You guys want to get started? Do you need to do you need like we're already up? This is already up and running. All right, great. >> All right. Well, thanks everybody for coming uh this evening. Really appreciate it. Um I guess the last time we had a community meeting was this
summer. It was in late July. Um so this is kind of the second one that we have um for our recreational master plan exercise that we started um that we started probably what when was like >> pretty much July was when we started
>> pretty much July was like the the the first time frame that we we began the exercise with time bon um and we've been working with with them on a weekly basis. the commissioners meet monthly to kind of review some of the work that they've they've done. Um, a community
survey went out to everybody. I don't know when that was. These guys will cover that. But this this tonight really is just turning over to Tybon to explain um kind of the survey results and we want it to be as interactive as possible. So we we're going to open it
up for everyone here also to have any you know questions and you know I guess like if there's anything during during the presentation as well if there's anything you can raise your hand and and and ask questions as well. Um I didn't I sorry I didn't uh introduce myself. I'm
Rob Lee. I'm the chair of the parks commission and I'll let these guys go ahead and introduce themselves. >> I'm Ted Carol, one of the commissioners. >> Carolyn Kel, a commissioner. Um, and then the park staff is here as well. >> Bonnie D'vor, principal tour.
>> Kevin Chrysom, park director. Paul Demano, rec director. >> Um, and then I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Ty Bon and Ryan and Ally. I think Ryan's gonna speak. So, >> no, I think we're already open. Yeah,
>> Rob, thank you very much. Appreciate the introduction. My name is Ryan Morrison. I'm from Tai Barn. Some of you I may have met in that briefcase meeting. Um my colleague Colleen is here. Um she'll be doing some of the presenting and some of the slums. Um as Rob talked about,
we're kind of a little bit past midway of this process. Um we've been able to survey the community and most of our presentation tonight is going to be about the survey results that we got back from the community. Um, when we get these survey results, we get a lot of data back and we want to make sure we we
tell the community what we saw and give the community an opportunity to say, "Hey, you heard us." Or, "Hey, you didn't hear us." Right? Like, this is our opportunity to kind of flush out what we heard from that data. Um, and so we're going to review survey results for all the different questions that we've
asked the community and we're also going to talk a little bit about what we heard from coaches. One of the processes that we've undergone throughout the winter was we reached out to all the coaches of the different rec groups. Um, and we spent some time talking to them whether it was a half hour or an hour depending
on which group they were or what uh discuss how the discussion went. Uh, we spent time talking to them. So, we'll spend a little bit of time at the end of this presentation talking about what we heard from the coaches and summarizing that. Um before we get started start
next slide one way or another. Um well before I go into schedule I want to talk a little bit about the different sections of the survey that we're going to talk about today. One was community respondents and profile. The second section was regarding park use and recreation patterns. The third was field
condition and maintenance needs. And the fourth was future recreational needs and community priorities. Um just out of curiosity of the folks that are in this room, how many completed the survey? Okay, so good good cross-section of the folks here today. Thank you for uh completing the survey. It's very
helpful. Um okay, that works. Talk a little bit about what we've been doing. Rob said we got started in July and here we are all the way in March and what the heck has happened? Uh sorry. Uh we had project kickoff activities between July 1st and
September 1st. Um we were one of that presentation we had on July 29th. You'll see the community meeting down there in the lower lefthand corner. Uh from September 1st to October 31st, we made different uh site visits. Time bond staff has visited each one of the sites,
assessed condition, assess drainage, assess uh turf condition, um assess safety. Um, and we're also keeping our eye on what were the opportunities for development of these parts, whether it was expansion of facilities, reorienting
facilities to make them work better for the community, or did they overall have a condition the condition meet? Um, we worked with Bonnie during August to do a project website development. So, there's a website up there with information available to the community. Um, we've
been doing data collection since July. We've looked at old reports uh was one of the points of data that we're looking at. So, what other master plan studies have said, what other open space and w plans, and I don't think we want to get into too much right now, but I think there's an open space and rec plan that's in the process that Rob's working on with planning department. And so,
obviously, we want to incorporate that information into this master plan as well. Um, and then we started this community survey. The community survey went live on December 1st. Uh, it stayed up all the way through March 1st or March 4th, sorry. And since March 4th, we've been kind of analyzing the data,
putting together this presentation. Um, the one-on-one recck group data collection is all the coaches that we've talked to. That's processed to kind of a long time, but we've we've got an opportunity to talk to the majority of the coaches that uh hold recruits uh in the community. And here we are today on
March 25th talking to our second community. What do we have left to question? What do we have in progress? What we have left is what I should say. We have community partnership discussions. We'll talk about what a community partnership is a little bit later uh in more detail, but the community has a number of
partners that are both that are private that help serve some of the athletic field needs. Examples of Milton Academy, Cunningham Park um and Curry College. Um we still want to talk to those folks a little bit more now that we've had an opportunity to talk to all the coaches and understand their uses of those
facilities. We want to touch base with those folks. We're updating existing conditions back in. The existing conditions back in update was lately we pulled orthographic imagery of the sites and we pulled some general data about parcel lines. But now that we've been able to talk to the coaches, what other
things did we learn about these sites? What other information do we want to provide in suits of the same envisions? And we also want to look at topography and um wetlands and environmental conditions that may prevent any growth of those facilities. So that's what we're working on at the moment for
existing mapping updates. And then facility and use evaluation analysis. This is something that's really been started before March. We probably should have changed that date a little bit. That's my fault. Um but we've been talking about facility use and its overall condition since basically we did
the um sitewalks in September, right? We we've we've made this initial assessment of what the condition safety, but at that time we didn't know what they were used for. uh you know, a baseball field for a T-ball game has to look a lot different than for a high school baseball game. And so now that we've
gotten to talk to everybody and say, "Okay, here's who's playing in these fields and here's who's using them." Now, we want to go back and look at the lens of condition and understand that a little bit better. What do we have left to do? Based on the coaches, the conversations with the
coaches and the survey, we now have a general idea or getting a general idea of what we need for additional facilities. I will tell you that the general consensus amongst the community and the coaches is that there needs to be a facility expansion. The majority of the coaching leagues are having a hard
time meeting practice needs and we'll get into that in a little bit. But a increase in fields is what we're looking for. The question is what can we get and what do we really need and how do those two numbers meet? So, we'll be working on that with the parks commission uh over the next month.
Once we understand uh what we're what we can get out of facilities and what we need, we'll be able to draft a facilities report that makes a recommendation to the board. Here's what you can get. Here's what we think you need to get in addition. Um I think Rob, we're on the schedule for a town meeting
discussion in on May 6th. And then with an eye of wrapping up the final facilities assessment report by end of May. Yep. Does anybody have any questions about that schedule or what's included in that scope? I don't know if we can see people
online. If there's another >> Can people online hear us? >> Check the chat. Yeah. >> Yeah, I don't see any. >> So, Ally, you were going to go over these next couple. >> Yep. Um, so moving on to community
profile. Um I don't know if I introduced myself but I'm Alli Cook. I'm a planner with PenBBON. Um so I work on a lot of community engagement projects, uh local comprehensive plans and municipal planning. Um so the survey was originally developed in um late fall and
we went through a few iterations um of the survey in a different software program which is called survey 123. And uh as we were going through and testing the questions and uh going through the drafts, we decided to move to Survey
Monkey as our platform. Um we thought that was more accessible um for people to use both on cell phones and on their laptops. Um and our goal was to collect as much information as possible across the widest range of groups. Um so the
survey was distributed to a wide array of groups. So, um, Bonnie helped distribute it to Milton's departments, uh, Council on Aging, uh, public library, >> high school, >> high school, youth groups, youth, uh, task force, um, trying to capture, um,
as many age ranges as possible. Uh, in total, we had, uh, 1,315 respondents. Um and that was between when the survey was open and the beginning of January um and it closed on March 4th. Um so it's a great number of
uh respondents to feedback. Um the highest response rates um were received right in the beginning and on the survey monkey tool you can kind of see the analytics on the back end. Um so highest responses are right in the beginning and then we had another push um through
social media platforms and through the website. Um I think there was some email blasts and we saw another peak uh in early February. Uh so all around great feedback that we received. Um so when
asked about um your respondent type going through the survey the majority almost 80% were parents or guardians of youth athletes. Um residents who use public facilities were the next highest. And it's important to note that
throughout the questions um many of them had select all that apply. Um so the percentages are not quite exact because they do capture more information um just because we wanted to collect um all of the different types of responses we
could get per person. Uh other respondent types were youth sports spectators, um poetry team volunteers, schedulers or other. Um we had an open dropown box for people in the other category. So some
people selfidentified as grandparents of youth athletes, u dog walkers, um general residents and of others. And just to clarify that note from Ally, you'll often see survey results that don't add up to 100. And so I just don't
want you to be alarmed. The math doesn't work. >> Uh okay, moving on. for age distribution. Um the majority of respondents, which makes sense based on the last slide, um
about 71% were in the age range from 35 to 54. Um about 15% were ages 55 to 65 plus. Um let's see, less than 1% were in the 18
to 34 age range. That was the smallest. Um the youths under 18 was about 4%. Um so again you can see that the the majority were um in the middle category. Do you
have any other >> Yeah, I guess I would say that this is not an atypical split. I think we would you know based on our respondents from other communities when we do these surveys, we would have maybe seen a little bit more youth participation in
surveys. But I think in this case, what we're seeing is that the parents took the surveys on behalf of the youth rather than the youth they didn't survey. Um, not atypical to get low respondents from that 18 to 34 range. You know, usually they're either out of college playing on those fields. Um, or
they don't have a kid that's playing on the rec level field. And so it's not uncommon to not see a good response from that group. Um, but other than that, I think the the age range and the distribution seems uh seems similar to what we see in other communities. Does
anybody have any questions about those slides? >> Um, moving on to the numbers when it comes to programs that have most participation or highest affiliation. Um soccer came in at uh 58%
um followed by basketball and baseball. Um so let me see here the split. Pickle ball was on the lower end. Um I don't have the exact percentage here but pickle ball >> very dishy. >> Yeah. So that was the number of
respondents for the survey. Um then Gayla football I believe was the lowest respondent category. Um but based on conversations we we've had with many um that has been the trend that soccer
baseball have fallen towards the top. >> I think this is what we see from our conversations with the coach. you know, one of these one of the things we broke baseball and softball out. Um, but you know, in some ways the field type is very similar versus say youth baseball
versus youth softball and both of those groups are hurting for field space. And so I think when you combine that, you know, baseball and softball group together and the youth soccer group together, you you know, they're those numbers are quite similar in size and those are both the groups that I think
are I don't want to say the only group for space. I think just about everybody wants more space. Um but from the numbers we're seeing, I think those are the groups looking for the most amount of build space. Um Go, do you have anything else? >> Um and then all of the questions had opportunities for other types of
respondents um to give their feedback if they were not a youth athlete. So um lots of respondents came in for walking, dog walking, we mentioned that earlier. People um noted that they love to hike. Uh lots of playground use came up. Uh
people are doing a lot of biking, running, informal field play, fishing, those types of things. Um so those were like the broader categories that weren't necessarily reflective of the sports spectrum.
>> I I also want folks to like these numbers have to be looked through a lens, right? And so if we had what was it, 1300 total responses, Ali? >> Yes. You know, when you look at say pickle ball and we say that's one of the lower respondents. Well, that's 10% of the community that did,
>> you know, did answer that's a little section of the community >> that needs to be served. So, I don't want these numbers have more behind them than we're just presenting. I just want to make sure that we're not discouraging anybody and say, oh, you know, pickle ball or game football is low. You know,
we're looking through them through a different lens than just their high or low numbers. Um, did you cover other activities already? Sorry, but yes. Okay. >> Any questions from the public about Tesla? No.
>> Um, this one we don't need to spend too much time on. Um, this was a question about popular recreational activities, which tracks with all of the other things that we've seen. Um, I don't really have much to add. Yeah, I think this kind of an expansion on the previous slide where we asked the
other um one of the things I think you know what we're hearing from the public here is that and obviously we get more detail in the version of this data than we're giving here but when we do make improvements to the park, one of the things we need to start working into those improvements is walking
circulation around the outside so there's a path for parents to walk while the kids are playing. um making sure that there's playgrounds so that parents who may have older kids, you know, in a athletic sport have a place for the younger kids to play at the same time.
Um we want to host community events at the park, right? Like, you know, not just athletic events, but we want to, you know, have opportunities for I saw comments in there for bands and music and other activities other than just athletic activities. And then focus on picnic areas, right? like where can
people have a party at a park if they want to have a birthday party and you know I think there is some opportunities right now but maybe we want to expand upon that. One of the things we'll get back to is the dog walking. Um right now one of the comments we've got from a lot of the rec groups is that the dog
walking is being done on the athletic fields themselves. And so that creates a maintenance issue for both the rec department and for the youth groups to keep up. And so maybe a dedicated dog walking space um which I don't really talk completely about with a recognition
at the moment but um maybe that that works for this town or maybe it doesn't but that's something certainly we want to explore and then outdoor fitness in the go. Um, moving on. Um, we had additional questions about, um, parks that were
used the most frequently and the reasons why. Um, and we don't have all the data included in um, the graphics that are captured here. Um so to start with what we have um Pingham Park,
uh Pyfield and Andrews Park were the um three parks listed as the the most used parks. Um, parks in the additional category were Blue Hills, Pope's Pond, um, Pine Tree,
Brook Grip Path, uh, and Panka Pobe, I don't know how to pronounce that, pawn. Um, were the other categories that people could have open-ended responses to, and I think you probably a little more than me. Um, >> what one other note one other note though too is that the commissioner
split up uh, the high school into like >> Yeah. smaller area. So if we would if we just put the high school together, you would see that number be what? >> It would be the highest use. >> It would be the highest use because we have this there's a ton of that. >> But I think that tracks with the amount
of spaces that are provided out of each one of those facilities, right? Andrews Park is one of your larger parks. Conan Park is one of your largest parks in the community even though it's a private park. Kelly Field is very large. And then obviously your high schools, but the other bars are I don't want to call them pocket bars, but smaller uh
facilities. >> Yeah. >> And Ally, did you note that the the blue bars indicate that those are private institutions? Okay. So, Cunningham Park and Milton Academy and Curry College recent are not town owned recreational
facilities. They're town or state, I should say, they're in the state, but uh they're private facilities. partnership from >> um and so we just want to call those out as different. We have different opportunities to improve there. So we just want to make sure that the public
knows that. >> Next slide. >> Um primary reasons for park use. Um, so in the Survey Monkey uh tool, I'm sure you all went through and had these big tables where you could look at each park
and identify um which reason you use the park um as you're going through. So um so we have feedback for um each park based on proximity and convenience, field condition, um if it has good scheduling and availability, amenities
like lighting, parking or bathroom access. um another category for if there is um a lead group or um organization order scheduling and then a not applicable category just for that um
that don't apply. So um let me see here. Other reasons included uh passive recreation scenic well landscaped and amenities courts batting cages etc or other reasons that people were drawn to certain parks. Um so we don't have the
numbers up here. Um and I don't know if it makes sense for me to like run through some of >> I wouldn't run through them all but there's a couple you highlight. >> Yeah. So, um, Andrews Park, for example, I know that was one of the parks on the previous slide, um, that is used frequently. About 50% of respondents
said that, um, they favor that park based on the, um, availability for leagues to use space. Same thing with Flatly Fields. Um, that was very high for sports teams. Um,
>> specifically, they use software for bright, which was a high >> response rate. Um, Shields Park, a lot of people favored that because of the proximity or convenience to where they live. Um, same thing with Cunningham Park. Um,
then Kellyfield also proximity proximity and convenience and then things like field condition availability kind of varied throughout. Um there were a lot of not applicable respondents here probably for those who are not um seeking those parks for
specific sports activities. Any questions from the public on that slide? >> Just want to take them back over. >> Yes. >> Okay. So our next category was field condition and maintenance. uh questions that we asked the public. And so uh the
first question was parks in the best playing condition. Um Milton Academy got one of the higher ratings. Cunningham Park got a pretty high rating. Of the town owned facilities we have Andrews Park, Kelly Field,
and the high school. No, the high school. Those two I would say this is not on unlike other communities. Milton um wreck facilities have a different maintenance strategy than say a private institution can have. And so when you rate those two side by
side, you'll often find that the private facilities perform a little bit better. Um I I think in general when we went and looked at the Milton recreational facilities, I will tell you what we saw was facilities that had could have some improvement. They were aged facilities, but at the time we saw them, they were
generally in pretty good shape for a recreational facility, a town-owned facility. There could be improvements made and there could be, you know, some things certainly that we can work on, but as far as rack level facilities, we've seen all, you know, facilities that were in a lot worse shape. So, um,
I think there's there's probably some things we can work on in updating amenities and and things that we talked about on that previous slide, but, you know, I don't want the folks to be alarmed when they see the private facilities rate higher than the rec facilities. I think that's really common amongst all towns. Um when you think
about the number of facilities that a town needs to maintain and the staffing levels that they have um it's pretty common. Um one of the things that I think is really important here when we talk about the
responses we got behind the numbers and this is going to be a theme as we work through this section as several respondents noted about the overall condition of existing fields uh and talked about improved maintenance and upgraded facilities. And so where we're headed with this report is that you you
probably don't you definitely don't have enough field space to meet the demand of your wreck facilities. And when I talk to these coaches, they basically get on the field when school's out and they stay on it until it's dark. And they're having three or four teams play on the same field at the same time. And it's
it's probably not viable at this point for you to have a beautiful college level stand of turf when you're putting it through that level of use. Additionally, you're trying to schedule people around rain. And so maybe there's a little bit of impatience on a soggy field that didn't dry out quite as
quickly. And if you start to lose it in the spring, you're not going to gain it back until the fall. And so, you know, as much work as you, you know, as much work as you want the the parks and recck department to put into these fields, they've got to have enough facilities in order to support the demand or they're never they're never going to be able to
keep up, right? You could spend a bunch of money. I won't name a community, but there was a community that I worked for in the past that had so much use on one particular field, they were solding it like every five weeks in order to keep up with it. And the costs were
ridiculous, right? It was it was not sustainable for them to do. Um, and so you need to have the field space to support the demand before you can fix all the meters. I'm not saying there's not maintenance issues we can work on, but um you know, in order to keep a really good stand of perp and not have
fair spots and not have running, we would need to have enough field space to support the ease. Uh other things we got noted was kind of the disparaging differences between turf fields and and uh natural turf fields. And obviously the turf fields that the
town does have or that are on private facilities have a much more consistent level of play than uh the natural turf fields. What I will say is for all those ratings that we that we had on the last page, this kind of tries to sum up what I'm
what I was saying earlier is 85% of the respondents said that the fields were either excellent, good or fair, and efficient. And so, and that's when we talk asked about town owned fields. And so, you know, we're summarizing, we gave you the table on the side, you can see the breakdown. 6.5% of their respondents
said excellent, 41% said good, and 37% said fair. But I expect the town wreck level fields to say somewhere between that good and fair condition. Typically they're not in the excellent condition that you'd see at a you know a private school or anything like that.
Before I keep going is any questions about those last two slides? If you go back to the other the last slide um you're saying that those factors played into the percentages that you see there. So the field quality playability is that kind of
some of the commentary we got. So there was like a leave a comment if you had a question, if you had something you wanted to say. And so we some of them were paragraphs, some of them were sentences. Um we try to simplify it for the purposes of public. Uh but the board
will have all of those responses so they can kind of sit through them. Um but that was generally the comments we got back when a field didn't rate high was because of playability drainage. Thanks. Any other questions about the last two
slides? The next question was about fields that were identified as needing improvements. Um, Platley Field was rated the highest out of this. Um, along with Lower Guile and Kelly Field,
Andrew Parks, I would say, also sticks out to me. Uh Flattley Field is where the youth soccer groups the youth soccer where the youth soccer group plays. With youth soccer being one of our largest uh respondents, I would expect the Flatly Field to stand out as as a as one of the
ones that would want improvement. Um Kelly Field and Andrew Park also rated highly. Um, and we'll be looking uh at those facilities with the parks commission to talk about how we can make expansions or or uh reorientations of
the facilities to better suit the community. Um, and then the last one on there is Lower Guile. Um, you know, I think the public kind of knows there's a project out there for Lower Guile and would like to maybe see that project go through. Um, and so that's probably why
that one rated the highest >> or rated Sure. Can you just clarify what needing improvement means? So field condition or bathrooms, parking? >> The the original question was needing
improvement like needs to be improved on and then I think as a comment section we've got feedback about whether they needed amenities at those or they needed restrooms or playgrounds or whatever. Um but the the heart of the question was which ones would you like us to focus
on? So it's up there >> because Kelly and Andrews got the highest rating right on condition. >> Correct. >> So that's why it's a little confusing. I was hoping you could >> That makes sense. I see your questions now. I think it has to do with the
number of users that are using them. Right. If you have a really if a majority of your groups are using Kelly and Andrews, yes, it may rate higher in condition than say the middle school field which only has like one group using it. Um, but it also is the group
may want to see the most amount of improvements there because they are central to the community. They're uh kind of like the heart of where recreation is played for. And so that's kind of something we're going to have to sit through with the with the group is, you know, like I'm trying to think of one. Shields
Park didn't rate high as fields needing improvement, but there was probably not that many respondents that use Shields Park in comparison to Andrews or Helen. That make sense? >> Hey, Ryan. >> Sure. I think also breaking out some of those fields like Andrews and Kelly's um
the respondents who responded were they softball or were they soccer? Were they baseball or because I think Andrews for instance might get poor ratings for softball and soccer but not for baseball or um Kelly might get poor ratings for
baseball or softball but not not for soccer, you know. So I think also looking at the quality >> that's a good bunch. >> Yeah. field per se like what what is played or lacrosse might say Andrews is great or whatever it is right I think
maybe looking at that a little bit more fine tune would be a different >> we tried to do that with the high school that's why it's divided up into four >> um but I think you know I think it's a good point um but I think it's it's
tough to >> we'll have to look to divide all the data I guess >> a lot Some people might have answered first a softball field, a baseball field, and a soccer. They have kids, >> but that's probably why. >> Hard to all apply to each one. >> What I think we can do is I don't I
think in the like the quick data hit that we got from each one, I don't think we have that data, but in the correspondence underneath, we may be able to decipher some of those things you're talking about, right? Like, yeah, did they talk specifically about the soccer field? Did they talk about the baseball field being in really great condition? So, we'll have to look more
into that. Thank you. Reasons for poor condition field. This is we started this conversation a couple slides back, but poor field conditions include uneven surfaces, mud, flooding, and a lack of grass coverage. Um, and then I'm going to not read the one on the right a minute. I'm going to jump to the one below it and say safety concerns
have potential for injuries due to poor field maintenance. So, I think those two are back are back to speaking to the number of uses you have on these natural turf fields and being able to keep up with them. Um, you know, both of those are speaking to one, we want to we want to pick up our maintenance program, but
two, we need to run enough field space so that we can actually have a maintenance program that can keep up. Um, and then the the final kind of bullet point there was limited amenities such as inadequate parking, lack of restrooms, and insufficient shaped structures. uh particularly the one
we're seeing I think the most commentary I saw about lack of of parking was Andrews Park which I think the board kind of pointed on our first step out there was hey you know we know we have a parking problem we here how we look at that that's one of the things we'll be looking at as we look at the points of
improvement maintenance and uh improvement priorities. So we had folks prioritize what was the things they wanted us to look at the most. We did this on a per field basis if I remember correctly. Right. >> Yeah. >> We just summarized this for the public in in uh kind of like which ones came to
the top. Again, you've got natural turf or infield care. For those of you that may not be baseball players, infield is the area of the baseball diamond that's normally clay. You know, typically that needs to be raised so that you don't have lips or bad ball bounces. Needs to be supplemented around the bases. Um natural turf obviously keeping up with
the grass maintenance. Um drainage andor grading. There was some commentary about some fields that have poor drainage associated with them. Um, one of the things we were hearing from the athletic groups is they're really up against it when they're playing uh from 3 to say 6 in the fall. They would really love the
opportunity to play till 8. If they had lights that would open up the opportunity for practices um which we'll talk about in a minute. Um the problem with that is if you're overusing your field already and you put lights on it to use it more, you're going to only kill it worse and so going to make it almost impossible for these guys to keep
up with if we light these fields. So we need to really think about that strategically whether you know whether if it is lighting the natural turf field, taking uses off of it in the early in the day so that it's not getting overuse or limiting the number of uses on it so you can keep a healthy stand of turb or looking at
opportunities to light a synthetic turbul that may not already be lit. um restrooms and parking um scheduling or coordination. I think there was some there's been some commentary both in the coaches groups and that we've seen from
the um and we've seen from the survey talking about you know would love to be able to get on this field at such and such time but that this team has it booked out and I didn't see them there. So just a little bit more clarity about scheduling and coordination and then accessibility improvements for the parks
including the playgrounds. Um some of the other categories that we saw was trash and pet waste. Uh a common thread throughout is the non pet waste in the parks and finding a way to manage that and uh expanded multi-use
recreational options. So when I think about that, I think about like fitness courses or the yoga course that we talked about previously. Kind of expanding some of those supplemental recreational activities in the parks that maybe are already addressed.
Any questions? Sorry to keep asking. I just want to make sure we're not passing by anybody. Then we moved on to future needs and community priorities. I don't think this slide will come as a shock to anybody here. I don't believe
support for additional fields in the community whether they're natural turf or synthetic turf was 80.28% uh 20% of the respondents were not in the field were not in support of additional fields. Um support for a town acquiring fields I think that's kind of a misprint. My apologies. Uh I think we
worded that in the survey as support for the town acquiring more land in order to build more fields. Um and so that was 82% in support. Uh 17.8% not in support. I kind of find those suit a little bit
like who picked one and not the other. Um, uh, support for additional fields even with increased staffing needs. One of the things we've been talking about tonight is how do you keep up with these national fields? If you want to improve your maintenance field and you want to expand upon it, do you support increasing the staff in order to maintain it? And I think the community
pretty much resounded, yes, we're fully in support of upping the staff if we want to maintain these fields better. This is kind of just like a a nice graphic where we we actually asked uh we asked one of our staff to kind of go
through and see what they were seeing in the responses from everybody and kind of put this I call it word salad, but the the larger words you see in this world word salad were the words we found the most in the responses where the words you see smaller are words we saw less.
And so the things we want to see here are community, green, pet friendly, more amenities. Amenities two different ways. Uh uh familyfriendly trails was interesting. A lot of trails and walking usage. So again, we want to keep up on
that. Make sure we're not losing that in our uh in our site. And then uh nature and trees. trees I think is speaking to shade shade and uh the kind of the nature piece to it.
One of the things I think the board was a little bit cautious about putting in but we wanted to have this question in was about community opinion on synthetic turf. Is the community in favor of adding synthetic turf? And the reason we asked this question is that if you don't
have enough land to support the number of fields you need to grow, one of the ways to grow field space is to build a synthetic turf field. And um synthetic turf fields can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but there's been a lot of advances in synthetic turf over the years. And so
what a synthetic turf field can do is you can you can light a synthetic turf field and that will replace about three natural turf fields. Um the data depending on which community you're talking to is different, but I would say on average it's about three. And so if
you're not rich on land space, the way that grow field space is to convert some of your natural turf field to synthetic turf. And so we wanted to hear from the community whether that was a possibility and all. Um, and so I I think we got a maybe from the community. Uh, 28% were,
you know, opposed, either strongly opposed or somewhat opposed. And then 73% of the community answered, strongly in favor or somewhat in favor. And we have, you know, there was another column or a comment column here like if it was the only way to make it work or, you
know, really in favor of synthetic turf or don't want synthetic, but also we have some commentary for the board to kind of see how those respondents may have given a little bit more detail behind that. Um, but I I do think it was interesting that we've we have a large amount of the respondents uh in favor.
Thank you, Ally, for keeping up. I forgot you had to do that. I just realized. >> Um, preferred addition to Milton's rec facilities. Uh, the largest respondent here was rectangular activities,
uh, at 61%, again, I want to reach back down a little bit further to baseball and softball, doing it a little bit prematurely. I would add those two together when you think about number of fields you need um to be that 29%ish range. Um but then
passive activities rated really high which I thought was interesting and something we're going to have to talk with the board about how we obtain those passive activities. We've been so focused on how do we meet the needs of the rec group, but we need to make sure we're we're touching on that as part of this. Other please specify. Um we've got
some of those uh on the side there, dog parks and off leash dog areas, indoor or yearround recreational facilities. I'll tell you that wasn't part of like what we're trying to study here, but certainly we'll note it in the rec report and you know the the commission
can build on that as they see fit. But we did see a couple of uh a number of responses that talked about an indoor facility that allowed folks to play in the winter. Um and then commonly we saw additional soccer field. One of the um
interesting things that I guess I didn't anticipate when we started this survey was the number of folks that wanted to see more basketball courts. And I think we as the board had talked about whether that's indoor or outdoor. We've got to do a little deciphering. Any questions about that slide? So what are our key takeaways from that
survey? Uh from the survey there's demand for additional feed field space. Uh there's field and maintenance condition concerns and I think those go hand in hand. Um from the public we're hearing we there's importance of amenities parking restrooms lightings
passive recreation and then well really that plays into the next one need for balance of athletic fields of open space. And when I think of open space, I think of passive recreation activities, whether that's nature trails or walkway trails or off leash areas for dogs. There's a ton of things that can fit
into that open space area, but we want to make sure we balance those activities in our park so that we're not heading towards athletic um things. One of the other things I said I wanted to cover as part of this meeting was we talked to uh coaches um from all the
different groups. I think we've gotten everybody that we spoken to on this list, but I'm not positive we've gotten everybody and make a change to this list, but we've got folks from baseball. We've talked to the softball coaches from men's softball and women's softball. We talked to the field hockey youth group. Talked to the youth soccer
group. We've talked to lacrosse both uh girls and boys lacrosse. talk to the youth football and cheerleading groups. Um I I feel like I'm missing someone. The National League and American League baseball teams, we've got two baseball teams for those of you that may not know that, which is a little atypical for our
town, but uh seems to be working. Um and so what did we hear back from them? Um the common thread was lack of field space, but I I the reason I want to talk about that a little bit more is they they've kind of been um
stunting the growth of their own groups in order to make the field space work. So what they've been doing is they've been cancelling practices or not having practices and only playing games because they don't have field space to to have both all the games they need for their youth groups and practice. And so what
they're finding is as kids mature through their through their leagues, they're losing kids because they're not getting the same opportunity that their young students, their other students would be or their colleagues would. And so that's stunting their growth by the time they get to 12 or 15 years old or
they get to the high school level. Finally, suddenly they realize they're not competitive because they haven't been practicing at the same level or they've joined private travel leagues as a result of that, right? and then they're not they're not in Milton rec leagues at all. Um, other
feedback we got was lack of lighting. The one of the reasons they can't practice is they can't play at night. Um, lack of synthetic turf. By and large, the coaches were in favor of an opportunity to play on synthetic turf. Um, and one of the biggest complaints
they had was the pet waste on the field. They often show up for a practice or for a game and they've got to take 10 to 15 minutes to clean the place off the field before they can start their practice. So, they need to have somebody walk around the field, which is, you know, again, affects their schedule, affects the amount of time they can play or practice. And so, that would be
something they like to see addressed. Any questions? >> Uh, yeah, one question. Is it if other communities you work in, is it atypical to see uh kids join club teams rather than stick with direct department teams or is that pretty
pretty typical around the area? >> I think some communities are more successful than others in keeping them in their leagues. I would say Milton's not the only community leaving, you know, losing kids to private uh travel groups. Um, but certainly there's
there's communities that are able to keep more kids. The fact that we're not practicing like a number of coaches are either not practicing at all or having really limited practice once the season starts. Like I'm I'm just trying to think of one like youth football, flight
football would like practice up until when the season starts and then it's just games so you don't practice again. And so there was a number of coaches that came with either very similar story to that or like one practice a week versus and one game a week and they would like like two practices a week or
you know they'd like to be able to work that coaches but if you do two practices a week across we're going to make up a scenario 40 teams right now you've got 80 80 two-hour windows you need or you could maybe have two teams practice together so you have 40 twohour windows
that you need um but it's just not there for the field space and So, um, and then it's just not there for these guys to be able to keep up with it from a from a maintenance level as well. So, um, that's kind of the balancing act that the that the w groups have made in order
to make it work. >> So, I think, um, I just want to pick up a little bit now, um, that we've given, you know, there's a lot of data here and these guys distilled it down. Well, why did we go in and do this this study? I think the re the original basis for
getting Tybot involved was we knew that there was too much programming in our town for those facilities. So they're going to come back make us a recommendation. We think we need four rectangular fields and they're they're all this data they're going to distill down and say hey these are the
recommendations that we can do over a certain amount of time. Then they're going to come back to the commissioner and then they're going to create a plan. So that is the next step. that is the next stepping stone. Um that they will create some conceptual plans and that I'm sure it'll be a little bit more
interesting on that. But we need the data obviously to help inform us to make make some improvements to the existing facilities. And so I think even looking at this data, you know, the good place to start is when our our existing parks
would be the three like Kelly would be probably like middleg um and then Andrews, right? So like that could that would probably be like our focus would be those three parks and then as an addition to that is like we know we need to expand. So how could we
expand? That's the piece that Ryan we were talking about. There's an open space and w committee right now. Just so everybody knows that work has started. It's been over two years. And what what would happen is is once they finish that that gives us some opportunity to get
state funding. We need to get that planning study done. It's basically an inventory of what are what's open space is available and found. And so that will just give us an like unlock us an opportunity to figure out what we could even do to expand on additional fields
if we want to. So I think there there kind of is a two-prong approach here to see what can we do to the existing ones and then what other opportunities are available in town to see what we can do to to make some expansion. Right? So that's the general goal here. And then
obviously too, we're looking at this as a overtime, you know, is this a, you know, 10-year master plan and we check off a bunch of priorities. Um, one key piece of this too, and as of couple folks in the room, Pete and and Ted and I myself, we've been on the community
preservation committee and that's been a huge benefit to our recreation in Milton. So, some of the things that we look at that are might be negative. Some of the huge positive things have come out of the CDC, right? There's been dugouts at Kelly Field that, you know,
four dugouts are up and were erected this fall. So, that's been one great uh benefit. There's talk about lighting. We put all LED lighting at the high school now. So, not only is it energy efficient and the sports teams now can um you know, they have a lot less of a bill.
That's just another positive thing. So in this study too, we'll track with the CPC and the the parks department can also use that so that we have hey here's the priorities. We also kind of put the brakes on some things like we were going to put in for a soccer field at Andrews
and we just said hey let's put up let's put on the brakes and do the studying first before we go invest $300,000 into a new field because maybe there's another arrangement. Um so I just want to put that out there because you know there is there is a plan and a long-term
plan. I'm obviously an architect and a planner. So that's the reason why I I you know I want a longer vision and then we we kind of figure out the priority list to kind of pick a way for the for commissioners now in and great.
What about the public after that? Is there any other questions about our process goal? Yeah, I'd love to hear more about strategy to make sure I think to your point that there is balance with some of the maybe not the like highest number responses and how
you plan to like filter some of the results so that there is that balance that the community is looking for. >> To me, that's a lot of a lot of intent work. I'm looking at the comments. there's that breakdown there that we you guys can't see that we have a lot of commentary for folks on what they're
looking for and we're going to try and take key elements from each one of those and work them into any of the parks we're doing improvements for. So like I I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but Andrews Park is already a park we're looking at. We haven't been able to present what we're looking at
for the rec commission, but we certainly have our eye on opportunities for passive recreation facilities. And I think there's a lot of opportunities in parks where um baseball fields and multi-ourse rectangular fields are really big space
eaters, but what they leave along the side of them is a lot of none of these properties in Milton are perfect squares, right? Where this was area was developed at a time when they didn't do that. And so when you put a large rectangle rectangular field in the middle of a park, there's a lot of
facilities, a lot of space on the side for these opportunities. And so what we're going to do is we'll probably put a list together of what we heard for passive recreation and prioritize them based on the number of comments we saw for each one. And then anytime we do a park improvement, we're going to try
anytime we show a conceptual park improvement, I should say, we'll try to identify two or three that we can fit at the park. And if it's a facility that can take more, we'll keep working on more of them. Um, and then we'll have to prioritize those. You know, Rob's talking about a 10-year plan for a park
facility. Well, you may not bite off an entire park improvement all in one shot. You may take one passive recreational improvement and one sport recreational improvement, but what you have on at that time will be a conceptual improvement. Where are we going in 10 years so that you don't build a passive
recreation facility where a multiverse? So, we'll be working with the with the parks group. One of the interesting things like I shouldn't say I don't know, but I don't know what the town's strategy is with dogs and dog parks. Every municipality hands out a little bit different. So, we'll have to talk
about is there is there a facility that's more ideal like know some some communities don't want those facilities near schools or they don't want them near uh certain other facilities. So, we'll have to strategize on that a little bit. But certainly that's something we've heard a lot about in the
survey. So, we'll prioritize them and then try to find opportunities in each park improvement to include self. >> Just one other thing I'd add, there's the Manning Park option that has a lot of grass. It's very, you know, not used a ton. What passive things could we maybe use there too?
>> Help me on Manning Park. Am I >> That's the express over the expressway. >> It's just a green space, but >> again, don't under this. >> Yeah, it's under >> state. It's not the park department. So,
so I will say it's it's tough because like when we went through this what actually the the commissioner is having um you know control over isn't with this town there's many private like as as said we need many private facilities
there's many state facilities there's DCR right um so um some things we don't have control of so that's why I mentioned like our those are our three biggest right we all know Kelly Andrews and and kind of the high school are the three biggest that we probably can make
the the biggest improvements to. Um and and like just going back to these guys, like I will say one of my favorite parks in around the area is King Kade Park. Um our daughter plays soccer there quite a bit. Um but what's nice about it is is that there's a jogging track. For
anybody who knows, there's a jogging track. There's beautiful greenery. It's It's just a really nice park that there's a mix of recreational facilities as well as as well as as sports. Yeah, it's in Quinsey. Yeah. >> My daughter has practice there right now.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's it's a beautiful park. It's pretty recent, but it and there's also like um exercise equipment around too, right? And playgrounds. And there's lights. There's lights, too. I'm sure you know there was significant investment there, but um but
it's it's a great park. So Josh was is there you guys present back in town any data property values town rankings things metrics that go into towns that have
meetings services capabilities features anything that would be useful data to kind of help the town see okay if we had xy this is what it t means to one of parts of our d benchmark benchmarking for the community like where you stand for number of fields based on your
population space. There's also some nationwide standards based on population. I can't think of the group right now, so I'm just going to bail out and say nationwide, but there's a group that puts together some standards based on x population. We would anticipate you having x number of these type of fields or x number of these type of facilities.
Um, and so we'll provide that information as well for sure. I think uh you touched on synthetic fields that uh one field will replace three natural turf. I imagine those are rectangular fields. Are they ever baseball or
softball or do is that not really uh we do not really see they're in the area. >> So certainly we build synthetic dirt baseball and uh softball fields. Um what I would say is that the use type on multi-purpose rectangular fields lends
itself to tearing up natural turf more often. Um, baseball the majority baseball and softball the majority of the rock use is on the clay infield mix which creates a different maintenance issue for these guys but it doesn't show up in stand of turf issues. Usually
you'll find three holes in the outfield where the outfielders stand and they dig their heels in a little bit. Um, but often we don't find as many of the turf issues there. But certainly, you know, when you talk about opportunities here on a on a on a community that needs field space, you may see a strategy from
us where we overlay a multi-purpose rectangular field with a baseball field outfield so that we're gaining as much possible use out of that facility as possible. >> Any other question? Um, yeah. I I first of all, I just want to thank the park commissioners for
getting this study done. I think it's a great way to just take a step back and look at all of the needs that are in town and and coming up with a plan for how to get where we want to be. Um, so thank you for for doing this. Um, the
one question that I have is about maintenance. Um and you know for um the uh natural grass fields in particular wondering sort of where are we now relative to what should be done to
maintain the fields and was that part of your study. We had a conversation with Kevin about what you're doing on you know a regular basis and I would say the fact that one the want to say all of them but I'm probably lying majority of your fields are irrigated and the
maintenance program that I talked through with Kevin was really kind of ahead of a lot of communities. Um you're doing a lot for the amount of staff you have and the number of fields you have. And so um you know I think I think type
of maintenance wise you're great. I think there was a conversation about, you know, field striping and stuff like that, which obviously based on our conversation, our question about more staffing could help kind of that that maintenance issue out. But as far as sand of natural turf, you're doing a lot
of the things that we would recommend for it's just a question of how do you keep up with thousands of young kids running around with cle on and I think that's the biggest um you know you there's so much programming for these
fields that you know Kevin does a pretty good job um managing the sports leagues because we know like this spring we've got in a ton of water right and so if we let these kids play when the fields aren't in the shape that they should be played on, they could be ruined for an
entire season. Um, which they have in the past. So, I think Kevin does a great job um managing that. Um, because you know, kid, we want the kids to go out and play um too. Um, but a lot of it's weather related with natural with natural turf. One of the things we'll include in the report is just an
itemized list of what we would anticipate being the maintenance strategy on a natural turf field and that just be a tool for Kevin for saying like we you know I'm not making this up or here's what we need to do and also help justify that sacking uh desire
>> and and there's even um like getting back to there's kind of a mix too even for like softball I know on Kelly we've had issues with drainage on the softball field there. There was we have no we have new uh dugouts, but the the field last year was very unplayable because it
was there there puddles and if you go by there now there's puddles. Um but that's going to get turned over and we're going to use a stone dust for instance instead of using clay. The stone dust while it's not like the most ideal thing surface it will absorb water and kids can play
better. So I think we're also doing things like that. >> Cool. Thanks for doing this. It's good to get sort of the internal update. Just I I was intrigued by the funding reference. Um in particular the open
space master plan like how does that fit in and this work and where does that tie in? >> Yeah. So it's it's interesting because um I'm trying to collaborate as much as possible with um the planning
department. As you guys might know, we now have a new town planner and an assistant town planner. Um, and so the open space and wreck committee that was formed and it was probably over two years ago now. There was a long layoff when our when their planning department
went away. And so the reason why I pretty much started this meeting is um, Horsley Whitten was the was the uh, consultant group um, that was doing that study originally. And so I had talked to them specifically about this and said,"Hey, you know, why are we not, you
know, does this cover does this cover also recreational in more detail?" And they said, "No, you really need to do a recreational master plan." So what this other plan does is basically it inventories open space throughout the
town, right? So that we can unlock opportunity, potential opportunities to see. And I think we would get into uh the point of like you know what's the value of some of the land that's available as well. Um I even spoke so just this week too I spoke and figured
out you know is there even private land that we could potentially unlock. Um and so we're going to keep our eye open you know as we kind of go through this. Um and you know we do have the CPC here as well and you know CPA funds can be used
to acquire land and you can you can use you know they can be used for recreational facilities. So that is a method that that is possible. >> Deb >> uh thanks I I agree this is great. Um I really appreciate all the work you guys
did. Thank you very much. Um, so, uh, is there a conversation around acquiring, um, the labor land because they that's about to go up for sale? So, I I realize this is above the parks
level, but that might be a collaborative thing to talk about as a town because uh, that solves actually other problems, too. But that would be additional land. I don't know. No, there's no fields there, right? Is there no? >> I don't think there fields, but there's
a lot of land. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, you know, this is this is the reason to do the study and to come out and say, "Hey, we have a need here. Let's go back to, you know, the select board. Let's go talk to town meeting members." So, you know, that's our that's basically our plan ahead is to
say, "Hey, we have a charge here. There's a real need. Let's figure out what we can do." So, there's only so much we can do with our existing parks. there's another piece of this and I would love to unlock that and figure out what the opportunities are. Um, so we're going to have to rely on not just us, but we're going to have to rely on other
folks in town to to push that forward. >> Um, maybe it's more for Kevin, but how about I I understand I know it's fun bonds, I know um town money, but the sports organizations give so much money
per year for players to use fields. Um, is there any opportunity for, you know, this plan going out to have the organizations? I know that you guys do a lot of work and how much we pay for different things, but how much more can
the sports organizations pay or fund different pieces of this project or other private >> money? Because I think that's where like $10 a player is like nothing really. Like I mean I I just like I I know we as
an organization we're ready for you know funding more things and so like that's where I like to have some consideration for like the sports organizations to really like be accountable for some of this too because I think they should be.
>> But so we do that $10. I know it hasn't changed in a while, but we do that not to, you know, put another burden on the parents, you know, if it's for uh the initiation, the registration fee for these kids. But
>> it's something we think about to move up, but I mean um some of these project that's that we've done groups like the CPA projects. So the lighting project um softball and
baseball kicked in out of the above what came from CPA parks department kicked in. So yes other we do have groups kick into projects that we uh have going on especially with the CPA projects.
>> Yes. >> And just in talking about library I know that Mona plays at Andrews. They have their games there. Yeah. >> So, do they is there any inind >> that? That's a good question. They're >> Yeah, they do. Okay, they do. They do.
They do. Yep. >> Yes. >> Can I just ask I don't care what council on aging, but across the street there's an old basketball court. >> Yes. So, >> and that's there, but it seems it's not that much land, but >> So, so it's a good point and there's actually a CPA project happening right
now. So, um, one of the one of the respondents here is that, hey, we really want more basketball. I'm thinking it's probably more basketball courts outside as well. Um, there's actually a project that came to the CPA this year, and there's going to be not only botchi ball courts, but as well as like redoing this
basketball court, and I think it it actually was a project last year, and then we didn't have enough funding for it, so they came back and that was that that land is actually in control by the select board, I believe. And so, um, Nick Milano had kind of like put in for
the funding for it, but you'll start to see that, too. I don't know when, do you know, Kevin, when that project's going to happen? >> Right after July 1. >> Uh, so so basically where CPA funds, you know, we it has to go to town meeting to get approved. The the committee
basically recommends all the projects. It comes before town meeting in May and then the funds are released in July. So July 1st, a lot of these projects will start to get uh ahead and and Kevin's been great to kind of spearhead a lot of these projects.
>> Yes. >> So on those first slides, the most respondents were parents of kids who play. Um and I wonder if there's been any thought to fundraising
uh through communities and parents. So, I've been a fundraiser before, but the notion if you go to a big fundraiser, there's always fun and need. And for instance, I live near Shields Park, the
bases are a catastrophe. If there was a, you know, and that can't be that much. So if the notion would be to put maybe one of those little thermometer things in the parks and say if you donate this amount of money this that will get new
bases if you donate you know sort of the notion of funding a need in in the neighborhoods where these parks are. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great point and, you know, I think I don't think if we're talking about improvements here,
we're probably talking multi-million dollars worth of funding to to make some of these improvements. So, that's why I said it's going to be over a 10-year term, and there's definitely going to have to be private and public type of funding. So, you know, I think we're going to have to to latch on to both and
figure it out. Um, as as Jamie said, you know, we also just the way when I grew up, I had most most of our town sports were underneath the town department, right? And and in Milton, it's all running as nonprofits pretty much.
There's a few things that we offer, the parks and wreck offer. Um, but you know, these are there's all these other nonprofits that are out there. Um, you know, I served on the Milton Solid board. um you know my wife's the president of open soccer and so these
groups also have investment and so so you know I think that's her her point is like how can these groups also help they also helped fund this study um so I will say that the the just the funding for the study came from CPA funds but it also came from from some of these sports
groups so that's why they're they obviously have a big stake within this um so to your point kind of go back to them and lean on them um to see what they can do for improvements, too. I think it's going to take it's going to take kind of a a combination of both
because we don't we don't necessarily want the you know, put this put this back on the the taxpayer either. I think a lot of these are going to be um you know, they will be used for the whole community, but a lot of them, you know, are going to be used by sports sporting
groups essentially. Pete, um I want to speak up a little bit for the past abusers. I know a lot of this study revolves around the sports fields and things like that. Um and naturally the greatest amount of people
replying are athletically re related because there's all these organized coaches and they reach out to their parents and so by far the largest number of responses are the athletic field and things like that. I was a bit disappointed in the survey on the lack
of coverage for passive recreation. There were a couple little lines, but for example, you know, do you use turned up pond? Yes. And that's the end of it. There's no talking about condition or possible, you know, other things that could be used and improvements that could be made. And you know, I want to
make sure I was delighted delighted to see the one um graphic that was surprisingly the high number of people that responded and said they used the passive use and and not just passive use at the athletic facilities, but the
Turner's Pond, the Pope Pond, Manning Pond. Um, another opport um, you know, there's a a lot of use there. Um, that that should be considered and improvements should
perhaps rank a little higher given that that the number of respondents are just automatically more for active recreation. I also what I would say Pete is that there's a lot of passive use in Milton. You know, there really is. Um,
but I think we need to incorporate it into existing funds, right? So, while we're doing while we're doing sports, I think like I mentioned paid, right? Um there's there's opportunity there that we'll absolutely look to try to get as much passive use in the park as the
parks and and the other thing that I would hope they would at least somehow work into this is there are some town parcels like there's six acres down along the river that's that's um there's this land that in theory if
the middle school gets going the park is going to get by the landfill, >> right? >> And you know, looking at, you know, as a possible future opportunities, I think, you know, would be missing an opportunity if you didn't think about
what those might accomp we we brought Ryan. That was >> we did bring him there. >> Yeah. >> But to um the dump >> Yeah. So, we brought we did go to some of those spots. >> Um I mean, granted I mean, you're right.
I think we're looking through this because of us, you know, there's a sports lens to this and we see the need for it, but we absolutely have to go through more of the passive uses to be in this. We only have so much money. I think at some point, to your point, like
what do you do with that land and I don't I don't think that you I don't think there's going to be a lot that you can do with that land because there's a lot of wetlands that that are that are in that. >> That's a whole another stuff. >> That's a whole another stuff. I I do think though we want to balance.
>> We've got two studies happening simultaneously, right? You've got this rec plan and the open space and recck plan, right? >> So, well, this was more recreation based on the athletic facilities. >> We want to acknowledge that yes, there needs to be passive use of these facilities. And so that's why you saw
maybe this survey wasn't as as passive he heavy as you would have liked, but a lot of the facilities that you're talking about that are more strictly passive recreational uses should be picked up in that open space and recck plan. So hopefully when we marry those two together and that's why we're kind
of trying to work together, we'll be able to kind of put our survey data together with whatever the open space rack plan and kind of make sure that we're covering what you're identifying as huge massive use >> and and they are just starting that upkeep. I I think they the the planning
board approved more funding so that that open space and wreck can finally get >> it's a lot I remember answering that two days ago. There's a lot of implic it's a whole separate discussion. It's a
big discussion. I think for town planning we have a field need. They have resources just long-term planning for how do we solve problems >> start private school as a field if we could pay to put a new field in there
benefits them. >> Yeah. >> But it doesn't get used because they're out of session weekend. So like just high level of town planning the partners think you solve a lot of problem with profit department. So I think that would be a win. >> Yeah, they we do want them to pay taxes
or whatever money and give it to the town and that's not going to happen. But they have fields. Is that a trade? >> Maybe. >> Again, not for this commission, but just in general, it >> doesn't even part of discussion. >> And I Kevin, maybe you can speak to
this, but didn't Milton Academy just recently agree to allow some of the youth sports? >> Yeah, they've stepped up big time this past two years. Milton Academy. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's that's I mean and you can see it on like some of the data is Milton Academy over the last few years have
>> my organization reach out to God directly and but I think from a town level we leverage that resource. Yeah. A town level >> you know on the town because yes our organizations are reaching out >> calling favors and it's been great but >> from the town standpoint
>> there's some buying our lyrics to solve a couple problems >> right and like you mentioned a great one like St. Aries I I think like Ralph Baron called me probably a few weeks ago and he said listen I was talking to the director there you know it granted I don't think we use it because the the
the facility isn't that great right but to your point could could the town make an investment there it it it gets challenging right because they own the land so that that's where the challenge could come in like could you put p could private groups go and put money in I
don't think like we could publicly put money into some someone else's land if that makes sense because like you you can never like for CPC funds we would never be able to fund it because you need to own one. So that's that's some of the challenge
with that anymore. Hi, can you hear me? >> Yes. Yes. >> I was just curious. I mean, one one issue you raised was >> self shovels >> that a lot of teams are struggling to
find practice areas. And it strikes me that maybe a lot of sports don't need a 100 yard field for practicing. I was particularly thinking about like lower guile which is destroyed by
youth football in the fall and it's just seems to me it's all practice and they just line up on those yard markers and dig trenches and if you could find a place to put those kids you'd have a hundred yard field there. you know, if
you could have a just a 30 yard field someplace else for to break things up a bit. So, I don't know if you're when you're looking for field space, you would consider, you know, 30 or 40 yards a pretty useful place for the town to have.
>> I would say I would say a lot of your rec groups are finding whatever little piece of grass they can play on. Um, I can't tell you the number of times I heard in these conversations, I don't know what to call that little sle. >> Yeah. But it's to the outfield of the
soccer field and it's not quite the baseball field and it's not in the rectangular space. It's like by the light pole. >> Um, a number of teams are playing that space as an opportunity. And so I think they are finding those 30 to 40 yard segments. you know, as far as like could
the town would the town want to fund a project for a 30 to 40 yard field just for youth football to tear up? I I would say probably not. But >> um that doesn't mean that there's not opportunities where >> we don't rotate fields or change uh
change wear patterns so that we don't ruin a field either. I think it's something we can we can talk about. And and I think that the the general message here and and what concerns me is like listen, I I'm involved with two heavy sports because my daughter plays two sports, but when I hear folks in town
that, you know, they play field hockey can't even practice in town because there's just not field use, uh, you know, they just don't have access to fields. That that becomes a real equity problem for me. Um because it's just not right. Right. So, I think that's the
absolute need to do this and find space because it's just, you know, they they need it. You know, we need to find because they are just take they're they are finding like little just pieces of grass to play um where they really should be getting better. So, >> yeah, I think for the most part the town
does two softball teams are practicing the same field, two baseball teams were practicing in the same field. Kevin doesn't want to hear this, but I >> last last night there was a baseball team Braxton behind PS. You know, they just take the fields of the whatever you can take. Whatever you can take, right?
>> You should earn the list from these coaches. >> Well, on Tuesdays I play over here. I don't know how the kids find the field playing at home, >> right? I mean, kids are playing soccer on Beverly Park, which that's just that's massive, Pete. Right. Like, but they're playing soccer on it because
they don't have anywhere else to play. Um, so it really is a there is a big V there. >> We also feel >> yeah younger family student
>> they're having to go out of town what >> the public should know that like groups now are having to find fields elsewhere outside of Milton and use them because they just don't have it here. So, they're going further out. Um, softball
had fields in Boston and soccer and and soccer was using 32 for a long time. That's been taken back. Um, so it's it's been a challenge to find how do you how do you replace that program? >> Colleen McCarthy's Colleen.
>> Oh, hey everyone. Um, sorry I came in on the tail end and I just um I think it was Matt De who made the comment about St. Mary's. I'm just curious has has the town ever approached the school about
using the field and if so I'm just curious what the response was and the reason I asked they are always doing fundraisers looking to raise money and so I'm just I'm just curious um if we've asked and
what what their response has been. I don't think there has been a discussion. Um, I think it it's it would be who of us to to follow up and figure out if it's even an option, you know. >> Yeah, I think just a suggestion. I I
have two children there. I think it's probably a worth a worthwhile pursuit. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I um they're just they're constantly looking to raise money. So I I thought it was a good good idea. I think it was Matt Deb that brought it
up. So just wanted to throw that in there. >> You'll split from the rest and then further use >> Yeah. This is where we get into the challenge is private and and figured out. >> Yeah. But it's worth looking into, you
know. >> I mean Yeah. And I don't know if like if Yeah. I don't understood about the CPC if if parents, you know, whether it would come out of registration fees, if there's a portion of that with sports
programs that you could segment, but um I'm sure the town could get creative, but yeah, and and maybe they wouldn't be open to it, but it yeah, it might be a worthwhile pursuit. >> That the challenge here is like private organization using a private field and
then the town's involved somewhere. Um, not saying that it couldn't be done, but it's it's going to be that's going to be the hurdles that we're we're going to have to >> Yeah, got it. Makes sense. >> Yeah. So, everybody online,
>> great. Nobody else has questions. Appreciate everybody being really interactive tonight, asking questions. That was awesome. and we'll certainly be back in front of you guys after we get a chance to talk to bars about improvement and uh we'll do another presentation. >> Yeah. >> Great.
>> Thanks. Thank you.