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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParks And Recreation Board - Minutes - 10/27/1999Call Meeting to Order: President Lance Freeman called the Regular Meeting to order at 5:40 p.m. Agenda Review: Lance reprioritized the Agenda as follows: #6, 9, 5, 7, 8, 10. All Board members agreed. Approval of Minutes: On a motion by Jessica MacMillan, seconded by Rebecca Chavez, the minutes of the meeting of September 29 were unanimously (9-0) approved. Citizen Participation: None 10-Acre Neighborhood Park Acquisition: Landscape Architect Janet Meisel -Burns reported that the City is acquiring a 10-acre parcel of land in the southeast quadrant of the community to build a neighborhood park. The land will be purchased jointly with the School District. The sale price is listed at $15,000 per acre or $150,000 to be paid from the Neighborhood Parkland Fund. The School District will precede us in development. Jessica asked how many lots in the adjoining project? Janet responded 450 in the Fossil Lake PUD. She further explained that the Fossil Creek trail would loop around the park. McClelland Drainage Channel will run though this area and we will reestablish the drainage channel to its original condition. Lance asked where will we obtain our water supply? Janet explained that we will purchase the water rights with the purchase of the land. The $15,000 per acre includes the water rights. Paul Van Valkenburg asked what area it will serve? Janet said it will serve one square mile split by County Road 36. On a motion by Paul Van Valkenburg, seconded by Jessica MacMillan, the Board voted unanimously (9-0) to support the purchase of this land for a neighborhood park. Parks and Recreation Board Minut, October 27, 1999 Page 2 Parks and Recreation Fees and Charges Marty Heffernan spoke of last month's meeting when tournament promoters expressed concerns about tournament fees and field schedules. The Board requested at their September meeting that Lance Freeman meet with staff to define the issues raised by the tournament promoters. Lance and staff will tonight address the four issues and provide information that will help the Board fully understand the concerns and staffs recommendation. The issues are as follows: Issue 1 — Are the City's tournament fees too high? Staff compared the City of Fort Collins' fees to seven other Front Range communities. This comparison shows Fort Collins is fourth out of eight cities for adult tournaments and is eighth out of eight for youth (non-profit) tournaments. Fort Collins' fees are less than $1 per player, per game for adults and 83 cents per player, per game for youth. Staff believes that the tournament fees are reasonable and recommends that the fees should not be changed. The adult fees cover direct costs and youth fees are set below cost. Jessica MacMillan said that she calculated the per team fees and thought the fees were very reasonable. Mary Ness said that a lot of these cities have more facilities because of supply and demand. We, as Fort Collins, should serve the community at a lower rate because the facilities belong to the community to begin with. He thinks our fees are still out of line. He has problems with some of the charges. As an example we are using City employees as helpers, they are already getting paid and they should be there to help the citizens. For adult recreation, the City should promote tournaments and staff them. The youth programs would benefit if we ran all the tournaments. Rebecca asked if the City wants to get in the business of setting up tournaments? Lance said that if we are looking in that direction, he doesn't see how that could be justified through what we are looking at tonight. Marty said when we look at our youth comparison we are looking at being the lowest priced. We are trying to recover direct costs as directed by City Council. Dean Hoag asked about the need to raise fees for this year and next year. Marty said there is only a 5% increase. Terry Keith said our fees are going up slightly. Terry said that we started in 1998 giving a 20% discount for non-profit youth tournaments. Dean asked for the Buckaroos do they get a 20% reduction? Terry Keith responded they do. Paul Van Valkenburg asked is there an economic benefit from these tournaments? Mike Powers replied that there is a lodging fee. It is used to promote cultural events and to promote bringing visitors to Fort Collins. Paul asked how a baseball group gets a pot of that money? Jean replied that there is a process twice a year to apply for that funding. It is called the Fort Fund. Mary said referring to New West Fest, vendors pay for each booth, the City closes off the streets, and DDA profits from the event. Del Price said this Board doesn't make policy for New West Fest and this is totally beyond our realm. It is not up to this Board to take this to Council and this is totally beyond the scope of the Parks and Recreation Board. Jessica asked if tournament to the community, however, we are at the edge of where we can go with this. He would be Parks and Recreation Boardeutes • October 27, 1999 Page 3 supportive of saying where the price is now is fair. For the youth the advantages we are helping youth and on the adult side we are promoting economic development. Issue 2 — The second issue is whether the tournaments should be able to play later into the afternoon on weekdays. Staff recommends that the tournament promoter work with the Parks Maintenance staff. Terry Keith explained that we have given the same product to all groups of players. Jeff Jamison and Bill Whirty responded to the maintenance schedule. Staff does not believe a tournament game has ever been canceled because of field prep work. To accommodate the Buckaroo tournaments, maintenance crews have divided into two eight -hour shifts, with one beginning at 6:00 a.m. and the other at 10:00 a.m. Staff will continue to work with the tournament directors to meet their needs. Lance asked how flexible are we with the 11:00 p.m. curfew? Jeff Jamison said that we are flexible within_ 5 minutes. We have an agreement with the neighborhood (Rolland Moore Park) that we will turn off the lights at 11:00. Rebecca Chavez said that we need to work with the school district for scheduling of fields and preps. Dean Hoag said the supervisors of the fields need to be more flexible. Jean Helburg said those are the comments we need to hear when problems arise. Del Price said that this is something that should be worked out with the tournament directors and staff and not the Board. Issue 3 — Tournament directors would like to schedule tournaments farther in advance. Staff recommendation: The priority is non-competitive youth. We have never had a situation that we couldn't work out. We are proposing that each tournament director can schedule one tournament up to a year in advance. We will not displace youth or City league play. Ross Cunniff asked how many tournament promoters do we have? We have 14 tournament directors or organizations in our community. Del Price said the ballfrelds belong to the people of Fort Collins, and the tournaments bringing in other teams shouldn't be a priority. We are servicing the people of Fort Collins. Our job is not to serve the people outside of the community. Del does not feel comfortable with the exception. Paul Van Valkenburg said that it is more of a time issue. You need to know 15 months in advance if you are having a national tournament in the City. It is more logistics than priority. Jean Helburg said it makes more sense to look at tournaments that require qualifying. Lance asked if we could schedule a year in advance? Terry said right now yes, but as the youth programs keep growing, then we can't continue to cater to the tournaments. Dean Hoag said he understands that we have to accommodate youth first, but is that really fair to compare recreation and competitive play? Terry said that our value is recreation first. Dean says you are penalizing kids for being competitive. Terry said we have to deal with the passive user in the park as well. He further explained that our Parks and Recreation philosophy has always been that youth recreation has a higher value than youth competitive. Issue 4 --- Concern is if ballfields are being underused and whether competitive users are able to play on our better fields. Parks and Recreation Board Minu, October 27, 1999 Page 4 Staffs response: In 1998, we played over 8,700 games on 24 ballfields. These figures include 23 tournaments. Unscheduled games and thousands of practices added to overall field usage. In 1999, we hosted 21 tournaments. There are times when the fields are not used and this time is needed to give the fields time to recover and to open the parks to other users who may avoid the parks when they are busy with ballplayers. Other sports, i.e., soccer, often fill up the parks and it is important to avoid scheduling the ballfields and soccer fields at the same time so the park's capacity is not exceeded. Nearly all of the tournaments we host use the Rolland Moore ballfield complex. In 1998, we hosted over 800 games on each field at Rolland Moore. Marty added we are trying to find a balance with all the users in the parks. Lance then turned the floor over to the citizens. Dave King with Triple Crown said that Vince Laso works for him on the weekends to run the tournaments. Can the tournaments be about economic gain if there are enough facilities in this city to accommodate? That topic is better addresses by City Council. The funds for profit do a lot of good for the community. He takes offense when tournaments are taken out of this system. He said tournament promoters deserve more credit for what we do for the community. Non-profit such as youth baseball should pay their way also. Fees are not out of line. He doesn't have a problem working with our staff. The pricing we have right now prohibits the small tournament organizers. There are 45 teams in this community that love to play tournaments. He thinks the facility price is incorrect. You can't compare Rolland Moore with Buckingham Park. Fort Collins has some of the greatest facilities in America. He also feels that the tournament directors need to work this out with staff and with this Board we need to look at how many fields we will need in the future. Vince Laso said he has done 15 or more tournaments for profit in the City over the past 10 years with local teams and local tournaments. He thinks the increase and the deposit money are too high. His tournaments mostly attract local softball players. He says Loveland runs their own tournaments to meet budget needs. Staff has always been very accommodating to him. In addressing Issue 3, he said the way we ran tournaments in the past always worked. In addressing Issue 4, he disagrees and thinks we have had a lot of free weekends of no tournaments. The reason he is not running these tournaments is that he doesn't make any money. Jack Jennings said he does not have large tournaments. This would have been his third year. He wants to promote at Rolland Moore as weekend tournaments are attended by "weekend warrior softball players." He said the 20% gratuity tax is too high. He spent 79 hours to make $300 for a weekend tournament. He promotes these tournaments and would like to have Camp Fire be able to sell food for these tournaments but can't because we have a vendor fee. He added there is a group that is looking at building a multifield facility for tournaments. Del asked what Jack charges for a team for a two-day tournament. Jack replied, "$200." Councilman Bill Bertschy said he has received many calls from citizens who just want to play a pick up game. He said that the citizens of Fort Collins have made a commitment to have first class facilities. He said all we are asking for is to recoup our costs for maintenance/direct costs. He compared softball to golf that has to pay 100% of the costs. He added that Council is looking at all of the recreation facilities. EPIC is so over used. We are building Fossil Creek Community Park; looking at streets that need improvements; fundamental maintenance; and Parks and Recreation Boardoutes • October 27, 1999 Page 5 public safety. He said he could go to Council and ask about this concern for this group, but he thinks that additional subsidy for this is a hard sell. He said the City does appreciate what these tournaments bring to the city's economic growth. Board's Comments on the Issues: Issue #1 -- Del Price said continue with the policy to cover direct cost as direct costs are a minor part of the expenses and the indirect costs are the high expenditures. Mary Ness said that we are paying more than the parks and recreation costs in comparison to what the data was we were given. We are paying a small amount towards the indirect costs and adding 5%. Jean said the commercial rate was directed by City Council two years ago and it subsidizes the youth programs. Del said that if you raise 5% this year based on direct costs, then that is what we use. Paul Hudnut questioned the deposits. Is there a way that we could adjust the deposit fee? Jeff said that a tournament director would schedule five tournaments and then never hold them and we gave up those fields. There has to be some security. Del Price made a recommendation that we continue the existing process and Paul Hudnut added that we allow flexibility in accommodating recreational tournaments deposit within the parameters of our existing policy. Mary Ness added that we justify the 20%. The Board voted 8-1 in favor of continuing the existing fees and adding flexibility in accommodating recreational tournament deposits. Mary Ness voted against. Issue 2 — Dean Hoag said that as long as staff works with the tournament directors there isn't an issue. Jeff Jamison said that we are committed to being flexible. Mary said we need cooperation on both sides of both the supervisor of the field and the teams. The Board agreed there is no issue with Issue 2. Issue 3 — Rebecca Chavez said that the tournament directors are asking for 12-months advanced booking for their tournaments. Marty Heffernan said we will look into making that work. Paul VanValkenburg said we should look at that in accordance with the history of the users. Ross Cunniff made a motion that staff look into longer lead-time for all softball scheduling, seconded by Mary Ness. The motion carried unanimously (9-0). Issue 4 — Bill Bertschy said that we could ask Council what their feelings are on competitive and recreational use. Del Price said that when we are looking at this priority system we need to decide how much we are willing to give up recreational use for tournaments. What will this do to the City's recreation program and we need to say beyond this number we will not allow any more tournaments. Paul Van Valkenburg said that after a tournament we need some data to review year-end. Terry Keith said we already do that. Rebecca asked if we could use different fees for different fields. Jeff said that the labor charges aren't any different for the fields. Lance Freeman asked what is City Council looking for from us? Jessica MacMillan said she supports empty fields for drop in use and to allow the ballfield to recover. Mary says that we have a staff that keeps the fields looking perfect. He said Rolland Moore was built to be a first class softball complex. Del asked if fields are reservable? Jeff responded that they are. Mike Powers said we need to frame this out. Mary added that we need another community park. Parks and Recreation Board Mput, October 27, 1999 Page 6 Update Gateway Park Park Planning and Development Manager Craig Foreman said that staff has a conceptual plan that we would like to take to the public for input and are presenting this to the Board tonight. Our plans are to set up displays at various City facilities and publish this plan on the City's WEB page. Craig introduced Jason Stutzman as a new Civil Engineer with PPD. Craig illustrated on a map that 62 percent of the park is zoned for plant, animal and watershed protection, which is 235 acres. Natural appreciation with trails is about 130 acres (34% of the property). People appreciation is about 4% of the property or 12 acres. Craig showed an overview of the active section of the park. He showed a parking area for commercial rafters and other watercraft drop off. The first residence could be made into a manger's residence. The plans call for a nature -type playground facility; and the road would be diverted behind the house and a parking lot would be built behind the water treatment plant. Also in this location are plans for an amphitheater and the water treatment plant could be used as a museum for water heritage and a bookstore. There will be a natural looking pond with demonstrations on mountain fishing. He explained that we would work our way from the entrance and build and develop further into the park as we have money. Paul Hudnut said we talked about a kayaking course. Matt Evans with the Mountain Shop in Fort Collins, said a paddling park is what he is interested in. It is a very active area that canoes and kayakers can use. This group is very active in environmental concerns. He suggested modifying the dams to allow watercrafts to flow through. He thinks the river site itself is a jewel. It is important that we have access to it. He asked that all fishermen and paddlers are included in discussions. David Kazan, Vice President of Poudre Paddlers wrote a memo to the Board expressing his thoughts on the usage (copy attached to minutes). He feels that Gateway Park should be developed as a showcase for a prime river environment, with emphasizes on non -motorized access and passive recreation. Marty said that we have gone through a 9-month planning process for this park. We are probably looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to float boats over the dams.. This project is restrained by a limited development budget. The Monroe structure is not our jurisdiction. Paul VanValkenburg asked if we have to allow commercial rafting into the park? Marty said, yes as they are a large user group and there is unsafe use along the highway. Mike said that some of the money for the road project is funded through ISTEA and was given based on the idea we would take traffic off the road. Matt said that this is a river park and we need to incorporate this into the design of the park. He thinks boating is the #3 recreational activity in the country. Del referred to the Loveland Mountain Park and the use it has. Ross Cunniff said he supports the kayaking course in the park. Del doesn't think we have enough parking for commercial rafting and park users. He referred to another parking area that we could build in. Lance said he agrees with Del that we can build this park and build in flexibility. This drawing is simply a concept. Paul Hudnut said if one of the issues is money, then we should focus on the river and trails and picnic area and not to spend the money on the museum. Parks and Recreation BoardGutes October 27, 1999 Page 7 Poudre School District/City Outreach Recreation Manager Jean Helburg updated the Board on the outreach process we are doing to get input on the projects we are recommending for the City/PSD Building Community Choices funding. These include new ballfields at Rocky, Poudre, and Preston, renovation ballfrelds at Webber and Blevins. She explained that a letter was sent to physical education teachers and administrators illustrating how we would lay out fields and what kind of activities would be played on these fields. What we asked is for them to talk about it and get input and enclosed a petition to be passed around the school. We also asked for input on the inline skating park at Edora and helping with the funding for Skateboard Park at Edora and upgrades to the Skate Park at Northside Aztlan Community Center. We are also working with Youth Baseball and Buckaroos. Sandy Martin of PSD is coordinating this with us. Tonight we are asking for the Board's recommendation on these projects conceptually. Del asked if we had input from the School District on developing? Jean said yes, we did for over a year we worked with the Liaison Committee, which consists of City and School District. This reflects an opportunity for the schools to have their own fields so they don't have to transport students for practice. The facilities will not be fenced and locked. The School District will perform the operation and maintenance on the fields on their property. On a motion by Rebecca Chavez, seconded by Paul Hudnut, the Board recommended that we support the joint projects as submitted by staff. The vote was (8-0 with 1 abstention) Ross Cunniff abstained. Downtown River Implementation Open House Paul Hudnut and Rebecca Chavez attended this open house. Paul said his "major walk away" was the hazardous waste in the area of the river and recreational use were ranked the highest priority. Paddling groups had great turn out. Recreation use would be a strong emphasis on the river property. Rebecca said that none of the audience could speak an opinion at this open house. There was no dialogue allowed. Participants could only fill out a visual preference survey. Marty said the timetable has changed on this project and this won't go to Council until February 21. The flood plain issue will come to the forefront first. Hazardous contamination sites were moved to #1 priority. Mike added that this goes to Study Session in December. Del suggested waiting until December 1 to make a recommendation. Paul Hudnut asked for a final plan prior to December. Have the priorities changed since the October open house meeting? Staff will get the most recent recommendation from Timothy Wilder and the tabulations from the Open House. Lance asked the Board what is our stand on the river and what do we want to do with it? The Board members agreed that they want to wait for the outcome of the open house and see the final plan prior to making a recommendation. Secretary's note: This item has been postponed on the Council Agenda until May 2000. The Council wants to address the flood plain plan and the river plan together. Parks and Recreation Board Minut October 27, 1999 Page 8 Work Plan and Meeting Schedule 2000 Marty Heffernan asked the Board if there are other items you would like to have on this list, please let staff know. Paul Hudnut said we need to limit what is on the agenda, but we need to put a time line on this agenda. Lance said that it is hard when citizens are present, we need to listen. He asked if we have the flexibility? Paul Van Valkenburg said we need updates on when we are building parks and when they should come on line and how the budget is affected. We need to know as a Board when the parks are coming on line and if Council pushes the operation and maintenance budget back, we need to know that. Lance would like to have a discussion in the future on proactive issues with Council. On a motion by Rebecca Chavez, seconded by Paul Van Valkenburg, the Board unanimously (9- 0) voted to accept the work plan and meeting schedule with the additions of the Horticulture Center and updates on park construction. Board Member Comments • Lance Freeman is part of a committee that is looking for a new location for the youth activity center. He said this is a good influential committee. Adjournment: On a motion by Jessica MacMillan, seconded by Paul Hudnut, the Board voted to adjourn at 9:20 p.m. dabkie Rael Executive Administrative Assistant Meeting Attendance Board Members: Rebecca Chavez, Ross Cunniff, Lance Freeman, Dean Hoag, Paul Hudnut, Jessica MacMillan, Mary Ness, Del Price, and Paul Van Valkenburg Staff: Craig Foreman, Marty Heffernan, Jean Helburg, Terry Keith, Jeff Jamison, Janet Meisel - Burns, Mike Powers, Jackie Rael, and Bill Whirty Guests: Councilman Bill Bertschy, Matt Evans, David King, Jack Jennings, andVince Laso