Well, so welcome. We get to call the meeting to order and thanks to all of you. We have people uh some of our committee here on Zoom. So, let's get started. And um let's see. Sandy, would you be willing to lead us
in the pledge? >> I alian Okay. Are there any comments on um approval of the minutes from the last meeting? >> Move for approval. >> Any objections? Second. All right.
Minutes from the last meeting were approved. Um, for emergency agenda and additions and deletions, I know we have time for public comment. Oh, roll call. It's not on my list. If it's not on my
list, >> number one. >> Oh, it's a slash. This is somebody you always want to have watching out for you. It's not a second thing. It's right there. All right. Could we please have a roll call?
>> Yes. Okay. Carolyn Whiteman, >> I'm here, I think. >> Ted Benbo might be on Zoom. Uh Shannon Carrey >> here. >> Alina Davis >> here. >> Natasha Early is absent. Uh David Epstein absent. Christy Hughes
>> here. >> Joseph Janak may be on his way. Richard Russell absent. And John Weir >> here. Great. Thank you all. >> Well, before we um continue with the
agenda, I would just like to start with a bringing things up full circle and to acknowledge the group that met on Monday night, Tuesday night, Monday night for
the um baseball committee task force. And I don't know, were any of the others of you on that meeting on Zoom or otherwise? >> Well, I was on the meeting the whole time for on Zoom. And I just want to
acknowledge first of all you all on the committee on the baseball task force which was Alina and >> Jamie and Richard Black and Coach Russell
Tony I mean Tony Hammond. Um, and that was our that was the task force and you guys had done some homework before and were present for a meeting that went just short of four hours. So, huge
acknowledgement. And I know that the vice mayor was here in person. I know Richie Russell was here in person. I know Anna was here on Zoom as was I and were many others, I think. So, I want to acknowledge that.
And I' I'd like to acknowledge the manager because Ron helped to set this up. There had been some previous conversations about having the presentations on the turf or, you know, the what was going to
be the the ground of of the baseball. And there had been discussions about where to make that presentation. And I I want to acknowledge the manager for making the decision that the task force would take this on and that it
would be a an open forum rather than it being something that came to this committee. Um we were all invited to be part of it. But I think it was I think that was the way to handle it. And one of the things that I would just suggest as we follow through on that,
this, if anybody is questioning, has to do with the turf on the baseball slash multi-use field which is over there. This is not the rest of the park, but and that has to do with the the um
interlocal agreement with the school board and what the choices are and all of that. And so what I'd like to do is just acknowledge that I think that was a very educational session and I
appreciate the input of every one of the people on the task force and I want to remind us two things. One of them is if there's some thought about having a questionnaire to the public about
whether or not they would um which what kind of turf they want. My strong suggestion is that they're that they need to listen to that entire presentation before they make some I'd
like to have this as opposed to that because there's a lot of new information that I think really serves us well. So, it's not just a gut instinct of, you know, I'd like to have a putting green or I don't want that artificial stuff. It's really um much more involved and
technical and sophisticated. So that would be one suggestion. That's me personally. And the other thing that we get to be reminded of is that only relates to that area over there. There I'm sure will be extended conversations
later about turf or whatever is used on the rest of the park. So this is not a oneshot deal, but there was quite a bit of information on that. Does that meet? Did I say that, Alina, since you're part
of the committee? Did I say that? Okay. >> I think you stated it pretty well. Um, I would like to use the term baseball field that the high school uses rather than multi-purpose field because
we don't have that distinction at this point in time. Um the other thing is that we I as a part of that committee have gone forward
and have found more information um by talking to the athletic director at Marathon High School about the preparation of his uh baseball field and the management and maintenance of it. And I think that is
something that we're going to have to address as part of the village is the oversight after whatever is chosen, it has to be properly maintained.
>> Yeah. Um Ron, would you like to add anything to that or clarify anything of what I said? This is really not part of our agenda, but I I want to lay this out so we can go on to the other topics. But I think that was an important meeting.
And so, >> yeah, just to clarify a couple things, it's it was a five member task force. Four of them attended. Brian Con was out of town. Uh, Vice Mayor Horton attended in person. The other four uh confirmed with me what during the meeting they were watching on Zoom, including council
member Richards is here tonight. So, all five of them heard what was said. Uh, I thought it was a good to the person that was in favor of grass was recommended to me. I didn't select. I think it was through Jamie Engel, member of the task force. I don't know if Alena was involved. He was a professor from University of Florida. Um, he did a nice
presentation. It's just hard to understand him, but uh it's all online by the way. Uh, and then we had a guy from Astroturf do a presentation which I thought was informative. And I made it real clear, we're not we're not trying to influence the selection of a vendor. We just wanted somebody to answer questions. And so the school board is
going to go through that whole process. I thought though that what I came away with was if it's going to be artificial turf, we now have a standard. We, you know, because he answered a lot of tough questions about temperature of the field, drainage, environmental impacts, and I now know good questions to ask, which I didn't know before. And uh
there's a field now in Bayiew Park in Key West that they did. Astro did, and I'm going to go back and look at it again this weekend in case I have more questions. I've talked to schoolboard members after the Monday meeting, and I've said to them, please keep us in the loop. You know, we our village council has the final say. So, yes, you're starting the process, but they're going
to finish it and we need to make sure that field is the best it can be. I was running a little late because I was on the phone with Cheryl Culbertson, uh, who's I think going to come over here. She went down, I think today or yesterday to Marathon and walked the field and was, as you know, she's not shy about expressing her opinion and she
said it's a horrible field, a lot of issues with it. We don't want those same mistakes made at our field. And so we want that field to be the best field possible, which one reason why I recommended removing that second building to make sure that if it went over budget, the field is not the only thing that's going to get cut. And so they cut the building. Although they
only said save 600,000. I don't understand that, but let's just say there's more money for the field. Uh once again, if you want to see the video, it's 3 hours and 55 minutes. So thanks. Thank you again, Alina, for sitting through it. And Ed and Sandy and Jerry. Yeah. And Anna. Yeah. We we all
sat through almost four hours, but I thought we and Ed'll tell you we didn't cut off anybody. You want to talk, you got to talk. Nobody can complain. They didn't have a chance for input. Uh if you go to the agendas and meetings tab and go on the October 20th meeting on the left side, we have all the meeting.
If you hit meeting files, all the materials I showed were there. Uh we have the videos under the meeting media. So video of the entire meeting. if you missed it or you want to go back and I I watched it again today because I missed some parts of it, you know, because you you I want to make sure I got some of the remarks of Jamie and Alina, for
example, they made some good comments about the documents, for example, and made some suggestions. I'm trying to incorporate that into what we're doing. So, I think that we have a good basis to go forward. uh in answer to the question about the survey that there was a request by three of the coun but three
of the task force members and I've asked them for input but I've said any questions I have to take to council. I've been told no more surveys without majority council vote or at least approval and so having said that I'm still awaiting any survey questions. Uh
we do have the mayor Mahoney survey that's still relevant. A lot of the questions I think would be asked were already asked. Uh and I read all the comments. I went back and read all 241 respondents uh that were and all their comments and so I'd have a better idea of what the public wants, but we're
still welcoming public input. Uh I don't want to say we're cutting anything off, but we need to if you have questions, please submit them to me as soon as possible because we want to move forward on this thing and I'll answer any questions you have. >> Great. Any questions from this group?
Thanks very much, Ron. Acknowledgements to us. Yes. Um, you had been sidetracked by the roll call question. Are you still taking additions to the agenda? >> Yes, I I hijacked that this because I
wanted to get this out first. So, yes, there >> anything else I can bring up during new business? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. So, is that all comfortable for everyone? I wanted to cover this because if our group on this
topic invested nearly four hours, I think it's appropriate to have people brought up to speed. If you missed it, it is you are available. I mean it is available to be reviewed and it is very active part of the discussion as to what
kind of surface will be not only on that field regardless of what it's called baseball slash or whatever but also any other future conversations including perhaps what we're going to do tonight on the presentation about the um about
the playground. So, oh, Christie, thank you. Christie has her hand up. >> Yeah, that was >> Sorry, that was me before when I um when I was I was on the call trying to speak, but I wanted to let you know I was here.
Never mind. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. So, if we have some emergency additions, um did you have something else you would like to include, sir? Yes. At some point, whatever point you deem appropriate, I'd like to ask three
things. One may be just a short discussion, I'd like to make some brief inquiries about the old church property that the village has purchased. I would like to have a discussion and make a motion on phase two of the Miller
leg plan. And I'd like to have a discussion and make a motion on phase three of the Miller leg plan. >> Okay. Great. And considering the fact if it's if there's no objection, considering the fact that we have active presentations
here, if it's okay with everyone, I would go forward with the two existing presentations that are already on the agenda and then we will handle that after if there are any objections. Okay. All right. So, um public comment.
Is there any public comment? Sandy. >> Okay, >> there you go. >> Sorry. >> Sorry. Sandy Basiglia Alam Marada. I just have a couple comments. I know when this is not on your agenda today, but
you all I have a lot of influence and um knowledge about what's going to happen with Founders Park ballfield and so forth. So, I did attend the uh marathon meeting last night. Um it was it was very informative. A couple things I just wanted to bring up. Um
>> was that a a schoolboard meeting? >> No. The a meeting the other night about the uh found about the grass versus turf Monday. Oh, you did. I'm sorry. You said you said marathon. >> I meant marathon meaning >> four and a half.
>> Marathon, not the location. Got it. Okay. >> And I guess Ron and I haven't recovered cuz we're both wearing green, so we're like obsessed. Anyway, uh a couple things that came up and I know you all are aware of this, but um on our tax bills, which we all got this, we're
getting our bills this week. there's nothing approaches um the village taxes are mine are going to be around 454 and the school board 336 and all the other categories on my tax bill are much much lower than this which I'm not
complaining I'm just saying for the amount of money we spend in the village and the school board we should spend a lot of time talking about you know what's gets put in and what doesn't get put in and so forth then I made a comment at that meeting about the trees
um because nothing really came up about um the trees surrounding the ball field. There's about 89 trees and there may be literally tons of water that will be artificially rerouted if this system or
a similar system is adopted because it's put on the field. It was shown to us and it's we don't know if one in one or two or three years if no one has studied the effects on trees and the water being routed
rerouted over time what will happen to the root balls what is their ability to thrive not just barely survive and though Ron did Saunders did say no trees will be cut down which we appreciate uh what happens if one or two or three years from now they start to die and
that company that put in the astroturf should then if it's astroturf should be held responsible with large financial reparations back to the village. I hope none of that happens and I I hope we have grasp it. Um the speaker who spoke was a salesperson. He wasn't here to
sell, but he did bring samples of different things and he bought a very small sample bottle of what he ended up telling me was wood splinters from Atlanta pine trees that get sprinkled into the astroturf. We will need truckloads of that. It does have several
chemicals in it, but he did not discuss the chemicals. So, we need and we do have now scientifically published, peer-reviewed scientific papers as of last night as to what chemicals may be in it. And that's very important. We're going to pass it on to the village, the
school board, um you as the chairperson and Ron Saunders and everyone else as well. Sharon Mahoney did do a survey. We thank her for her survey. It did say that 50.62% 62% who answered it said they wanted n natural green grass 39%
said astroturf 10% had no opinion and our master plan which we may be approving and you all just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on said the residents don't really want a lot of changes in the park including new structures they were not asked about the
astroturf at all even though it's our park property and lastly uh Larry Zequitch is that how you say his Zetwok, sorry. He did speak and talked about I think it was three doctors who are local and he mentioned statements from three
local upper keys doctors who work with our children and families and they all cautioned against the replacement of grass with artificial turf for safety and environmental reasons that may have very far-reaching effects over many years. Um, so those were all important
discussions that took place and we thank Ron for allowing that meeting to take place and for all of the information on both sides to be shared. The school board is proceeding. They hope to break ground in April of 26, but this needs to be slowed down as said by several on the
task force the other night and all the details ironed out specifically about chemicals and uh in various components of of turf including why not natural grass if that's what the is Marada citizens
already said yes to. So I just wanted to register that comment and thank you for listening. Thanks Andy. Captain Ed, you have a comment? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Properly introduced
>> and uh you'll find out why this is interesting to have left. There is a national international relief foundation um called public employees for environmental responsibility.
They have about 36 lawyers. They are all former EPA state and federal agency environmental lawyers who got tired of their agencies not doing their jobs. Um and and all joined this this foundation.
their lead expert on um PFAS, Forever Chemicals, uh is a a very sharp lady who's also a senior lawyer. Uh she was involved in the California statewide campaign against PFAS contaminated artificial
turf. and I just got from her a presentation an eight-pager which I'm going to share with you all and with the village council and with the school board on whom I used to serve. Um,
and the the in the incredible uh part of all this is she goes over in her presentation all of the salesmanship that we heard in in in this presentation
a couple nights ago. Um, uh, all of it. Uh the most interesting part just as a as a teaser I'm going to send this all to you so you can study it uh in detail is that
she had a scientific analysis of just what's in this stuff which was pitched to us as um a benign uh organic
wood byproduct. It's called Brockill. And here is the list of what's in Brockville. This benign organic, this is supposed to
reduce the temperature problem, which is widely acknowledged as real. Here's what's in it. Barryium levels. Uh the amount is here. You all who know
what these means uh can study it. What's in here beside wood chips? Berium, cadmium, selenium, zinc, phenol, two methylphenol,
and two four dimethyl phenol. I need to wash my hand. Um, lots of information like that. And again, all of the peer-reviewed studies are cited in
the footnotes here and you all can look those up. I'm just going to read you the paragraph headings. To date, there are per and poly floral alco substances PFAS in all brands of artificial turf tested
by NOS's. Even minute amounts of PFAS are dangerous. The EPA study um EPA set the limit at four parts per trillion. That's pretty nasty stuff. That's
dangerous and chemicals that small. I'm also going to give you a copy of the Key West Citizen article that reported the statewide test about a year and a half ago for PFAS presence in drinking water. The Florida Keys has the highest
contamination rate in the state of Florida. We have 80 parts per trillion in our water that all of our kids who use this park have in their diet. Uh, and the EPA level is four
and we have 80. We're at 20 times. Um, artificial turf does not save water because you have to >> 30 seconds >> water. We're doing five minutes. Okay.
Okay. Um that um the the infills all the various infills have problems just like this. Uh the the temperature is a real problem. It's not it doesn't go away with all of
these modern attempts at infills. The older infills were worse, but it's still very serious. And you have to cool it. you have to cool the whole field and it lasts half an hour to an hour and that's all the longer it lasts. So in peak heat
conditions um that's the problem. Um lots of other problems and I'll share this with you all again. This is peer-reviewed PhD lawyer involved in national and statewide uh issues as one of the leading experts
on all this stuff. >> Thank you, Captain Ed. Are there other public comments? >> We may have someone on Zoom by Craig. >> Uh Craig McBay, Plantation Key, Isam
Marada Chamber of Commerce, soccer coach, lacrosse coach. Um sorry, I came into the meeting a little late here. I didn't know this was going on today. I got my practice going on. My soccer practice started about 10 minutes ago. So, I'm actually here. I want to talk about a couple different things. So, I apologize if I'm kind of out of turn,
but I want to talk about fees briefly as well as a turf if that's okay with uh with everybody. >> You got your three minutes. Go for it. >> Okay. So, so first off, talking about turf, um you know, I like I said, I'm a soccer coach. I'm a lacrosse coach. I spent a lot of time on the field here.
I've spent some time on the the baseball field as well. Um, I've also traveled a lot for sports. I know whenever I show up somewhere and they have turf and not grass, I'm always happy because I know we're going to have a good field to play on. Our field out here, you know, the
whatever the Astro turf stuff, I know our field out here, we do our best, but it's a rough field. It's really hard to play on. It's we can't keep it up. We know how hard it is. It gets so much use. So, I know whenever we show up in Key West or in Weston or whatever to
play and especially in lacrosse and we have AstroTurf to play, it's always a good thing. We know we're going to have a really good even field to play on. Um, you know, from what I understand, the injury difference isn't there. You know, I know you can you probably look at different reports here and there, and that's way beyond my pay grade. Um, but
I think as far as actually playing on these things, you know, it's great. I would love to see Aster turf out here so we could have a nice even field to play on. Um uh now fees, I'm going to put on my Chamber of Commerce hat here. Um now when we're talking about I know again I
kind of came a little late to the game. I got a phone call um from Judy earlier kind of bringing me in. I guess you guys are talking about raising entrance fees up. >> We haven't we haven't gotten there. Okay. >> We haven't had that discussion yet. >> Do you mind if I just speak? I got to get to my practice. you got your time for your okay, you know, so um I know as
those fees comes up, I understand that the rental fees for non forprofits for events may possibly come up. Um I just want everybody to be aware how difficult it is for not forprofits to run their events here. Costs everywhere are coming up. You know, whether it's the garbage
disposal, law enforcement, um you know, the fire, EMS, everything is coming up. If there's anything you could do to try to help the not forprofits for those events to keep those costs at a minimum. I know the park still needs to make the money and I understand that but try to keep the not forprofits, you know, in
mind when it comes to that section. Everybody's getting pinched right now. You know, I don't need to go into kind of what's going on with the cost. Everybody knows. So, if there's anything you could do to try to think of the not for profofits, I don't know how many different days a year um you know, you
guys have the full rentals like that. um you know, but uh if there's anything you can do to kind of help them out, I would appreciate it. That's it. I'm going to get back to my practice. >> Thanks very much. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Did Judy indicate, did she speak to you before or after she spoke to me? And do
the comments that you just shared replace my need to share her comments? >> Uh I think she spoke to me after she spoke to you. So, okay. So, I think I would be in in replace of unless you have anything else to add on. >> I was going to say the same thing, but I
was going to share her same comments that you did. Okay. >> Further on down in the meeting. So, thank you for having fulfilled that. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Greg. Back to the field. Go. The kids need you. Thank you.
>> Okay, sure. >> Cheryl Culver, Plantation Key. I'm also on the LPA. Um, I had the opportunity yesterday to ride down to Marathon uh with Alina Davis and go through the fields down there. I'm going to dispute with what Mr. McVey said, the fact that
he likes some of those fields that might have artificial turf. And the term turf actually refers to grass. The term artificial turf replies to just that. Turf in and of itself, it's a term of art which applies to ground covering. So, let's use it properly. Artificial turf is being pushed hard by a lot of
people. Problem is with anything else, just like this baseball field out here, which was supposedly prepared by the school board in 20 in 2002, it was never prepared. It was never leveled. Drainage was never put in. Never anything was done. Nothing that I have seen with the school board, including what I saw
yesterday at Marathon High School, indicates to me that that the school board does a good job of preparing anything. In fact, they tend to cut their budgets when it comes to preparation. They hang on to the pretty stuff. the baseball field in Marathon. We noticed as we walk towards we had to walk uphill to get to the pitcher mound
and then to get out to second base. Second base, as you well know, aligned straight with center field. You look from the left, it kind of sloped towards the center field. But as we look to the right down the right baseline, it dropped off almost 20 in. And it dropped off further when you got outside the
actual physical base, not just the foul ball line, but the b the actual line of the field. And it dropped off almost two and a half feet. So when you look at it closely, you real and we found out that the drainage has never been proper and that they had not prepped the field done here. This field was never prepped
properly. And if he wants to talk about caring for the grass over here, we have to go back in and prep do preparation properly. I will never ever ever agree to anything that involves synthetic turf on anything other than when you get off the ski lift to stop you from slipping
off the side of the mountain in the snow. It is hot. It is miserable. You've been shown that despite Tony's favorite slideshow he presented the other day. If you noticed he cast a long shadow. So late in the day early early in the day you don't cast a long shadow at noon.
You have to take into concern the heat that this generates. It is not good. And there are multiple despite what you were saying there are multiple reports by most of the orthopedic associations not recommending for children and adults to play on certain turfs. And I've as I've
been around AstroTurf a long time. Yes, they've done a lot of interesting things, but I don't want it on any of our public property. Stick with grass and yes, you have to maintain it, but like anything else, you have to prep it first and then maintain. And there's a long-term care for um anything in and
there's nothing easy about artificial turf. It's just different. I would ask you to keep that in mind. But most importantly, I would ask you to keep in mind that whatever you plan as far as working with anybody, you have to prepare the surfaces properly or nothing's going to last.
>> Thanks, Cheryl. Any other public comments? Okay, we'll >> close someone on Zoom. I'm sorry. Yes. >> Yeah. Yes. Hi, Mark Mansini. Uh, several properties on upper Makumbi. Um, when I
first heard about this, based upon my basic knowledge of uh uh artificial turf and grass, I thought artificial turf would be a good move. But I I did some research on my own because I heard the uh objections for it uh from the
salesperson from the um artificial turf company and it just seemed very salesy to me. spent my whole life in sales. I kind of know what sales objection responses sound like and I use Grock and uh you can feel free to use chat GPT to filter through the BS and actually get
the real answers. But um you know artificial turf for a baseball field is the equivalent of five billion with a B billion bottles of plastic. Okay, we are the Florida Keys. If we do not lead by
example with what we are doing for the environment, then we are sad individuals for even thinking of this. Okay, so I definitely leading with that. Not to mention the plastics, the microplastics that end up in our bodies. My wife and I are both physicians. I can tell you firsthand this is a serious concern
adding more plastics to our lovely Keys environment. Second is injuries. Everyone has studies. Okay. Honestly though, every pro alete will tell you injuries are more exacerbated on artificial turf and this isn't just a
field for baseball people uh in the high school and people like who play kickball and stuff are going to be using this field and we don't really want to use this. This field is the city owned which in a sense is taxpayer owned and not
high school owned. this is on loan and they are kind of treating this and building their way like they own it. At last I checked, the high school does not have a plethora of Major League Baseball players graduating from the high school and getting drafted. I personally have
gone to school with several professional NBA and Major League Baseball players, some of which you know by name. Where I grew up, none of us where I grew up in New Jersey had even a grass infield. never mind astroturf. And
yet we graduated a ma major league baseball player and two NBA players. One was a multi-year um NBA All-Star. So I I think that they enjoy spending other people's money, but honestly, they need to take a page out
of the Doge playbook. This is our money. This is our field that they get to play on, and it needs to be done at our acceptance and what we consider is appropriate. And you know, I I I pretty much said what I wanted to say. I I didn't think I'd I thought I'd be capped
at the three minutes already by now, but I'm pretty heated up about this because the number one reason is this plastic and the astroturf and the microplastics this will put into our keys environment after it's taken away because this has a limited lifespan. Once it's removed,
it's the equivalent of five billion plastic bottles. And I don't know about you, I do not use plastic bottles anymore. I do not like microlastics. We are adding to this insane thing where a grass field we've all been using all of us our whole life and we did just fine.
So, uh I I really think that the city needs to kind of man up on this and not be pushed around by the by the high school. This is something that um you know, we pay well over $70,000 a year in taxes to the city with our properties
and and I don't see this being a good use of our our city taxes. >> Thank you very much for for your contribution. Thank you. I'm told the time is our timer says. Thank you so much. And just so we reminded this is not really our topic for this this
evening. So this input is valuable. the the um public comment is always valuable, but this is not the topic that we have for our committee meeting. So, we're not not considering this. This is just not our topic tonight. So, thank
you very much. Is there anything else? Anyone else? No, no more public comment. Okay, then public comment is closed. So, um, let me turn this over to you, Maria, or Annie
or whoever from staff would like to do the presentation and introductions. >> Yes, I would love to. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> This evening tonight, um, we have some special guests here that are going to give a presentation on our inclusive
playground. I just want to give a little bit of background on the playground project before they give their presentation. So for this year's budget 2025 2026, we have $600,000 allotted in the budget for our inclusive playground
project. TDC um is funded. We received a grant from TDC for $497,771. So, uh it is fully funded and we are ready to move forward with the project and we have been working with um our
great uh attendees here from uh Playmore um on the design uh on the design of the project for just a little bit more background on the playground. Um during the master plan process, Miller Lake
Associates recommended to move the playground where it's currently exist now over to the volleyball court area. So it'll be one large playground in instead of two separate playgrounds for different ages. So that is and tonight
design you'll see that that it's one large area and it's located now where the volleyball court is on the beach. There was also a committee that was formed to help with the design process to give
input to our um design team and that committee consisted of Natasha Early who's on the parks and recreation advisory committee. Lumi Fentes from Miller and leg so she's also on the committee. Christina patients from
public works. Annie and myself. So, it was a good team of um folks that gave input on the design and this is um I would say close to the final design if um the committee likes it and likes the
elements and um we can move forward. But again, uh just want to introduce um our guest here. It's Will Frell from Playmore Recreation Products. He is our project manager. I think he is going to start um the presentation and then also
we have Caleb Smith. He is the owner of the Sunshine Turf Company. >> Great. So take it away gentlemen. >> Thank you everyone. Um so hi my name is Will Ferrell and um I am the project manager, sales rep, but
I also am the designer. So I'm pretty much do everything from start to finish on this project. I'll be the point contact. Oh, that way. Perfect. Y. Um, so a little bit of background about me is originally I started as a designer for Playmore about four years ago and I
went into it kind of just to help the owners out. They needed somebody that knew how to use AutoCAD. Um, I knew that I would eventually want to move into the project management side. And then uh, yep, that's me. This is my family. And then that is actually at during the library beach playground build. So on
the right side. So a little bit about Playmore is they've been around since the year 2000. They're a family-owned company. They do about 100 over a 100 projects a year. Um they're a certified building contractor, so they we pull our own permits.
Everything is licensed. Um we have project managers throughout the whole state. And then we have an in-house design staff that also assists in uh whenever we do get that backlog and um we are able to align ourselves with some pretty great manufacturers.
So the manufacturers that I was able to put on this playground was Berliner and Playorld. Um Berliner is a company that they have a manufacturing facility in Greenville, South Carolina, as well as Berlin, Germany. Um they've been around they just hit their 160 year mark this
year. They originally started out doing providing elevator cables, making the steel cables and they still use the same machines to twine their rope now. Um, and the rope in the industry is kind of playground. Play World used to buy their
rope from Berlin as well as other playground manufacturers, but then they got into the playground business as well. And then Play World, they're made in the USA in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. They've been around for about 50 years and uh they're leader on inclusive design.
So I'm just going to go through kind of the renderings and then we're going to kind of break down after the fact. So this is just a one of the overall pictures showing just the variety of components that we provided here for from your littles all the way up to your
older generation. So, and then we'd like to add some imaginary components and we really wanted to target this to be a inclusive playground. So, not just accessible but also inclusive for any type of disabilities, sensory or any problems.
So from there, I'm just going to go into the inclusivity part of how we designed this. And the one thing about the difference between inclusive and ADA accessible being ADA is pretty much just a accessible route from the parking lot to the playground. and that would legally
define that as accessible. But from here, that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be placing it where the old volleyball courts are and then having a direct route from a parking spot, a wheelchair parking spot. And this is just kind of to show there's a little misconception sometimes to say
like the wheelchair bound children are unable to use rope play. And uh we do have one of these components, a hammock. And um not sure if the video There we go. So, one of the other key points of inclusion is being able to play with
everyone, kind of bring everyone together rather than separating any other everything. Um, so as you can see, the wheelchair bound child was able to get up onto this hammock on his own. He's playing with his friends. They're all having a good time together.
All right. So another thing key point for is for inclusion is your the physical and benefits. So we have propriceptive senses which is the physical development, risk awareness and risk perception. That's been a very big point in the playground industry
recently is just they've they found a study that correlated driver's licenses and playgrounds being too safe because essentially playgrounds are where we go to take our first risk. So that's how we're going to learn and grow up to take those risks, take those next steps.
And then our vestibular senses which play large benefits into all of the children's developments. You're spinning, bouncing, and you're swinging. So over here we have a Pomemetto saucer hammock swing. It's a multi-user swing. Um and then we have a wheelchair
accessible spinner with handhelds. And then our IEO right there climber that gives the child a sense of height, but they're not going to fall through. The fall height on that is 4 feet. So even if they're at the max height at 8t, the
ball height is four feet. And this is just kind of some additional examples to show vestibular play, propriceptive play. And then just just to show the risk like there he may be only three four feet off the ground, but
he's using his whole body and using every different muscle and it's your pulling and climbing and using a three points of access. So this just kind of some additional items to show a complete inclusive environment. And one of the other this
is a custom tree and we added a transfer station as well just to allow the accessibility to get on up to the top and slide down. And then there's some sensory panels along the ocean wonder wall and then just the ADA accessible
parking. So >> was going to allow. So we decided to go with uh turf on this just because rather than the pour in place um just due to the heat, the cost and some other things that we found I found because I do a lot
of parks with pour in place rubber. And there's just some things that I've found along the way and down here with the heat it's best to where he can change it. >> Yeah, we'll we'll jump into his after. But additionally, so these are the site
amenities we're going to provide as well. Um, all of these have a 20-year warranty against rust, and in this climate, that is the best thing that we can offer for there. They may not be as aesthetically pleasing, but they are going to last and get that longevity that we all love.
So, another thing that we are also going to be putting in is just using different colors and to kind of create a little bit more of imaginary play space. So, we so far we have a starfish added, a dolphin added, and then kind of a beach to water theme. Um, one of the things
we've kind of talking about is including either the hopscotch or maybe some additional animals. And then the infill that we will be using on this one is the teacol, which should drop the temp by around 60° of the turf. So,
>> six degrees. >> Oh, six 60. Yes. Up to 60°. Yes, ma'am. Any questions? >> Can you um >> I have a question. >> Yes, sir.
>> Can you hear me? All right. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh my name is Ted Benmo. I'm one of the committee members. So, you a couple comments here. You said that 20-year life because it would rust because it could be rust. What What material are you using that would that you would put
next to a beach? So, it's a very thick plast coating. Um, they it's it's about trying to it's about a quarter inch thick allowing that they dip the whole entire structure so there's no in entrance for any of the salt or corrosion to start from the inside.
>> Okay. And then my other question was, did you say that you did library beach playground equipment? >> Yes, sir. So, I was down there uh three weeks ago with my family and that turf that's where the swings are, you can't even walk on it. Cannot walk on it. It
puts off so much heat. You can feel the heat radiating off it. Is that the same type of turf you're planning on using >> on this playground? >> Uh, no sir. So, that one we all we provided was the pour in place rubber surfacing around along the playground. We'll be using a totally different
playground grass over there. Why did you use that on library playground then? >> Um, initially that was what was required of the bed. Um, and what we found is just the ability to reduce the heat with the new Tool system just um just help
with the heat and it reduces the cost by about $30,000 for the surfacing. >> So, we chose a lesser of a product and and the result is it's pretty hot to walk on. >> No sir. No. So the the turf is actually less hot than the pour in place rubber.
This >> I'm saying a I'm saying a library. I'm saying a library beach. >> Oh. Oh, we didn't we weren't even involved in uh that turf at all. We were just just the playground itself. >> Okay. And then I'm I'm sorry, my la I'm going ask my last question because it
was all part of this and this is for Maria. Where are we moving the volleyball court to? The volleyball court is going to be moved where the large playground is now. >> Perfect. Okay. Thank you. >> We will have a volleyball court out
there. It may um it's more going to be more like a smaller volleyball court for recreational use. Um >> Okay. >> We do we do still plan on having a court out there. >> Okay. All right. Thank you for answering my questions.
Hi. Uh, my name is Caleb Smith. Um, it's great to be here. Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Uh, I said if I or I, you know, I was told if I brought up baseball field that I might have to delay my flight back home. So, I'll just kind of keep it brief and talk
about the playground. Um, I have a kind of just a picture book to pass around of different playground surfaces that we've done and um, I'll provide a sample as well and I'll just kind of pass it around. Is that is that good? Does that work? >> Yep. Whatever you suggest.
>> Awesome. So, uh, Sunshine Turf, we do uh, playground surfaces. So we can provide the rubber mulch surface, the uh wood mulch surface, port in place rubber surface or the turf surface. Uh we get a lot of uh obviously turf is the main
thing. It's happening all over the the country and um there's a lot of uh solutions that it provides and there's a lot of reasons that uh many people love it. So with that I will get started. So, a couple things that the the
playground uh surfacing solution so it can give us an exact um critical fall height which is extremely important as Will was talking about uh the you know when childs take their first risks right they're swinging they're bouncing they're jumping they're playing and they
of course they fall um and to minimize uh potential risk with injuries uh there's the critical fall height different pad thicknesses is um so each one is not only each thickness and and corresponds with the playground
equipment um how high it is and so they're they're lab tested with our systems they're lab tested and they're also sight tested in real use um and so we we know which pad thicknesses are are required uh for uh to meet the ASM
standards uh for critical fall uh accessibility um wheelchair. So we have all the testing on that as well. Um so it's ADA compliant and um as I understand it that you know that test is the resistance
that a wheelchair has uh while it's being pushed. Um so this gives us you know artificial turf we you know everybody likes it a lot better than uh the wood chips or the the rubber the rubber mulch as far as being able to to
wheel and being fully inclusive. Um the uh I'll just kind of skip through really quick because um but yeah, I wanted to talk about warranty. So it has a 15-year manufacturer warranty and a
15-year workmanship and care warranty as well. So this is the the system basically right here on the left hand side is a cut sheet showing the materials that go underneath of it. The bottom layer is a 57 stone rock. It's a a large drainage
layer. It's 4 in of that. The second layer is a smaller stone. It's a leveling stone layer. Uh it's 89 stone and that's there's 2 in of that. And then the pad thickness of course varying at different different thicknesses. And
then the artificial turf. So that's the um that's that edge detail. As far as our pad manufacturer, we are partnered with Shaw, which is the um Shaw Industries, which is a a large, you know, flooring and and surfacing. Um
they, you know, 60,000 employees. So, we're partnered with them. They have all that testing on that to to provide us. So, that's that's good to be partnered with them. Yeah. As far as the turf designs, um we work alongside the playground equipment to incorporate colors and fun themes.
you know, sharks, fish, you know, uh just fun elements uh to incre enhance the play. So, a couple things. So, Florida based Sunshine Turf has six full-time crews performing work all over Florida. There's usually five installers per
crew, and each crew lead has over six years of playground surfacing experience. Uh we have we do 60 playgrounds per year on installations. So averaging about 1.15 playground installations per week.
The uh of course we can provide references from parks, schools, municipalities on request. And then it's it's great partnership with Playmore. Um will you know keeps us keeps everything moving. uh for example, he told me this meeting was going to be at 4 and uh just
to make sure I was early and you know didn't miss it. So he he knows how to handle crews. He knows how to uh to make sure that the project is is progressing on a on a timely manner. So uh yeah.
So I yeah I I don't think I have um you know I I'll say this because obviously I'm coming into a room and there was a lot of things said so I'm a little bit uh you know I I I could spend a long time answering a lot of different questions. I would love to do that. I I
will say you know I'm not uh I'm not desperate for a sale. I make enough money to to feed my family. So, you know, I I don't I don't want to come across as salesy or anything like that, but there is a couple things that I'd
like to clarify and um you know, I'll just I'll just you know, I guess uh speak my piece. Hopefully that's okay. So uh the yeah so this is happening all all over you know artificial turf is being installed all over the uh the
country like I said in um fields, playgrounds, you name it. Uh pet areas it it does solve a lot of real world problems. So heat is one of them. the the questions that we get a lot of, you know,
a lot of questions about the heat. Um, as the artificial turf uh industry grows and there's u more technology advancements, um there's a lot of people that work very hard to find solutions for the heat and there's a couple
leading um solutions and one of those is TCool. That seems like the best solution so far. There's also hydrochill but both of those are cooling agents. uh they are more expensive and it is a higher quality product. It's about a dollar per square foot more. So when you talk about
a playground save 4,500 square ft uh for $4,500 is kind of the added uh right there. That's that's a lot of added benefit with the heat as well. If you're talking about a field, which we're not going to talk about, right? But uh if we're talking about that, then obviously
that that number expands. So that's kind of, you know, on a smaller scale, it makes it more feasible to have that that higher quality product. Um, which is great. So, uh, lighter tone, lighter tones, another thing in, you know, playgrounds, shade
sales really helps, uh, quite a bit. Um, and then, uh, so I guess we'll we'll go next to flooding, drainage. So it's the backing of the turf is perforated holes punched uh averaging about every four inches. Um it drains about 118 inches uh
per hour. The artificial turf does the the pad is a little bit less than that. The whole system drains about 100 in um per hour which is pretty substantial. So we we we're able to uh have a lot of rain water flow through.
um cleanliness. It's it is easy maintenance. It is very easy maintenance. So, basically blowing off leaves um and and keeping that maintained if there's a you know a storm that brings a lot of sand in. Sand is
actually um what's used commonly used for an infill. So, it doesn't hurt the turf at all. Um that isn't the case with the port in place rubber uh which is a lot of times especially by the water. why it's that that that switch is made
um because if you have all that sand going to the the port in place, it locks up. It makes it the surface a lot harder and uh and so that it won't test well if you do a drop test, a safety test on the on the um the fall height. It's not going to test well after a couple years.
So that's that's where by the water having that pad underneath um you can have that uh safety for uh longer uh yeah so environment. So there are a lot of different rubber op I mean a lot
of different uh infill options. There's standard sand, envirill, optifil, rockfill, rubber, all sorts of things. We're we're pro uh proposing cool uh teaool. So I would um I think we have
maybe a little bit of information on that, but if you if you just search teaool, there's a lot of information online about it. Uh durability and repairs. I think I'll I'll get into that on the next slide, but it's very uh there's there's one
kind of there's one thing that we do with our design that's that's uh I I think very effective. Um so with swing sets especially with um wood mulch or rubber mulch the swing sets especially in high foot traffic areas that that
that material gets displaced um and so you don't have that the right testing fall heightens unless you maintain it very regularly. So we've seen a lot of um a lot of cities municipalities get get you know a lot of lawsuits uh because their their you know their kid
parents kid falls it wasn't maintained properly. So artificial turf, um, it provides a a a stable solution for that that's long lasting. Um, yeah, I I I'll go into PAS a little bit.
So the PFAS the the um I I'd like to know, you know, Captain Ed brought this up and I like that that he did there. I would like to know the the dates on those uh tests and those reports. So I think I'll get with him after that after
this. But um because there's been there like I said there has been a lot of uh innovation over the years a lot of large uh well-meaning um contributors to that innovation. And uh and so what we've seen what we've what we've seen and with
with testing there's a lot of imported products still have that. Some don't some do but a lot of them do. the imported products do have the um I think it's called the poly florine um coating on their
products. Um and then the um some old US a lot of older generation artificial turf products do have that and uh but this is a big thing that this is being talked about a lot in the industry. We hear it a lot. Um and uh and so there
are there's a lot of people involved with this and and um and and making this uh ch making the artificial turf manufacturers change their processes to eliminate those things. So these the new pro that's why I'm asking for dates is
because the new products that they're making are um so they're not made with the p the the PFAS and they don't have it in them. They're they're PFAS free. Um, so it's it is I'm not sure that
that's um you know a current issue. So just some uh some of the you know playgrounds that we've done obviously that the picture book went around. So I'd love to answer questions. >> Caleb I'll ask one. Do do I understand
that you are the appointed prospective contractor for the project? Is that what I'm getting or I just so we understand. >> So for so what we do is the site work everything on the ground. So we will um
be involved with most likely the concrete curb uh leveling everything out um building the the base work. And so we're we're a sub of Playmore under that. Yeah. >> So what I mean is you've been selected
by Playmore. This you guys are a package that when the package is accepted, this will be you will be the contractor. I'm just trying to get clear on that. >> Correct. Yes. >> Good. Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. >> I have a question. >> Yeah.
>> I'm sorry. I don't it's hard for me to tell who's talking and who's not. But my my question is is are you familiar with the uh the new product they put over at the dog park in that certain section over there where the tables are and everything at Founders Park. There's some there's some artificial turf there
that was put in in the last year I believe. Are you familiar with that? Is that a product you use or did you do the work? >> We did not do the work and I'm not familiar with that. No. Well, my my question is then, and I guess I don't
know if you'll be able to answer it. So, uh it looks beautiful. It it it holds up well. Um I use the dog per park several times a week, but what I've noticed with playing Frisbee with my yellow Labrador is that his pads get rug burn. Not Not
from heat, but rug burn from, you know, playing Frisbee where in that same area before he did not. And so my my my concern is is what what kind of rug burns will children get? You know, forget about the
the heat and the plastic, you know, the free the the plastics that are toxic and all that stuff that everybody's made complain about. What is the safety on that when they fall? Because it sure seems like to me, I mean, I think everybody in this room remembers getting a rug burn
when they were kids and that I think we're kind of setting setting the kids up for that. Plus, it sounds very expensive with all the studies you talked about. And I'll mute myself unless >> uh yeah, great question. Um, so in I I so I've been in this industry for 10
years. I can confidently say I've never heard of anybody complaining with of of that uh specific issue. So I I couldn't really speak a lot to it. Um, I know that, you know, kids typically will wear shoes while they're playing. And, you know, I I don't maybe the pivoting with
the the dogs pivoting back and forth. Maybe that's part of it. U maybe it's more common with athletes, I think, because of the the same kind of motion. They're running and then they're stopping pivoting. So, or fall, you know, falling kind of on the turf surface a lot more. So, I think that's
probably it. But that's just my, you know, that's that's an opinion that's not backed by any data because I've not actually heard that complaint before. >> Well, and I I think that's something that needs to be considered by this board. But thank you for your answer.
>> Yep. >> Thanks, Ted. >> Other other questions from Y. So, this square of grass is what we're talking about for that surface. >> Yes. And I believe Will said that it's
60 degrees cooler. >> So the tea cool uh when it's measured the surface of tea cool uh with turf is measured against the uh artificial turf without it. It's up to 60° cooler. Um and that's up to so I think averaging
around I think 40 degrees cooler is kind of the average of what it what that provides. So, it's not it, you know, being completely honest, transparent, it when you if you put your hand on it when it's four o'clock in the afternoon, no no cloud in the sky, it's going to be
hot to the touch. Um, it will be cooler though than something without that. So, it's going to be 40° cooler than than the artificial turf without it. And that both of those surfaces are going to be cooler than PI the port in place. So, and the port in place, one interesting
thing there with the heat. So port in place rubber and artificial turf are kind of the top tier as far as price and top tier as far as quality and uh consistent safe surfacing uh as far as you know impact. Um so poured in pl but if you measure the heat from a heat gun
from a distance they're actually going to be similar. If you actually put your hand on both of them they're going to feel different though. The turf is going to feel cooler and the the port in place rubber is going to feel hotter to the touch. And so if you and and so I would encourage anybody who has the
opportunity to do that because there's a lot of playgrounds out there that have turf and port in place in the same area. So you can't actually do that in a lot of places. I would encourage you to do that because basically why that is is the turf fibers they're sticking straight up and so they have the wind kind of all throughout right and it's
not just one flat surface that's retaining all that heat. Um, they it doesn't uh it kind of has I'm struggling to find the right words here, but I think you probably are are picking up what I'm saying. But the rubber surface is very flat and so it's right there. As
soon as you touch it, it's it's it's very very hot. So >> So this is kind of like laying down >> the tur that that Yeah. Yeah. >> That's kind of the way it it really is. >> That's what the infill does. So the infill goes into the turf and helps
stand the blades up. So right now coming right off the the the manufacturing it it will be laying down and then when we power broom it up we put in the infill. That's what keeps it standing straight up. >> So that infill is the tool. >> Yes. >> Okay. And so all these pretty colors you
dye that. >> No, they're they're um they're yarns that are made that color. There's no it's not dyed after the fact or anything like that. They the yarn comes in and then is toughed into the backing. So, it's a polyethylene
uh blade and a urethane backing. >> So, you probably heard Mark Mancini talk about how many bottles of plastic bottles the turf is. So, this is basically the same material. >> No, the the plastic I'm not sure what
constitutes a plastic bottle, but it is not polyethylene or urethane. So, I've never heard of a water bottle being made out of those materials, but um >> So, this material is >> This is polyethylene and um urethane.
>> Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Other comments, questions, anybody on the committee? What happens after 15 years? >> It might need resurfaced. Um you there's a couple things you can do. I don't know if I can go back, but there's uh it's a
lot less financial impact. I don't know if I can go back to one of the ones with the blue circles. >> He's getting it for you. >> Yeah, right there. That's perfect. Just uh like that one in the middle. Um so, one of the things you can do with the surfaces after 15 years, the higher foot traffic areas will start to get worn
out, especially with swing sets uh right out of right right by slides. So, what you can do is you can put um circle patches like that that make it look intentional. Like instead of a perfect square patch that looks patched, you can actually incorporate it with a theme.
Put a multiolor in there and um and so that's a that's a great way to do it. That's the the least cost, you know, um uh after 15 years. The other thing you can do is you can resurface the entire thing after 15 years, but you don't won't have to touch the underllayment
material. So, that will stay. You'll just resurface it. So it will be a lot less expensive to resurface after 15 years. It's you're not redoing the entire project. >> Do you know anything about the pore in place product? >> A little bit. Yeah. >> A little bit. So what is that made of?
What are the materials made of? You know, >> yeah, as I understand it, Will might know a little bit more, but as I understand it, there's a bottom layer of rubber buffings. It's basically ground uh like shredded rubber that has a bonding agent attached to it, a kind of
epoxy attachment to it that bonds that together. And then there's a top about half inch layer of uh it's it's still rubber with a it's a it's a bonding agent as well on that. Um it's much more dense though. And so that's kind of that that top layer. Underneath of those two
layers is is a usually three inches of rock. So does that help? Yep. >> Yep. Yep. And another thing to note on the rubber is the warranty for the rubber is a 5year warranty with a resurfacing after three.
The warranties are significantly different. And I just ran into this um at a project we were actually getting rid of the rubber and replacing it with her at a school in St. Petersburg. And we didn't plan for this, but um when we went to take it to the dump, we had to
pay an additional fee because they considered the rubber toxic. So it's so >> this was an alternative. This is not what you're talking about. >> No, ma'am. Right. Yes. It's it's difficult with the playground surfacing because you could you could always do mulch, wood mulch, but realist like
anybody with a wheelchair, it's defined ADA inclusive, but if you see somebody with a wheelchair roll across mulch, it is terrible to see. Like you feel terrible. Um, so unfortunately the two main components that they have right now
for real surfacing for playgrounds is turf and place rubber. >> Great. Maria and Annie, do you all have any comments? Well, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, John. I saw a child who was on a playground once in Melbourne that had
mulch instead of this better quality service and they fell off the playground and ran a piece of cypress mulch into their hand and had to have surgery to have the cypress mulch removed. I I would endorse this as a safer surface.
>> Excellent. >> Thank you, >> Annie. Maria, do you guys have any comments? You've reviewed all of this. this is your selected choice. >> We have and we know um we know that you
know the artificial turf is a big you know question um when it comes to this the community and installing it here at the park. But I think for this installation when it comes to the playground and having you
know basically only two choices you know because putting sand is not an option anymore and putting um you know mulch is not an option. So your two options are you know the poor in place and this and I think we we feel that this is the
better option and the safest option and um also maintenance-wise as well. Um, so what kind of maintenance does it require >> for the overall playground or just the turf?
>> The turf. >> Turf mostly. Yeah. >> Yeah. Tur. It's very uh easy maintenance. So basically the the main thing is blowing it off from leaves, debris, um, and doing that kind of regularly. if the if the debris so from leaves kind of decomposes and allow is
allowed to stay there over time, it can kind of decompose and and create organic material. So, we we recommend keeping that blown off. And then the other thing that I would invest in is a uh power broom. It's about $700 for a good quality machine. There's cheaper
options, but um that's a really good high high uh commercial use uh machine. And that's a rotating brush broom. What that does is that that helps to uh groom the blades of grass and keep it standing straight up and and it also cleans out
debris. So, you know, your uh gum and sucker sticks and stuff like that, you know, it kind of cleans all that up. Um and I I would recommend once maybe once a quarter uh a disinfectant. The product we're using has an antimicrobial agent that helps break down bacteria. Um, but
it's always a good idea to add add more of uh, you know, a disinfectant to it. So, uh, obviously a safe a safe one. Um, the I I did not that helps answer that question, right? Is that that uh I did
forget to mention a couple things on that product. So, that product right there, it's called Play Safe and it has antimicrobial uh element like I just mentioned. It also has anti-static in it. Uh which is which is um I know this
for older models of coclar implants that they were shorting out with uh with that with the static buildup with kids with that uh coar implant would you know they would touch something and and it would it would short out. I don't know if those still are still around those older
models. I'm not really sure on that but it was designed for that you know for that purpose and then obviously just annoyance of of of the shock. Um so it the the material absorbs shock so that you know the the children don't have to
basically um and then the um I think those are the main two kind of technologies that are incorporated into that product. So >> what are the dimensions of it? >> 15t wide by however many feet long we need to order it. So they come in rolls and uh
>> No, I mean the playground. >> Oh that would be Do you have those? too long. >> 4,800 square feet. >> 4,800. >> Yeah, >> something like that. 4,800. >> Uh, changes. It bumped up to like 54. >> Oh, it's even bigger. >> Yeah.
>> Nice. You like it bigger. >> All the players surround that. Uh, the site plan I showed kind of is an overlay of how it's going to fit in that area as well. And then another question that I did ask um Caleb was about the sand on the beach
and if how because obviously it's on the beach. So um what surface would hold up better? Would it be the artificial turf or the pore in place? And your the answer was the the turf because the pore
in place will break down over time. >> And does that include wet feet that come in from the water too? >> Yeah. So the sand is not doesn't the sand. So basically the most commonly used uh infill is standard sand. So sand
is not going to hurt it at all. Um if it's completely covered in sand, then I would just use that power broom to brush it out, but that's it. So >> and we do have a power broom that we maintain the dog park turf with. So we do we we already do that maintenance
projects that at the dog park >> along with putting um material down for odors and so forth. So >> So let me get clear is our next step as a committee to vote to endorse the
selections that you all have made so that we as a committee recommend this to the village council. Is that correct? Yes. Are there any? Yeah, sure. >> And and Caroline, I have a few more comments and questions if you'll indulge
me. >> Okay. Okay. >> Um if we're going to be voting on this. So, uh one question for Maria and then I got a few comments. Maria, what is the current life expectancy on the current playground
equipment we have that's on the beach? >> The current playground equipment? >> Yes. What's the life expectancy? What's what's left on? I mean, I'm sure you guys must have a life limit on it. >> Reached it. It's It's over 15 years.
>> Um, it we installed it in 2015. So, it's we're >> Okay. And what what was the life expectancy on it in 2015 to be replaced? >> Do you know, will you probably know that? I mean, it's >> I don't know from back then. Um the main
thing that we faced down here is just the additional salt. So how we combed that for library is uh play world did a special coating as test run for down here where the paint is triple the thickness. But unfortunately they didn't want to do that for this option. So
that's why I went with Berliner which is the German company because they just come standard with double the paint thickness to maintain that long. >> So what's your life expectancy on your equipment then? Maybe that'll answer a question. >> 15 years. So the >> Okay. >> So 15 years for the So the I'll break
it. So there's different warranties for different aspects of the playground. So all posts and steel is 15 years. HDPE plastics which is like your slides and some of the paneling that you see on the main structures 10 years. Bamboo the 10
years. And the uh rope is five years. >> Okay. So it's safe to say we might have five years left of our current equipment. Um, and then my other comments was what I was hearing tonight as I'm as I'm driving uh from state to state is um I heard ADA compliant, ADA
compliant, ADA compliant, and then I heard chemicals and plastic, chemicals and plastic. Um, it's very hard for me to support any more plastic in the park than we're already being pushed at the baseball
field. I don't think the community wants a lot of plastic and and this is really for our group and for the audience and I will leave it at there and if somebody wants to make a motion and call a vote then I guess that's what we're going to do. >> Thanks Ted. Well, the good thing about
this is this is the first project that will be finished. So this is the one that sets the standard and the ball field is still in the future and the rest of the park is more and more in the future. So this is the first one and it sounds like this has been chosen because
the existing the existing um playground is you said it's reached its >> Oh yes it's reached its time. >> It's reached its time. So this is >> we have funding and majority of the funding is from TDC funding. >> Okay.
>> So we um and that grant we have to follow through with that grant or we're going to lose that money. >> Okay. So, >> so this is timely and >> Oh, yeah. And it is needed. There's if you go out there and inspect the equipment, it's rusted and >> we've patched it as much as we can patch
it. We've replaced parts on it. So, it's it's due and we highly recommend it. >> Okay. So, if there are no more comments from the committee, um I will entertain one more question. Point of order. You were about to
approve a half a million dollar project with no public comment. The public had no idea what all this was about. The public has not had any of the information until now and you're about to call for a vote.
>> Sir, sir, there will be the opportunity before this is approved because we don't approve it. We take this to the village council. There will be plenty of opportunity for the public to make that comment. This is being brought to us the first time and it's up to us to decide
do we move this forward for the council to look at. So thank you. Yeah, Tasha. First, uh Will and Caleb, thank you for coming down here and uh thanks for the time and effort that you put into this. We appreciate it. Um, you've put a lot
of these in in the state of Florida, so you're aware or very versed I I I would I would guess in the storms that we see. Um, can you give us a little bit of insight as to, you know, what you've seen, you know, how these last three
hurricanes or tropical storms or significant rain events, um, and lessons learned that you've you've come away from that? >> Yep. So, uh, the main point with playgrounds that the best one that I can see is Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers. You know how bad that storm surge was. So,
we had a playground that was right on the river in downtown Fort Myers. The city of Fort Myers spent $1.3 million on this playground. It was installed a month before it after Hurricane E. And the day after, there was concrete ballards throughout the whole entire playground that from the storm surge
that floated them up over a fence into the playground. And the playground is still standing though. One thing with the most important part is taking down the shades before storms. I know it's very difficult and very hard to do and I know maintenance it's it's hard to get
somebody to go out there spend a couple hours to get all those shades down, but that will that's really going to be the only fails that happen. None of the panels failed, none of the decks failed, none of the steel failed. It's all majority of the shade sales that do fail. And um another point is watering
down the structure will increase like once a week just just a quick spray. It will increase the longevity by 10 years. There's a you heard of the Lonnie Kai on Fort Myers Beach. It's not the best like it's like a spring break hotel, not like
a nice family hotel, but they had a playground that they bought from us back in 2001 and then they just replaced it. But what they did was they just went out there, sprayed it down with water once a week, and I guess they were able to keep that longevity. So there's little things just to that can go really far, saved
like as much money as possible with that maintenance. And then what along the lines of hurricanes, what are some additional questions like about things failing or >> I mean, right, some of this is way out of our control, you know? I would say if
it's made it through Hurricane Ian and a week later or a month later it was back in place, I'd say that's a pretty good >> that's a pretty good uh commentary. >> Yeah. Yeah. Structurally the playgrounds are all going to be fine. It's just the shade sales that are really the most important and unfortunately they are
fairly >> costly as well. So that's why I stress because a lot of the projects I just did one in uh Fort Dotto up in the St. Pete. So, this playground got six foot of storm surge last year from Milton and everything was fine except for the shade
sills. So, >> great. Thank you. >> And then with the shade seals, we we'll provide you a uh bit that makes it easy to take the shades down. They're just with a clamping system, so they'll be be easy to take off and the man's got to take off. So,
>> thank you. So, um yes, John. I move that the committee endorse to the village council to proceed with this project. >> Thank you. Is there a second? >> Question. >> You have a question? >> One last question. >> Yes. >> Thank you. So what I'm hearing is that
in order to make this ADA compliant, there are only two choices. >> So essentially mulch is is legally ADA compliant. But I mean that's just a part of I I don't
it just is difficult to see a wheelchair but that is an option. But besides that the only two options are the bonded pore in place rubber and the artificial turf unfortunately right now. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there a second?
>> All right. Motion seconded. Can we have a real call from the from the committee, please? >> Um All right. Carolyn, >> yes. >> Ted, >> no. Not Not the way the current motion is set.
>> Okay. Shannon, >> yes. Alina, >> no. Because of the plastic, you know, and I I understand that this is possibly the only choice,
but I just in my heart I need to vote no because of the plastic. >> Okay. Thanks. Who else? >> Okay, Christie. >> Christie, >> I vote yes to move this on to the council for their consideration.
>> Okay. >> Okay. >> Uh Joe, >> yes. You're looking at a lump totally different from the baseball field. In my opinion, this playground is being used
365 days a year, probably all day long. 365 days a year. It's just common sense it would need some type of a surface that's going to up last that or take that kind of a beating and this surface I believe does.
On the other hand, I'm going to not comment on the baseball. >> Okay. Well, let's take one issue at a time. Thank you. Okay. One issue at a time. >> Yeah. Just because I'm approving this doesn't mean I'm >> that this is one issue at a time. So our our vote is then
>> well I bet John but I assume he's >> Yes. >> Okay. So it is we are five to two. >> Five to two. That was a Okay. >> So >> and Caroline Caroline I Ron can weigh in on this but I think we're supposed to
have a motion a second and then discussion before we vote. Well, I >> we didn't we didn't do it that way. >> Uh I apologize if I've done it out of order. We've had a ton of discussion
from the committee and >> Well, I had one more comment I wanted to make, but I guess it's too late now because we already voted. >> I would have liked to had some discussion. >> Okay. So, let's remind us that what we are doing is we are first of all
acknowledging the work that has been done by staff. They have spent a lot of time previewing and going through all of this. So they are bringing to us their best choices and they are bringing to us the vendors that they have selected. So
for those people who don't feel they've gotten enough details, they've done a lot of this homework. And then what we get to remember is we've simply been brought this as an advisory committee. it will be our opportunity to present this to the village council which will
be the ones who will make the the final decision. the >> well I understand that but we still got to follow the Robert's rules and and I had a point I wanted to make because I do have a little bit of insight on plastic but I'm just saying we've already voted vote the vote pass but
from and now on can we please have a motion a second and then have a little bit of discussion between the board >> and if we've missed that Ted what I would suggest is that that come to the village council because we still have a complete opportunity for total
open discussion about this before the village council and this has >> the funding has already been committed and we do have a timeline on when this project must be um completed as I
understand it. So if I've misspoken anything then >> and and I'm all for I'm all for have the new playground. >> Okay. >> Just I just not for I'm not for plastic. Okay. So, let's let's take that as the
final vote and then the the recommendation will be made that the the committee has previewed this and with a vote of 5 to2 we have endorsed the work that has been done by staff and presented to us by our prospective
vendors and this will then come to village council and there will be plenty of opportunity for open uh conversation about this when it comes to village council. because that's when it's then it's a public discussion. So, I just
have one last question. Is there an age limit on when somebody can go play in this park? No. >> Cuz I think it looks pretty cool. >> I think it'd be really fun to go over there. >> So, thank you both very much, William,
Caleb, for your extra travels and for coming down. And >> thank you for having us. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay, Maria Annie, >> you got to have your mic on, you okay.
The next um item of order is um our discussion on the park fees and Annie is going to summarize what uh we talked about at our last meeting and kind of just review that and
make sure that we're all on the same page about those fees and then I will take over the discussion on the special events. >> Okay, great. Okay. Okay. All right. So, we'll be providing a
recap on the recommended changes um that were supported by the committee at our last meeting. So, we'll just kind of quickly go through what we felt um we would like to take to council uh at the December meeting, December 9th, and then for those fees to be in effect January
1st. So that included our park admission uh policies, our contractual service agreements, daily admissions, memberships, park facility rentals, our pool team rentals, and other new fees. And then later we will later in this meeting we will hold the discussion
about our special events policy and fees. So we will determine um what would be you know based on those discussions what would be appropriate to take to council and and when. Okay. So, uh, as a reminder, we supported continuing offering free
access to the park for all Islam Marada residents and their guests staying at their residence. Um, of course, pool entry fees apply and of course, resident rates for the membership options. All other non-resident visitors will pay the park entrance fee and pool entrance fee.
So, this would be to include any guests of uh Marada Resort, hotel, motel, or rental home. Um, we will continue our elevated prices for holiday weekends, including Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. Continue elevated prices for the summer weekends. Uh, that
was for Memorial Day through Labor Day. And then, of course, our non-resident rates for memberships options will still continue. Um, we did update with the new we did have support for new daily rate option for Monroe County residents. Uh
we supported the membership fee increase in some areas up to 30%. Continue our military full discount um including reserves. We did have that conversation last time. Um and then of course our contractual revenue share um maintaining
that at the current 90% um allocated to the instructor and then the 10% um allocated to the village which was approved by village manager. And so those contracts have um already been executed. So the contractors are
very thankful for your support. So okay. And so this is just the updated view of the rate sheet. Um so showing those updates, the new Monroe County resident rate would include $3 for youth
or senior per day. Um and the adults $5. And then all other non-resident visitors would pay $7 for youth or senior, $10 for adults. Um maintaining um our holiday fees, up updating the pool fee
uh and all of the other membership fees that we had uh settled on last time at last meeting. Okay. And then uh recap on the facility rentals um facility rental fees. And really um this
these are all of the fees that you supported and just removing the this is really only for village residents. Um only available and reservable by village residents. So we remove that. Um,
and then of course our field facil I'm sorry, our basketball, volleyball, pickle ball, tennis, multi-use fields, um, softball, baseball, and driving cage um, are available for the youth sports organizations. Um, outside of that,
first come, first served, uh, at no charge. So, continuing that. And then the private party use would be a new fee um only available for village residents and only for the basketball, volleyball, and field use. The other uh facilities, it's just too much of an impact to
reserve those out for private parties. Um continued community center use as is available for community meetings and village sponsored programs and reservable for youth organizations, government agencies, all of that. So that would stay the same and again no
charge for that use. I have a quick question about the first sentence. >> Sure. >> Um, it says, "Does not allow any commercial use of village owned parks and beaches unless outlined." I thought that we didn't
do any commercial use that it was just for nonprofits. >> That's correct. It's just showing unless like you're a contractor and we we went out to bid and we have a contract like our contract instructors. >> Oh, okay. So that's really what that means. Or you know working with the ball
field having a licensing agreement. Not that that's a commercial entity either. So that's a bad example but >> okay >> that was the purpose of statement. >> Thank you. >> Our pool facility rentals. Um not many changes here. Updating a new field trip
fee. So $5 per person. Our pool team rentals increasing those. Uh and then our um a new fee, a seasonal team fee for the high school use the pool. Currently they use the facilities at no charge. Um we did a little bit of
research between our last meeting. We did not have this available, but we did learn um other facilities are they range from $10 to $25 per lane per hour. Um, and then some just charge a flat
seasonal fee and that range was 1,500 to three 3,000. And so looking at how our high school uses the pool facility, um they're here for about 10 weeks. They use four lanes um for an hour and a half three times a week, Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, and then they have on average four swim and dive meets um which are roughly two and a half hours. So looking at that and that range, we are recommending a flat fee of 3,000 for the season which would include practices uh
the weekly practices and the swim and dive meets >> and they typically have about four meets this season. >> Yeah. >> That 3,000 applied to Isa Crawford. >> No, this is just high school swim team.
women don't. >> I just wanted to make sure because she couldn't possibly recruit enough synchronized swimmers to cover that. >> No. >> Okay. >> No. >> So, only the high school, >> right? >> Okay. >> It's for the season that the high school uses the facility for swim practices and
their and their meets. >> And that is something that will go to the school board to approve or to the high school academics to approve. >> Go ahead. This is um our a recommendation that
that we are recommending that we do start charging a fee to the high school. Um these fees will obviously go to council and and the village council and there may be some discussion at that time but um >> like you say Maria, this is like
standard practice. >> Yeah. This is at other high school. >> Are we going directly are we getting the school board's approval? Um, that's not I'm sure there'll be discussions about >> No, but I mean that's the that's that's who would pay it is it would come
through the >> school board. However, however they come with the funds. I'm not sure how they do. >> Okay. >> So, uh, being a parent of a high school athlete, um,
we parents pay for everything. So, the school doesn't fund anything. Um, and and I can't speak for football or baseball, but speaking for tennis and cross country and soccer, it comes from us. Okay. >> So, that $3,000 will come from the the
athletes and the families. And I don't know what that is divided up, nor do I know what the, you know, the use and what that does and, you know, as far as the upkeep and where that goes. So, I don't know any of that. I would just say from from a parent perspective, that is that's coming from from the kids.
So, it's just a fundraising. >> Yeah. And that's kind when we did speak to John Olsen about about this and um he said yes. He says he's not quite sure where that money would come from as well. Um he said that typically
sometimes they would they may have to do fundraising for it. Um but he says it's standard. You know, a lot of um high schools do pay But again, there's a range. So if if
you're thinking that that range is too high, that's on the higher end, the 30,000. If you think it should be less, then >> what do Marathon and Key West do? >> You know, it's hard to find information out and that's part of the problem is trying to get, you know, facts from
other municipalities. It's been a little difficult. And if you want, >> so we don't know how their high school teams pay to train wherever they're training. >> I I did speak to um the Key West
um they use the pool at the um community college and I spoke to the aquatics director and they said that this year they're going to implement a fee as well for the Key West High School and she mentioned that it was going to be a pro like she she would do do it differently.
I think it was like $70 an hour. >> Mh. >> And then there she would do the math and you know times how many practices times how many meets. So >> if you we could, you know, hold off and not move this forward yet and you can
try to do a little bit more research if if you're not comfortable. But, you know, it's up to you. Well, if you've got 20 athletes, $3,000 divided by 20 is 150 bucks for the season, which >> pay more than that for all the other sports.
>> So, that's not a big number as relative to the other sports. >> You know, Maria, we could take the approach that if there's 20 kids on the on the team, let's say 40% of them live in the
village. So maybe, you know, say, okay, some people, you know, some people already paying the tax dollars on it because they live in the village. Maybe maybe cut it down to to 2,000 instead because I'm sure it's going to benefit, you know, families that live in the village.
Um, just an idea. Yeah, I would I would think that you would want to have some kind of history of what is being in the other the other Keys high schools.
>> I think that would be helpful. >> Marathon doesn't have a swim team, >> right? >> True. >> Key West Key West, >> right? >> Oh, Marathon does not have a swim team. >> I don't think I think there should be a
charge, you know, to to what I don't know. Um, this is standard practice. >> It is. >> So, so maybe we could find out a little bit more with a fair price. That's I mean, maybe the school board
should pick it up. I mean, you >> or we start at the lower end and then reconsider a rate hike next year if need be. Well, high school season here in Glover were pretty much that the
>> date next districts now regionals next week and then two weeks after that um >> the states and beyond that national >> school next season, >> right? It' be next season and in the new pool >> and I don't I don't have the the cities
that we looked at um on hand, but there was four or five South Florida. That's where I got that information. Key West. Um, they aren't charging as of yet. That's what she's looking at, the $70 per hour. So, that has not been concluded yet. Um, so yeah, this is a
good start and this is why we're doing this for for your feedback to so we come up with a really fair and, you know, community supported. >> Well, obviously we, you know, we support the swim team. We just feel that that
there should be some fees apply because of what it takes to run this pool, >> right? Well, if they're talking $70 an hour and you look, you times that, there's your math. >> So, >> if you take a roll call on this, I'm going to vote no
>> based on that. Just >> on that particular item. Okay. >> Is that what you're saying? >> You're saying you think that there should be no fees for the high school. I would just ask you to reconsider that figure, >> work with it a little more
>> and see what you can come up with before we take a final vote. >> And then I have I have one comment uh about the the park fees. I think the uh village staff did a nice job on this. Um Maria was I I it was breaking up a
little bit. Is it going to go to $10 for out of town adults? >> Yes. Okay. And I'm fine with that. I, you know, I I I've been squawking about this for a while. Um, the only problem I have with what we set up here. And one little
caveat is the raising the price on major weekends. I think either we Yeah. I mean, if you guys want to raise the what what is the weekend price going to be, Maria? >> So, the proposed would keep it for just those holiday the holiday weekends. And
that's >> correct. Correct. I'm sorry. >> And Labor Day and then through summer starting Memorial Day and to Labor Day. Um summer. >> And what's that price going to be? >> 15 for adults, $10 for youth or senior.
>> Okay. So, here's my thought. It's going to show a black eye on the community to the outside community of South Florida and they're going to get on social media and they're going to blast us. If you guys want to get more money, then raise the price to $12 and
make it $12 every day. Um, if you were happy with the $10, then leave it $10, but don't raise it on the weekends because all that's saying is the same thing with the boat ramps is Miami, we don't want you here, and they're going to light us up.
They're going to go on TikTok. They're going to go on Facebook. They're gonna go on Twitter and they're gonna light us up because they're gonna say, "We're raising the price on the weekends to keep them out." >> I think that's already been in place for quite a while, hasn't it? >> We have. We've been doing the the
holiday feast schedule for the Well, holidays has been in effect since 2007. the elevated weekends during summer operations again just to offset the impacts of having the higher demand on the park bringing in police and you know
covering the fees and everything associated with those impacts that that is the reason we did it not as a you know of course we'd hate to have that perceived um you know from our >> well when I when I go to Key West and I
park at the beaches cost me about 30 bucks 39 bucks if my park for the day. When I go to Fort Lauderdale, same thing. When I go up to Jupiter, which I go a lot, same thing. If you guys want to make more money, make more money
across the board every day. Don't do an up and down scale. I think it I I just think it's wrong. I I have no problem with charging them more money. I'm just saying charge it more money across the board. When I when I go to the dog park, when I go to hit golf balls, nothing but out of state tags, they're going to keep
coming >> and Oh. Oh. Oh, and I forget Ron Saunders. I sent you the information on this. It's way more expensive to go to the beach down in Marathon. Remember the information I sent you? Because they're doing a QR code down
there. They're not having somebody at the gate and it's way more than that. >> And it's a parking fee. >> It's same thing. It's all a fee. But what they did is they don't have a guard shack. They don't have anybody taking the money. Used to be free to go there, by the way. you go down and use the dog
beach or the regular beach or fish off the corner and they got a QR code and they got someone there writing tickets making sure you're you know you're paying it and it's expensive. I can't remember what it is but I did text it to Ron and uh you know like I say I don't I
don't think $10 is enough but I also don't like raising the scale just because it's a busy weekend. So, I'm kind of, you know, it's kind of one, you know, one way I'm telling you to raise it, another way I'm telling you to bring it down. But that's I really I really think we ought to consider that a as as
staff management as Ron Ron Saunders and then and then the advisory group. >> Okay. Well, thank you for that. That's >> Yeah. >> For all's discussion. >> Is there a specific advisory group for this? Are we the advisory group?
>> We are the advisory group. >> Yes. So, what I'm hearing is that there are a couple of items that we may want or or categories that we may choose to separate. We've done that already on the contractors. We've taken care of that.
Now comes a question of do the fees whatever they are do the fees stay the same all the every all seven days a week or can the fees be adjusted for high traffic times meaning full summer and
and holiday weekends. So that's one particular issue without putting a dollar figure. Do I have that correctly? That's >> yes >> that's one that's the one issue >> right
>> and the other one that John has brought up is the fee for the whether the high school swim team >> would be ch would be would be um charged
for the pool the time for the pool use and what I'm hearing from that one is it would be good to have something consistent I would say in the keys to start with. It's not like we have to be
global but what are the general options and then what we get to look at is where can that money come from? Does it necessarily come from the swimmers and their families or is there something that comes from, you know, whether it's
the schoolboard athletic group or the high school athletics? And I don't know, but that's what I'm hearing. Are the questions? Do I have that >> a pool? Right. >> I think we need to determine what we're
going to charge and we do a little bit of research on neighbors close by and determine what's a fair price. Now, >> we can't figure out where the money's going to come from. That's their problem. >> Not to say that it's >> to be so fast, but that is
>> well except for remembering that we all kind of have two chairs that we sit here. One is we are residents of the village and that we want to be fiscally involved in what fees are charged in order to be able to use the park. That's
part of it. And then the other part of it is how do we support our local programs and what is the best way to do that. So we've kind of got two sides and I I agree that that So what I'm hearing is this may be two issues that we might
separate out from if when when we make a decision does the does the committee agree to the the guidelines. These are two we might separate out is that >> I'd like to make a comment. I agree with the with what Mar what the staff has
come up with as regard to recommendations of the fees. The only thing I have a discussion is to work a little bit more on the on the high school fee. But everything else I approve. I I don't know. We want to vote on it. We can vote on it. If there's
more discussion, we can have more discussion. But >> I think as is the fees are they've done enough research on all that. I do think you should charge more for for super busy weekends because you got to pay more.
>> I mean, and what somebody says on TikTok in Fort Lauderdale, I don't really care, you know. So, um I I I move that we vote to keep the recommendation as is and find out a little more research on the what's fair for the high school to
>> Sure. >> to charge the high school. >> Caroline. barine. How about if instead of $10 ahead for out oftowners, how about $12 ahead and we leave the high school out of it. Just not charge them. Let that extra $2 ahead fund that and
then you guys and then we can charge the 15 on the weekends. >> I'm not trying to bargain here. >> Recommendation and we either vote on it or not. And and uh you know and I think we need a little more information. I think the whole board here agrees that
we need a little more information on the high school thing. Other than that, I think it's it's pretty clear that what they recommended is what we should go with. >> When we went through this line item last month, we didn't take a vote, did we?
>> You just present. That was the >> All right. I'm going to put a motion on the floor. I move that the committee endorse the resident and non-resident individual user fees as proposed by staff.
>> I second it. >> And is there any conversation about the high school? Do you want to separate that out? >> That's correct. It was not included in my motion. >> Okay. Okay. So, just to rephrase it, that we accept the recommendations that
you have made with the exception of the fees that might be charged to the high school. Did I restate that correctly? >> No, you did not. >> Okay. >> I simply said I move that we accept the individual resident and non-resident fee
schedule as proposed by village staff. That doesn't apply to the Coral Shores team, but it does apply to other things such as the splash pad and every what you see on those two pages and the splash pad.
>> So, our our daily fees and membership options is what you're considering. >> Yes. In this in this motion. >> Yes. >> Right. We can separate it out. I mean, that's fine. Facility rentals can be a totally different thing. And that um that would include that high school fee.
So we can come we can come back with those. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Elena, do you want to rephrase this so everybody knows for sure what we are agreeing to? >> Sure. So those first two pages we are
thumbs up on all of that and those are the resident and non-resident entrance fees and use fees. What we are leaving out is the high school swim team fee structure. >> Yeah.
>> And the other facility rentals. Yes. >> There's there's this is kind of multi- >> Oh, we haven't gotten past that yet. >> Right. So, >> okay. >> The facility rentals I mean the swim team use that's part of a facility rental. So, that's why I say separate it. So, I think this is fine. You're
okay with what we have for daily options and memberships. and then we can come back and >> clearly we're okay with that I think except for the pool except for the high school. >> Okay, that was not I don't think that's what John was intending. I'm not sure if
we understood. We just want to make sure we understand the motion. >> I made a very specific motion. I was going to do it one at a time. I've done in the past. This motion is only to individual user fees. I'll make a separate one about facility fees. >> Okay. Okay. >> Perfect. >> Great. Okay. All right. So motion on the
table is to approve to agree to these fees that are posted right here. >> Yes. >> And I >> Okay. Can we have a vote on that? >> All right. >> Alicia. >> Yes. Uh so Carolyn, >> yes.
>> Ted, >> no. Not at that price. Uh, Shannon, I think she left. Um, Alina, >> yes. >> Christy, >> yes. >> Joe,
>> yes. >> And John, >> yes. >> Great. Motion passes. What? Six to >> five to one. We are We're missing Shannon. She I think she had to leave. >> Did we have a negative?
>> Jan left. >> I know. >> Who voted against it? >> Okay. I'm misunderstood. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, we've taken care of that. Do you want to continue discussion on the other things or do you want to bring that back? You tell us what's
next. >> Yeah. mic was off. Um, pool facility rentals. This one includes the swim team rentals. So, we can we can bring this back. Um, and then we get into new pool facility rentals. So, this was something
we talked about last meeting um with a new private instructional service fee. This would be for those that are kind of oneoff um not contract, not an ongoing program like a swim club. This would be an instructor um who does specialized
swim services. Maybe they do adaptive swim training and we want to be able to provide allow them to um like currently the state has put out a new um voucher program where the state is funding it and it's through the health department and there's an instructor who is
certified to teach and and utilize these vouchers. Um but it's not year round. It's not ongoing. So to enable that individual to teach at the pool, this is where this um these type of fees would come in handy. Um or somebody um you
know there's a demand for and again in consideration how can can we produce more revenues at the pool? This is another area to look at. So, this would be the only area we would consider commercialized use. Uh, in that we might
allow dive centers to offer a free dive training because we have the the proper um facility for that right now. >> As in scuba certification, >> not scuba. I don't think we really want to venture into scuba, especially with the resurfacing of the pool. It's
definitely um potential for damaging. So, I don't know that we really want to consider that. but free dive training. >> Free dive. Okay. >> Um right now the only option is up at the Jacob Center. So to open us up for general area use for that type of
training, we would charge them a rental fee >> to be able to offer that. And it's just again an somewhat serving a community demand for these businesses, but also bringing in more revenue for the pool. So that's where this comes from. Um so last
meeting we were we had presented this um so if you want to reconsider these and then of course a new currently we don't rent the lockers out so that's another area you know people are storing um right now it's same day only for the lockers so this was another area start
charging for the locker rentals so I think this concludes this would be the new rental fees that are would be brand new are there um don't I remember that we have had some
um volunteer public available learn to swim programs. I know I've been part of them. >> Yes. >> Where we've invited people. Is that because it would be nonprofit? Is that included? >> Um
not necessarily. We may having this range of of prices, we could look at I don't know, Maria, maybe >> something field specific, you know, specific nonprofit learn to swim um
consistent with scheduling pool or something, >> right? >> Whether it's >> and if it was something that we as a village co-sponsored, we wouldn't charge. So, okay, our previous um >> you know, we had last year was the first year that we had the Keys kids swim and
that's a grant-f funded program and it was really a community effort to uh get local instructors and we worked with PKS and Monroe County Parks and Beaches to offer that program. So, something like that where the village was a co-sponsor
of it. Um those are the ways we may wave fees for those type of entities. >> That makes sense. safety instructor that wants to provide a lifeguard training class or something that we can't provide because we're just too busy and our staff can't provide it
right >> then we would be able to rent you know some pool space out it just gives us an option to be able to do other things and I'm not saying that we are going to do all that where we'd be overwhelmed it's just gives us a little bit more
flexibility to charge different fees Because right now we're limited, very limited on what we can do. >> Right. Yeah. >> Well, that's where I see the work that you all have done because you understand where your roadblocks are and you've
written in some things that allow greater flexibility. >> That's all it is. Gives us flexibility to be able to do more if we want if we want to and if you know and just have fees. >> Yeah. Okay. John, >> I move that the committee endorse the
facility use fee schedule as presented by village staff with the exception of the Coral Shores High School swim team. >> Second. >> I second that. >> Okay. Uh, Carolyn. Yes. Ted,
you still Ted, can you hear us? >> I'm sorry. I vote yes. I vote yes. >> Alina, >> yes. >> Christie, you said yes, >> right? >> Yes.
>> Uh, Joe, >> yes. >> And John, >> yes. unanimous. >> Great. We've accomplished three of them. Now, what what's missing? >> Okay. All right. So, I think we are now
getting into I'm going backwards. I apologize. >> Okay. >> So, that concludes the regular user fees and now we'll talk about special events. >> Yes. And this is um just kind of to open
up the conversation. I don't think I we really want to make any major decisions tonight. I think it's getting late and um so I think we'll just kind of we we you know we have worked on some you know some suggestions on increasing
um the fees for for um events. But again, it's recommendations and we can just just go through it and then we can come back at another meeting and kind of talk about it and get maybe more public input. But obviously, everybody knows that we offer special events here at
Founders Park. And the reason why we have a special events policy is so that we can balance what we do here as in special offer special events and also be able to offer all the other programs that we have are the youth program, the
walking, biking, running, every just all the different programs that we do. We just like to have a balance and that's the word that we always use is a balance in what we do here. And um that's why we try to have the special events policy to stick by. Um and everything that we're
talking about tonight is um policy rules and regulations for the events here at Founders Park, not outside of the village. Anything outside of the village is run by a villages uh temporary use regulations permit which we don't
manage. It's what we're talking about tonight is just here in Founders Park. And um Obviously the parks and recreation department we offer a lot of special events here in the park. Um these events that we offer are not
regulated by the recommend by the policy. So um the events that we put on are um not calculated into the amount of major events that we have here. Next
>> is um we have definitions of what um our special events are. We um our major special events are for events that are over a thousand attendance per day. Our large special events are
500 to 1,000 attendees per day. Our regular events are 100 to 500 and then our really small events are under a 100red attendants. So that's kind of how we classify um our events here at the park.
And then um basic general rules that we have um for um events here at the park. Only village of Isa Marada and Maro Countybased nonprofit 501c3 groups can have uh special events. So
that means no commercial use of Founders Park for events. There'll never be any circuses. um in major concerts that are not you know promoted by at least a charitable organization. So nothing
commercial can happen here. And all special events um are subject to insuranceances, licenses, special permits, safety. So um logistics, you know, there's fees, there's deposits. So every event may have certain elements of
that and that's everything that they have to do in order to have an event um here in the park. So, some basic updates to the policy um that we would like to implement. That's it's not in there yet, but we want to
move forward with it and we and we can talk about these any new large major special event that's not already on the books that are already happening and we get requests. We will come to this committee to get um for them for
the event organizers to let them know about what the event they want to do here at the park. and he and it won't come to you unless we think that it fits the criteria. >> Don't we currently have a limit of like six or large? >> Yep. I'm going to get into that. >> I'm sorry.
>> Yep. No problem. So any any any new events that are major will come to this committee for um you know for approval and all special events must comply with our noise ordinance of the village. So any concerts that we do, anything music-wise you know will be um governed
by our noise ordinance. any special event and the sole purpose of providing a concert will be designated to the amphitheater area only. So they will have to use the amphitheater. They cannot bring any large stages or any major
you know stages and put like on the beach or on the soccer field. It has to be designated in our amphitheater. um any special event request that is outside of our policy and is really
being pushed by whoever it is um you know in the committee and this and and that really want to do the has this event and it's outside of what we typically do and it may come to you and you're like I I don't think we should be doing this then the village council has
the final decision on that. So um you know so it'll be vetted by them as well. And um in in the current agreement Marada Community Entertainment at one point did manage the amphitheater um and
we had an agreement with them. We do do not have that agreement with Marada Community Entertainment. So that is removed from the agreement. So that'll be removed. But I do want to make it clear, we work, you know, very well with
ICE on all our concerts that we do. Dave is involved in everything that we do here. So we do have a mutual agreement and we basically co-sponsor the events. So um but we do not the village doesn't have an agreement. So that's why that
language would be taken out. And so I'm going to break it down like you mentioned uh Caroline that um major special events and those are over 1,000 attendees. Um so those are major events and um major events are determined by how many
attendees there are and typically it's you know the event organizer and the and management will decide if the if it fits the major event category and it also the major event um depends on the impact on
the park. So um previously in the agreement it did say that we we were going to allow eight major events for the year. We really recommend that we only allow six events. So we feel
that we should probably go down on that when it comes to major events and and one of the reasons is that we do a lot of our events now the staff as in the park staff we do take over a lot of the events. So I think between our events and these major events, we don't need
any more. So So we're recommending that there's only six. Okay. So um and then no more than four No more than four. Okay. No more than four major events
that are planned for 3,000 attendees and over. And that's what I'm talking about. like the major major ones like the flea market, island island fest, um and so forth. So, we're only going to allow four of those. And right now, we don't we have four. We don't we're not
allowing any more of those big events that are over 3,000. Um, and another policy that uh that we like to put in there is that in between any major like 3,000 and over attendance uh major pol
uh major events, we we want to have 30 days in between each major event. And then the smaller under 3,000 would be 14 days in between those events. >> It can't be every weekend,
>> right? Right. Exactly. >> That's why Yes. Yes. We don't want an event every weekend. So, that's why we're spacing it out and that's why we're lowering the amounts. So, um number of special events under a
thousand. So, uh large special event events planned for 500 to 1,000 attendees. We are limited to two a year. Okay. So that was um what the previous uh policy
was and we're going to continue with that. We recommend continuing with that. So there's no change. Um events that are 500 and less, those are we have a lot of those type of events. They're very um to us they're small events. They do not
take up a lot of space. They're um uh all community based events. Oh, at one point it said there was only four that we allowed currently. We would recommend that there is no limit for that and uh we and it'll be based on what's
available for you know the scheduling because currently and I'll go into what's on we already it's on the schedule because we currently already have more than four so and I don't want to you know limit the events that we already have that's on on the books.
Okay. So, um the next uh we we're going to talk about um what the fees currently are and what we recommend. But I think you like I said I don't I think we can table if we you know talk about you know maybe the charges and you know the fees
at another date but I just want to kind of go over it so that you kind of you have um you kind of know what we're doing now. So, for small special events, um, and that's under a hundred attendees. The current charges are 25 to
$50 per event. Um, we currently do not have a a setup or breakdown fee. And that means if there's an event like one of the large like a larger event, if they're coming in the day before to set up for the event, like the major events
like flea markets and so forth, they typically there's an another day for setup. We really we recommend, you know, fees for that. So, um there is no fee right now for the small events, but we do recommend that there's an increase for that, which would be $50. And the
deposits right now for those for under 100 is 50 to 100. We recommend a $200 deposit. Regular special events from 100 to 500. Currently is 250 a day per the event.
There is no setup or breakdown fees and um deposit is 250. We recommend increasing that. And like I said, our recommendation is only 10%. We would not recommend going any higher. Maybe this committee recommends going less than that which is fine too but our recommend
rate is only 10% which is 275 for um the day um for the event 125 if they need an extra day to set up and break down uh per day and a deposit of 500
and the large special events uh 501 to 1,000 the current fee is 650 for the day um 250 for the um the setup and breakdown if needed and a $500 deposit.
We just recommend a 10% increase. Um so it to be 725 uh 250 um set up or breakdown and $1,000 deposit. And for the major events are right now currently 950 a day. um the two $250
daily setup and breakdown fee and a deposit of 3,500. We recommend a 10%. So that would increase the daily rental of 150. And um depending on the impact of the event, again, if they need a day to set up with
tents and all this, then we recommend a scaling um fee depending on the impact of what area they're using and so forth. 250 to $500 um for a setup date and the
um deposit would be 3,500 and the deposits are just for um they're refundable. We give them back if there's no damages. So um that's just a damage deposit. So those are the fees that we recommend
and again um that's just a recommendation. Um there's a lot of conversation about that because again, you know, who uses the park are charitable organizations. They're all local charitable organizations. So next
uh next I'll just cover what our current special events are so you have an idea about what we're talking about and what's already on the books. And a lot of these events have been happening for years and years. So, um the major events
where we said that are um over a thousand and and and there only can only be two consecutive days. Those four events are already on the books and we cannot have any more events. Those are the four events are the GI the flea
market, I'm sorry, not the flea market, it's called the nautical market, the island fest, holiday fest and July 4th. Okay. So, those are um the four um major major events. We have one large event um
which is um right now on the books is or the Florida Keys Swim Club Invitational. That is the swim meet that we have at the aquatic facility that's hosted by John Olsen and that's a two-day event.
And um the regular events that are 100 to 500 which I said that you know recommend that there shouldn't be a limit on it because right now the the limit says four but we are we already have more than four and um we recommend
just to kind of keep it open based on you know the scheduling purposes because right now these events have been going on and they're wonderful events and they do not take up a lot of space in the park and and you can have this event going on and you know everything else is
you know going on as well. So, a swim across America, the I care trash derby, good health clinic, luau, the island nights bike and car show, the um the fishing guides association fishing derby, uh the Alzheimer charity walk,
the special Olympics swim meet that's held at the at the aquatic center and the holiday dance recital and that's sponsored by Island Marada Community Entertainment and On Your Toes. So those are those events and um basically we
only really have one small event and that's the Special Olympics um standup paddle board competition and the events that the park puts on is um Beats on the Bay series. We do uh we
have six Beats on the Bay concerts and um Trunk or Treat which is happening Saturday and Springfest National Night Out which is the um the uh sheriff's department and the fire rescue give back
barbecue is our fire department and Pops in the Park is a um again uh being sponsored by uh ICE and the village. and then our team night outs. So, those are our current special events. Um,
and that's it. It's a lot. You have any questions? >> Anybody who wonders, anybody who thinks all you do is drive around in a golf cart and spend time in the pool, >> this is monumental. Thank you.
>> Yeah. No, it's a lot of information and that's why I think you know >> I do we we don't have copies. >> I don't we don't have copies to give out tonight but we can certainly um send you guys the PDF version of the presentation with all of this. And I'll just note this last slide has the proposed fees.
This isn't the current fees. It's just to show which event category would pay that proposed fee. >> Yeah. So, >> and it's just open for suggestion. >> Yeah. And I think it's too much to get into tonight. Um, so we'll send that to you and um you can review it and we'll
set up >> sounds like >> next meeting. >> Yes. And and hopefully I don't know what the calendar looks like, but um maybe a November meeting if it can't be through the holidays, then we're looking at just pushing this back to, you know,
next being approved and implemented next, you know, 2026. >> Yeah. And if we can't go to council with it December, that's okay. >> We want to do it right, >> right? make sure that you have time to review things and, you know, make sure we do it right and not push things
through. It's not I don't think we're in a rush to to do it. So, um, >> hey, Ron's falling asleep. >> I know. >> You know, I think we are, too. >> So, >> earlier today, I did send you guys an
email um, asking about the, you know, all the teams. I mean, when I drove in here today, it was like little teeny kids everywhere, >> you know, and I know that that's of teams that use the park.
>> Yeah, it's in here. >> And um we'll send that to you. >> Okay. >> There are no fees right now currently for the youth organizations using the field. >> Okay. >> Right. And we do not recommend
charging any fees. >> Yeah. I was just thinking because they probably, you know, they put a lot of pressure on those fields. >> Yeah. >> So, that's discuss, but um >> and I know that's probably what you were thinking about is it's not um
>> Yeah, we currently do not have fees for them. >> Okay. >> For any of those youth organizations. >> Yeah. If you can name the youth organizations that use the field and and kind of when you know during what season, do they do the summer, do they
do fall, do they do winter, that kind of thing. >> Bring that back so that you can figure that out. >> But I could get more information on se what season they're in use. >> Um, for sure. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Monumental, guys. I think you've done
just an outstanding job. Thank you. >> Well, thank you. >> Yeah, >> there's a lot of homework that's gone into that and a lot of thought and no one is more closely in touch with what the needs are than you are and I think you do it with the best interest of not
only the park but the village and everybody. Now that's for me if anybody wants to add anything. >> So thank you. >> So is there anything else we need to cover then? Yes, you may recall I mentioned three things at the beginning
of the evening. Mr. Saunders, could I ask you a couple questions and see whether or not one of them could be dismissed quickly or I understand that the village is currently reviewing and examining the old church property to see
if it's fe feasible to keep. If it is deemed feasible to keep as a performing arts and this is if hypothetically would that fall under parks and wreck.
We're not really discussing right now whether to keep it or not. I brought it up. We had a workshop on village owned properties and we got feedback. I wanted to just put it up for sale because we wanted to re reimburse our budget for the funding almost $4 million and there's not a real big push to sell it.
So obviously we'll entertain any offers if somebody wants to bring an offer but first off we had to make sure it's suitable for uh for habit habitation right now. Uh we have a problem with the alarm system. We need to maybe look at that. We had some roof leaks. So, we're in the and we had a structural survey
done by all aspects and so we're just trying to get make sure what kind of conditions in now uh because I've already had calls of people that want to use it for acquirers and you just you know nonprofits want to get in there. As far as the uh the building itself I and that property I defer to Maria but I
don't know that would be considered parks and recreation um because it's a former church. Did we recently did the village add a culture and arts? >> Yes. >> Position. >> If you decide to keep it under parks and wreck. >> Well, when you say keep it, I don't know
that it's under there now. >> Okay. I would just say I would love it if that new person could come to this committee and discuss are there enough groups that would use the venue and could we charge enough in venue fees that the village would not lose a lot of
money. And if the question the answer to those both was yes, I would love us I would love it if we could have some input. >> Yeah, we have we have a part-time uh person, Emily Rother, who's done a very good job. She's out in the community.
She was at the chamber with me yesterday at the lunchon. Um we're looking at doing you art and public places. In fact, in here uh we we appreciate that. That's their cooperation. We're doing Village Hall in here. Um, we're we're looking at a couple. We're looking at using Southwind Park for example from
for an event for the holiday for a decorating contest because it's a great park that nobody knows. Not nobody. Most people don't even know it's out there and very few people use it. Going back to your your question about the the church, I I truly had never thought about it being part of parks and
recreation, but I don't have a problem if Maria has a lot of free time if she >> it would just be something that >> I'm being sarcastic. Maria may help >> something that the that the village could grow that would
benefit the community and families. That's all I'm looking for. >> Yeah, I I I know what you're saying. I'm just saying you you mentioned specifically parks and recreation. I just don't know that that's the place because we we're probably gonna have more than just that because remember we still have the Silver and Spice property that I I would like to see with parking
but also maybe a civic center, performing arts center or something because right now if you want to go see a play you have to go to Corores High School. Nothing against high school but it's like you know you might want to have more than one venue. I don't know that the church itself it seems like it's going to be so much money to
renovate it to make it something like that. It may not be the highest and best use. >> That's what I was curious. Yeah, but but as far as having parks and recck, as you just heard, I think their plate is pretty full. We may end up having somebody on our staff at the village
hall be more of a property manager because that seems to be more of a property management thing as opposed to an activities thing that the parks and recck would do. >> Okay, that answers what I was curious and I thank you. >> Okay, any I didn't have >> respect to the other people here, I can put it off. I would ask to be put on the
agenda for the future. At some point when I'm on the agenda, I am not going to let go of the Miller leg plan. I want to see this through to fruition. In phase two, it talks about the entryway in the fields. I want to get on the
record early. I would like to make a motion. and you all can start thinking about it that in spite of their recommendation I am going to make a motion that the committee endorse natural grass for the multi-use fields that's soccer and lacrosse
with encouragement for increased yearly maintenance. I will make that motion if you'll put me on the agenda. I'll make it for next time. I would like to see that as natural grass that will
shave a million dollars off the final part. And I don't want to keep you. I appreciate that you all are listening to me when I ask this. What does the bottom line of our sign out there say? It says fall pickle ball. >> Yeah.
>> How many pickle ball courts do we still have? What what constituent group first brought the Miller? what became the Miller Leg Project, the pickle ball community. I would like to see us
endorse phase three. More pickle ball courts, more basketball courts, bleachers, volleyball courts. I don't want this to die. >> Well, I'm going to make it a more >> I'm going to ask the staff and I'll go
ahead and ask you now. With the TDC, do you think give us any money towards phase three? I think it would be a good project. Sure. >> Could we start working on that? Could we explore other grants so that we I had a fellow when I was polling people for
natural grass for the soccer field say, "Oh, if they decide to do it, I'll pay for the arnesium. I'm not going to quote his name until he says yes. >> If you can research grants, I would like to bring it to the committee sooner. I don't want this to
die. I don't want >> to go on forever." I remember Miller Leg two or three years ago. Not all of you, but the rest of us saying, "What did they remember?" I'll let it go. I would like to see this through. I would like to get on record early for natural grass
for the multi-use fields. And I'd like us to encourage the village council. >> Phase three would check off a lot of boxes. Yeah. For lack of a better term for what this community wants. It won't check off all of them, but the most
expensive thing would be making this a twostory building. That's the last phase. That's 10 to 15 years down the road. But there's no reason we can't ask the council to move forward with phase three so that the children and adults can play basketball, pickle ball,
volleyball so that we can have shade and we can have bleachers for all of those. But it's going to take some work because they need to start thinking about moving public works. That will be my motion for next year. Hookie on the >> That was gonna be the next question for this.
>> Yeah. Where's public works? >> Public works is a tough one >> because we don't have >> But it's got to be done, right, Ron? And um and I'm not going to let this go. We still have to figure out, can we get
five backcountry guides into the into, you know, to be able to use the boat ramp? Let's just try it. Five. All you need to do is put a camera out there and they have to go up and
wave so that you can see that it is who it is with the key. you know, we didn't have that 20 25 years ago that, you know, but we've come a long way with technology. So, let's
see if we can move that forward, Ron, because I know this is not part of parks and wreck, but it's a big deal. Let's just try it with five. And if it's okay, nobody complains,
let's move it to seven. They aren't all seven gonna be here every day, right? >> Ongoing >> because ongoing pending issues. I mean, you know, chances are it's not going to take >> the meeting, but I I'll keep responding.
Um I I as you mentioned, that's outside of parks and recck. That's actually the marina. I have had discussions >> addressing it to you. >> Yeah, I have had discussions with Lisa Watts. Um, right now she and I have had discussions similar to this one about raising her rates and let's just say uh
it was a a spirited discussion and and I won. Uh we're we're going to go up in the rates because we were competing with private enterprise. So that's one thing. Uh but with some of those additional dollars uh we want to do some things and that's one thing I've talked to for example uh Councilman Freriedman who obviously is a boat captain and he has
some history because apparently what happened was they were doing it and then I think it was either CO or something happened and they stopped and just never started it again. Uh Lisa's concern is the impact on the people that live there and I understand that but I have to make a choice between taking care of the
guides who provide a lot to our economy or people who just live on the boats there. I'll just give my personal opinion. Uh I prefer to help the guides. We have a lot of problems with guides having access to water every day. They're losing access. Mariners are being sold. They're, you know, they're
not having the access they did. So, I guess this the long answer to your question is yes. I I I I personally support it. Obviously, that probably have to go to council. Uh but we need to work on the details. But, as you said, there's new it kind of also ties in what I'm doing with paid parking. I'm I'm negotiating with some companies to have
paid parking in the village. And that's all done by apps now. And so this may be something that we could also talk about because the city of Marathon is making a lot of money uh having access to boat ramps and also paid parking. And so we're trying to obviously run the village more like a business as far as
getting more revenues in so we can reduce the impact on property taxes. And this is one way of looking at it. Obviously the guides thing is probably not a big money maker. That's more just helping out local businesses. But I personally don't have any objections to it. Like I said, the marina
director does. Uh but in the end, um we'll see h what happens. I don't know if that answers your question, but >> it does. And I guess village council is the one who really has to push it. >> No, not really. I probably I I am >> okay. Okay. >> And is my my placement a little full
with baseball fields and and wastewater and uh keep peacocks and you know >> it just I just saw that wastewater deal. >> Yes. Yeah. Yes. We're just as they're being busy. We're busy too. But I I'm glad you remind me because I I have had that discussion and we wanted to get
through a couple things, but I think I I'll probably bring that up. Maybe we have a council meeting on November 10th. I may just go ahead and and mention the uh the ramp thing because as I said I know at least one of them is very interested in it. Yes, you answered my earlier question
nicely. Thank you. >> Well, and thank you very much. It's um it's really a a wonderful commentary that you choose to invest the time to be here for all of this and to be a part of
this. And I hope we are contributing positively to you and feeling like this committee is active and that we are also supporting the staff for parks and wreck, which is really what I think our
mandate is. So, we're very grateful for that. Thank you very much. >> Yeah. Just on an aside, um because I'm on that task force for the baseball field, um Ron would like me to bring 10
questions, each one of the task force people to bring 10 questions to him. So, if anybody has any input that you'd like to send to me, call me, email me, whatever. >> I think it was two from each of you. So,
>> Oh, okay. I thought it was from each of us. you if you come up with 10. I I truthfully am having a hard time come with 10 questions that would but just one of your fellow members Jamie Engel sent me uh nine questions herself. I'm just saying and and and just so
everybody hears we've already done one survey. So I think some of the questions are already repeating questions like do you want grass or synthetic? That was already asked but you know we can look at it. The problem is is trying to do a survey that's going to be accurate enough where you have enough information
to ask the question. Most people you are exceptions. You have a lot of knowledge and insight. The average person doesn't really know what's going on. I mean that's one of the questions. How much do you know? I don't care what they say. They don't know as much as you guys know. And that that's the problem we're
having. The other problem is because of a prior survey, I was directed in a public meeting by the village council, I sent you an email, you know this part, that they want to have any any survey questions run past them first. And so the problem once again is coming
up with an accurate question that would actually be beneficial because like for example, the other survey had some questions that really, you know, talk about parking. Well, nothing that happens is gonna change the parking. You know that that it's that kind of question. It's like why are you asking the question? because it doesn't really
matter. Uh what what the answer is. We're not it's not going to impact us. So I I think coming up with some questions that are helpful is going to be the hard part is you know figuring out what the question should be. I'm open to it as I said to you by email. I'm open to it. I understand that there
that the the majority of the council uh it may be more difficult to to get them to agree that a survey is needed. I'll leave it at that. Well, no. Well, I would take let me make clear because that's been said. I think we've had a lot of public input. I mean,
that task force was, you know, as you know, never happened before. You know, this is the first time we've ever had it. We've had public workshops. We've had public meetings. My newsletters have been hopefully very informative. We've tried to get as much input as we can. that survey marrioney survey we got I
think we published it in newsletters website we got 241 responses which you know that's probably okay but it's maybe what 3% of the of the residents so it's kind of hard to get people to respond especially when it's hard to get the information to them that's why at the
Monday night meeting I I asked questions because I had questions about the field temperatures and and environmental impacts etc and the answers and once again we weren't pushing a particular company I was just asking generically it whatever turf may or may not go here. The problem is getting those kind of
that kind of information into a question because you have to ask the question, if you knew what I know, what would your answer be? And the problem is that's really hard to ask that question and get an answer that makes an impact because if you're doing the if you're really doing the survey to help the village
council make an informed decision, that's a tough questionnaire to do because the answers may be you'd look at and go, well, you just can't say would you rather have grass or artificial turf, for example. No matter what the result is, I don't know that's going to change anybody's opinion because you have to add a lot more information to
it. Grasp how much maintenance are you going to do? I mean, right now there's a qu and who's going to be responsible right now? It's kind of split. Maria say, "No, that's the school board school. No, that's supposed to be parks and wreck." Well, those are all questions that have to be resolved in the documents. For example, yeah, but just to ask a question of grass versus
artificial. I'm not sure what the answer. Last time it was 50 50% for grass, 39% for uh artificial, and 10% no opinion. I I I would bet you the answers were probably about the same this time.
So, you get do a survey with the same result. Okay. So, now what? So, that that's the problem I'm having is I I don't mind a survey, but I I'm having a hard time figuring out how to how to ask the question that the answer would be helpful. Well, I think the Miller Leg
survey certainly they they were surprised at the response how many responses they got to the Miller leg survey. So, >> and they also spent a lot of money on it, too. >> So, perhaps some of those questions could be reiterated in the survey, but
condensed. >> Once again, I'm open to it, but I, as I reminded everybody Monday night, uh I'm not the ultimate boss. Well, and back to what I said at the very beginning, which is that people's
public opinion, if you ask me, would I rather have a putting green or some horrible artificial something, there's no question. But there are other issues that have to do with budget and maintenance and environment and and
safety and heat and all the rest of that which are nuanced questions that may have the difference between a a field that's baseball where there's a different level of activity than there is in the other fields that have to do
with lacrosse and soccer and everything else. So, >> and that's kind of where your input was important because we got a good discussion on Monday. The baseball license is with Coral Shores for their baseball team and Tony Hammond and Jamie and I think Alena a little bit got into all the other uses, but the things Tony
Hammond was talking about were not high school uses like pony league and little league. That's not the high school. And so what's going to end up happening I think and that was good input because I I really kind of honed in on that is that any other usage probably should go through the village you know and with Maria whoever make helped make those
decisions just like you did tonight. She start look at all the events that special events you have you know how many things can we actually handle here? I got a complaint the other day about parking. You know there was no place to park for some youth activity or or they wouldn't let them in or something. I talked to Marie about that. So it comp the more people that use the park, the
more complicated it gets. So I I'm trying to focus on the ball field of what us and the in the district school district particularly Coral Shores and I think that's we're going to go to a very simple agreement. It's for the baseball team maybe JV for the high school basically and all the other stuff. We
don't really need to decide that that we just leave that up to the village. It's our field and we're gonna say you can or can't use it. I think that's a simp that's what I'm hearing from the school district. They're not really pushing the other things. It's us. If when I say us, I mean people from the village are saying we want a multi-use field. Well,
that's great. What kind of uses are you talking about? And that comes back to park that is a parks direct thing there because once that baseball field is done, you know, whenever it is, you know that other than high school's use, all of the uses should be
determined by you guys. I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that the park is for the village residents, island residents. So I think that should be very limited is how much we're letting other people from
other villages, other cities, other counties use a park that was designated for Island residents. >> Well, I recall your comments. I think you appeared by Zoom that day and when you made those comments, I got some feedback of and a reminder, for example,
that $400,000 of this came from TDC. >> So when you say TDC, that's tourist development money, which means it implies that we are expecting people outside the village to use the park. I'm just pointing that out. And and the the the pool got a significant amount of money. So just just be cautious of when
I I understand what you're saying and we own it, but we we are I guess affirmatively trying to get people outside the village to visit the park. Otherwise, why are we getting TDC money? >> Just keep that in mind. That's a lot of money. >> And the high school, if we think about
it, who goes to the high school? But not just students that live in Alam Marada. So if you're >> I've heard a majority of the baseball team do not live in Alamada, >> right? They live in >> But they go to Corser High School. Yeah, >> but I'm saying right that that's why I get a little nervous when we just say because I I understand you about the
residents own the park and all that, but on the other hand, if we're going to keep going to TDC for for funding for the pool and the park >> to check that out. I mean, we can't be hypocritical on the thing. We shouldn't probably be going to TDC for every little thing. >> Well, yeah. Well, I'm going to try to
get as many dollars as I can. >> Natural green part. Well, I think Maria will tell you that the suggestion came from me about charging people living that are staying in hotels and coming here for free. I I brought that up several months ago because if you can afford to stay at the Islander or, you
know, or the U or >> Chico Lodge or something 500 bucks a night, you know, you could probably afford the the park entry fee. >> But then I then I got feedback that the chamber may not like it because they are members of the chamber. The the hotels pay taxes. So there there's no simple my
point is there's no simple answers here. Uh but yeah, but I didn't get I went to chamber after hours and lunch and I didn't get anybody saying, "Oh, why are you raising the park fees?" So it wasn't as bad as situation as it might have been. >> Lena, you look like you want to talk. Are you just showing you just tired?
>> Okay. I Okay, I know you're all ready to go, so I'm ready to go if you are, but I wanted to make sure I answered any questions yet. Ron, thank you so much for being here and for your participation because without that we'd be speaking to the walls and then asking
for a memo or something. So, thank you very much for this and I hope we are I hope I hope we are equally supportive. There's a new resident. Find out whether he's
find out whether he's local or not. Okay. Are there any additional anything else? M can we ask um since we don't have a date yet, can we ask that to be done um with communication within the
next 3 days or something? We will schedule something for >> 17 through the 21st. That's for November. >> Okay. So this weekend we'll decide what date you'll communicate with us and we'll verify.
>> So there's a consensus that we should have a meeting in November then. >> Okay. Yes. Okay. >> Okay. >> Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> Yeah. >> Move. >> I don't think we even need one, do we? Thank you everyone.
Thank you everyone.