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Minutes 2 serve this area of the city, the school playground was really the only area which could be upgraded effectively. There was little else that the city could do the improve the "park site" at the school. We then voted. The unanimous decision was to request the City Council support the Falcon Heights playground for the full $7,261 with the proviso that the school district give some assurances that the school would remain open and the equipment accessible to everyone. Pat added that she felt it would have been more in keeping with expenditures at other park sites to only support $4,800 of the equipment. We all agreed that we should contact the School District and indicate to them that in the future we would expect them to communicate in a more timely fashion their upcoming needs and requests so that they could be budgeted for and included in our park planning efforts. We were all uncomfortable with the "pressured" nature of the request when we were in the throes of park planning. We felt we should have advance notice so that we could plan effectively in the future. Carol said she would discuss this with the proper people at the school. Linda indicated she would write a recommendation to the city council to support the playground, listing specific equipment purchases, to a total of $7,261. Carol indicated that there was over $10,000 in the Capitol Improvement budget for the current year. This money had been earmarked for Idaho and Snelling regrading and sewer pipes, but Jan had informed Carol that this money would come out of other funds that were supposed to be for those purposes. Thus we felt we could use come of the capitol improvement money for this purchase. 2. Park Plan Carol felt that the commission should make a recommendation to the City Council to adopt the current Park Plan. Everyone agreed unanimously .that we should make this recommendation. Linda said she would write the appropriate letter. 3. Community Park Building A general discussion of the park building was held. Those who had not seen it were able to get a good look at the mock up and floor plans of the proposed park building. The question of whether the building would have sufficient occupancy was raised. 48 could picnic under the roof outside and Carol thought another 34 or 36 could picnic in the interior. We reiterated the need for more window area on the skating rink side, removal of the decorative wood beams on the restroom side, and adding a door so that the picnic area would be more easily connected to the kitchen facilities. The bathrooms would be lockable. Whenever programmed activities were going on at the park, the bathrooms would be open. A satellite would still be placed at the park for use at other times. There appears to be no other way to prevent vandalism. Carol indicated that the aluminum bleachers had been stolen from the Community Park this past month. Everyone was appalled. We then unanimously agreed to recommend to the City Council that they continue to proceed with the current plans for the park building as drawn up by Buetow and Associates. The current estimated cost for the building was $170,000 - 190,000. Carol reminded us that this was from the drip line in and did not include sidewalks, landscaping, picnic tables etc. Linda indicated that she would write an appropriate letter to the City Council of our recommendations. 4. Acquisition of University-Owned Park Property Carol said that it had come to the attention of Jan Wiessner that the University may be interested in selling the Community Park and Garden Park properties to the city. Pat asked if we had any idea how long our leases could be extended. Carol didn't know, but said she would find out. Carol said that our original estimates of the value of the land at 1 million dollars was probably way too high, because the land had to stay parkland and therefore had limited sale potential. Jan thought the land was probably worth $300,000 - 500,000. We all agreed that it was crazy to buy something we could use for free. Carol indicated that we pay $1 per year to lease the property. The discussion was tabled until