So, okay. So, Craig, how is it in beautiful Michigan? You didn't hear me. Can't hear you. Oh, barely hear you. Have to speak in your mic maybe. Oh, I got to turn my mic on then, too. Oh,
miss. Oh, Greg, how is Michigan? Can't What was that? Oh, I can I can hear Patrick really well. I can't Oh, I think I think I bumped the mic. I can't hear Steve very well. Should be
able to hear Steve now. Really? That was my bad. So, I'll say something and test that. Yeah, I got it. Okay. How's Michigan? It's okay. It's summertime down here. Yeah. You say down here. Where where in Michigan are you?
Grand Rapids. Oh, sure. Home of a lot of Dutch reform folks. Okay. Home of Amway. Call the meeting to order. It is uh about 4:50 or a little
before. And uh we have present everybody except uh Matthew who is somewhere else. And we have an agenda that's been distributed. U does anybody want to change the agenda? I uh asked that we cover the uh
uh shoreline project if he makes his report. Uh so we won't have a separate item on the agenda for that and he's already covered the bath house and recall in the report. Uh if there's no objection, the agenda will be
uh approved as distributed. Second thing is the minutes from our April 1st meeting. Um, does anybody have any additions or corrections? Nope. Hearing none, the minutes are
approved as distributed. Uh, next thing is the Sawtooth Bluffs report from the County Parks and Trails Commission. And I suspect you're Mitch Travis. That is me. Yes. Um, are we are
we get a picture of Mitch? Yeah. Well, for the stream, we'll have one. You'll have to use your own eyes live and in person. Something's happening on my screen, but I'm not doing it.
He's getting an Now, how do we You have to turn his camera on, right? No, he he's uh You'll just have to look at him. He's in a deep shadow. I'm sorry. But on
the on the live stream, we'll see him. Need a spot up close. Oh, I see. There we are. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Well, what would you like to tell us about the Sawtooth Bluffs report? Yeah. Well, first just introduce myself. My my name is Mitch
Travis. Um I've lived in Cook County almost 20 years now. Um so I'm not super familiar with everybody in Grand Marray, but I'm glad to be here today. In that case, we'll introduce ourselves. My name is Steve Aldrich. I'm the chair of this volunteer group. I've been here eight
plus years. My name is Kay Costello and I've lived in Grand Marray pretty much since 1984. Okay. Bob Ness lived up the hill. Yeah. And used to run used to run a B&B until CO cleaned us up. Gotcha.
Across the way is Paul Jones who runs the golf course for us. Uh behind you is somebody I don't know who perhaps will be introducing himself. And you know Dave Tique. and Patrick Knight. Yes. And on the board there is Craig Shelty from
the city council who is their representative to this board. So what would you like to tell us? Appreciate that. Yeah. Um yeah, so you know I recently took up this position working with Cook County Parks and Trails Commission as their parks and trails coordinator. Uh so I I do that halftime
on top of also doing other regulatory things, you know, between storm water and wetland regulation. Um so you know part of the task that the parks and trails um commission has given me is just to kind of you know get a gauge as
to where the community's at with the sawtooth bluffs projects uh project. As you know you may be aware this was something that kind of started back in about 2015 2016 uh with the whole planning phase. I I you know I know
there was planning prior to that as well but really took it up in in that kind of time frame and by about 2018 I believe forgive me if my dates are wrong but um we had the Sawtooth Bluffs project brought forth to the um Greater
Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission and they deemed it as a viable candidate for a regional park. um you know this is a combination of of city and county property that um you know we have proceeded to make this this
plan with and so just coming out of COVID you know kind of what I wanted to do was just to gauge the interest in the community from this project that had kind of sat on the shelf for a few years. Um, so yeah, you know, looking at I'm not sure. Can they see my presentation,
Patrick? Once you start presenting, it'll be okay. Um, is that that's not working right. Did I log out of the meeting? Okay, there we go. Sorry. over. There we go.
Okay, perfect. I'm an elder millennial, so it's hard for even me sometimes. Patrick, is there something we can do or you can do? Mitch, I was on the one of the original I think it we called it a consensus
group and Bill Hansen facilitated it. Okay. It was divisive back then, you know, and we were trying to work out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, arrange. So, yeah. I mean, I think I looked at this, it's just like, oh my gosh, just Yeah. I guess I'll be interested to see what
your your opinions are, but yeah, you know, it's still kind of it, depending on who you talk to, it it can be somewhat divisive still. Um, so, you know, part of you guys part of maybe kind of local recent happenings that you might be aware of. So there is that kind
of chunk up on the the western side of the park that's kind of in a dashed red line. That's the the John Chief property that's kind of been uh front page for myself as to well and other county entities just as to what's going to
happen with that. Um there's kind of that to a degree. That's the access that was kind of granted to Mr. Chief through a local court ruling. um this presentation has some kind of things that you know are relevant to to county
discussions, not necessarily this discussion. So, um and then that access route was kind of from if you can see the parking area at the top up by Old Skhill Road, that's kind of where the access would start crossing to the parcel again in the dashed red line over
there. So, um, again, things that are happening on the county youth property that we're somewhat interested in. Um, and kind of part of the reason that I'm coming here coming to you today is just to kind of discuss this process regarding the development of of Sawtooth Bluffs and what it might take. Um, just
to kind of bring everyone in the room up room up to speed. Um, so if you're looking at this flowchart that I I created, it kind of shows the process for potentially developing this in two separate ways. Uh the one on in blue on
the left side um discusses developing it kind of more at a local level without necessarily not necessarily with county and city funds but just as a project by project basis that uh local user groups
might take on. Um, so you can kind of see we could choose a piece of the park to build, design and plan that piece, and then seek approval through city and county because this is it's county property, but it's also in the city jurisdiction. So, um, you know, city
council would have to ultimately make decisions on how we would utilize that space uh alongside the county. uh so you know draft up an agreement for the use of that potential piece between city and county and we could you know apply for
grant funding through ITR DNR etc. um we get those grants awarded and ultimately hire a contractor, go through the peritting process and break ground. And you kind of see if we do that that way, then we're starting from square one with every piece. Um whereas if we kind of work as a city and county to come
towards a joint powers agreement with grammar, um we would ultimately appoint this joint powers board. Um and there's a couple of routes from there, you know, depending on how we want to do it. Um our our preferred method with the county
uh parks and trails commission would be to hire that landscape architect firm to kind of help us through that process of of planning it ultimately. Um and then we can finalize a master plan with that landscape architect. um you know very
similar to how you guys did the recck part and then you know submit that application to greater Minnesota you know ultimately hopefully achieve regional designation and then you know from there it's kind of a a quicker method of just choosing a park component
that we we had in the plan applying through for legacy dollars through greater Minnesota and then you know using that money that's received through legislation to hire a contractor, you know, put out requests for proposals to
hire a contractor and then break ground on pieces of the project. So, just kind of relevant to the conversation. Um, but I'll try to speed it up here. So, ultimately, my survey broke broke it down into nine questions um regarding the park's development and five
questions regarding uh demographics. So, one thing we wanted to know is just how fresh it was in people's minds. So, we asked the question, you know, before the survey, were you aware of the proposed Sawtooth Bluffs Regional Park? Um, and you can see I kind of broke this up into four
different demographics. And so, the top one is going to be your full-time Cook County residents that are living here greater than 180 days a year. Uh, the second line is your part-time residents less than 180 days a year. Uh, frequent visitors and occasional visitors. So you
can kind of see that, you know, a lot of the local folks did know about it, but some folks who don't spend um their entire year in the area were were a little less informed. Um yeah, so just, you know, asked the
question, how likely are you to visit or use this regional park if it's developed? I guess I should have said back at the last one that this we did get almost 400, I think it was 485 responses for this survey. So this is just kind of a breakdown of all those
responses. Um so again, you know, how likely are you you to utilize the regional park if it's developed? And so blue and green are very likely and likely. Um you can see amongst the full-time Cook County residents. It's you know over half about
56%. Um and then it kind of goes up from there. uh you know 180 day or part-time residents are going to you know almost 80% say they would and then you know again just higher from there. Um we kind of wanted to try to
quantify how important folks felt it was to develop this park this regional park in Cook County. Um so we just kind of asked the question how important do you think it is to develop a regional park in Cook County? you know, zero being least important, 10 being most
important. Um, so, you know, of the 400 some responses, you know, you could see that pretty good contingent did not feel it was important. I kind of grouped those one through three or excuse me, zero through three on the low importance
side. So you you can kind of see between medium and high importance, it it kind of comes out in the wash with a little bit of, you know, a few more of the the part-time and frequent visitors seeking more of those amenities. And feel free to stop me, ask
questions. I know that I'm kind of rambling on. Um it's what happens when you give me a microphone. So um what amenities or features would you like to see in the regional park? And we just I mean this was people could select as many as they wanted and it's just kind
of a breakdown of you know um some folks wanted none of the above. Um walking trails were typically the biggest um desired amenity and mountain bikers second in that as well as ski trails.
Um, I can't see through my screen here, but you can kind of see if you have any questions about what amenities we'd be looking for, feel free to ask. Ultimately, we'd work that out through the joint powers agreement process. Some other responses that we got um as far as interested parties
would be motorsports. A lot of folks kind of advocated for green or low impact activities, kind of things that are in harmony with nature. A lot of folks asked that we focus on housing and not this project. Um, some folks I didn't expect were kind
of people looking for winter sports, whether it be glade skiing or sledding opportunities. Um, few folks in the climbing community were interested. Um, some folks mentioned having beginner mountain bike trail areas as well as
some picnic areas. Um, you know, and again, I just kind of wanted to try to capture as many voices as possible. Um, these are some of the other amenities that were discussed. It's kind of like the option for other folks seeking the other
column. Um, and then next following up, how much do you believe the development of regional park would benefit the local community? Um, you know, kind of a that similar distribution as you got to that last question. Um, you know, people
seeing it a meteor medium or high benefit, you know, or about even with folks seeing as a low benefit, which with kind of folks that are not full-time residents seeking those amenities a little more and then just kind of had some some
concerns about the regional park that I I expected from folks. Um, one thing I neglected to include was that, you know, no concerns have having been an option, but I did get a lot of that. A lot of folks wanted to see the hillside left alone. A lot of folks felt that there
was enough recreational opportunities for folks already. Um, some gripes that this this park would be just for tourists. Um, folks concerned about safety on the Gunflint Trail or Old Skhill Road and just the amount of
traffic there. um folks were concerned about it being a cost to taxpayers. Um you know, water quality and air quality from you know, having a project on the hillside with storm water as well as campfires. Some folks were concerned
if we have um a campground there, you know, it might have air quality issues for folks with asthma. Uh again, focus on housing and some folks were concerned about lack of staffing. Um, again, please stop me if you have
any questions. I think promised that when you're all done, if you could send your presentation Oh, yeah. to Dave and he could send it to the members of the board so we can see it in a bigger Absolutely. Yep. He did. Yep. I sent it last Friday.
I do have one question and that is uh what kind of time frame is the one with the legacy funding what it would it entail from when you start to finish there if you once you reach that designation um there's not
really a sunset on it as long as there's legacy dollars to my understanding you know so as long as it's kind of achieving the goal of the park project that you you know set out to accomplish lish um and even new ideas that you didn't anticipate, you you can still,
you know, make amendments to that plan and apply for funding. So there, as long as we have legacy dollars, it would be an opportunity for use if we can think of something we want to do there. Am I correct that if the Joint Powers Board decided that it wanted to do a little
project or some part of it on its own, they could do that and still not disqualify from the regional funding for some other part of it? Absolutely. Yeah, that that that is my understanding. Um yeah, I so I I've actually spoken with Greater Minnesota about that question specifically. Um we could, you
know, theoretically if we wanted to, for example, come up with a disc golf course or the dog park like they already did. Um you know, those entities could take up that that mantle of getting grant funding to do those projects if they desire.
Could you question before he continues? Could you show us the map again of the area that's in question? You had a You had a map, a plat map of the section or whatever it was. Is it this
one or this one? Yeah. Um, you're talking about this one? Well, yeah. How does the city have jurisdiction over that? Yes. Not all of it. Not all of it,
but a majority of it. Yeah. Isn't it? No. Third. Okay. County holds the majority ownership. So, the county owns it. Well, over the hill. The city owns from like the hill down. Yeah. County
owns the back side. Okay. And where is the city? He's asking about where is the private parcel. It's not part of this yet. To the left of that. This one. Yeah. The one in the hashed line here. Okay. There's 80 acres in there. Yep.
And where is the bluff line? And it's kind of the exposure to the city from Sawtooth Bluff. Where does that Yeah. fall across this? Find the Yeah. tower. Great question. Um Where's
the tower at? Yeah, the tower is up here, Greg. the little P on the top there. Okay. Which is counting. Yep. So, I'm seeing where the little marker is. That's to the right center of the top above the
top of the big blue ball and to the left of the smaller blue right ball. Okay. Yeah. It seems to me that the viewshed from the city of the bluff line will be the predominant concern. You know, if you look up the
hill and you see crap, that would be bad. If you look up the hill and it's green, that would be good. That there was a good contingent of folks that felt that way. Yes. and and you can do all kinds of stuff below that and nobody will notice.
But just turning up the gunfoot and looking up the hill, if you take that away, it'll have a substantial tourism impact. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I think you know um yeah I mean I could go on for a long
time about tourism but you know and two I just wanted to I wanted to clarify that you know this plan that we have here is nothing in any way set in stone and that would really get guided through the joint powers board process. You know ultimately taking you know things like
survey feedback from your community determining what the needs are for the community. Um, you know, so, you know, in terms of like, you know, we we had some folks that were against having um an RV park, for instance, you know, um,
where, you know, they didn't want to see that on the hillside, you know, so it's kind of something where we still get to steer the ship, you know, as to what what it ultimately becomes. I just want to clarify. I don't know if you're familiar with the city of St. fall, but
had a chance to weigh in on development of the bluffs after the Mississippi turns to the east, acquires the Minnesota, and there's development on the lower south or upper side of that bluff, which has a huge impact on the
view from Fort Snowing and downstream and has caused a lot of kuruffle uh down there based on who can build on the bluff. offline and what can they see and who can see them and you know what right does the public have to preserve
the green space in the river corridor and that's been going on for 20 years and is very acrimonious and I think well defended on both sides and you could walk into that uh sort of
well-intentionedly and end up just with a lot of blowback Yeah. Well, you know, once you cut them down, they're gone. And once you put boxes on the hillside, you got boxes on the hillside. And much as I love Daily City, California, we
don't want to do that. I, you know, I completely understand and appreciate that. And that's kind of something I think, you know, one, we're working as a county towards the acquisition piece of of that parcel. Additionally, um I I do hear people saying that often
in the comments, you know, is, you know, we want to keep it a green space. And I think the important thing to kind of recognize here is this land has no current, you know, use. And so if if a county board decided they wanted to sell it, they could. If a city
wanted to sell one of your parcels, you could. And so just even if it's just hiking trails or a concert conserved space, you know, even that is a good thing in my opinion if if preservation of the hillside is what the community is seeking. I think we can do this with a
law with a you know very minimal touch and two you know while it may look like a big blue sphere um some trails cut through the woods say like in pin cushion you know imagine pin cushion you're not seeing that from the city you
know so if we just have hiking trails up there that's going to be a three-foot wide path right if you stand if you stand on artist point and you look at pin cushion trail system it's hugely developed by several systems and totally invisible. Mhm. Because of
the way it's laid out in the in the trees, you can maybe see the parking lot on a clear day and that's it. Yeah. So, you have great development, multi-use, and total aesthetic uh preservation at the same time. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. We're um Yeah. Sorry. This is this is all great stuff, guys. Thank you. Um Craig or Kate, anybody questions or comments? Oh, did you have something, Craig?
Yeah, I know. I Yeah, I agree with it. You know, a park is one thing. Development with town homes and houses is another. And I don't think we're talking about town homes and houses and those kind of things. You know, we're talking about uh hiking trails,
multi-use trails. Uh, at least that's what I think the the plan is revealing to me anyway. And as far as the the the amount of land that the city has, I
know the city years ago there was a ski hill up there with a rope toe and uh used to be a chalet at the top of the hill which you can see remnants of it. I'm sure in its day you could see all of it, you know, but that was the only
thing that was ever on that hill ever in the past as far as development. Mitch, what was that development that was begun 20 years ago where somebody dynamited to the northwest along the
gunfled up the hill above the water tower? Oh. Um the turn that that would have been a city guided issue I believe. Are we talking about um yeah Garrett Schlagger?
He bought the land. It's it's been dynamited up the hill and then nothing ever happened. Right. It's not clear what was supposed to happen and whatever did happen didn't happen and it doesn't matter except it's the rocks have been moved around. Yeah. Well, you know, it's
just kind of, you know, to me, if again, if preservation is the goal, um, you know, working towards this joint powers board so that we could ultimately kind of start steering that ship in that direction and make sure that we don't leave our, you know, we don't that we
kind of button up that that issue so it doesn't become an issue later on. Is that city land? Yep. I mean, most of the stuff right along the Excuse me. Private? No. And nothing. Private land. No. Yeah. Was city land. It was sold. I don't know who owns it. Gres Logger still own it or
not, Dave? I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know either. I I don't know. But was for sale. I know. Just to set everyone at ease, there's there's no joint powers agreement yet between the county and the city. And really, that's the question on the table. I believe
Mitch is planning on presenting to city council next week. Yep. this the same show and the same discussion of county, city, are we going to come together, form a joint powers agreement and begin to plan this project. And the survey
was, I think, a Yep. a tool in weighing that decision. Yeah. Because you got mixed results, right? I'd say half the people want it, half the people don't, just like you experienced 30 years ago. Okay. Am I
correct that you would likely be the need steady staff person dealing with the issue because it's safety to be a part if and when it gets to that stage. Yeah, we could lend our expertise. Well, I think that's the kind of stuff too that
we iron out in a joint powers agreement. You know, how who's responsible? How do we manage it? And you know, what kind of operational costs are we going to have? Those are all things that remain to be seen because we have no clear target, you know. Um, can can you throw us
another plat map of who owns what without without the development proposal? Shouldn't. Yeah, I don't think you had one in your packet. No, I I don't, but I could get there. Uh, give if you give me a minute. Just be curious to see who owns what and
how it impacts the ridge line and the road. Right. So, how many joint powers agreements are there now with between the city and the county? There's the library, law enforcement. Law enforcement might just
be the two. Why? Anything for the community? Anything for the community center? There's not a board necessarily that governs that. I just for sure library. Yeah.
Um, you know, how functional are they? Seems like it pretty good. So, well, we're trying to redo it. We're trying to redo the law enforcement one. We're still working on that. Oh, can they see my screen still? Uh, just a moment. Okay.
Should I be plugged into that? Oh, there we go. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. So, you can kind of see the the pink hued one here is the city property. The things in
orange or yellow orange is county. Um, and then we've got the sheath parcel over here showing these eight parcels there. Um, yeah. So, I'm going the wrong direction.
So you can kind of see this is kind of the all all of the area dedicated. Yeah, that's if you had some land area. Oh, good. You had contour lines. If you had contour lines on a different map, you'd be able to see the elevation and and uh
you know what's actually usable land and what's not, right? Most of it is. I think um you know, I I've walked a lot of the hillside. We would have some, you know, like with access down here. There are some wet areas. Um, which would
because access would ultimately the plan was to have access coming off of Fifth Avenue kind of right across from the recycling center. At least that's my understanding. Maybe it was more maybe it was different, but um to access from this lower route here to get up to this.
A lot of folks kind of expressed concern about utilizing the the runaway truck ramp up by the tower. That would not be the case. Um, we'd be creating access from from Fifth Avenue here. All right. Um, again, we're kind of getting off in the weeds, but just to kind of help you
guys conceptualize. And yeah, I think, you know, to Dave's point, you know, that's kind of part of why I'm here is just, you know, to, you know, spark the conversation again, see where the city's at in terms of appetite about jumping into the joint
powers agreement process. be interesting to throw up a video of the plat map as you have here with the terrain against it and then flip it in the machine. So you could do a virtual
what it would look like along those lines for future development, right? Yeah. I mean I could I could try to discuss this with you. I mean, so I actually walked up here um just last week to kind of this the corner of the
sheath parcel here. Um if you're looking from up here, really what you can see is um County Road 7, it's looking almost due south, right? Um whereas the kind of the further east you move, you that kind of angle of the ridge changes and you're
looking a little more towards town. Um, I'm not sure you would see a lot of development on the sheath parcel to be honest from unless you're kind of driving on seven past the hospital. Um, but I mean certainly, you
know, over here we we have our ability to control that controllable and um, you know, we're working with Mr. Chief on the other end. So, um, any question? Yeah. Well, first of all, how big is this property again? The
whole thing? Oh, good question. I I want to say it's about 12. Am I close? So, this sweep is 80 acres, I think. Yeah. So, the the city portion is a 140. We've got
one, two, three, 40 acres. Um the city portion is 140 acres and the county comprises another twothirds of that. So another two three four five six
um that's just under 400 acres all of it. And does that include the private property that's not yet owned? No, it does not. No, that would be an additional 80 acres. How big is that part? 80 240s here. Okay. So we're
talking a square mile. Mitch, can I ask why the chief property suddenly becomes a distraction almost or a So yeah to kind of Yeah, that's a good question. Um so ultimately the reason that this has
kind of come to the forefront is so Mr. chief was working with his legal counsel um to kind of generate this access that I discussed kind of at the beginning of the presentation. Um so ultimately there
was essentially a ruling that um the county must observe this legal access here. So there was this old plat map from the 1900s um that was overlaid on these areas. Judge
ruled that Mr. chief could utilize these streets and avenues to gen to generate access to his property. Um, so that's an impediment to the future development. Not necessarily. It's more just it's brought it to the forefront because, you
know, Mr. Chief has either one, he's going to build this road or he wants the county to grant him uh, you know, another access that doesn't necessarily follow the streets and avenues. um you know for his interests in terms
of you know getting market price for his property. Does the parks and trails commission feel like that that we that we need to settle this before we can move forward? No. Um I I kind of think you know there's there's two independent conversations here is the you know the
sheath parcel and what happens to that is kind of irrelevant you know ultimately um where we I mean yes it it was kind of blocked off as this potential acquisition for the park um but doesn't necessarily need to happen for the park to happen. So regardless of
what happens with that piece, um, joint powers board could still proceed with plans as they are or whatever iteration of that would become. And that nation of obsidian property. What? Sorry. Sorry. What? I I I thought
my text on my screen said that was some property that had something to do with the nation of a vician. Was there must have been some other words used at the typo. Oh, excuse me. Oh, typo. Uh, must be the transcript or something. Interpreting my
words wrong. Um, no. Yeah, sorry. Where were we with that? So, the access that pink those roads don't exist, correct? They do not exist. No, it's a it's an early plat that was found that gave
[Music] him power in court to try to get access to that land. I think earlier he tried gaining access to that land off of the Fred Anderson road that's up on the top of the hill. He was going to come down from above the hill
and that didn't work out. I think he bought this land in the 80s maybe. I'm just trying to think. I think you bought it from Dietrich Realy because I remember uh I remember walking this looking at buying it with my dad. That's
why I remember this a long time ago. So, but that the problem at the time was how do you access it? That was the problem, you know, right? It was a it was a piece it was a piece of land for sale, but you know what do you do what do you what do you do with it after you buy
it? But it's kind of interesting that it's we're looking at this again. So, it seems like you're going to Okay, so you're going to go to the city council and then they're going to wrestle with the decision to enter into a joint power. Has the county board
agreed to do a joint power? Yeah. Another kind of reason this is relevant is the the county board decided ultimately to kind of give Cook County Parks and Trails $30,000 to dedicate towards the planning process of the park. Um, you know, and I guess to try
to simplify it as much as possible. You know, I I I think the county was kind of receiving was interpreting that the city would like to kind of have the county oversee this process, you know, and and part of that was hiring me into this
position to have somebody dedicated to it and then two to kind of like to put some money on the table about to to make it happen, you know. And so the county board has decided that and so here I am today speaking to you. Yeah, and I could
agree with Mitch on these points where I presented to the parks and trails commission last year and know sort of here's how we became regionally significant example of our process and what it cost and what it took and how long and the public engagement
components but I was really at that meeting also with the message of we would like the county to lead this because twothirds of the land is county because the it would be used by the county, you know, residents as a whole
and visitors. And the at the time, a year ago, the city's position was, you know, we'll be ready when the county is. Yeah. And it seems like if the city council decides to move forward, then it would come back, you know, like the
county may be involved in some kind of but until then. Yeah. Well, and I I think this is good information, right? Right. And I think kind of, you know, our hope is that, you know, they're going to be members of the Cook County Parks and Trails Commission as well as
city parks and, you know, other commissioners, right? So, you know, people that have a stake in the game. Does the parks and trails commission have any sense that we don't have enough trails of any of any kind? Uh and my
background and my question is I've walked around from the pin cushion mountain up there a number of times and there are bike trails and there are ski trails and there are walking trails and they crisscross and u we see other people walking. Uh I haven't seen any
bikes yet but who knows. Uh my question is how do we know how much of each kind of trail we want? Well, I that's again I think we would steer that through that the planning process of the joint powers board is, you know, kind of to interpret some of this data, see what we want to
have. You know, we've got bike trails just down the road in pin cushion. Do we want to have more bike trails here or do we want to have something else? You know, these are all conversations that we need to have. Um, you know, other things that we've discussed have been disc golf, campgrounds, climbing
opportunities, you know, so there's all kinds of things that we could do with it. On top of that, it's not only recreation that we could discuss. It could be more community focused projects. Um, just as for instance, Hartley Nature Center in Duth is run by the city in Duth and they h they have
received designation from the greater Minnesota regional parks and trails commission. They operate a a daycare at, you know, outdoor education. Um have bikes for rent for folks. Um they have some all-terrain
um opportunities for folks in wheelchairs. You know, those sorts of things are all things that are supported supported by the legacy fund. So yeah, Hartley is a great place. Yeah. Right. I mean, we tried we tried to buy property on Hartley and failed. But it's just a
beautiful park right in the middle Yep. of a city with I think Duth has 19 square miles of green space and Hartley still matters right because it's right there. Yeah. Well and I think you know the opportunities that it create you know like you know kind of things that
I'm hearing from the survey is okay there's you know too many tourists you know they're concerned about traffic and congestion. Okay. Yeah. those sorts of things are kind of saying, well, maybe we could create a space for, you know, to to relieve some of that, to have events up there rather than in the heart
of the city where, you know, people are trying to get around. Um, you know, I've got ideas that are coming out my ears. But, you know, if you know, that's is kind of where I can't get too far ahead of myself. I need to, you know, try to
get at some point and I I don't need to have the answer today, but at some point I'll be interested at least in the question of how much demand is there, how much for for how many facilities, how many miles of trails, you know, how and how does one measure that demand and
that sort of thing. It's not not something I think it's fair to ask you to answer today but at some point in the process some idea of how many trails of what kind do that we need given our population and the summer people and all that stuff and and that is kind of part of like the greater Minnesota regional
parks and trails process to you know through looking into that regional designation they are kind of looking at what communities are we hoping to serve you know uh how what kind of economic impact would it have um but Yeah, like like you said, I can't answer those
questions today, but it it would come out in the process. If if you look at the activity in the state legislature like now about trail development in various directions, it's huge and the opposition is huge and the advocacy
groups are aligned on all sides of it. I mean, this is front and center to how does Minnesota use northeast Minnesota and for whom? And it it looks quiet, but it's not a quiet issue. It's a big big
deal in how you position your space. I think the other thing too to think about is moving ahead in the future with the trails we already have. I think some of the problems that that that we do face is the use and sometimes overuse and
sometimes money is available to build all this stuff. But then when you go back to try to give monies to maintain them and repair and fix that becomes the problem. So I think that's something that we need to try to convince
um mistake or whatever. I mean you know that hey we have things that we need to fix, things we need to maintain whether they build trails or bike trails or hiking trails or whatever they are ski trails. Um, we build them and there's money for that, but there's not always
money to fix them and maintain them. You're always struggling to find that money. That that's important issue, too. You can always build a church. You can't always keep the lights. If you want to build a church, piece of cake, capital
investment, keeping it running, look around town. Yeah, I I can So, this is funny that you bring this up. So, I I also sit on a um legacy fund advisory commission for the parks and trails component of the legacy fund. And this
conversation is exactly the one they're having now. because, you know, we've got these wonderful state parks and, you know, they're um they're running up against that issue of we've got these buildings that are, you know, really in need of maintenance, but you know, do we
want to start dedicating more legacy dollars in maintenance um rather than development? So, they're they're having that conversation at the state level right now. There there's a hundred million in deferred maintenance in state parks right this second and I'm on a couple of trail boards that would love
to build more trail but right it's a balance it's a real balance right right well we have some more items on our agenda are people comfortable with what we've done today including you Mitch um yeah I mean I I think I just kind of
wanted to address some of the concerns uh real you know, you know, just in question six specifically, like where we got a lot of other concerns is like, you know, folks are saying there's enough of this already. Um, you know, they're concerned
about cost and overt taxing locals. I just wanted to make it clear that if we do engage in this joint powers board process, you know, and we do achieve regional designation, well, you guys already know, I mean, this comes from state dollars. So, this isn't something where I'm hoping to, you know, raise our
levy to make this happen. This is something where, hey, let's work together to utilize this opportunity and and make it what the community wants, you know. Um, I I'm not looking to change the hillside. I just want to preserve it as much as everybody else.
Yeah, but if if you don't move now to address this, somebody will build boxes on your hillside and everybody will be mad except the 10 people that occupy the boxes, right? So you have a chance to preempt
conflict. Yes. Yes. Yep. And it just a good opportunity to collaborate. So Mitch, quick question. Yes. with the propensity of sort of the leave it alone, no, I don't support this, you know, answers, which is kind of what I glean, there was pretty good, I would
say majority or a majority, but or even I it's Yeah. Did that surprise you? Did it change? Has it changed the parks and trails commission's attitude towards this? No, I don't think so. in that I I feel
like the folks I mean this is my opinion my interpretation you know so put that right at the forefront but I think the folks that see it as a low benefit are the folks who are concerned about it being a scar on the hillside an extreme
cost to taxpayers only dedicated towards tourism like those are the big three and I think the important thing to recog recognizes, you know, we're we're going to have the state or Ir or something, you know, yes, those are all appropriated funds, but I think, you
know, if it's legacy funding, it's coming from lottery dollars. And so, there's that piece. Additionally, um, you know, we can make it a low impact thing. It doesn't need to be a big scar on the hillside. We can do it in a responsible way.
Um, and then let's see, what was the other the third thing I forgot? Um, yeah. Cost, aesthetic. Um, that's right. I think I know where you're at. Like we can we can address these concerns. Yes. Yeah. And, you
know, and talk to the community about it and, you know, rely on the democratic process to to make it happen in a way. Oh, yeah. That was the other thing to like instead of having it tourism focused, you know, we could do something that was community focused like
collaborating with higher education or, you know, creating event spaces that the city and the county can utilize for things that reduce congestion within the city of Grand Marray. Um, those are the things that I just that don't dissuade me from it. It's something that we can
speak to those people about this piece and how it could ultimately be a benefit and relieve some of that pressure. Yeah, I I agree that part of this the the end result could be the the protection of it, you know, where it's the because it's now this,
you know, designated significant park, low impact hiking, dispersed camping maybe, you know, backpack style tent camping maybe because there was that component of it should or could generate some revenue but not through intensive development, high
density development that this would be a way to protect it. Right. Right. Yeah. Pin cushion I think has looked at becoming regionally significant but it's I think not initiated that process but that's a piece of this that's a good
example of how something might be done which is regionally important and right across the street so complimentary. Exactly. And remember that most of the money that runs this town comes from tourists. I think that it's a good important piece like we we hitched our
cho we hitched our horse to that wagon a long time ago you know and so it's to to dis you know discount that fact is kind of like well you know let's make a space for people to enjoy whether you're from here or not. So yeah as a veteran of the
tourist business it's important. Absolutely. That's green from a planning perspective creating that green space and is is an important aspect to people's health too. So do you have anything else you want to share with us Mitch? I can leave it at that. So all
right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much for coming. Look forward to getting the uh material that you have there over to Dave. Yep. I'm interested by the way in knowing what the the the ground is like
underneath. So much of this place that you know there's rock two inches below the surface. Curious to know what most of it would be that you're going to experience that wetland. Yeah. Right. Exactly. There's there's a lot of that. I mean not so much wetlands
because you're on that hillside. There are wetlands on the backside with the pattern fen but um we don't really get into that with where majority of the park is situated. Superior Hiking Trail runs right along the ridge line and the ATV trail runs right along the ridge
line and those are both very popular trails. But you take a step to your left and you roll down the hill. Thanks Mitch. Thank you very much everybody. Good luck with council. Appreciate it. But the reason I was interested in what the ground was like
underneath was how much of a threat is housing up there really or anything else. You know if off the ground is, you know, you got to have deal with sewage and water and things like that if you're going to have any development up there and it may be totally impossible anyway.
On the ridge, I think you can do whatever you want, but you step over the ridge, it's a big swamp again. Okay. Been there, walk through that. All right. Well, thank you, Paul. Uh, I believe you're Could I just pause for a moment
and introduce Pete Kavanagh? more than patient. And are you in any kind of rush, Pete? I I have to do the Oh, yeah. Yeah. We can take that out of order. I can come back. Take it out of order if you don't mind.
Special treat. Just take a few minutes. Yeah. So, Pete, the you know, Lions Club really informative though and fun to listen to. I mean, you guys do a really good job. I was really learned a lot by just listening to how you guys work.
It's really, really neat. Um, so I'm with the Grambury Lions. I'm the president of the Lions Club and uh, as you know, we're preparing to do the Fisherman's Picnic. Over the years, we've um, seen the um, food truck business start to increase as the
fisherman's picnic vendor category starts to grow. It's a big part of our fundraising apparatus. As you know, this is our biggest fundraiser of the year and everything that we raise from the fisherman's picnic goes back to the community and so
um and what we've what we've encountered and I've been with Alliance since 2015 um and help with the fisherman's picnic every year. Been very involved especially with the music and setting up the sound and everything with the uh with the uh uh live music down there. Uh
last year I became uh more uh involved with uh problem solving and getting complaints as it was my first year as the president. And um we uh have always had electrical problems in the harbor. And what that
means is we'll uh pop breakers um because of uh electric draw um especially on Saturday when the uh ducets um inflatables are there and um when their the all the food uh trucks
are in their peak production and using uh really drawing on current. Last year it was even worse uh because we had that very hot day as you'll recall on the Friday. It was excessively hot and we actually had a
complete power outage of the whole uh circuit. Um all the circuits and everything went down uh because the main breaker box um it is a 200 amp service that was installed um uh back when it was first built. I think back in 2006, I
think David Sather and Nordic Electric installed it and u we've essentially outgrown it. Um there's just more power requirements. Um I'm not an expert in in uh food trucks or the food truck
business. You know, this Lions is a volunteer organization. I don't claim to be an expert in power. Uh I wish my vendor coordinator Kenny Albrech was here and he could talk moreh directly about it. uh because he's heavily involved in that sort of industry. Um
but what we uh uh went down and evaluated the power based on the connection requirements of the vendors and uh David Sather uh was with us as we went through and uh Kenny advised on the different u additions that we wanted to
make to the power and David Sather came back with a with an estimate. Some of the work if that we uh are going to that we proposed um would require trenching to come back
across the harbor to increase the u the the cabling capacity to uh because of the increase to the um main service. We would go from a 200 amp to a 600 amp service in order to accommodate all the power needs. And this would expand
uh to add uh four uh additional 50 amp uh circuits for uh the food trucks to for us to be able to handle their capacity and the power the of the other vendors that use draw the power as well. So we put the proposal together and I
didn't actually see the exact quote. Uh Dave uh got it. It's about 35,000. Yeah. So, it's quite expensive and it was a real shock. Uh, when we got the quote, we had no idea it was going to be that much. Uh, we're still in the process of
kind of getting more specifics uh for uh the park board, so we can come back with a bit more detail, but we did want to let you know of what we're um uh working on. Um but it's um something that the Lions does charge the vendors for this
ex these extra power services. And so um it's very frustrating for the vendors when they have to come to us frequently throughout the day to ask to have the power turned back on because we're popping breakers. Last year it got a little bit more interesting because one
of the bouncy houses during the really significant power outage I was talking about trapped several children inside the bouncy house and so um uh I was not there to witness that but some of the other lions had to help uh lift the kids
out of there and it was quite traumatic as you can imagine for the kids. So um you know that's an extreme case but again um it is something that you know frequently last year I was being interrupted you know at least every
couple hours to go pop find the breaker that's been tripped and pop it and you know uh we did get input from Bob Ducet who's the owner of of Ducets who comes up every year. They're they do they're a great business out of Duth and they do a
great a great uh job putting everything up that's all a familyrun business and he advised to that we should increase uh the service. He didn't give any specifics on it but he felt that given the amount of u vendor uh boost that uh
uh food trucks that we had and electric service that we were drawing that we should update it. Um, also one of our food truck owners is a certified electrician uh for the Oasis uh food truck, the Mexican food, and he he actually took time to go through and
explain to me um you know how the why the service should be uh updated. Um and so the the opinion pretty strongly among the vendors is the 200 amp service is pretty inadequate for what we're trying to do. Uh again, a lot of money to
consider. Um you know, certainly um if you know, one of the things that we're evaluating doing is more of a phased approach where we didn't necessarily do the whole thing this year. Uh we still need to do more research on that uh to come back with some alternate proposals
if that amount is going to be too much uh at this time. So that's all I have for you right now. And Dave, if you got anything? Yeah, thanks Pete. So, so yeah, this bit last minute, bit of a surprise, but it's a FYI discussion right now. This, you know, we've got the
special event applications before us that will obviously be approved, I would hope. Um, but this is a work in progress and we just wanted to gauge the board's agreeability to spending this kind of money on electrical upgrades and
obviously we're, you know, working on the best plan for the best price, future proof plan. That's something that has come up, you know, where if this festival grows or if other festivals come and want to take advantage of the upgraded power, we would have that in place. So, because it's in that, you
know, $35,000 ticket range, we don't need a motion. We just need sort of head nods that, you know, proceed. Dave, can you not just lay cables like they do at fairs and exhibits? Those cables have to plug into somewhere and
that's what we're trying to upgrade. Is it the somewhere that's missing? Yeah, the No, I think the some Isn't the some When Harbor Park was built, did they pull power from behind the
uh trading post there? No, it's it's got its own transformer in the park. Yeah, it's just there's there's enough transformer power there. There's just a 200 amp service that isn't. So, is there enough is there enough is there enough service feeding the transformer to
double that amperage? Yes. Okay. And then where is the why do we have to trench them? Just to get another bulkhead somewhere else. Yeah. Bigger wires to the bigger outlets. So, like at the 200 amp service, we've got little,
you know, 20 amp breakers and 50 amp breakers, right? and they go to the little plugs and the big plugs. And so that with a 600 amp service, we'd need bigger wires to supply bigger plugs. The you know, the idea of 50 amp plugs for the food trucks is what's causing all of
this expense and trend. So So you want to So you want to relocate another box somewhere else. Several. Yeah. Instead instead of it's Okay. Several. All right. I was just I was just trying to figure it out. Maybe it's a discussion that the I know that's
park park park maintained or park operated, but is anybody run it by the anybody run it by the PUC? Yeah, for sure. The PUC's on board to help and we got a meeting tomorrow so I can bring it up. Yeah, they've been included and
they would at this stage we would maybe engage with like digging the trench because that's a big expense and a big labor That's what I'm thinking. I think the big Yeah, you're right. The biggest expense here is juicing and all that kind of stuff. And I'm just thinking if
this is something that city could do with the people that we have um we're working on it. It's a discussion to have. Yep. And it's a disturbance to the park itself with the grand sand and the flower beds. It's like right it can't
really wait. We want to get this done before peak season and so we're working hard on it. We just want everyone to be right. Maybe there's a way to do it where it's not so evasive, too. So, yep. If I can, all we're asking to do today
is to approve the application for the event. Correct. Right. Is there a motion to that? Sure. Is there a second? I'll second that. And it's both of these further discuss. Are they the same?
Yeah, there's there's two the I'll explain the the I forgot that we are going to open the fishburger stand the Friday and Saturday before fisherman's. So it'll just be the it'll just be the fish that we'll deal with in a moment.
Okay. You did Yeah. So the same thing you did last year, right Pete? Yes sir. One same one bit of discussion. When you start trenching through that area, is that not a environmentally compromised site of the old gas station? We're not
going that deep. We're not going that deep. We're not going that deep because you know there are monitoring stations around that. Yeah. We're not messing with those wells. You really don't want to unless you have, right? No, we're not. There is
finance and all sorts of underground utilities that become Oh, yeah. We got to find all that stuff. I'm going to drag us back to the to the matter that's before us today, which is the vote on the question of whether or not to approve the special event application of
the fisherman's picnic. Although, is there any objection? Hearing none, it's approved unanimously. There was a second application with regard to the fishburger stand and we have to vote on that too. Am I correct,
David? Sure. I don't have a copy of that one here. Uh oh, now I do. Uh that's just a date. Yeah, this is the typewritten that's the same as the one we just voted on, right? Or does this include the No, it's the weekend before.
Okay. So y the application now includes the u the fishburger stand issue as well. Is that right? Okay. And is everybody agreeable? Second. No, I I'm going to do this quicker. Is there any
objection to including the fishburger request in our prior decision? Wonderful idea. No, I haven't heard any objections. So So ordered. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Thank you, Pete. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks. Thanks. Don't
Don't dig up anything you'll need later. Yeah. Well, Paul, I'm glad you're on salary today. Appreciate you being here. Who does it for the money, you know? Tell us about the golf course and what you'd like us to know
about it today. Well, like a week ago, we couldn't really get on the course. It was so wet. Now it's kind of the opposite. We uh we're kind of like just full boore trying to get the get it uh play playable.
Um so we're kind of in the middle of uh getting things mowed up uh for the first time and getting the irrigation going. You know, the basic stuff. We're kind of shoring up our employees. Uh and that's
uh that's kind of we had uh our main mowing guy, which is Paul Peterson. He uh the other day he walked in and told see what's going to be working this year. So, we've been uh kind of moving talking to people about filling that
void and uh yeah, so it's uh just a really really busy time. where I think you know a couple weeks ago or last meeting even I think we were talking last we're talking about opening it up about the third week of the month and
now we're pulling pulling it back to the 15th which is you know in about a week. So yeah, things are moving fast. Uh clubhouse is looking good. We've got that kind of set up pretty good. Um
yeah, I just have a million things in my mind right now. just, you know, little things. I We'll be firing up the irrigation tomorrow morning. We um we had to rebuild a couple of things and that's just how it is. Same old same old, you know.
Uh so that's uh kind of where we're at with the course opening. Is there anything we need to decide today? anything to decide today?
Uh, no, not that. Uh, and you were we were going to be doing some marketing to the city people. Have has that moved along at all? Yeah, right now we're just taking a bunch of pictures for posting. Um the only thing we've got from
marketing so far is we had an ad go out announcing announcing uh you know that we're we're opening uh you know just a general uh advertisement like that. But what we
really want to focus in on is the media. So we're I know we're taking taking a lot of pictures right now and getting stuff ready to post for that. Um, we're getting I've got to get in contact yet with uh Danny Ford to get
uh get his leagues thing uh going and um yeah uh that's pretty much what we've got going right now. I think boreal.org and wtip would be happy to
put some kind of announcement on with regard to the city residents. Uh, and the same would be true, I would suspect, uh, with the electronic version of the local newspaper. Yeah. And so we I think you're right and we we'll get the word that we're going
to be opening up a little earlier than we had forecasted before. So, yeah, that'd be a good good medium for getting that out, you know, quickly. Any questions or comments from members of the board? Are we still a wine bar
with hot dogs this year? Yeah, we've got pizza, hot dogs, uh basically whatever we can make in our little kitchen setup we can do. Um wine and beer. But what? Wine and beer. Yeah. Yeah. Wine bar with hot dogs.
Beer. Beer is better with hot dogs. Really? That really helps, Dave. Thank you. All these years. There's something I'd like you to think about between now and whenever it makes sense to do something. Yeah. Um, several of us have
been walking our dogs on the course pre-opening. When it comes time for players to be out there, we won't be doing that. But I think we don't have any policy with regard to dogs on the course during the playing season that I'm aware of. And it
occurs to me we ought to bar people from walking their dogs on the course between 8 and 6, 8 a.m. and 6 pm or something like that. Well, we've had people, you know, vacationing people and things. They call to see for dog friendly and we kind of do it on a one by one basis.
It's nothing we're promoting, but in general, I've been, you know, talking to them and, you know, if they if their dog they're keeping their dog with them, the dog's not aggressive or anything, you know. And and of course my dogs been walking along with me up to now. And the
question at least one person I was talking to thought that dogs and people didn't belong together on the course. And I and I'm not convinced of either position. So give it whatever thought you want to. Yeah. I mean if it if it got to be a a large population of dogs, constant dogs, I think, you know, we
probably need to think differently, but right now it's very intermittent. Okay. So, so what'd you do with my dog? I pet him and then he uh seemed to want here somewhere. There he is. Okay.
All right. Okay. He went. Is that all you need to tell us today? Yeah, that's that's Anybody else have comments or questions about golf? Okay. City council report. Greg. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul. Thank you. Yeah, we had a city coun uh I
got to grab that. Anyway, we had a city council meeting. There wasn't a whole lot on the agenda because the mayor was out of town and Mike Roth was at a meeting. So, or Tracy couldn't make the meeting and Mike Roth was out of town. So, we had a very light uh we had a very light meeting and the only thing that
there was on it was a prove an application for North Point to set up for uh um set a tent up for uh prom. Was it prom? Yeah. They set a they you know block off the street and set up a tent
in front of North Point. That was the only applica. That was the only thing we actually had at the meeting. That was the only thing on the agenda other than approve payment of bills and those types of things. Um well we had no we had another thing and I think we got it in here is that Pride March. We already
approved that at the city council meeting. So I see it's in our packet here but we've already we already approved that uh through the city council the pride march. uh by the first congregational church
had filled out an application for uh for that. So that's all we had in our city council uh meeting. Okay. Any questions or comments about the city report?
All right, let's move on to the parks report. Thanks, Steve. I'll be brief. We've opened the campground last Thursday, May 1st. We made our mark of uh getting the water in the bath houses going on time and welcomed a few guests. But last week
was really wet and cold, so it wasn't that busy. But we're very busy behind the scenes. You know, we have seven water zones, four bathous, a wreck hall. Uh right now we just have bath house number one, which is the one over by the marina on the east side. And then number
four, which is the one out west, just under the ball field open. more than adequate. Bath house number two and three kind of in the middle of the park. We're deep cleaning right now. We'll have them open by the weekend of the 16th is our goal. Um and you know, pretty pretty light for occupancy over
the next few weeks. Memorial Day weekend's the big one. The Grand Nord bike race is back in town, so we're sold off for that weekend as we should be. Lots of mountain biker, gravel bikers coming in. All our tent sites are taken, which is great. I've always been a
champion of that race because I was here before that race and Memorial was a softer weekend. It was 60 to 75% full. So, it's been a big difference having 600 bikers come to town for a race. So, hopefully we'll be ready. So,
you're saying that we're full on Memorial Day as opposed to 60 or 70% last year? Yeah. Unless it's like 40 degrees and raining, which it can be. So, it's a wild month, man. It's wild. But we've got great staff back. We've been
reporting this in the last few meetings. Our returning seasonals are are back. We've got our custodians in the downtown gardener back cleaning out flower boxes. Erin's been busy chipping the trees on the boulevards. You might have noticed on the Highway 61, we're taking care of
those boulevard trees. And it's a busy busy time of year. all day today in the marina setting docks and really we've got you know a couple more weeks to get everything done we need to get done. Uh, so on the side then I've been meeting with Mike Fischer as I reported last
month. He came up at the late April I believe we had a quick tour of the grounds. We're going to walked to the wreck hall, the bath house 4 that's just south of the wreck hall. Took a look inside both of those buildings. Got a feel for things. Looked at the parking lot as well. Mike's a very good
architect and so he wanted a really firm understanding. Three was the one near the wreck home. It is okay. Um, so that was a in-person meeting. Then just last week, Mike and I met on the screen and really kind of reviewed the project, reviewed the expectations, the timeline,
the deliverables, the format is what we're working on right now. Like what kind of materials do we need to make a successful application to the state? The application window is open through July. We both agree that's pretty ambitious, but might just happen depending on what
kind of materials we need to present or apply. Um, part of sounds like we need to have that on the agenda for what June. That's right. So, part of this process is LHB is going to come back, Mike's going to come back with his lead designer. We're going to have like a
open house in the recck hall where the staff are going to be able to engage with these folks and kind of tell them what we would like or what we need really, you know, functionally with bathous and cleaning and that sort of business. We'll take care of from the staff's perspective. We'll also invite
the community in to talk about their needs, stakeholders, including the DNR with this idea of a trail head parking lot. Right. We want to hear from our friends down at Two Harbors DNR. they'll be up for this. But that's just what we're targeting is perhaps the June park
board meeting Tuesday, we could have LHB in the house. Um they could come to our meeting, take input from you all, get a really strong understanding of our wants and our needs. But the timeline is
tight. I'm not promising that this application will be in by July. In fact, if if we do a good and thorough job most likely will not. We don't want to rush this. So million or I've been I think
calling a seven figure project. So it's going to take time and you've um seen the process the application process. Not so much. That's my big what I need to work on to let Mike know like what kind
of documents are needed to make a successful application. They unfortunately or fortunately but they're not familiar with this or haven't done this LHB right there's no real rush to get it done this year. No and it wouldn't be done this
year. It'd be submitted for funding this year for next year. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So there is a We don't want to wait because bath house 3 is very old and tired and the sooner we can rebuild that the better for the camp. It does look pretty on the outside. Well we thank
you. So, we do our best and so because of that, it isn't like needing to be replaced this year or next year, but it'd be it'd be best in the next few years. Okay. So, we're working this hard. Dave, do you need DNR bonding for their part of that project? No. And the
DNR wouldn't necessarily have dollars to put towards it. In my initial conversations with the DNR, like the two har or the Beaver Bay trail head wasn't funded by the DNR. That's DOT. Yeah. Yeah. And it was designed by LHB. Yeah.
So there's there's that where they've done trail heads in the past. LHB has. But when I first reached out to DNR2 Harbors, they said, "Yes, we administratively support this, but we don't have a program to fund it." Because I've I've followed bonding this
year, last year, and this year very closely. Don't wait up. Right. There's there's no bonding coming for stuff like that. We're not intending to. Don't put any weight on it. No. And the, you know, the the parking lot's I don't want to
say easy part of this, but it's the would be the least expensive compared to the facility. But but we want the DNR as a partner because part of the application is this idea of inclusivity and community partnering and providing for the
greater, you know, regional community. So, this is all in the works. I meet with the DNR actually online on the Monday the 12th. We'll have a little Who who do you meet with? Uh Kevin Johnson because he knows trail stuff really
well. Yeah. Uh what else? So we got big news in the marina. Just wanted to make you aware of this. Again, it's sort of a bigger capital expense. 25,000 for a new fuel pump. It can't wait. It was a six week lead time on the parts. So, I made
the order 3 weeks ago. Do you want us to bless it or are you just going to go ahead and do it? I'll take a blessing. Okay. Does anybody object to replacing the fuel pump at the marina? I used to work in a gas station. What does that mean? Means I know how to
run those things. So, you you don't you approve of the change? Wonderful idea. Craig's got experience here, too. Hearing no objection. Hearing no objection, you have our backing and blessing. Thank you. When the pump doesn't run, nothing happens. That's right. Yeah. Wow. So, hopefully
we'll get that installed in early June. And then, uh, another little expense I'm looking at is a new utility card or so, or two. I don't know. We have two old blue Yamahas right now. You maybe see us bombing around on them. They're great. They're Yamahas, so they'll probably run
forever. We keep them maintained. We'll continue to use them. Last year, they started to fail intermittently, and we really missed them when they were out of service. So, I'm looking at a replacement in that $6 to $8,000 range. And that's really nothing I need blessing for, but just so you're aware
of. And then the last point you wanted to hear about, Steve, was the Great Lakes Cities initiative project that we're working on over in Boulder Park. We had an online meeting, a kickoff meeting with the So, the mayor has been really spearheading this, you know, leading the charge. She applied for the
grant money to fund this project. We got $120,000 to work with this group, the Great Lakes Cities Initiative. They have contracted Stand Techch, which is an engineering firm that they're familiar with working with. They're working numerous projects throughout the Great
Lakes. So, we're just a part of this. Um, but we're, you know, Grammaray and everyone loves Grammaray. And so actually the Stantech engineer has been here and he knows us and he knows this parking lot and he knows Boulder Park and he's great to have on board because of that, you know, local knowledge. Um,
but we really needed part of this meeting was to say yes, we have bigger needs down here at Boulder Park and the Coast Guard parking lot and the Coast Guard station, right? Like we've been saying this for a while now. The the fate of the Coast Guard station is a
priority project for the city council this cycle. And so they're going to do environmental assessments on that this summer. They're looking into the deed work. The that's going to be determined in the next year or two what happens to the Coast Guard station. Once that's in
place, we'll no doubt engage with a master plan process for the point that includes Boulder Park, that includes the old boat launch parking lot that really isn't a boat launch parking lot anymore because of the new one. We can do whatever we want with this land. It's
kind of a blank slate. Boulder parks the same way. Great big open space. The message to the Stantech people then was to like focus on the shoreline erosion. do the data, do the science for how big are the
waves, what kind of impacts are they making along this old sheet piling and what type of green solutions can you recommend to, you know, mitigate this shoreline erosion. And so, because it's only a small amount of money,
$120,000, we're not going to apply it to like a master planning the point. We're going to focus it on Boulder Park in that corner where the sheep piling and the boulder rocks are and do wave analysis and do storm water analysis and
do the science of what does this corner need to be environmentally healthy and really take it from there. So, it's it's a smaller project in a bigger project that it's going to have to play out. I was I was a strong
advocate at this for boater access that that sheet piling itself is a kind of a day use wall. It's a transient wall during the summer. You know, the the entire sheet piling is in a sad state. When you look at it up close, it's old. It's failing not just in that Boulder
Park corner, but all the way down to the boat launch. And we know that's where the transient boers are. It's kind of the only place we can send them in the summer. We have a small marina, not enough dock space for especially the bigger boats, the 4050 footers. So I
said, well, let's just make sure whatever we do, we don't forget about the boers and the boer access here. And that's part of this equation. The grant itself really funds green solutions. So it wouldn't fund a new steel wall with concrete. It funds like rock, like beach
rock nourishment, cobblestone beach, you know, kind of a green buffers, vegetative buffers, stuff that might not work. When I brought up the fact that I've seen the big waves over there and like how long would a little bit of, you know, buffer work,
it's like that's what we need to find out. We'll look forward to more reports as they come in. Thank you. I propose to the discussion of roles of the board rules and and responsibilities for the
moment and go on to the to the Cook County Pride March application. Get that done while we still have a quorum. Is there anybody is is there anything new about this from prior years? No. No. Oh, and all I can say is back to Craig's
point of like the city council approved. I believe it was streets and sidewalk use. And so that's been approved because they're going to march, but the setup in Boulder Park or sorry, Harbor Park is what this application is for. It's the same as last year. They'll have a stage. They'll have just as you see like no
additional needs for us. So there's no reason not to approve this. Okay. Does anybody have any objection to the application of the First Congregational Church? uh and the Cook County Pride March Committee to have their event
hearing. No objection. It's approved. Now, I don't we do we have anybody here really? It's a bit late. I'm thinking maybe we should put off the uh discussion of board rules and responsibilities uh to another meeting
or we can simply say we don't have a lot of concern. I mean, I don't want to speak for you, but Tracy's introduction last meeting was designed for feedback and brainstorming and think about it for a month and come back this
night and tell us if you have any other questions or concerns. So, that's all this is on for is like a followup to the request from the mayor for input, questions, anything that came up in the last month. And if nothing that's fine
if nothing did come up. Is there a one-page summary of her presentation? Seems to me it was a bunch of pages. Well, the public art policy was Yeah. I think we do better with one
page. The application one page discuss policy for the public art for anything gets beyond a page. It seems like it gets in the weeds. Well, that was all. He's used to being an executive. I can tell that that all
those pages had to do with the art. The word pricey. It's magical. The bullet pointed on the page. Yeah. Past. I think what Tracy wants us to more talk about is just in general about the
organization of the park board and if we feel like our responsibilities are or you know like accurate to what we signed up for that kind of thing like I I that chart that you sent out that was
good. I like that the reminder of what our sort of the founding document. Well, and we should look at that document as a group and see if there's anything we want to talk about. Oh, yeah. It is old. So, let's do that. I mean, there are there was something on there that I was swimming pool. Well, the pool's on
there, but there was another one. There was another that I was like, what is that? Yeah, but um maybe just update that about what our um focuses are. I mean, I know we've got the big book with all all of that in
there, but So, in anticipation of the next meeting, you'll send us out whatever description exists now or give us a web link to if if it's on the city website uh so we can look at it before
the meeting and think about it. Thank you. Is there any other business to to conduct before we adjourn? There being nobody suggesting business, I think we have consent to adjourn. Okay. Thank you all. Enjoy your
stays. Thanks, Craig. Yeah. Yep. Thank you.