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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParks And Recreation Board - Minutes - 10/23/2019PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR Date, Time: October 23, 2019, 5:30pm Location: 215 N. Mason, Community Room 10/23/2019 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER Jessica MacMillan called the meeting to order at 5:38pm. 2. ROLL CALL • Board Members Present o Jessica MacMillan – Chair o Catherine Carabetta – Vice Chair o Ragan Adams o Sam Houghteling o Bob Kingsbury o Mike Tupa • Board Members Absent o Rob Cagen – Excused o Mary Carlson - Excused • Staff Members Present o Mike Calhoon – Director of Parks o Bob Adams – Director of Recreation o Kurt Friesen – Director of Park Planning and Development o Salina Hemmen – Business Support III/Board Support 3. AGENDA REVIEW • Mike Calhoon would like to add board participation in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan under the Parks update. 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION • No citizen participation. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 Sam motions to approve the minutes. Bob seconds. Motion passes 4-0, Ragan and Sam abstained as they were not present at the September meeting. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS • Grand Opening Summaries – Kurt Friesen PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 10/23/2019 – MINUTES Page 2 Sugar Beet Park o The grand opening was held on September 28 th . The event was well attended, and the estimated turnout was over 100 people. The Mayor, City Manager and members of City Council all spoke. The park features signage about the history of the sugar beet, signs are also in Spanish, a pollinator garden, an overhead art piece that is meant to speak to the evolution of the beet and movable benches, among other features. Board: Are the benches heavy? Staff: The resistance level can be adjusted; they are set to move slowly to avoid them being slammed into each other, or people. Poudre River Whitewater Park o The grand opening was held on October 12 th . This event was also well attended with an estimated turn out of around 1000 people. Kudos to Xcel energy for working hard to get water into the river for the opening. The park was able to come alive, which is not something that could normally be done during October. The old Quonset Hut building housed displays with photos and information on the park’s development. We had live music and The Grahams also attended and spoke, their donation to the park funded most of the bridge and installation. Board: When will we see boats in the water again, is the season March- August? Staff: Yes, it will probably be March. Board: Where was the bridge fabricated? Staff: It was fabricated by Big R. It came to Fort Collins in three pieces by truck and was then bolted together. Board: How soon until you get started on the next segment of the park? Staff: It is likely we will need to obtain a secondary permit to tune the boating features. We are working through the feasibility and potential schedule for those refinements. • CAPRA Award – Bob Adams In September we went to Baltimore to receive the CAPRA Award. The process has taken two years. We had a hearing and three other cities went ahead of us. We had prepared a presentation and were a bit nervous. We were judged against 151 elements and passed 148. They voted and we ended up getting the accreditation with seven other team leads from the City present. PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 10/23/2019 – MINUTES Page 3 Board: What were the other three communities receiving the award? Staff: Thornton, Colorado, North Port, Florida, and Eugene, Oregon, who we began the process with two years ago. Board: What were the three elements you didn’t pass? Staff: One had to do with the ADA transition plan and the others had to do with documentation processes. • Recreator Article Topics Board and Staff collaborated to create a list of 26 topics that could become future articles for the Recreator. 7. NEW BUSINESS 1. WORK SESSION DEBRIEF The Tuesday, October 22 nd City Council Work Session covered two big issues involving the board: City Park Improvements and the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. o City Park Improvements – Kurt Friesen We took our two Master Plans to Council with three potential phase one projects. We recommended Master Plan 2, Project B. This is different than the Board’s recommendation of Master Plan 2, Project A. The reason being that this is the only plan we can fund, and we were advised not to recommend a plan to Council that had a funding gap. The feedback we got was that Council was generally supportive of the new restroom over the new drop off and the train. They still support keeping the train in the plan as well, but not funding it now. The plan is to pursue a new restroom. The train will be completed and stored at a cost of $300 a month. Board: How much would it take to complete the entire Master Plan? Staff: About 12 million, done in four three million-dollar stages. Board: Was Master Plan 2 highly voted on? Staff: Yes, it was the preferred option in all voting. Board: This whole process has gotten so difficult. When we go to refresh parks it gets out of hand and expensive. Every other park will demand 12 million dollars if City Park gets it. We’ve got to get the refresh process straight or this will start a precedent. If you prolong this project anymore, inflation will just eat this money. Staff: Yes, it will, it has already been four years. PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 10/23/2019 – MINUTES Page 4 o Parks and Recreation Master Plan Improvements – Kurt Friesen Council was informed about the update to the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which is a 12-month planning process beginning November 2019. Also discussed was the importance of Parks and Recreation to the Community. The consulting team selected is led by Olin Studios and includes several other partners to help complete this project. Board: There was a lot of good input from Council. I was impressed with the Mayor’s questions in trying to understand exactly what Parks and Recreation is and how it fits in to the city. Staff: He is a systems-based thinker. Trying to connect the dots and how it is woven within the community. What does one subset mean to the other? He’s always looking for something uniquely Fort Collins. The sizzle factor, he likes to call it. I think he brings good input. However, there was caution on the other side of the table. Board: The other piece that came out was, if the citizens have already told you what they want, why are you going back and asking them again? Another good question was, do we need to build out 10 more neighborhood parks? Staff: Are Parks and Recreation thought of as infrastructure or are they just nice to have? Facilities and parks are really an economic driver. If quality of life is less because those things aren’t here, it’s likely we’ll see a decrease in people moving to Fort Collins. Board: Is the current plan now appropriate for going forward? When a new strategic plan is made is a gap analysis done? Staff: Olin will take everything we have and prepare some analysis with the data we have today. This group also focuses a lot on access, which we like. This could be a good thing for the plan. 2. SUPER ISSUES MEETING • The meeting was scheduled for October 29 th but has since been rescheduled to December 9 th . There is currently no agenda for this meeting. 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS • FC Bikes – Mike Tupa Construction has been happening at the Prospect and I-25 Interchange, all the way down to 402. There has been talk of a bike trail that goes across which would be at surface level with the roadway. They are wanting to expand the Downtown PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 10/23/2019 – MINUTES Page 5 Dismount Zone to include the River District. The trail under I-25 has now been funded by GoCo. They received a two-million-dollar grant, Fort Collins will receive a million of that. The trail will go right where the Poudre River and I-25 are. 9. OTHER BUSINESS • Recreation Update – Bob Adams Our RecTrac software has now been upgraded to Version 3.1. The system should be more efficient, and we now can run automated reports. WebTrac has also been upgraded and there is now a splash page when you go to the webpage which can help direct to you to specific areas within the department. The Recreator is hitting the public tomorrow. John Farrell is the Recreator of the Year. He started Kites in the Park several years ago. Our revenue and participation numbers have been met, even with construction at many facilities this year. • Parks Update – Mike Calhoon The e-scooters program is launching this week. A company called Bird has partnered with the City to provide the scooters and the program. Amanda Mansfield is the coordinator for the program, she used the Pace bike program as the model for the scooters. Board: Today I saw an abandoned scooter by the Museum. What is the protocol for that? Staff: There is an app you can download to your phone. If you stumble upon one, you can scan it, and someone will pick it up and take it to the correct spot. The renter will be charged for this. The ADA resurfacing at the Lee Martinez playground has been completed. This is the final addition to the playground renovation. As part of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, there will be some community outreach. The Advance Review Committee is looking for two volunteers to participate in several meetings over the next seven months. Jessica and Bob volunteered to be part of the ARC. The ADA transition planning committee held its kickoff meeting today. This will be focusing specifically on Parks, Recreation, and Natural Area access. The company is on site now doing assessments at all Parks and facilities. The holiday lights ceremony will be held on November 1 st this year and has been moved from Oak Street Plaza to Old Town Square to better accommodate the PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD TYPE OF MEETING – REGULAR 10/23/2019 – MINUTES Page 6 crowd. • Park Planning and Development Update – Kurt Friesen United Methodist Church has raised nearly $200,000 for improvements to Eastside Park. Poudre Trail Construction is underway. Scheduled completion date is fall/winter 2019. A neighborhood meeting is being organized for the proposed Bucking Horse Park. The agenda will also include the rezoning of property recently acquired for the East District maintenance facility. • 6-Month Planning Calendar 11/5 – Budget revisions and fee updates 12/3 – Montava 12/10 – Reimagining Boards and Commissions, Destination (Tourism) Plan update 2/11 – Homelessness update 2/25 – Parks and Recreation Master Plan 10. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 8:00pm.