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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPark Board Minutes 11.07.2013 City of Laurel Park Board Minutes From Thursday, November 7, 2013 In attendance were Mark Mace, Chuck Dickerson, LuAnne Engh, Amy Pollock, Penny McSweyn and Gretchen Paulson. Jolene Reick, Peaks to Plains Designs, Kurt Markegard from Public Works also attended. Called to order at 5:38pm. 1. Public comment: No public participation 2. Update on the meeting for the County property swap on East Maryland (Mark) Mark talked with Tim Bronk and other regarding the county land. To make improvements, there is city sewer and city water access nearby. Walking surfaces from the park meeting up to current city sidewalks would be a priority. Also, creating a safe parking lot and walking trails within the new land would be a low cost improvement with rather immediate results. The school district would like to see 6 tennis courts at the location while some groups are interested in making a dog park. 3. Signage on the donate park property on the big ditch on W 12th Street (Kurt) Kurt would like to put Park sign names on all the city park property. He is looking into recycled material signs with routering out the words from the material (similar to the Kids Kingdom sign). This recycled material would have a 20 - 30 year life expectancy. The metal signs only have a life expectancy of 3 -4 years due to weather and sun exposure. He is specifically looking to make a "Lois & Jake Burnhart Parkway" sign on the property against the big ditch on W 12th Street. Kurt would also like to purchase yellow caution PARK signs within 1 block of each park. There is currently money in the Parks budget for $200 each for yellow caution signs. Chuck insisted that the parks should have bathroom facilities, especially when sports teams are using the fields. Otherwise children must relieve themselves within the park itself and it becomes a hazard. Chuck also suggested to put the Murray Heights park name sign on the Pump station building. Kurt said the signs for park names can come out of this fiscal year budget. The caution yellow signs can come out of next fiscal year budget. 4. PMD Questionnaire returns and update (Jolene) Peaks to Plains Design Jolene reviewed the Laurel Citizen Survey results with us and briefly talked about the slides. First of all, the Laurel citizens should be proud of themselves! 45% of the surveys were completed and returned. 10% is a normal participation rate on a mail survey; 30% participation is needed to be statistically valid. At 45 %, we have a very high confidence level of the results show what the majority of citizens want. Main take -aways from the survey: • the citizens want to dispose of possible land /parks that only 2% of the population use. Would improvement at these locations be appreciated or noticed by the majority of citizens? • Satisfaction is quite low on our current outdoor pool. • Frequent park users are less satisfied with the current parks. • We need more parks for teens (15 -24) and older citizens 65+ • Jolene suggested we should go into the High School and quiz /survey a focus group on what they would like to see in parks. Ask what they want; frisbee golf, open spaces, trees. Ask Senior citizens what they want; maybe walking paths, benches, bathrooms? • The underserved group is walkers, runners and cyclist. It was mentioned in the many open comments " we have enough organized sports ". • The citizens do not want the first monies spent on tennis courts, based on the bubble slide on page 5. • We should maintain what we have, dispose of parks we do not use and have fewer higher quality parks. Tax rate sensitivity: $115 per year per household is a good amount for good parks, this would be $25 per year per household than currently paying. The additional tax should be used specifically for maintenance or improvements - not acquiring new parks. If we asked for additional taxes between $10- $20 extra taxes, we would get support. After $25 we loose support and it would likely not pass. Citizens want to keep the parks with Public Works, not have a new city department for parks. They also do not want outside city limits to be included in the "city" parks, this is a local vs regional park question. Key themes of the voluntary comments section: • More garbage cans are needed in the parks and the one there need to be dumped more. Why are not more garbage cans available? Kurt said non -city trash is continuously dumped and fills the cans. The public should become more aware of the non -city trash dumping issue. • Additional lighting would help prevent crime at Kids Kingdom. Kurt said since additional lights were added, there are positive results are happening and no issues reported. • Citizens are unhappy with the outdoor pool. Kurt said the state law changed and the YMCA is adhering to and implementing those new rules. This again should be communicated to the public. • Amy suggested we get various churches with teenagers in the spring to clean up the parks The Park Board needs a well laid out strategy for the Park District before we can put it to a vote. We don't want to take the time with a mail ballot and not have a strategy that is well communicated with the citizens. We should be able to say "The monies raised with the additional tax with pay for X, Y, and Z. The Budget for a Parks FTE would be $X. The improvements we will make are as follows: #1 A, #2 B." Next steps: put a Town Hall meeting together quickly to share these results with the public. Amy will create a draft of a flyer. LuAnn and Gretchen will distribute throughout city and schools. Finally, Jolene will help us get a full plan of parks and all our current amenities. This can be done in stages with the help of Girl Scouts or Boy Scout troops adding all the trees, benches, tables, etc in each park. This will allow us to analize the gaps in our park structure within a 1/4 mile of most parks. Advertise for the Townhall with flyers made by Amy, LuAnn or Gretchen, to be printed by the city and distributed by LuAnn and Gretchen. Reader boards by Rapid Tire, flyers posted at the schools and on Facebook should get the word out for the townhall. City Hall, Council Chambers, Monday, December 2 at 7pm. Discussed the value that could be assessed and the 5 ways of assessing it: by lot square foot, flat fee, tax valuation, linear square foot, or front road size. An average size city lot is in the 6000 to 7000 sq ft size, knowing that the 6000 sq foot size is most common (41% of lots). Three categories for rating the fee: residential, commercial and industrial. One example: If we had a tax of $0.0025 per square ft on the residential lot this would raise $64,000 annually. Residential Commercial Industrial Total 0.0025 0.0025 x 1.5 0.0025 x 2 $64,000 $30,000 $21,000 $115,000 /year less the FTE (full time employee) costs of $75,000 /year leaves $35,000 /yr for parks. Another example: if we had a flat fee per lot $32.45 per lot for all residents, commercial and industrial would equal $115,000. This would be a great benefit to the commercial and industrial business lots, but it is outside of the acceptable increase on the top side of $20 additional tax for parks. If we charged a flat fee of $25 /lot this would equal $88,000 /year. In this example, Kalispell was mentioned as using this method. They started with a flat fee to supplement the general fund budget their parks received. Eventually, they were able to move away from the supplementation. When asking for the bond to pass, could we ask the city to match or more the funds raised by the additional tax? This would help to guarantee the funds raised and matched funds are dedicated for parks and not part of the general fund. This matching of funds may help the citizens realize the city is strongly supporting improvements to our parks. 5. Other items Kurt Markegard from Public Works brought an issue for us to discuss. He said he was contacted by an adult football team that is looking to have their season games held in Laurel. The games would be at the High school football stadium. The group wants to be able to have a Beer Garden in the handicap parking lot next to the stadium. The football team season is April, May and June. Kurts issue was that the current Park permit fee is $25 -$30. He wanted us to discuss the issue of having a Beer Garden next to the high school, the permitting fee and how this will impact the parks. This item will be held for discussion at the December 5 Park Board meeting. Philys Braumgard from the Lyons Club wants to put up some birdhouses in the Lyons Park at South Pond. She says by putting up the birdhouses it may attract other birds to the area and it would be a nice addition for those visiting the park. The birdhouses would be put up away from the normal traffic pattern of the park to limit the interference kids may have with the birdhouses. The board recommended for Philys to talk with Kurt Markegard from Public Works to determine how this would impact the park structure. The Park Board meeting adjourned at 7:15pm. Submitted by Gretchen Paulson, Park Board member.