Zionsville Board of Park and Recreation

Summary Minutes of the Meeting of the Zionsville Park and Recreation Board 9-9-2020 The Zionsville Board of Park and Recreation met Wednesday, September 9, 2020 at 7PM. Note: Due to the COVID-19 Emergency Health Situation, this meeting was required to be a virtual meeting. Park Board Members, Tim Casady, John Stehr, John Wollenburg, Jill Pack, John Salewicz, & Wayne Bivans were present. Not present was Erin Bidwell. Also present was Park Department Interim Superintendent, Mindy Murdock, Joe Rust, Tech Advisor, and Park Board Attorney, Roger Burrus. Minutes A motion was made by Wayne Bivans, seconded by John Stehr to approve the August 12, 2020 Park Board Minutes. Minutes were approved unanimously by roll call vote. Public Presentations/Comments Interim Superintendent Mindy Murdock introduced the Park Board to Pete Prust, who will be speaking later on in the meeting about the Golf Course. Staff Reports Interim Superintendent Mindy Murdock updated the Park Board on staff reports. The Maintenance staff have been working on the Mulberry Fields restroom updates. New hand dryers and fans have been installed. Water fountains will be installed once the Splash Pad is closed for the season. The Nature Center enrolled 40 dogs with their owners for the Tails on Trails program. Mindy Murdock, Parks’ Interim Superintendent, expressed her gratitude to Pet Valu and Pet Supplies Plus for providing the prizes. The Nature Center is at normal weekend hours now 10AM-5PM on Saturday and 12PM-5PM on Sundays. Facebook Fridays live program is continuing with our Naturalist, Rachel Felling. Family programming is on Saturdays. These programs are outside only. The Golf Course is still at levels that have not been seen. Since June, the golf course has had record income. Friday the golf course will be closed due to some issues with the irrigation system. Park Board Attorney, Roger Burrus informed the Park Board that occasionally he is notified of a plan commission or zoning appeal where property owners have proposals on property adjourning Park property. These proposals are typically routed to Mr. Burrus and he looks at them to see if this would have any adverse impact on our Parks. The property owners of 965 West Pine Street are planning on building a retainer wall along the Rail Trail at the west end of Pine Street. Mr. Burrus and Park Interim Superintendent, Mindy Murdock looked at this proposal and did not see any concerns. Mr. Burrus wanted the Park Board to know that he continues to check these proposals as they come to him. Mr. Burrus updated the Park Board Storen Property. At the last Park Board meeting the Storens had an offer to purchase their property that they could not refuse. In the end, this purchase did not go through the buyers did back out. Mr. Burrus is working with the Storens on refining the Right of Refusal agreement so that this does not happen again. On the Holliday Road Vacation proposal, this is being put on hold until the Town Staff has discussed this. Mr. Burrus has been meeting with the County Attorney and the Henke Group and have gotten some proposals. They will meet again on September 23rd to evaluate these proposals. New Business Tim Casady, Park Board President, would like for the Park Board to consider the proposed employment offer of the Park Superintendent position to Jarod Logsdon. Mr. Casady explained that Mr. Logsdon was one of the three finalist recommended by the Search Committee. Mr. Stehr thought Mr. Logsdon would be a great fit for the Parks. His start date would be October 12. A motion was made by John Stehr to accept this proposal from the Superintendent Search Committee and was seconded by Tim Casady. This was passed unanimously by a roll call vote. Mr. Logsdon was present during the meeting and is excited to start working with everyone as the new Park Superintendent. Mr. Casady explained the next item up in the agenda is a resolution that he would like to send to the Town Council regarding the potential condemnation of three remaining parcels on the south extension of the Rail Trail. The Park’s has a design document in place with REA. Recently the construction documents of a bridge that is key to the Overley-Worman Park has been approved. OWP will be ready to go out to bid in the next 3-4 weeks. Mr. Casady informed the Park Board that we are in the process of briefing Town officials. We are on a time crunch to get this done. Park Board Attorney, Roger Burrus continued to explain that the Park Board does have the power of eminent domain and will only use it as a last resort if there is a property that the Park needs and is unable to agree with the property owners. He is recommending approval of this resolution by the Town Council. This does not change the fact that the Park Board will continue working with property owners on an agreement. After discussing the resolution presented by Roger Burrus, John Wollenburg made a motion to approve this resolution as submitted and to send this on to Town Council. John Salewicz seconded the motion and this was passed unanimously by a roll call vote. Park Interim Superintendent, Mindy Murdock, updated the Park Board on the Park Impact Fees (PIF). Currently the Parks is in the process to revise our impact fees and get an updated ordinance. Ms. Murdock presented the Park Board with an excel sheet with our current ordinance standards and the money that the Park’s has. She has been meeting with Baker Tilly and getting an understanding of where our PIF is at. Our current ordinance standard; the way our impact fees work is that it is broken out by amenities. We cannot utilize the PIF for inventory if the Level of Service ratio is in a deficit. She explained that the current ordinance is projected out to 2020, based on what population growth would be and what that population would need. Inventory numbers listed on the sheet are current and this shows what the Parks could use the PIF for based on LOS. Ms. Murdock explained the various future Park Capital Projects and how the PIF could be utilized for them. Ms. Murdock explained that 81% of our own money can be used for the Dog Park and the remaining 19% can be covered through PIF monies. There are several Capital Projects that can be funded partially by entirely by PIF through the information that Ms. Murdock provided on the document that she along with Baker Tilly created. Currently the Splash Pad is still open due to the late opening because of COVID. Ms. Murdock would like to extend this date to September 27. Park Board has no problem extending the date of closing. Ms. Murdock informed the Park Board of the Zion Nature Center programs that she would like their approval of. A virtual field trip with the school classroom was piloted by our Naturalist, Rachel Felling. She did this with her son’s classroom with great feedback. The virtual program would be a 30 - 90 minutes with a fee structure of $25-$40 proposed. Programs could be done at a Park or in the Nature Center virtually. The new program format could be used in various school classrooms, scouts, homeschool groups, church pre-school groups, etc. in the area. A motion was made by Jill Pack to approve Ms. Murdock’s fee structure for the virtual programs. This was seconded by John Stehr and was approved unanimously by a roll call vote. Next item up for discussion is the Spooky Sprint Event, a for-profit run taking place on November 1. This run will be using the Rail Trail. As with all for-profit events, this must be approved by the Park Board. A motion was made by Tim Casady to approve the Spooky Sprint for-profit event as presented. A second was made by John Salewicz. The motion was approved with one no vote by a roll call vote. Old Business One item Ms. Murdock needed to discuss with the Park Board is in the Golf Course budget and that is the Golf Cart Lease proposal. This lease would be well within the Golf Course’s revenue. Mike Wall, the Golf Course Manager, recommended the proposal from Midwest Golf & Turf. This is a full lease of 30 golf carts and 2 utility vehicles. This proposal also includes a trade-in on the old carts of $64,650. The lease is $4,782.60 per year for 5 years. The only issue is that the golf course would have to provide storage in the winter for the golf carts. Pete Prust was present to promote using the golf cart lease and to share how he thought the Golf Course has improved greatly under the management of Mike Wall. Mr. Prust shared pictures of the golf course on the needed improvements. A motion was made to sign a Golf Cart lease with Midwest Golf & Turf in the spring of next year by John Stehr and this was seconded by Wayne Bivans. The motion was passed unanimously by roll call vote. Another motion was made by John Wollenburg to offer Mike Wall the full-time position of Golf Course Manager. Jill Pack seconded this motion and this was passed unanimously by roll call vote. Ms. Murdock will work with HR and Park Board President on making this offer to Mike Wall. Interim Superintendent Murdock has made some changes to the Park’s budget and needed the Park Board’s approval on the changes. After studying the PIF, some of these project budgets were updated with the PIF amounts added. If a project can be funded completely by PIF’s then it will be removed from the 2021 Budget. Ms. Murdock stated for the Park Board to keep in mind that if a project is removed from the 2021 budget, it could still be completed using the PIF’s. The Park Board agreed with Ms. Murdock on the 2021 Park and Golf budget and agreed to present this to Town Council for approval. Ms. Murdock reminded the Park Board of the SP-3 Stair Replacement alternatives that BF&S presented to them. She spoke with BF&S and our Director of Maintenance, Dave Moliterno on what they thought would be the best choice and all agreed with the Alternative #3 which is a stick-built structure. A solid wood structure with Tangent recycled wood would meet the safety and maintenance standards for the Park. John Wollenburg motioned to approve the Interim Superintendent’s recommendations and approve BF&S Alternative #3 for the SP-3 Starkey Stair Replacement. This motion was second by Tim Casady and was passed unanimously by a roll call vote. Next up, is the amendment to the design construction documents contract by REA for the new bridge replacement. Last month the Park Board approved to replace the Starkey Bridge with a new bridge. REA presented the new amendment to the design for a new bridge. REA stated that this bridge should last 60+ years and would add $62,000 to the South Rail Trail design documents contract. A motion was made by Tim Casady to amend the REA Contract as presented and to authorize the Park Superintendent or the Park Board President to sign the contract. This was seconded by John Stehr and passed unanimously by a roll call vote. Tim Casady informed the Park Board of the design contract with REA on Phase II of Heritage Trail Park. REA’s contract would include additional parking, an additional playground for an older age group, a sidewalk along 875 E, and a trail connection along 400 S. along the edge of the property. A motion was made by Jill Pack to approve and sign the proposal by REA for the Phase II of HTP. This was seconded by John Wollenburg and passed unanimously by a roll call vote. Ms. Murdock updated the Park Board on the HTP Dog Park. The budget presented to the Park Board includes the concrete pads, fencing, modem hook up, cameras, all electrical work, sun shelters, and trash cans, dog waste stations, fertilizing & seeding. Ms. Murdock included PIF’s of not more than $47,000 which leaves the Parks with a $124,000 total use of capital. This could be covered in the present budget. A motion was made by John Stehr to approve the $171,000 (minus the PIF of $47,000) Dog Park budget at HTP as submitted and to allow the Interim Superintendent to proceed. John Salewicz seconded the motion and this was passed unanimously by a roll call vote. Another item to discuss was a summary of membership & rules for the dog park. Ms. Murdock researched various dog parks on what their membership rules were. Things to consider are all dogs should be vaccinated, age of the dog, waiver forms, key fobs, id tags for the dogs, rabies tag, id tag or microchip. Some parks have strict rules on whether the dog/s be spayed or neutered. Ms. Murdock recommended not having that restriction due to some residents breed their dogs. Costs are anywhere from $40-$75 a month with a second dog discount. Some of the rules are only 2 dogs per handler, a leash on at all times, no children under 8 allowed in the dog park, children must be accompanied by an adult at all times, no food allowed, no strollers, etc. This doesn’t need to be decided now, but is something that the Park Board will have to adopt before the Dog Park is open to the public. Claims A motion to approve claims as submitted was made by Park Board Member Wayne Bivans, and seconded by John Stehr. Motion was approved unanimously by a verbal vote. Adjournment The meeting was then adjourned with a motion made by Park Board Member Tim Casady seconded by John Wollenburg & a verbal roll call vote at ~930PM. The next regular Park Board meeting is scheduled for October 14, 2020 at 7PM, at the Zionsville Town Hall’s Council Chambers (Room 105) or virtual via ZOOM. _____________________________________ ______________________________________ Tim Casady, President Wayne Bivans, Secretary