Zionsville Board of Park and Recreation

Summary Minutes of the Meeting of the Zionsville Park and Recreation Board June 8, 2016 The Zionsville Board of Parks and Recreation met Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 7:00 PM. The meeting took place at the Town Hall’s Beverly Harves meeting room. George Abel, Tim Casady, Jeff Edmondson, and Manda Clevenger were present. Also present Park Board Attorney, Roger Burrus. Not present were Wayne Bevans, John Wollenburg, & Superintendent Matt Dickey. Minutes Manda Clevenger made a motion to approve the May 11, 2016 regular board meeting minutes as presented. Jeff Edmondson seconded and the motion passed unanimously. Public Comments/Presentations None were given. Staff Reports Park Board Attorney, Roger Burrus updated the Park Board on the New Nature Center. He was asked to do the petition and the public notice of the plan commission meeting, which is on the 20th of June. The strategic Trails Plan and the New Nature Center both will be on the agenda at that meeting; both will have to be approved then as well. Attorney Burrus has been talking to Wayne DeLong, Director of Planning & Economic Development about both issues and making sure that the proper public notice is done correctly. Superintendent Dickey will be the main presenter on both topics at the Plan Commission meeting with Roger Burrus and the consultants available if technical questions occur. New Business None discussed this meeting Old Business Tricia McClellan from Rundell Ernstberger Associates (REA), who is on the consultant team for the Zionsville Strategic Trail Implementation Plan, presented to the Park Board an overview of the outline that she will be presenting to the next Plan Commission and the Town Council Meeting. The plan is loaded on the project website which is www.zionsville-pedestrian-and-bikeways-plan.com. Tricia explained that the presentation will give an idea of what steps have been taken at this point. These steps included existing conditions, analysis, community survey, multiple public outreach methods (with public input contacts totaling well over 1800 “hits”), multiple advisory committee meetings, and two public meetings. All of this went directly into a proposed facility map that has been reviewed at the second public meeting. REA then used that information to develop the final plan and the priorities for the draft plan. That included preparing inventory maps and showing those at the public meetings. It also included project website where you can find all those maps and the master plan on. It included an online public outreach which was the WIKI maps and the community survey. The community survey had a tremendous response of 821. Most of the responses centered around connectivity with parks, schools, etc. Most of the key principles of the plan were generated from public comments from the meetings and in the surveys. The first principle is to provide active transportation choices for residents and visitors by creating connections between neighborhoods to schools to parks, schools, and to entertainment and retail destinations. The second key principle to the plan is to increase the number of available facilities where people are currently walking and biking, while also providing facilities to desired destinations that aren’t currently connected. The third key principle was to provide recommendations for policy and programs to educate, to support, and to encourage an increase by bike and foot. REA then developed a conceptual framework diagram with a concept plan to illustrate that idea of connecting everything with everything; the idea of thinking of this as a transportation system much like your automobiles. After developing the proposed route map, REA also, went into more detail and looked at 10 Keystone projects and what kind of impact they were going to have on the community. So using the 2010 Census data, numbers were provided for people that were estimated as being positively to be impacted by each proposed Keystone Trail, as well as the households that would be so impacted. Two of those Keystone projects included; a trail connection along Sycamore by Lions Park to connect the Sycamore Street Trail in form St Rd 421 (and in from Carmel) to downtown and streamside trail along Eagle Creek connecting Elm Street Green through Lions Park and hence to Creekside Park and the relatively new Sycamore Street Trail. The next step was to work on the implementation strategy which included 3 charts that show the detail of all the projects. These are shown as short-range projects, mid-range projects and long-range projects. And there are varying levels of priority in each of those three main categreies (e.g. high priorities in all three). So, along with the short, mid, and long-range projects, REA developed a list of 8 priorities projects which may fall in different charts but should be started now. They are very important to the system and very much in demand for Zionsville. These 8 projects include;  This is already in the works and perhaps could be built soon, that is the bike lanes and multiple use pathways and sidewalks along Zionsville Road  Bike lanes and multiple use pathway along Oak Street to start to make the connection in form the western portions of Zionsville  Multi-use paths providing connections between the High School and the Athletic Complex  Completion of Sycamore Street connection between the current trail’s end at Lions Park and Main Street  Completion of the Rail Trail within the town limits, including both the north and south ends  Greenway connection between Starkey Park and Creekside Nature Park  Multi-use path connecting Turkey Foot Park with Mulberry lower lane pathway system  Completion of the streamside trail between Lions Park and Elm Street Green Tim Casady made a motion for the Park Board to endorse the Strategic Trail Implementation Plan and to consider incorporating this plan into our 5 year plan and also recommending to the Plan Commission and the Town Council that they consider adopting this as a part of our transportation plan. Jeff Edmondson seconded that motion and the motion was passed unanimously. Citizen Advisory Committees No reports given. Other Board Related Items None given. Claims Jeff Edmondson made a motion to approve the claims as submitted. Manda Clevenger seconded and the motion was passed unanimously. The meeting was then adjourned with a motion made by Park Board Member Jeff Edmondson, Time Casady seconded and the meeting was adjourned at ~8:00PM. The next regular Park Board meeting is scheduled for July 13, 2016 at 7PM, at the Town Hall’s Beverly Harves Room. _______________________________ ____________________________________ Manda Clevenger, Secretary George Abel, President