Zionsville Board of Park and Recreation

Summary Minutes of the Meeting of the Zionsville Park and Recreation Board October 12, 2016 The Zionsville Board of Parks and Recreation met Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 7:00 PM. The meeting took place at the Town Hall’s Beverly Harves meeting room. George Abel, Manda Clevenger, Jeff Edmondson, and John Wollenburg were present. Also present were Superintendent Matt Dickey and Park Board Attorney Roger Burrus. Not present were, Tim Casady and Wayne Bivans. Minutes Jeff Edmondson made a motion to approve the September 14, 2016 regular board meeting minutes with an adjustment in paragraph 3 about Maplelawn’s Application for Use section. The wording should be the following; “While the Town Council’s Event Form directions require its use for Non-routine activities (programs outside the norm) and/or groups of 50 or more, any event with alcohol present , no matter the type of activity or the group size, automatically requires a Town Council Event Form”. Manda Clevenger seconded and the motion passed unanimously. Public Comments/Presentations No public comment given. Staff Reports Superintendent Matt Dickey asked the Park Board to take a look at the top sheet concerning the Nature Center. He and Mindy Murdock, our Naturalist would like to tweak the holiday hours because they are getting ready to do the quarterly e-news in November. Mindy would like the Nature Center to be open Thanksgiving weekend, with November 22 being an open house. Christmas Eve the Nature Center would close at noon and would be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. New Year’s Eve, the Nature Center would be open from 10AM til noon. The Park Board approved, but suggested that the center be completely closed on Christmas Eve. Mr. Dickey wanted the Board to be aware of the Eagle Scout project from a year and half ago at Turkey Foot had been vandalized with repeated blows of a hatchet. Also, Mr. Dickey updated the Park Board on the National Recreation & Park Association (NRPA) conference he attended in St. Louis last week. He attended several classes, which were typically an hour and fifteen minutes long each and a few off-site tours. He passed out conference documents describing the ones that he participated in. There were many great educational programs. Mr. Dickey also pointed out that Allen Shaffer submitted the Maintenance Report this week. The Parks Department also hired a full time Tech II Maintenance person, Andrew Burnett, per the permission granted from the Park Board, the Mayor, & the Deputy Mayor. Andrew started working this month. Park Board Attorney Roger Burrus updated the Park Board on Elm Street Green and the additional right-of-way to accommodate the cell tower situation. He is waiting to get a legal description from the town engineering firm on that and this should be able to wrap up soon. Mr. Burrus did pass out to the Park Board documents showing the changes made to the Maplelawn Event Form & lease due to the Town’s ordinance changes. He would like the Park Board to make a motion to approve of these changes for the upcoming biking event, The Harvest 50, which is on the last Saturday of the month in October. John Wollenburg made the motion to allow the Harvest 50 biking event to occur and to address the finalization of the lease at a later meeting. Jeff Edmondson seconded and the motion passed unanimously. New Business One item Mr. Dickey discussed with the Park Board is the Golf Course. It has been a challenging year for the golf course this year due to weather, a cracked culvert, and mower & golf cart fixes. Mr. Dickey has been talking with Orlin Coleman and Mike MaGuire about this. Plus, Orlin plans on retiring next month at the season’s end. The Golf Course will need to replace him and it is hoped that someone inside maybe interested and could apply for Orlin’s position during the selection process. Superintendent Dickey talked with the Park Board about potential upcoming planning and grants possibilities. He said there is a potential for a design charrette for the Overly-Worman Park. In 2017, there are two grants; the first one is the Recreational Trail Program (RTP) and is due on May 1 and the second one is the Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) which is due June 1. RTP could possibly be used for the Big-4-Rail Trail connection to the Overly-Worman Park. The LWCF could Mr. Dickey explained that in order to qualify for these grants, the Parks would have to have a current Master Plan. A draft of a Master Plan would be required by January 15th to be eligible for the 2017 grants. Also, on a related topic, because the Nature Center is being put on hold, there were large amounts of funds that had been repurposed away from 2016 and other projects (e.g. $300,000). If those monies are to remain available for either a future ZNC project or even to be used to complete the originally intended projects, these monies have to be preserved in NRCF to enable these already approved projects to completed without additional appropriation from the Town Council. The Park Board agreed that in order to serve our citizens, these funds original designated for Park Department use should be protected. After discussing this, Park Board member John Wollenburg made a motion stating that the Board authorizes the transfer of money not needed for current projects to be shifted to the non-reverting capital fund line-item (and hence to the NRCF) and tasked the Superintendent to determine the transferred amounts and from which line-items monies could be available and shifted by the end of the year. Jeff Edmondson seconded the motion and the motion was passed unanimously. Superintendent reminded the Park Board that at the end of the year they will get a chance to see the final amounts that has been transferred for this. Old Business Superintendent Dickey passed out the summaries from Keystone Construction Management Company, the Town’s selected primary lead on the consultant team. The architectural firm Browning Day, Deardorf were also involved in these preparations. Bids on the four prime contracts came back last Wednesday. Unfortunately, all these bids came in considerably higher than the Town’s consultant’s estimates. After considerable discussion as to the next steps for the Nature Center, Attorney Burrus suggested that a motion be made to take all this under advisement. John Wollenburg made this motion that the Park Board to take this under advisement until the next meeting. Manda Clevenger seconded that motion and this was passed unanimously. Citizen Advisory Committees No reports given. Other Board Related Items None were identified. 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 Manda Clevenger, Jeff Edmondson seconded and the meeting was adjourned at ~8:15PM. The next regular Park Board meeting is scheduled for November 9, 2016 at 7PM, at the Town Hall’s Beverly Harves Room. _______________________________ ____________________________________ Manda Clevenger, Secretary George Abel, President