The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About07-25-2024 PRF MinutesPARKS AND RECREATION AND FORESTRY COMMISSION 6:30 P.M. | JULY 25 ,2024 | MOUNDS VIEW CITY HALL MEETING MINUTES CALL TO ORDER at 6:30 PM ROLL CALL: Commissioners: Anderson, Arel, Lillemo, *Lundberg, *Palm, Mills, *Wake Wiesner Staff: Peterson | *Thomas | Szurek *to be absent APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Motion to approve by Mills, 2nd by Lillemo. Motion passed 4-0 APPROVAL OF MINUTES: June 27, 2024: Motion to approve by Lillemo, 2nd by Arel. Motion passed 4-0. PUBLIC INPUT Citizens may speak to issues not on tonight’s agenda. Before speaking, please give your full name and address. Please limit your comments to three minutes. No residents present. STAFF REPORTS Parks and Recreation – Don. Painting began at Hodges Park. Fall Program Brochure will come out next week and Fall Youth Leagues registration will open. Explore More Summer Camp has 5 more weeks and has 107% of last year’s enrollment. Seniors are looking forward to two fall trips. Pop up parks visits- hope to receive community engagement on park feedback. Community Events: Walk in the Park (8/3), Festival in the Park Penny Carnival (8/16), Community Resource Fair (9/14), Community Bonfire (9/19), Puzzle Competition (10/12), Fall festival (10/24), Turkey Bingo (11/9) Park Revenue: YTD total very similar from last year. See packet for details. Public Works – Pete: July has been very busy. Soccer fields and ball fields maintenance and prep. General maintenance: mowers, weeding, mowing, trash clean up,. Ordered playground tamarack fiber fill for the playgrounds. Most of the playgrounds need some, some need more than others. City arborist has been extremely busy with daily resident messages on ash and oak trees. If there is an ash tree in residents’ yards- residents can take it down and have the wood and store the wood. Ramsey county will take resident brush (but not city). City Hall Campus: Splash Pad has been running but a lot of components have been running down and breaking. Props to the maintenance crew for working hard to make sure it has continued to be in working condition. Greenfield park: have needed to replace two locks (one broken, one missing) Oakwood park: the field is being heavily used, if it starts to deteriorate we may have to change plans for fall soccer. There are signs designating field use by permit only. Per Arel- parking looks to be an issue- no parking signs on mailbox side might alleviate issue. Silver View Park: Hawk attacked maintenance worker that was removing buckthorn near the disc golf course. Resident also had hawk attack. Raptor center recommended carrying an umbrella or wearing a helmet near the area. The hawk is apparently trying to protect a nest. Resident put up a hawk warning sign. Off-leash dog areas: No news is good news. They are being used but no complaint. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Community Garden – Verbal Update Timothy Wood @ 2501 Sherwood road: met with Edgewood middle school teacher to look at proposed space at school for community garden. Principal, groundskeeper and teacher didn’t see a problem with community using the grounds area blocked off for community gardening. Created a survey around community gardening in the past month; so far 17 responses. Some interest in forming a committee. Responses indicated senses of inclusivity, community, space. Feedback indicated that Edgewood space may eventually be too small. Per Arel- would be interested in having a survey end date so we could gauge appropriate number of interest in gardening so we can see if Edgewood appropriate size. Pete has been reaching out to Superintendent Chris Lennox: hasn’t heard back yet. Recommendation for Wood to bring back update with survey results at commission meeting on October 24th so we can have better information to guide decisions on appropriate space. Homework for commissioners: go to Edgewood and check out sites (the currently proposed site is what is now an overgrown site. The current in use space is for students). Park Information Video – Verbal Update- Don reached out to 9-north. 9-north and staff will write the snippets for each park and bring back to commission. NEW BUSINESS Rental of Park Facilities: On July 4th there was an incident at splash pad pavilions. They alerted MVPD they would be having a festival with a large gathering of people. They had vehicles on City trails and sidewalk. They sold merchandise. They had an ice cream truck drive up on the trial. When other residents tried to use the splash pad, the group restricted residents’ use. When residents asked to turn the volume down, they treated residents disrespectfully. They also lit fireworks on the splash pad. MVPD had to respond multiple times. It overloaded staff day of and the following day for clean-up and response. They were charged damage deposit for clean up. Trail guards have been ordered- it will allow bicycles and wagons through but not a vehicle. Park takeovers is a metro-wide phenomenon that is using social media to try to take over a park, where around 300 people may show up and block use of residents or other users using the park. This incident was not related to that- but it is something else to watch out. Park Rules: Looking for update of park rules. Suggested adding no fireworks. Currently the pavilions have a 4-hour rental window- suggested verbiage to explain to residents the purpose behind the 4-hour window (to allow as many residents as possible to utilize the space) and an offer that if the resident is interested in more than 4 hours to contact staff so staff can work with them to make it work. Playgrounds (and the splash pad) are always considered open to the public- even when renting a pavilion or any park space- the playground is always open. Updated rules signs in each park would be helpful for police if/when they have to come in to deal with park activity. Posted signs at the park give the police something to point to. Festival in the Park- Verbal Update: Coming up August 16th and 17th. Friday night will be the parade (NOTE THE PARADE ROUTE HAS BEEN CHANGED). Penny carnival run by the recreation department on Friday night. Splash pad. Food trucks. Saturday: everything at silver view park. Free shuttle bus from community center to silver view. 45 crafters and vendors plan on being there. Car show will be happening. 10am safari bob. Medallion hunt. Pony rides, petting zoo. Children games. Police foundation is doing bingo. Canine demo. Car show presentation at 2. Ramsey county sheriff demonstration. SLP-B-MV fire department demonstration. Touch a truck. Fire department will spray water. 4-7 will be foam party. Raffle going on. Live music and dancing. Power of 10 is the band performing. Fireworks. Food vendors: 17 vendors and food trucks. Seniors are having yoga jenga. Bags tournament. Silver View park parking is preferred to be reserved for handicap- residents should utilize the shuttle. COMMISSIONER REPORTS Lillemo: checked out edgewood for community garden space, but will check out again. Mills: Tribute park will meet again on July 30th. Focus is fundraising. REQUESTS FOR FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS / OTHER BUSINESS Next Regular Commission Meeting: August 22, 2024 ADJOURNMENT: Adjourn at 7:32pm.