Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutPRCMin_89Aug29• August 29, 1989 Minutes of the Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting 6:30 P.M., Tuesday, August 29, 1989 Present: Linda McLoon, Connie Lasser, Jyneen Thatcher, Jeff Johnson, Sue Gehrz, Jean Suppes, Lloyd Jacobson, Sr. Representative, Pat Bush, City Council Representative, Carol Kreigler, Park Director. Absent: Michael Srnallpage 1. Falcon Heights School Playground Equipment Committee Request Kirsten Eckberg, representative of the F.H. School playground committee gave a presentation on their current status in their fundraising. They have raised approximately $6,200 earmarked for handicapped accessibility and another $10,000 through fundraisers and private organization donations. They were requesting $7,000 from the city of Falcon Heights. Kirsten indicated to cost of specific pieces of the playground equipment. Jyneen indicated that it might be a good idea for the city to buy specific pieces of playground equipment rather than less tangible items, such as pea gravel. When asked whether there was any assurance from the school district about the school being put up for sale, Kirsten indicated that the district had no plans to sell the school and had been told for the next 10 years the plans in the school district indicated the school would be in use. Kirsten said that the school district was going to pay for installation of the equipment and had also contributed $5,000 for handicapped accessibility pieces. The school district would also retain the liability for the equipment and maintain the whole structure. Linda asked why the Falcon Heights PTA had not given a big donation to the playground, since it was their school. Kirsten said that the whole issue only came up after the budget had been prepared for last year. For the current year the PTA pledged anything over their operating budget of $1,600 to go towards the playground equipment. After Kirsten left, it was generally agreed upon that the city should contribute something to this facility. This is the only playground "park site" in this area of Falcon Heights, and the only way to serve this area of the population would be to support this playground. Several options were presented by Linda, who indicated we could support just the spiral slide and spiral slide section, for $4,800, or include the accessory pieces for $6,586, or also include .the step section for a total of $7,261. If the latter course was taken, if for some reason the school was sold, the equipment would be able to stand alone and therefore could be moved to another site. Jeff felt uncomfortable about one taxing unit donating money to another separate taxing unit. Carol indicated that the city attorney said that there were no legal reasons why this type of thing couldn't be done. Little Canada was supporting a gym and other equipment for the elementary school in Little Canada, and Roseville was doing the same thing for schools in Roseville. Lloyd expressed concern of the Seniors he knew that all this money expenditure would result in higher taxes and that would possibly force people to move from Falcon Heights. He did see the need for this • equipment in the area and said that a number of Falconeers had donated to the fundraising efforts. Pat asked how much had been spent by the city for similar equipment in other parks. The average in the past several years had been between $3,000 and 4,000. Maybe we should limit our contribution to a similar amount. Once again it was brought up that to 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 1 *'! J Minutes Carol could find out how long our leases could be extended. 5. Budget Carol has started work on the Capitol Improvement budget plan for the next 5 years. She is basing her figures on the end table in our Park Plan, using Scott's suggestions for expenditures per year. It was generally agreed that until we knew how realistic the figures were, it was too early to begin to prioritize expenditures. We all agreed, however, to go with the figures from our Park Plan. We are already at work on the first year Capitol Improvement plan of rebuilding our park building at the Community Park, and costs were not year finalized. Carol explained the new accounting system being set up by the city. The Parks budget will consist of three parts. First, the Capitol Improvements budget, the administrative budget (which includes things like Carol's salary, postage, utilities and the like), and lastly, a programs budget. This last will give a better cost accounting of the cost of each individual program and the revenue it generates. This will help us plan more cost effective programming in the future. The general discussion indicated that we were all comfortable letting some programs help pay for others, and that just because a program was more expensive to run shouldn't mean that it wouldn't be offered. Linda asked how comparable our program fees were to those of the surrounding communities. Carol and Pat both indicated that they were on the low side. We were all pleased at the new budget system. Carol indicated that she would continue working on it. 6. Fall Programs Carol said she had started working on the Fall Programs, which would be sent home with children along with information on after-school activities run by the school district. Carol said the programming would be largely the same as last year, since everything went so well. 7. Center for Community Studies Jyneen had information, which she passed around, on a program at the Center for Community Studies at the University of Minnesota where students used parks as part of classroom projects or thesis projects. She felt it might be an inexpensive way to get a large number of landscaping plans for any park site we wanted. She felt it would be especially useful for Garden or Lindig park sites, which are currently totally undeveloped. Linda asked if we couldn't get these services free from landscaping firms, since it represented large amounts of potential purchases. Carol said she would find out. We all agreed that the program was worth pursuing, especially as the university is juxtaposed physically to Falcon Heights. 8. 9:30 p.m. meeting was adjourned. •