12-03-2020 Parks_Rec Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES PARKS & REC COMMISSION December 3, 2020 2 The Commission and staff expressed their appreciation to Commissioner Darling. PRESENTATION: RESILIENT COMMUNITIES PROJECT (RCP) FELLOWS TEAM – COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT UPDATE The Community Services Manager introduced the Resilient Communities Project Fellows team which will make a presentation on the Pioneer Park Master Plan community engagement process. Cate Bruns reported that the RCP Fellows were able to present this information in the MetroLab Network Student Cup Competition and reported that out close to 50 applicants, this project made it to the final round of the competition. Kyle Franta reviewed the ongoing implementation which has been focused on the element of engagement. He stated that they were able to design the engagement process around the groups of youth, park adjacent residents, and the greater community. He explained how the engagement strategies were then designed to focus on those different groups. Ms. Bruns stated that she has been focused on the youth engagement portion of the plan this fall and reviewed the five project goals she developed. She stated that she has been able to fulfill all five goals within the past two months. She stated that she has been working with Little Canada Elementary School, AFSA Charter School, and St. John’s Catholic School and reviewed the project scope she developed for each of those schools. She reviewed the different project design elements for youth engagement which included three content videos, one visual survey, and one art project. She reviewed the preliminary numbers from the youth engagement process, noting that the survey submissions are completed while the artwork submissions are still being accepted. She displayed some of the different art submissions and some of the elements that were found in multiple submissions. Gunnar Carlson stated that his area was focus groups and interviews, reporting that he was able to complete eight interviews and three focus groups with participants ranging in age from eight to 70 and equal representation from men and men and different ethnicities. He reviewed the nine questions that he designed to be fairly open and up to the interpretation of the person answering to identify general themes. He identified some obstacles to engagement that he encountered including the pandemic, lack of past relationships, and lack of support from stakeholders. He stated that people value the parks as places to meet and gather with other community members and want the parks to strengthen local community bonds as opposed to attracting non-residents to visit the community. He commented that residents repeatedly identified that they feel heard by the City, organizations value the working relationship with the City, and a parent talked about the positive experience of the community build days at Spooner Park. Kyle Franta stated that the online survey was available in English, Spanish, and Hmong languages.