Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutPRCAgenda_88Jul11~' June 22, 1988 TO: All members of the Parks and Recreation Commission FROM: Linda McLoon, Chair There will be a meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission on Monday, July 11, 1988 at 7:00 P.M. at City Hall. Please call me at 646-1371 if you are unable to attend. Please call me if there are items that you feel should be on the agenda. The following agenda will be discussed. j_.,, ~pd'src oa equipment safety pp~]18IICe 2. Comprehensive plan for our parks 3. Summer programs 4. Ice cream social 5. Playground equipment and benches at the Community Park and "The Hole" 6. Minutes of the June 13 meeting ~" MINUTES PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION June 13, 1988 Members Present: Linda McLoon, Kirsten Eckberg, Connie Lasser, Lloyd Jacobson, Pat Bush, Council Liaison, Vince Wright Members Absent: Bob Gehrz, Tom Mountain, Paul Nelson Meeting was called to order at 7:05 P.M. 1. Park Repairs and Improvements Community Park The first item discussed was the recent vandalism at the Community Park. A good proportion of the lights were knocked out, at a steep expense to the city for repair. Due to the attendance of Vince at the meeting, we began the meeting with discussion of improvements and repairs considered of primary importance in our parks. Carol indicated that there were a number of pieces of equipment and other situations which pose a serious risk of people being injured in the parks. Carol passed out copies of a list of all these items at each of our three primary locations. Carol indicated that she had received a copy of guidelines put out by the federal government on equipment safety. The slide at the Community Park was so far off the guidelines for safe equipment that Carol had it removed right away. Estimated cost of replacement is $1,195.00. Carol passed around several photos of different slide designs. We decided to hold off making a decision about purchase of a new slide until costs for all repair and improvements were considered. Carol also had a dump truck of sand delivered and placed around all the equipment at the Community Park. The level under the Big Toy was extremely low and even absent in some places. The city needs to maintain at least 8-10 inches of sand under the equipment at all times. Although the situation is improved several additional loads of sand are needed to bring the depth to 10 inches. Carol indicated that she has written a letter to the Big Toy manufacturers for their opinion as to how to bring our Big Toy into compliance with current government safety standards. Carol indicated that the existing wooden parking curbs in the park were a safety hazard due to protruding metal spikes. Vince and Carol recommended putting in cement curbs at an estimated cost of $2,461.00. Vince indicated that once begun this job could be finished in about a week. The consensus of the Commission was that this should be done right away. The next item was the repair of the sidewalk aroun the warming house. It is very slant~ig and is buckling in a number of places. It is also '~ffecting the drainage of water around the building, which if left unchecked could result in potential damage to the warming house itself. An estimate for replacing the sidewalk was submitted at $1,392.00. We discussed the possibility of just removing the sidewalk or pouring blacktop over it to temporarily fix,i~ the problem. The idea of putting gravel around the building was brought up, but Vince indicated that the stones would just be a source of ammunition for park vandalism. The consensus of the Commission was that there was no point in doing something temporary. Further discussion was tabled while we looked at the rest of Carol's list of repairs. An estimate of electrical repairs needed at the park was submitted. Two items were listed at the Community Park; firsts adding switches for control of the pole lighting from inside the warming house, the second repairing the wiring in one pole which was hanging dangerously loose. The Commission felt the second item to be of primary importance and P~~~+''~e~ ~ r~'~S, Pg 2 recommended that this repair be carried out right away. The estimate was for $872. Grove The grounds problem at the Grove is a complex problem with no cheap solution. Carol contacted a landscape firm who told her that to do the job right would probably cost over a million dollars. This would involve covering with lots of clean fill and sodding. Other solutions: Bulldozing and rock picking the upper layer: $20,000; Applying clean fill, grading and seeding: $10,000; Just seeding as is: $300. After fainting at the enormity of the cost, we tabled further consideration of this until we covered all the safety needs at the various parks. Idaho and Snelling There are a number of potentially dangerous situations at the park. These include an exposed culvert at the park entrance (on the north side of the warming house), an open culvert in front of the warming house, holes in the fence leading to the holding pond (potential for child drowning), and dangerous fence prongs on the same fence. Vince indicated that the culvert at the park entrance could be filled and an alternative ground ditch would be dug to allow water to travel to the holding pond. Carol indicated that Public Works could do this project. Vince estimated that he could get to this problem this month. We all agreed that it should be done right away. The other open culvert could be closed with some sort of grate to prevent children from crawling through. Vince also said that he would take care of this problem this month. We also all agreed that fixing the holes in the fence should be done right away. Connie mentioned that the fence prongs were left up to deter children from climbing the fence into the holding pond area. Although they did pose a risk of injury, they were meant to be a deterrent for fence climbing. We decided to all go have a look at all these things at the park and come to a decision about the fence at the next meeting. Vince indicated that the fuse box situation at Idaho and Snelling was extremely dangerous. The estimate for repair was $708. Due to the potential for serious injury we all agreed that this should be done immediately. The consensus of the Commission was that the following repairs should be undertaken immediately. Repair the culverts and fence holes at Idaho and Snelling park, repair the curbs at the Community Park ($2,400) and repair items la and 2b electrical wiring (as discussed above) ($1,580) for a total of $3,169. This still leaves us approximately $350 in our budget under repair and improvement. Before considering the other expenses, these repairs need to be finished. Due to large amounts of money needed for repair and improvements in our parks, it was agreed that we all needed to visit each park and list items we deemed most important. ~ We need a comprehensive plan for our parks and our direction in each park. We will examine our priorities next month. Summer Programs Carol indicated that all our programs were doing very well during registration. All the soccer and T-ball programs at all the parks were filled, as were beginning ball skills, tennis and near ball. The registrations were as follows: Bowling: 20 Aerobics: 10 Kidstuff: 7-8 Cheerleading: 5 Karate: 5 Twins game: 20-25 Discovery: full . ~ ~Pw..k -4-'R~ec M.. ~. ~'~ 3 Crafts: 7 Even though karate and cheerleading were a bit low, we decided to go with them anyway, since that age child is hard to reach. The following questions were brought up. How many non-residents were in our programs? Carol indicated that she did not have to turn away any residents of Falcon Heights. We were also curious as to what Roseville Rec classes people were taking. Can we offer any of the classes we are subsidizing through our non-resident reimbursement program? We also mentioned that we needed to assess whether to charge non-resident fees for our programs. Carol said she would get these figures and bring them to the next meeting. Ice Cream Social Lloyd indicated that the Falconeers were informed of the date of the Ice Cream Social, July 28, and were committed to bringing their usual wonderful assortment of cakes. Connie felt that the amount of work at the Ice Cream Social should be shouldered by all the commissions and not just ours. Connie is going to contact the chair of the Solid Waste Commission to have several of its members help out between 8-9, Pat will call the chair of the Planning Commission to help our between 7-8 and Linda will call the chair of the Human Rights Commission to help out between 6-7. Members of the Parks and Rec Commission will be there during the whole evening. We need volunteers to help serve cake, scoop ice cream, sell tickets and serve beverages. Playground Equipment and Park Benches We decided to wait until we had further assessed repair costs before committing to buying play equipment (small children climber at Idaho and Snelling and a new slide at the Community Park). We will try to incorporate everything into along-range plan. Carol passed around pictures of benches and gliders. She will order these during the month. She wants to get a wooden one, so that it won't get so hot in the sun. Grant for Warming House All the grants for state money for parks necessitate at least a 5096 share of the expense for the city. It would appear that the situation at the Grove and general landscaping is right in line with the priorities for money with these granting agencies. We decided we need a plan before we could commit $4,000 of city funds for even the basic landscaping solution at the Grove. Park Permits and Beer It has come to the attention of Jan and Carol that someone who was issued a park permit sold beer at the Park (potentially to minors). This is a direct violation of the City Code. Carol indicated that we needed to make the Park Permits more clear and spell out all of our rules clearly. We also needed to inform the police that no one can sell anything in the park. We agreed that we needed separate permit forms for the park and for beer use in the park. We also need to clearly check the age of the person obtaining the beer permit. We decided that all people getting a park permit (whether they have to pay for the use or not) need to leave a damage deposit. We settled on $50 deposit without a beer permit and $100 deposit with a beer permit. We looked over the city code and felt that a number of sections needed clarification and updating. These include section 3c, which was poorly worded and sounded like we prohibit riding a cat in the park, we need to add a section prohibiting any motorized vehicles in the park, to increase the time on the tennis courts from 40 to 60 minutes and the like. Carol said she would work on this. ,~ Minutes of May 9 No changes were made. The meeting was adjourned at 10:05 P.M. espectfully submitted, n~l 'V' Linda McLoon