ZYFL had first proposed a 30 year lease giving them exclusive rights to use the atheletic portion of the park from July through November, however, the Park Board felt that some counter proposals would be more appropriate. Consequently discussed was a 10-year term on scheduling for the atheletic fields for "priority use" in a season from July through November (but not exclusive, as the Park Board could schedule and reserve events for their own and other community usage within "season" via a “right of first refusal”). The second option is a 5-year term with a buy back option for the Board to reimburse ZYFL if the agreement is terminated prior to the end of the five years. This would have the same priority use but not exclusive use provisions as the 10-year. After discussion, Board consensus was to pursue the 5-year buy back option. Phil Howard mentioned he could provide a copy of the agreement between Lion’s Club and the Little League who plays at the baseball fields as an example of an agreement with a non-profit that had considerable capital investment as part of the partnership. Scott will bring an update to the Board next month. Citizen Advisory Committee Reports: Land Resources – Phil Howard. This committee met September 28th and discussed a first draft of land use policy guidelines. This will be discussed further at the October meeting. They will not meet in November and December. Finance/ Funding – Neal Clements. Neal will be meeting next week with Matt Dickeyto discuss the urban forestry grant application. Steve asked if treatment of Elm Ash Borer could be included in the application. A Board member mentioned there is considerable debate as if the current treatment is effective and/or feasible. It is said that for a tree to be 3 "protected" it has to be periodically retreated so the chemical stays within its sap- transport system. This can get quite expensive so it may be unlikely that a grant would involve itself from a cost viewpoint in repetitive "solutions". Communications – Steve Mueller. Discussed changes in the website content. He asked how the Board wants to handle control of the content. The Board does want to have final approval over what gets posted to the website. Neal suggested having at least two people, one of which must be the President, approve the content after soliciting comments from the rest of the Board. Steve will re-distribute the committee’s initial draft thoughts to Board members for their review. Recreation –Scott Bruns. Discussed above (ZYFL) Facilities– Ellen Butz. No report. Other Board Related Items Ellen Butz briefly updated Board members on a few topics. First was the Elm Street Green issue with landscape contractor and they and their subcontractors performance regarding the contract specifications and also their responsibilities regarding the site up to substantial completion and also regarding flood damage while the site was "theirs". Secondly, final items are getting ready to bid out the Wayfinding signage. Currently there are portions of the Starkey Park Specification/bid package still in the hands of the Designer. Additionally, while not currently anticipated for implementation now, the contract also included the design/bid standards for interpretative signage and similar wayfinding signage along the Rail Trail. The Designer is concentrating on getting the Starkey Park out and then will finalize the Interpretative and Rail Trail signage info. Third, there have been a few recent meetings regarding the impact fee update. There will be a presentation and recommendation made to the Plan Commission, with a resolution to this issue expected by the end of the year. The Board needs to decide (planned for the November meeting) whether to move forward with the contract with construction/bid document preparation on the New Park and whether this will be scheduled for construction in 2012. Neal Clements asked and was answered that by State law, it is not necessary for political entities to request quotes for consulting projects like this. A couple of Board members indicated they had been happy with the current consultant for Elm Street Green. Claims Neal Clements made a motion to approve the claims. Scott Bruns seconded and the motion passed unanimously. The meeting was then adjourned with a motion made by Phil Howard and seconded by Neal Clements at ~8:40 PM. ______________________________ ____________________________ Scott Bruns, Secretary Ellen Butz, President 4