Good evening. Since it's 06:30, we will call to order this meeting of the Dilworth Park Board, 09/10/2025. Seeing no guests in attendance, we will do roll call. We will start out to the right. Lynn Park. Lyle Currante. Jerica Lyon. Andrew Randall. Nathan Dix. Melanie McEllen. Tim Dollison. Amber Borah. Nate's here for staff. Alright. Next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda for tonight. Has anyone we'll give everyone a second to look through that. And if we are are okay with the agenda,
I will take a motion to approve the agenda. This is Nate. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. This is Lyle. I'll second that motion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Moving on. Next item on the agenda tonight is the approval of the minutes from 07/09/2025. I'll make a motion to approve them. Hold. I'll second. Any discussion on the minutes? If not, I will entertain a motion Well, I'll second. To approve the minutes. You're good. Yeah. I'll make the motion to, approve them as they are written.
I'll second, Lead Park. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That brings us on to the next item on the agenda tonight, discussion of the tree lighting event at Whistle Stop Park on roughly December 2. That's right, mister chair and members of the park board. Thank you. So we are enjoying the lovely weather outside, but we know it's gonna turn here soon enough, which means upcoming is our upcoming tree lighting event that we've held the past three years now. It's been a, I think, a big success overall.
Mhmm. Right? You know, we're trying to get out, promote our parks, you know, and encourage community spirit and all those things. And with it being September, our next meeting will not be until November, and, this will lead right into our event. So if we hold with the same schedule, I just didn't wanna confirm with everybody. I think we had, you know, kinda penciled in. And going forward from here after the first year, we were just gonna do that first Tuesday following Thanksgiving and there on whenever that may fall.
And so this year, it would you say it is December 3, I think, is what you said it was, or second. Second. Second. Yep. So yeah. So we're looking forward to that event again this year. And I think I put in there the minutes from the meeting following last time recapping the event and made some notations and things of that time. But as Angela and staff begin to work on that, along with the subcommittee, that normally handles this. We just wanted to open it up for park board discussion, see if there's anything else that you would like to consider for this year's event,
if there is any modifications we need to make or if we don't feel like such and such work in years past are not getting the traction that it should. We can look to eliminate it, whatever that may be. So with that said, I'll open it up for discussion, mister chair. And if anyone has a point to make, just raise your hand so we can make sure we pick it up on the mic, please. Thank you. Did we Amber? Did we end up checking the school calendar? It says in the notes you were gonna check the activity calendar with the school to see if that I can look right now.
It's a good question. Here you go. Peyton? Yeah. And I know we talked about the school calendar a little bit last year, and I know we also said we're always gonna find something that's on the way. Right? You know? Say church is Wednesday night. I I don't know. So we can I think we can pick it to death too? And so I think that was why I was originally just said Tuesday that day, just roll with it. And if it but, I mean, if there's something pressing on there, I don't know what would I mean, if there's a ball volleyball game, I don't know if that would be a reason not to host it or whatever. I'm only seeing,
dance practice Oh, there we go. For December 3. Second. Second. Sorry. I'm looking at the old one. There's a lot going. There's Mhmm. Basketball. Last year. A lot of basketball. It looks like it's just basketball for junior high, GV, varsity, and then it's a freezy. And dance practice. And dance practice. And dance practice. They're all away? Yep. Yeah. I mean It is. Yeah. It is. You're gonna have them or you're not. And if it's away, then it's not really I mean, the die hards go. You know the ones that are following the kids go. Oh, and
this is Lyle. Do you have a Lynn? Yeah. Face it. I would just like to encourage that we keep, thinking ahead of someone who makes a difference in Dolores to do the lighting ceremony. I know we kinda went to the chief of police last time or anyway, we we kinda had run out of time to pick someone, but I think that's a nice way to honor people that make a difference. Do you have any suggestion, Lynn? Not not today, right now. I just wanna see that moving forward. Absolutely. There's a lot of people that Mhmm. Quietly make a difference.
I'll think about it. Sounds good. I know something I think we brought up last year's, can we move that hot choc just to kind of free up the depot a bit. Because with the hot chocolate, the was it the food in there and some of the kids stuff that got really congested? Is there a way we can send and I know that I think the PD was kind of didn't really like it last year when we brought it up. But can we put the hot chocolate outside, or do we put that towards, like, the sleigh ride somewhere in there? Could we get, like, a little tent or something just to free up the depot? Because that gets clustered,
to put it mildly. I think even out by where we set all the fire pits to, I mean, out in there in that area would be another spot to have. The s'mores station is? Well, I mean, we set up a table that that we had all the s'mores stuff. Right, Derek? I don't know. I just had to decide mostly, so I don't yeah. And you have to buy some tables out there to eat. Chocolate. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Was that even something they have just a little I'm thinking of, like, these at the bison tailgates, like a little pop up. I have, like Tinted with the little sides on.
Locker room? Can we drop them? Yeah. I mean, they can stand in there. Yeah. Just to get out of the wind, if nothing else, just to free up the depot somehow. Yeah. I agree. I've forgotten about that, but that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Or you could you know, if they don't wanna stand outside, you could have pulp thermoses that you just go help yourself to hot chocolate. Yeah. Pre make it premake it. Put it in a way. Any discussion on the events or anything that we should do differently that way from last year? I think last year this Lyle I think last year,
how we adjusted the wagon rights from the first year worked really good. It worked a lot. I mean, they weren't driving out on Highway 10 or anything. They were in the neighborhoods. And, so I think that was a good improvement. I do think that, yeah, having a tent with the hot chocolate, whether there's somebody there or they can serve themselves, would be, like, here's that and then the fire pits, and then over here's the s'mores station. That would kinda work a lot better, and then it would also free up for inside where there because I went in there a couple of times, and, yeah, it was pretty packed and crowded with people eat. And then the people wanting to decorate too at the other end,
they were getting kinda squished. So I think it would kinda spread it out more. So I agree with that suggestion. Nate? I was just reading this last one at the bottom, saying adding an activity that would get people moving. I don't remember who brought that up. Maybe have any, like Well, if you had more stations, people would move around. Maybe the having the hot chocolate gets them to move to another level. They have to go to another spot. Or does it help them just from kinda congregating that same area? So not all by the depot, just in the front, so they're kinda spread out a little bit more. Yeah. Mhmm.
And I think we could totally play with some that park's big enough. We can move things around a little bit. A lot of it depends on the weather, which is always unpredictable, which we found out. It's too bad you can't count on a skating rink, so there's that activity, but you just can't. No. Yeah. Oh, this is Kyle again. From the first year to the second year, last year, I I don't know if it was you, Lynn, or not, but how they coordinated with the carolers to, the time they were caroling and how long, that worked out a lot better where they weren't all crammed in the depot too. So that worked out a lot nicer.
You know, they came out and sang by the locomotive and tender and, then went around, you know, for the actual lighting. So I like how that was improved from the first year to the second also. So, but I don't I honestly don't know if that was, like, Angela making a call to them or what. I can't remember right now. But I do like that that was done Yes. So that they they knew that, okay. Show up. Do this. And and not and not just all run-in there and hide, and then come out five minutes of singing and then bam, we're gone. So because people do enjoy listening to them.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that Sure. That's something that should continue. What I don't know about the wagon rides. So does anyone know is it popular still enough to continue it? I honestly have no idea because I didn't pay attention to it, but I mean, it's one of the biggest expenses out of the event. So if it's something that people are liking and still doing, I think we should do it. But Listen, Lyle, I know from the first two years that people really enjoyed it and went and did it, but that's something maybe we can
all kinda keep an eye out towards, you know, is it, you know, really as much, you know, as it seems. But the people who do do it did enjoy it both years. But Yeah. I think last year, I remember they they were going all the way till the end. I mean, they had Yeah. They had loads of people going all the way till the end. So I feel like it it's well utilized. Even when it's cold. Yeah. Mhmm. Even when it's cold. And this might be a better pass or question for Peyton. How far out do we have to book them? Is it something that the subcommittee could kinda discuss a little bit and maybe collaborate
Yeah. I I don't know if you answered that. I know Angela typically reaches out to him around this time, just put him on their calendar with it being, you know, a little less than three months away. Not that they have a lot of requests to bring bring gear out or horses out for carriage rides in the middle of the week. You know? But is it even something just thinking here a little bit? Could we have that subcommunity? And we'll get through this in a second. Just discuss it for a couple weeks and then put an arbitrary date by the first end of September October 1.
We have something finalized for that. And also, she can reach out to the group, and they'll tell us Yeah. And you have pretty good utilization here as well. Absolutely. Is there something else you wanna do instead of wagon ride, or is there a concern with money or just no. Just wondering. Yeah. Yeah. And my personal take on this, and if you have anybody else at the, point on this, they can disagree, I would leave it up to the subcommittee. Let them handle it. Mhmm. Come up with that idea and see if they put their heads together, do they have something better? Because it's always fun trying to think right now. Okay.
You're on the spot. What's available this time of year? And you get out of here, and then at least I know my brand's, like, 20 things they're thinking about. Also, being on the subcommittee for three years now, we need other people to give ideas. Like, I'm out of ideas. So I don't know. Or is that where we get these new park board members involved? I mean, it's I was just thinking about that. I'm looking to help, but I need some rules to look some ideas up before I come up with them. Who's on the subcommittee? We haven't decided that yet. Oh. We'll get there. Any other discussion a little bit on it at some point.
Yeah. At this point, do we have any other discussion on things, or should we just go ahead are we okay just forming a subcommittee and kind of going that way? I think we got enough to go off of, but just kinda see maybe they have a different idea because everything else is has been good. Do we look at the wagon rides, or do we see something else that might draw people out? Lyle? Well, like what Lynn was mentioning earlier, we always thought, you know, it's very contingent on a lot of weather to have it where people can skate. You know? It's like, okay. The rink's there.
You can come and skate if you wanna skate. And, but that's the thing you can't guarantee everybody, but that was okay. It's there. It's handy. We can incorporate that as in as one thing. But with it being so iffy, you don't really know until the week before if that's gonna be available or not. So Yeah. They typically don't. Yeah. And I would that until, like, Christmas. Yeah. Christmas break, typically. Yeah. It's after our event that they actually court. Yeah. Okay. Good point. I didn't remember that. Any other discussion on the whistle stop tree lighting park event?
Peyton? The last comment I was gonna make regarding the hot chocolate, not that I wanna overthink hot chocolate here, but maybe we'll check on I think maybe a trailer would be the best bet if we're gonna do something instead of getting a tint. You know? So I think of, like, what the lady lines have at local days set up, something like that that they could work out of. So we'll look into that and see if that's a possibility. I know they like to be inside. Obviously, you know, but, we just need a bigger building. That's the biggest problem. Right?
That's another discussion. Yeah. One day. Any further discussion? Alright. Hearing none, I will entertain There's no notion to entertain. We'll just kind of We'll just pick or see who would like to serve on the subcommittee. Yeah. If anyone just kind of volunteer for that, that's all we need to do. If we have any volunteers, just raise your hand. Tim? Melanie, guys. Melanie? Anybody else? Angela told me that I was volunteered. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. Sounds good. Yep. So let Tim, Melanie, and Jerica subcommittee this.
You guys can kinda come up with some events. If you guys need anything from the rest of us, by all means, reach out. We're all here to work together too. Alright. Moving on to the next settlement of discussion, the pause in the park event tomorrow. Thank you, mister chair. So we're about twenty four hours away now, a little less than that from our second or this will be our third year? Third year. Third year. Yeah. Our third annual. I guess, Paul's that's right. Last year was the first year over there. Our third annual now, I guess, we can say Paul's in the Park event,
this time at Whistle Stop again. And really excited about tomorrow's event. We're hoping that we have a solid turnout. You never know until the day of the event. Last year, I think we had a pretty decent showing, all things considered, And we're pretty spread out and everything. I like having the farmers market out there, tomorrow night, so we know we'll have a little bit of camaraderie already in place. You can see up on the screen sort of all the different events or different booth setups that will be going on,
and they were able to secure the Kori races through I can't whatever whatever the group is. Kori group. And, I think that will be because we start this at 06:00 tomorrow. Right? Pause and parts up at six. Yeah. I believe the Corey races will start at 06:30, so tell all your friends. So we're, yeah, looking forward to a fun event. I know last year, we got a little bit of feedback that individuals were, you know, you know, it's a little spread out, which is fine.
And, also, to direct more I I had a lot of feedback from people. They wish they knew about the dog park, the pop up dog park on the North Side, which we had a sign out there. Kept blowing over, so who knows what the wind situation is gonna look like tomorrow. But as far as I know I put in the staff report, you know, assigning duties. I'm not really sure we had a ton of duties at this last year. Obviously, just having the presence there is the most important thing. And having your park board T shirts on, I think, is a good touch for everything. I've got my own
city information table for MS 4 that I have to set up for a while. And, you know, I think we'll as long as we have one person at the pop up, dog park station, I'm not sure if we'll need many other. I know we'll have some people, like, maybe checking the water bowls, things like that. We'll have those stationed out there, filling them up back up with water if need be. And I think a lot I don't I can't remember if we I don't know if we have any prizes this year as far as you know, we did something for the first 50 people that came in last year.
I know. Yeah. I handled it. Yeah. You hand yep. You helped hand out those. But Angelo is gonna be there too. So if we need to put you somewhere too, we can certainly do that. But, yeah, we're looking forward to the event. We also have a later edition that is gonna be joined then. It's an individual that does dog photography. So she'll be there on-site as well, have a little thing set up to grab photos, professional photos, I guess,
of their of everyone's animal out there. So we're excited about the opportunity, and hopefully, we can get some dogs microchipped as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And I would like to thank the subcommittee that helped with this one, which I apologize. I won't remember without looking. Who was on that subcommittee? I know you guys did a good job with that. There's like three emails. Yeah. I was like, yeah. Sounds good to me. Yeah. Yeah. Angel. Yeah. Well, no. That looks that looks good. Is there anything that we have to get there early for, Peyton? I don't think so. You know, maybe I think most of this will be set up.
I mean, a lot of this is their own vendor vendors, right, doing their own thing. But I know maintenance will be out there as far as getting things set up and having some tables delivered for us. But, no, I think it's k. I think it was pretty low maintenance event, actually. Yeah. I know for myself, I will be coming straight from work, so I'll try to get there as soon as I can. Yep. If you have the pet hat, make sure it's on a leash. Amber? I did talk to the four love of dogs. They are asked if we could maybe have two tables for them just in case because they weren't sure how many people. So that's just something I said I would look into.
Sounds like they have some puppies. So people love puppies. Sounds I was excited about that, but she said that, she was yeah. She just wanted enough space for her stuff and then people to sit down. So I don't know if that's possible. So just one told her we'd look into it. And it does start at six. Correct? Yes, ma'am. I think Lynn had her hand up as well. You have l lions club with the food. Is that inside your community center or not in front of it? I'm not sure. Because in front of it, you still have the market. Right. I I I would assume it's inside. That's right.
Because she has it. Right? And it it could be along. That's what I was assuming, but I wasn't sure. Because, do y'all set up on even that part of the sidewalk to Well, when everybody's there, it extends All the way over. Past the building. Little bit. Yeah. But I don't know. And it's just hot dogs. I think they can move it around if need be, and that they'll we'll figure it out. Yeah. Well, I think the barbersmart will be there first, so they'll see where they need it. Yeah. Absolutely. It'll be good. Absolutely. No. Just make sure you wear your shirts, and let's plan for another good event. Next item on the discussion is the playground equipment at the new community center.
Thank you, mister chair and members of the park board. I wanted to just this is more so just a kickoff conversation, think piece, we'll call it, that we're gonna be doing with the parkboard with the new community rec center. We're in the design phase right now of it, and one of the features of this facility will be an indoor playground. And the hope is that this facility is much more purposeful than our last community center,
which was only a, you know, a banquet hall. That's really all it was. People rented out for events, and that was about it. So we want something that's open pretty much every day of the week during the wintertime, give people an opportunity to go in and have a walking path, we'll say. It's not a track or anything, but at least indoor walking and some smaller meeting rooms and spaces and dividable walls and all of that and activity space. So you can see right here this,
the space right here that I'm circling kinda right in the middle of the facility. This is what it's slated to be. And, again, this is all subject to change. You know, I just wanna point that out, or the architects want me to stress that multiple times, that this is all subject to change, as they're working through things. But the original the there's a plan right now that we're playing with is having a 35 by 35 rooms plus or minus something along that size, to house this equipment. And so the reason why I was coming to the park board is just to,
you know, start the dialogue, get your mind thinking what kind of amenities or equipment would you like to see inside. But just to give you a sneak peek of maybe what the inside of the community center will look like down the hallway space, so call this prefunction space right here. And there's a lot of subtleties, drawbacks to the the train culture of the community. So things will kinda match, like, an old style depot or train station type feel, and there's some other added features. So, you know,
that's always a possibility as you're thinking about certain types of equipment. I did put a picture in of what they have over at the Rust Ed Center in West Fargo. This gets great utilization, obviously. And part of the whole community center conversation that's we're gonna have to have a whole other task force, we'll call it, that's gonna have to make these determinations as far as how items are gonna be priced out and what's the cost gonna be to utilize this facility. I don't foresee this necessarily just being a walk right in free of charge type
deal like a typical park would be. So here at the Rustic Center, I I know you get punch cards and things like that, but I wanna say if you just go in for a drop in visit, and I might be wrong on this, but pretty sure RedRise, I think it's $5 to go there for any user of the facility itself. And you can see it's not your typical flooring either. These pieces of equipment can cost quite a bit of money, and I'll get into sort of the cost of this in just a little bit. But a I don't know if you remember when like,
Chris is the guy's name, the salesman who's been to a couple of our meetings before when we've looked at other equipment. He'll tell you once you go beyond the typical wood chips that we do, if you're doing, like, a padded area, indoor, outdoor, it generally doubles the cost. That's what you account for normally. I had a quick question. Do you know how big that room is? I don't. K. I'd Fairly. It. Yeah. I'd it, and, it's much larger than 35 or larger than 35 by 35, but I'm taking it with a grain of salt. Right. And, because and and kinda get to your what you're asking right there.
So this right here, this space that you're or this equipment right here that you see, this is actually something that was just done, and Angela told me right before, I wanna say Rochester, maybe. Anyway, they have their own indoor playground facility. And lo and behold, the the space that this area that it takes up because, you know, you have to have that it's not just the equipment itself. You know, you have to have that circle Safety. Safety area all around it. It was like a 31 by 31 space Okay. To fit in all of this equipment that they're putting in at their facility.
So it's it's somewhat relative in size, to what we would be playing with there. I guess that brings me to my next question, Peyton. Obviously, I know this is all subject to change, but ceiling height? Correct. Yep. And, yes. And that's been discussed with the architects already. They're well aware of that that they're making it tall enough to support it 18 feet to my head, but I don't know if that's right. Okay. I heard so many numbers from them. Does it mention anything on these, on height? No. I don't know if on that one necessarily. Again, though, very preliminary at this time.
The they're gonna make it high enough to fit in equipment. You know, that would be the goal, obviously. So, yeah, again, I just wanted the park board to start thinking, more you know, again, no determination has to be made at this time. So this equipment that was just put in or or we got a quote for it, like, if you were to put it in today here, I believe it was a that's a little over a $50,000 system that goes in. In addition to that, you got, you know, installation calls that go into it. So So in total,
it's about a $115,120,000 dollar project, and that includes the flooring inside as well. So the architects the reason why we're really kind of spurring all this conversation right now is, obviously, we're getting into the really deep into design, but I have a biweekly meeting with the architectural firm seeing where they are and everything. We were talking about this space, and Mhmm. They were going through, like, different line items, and one of them was the playground room, this activity room there. And,
they're asking me, you know, kinda what we thought it would look like or how, what the cost of something. They had no idea. Like, we don't know if we should put down $15,000 and, like, nope. And or if they should put in $115,000. I'm like, yeah. It's probably gonna be we'll probably budget a 150,000 plus or minus. That'd be my guess. And lo and behold, that's what the numbers came up with. I thought one of the cool things about this space, if you can see here in the activity room you know, so these are dividable slide sliding doors right here that can come across and be
divided into multiple, like, three pickleball courts. That's what they're size four right there. But it can also be set up in a debatable situation to where you can open up these doors right here and have this entire area. So if someone's hosting a birthday party or something like that, want to do a private rental for it, we think it will get great utilization in Yeah. That regard. Mhmm. That from your pictures there, that looked like a pretty good setup to put in a place like that. You know, you know, give or take a thing here or there, but it looked like that's good in the middle of the room.
You got your buffer around, so we're, like, pretty good deal there. I wanna say AI told me this was, like, 70 foot. I was gonna say it looks pretty big. Yeah. Like, seventy five fifty or something. I don't know if it was quite that big, but but, yeah, pretty pretty sizable. It is. It's a big And and I don't know where it's measuring from. It's a little deceiving too because, you know, that's accounting for the track area too, probably up top and so a few other spaces. But, yeah, it is. It's a very sizable area down there.
Is that something Peyton that in the future would be coming out of a park board budget if we put the playground equipment? I think it'll no. I don't think so. I think it'll just be all part of the project itself. Just trying to think. I have a little bit here. Yeah. Start saving now. That'd be a yeah. That'd be a couple of just a budget right there. That really is. I'm not gonna say no either. Yeah. And, ultimately, it's the council's budget to make that determination. But, hopefully, we'll wrap that in. It's all part of the project itself. That'd be the idea. You know, we get bid out at the same time. Mhmm. But that'll be a really cool feature, I think.
Oh, would most absolutely. I believe we'll get a lot of utilization. Oh, yeah. It's now. Definitely. Yeah. I think I think it's something, actually. Because you have Holly, Linda. I mean, there's nothing on that side. I have friends in Holly, and they don't have places to go anywhere. So, like, like, I think they just opened something in Holly's and bouncy house place, but they're always looking for indoor. And I don't I don't think that $5 a person is, you know, is astronomical, you know, to go for something like that. And then That's pretty fair. Correct. And not that we're making that decision tonight,
Lyle, but I think, you know, I'd mentioned that we'll we're probably gonna have to set up some sort of ad hoc committee set by the council to evaluate the fee structure of this facility, what it can be rented out for and everything. So we'll probably look to put a part board member or two on that at that time just to get your input and feedback You know, if we're gonna do punch cards and other things. And we have other details to work out too as far as a lot of details, like, if the hours will be open and other things too. Absolutely. Well,
looks good. Yeah. We're excited about that. Any timeline? Yes. So what? Yeah. No. It's good. Years. No. No. Alright. No good question. So our intent is to wrap up design this year and with hopes of having it bid out in the winter over the wintertime. So they should start construction spring twenty six, maybe be open by '27. So less than two years. It should be functional, we're hoping. Yeah. Yeah. So very accelerated timeline with all of this,
which is great. It's great. You know, we're collecting our sales tax dollars now, and people want to see a return on that investment. So we're doing well on our sales tax collection. And, yes, council is kind of evaluating from a bonding standpoint what that's going to look like here in the year, budgeting for that accordingly. And we're in a pretty good place. The city's done a very nice job of, setting itself up to have some money in the coffers to help, you you know, put a decent down payment on all this. So we're really excited about it.
Is the city gonna move its office over there? I see you had an office space. No. Okay. For generally running the center and Yeah. So what you see here, you have just the and this is a really small room right there. What we were thinking this would be is just almost like an ability to walk over walk over there, but just go over there, have a setup where you could go plug in a computer or whatever it is if you had to have someone in there for the time being. But to answer your question in full, we don't know what it's gonna look like. We don't know about staffing this building. Are we gonna have to have someone there all the time?
And, also, right here in this area, this little prefunction space is like a little welcoming center thing. We'll call it a a little desktop that you'd have a volunteer at, hopefully. The volunteers are more my liking, but an employee, whatever there that's, you have to have somebody there. You know, I think if we're gonna have this facility open at all times. So, yeah, we're really excited about the possibilities of it. Mhmm. Alright. Well, moving on. Existing park reports. We'll start with one and kind of work our way around. Apple Orchard still has the same questions we had last time we talked as far
as what to do about the I see they sprayed the volleyball courts, but they left the dead weeds there, but so it's still not pretty, but so that's still there for follow-up. And because this is my last day on the Park Board, question is who wants to take over being a liaison for the farmers market? If that continues in the future, there needs to be someone that can help them with those questions. So that needs to be assigned. And then somebody else can take over Apple Watch. I obviously live next to it, so I take care of it somewhat.
But Any members wanna volunteer to be a liaison for the farmers market? And that decision doesn't have to be made. Now we can make it. Okay. That's all I have. Alright. Lyle? For Elmtree, got rid of all the me and my wife went there. We got rid of all the free growing trees that were everywhere. Got them all done. I went down with that monster root, and so that's okay. We did a lot of thistle pulling. I used some of my own Roundup to get rid of some of the thistles. But like she was saying, does that city guy that we have who mows does he have spray thistle spray
where he can spray in there? The city guy. We don't have one? Because that's the other thing. When I was there today checking on it to see, Jim, who used to be on the city, the main council with you and that, he was there, and he was actually mowing it. Yeah. He loves it. So he was out there mowing away on it. So, stopped and chatted with him for a little bit. We cleaned up pretty good the small flower bed, but there's a few there. And then the bigger one, the three surviving flowering bushes are okay, but there's thistles who are in there. And I didn't know,
one, if the guy could go and spray them, or, two, if they have the chemical in the sprayer, and I'd pick it up and spray it myself. But I'd like to keep those killed down. And do we have this guy for the parks that was gonna be That's a whole other discussion. So that's he's not available. Didn't say that. This is a whole other discussion. Oh, okay. But I can't answer your question. Wait. I don't think we can hand over chemicals to have you out and spray. We appreciate you volunteering to do that, but I think there's certain, requirements that we can adhere to with that. So if you could get in there and spray the thistle down,
that would be really nice. Otherwise, everything else there is getting pretty well taken care of and done up. So that's all I have. Jerica? I have nothing to report. I haven't made it to my parks. My parks, it's been a couple weeks. I don't have anything new on that. Yeah. Same thing with Cottonwood. I was there last month. Didn't really see anything crazy. Picked up some garbage. Okay. Melanie? Birchtree looks good. They fixed the little window and the other basketball hoop and stuff from last time. Pine Tree, so when you walk up to the park, it has this,
like, square, new garbage. But the the little sidewalk is just caked with dirt and leaves, and I think it needs to be sprayed off. Otherwise that was okay. Woodchip stuff, of course, needs to be filled in like always, but other than that It almost needs a redesign over there. Yeah. I think there's there's some good space there that we could utilize. Take out all the cement and put in grass maybe. Yeah. Or another piece of equipment. Or take out all those weeds and make it a sandbox. Or maybe I mean,
a lot lot of cats might come, but it may be something else. Alright. Tim? Walnut, is looking good. Looking back at some of my notes, the graffiti on the back of the sign was, removed. There is a little bit of graffiti on the concrete picnic table there. I can't tell if it looks like it's been tried to remove and it was and it failed or if it was graffiti was put on a spot that was already cleaned. People have been drawing on that concrete picnic table. The springs from the broken equipment were removed, so they're not there anymore.
But then that just that leaves one less thing for the park. Just to chime in, no. After the, we got something ordered, like, the next week after our meeting, it just takes a long time to get in. So there is something coming? I think it's supposed to be here next week, actually. Okay. It'll be installed next week. Is it the same thing? Just being replaced? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Alright. That's I think that's all we were looking for was just a replacement. Yeah. It's like a twelve week lead time. And then, in the open field spot, half of the park, there's a bush or a tree that's popped up that's pretty well established.
It looks like it's in a little low spot where a tree used to be. I don't know if it was planted on purpose or if it popped up. It hasn't been mowed over. So, flowering, blooming, doing well. So I don't know if that stays there or not. It's it's in the middle of the open area. So if people were playing, like, football or catch or something, it would kinda be in the way. So I don't know if that is fine to stay or not. It looks nice. Otherwise, I looked around, and everything else looks like it's still in good working order, the benches, the equipment.
So it looks good. Alright. Amber? I went over to Whistle Stop. It looks good. I was didn't really see anything concerning. I think it's ready to go for tomorrow. There was a couple pieces of garbage, but that's I don't know if that happens. So maybe when I get over there tomorrow, I will double check to make sure all the garbage is picked up. But on that, it looks good. This is Tim. I forgot to mention one more thing. In Walnut, there is a little box on a pole that looks like it used to be a kind of a book library thing,
but that has trash in it. There's leaves. There's junk in it. It's kinda rotting away. There's three books in there that nobody should touch. I don't know if it's worth replacing or fixing up. I don't know if it's even was it put there by the parks? It was not. It was actually put there by a Is that Girl Scout? Yeah. I think the Girl Scouts did that. It was a Girl Scout? Yeah. Yeah. That's been there for a while. Pretty good while ago. I'm gonna guess, like, 2015 or so is when they did that. It wasn't long after I moved here. And, yeah, that's unfortunate.
If we wanna keep it, it definitely needs to be fixed up. Otherwise, it probably should be removed at this point because it's just kind of in the way, and it's an eyesore. And it nobody's using it. Yeah. A little library. My kids are excited. They opened it, and then they shut it. Yeah. Alright. Council liaison report. Amber? I don't have much. I was trying to think. I don't know. Is there anything that we've discussed that's park board related lately? No. We're continuing to work with the Lutheran church a little bit, and we reviewed that application last meeting.
So just still ongoing discussions with them at this time, but nothing really to report. Yeah. What about the scheduling out at Cottonwood? Because I wasn't here last Right. So meeting. But that that's all been, we, I wanna say, brokered a deal, but we connected with Community Ed. And so now they're the listing you you can go through Community Ed to reserve Cottonwood Park or the field there at Cottonwood Park. So I can't really speak to how it's doing or not doing. I'm not sure if anyone's gone through there or not. But, yeah, you can reserve it through there. Mhmm.
Do you know if they've been using it? That's what I said. I have no idea. I think some of the fall ball teams are using it for practice. K. Yep. But we don't think they're hosting any games out there, but I know they are having practices out there. It's kinda the end of the season. Well, fall ball goes fall ball goes into October sometimes. So No. I mean, the regular season? No. Yeah. The end. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. So there's not as many fall ball. Not as many fall ball teams for sure. So Alright. Well, one more thing. Oh, just wanna say thank you to, Lynn for serving for several years now on the park board.
Several, several. Several years. And so, we don't have to accept the resignation. Yeah. I'll just ask. Yeah. Just wanna be here first. Yeah. No. But thank you so much for serving and being on park board and, hopefully, still an active participant in some capacity. We still may come to you for assistance and other questions. So thank you. Yes. Thank you, Lynn. Next one. My next point. There you go. So good. Alright. With that, we will be adjourned until November 12.