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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=tHUd_oWnFwI

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All right. Thank you everyone for uh for coming to our forum. I'm Carolyn Cahill. I'm chair of the park commissioners. We're going to go ahead and get started. Um, if everyone wants to introduce themselves at the table here.

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>> Yeah. Rob Levash, member of the park commission. >> Steve Novak, park commission member. >> Kevin Grizz, park director. >> Bonnie Devour, admin. >> My name is Ryan Morrison and I'm from Tyen Bond, helping consult the town on their master plan.

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>> Next slide. >> Yeah. So, I I think um you know, this is this been a long process. I don't know when we started, Ryan, but >> it's almost a year ago. It's It's almost been a year because our first community meeting was I think in July of last year. So, it's been a long process. Um

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but time bond it we're we're finally to the point where we're we're finalizing this master plan. So, um I'm going to hand it over to to Ryan to kind of go through this um basically the the initial studies, the findings, and then

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kind of what we're looking at for future opportunities. Um, and then we're going to open it up for uh any questions. So, the only thing I would ask is that at the end of this, anybody who has a question because we're also live here um on camera is just to come up front um

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and we'll call on you and then you can come up front so that you can uh be heard. >> So, go ahead, Ryan. Thanks, Rob. >> The only thing I'll say on top of Rob is I want everyone to remember like this is a draft and we're presenting this community because we want feedback back, right? Yeah. And so if there's something

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about tonight that you see, don't say, "Well, that didn't happen the way I wanted to." We want feedback about what's there that you don't like or you do like along the way. >> Um, just as a show of hands, how many have been to We've had two public meetings along the way, Rob. Right. Two

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public meetings. How many have been to one of those public meetings along the way? >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, we a good amount of you have been here before. I've heard some of it. I will, for those of you that haven't, I'm going to walk through the process we've gone through a little bit so everyone's kind of on a level playing

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field and then we'll get to talking about our conclusions. Um, the purpose of this master plan was to help the town assess their recreational facilities across the entire town. And specifically, our our goal here was to assess the town owned facilities to understand how they served the

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community, how they could better serve the community, whether they were being overused or underutilized, um, and then help them identify the gaps and prepare conceptual plans for how they could help improve the uh, amenities for the community.

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Uh, we started this process by doing a field conditions report with the town. We went out with the parks commission and walked each one of the sites. We talked a little bit about what's being played at each one of the facilities. We talked a little bit about uh how they're maintained. We also talked about, you

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know, what future plans they might have and what projects have been done in the past. Our general kind bonds general report about how the fields grade out is that they're this is the fields and the facilities. Generally, you're consistent with uh municipal facilities. I would

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say they're not the greatest facilities, meaning they're not a tier collegiate facilities and they're not poor rundown facilities. They're maintained, they're maintained consistent with recreational facilities. Um, they have minor plerity issues, things that could be worked on.

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Not saying they can't be improved, but there was nothing that was like, "Oh my goodness, we've got to shut these down. These aren't safe. There's huge problems here." Um, they're very consistent with recreational facilities. Um, what we did note was their supporting amenities are lacking. Uh, for instance, baseball facilities may not have, you know, nicer

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dugouts. There may not be bottle filling stations. There may not be some of the passive recreation around the parks that we'd like to see if we designed a park today, such as walking trails, shade structures, um, all the playground facilities that you might want to see as well. We also saw that there was limited

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availability to play night games. Not many of your facilities have athletic lighting or very few have athletic lighting. Um, and so that was a downside, and we'll talk a little bit more why that's a downside later. Um, the big plus that we noted is that you guys have a ton of irrigation facilities throughout your community. And so that

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helps specifically for the natural care facilities, making sure they can continue to play when the grass goes dormant in the summer um, and they can more easily recover. We also pulled users on what we saw from field conditions. Um, we had issues with

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pet waste was a big problem within the community. Um, people go out, walk their animals on the on the recreational facilities and maybe aren't cleaning it up. Um, and so that's something we'll probably want to address from a communitywide whether that means, you know, putting up more signage about dogs or putting up dog waste bags, whatever

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the case may be. Obviously, the parks commission will work on that, but getting the waste removed so that coaches don't have to take time before they start practices or games to remove waste would be ideal. um municipally own fields not maintained quite as nicely as the private facilities. There's some private

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facilities that the rec groups are using um throughout the community and one of the feedback items we got was that you know like Cunningham's fields maybe are a little bit higher quality than some of the town owned facilities. Um so that was good feedback. Um the next three all kind of play together. We got degraded

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surface, lack of turf coverage, poor drainage, and inability to play after a rain event. I'll say that all of those kind of combine to each other, they're indicative of fields that are overplayed and not well rested. So, when you play on a recreational facility and they get

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beaten up, the soil becomes compact and then it doesn't want to drain and [clears throat] then you get a rain event on top of it. Now, you can't play on that facility for four or five days. Hopefully not four or five days, but a number of days. After we assessed the facilities, we put

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a survey out to the public. I hope many of you were able to participate in that survey, but we got 1300 respondents from throughout the community. I've we previously had done a presentation on all of the survey results we've got, and that will be issued in the final master

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plan that goes to the town. Um, I picked a couple of key ones out of the survey in order for us to review today because I was trying to be conscious of everybody's time. Um, and so these are some ones. Oh, good. I'm glad that's not showing there. Um, these are some ones that we thought were important. Um, the

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uh keys here were what were the most used parks. Um, you've got Andrews Park, Cunningham Park, Kelly, uh, Flatly, and oddly enough, Milton Academy were the four highest rated. I think uh Turner's Pond is another one

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there. Uh five highest rated facilities. I think that's consistent with what you see for size of facilities. The other facilities are a little bit less. Um important to note that the blue bar graphs are not townowned facilities. The orange bar graphs there are uh town

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owned facilities. This next graph is uh when we asked the respondents what fields or what parks were most needed improvements. Um there was a wide variety of votes and just as so everyone can know you could vote on

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multiple facilities. That's why this doesn't add up to 100. Um but the two highest rated were Flatly Field and Lower Guile Field. I think lower guy field was noted because I think a lot of people know there's a project that could happen there or may happen there. So that one was rated high. So the third

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most was Kelly Field at 31%. Um anything else I want to say about this? I think we're good there. >> Did you have something? >> No. >> No. Um other things we wanted to cover was support for additional fields. One

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of the things we heard kind of early on before we had an opportunity to interview coaches was is there support for more coaches were saying, "Hey, I think we need more fields. We'll have to put some numbers to it." And so we wanted to ask the public like, "Would there be some support for more fields? Could we grow the wreck program?" And

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people would be in support of that. Um, and so we kind of got overwhelming support for more fields. 80.28% were in support of additional fields. um 82% were in support of the town acquiring more space for fields and 82.4% were in

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support of increasing staffing needs because if you increase the number of parks or the amount of space to maintain, you don't want the town to forget that you're going to have to increase maintenance staff in order to take care of these facilities. Um you don't want to make that capital investment and not maintain them.

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We also asked respondents their preferred additions to Milton Recre facilities. The highest by far was uh 61.27% for rectangular fields. Uh passive activities were 35.93%. Passive activities could be walking

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trails, fitness courses, um things that wouldn't be considered necessarily athletic events. Um I know we have a contingency here from pickle ball. Pickle was the fourth highest rated request at uh 16.58%. Um we've got some notes on the side

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there of what got into the other um and so you got basketball courts, additional uh dog parks or indoor facilities were requested. The other piece and I I added this slide in here because I thought it was helpful to understand is we asked the public about their opinion on synthetic turf

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fields. Um 73% either said strongly in favor or somewhat in favor while 28% either said strongly opposed or somewhat opposed. >> Sorry guys. >> You didn't say yes. >> I hope not. [laughter]

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So sad. It's gotten me once before. We're not in a public meeting though. [laughter] Um, the next thing we did is we put together the field inventory. So when we talked to the coaches, we could understand. And I I this is probably very hard for you at the back of the room to to read. And so I'm just going to go over the

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highlights of this of this uh >> chart. >> Oh, they have a screen there. >> Oh, perfect. Um, so multi-purpose rectangular fields. The town has seven that they can use for the wreck program. They only have five that are owned by town facilities. There's uh one at

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Milton Academy field hockey field that's played and the high school track while it's within the town, it's not scheduled typically for town facilities. It's more meant for high school recreational high school athletic facilities. Um the town owns three 90 ft diamonds or I should

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say the town owns two 90 ft diamonds but has a total of three to play on. Um the one private one is at Cunningham. They have a total of seven 60-oot baseball fields. Um, five of which are on town parcels. Uh, one is located at H Hotton

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Ponds and one is at Cunningham. It has six 60 ft softball fields. Three of which, uh, are on town owned property. The other ones are on Cunningham and at H Hotton's Pond. Has one T-ball field which is located at Andrews Park. It has

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four basketball courts and I've labeled it tennis/pickleball, but it has nine available courts within the community. Uh, seven total at Kelly Field, two at Andrews Park. Yeah, seven at Kelly Field and two at Andrews Park.

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Does that make sense with everybody? Is there anybody think we've missed something along the way? >> Sorry. Did you was was is very lane or uh >> Shields >> and Shields as well. >> I didn't name the stuff that was in town owned. So when I said there's five that

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are on town owned parks for baseball fields or softball fields for instance at the 60 foot base baseball field size >> park is there. >> They're both they are both there. >> They're both there. Yeah. >> Yeah. Answer the question. They're both they're both on the foot. >> Thanks guys. >> Yeah.

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>> And Donovan got on a T- ball at lower. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's a little league field. >> Little League field. Correct. I think we called that lower dial field instead of playing Donovan. Um, so then we had conversations with

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coaches and we asked them to tell us uh a little bit about their program. We asked them to tell us, you know, how their program was growing, how many athletes they had in their program, how much they were practicing, where they were practicing, where they were playing games. Um, these conversations range from 30 minutes to an hour with each one of them. Um, I wouldn't want to give you

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all of the notes for that. So, I tried to sum it up in the common themes we saw throughout the coaches. Um, the high points was they'd like to see improved maintenance at the facilities. The largest item that I heard from almost consistently all of the coaches is they'd like more opportunities to practice at the facilities. In many

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opportunities, the young kids are joining wreck leagues and they're able to practice for the first couple of weeks before games get played and then once games start, the kids are no longer able to practice. And so they really want the opportunity to be able to practice regularly. What's happening is that they feel that the wreck leagues

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are suffering because kids are leaving um to go play for travel teams where they get the opportunity to practice or they're dropping out of wreck facil wreck leagues altogether >> and they're not able to practice because there's not enough space >> because [snorts] there's not enough >> there's not enough field space to get them and that that plays into that lighting discussion and the lack of turf

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and and overplaying on field space which we'll talk about in a little bit. Um well actually we'll talk about it now. More field space and ad lighting schedule to flexibility. [snorts] Um additional details about some of the things we talked about. Um poor drainage is causing them to cancel

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games. So when they cancel a game, their ability to make it up is non-existent because they, you know, if it rains and they already have a game scheduled for the following day, they can't bump that game to play the game they lost on Tuesday. Everything's flat out. And so often times when they cancel a game,

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they may just have to cancel that game allgether and they never get a chance to play it or they're like trying to squeeze it in. There were some of the coaches were talking about have to like play on a game like 5 to 6:30 and try to get a game 6:30 before it was dark and they're like getting to unsafe conditions when it's getting dark

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because there's no lights at the facility. And so it's causing them some issues in getting getting the kids what they weren't expecting out of the experience. Um, we also asked like, you know, everybody wants the most beautiful facility to play and practice at, but have coaches kind of considered where

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they could play uh and have opportunities for ground balls or stretching or team drills? And so when we asked that feedback from the coaches, we generally found them being very creative in their opportunities to find practice spaces. For instance, one of the ones that got often talked about is

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there's uh an area in Middle Gule at the high school which is not programmed as a softball space and it's not programmed as the baseball space and it's just behind like the uh recreational facilities. It's kind of a dead zone in the field. It's not a big enough area for a full field, but we've often found

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coaches going over there to get warm-ups in, throw the ball around, get practices in. So, we felt like they're being really creative on trying to maximize the space that the town currently does have. Um, we also asked them, you know, are they getting most use out of like out of town or in town private options?

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And generally found that the coaches have tried to use Milton Academy or Curry College and have uh actually recently had some success at Curry College. I learned last night. Um, but >> soccer >> soccer has some success. >> Yeah. Um, and there's been some

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opportunities at Milton Academy, but Milton Academy has its own program it's trying to serve, and so the slots that are available don't always play well into the rec committee's uh, needs. [clears throat] >> Damn, I missed Rob.

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After Timebond was able to talk to the coaches, was able to talk to the parts group, understand the facilities conditions, we made an assessment based on all these items to try and figure out what the what the what we need to serve the wck groups. Um, that doesn't mean

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that there's not other things that need to occur, but we wanted to understand how can we help the rec groups meet their needs and help the community meet their needs for passive and active recreation. Um, our general conclusion has been that the existing system is operating at or above capacity,

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especially for multi-purpose rectangular fields. And the most consistent thing that I I think I can't stress enough is that the natural fur fields have no ability for recovery uh or ability to be rotated. And so when you play consistently in the same spots on a rectangular field, the same spots get

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worn out. Same thing, a little bit less for baseball, but if you can ever rotate a field a different direction, you can uh misalign those wear spots. Even if you rotate it 30°, you could take away those wear spots on a field. Um, but because we're kind of maxing out

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everything's capacity and we don't have a lot of wide open spaces in Milton. Everything's kind of programmed just so to fit. Um, there's no opportunity to rotate these fields or deconstruct wear spots. And so these natural grass fields are not getting the ability to recover like they'd like, which making Kevin's

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job a lot harder than it should be in order to maintain the facilities. Um the needs we've identified is that we think the community needs somewhere between three to four new uh multi-purpose rectangular fields. So think of soccer, lacrosse, hockey. Multi-purpose means it serves everybody

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in the community. It's not meant for any one group. Um two to three additional 60oot baseball diamonds. That could be baseball or softball diamonds. Um, we don't have uh, you know, I think whatever serves the community the best and sometimes these field spaces can be flexible depending on who's playing

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there. Um, we think walking trails need to be added at the majority of the parks to provide uh, passive recreational opportunities. Um, we would really like to see athletic lighting added to the facilities specifically if athletic lighting could be added with a turf field that provides the most ability to

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serve the most people. Um, and then we'd like to see more passive recreation opportunities. We'd like to see more uh pickle ball added uh and fitness course provided so the community has an opportunity to uh get some exercise out of these facilities. Um,

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one of the pieces that I think helps this conversation is talking about additional land versus synthetic turf, which is really our two options there to add more field space to the to the community. Um, if you replace a natural turf field with a synthetic turf field, it's approximately plus two in field

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inventory. And I'm going to add one caveat to that. That has to be a lighted synthetic turf field. The reason that is is that a natural turf field can take somewhere about 200 uses in a year. We'll define a use as 2 hours uh of play with two teams on the facility. Um, we

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found that after that 200 uses, certainly there's communities, I'll tell you, there's communities that have like schedules that I've done the math on and they're playing like 4 to 500, but the facility is absolutely beat. Um, and they've put a lot of money in to try and maintain it year after year and they can't maintain it. So, we say to keep a

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natural turf facility looking well and provide an opportunity for Kevin to maintain it. It's about 200 uses. If you're going to play on a synthetic turf field, it doesn't care how much you play on it. it only cares uh about its solar exposure. So it just degrades over time.

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Um and so with lights and a synthetic turf field, we approximate you can get somewhere between 600 and 700 uses on the facility depending on how well it's scheduled. And so we say that a synthetic turf field is basically plus two fields over a natural turf field. If you wanted to provide a new natural

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turf field in order to supplement and add field space, you would need approximately 2 acres of land that's plus parking and amenities. So that the an a multi-purpose rectangular field that would serve soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, all of that is about 90,000 square feet. And so that's almost 2

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acres. That's without doing anything else. And so there's not a ton. What we've learned throughout this process, and we're going to talk a little bit about that, is there's not many 2acre slots available within the town in order to buy a rectangular field. If there is, there's a reason they haven't been developed is kind of where we're at at

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the moment. >> Yeah. I think I think it's important to to just hit that note. I think uh the main reason for doing this study was we knew that the programming was surpassed our field usage. We just knew that. But

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really now we've done the study to figure out where we are where we have a deficit and then how can we solve this deficit. Um, and so within the study, we've also looked at with Ryan a few other uh spaces in town. One, I think

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some folks may know in town, like over by the town dump, there's I don't know how many, like four or five acres over by the town dump. It was it was in the land swap that went over there. It's in between two conservation uh parcels. It's basically useless to to really

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develop as a a parcel without a lot of money. And there's there's basic it's a basically a wet land and it's the topography also is is pretty bad. So we looked at that one. Um there's also one other opportunity there. There's a other

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park land that's over by um the end of Brook Brook Hill Road where I live um down there that's also got its challenges because it's by the river and and such. So um those were really the two parcels that we looked at because we just don't have it. Anybody who lives in

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Milton knows that land is is is a big premium and as you know one acre is probably a million dollars for for land. So um that's the that's the uh issue that we have in front of us as we kind of go forward. I'm going to go back to

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the slide for a second. um while we were here and I moved I moved on from there cuz we got talking about acres of land and then this slide here doesn't give you a ton of information but we tried to prioritize how the town should go about and this this will be expanded on a little bit in

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the report um how the town should go about expanding its field meeting the needs of the community start expand field capacity wherever possible understand where it demand is highest you should do that by trying to advance synthetic turf strategy first um because

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that's easier than pursuing the land and then putting construction project on top of it. Where possible improve uh the third priority is where possible improve existing natural turf. Um that means adding under drainage to it, supplementing the lone layer so that it

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drains better. Um and adding irrigation if it doesn't already have irrigation, but the majority of yours already does. Uh enhance supporting amenities. um address the lighting, parking, restrooms, storage and shade and accessibility at the different parks. Pursue land and additional funding for

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long-term construction projects. I think I had a conversation with some of you guys over here. Some of these things may take a long time. And so, while it's not a priority, I think you can make some quick hitter improvements that address needs right away in the community while some of this long lead time stuff kind of develops over time. And then continue

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with community engagement. I you know I this master plan process is never really quite done. We'll come up with con conceptual layouts. We're going to review a couple of those with you today. Even once the master plan's final like I've told the parks group this that's just a draft of what that park could

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look like. When you get into say the town decides to move forward with one of these projects there will probably be three community meetings about what does this park look like in the future? You know what how do we tweak everything to best fit the community? certainly don't think the community engagement process is done at the end of this master plan because I don't want to speak on behalf

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of the parks commission, but we've talked about how that's going to continue. I I think one other important thing to talk about is just the community preservation committee in town. In the last uh four years, we've really been able to utilize the CPA

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funds to help improve our parks and wreck. And that's always one-third of the budget of a CPA. Um and we continually get applications in to improve the parks and wreck. So that's just one avenue that we can help provide funding for some of these projects. So

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this master plan will provide a map for the commissioners to look at how can we utilize that funding better and prioritize uh some of the projects as we go forward. This next is kind of a summary of what we're about to look at. Um basically I've broken these into three different

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groups. the top group there which includes Milton High School, Middleg Guile Field, Pierce Middle School, and Kellyfield are projects that we looked at during this conceptual process that we didn't we didn't prioritize. Um, doesn't mean that there's not things we can't do there. But when we talk about

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how do we address the need of field deficit, none of these worked in order to make us uh none of those worked in order to add field space to the community. We looked at the access road parcel that was the undeveloped parcel Rob was talking about um due to a number of constraints. We'll have a brief

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conversation about that about why that doesn't work. And then the other two fields which we're going to provide conceptual layouts for today and review with you uh which is Andrew Spark and Flatly field showed us the most promise as the ability of addressing some of the needs of the community. One other important point just on that

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just back sure is I I think through this study too um what we've have found out is that a lot of our existing parks and fields are laid out pretty well right so when we look back at Kelly um we've done some test fits and we thought well no this this really does work out well for

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for what it's planned for which kind of like put me at ease because we just spent $200,000 on new dugouts at Kelly. So, um, that's also, um, if you guys haven't seen it, that's a great amenity now that's at Kelly. So, that that kind of reassured us. And there's also some projects that we also held because of

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this master plan. One of them being the natural gas grass field at Andrews, which we basically um found out that was the best place for for the field, the the big rectangular field, and that's in for CPA funding this year. So, this is um this is the high school

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complex altogether. For those of you that may not be familiar with the names, if we here we go. If you can see my cursor, that's uh lower guile field where there's currently a proposed synthetic turf field. Up here is middleg guile

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field or middleg guile. And the middle guile is this entire complex in between the two hillsides. We looked at the field on the north side of this and saw tried to see if we could reconfigure in any way or if we added synthetic turf to it, if it would add any available access

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to the community for additional rectangular fields. The cost of this project was very high with not nearly the same amount of benefit to the community because of the the way the baseball and softball field currently lay out. um you would never have a field

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that would a rectangular field that be play completely by itself and so there would always be overlap in scheduling conflicts. Additionally, the amount of space there that you would be covering with some decker was is very large and so the cost of this project was was quite extensive. We did try playing with

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the layouts of each one of these shifting them around up at Middle and found no net improvement. We also looked at uh Pierce Middle School. Pierce Middle School has currently a small rectangular field at it that the flag football folks play at.

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We tried two different projects here. One was to see if we could fit a fulls size multi-purpose rectangular field. That did not work here. We also just looked at if we added rectangular fields elsewhere in the community. What if we had a nod to softball or baseball? Does that fit? Um it does. It opportunity in

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the future if we ever ended up taking a softball field or baseball field offline. You have an opportunity to put a softball field here. Um, I would say it's not the highest priority because you're taking a multi-purpose rectangular field offline to provide it. Um, but if there ever became a need in the community, it's certainly something

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that fits there, um, and could serve the community. This, try not to get dizzy looking at this. This was Kelly Field. And I just wanted to give you an idea of how many different ways we tried to fit things here. Um, and none of it really works as

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well as what's there. Our idea here was trying to rotate field space in order to provide a multi-purpose rectangular field that fits outside of those two of the baseball field and the softball field. Um, and even with moving or changing tennis courts, which I know there's some folks over there would not

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don't want to see those tennis courts go. Um, nothing really netted the community anything that would help field space. Um, and so pretty quickly with the board, we realized this is kind of a no net game. Again, Rob said we had we had spent money on uh dugouts over there

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and so we kind of considered it but scrapped it because it was not helpful. >> Do you know if they had considered a a half basketball court or anything of that? I know you're referring to field space right now. >> Sure.

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>> Do you know if that was looked into or considered at all? >> I think we have a basketball court coming online. Right. So, we we heard that we want basketball space. But what we will say is there's at least there is a new basketball court for anyone who doesn't know at that that was CPA funded that will be up by the literally right

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here right outside of town hall. So that that court is really run down but that's been fully funded and I don't when do you when will that be up and running again? >> Not sure but but I think like the funding usually hits CPA funding usually

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hits July 1st. So it should be we should be working on it soon, right? Is that a full core or a half court? >> Full core. >> Full core. >> So, we will be getting new courts in right here. >> Is that a place in the community that makes sense? Is there somewhere else in the community you were looking for a

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court? Just out of curiosity. >> I know that um at the focus group meeting uh last month that there was discussion about Kelly being considered for at least a half court. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I we have heard that a bit. I think this

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one will definitely help, but I think you're, you know, that's a good comment. >> Like getting I'm not getting lost right here. >> You are pretty close. >> Okay. >> Um you're not too far away, but >> I think that'll be a great amendity for town,

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>> Rob. Um is back to Kelly. Where's the red house? >> So it's covering the >> It's covering this. Yeah, it's here, right? >> No, it's right here. Oh, it's right here. It's right here. Sorry. Yeah.

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>> What is that currently being used for? >> Storage. Storage. >> That is all storage for our programs. >> So, do I see any use of the land around the red house? >> Is it too much? Is that what I see?

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>> We looked at availability over there. What would fit there is pretty limited because of the topography. If you look to the Brook Road side of that, there's a pretty steep drop there. And so like fitting much in that area would be tough. So we thought like passive recreation facilities that maybe

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we could stage like a botchi ball court would be a good opportunity if there's something else um that the parks committee thought, but it's not it's not good for field space. It's not even good for um I don't think it would fit a basketball court if I'm being honest with you. So um is there an amenity that

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you'd like to see over there? No, I mean I just I think the red house looks I used to work in that park. I just think the red house looks very tough >> and I think a lot of the land around the red house seems to be too.

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>> What about like a community like gathering space like space for seating? Um, even just like like games like like uh cornhole or like giant like uh four

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squares or stuff like you know for for I know there's a lot of games and stuff going on within Kelly Field, but something for like other for people to do that might be waiting for their kids at like practice or like >> you know maybe to do with younger siblings. I know the park is there but

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>> Mhm. Can I ask is that red house historic? [cough and clears throat] >> I don't I don't know. >> I I to say it's like is it on the national registry of historic? No. >> No.

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>> If if you lost that building, would that give you more room to do things? And would you have somewhere else to >> um off the top of my head? I don't know. I I think just looking back at the

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study, Judy, if we're really looking for big multi-purpose fields. So, I think the answer is no. Like, we're going to end up spending a lot of money tearing down like storage facilities and such. And while we might be able to improve the space, it's not going to net us out

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a brand new multi-purpose field. >> I think that space is good to look at though for some of the massive. >> Yeah, you had mentioned a couple of things. One was four square um half basketball court or something else I thought you came up with for that area. I just want to make like community

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>> like community like gathering space. >> When you see that do you think of like stage seating maybe in that hillside with something on the lower side? I I don't know like is that a good spot for a community event like that or is that a bad spot for something like that? >> I think it's I mean right now just I don't think anyone really utilizes it.

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It's just kind of it. No, it's just kind of there, right? And >> the police the police use it after the fourth of July. >> Yeah. I I mean, to be honest, one one of the pieces that came up potentially was

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like fitness courts. We we we knew that came before the parks commission board and we were looking at potential places that might be a spot for something like that. I bet you that might fit there. >> You could size it to fit. you can size it to fit there. Um I think you'll see

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in a minute that like where we're getting to is obviously improvements to one park in town, but I think um instead of like it's a two ways to look at things for like a fitness court is one is like you can put it all in one spot or if you've been to parks where you've been around on a walking path, you have

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stations and fitness stations. Um, so that's kind of something that we're looking at, but we know, um, you know, I think the some folks at the board of health came to us and were looking for potential spots in town to look for up in this court. >> Just one last thing. >> Sure.

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>> Um, the playground used to be over there. >> Still there. >> Mhm. >> There's a playground there next to >> been moved over more >> to the other side of the red house. Right. To to be honest, I wish we' done this master plan before we did the playground because it probably wasn't

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the best spot for a playground. >> But, you know, >> yeah, I mean, it was moved because it was isolated there. >> I could see that. >> People just wanted to be closer, >> right? That kind of that was kind of in my thought the reason why you don't see

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much development over there as I was trying not to draw kids to the corner behind the red house and like more of an adult crowd probably serves that space better than um it's just kind of hidden when you walk out there it feels like you're kind of isolated from folks. So I I don't disagree with that decision made

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by the board. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Another potential for that would be like covered picnic tables like a gathering >> shade. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> We've done like a community picnic with all the elementary schools in that space and we we all brought like popup tents

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and stuff. So, it was >> you know there was something there. It could be rented so potential revenue stream for the town. >> Yeah. Did you like different events? >> You can have a music there too. [clears throat] >> You know,

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>> you're close to Butters. That's what I was I asked kind of see what people thought. You're pretty close to houses. >> Very close. Yeah. Right on top of >> It's a plus and easily get to the field, right? There's a lot of housing over there, so it's a easy accessible spot.

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>> Yeah. >> But obviously want to be sensitive to the neighbors, too. >> I would just say that um I don't think that area is a dental and I see people using it. People gather every morning there. I I go there. I don't think it's

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a I think it's passive recreation. >> Yeah. >> And I think people do use it especially in the morning every day. >> Yeah. >> So I I would just caution not to assume it's >> Yeah, good point. >> For the people that do use it, is there

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are they like runners and they meet there or is that just like a quiet hangout spot? What's >> they bring their dog? Like do people bring their dogs? People bring their dogs. And [clears throat] I think that's one of the things as a community we need to talk about because the dogs being on the playing field is a huge issue is an issue.

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>> Well, this this is right that that's what I'm saying. So, you know, as we're looking at these parks, do we kind of have a designated dog area? You know, is that something as a community we think is important? >> Um, that's certainly something we've kind of chatted about. And actually uh

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uh so in the beginning one of the things you listed from your findings that people wanted a dog park but then when I saw on your list of things to consider it wasn't on there. So I'm wondering why it fell off if if having a space for dogs is

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>> I think there's been some hesitancy because I'm not sure the town actually knows whether it wants dog parks in a park or wants a dedicated space for dog parks because of the conflict with dogs and kids. So, I've I've I've noted that the community wants a dog park. I'm just not sure if that fits into like the

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recreational master plan or if that fits into an open space and wreck plan, if does that make sense? There's an open space and rec plan currently going on in the community that talks more about like the wide open natural spaces that may better suit a place for a dog park rather than a place where kids are

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playing often. Um, and that's a community decision that obviously Tai Bond doesn't want to make, but if the community came up with how they wanted to handle that, we could, you know, try and find a spot for it. I >> I think it's a whole conversation because as Caroline mentioned, I I think one of the big one of the big

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issues with our playing surfaces is not only are they overprogrammed and I would say we're lucky, there's no way we're way over the 200 hours on these fields because of the uses that we're we're putting on them. Um, but it is the excess dogs. if dogs are on there, they're often times digging for the the

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irrigation lines and so that just causes problems, you know, as we go through for some of our natural gas fields. Um, so I would love to see spots in our town personally. You know, listen, I'm a dog owner. I've got three dogs. So, I think, you know, it's it's important that we

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take care of our dogs, but um I I think it's a good thing to have like designated areas so that there's a spot for it and and they're not necessarily ruining ruining playing fields either. >> So, I would just add that if at this juncture this body is saying, "Well,

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that's not our thing. That's for someone else." and you want the fields once they're eventually renovated and beautiful and the dog thing still hasn't been addressed. I think it behooves this group to put it into the plan now even

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though you might not think that oh this is an art thing. Uh if one of the biggest complaints is dogs on the playing field, >> right? Um, and Lord knows I spend half my time picking up other people's stuff because like >> I I don't know why a teeny percentage of

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dog owners makes all the other dog owners look badly. >> Um, so I'm very sensitive to this, but I do think that it behooves this group to really >> not to say, "Oh, that's not our thing." Because it actually is a major thing for

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for field quality. So just putting it out there. Not sure how you would incorporate that, >> but to not just say, "Well, that's for someone else at another time." >> I I think in the in a final draft of a report, we can definitely include it. It would be included in our final draft report, but we may not

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>> we may not designate the areas in a plan yet. >> I I don't know. We would have to think about that. Can I ask would you do you see that experience as a dog owner pathways along the perimeter of an athletic field or do you see that as a dedicated dog enclosure that has the

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double gates to let yourself dogs in and out and let them off leash in an area? How do you see that area? >> Sorry, what was the very beginning of the question? >> The first part of the question is two options on how you may have a a space for dogs within parks. You could have like a perimeter walking path that you're walking your dog along and you're

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just keeping the dog off the athletic fields. It's just a walking path along the outside of the field >> or on a leash or do you see a dedicated space where you can let the dog off leash inside gates? >> Okay. I don't want to speak for all dog owners, but I think D all of the above.

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I think that that every dog is different. Every owner is different and you're going to need a lot of writing, but I do think at minimum we do need a gated area and or a separate place to walk. I I think it's not to be annoying, but I do think it's it's everything. But

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yes, I for started and I've been eyeing that little spot of land at the corner of Lincoln and um Brookke. was like a huge and if you can come >> it's wouldn't >> I know the Lincoln Street folks might be upset with that suggestion but it is

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like one of those spots that's sort of out of the way but anyway >> Kevin I I guess the one I guess one question would be like at least back to you Ryan is like the maintenance of those parks like you know [snorts] is like what does it take you know our parks department and and consolidated

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facilities facilities is only so big so what does it take to maintain that you No, that would be my question back to you. >> There's an effort there for sure and it's depending on how much the dog owners do. There's there's certainly less maintenance options over others.

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Like I don't really like the there's a turf option for that and I don't think that's a great option for them. Um I prefer out of all the ones that we have done a stone dust option seems to be the easiest cuz you can keep a pile of stone dust close by if you're you know dog digs something up. It's easier to mend.

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you don't have to like have a a sophisticated maintenance crew to take care of it. That seems to be the most durable of all the versions and the most easiest to clean up whatever they need to clean up. Um, >> which department do you guys think should be responsible to take that on?

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>> Depends where it is. >> Kevin, >> yeah, I'd love to take maintain. [laughter] >> It depends where you located. Um if it's in a park, obviously the park department would take care of it. >> Um about 10 years ago, that spot that

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you're talking about was proposed dog park and the neighbors absolutely did not want it. Maybe it was even longer. I was a commissioner at the time, >> but um they were completely opposed to it. >> I did see that.

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>> What? I guess I guess one of the flip things because I I have dogs and we walk them all over Milton. What I would say is there's a lot of great dog amenities in Milton. One of them being Cunningham Park. Like that's a great opportunity for dog owners to go off leash and walk

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dogs, >> but nobody else on the east side. >> True. >> Nobody else go. >> I mean, you can go there, Judy. You can go there if you want. >> You can't go there with a stroller and little kids, >> right? And is that >> right? And that's where it gets

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complicated. >> That's where it gets complicated. >> That's where it gets complicated that I learned as we were doing this whole process is when you have a playground and you have these playing fields, do we necessarily want to have dogs as dedicated dog space right there, too.

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And so that's kind of the conversation that needs to be had, I think, amongst the community is, you know, is exactly that is Kevin, I'm not wrong in saying there's currently no town law about dogs in a in

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>> they got to be leashed. They're in a park. They got to be Now, how many people actually do that? >> That's not really >> not a lot. Aside that's reality. Like this surprised me a little bit just because it feels like one of the very

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few large parcels of land parks owns. Like if this was a blank slate of just grass field, >> we wouldn't develop it different than what we have on the screen here. Like start >> that's a fair question. >> Just from a long-term standpoint, right? [clears throat] One of the bullet points

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is acquire land, find a parcel, >> could you could you realign this to add additional field space? Yes. But then you need to find and spend a lot of money replacing the amenities you tear out to do so. And so be >> right. But find buying buying piece of land that's

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not available, >> right? That no longer an option, right? >> Again, money aside first because to your point, right, it would be just wasted money out that there's no other piece of land. Now, this has it own issues. There's a lot of housing that's kind of around it.

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>> Um, so certain things would work, but it just feels like that largest land. >> Parking lot could go this way. Like it just feels like it could be used differently if we were starting from scratch. I think you're >> that's not happening in the short term, but for a long-term play, >> your net, I think, is plus one field. If I reset the whole thing,

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>> maybe. >> But remember, you also have a hard game. So, I don't know. Looking at this, I I just don't think you get it. I don't Maybe if you redid the whole thing, we might be able to get it, but then you'd have a big parking issue, I would think.

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>> Yeah. >> But I think you would be starting from scratch and and it would be tough. street parking. There's that Lincoln parking lot. I just think to be creative with it in the long term because again, we don't own pieces of land that size.

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>> Well, we're getting there. We're getting there. So, [laughter] >> we'll talk about how we're getting close to meeting it. There's certain some things we need to do. >> Yeah. >> Go ahead, sir. >> Um I play Kelly Field um Kelly pickle

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ball three times a week. I see dog owners walking their dogs off leash, pooping in the grass, not picking it up. Okay. Um, that's a concern with a lot of major areas around here, not just Mil.

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This is all nationwide problem. It was on the news tonight. Um, so what are you going to do about having people making sure that they pick up their crap on the on the ground? Do you find them? Do you

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have somebody um say something to them? Um, I don't want to be that person necessarily that they, you know, but they're off leash. They walk around, they throw balls, whatever the case may be, but they're they poop on the ground

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and people sometimes don't pick them up. So, [snorts] >> I would say I'm not enforcement. I would I would >> I mean Kevin is the one who's had to deal with that more than anybody else here. And he's >> stupider everything. I mean Kevin,

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you know, they put um a station for dog bags and stuff. kids lit it on fire. So, I mean, >> it's it's >> yeah, it's an issue. >> It's how do you solve the issue? >> I think that's to the point if you had a dedicated space for that off leash. That

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conversation for Kevin goes a lot easier. Like right now, it's hey, you can't do that here where and we don't have a response for that. But if you had a dedicated space for off leash, say, "Hey, that needs to be done over here at such and such a park

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>> or not at a park or at L Lincoln Street, which is not a park. It's not being used for anything. It could be a space for uh dog owners to be designated and let them walk there." >> I mean, it's not that big, but so it's

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it's it's literally right up there, that right hand corner. Way to the right. Down. >> It's right here. It's literally right here. >> Oh, okay. Good. >> The mouse up there is way delayed from here. Sorry.

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>> A big memorial stone. >> Access road. >> Mhm. >> Wow. What is owned by the town up there? I mean, you said it was wet. I know it is wet. >> He's he he's got it up right now. >> Access road. >> Yeah. So, that >> I mean, they can put a dog park up there easily. I think

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>> it's really sloped. >> It's really sloped and you've got like old It's the old town dump. So, literally you've got you've got So, I I think I think what it would take is, you know, to get like to to clean it up

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would be like funding to do that and it would be expensive to do it. Not saying that we couldn't do it. You could do it um and clean it up, but it would just be excess money. there's probably state money to go to go potentially do that. So, I think that's what we would that's

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what we would want to do for fields and such. It's it's not going to >> I think the piece about the dogs is people want to bring the dogs to the park that's closest to them. >> They don't want to get in the car. >> The same people doing what are

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>> Yeah. They're still going to do it's not going to solve the problem. They're not going to go, "Listen, [clears throat] I live all the way on the west side of town. We'll go to Cunningham every once in a while because a bunch of dog owners go over there, but it's way over there, right? >> So, you know, I think it's whatever's convenient to them. And if it's a park, they're still going to bring their dogs

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there no matter what. >> And you know, the thing that we've been wrestling with, too, is like, you know, do we fence every multi-purpose field in town? I think people might have an issue with that because now we're fencing it if we don't provide another another place for people to bring their dogs or

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there's not a spot on the fields to do that. That could be >> that's one of the solutions to prevent dogs from going on the field is to fence dedicated spaces. >> Twofold though, right? You have to fence it and you have to lock it. >> Yeah. >> And when you lock it now, the kid that

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gets a group of kids together wants to go play out in the field. >> Then you're having no access to the field and you cut the the community off in the park. I've seen communities do that >> and they they start out by locking it and then they realize, oh my goodness, I've cut the kids from playing on the field. >> I think listen, I think for everyone I want to I want to be clear. I think

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we're we all hear you around the dogs. I want Ryan to continue in his presentation in the interest of time because we're not going to solve the dog issue tonight. I think let's let's all agree to that and let let's let him go through his presentation so we can ask answer questions after that that is done as well. >> I'll just quickly say I think we need a

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dog park study committee [laughter] >> and the reason I asked what department would be responsible is I think somebody needs to take it on and I'm not sure who that would be. say just food for thought. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Let's talk about Access Road. Access

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Road was an undeveloped parcel of land. >> So, are we on Randolph A here? >> Yes. >> Randolph A is north and south 28. Access Road is right here for those of you that can see my cursor. Um the town owned parcel I've marked in red. Um the the

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key points here is that this parcel has a high point elevation of 160 and the access point down by the road is something like 93. So you've got uh about 70 ft of elevation change across the parcel. In addition to the 70 ft of

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elevation change across the parcel, you've got uh a significant wetlands complex that uh prohibits your access from Access Road and from Randolph A. um your high ground and your drier ground is going to be in that this area up here. That's for the people that can see

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my cursor. But on the uh western side of the of the property, um and you know, when the the main portion of this study was trying to figure out how do we meet the needs of the recreation group and there's really just no ability here to

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provide any flat surface that would be uh you know whether it be fields, courts, or anything like that. It's really really slow. It would there's I don't want to say there's no possibility. It would be very expensive to provide those facilities here to fly. >> And and just to make a note that you

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know listen I'm a town meeting member. We voted some of us remember the town land swap. This was the land that was swapped for the parks recreation for the land that was at the high school which was a beautiful lot that was very developable. So very flat and very

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developable for a park. So that's just something to keep in mind as we go through this study was easily pointed out to say, "Hey, let's look at this. It's a very expensive to develop and basically we just couldn't do it because of the wetland." I just it's just not

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possible. >> I I didn't understand what you said. You said you this area got swapped out with another area at the high school. >> Yeah. So if you so the a few years back for the new school that that is in the

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works right now to in order to m to get that land over by for where the new school is there was a bunch of land that was traded out to get that land and part of that it was conservation land >> the land on the new school is conservation land. So rather than just

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taking away conservation alone, they said, "All right, let's find conservation. Let's make another piece of land conservation and they'll taking out that school property from the designation of conservation land to build on." >> Yeah. And and an important thing it will

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be in a in a second is that if you want to trade conservation land these days for any other land, the state looks at it as like they want almost three times the amount of land for for one piece of land. So in that I don't remember the acreage now but it was about it was over

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three times maybe four times the land but it doesn't mean it's the quality of land right. So I I we'll we'll you know here's one piece of land here's another piece of land if we can't use it for something then then we [snorts] have some issues. The next or the final two sites we're

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going to look at are Andrews Park and Flatley Field. And these were the opportunities that we saw the most opportunity for improvement to meet the needs of the community. Whether that be some of the amenities we talked about or improving field space um or providing passive recreation. Um these two

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facilities had the most opportunity for advancing some of the community desires. Um and so uh this is Andrews Park. The proposed implementations here uh are to improve the natural turf multi-purpose rectangular field that's in the center

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of the park. That means adding under drainage to it, updating the lone. As uh Rob had mentioned, that's already in front of the CPA for that project. Um, additionally, we wanted to see amenities improved at both the 60oot baseball diamond and the 60oot softball diamond.

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Um, the biggest I want to say improvement over what's there today is to add parking. Um the community, one of the biggest uh pieces of feedback we got from the community about Andrews Park is there's not enough parking there to uh

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allow the community to use the facility. And so we've shown opportunities for parking. I don't think that's uh you know, we just tried to show how much parking you could get in there. I think that'll probably be phased back. I will say we've kept only one entrance to that parking. the other areas where you see

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uh pavement kind of coming in and out of the park that would be new. Those are more walkways to provide accessibility to the park rather than vehicular accessibility. Um we also added a walking path around the outside of the multi-purpose rectangular field. I don't know that it has to

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necessarily follow exactly the multi-purpose rectangular field, but that walking path provides us a great opportunity to provide a fitness course with stations around the outside of it. Um, and so we, you know, we see this as a good place for the fitness course, um,

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with a lot of community surrounding it. Uh, good opportunity for people to walk there and use the fitness course and provides kind of a park that serves everybody on that side of the community. It's got playgrounds, it's got tennis courts, it's got basketball courts, it's got athletic field space, um, and then

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the fitness course. So, everyone can kind of be involved there. >> Stephen, remind me where the where your 50 to 70 field is going. Is that at Mary? >> Proposed at Mary City. >> Proposed at Mary. Yeah. >> Question.

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>> Um in couple years ago in our one of our studies with pickle ball was to go to neighbors and get feedback and we did um me and another gentleman walked around and got feedback from the neighbors

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stating that that he didn't um on the pickle ball courts. The reason was that there was no parking. There's a tennis court there or whatever. Only one I believe >> or two. Um but there's access for for

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pickle ball courts if field doesn't work out. Um, that's another area that we had talked about between us of where to go or what to do if there was parking and there was pickle ball courts and it

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would be away from the neighbors uh because they complained about the noise. Okay. That's a complaint of a lot of people. >> Sure. >> Brain tree included. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, we we got a great option for you coming up here of of an opportunity

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for pickle ball and I was on the CPC when we funded your study and everything. So, I absolutely remember I think this park is an issue because of the noise. There's neighbors that are really close to this park. So, I can absolutely see their

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concern of of putting pickle ball here. >> Two field, okay, would take three years to build. Okay. at least because you're going to have to pick up everything around there and maybe we we don't want

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to wait that long. Okay. Kellyfield resurface the tennis courts, put nets there and and the neighbors are know we make noise because we play there three times a week. So why can't you just

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why can't we go forward with that plan? We have numbers and everything accessible to you guys. [snorts] >> So the the request there would be rather than waiting for more court space is

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just to resurface stuff you already have and make it a little bit more playable for pickle ball. Is that the >> No. And they'll build courts that the town would have add on to >> like we were looking at earlier >> because those are used by the high school. >> Yeah. courts >> and they would have new courts to play

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on with the grass is not coming up from the concrete. So >> my my advice would be is, you know, listen, if if there's room there and we can you can do it, you got you got an opportunity in town with the

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CPA. You can't you've come once before to them. Like come again. Like the committee is always open. Like if you're looking for funding and stuff, then come before the committee, put an eligibility application in with with some with with your, you know, proposal. Um I I think

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it's, you know, that's that's an opportunity to look at. The only thing else from what we looked at earlier today, try and find a space that doesn't affect one of the other users there, right? That one of those things we looked at complex with the baseball field. So, see if there's a way to [snorts] shift and make yourself out of

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the play of the baseball field. >> Well, another another um >> we have drawings where it's not not close to the baseball field. On the other side of the tennis court where the big pine tree is, you can fit four courts there. Okay. That would not

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disturb the baseball team. That would not disturb the tennis team that plays there. >> Okay. So, so I I had a question for the pickle ballers. Is was it was there any conversation about Cunningham potentially? So, at Cunningham Park, I I

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thought there was some discussion about >> whether years ago they would only build two courts. That was three years ago when we did this original stud. >> Okay. This is 2026 and a lot of people play in this town.

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>> Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, it's very popular. And you're trying to get four in one spot, right? >> Yeah. Our ambition is to have [clears throat] to use the existing Kellyfield tennis courts. Um hoping that the town can add on the

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riser near the playground enough space to create another tennis court. So we would use one of the tennis courts to to put in there four permanent pickable courts which is done. I mean the overall

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distance of a of a tennis court is 60 by 120. And in that you could put four permanent picks. And if you need to put additional additional codes, you can

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use the dentist code. Just put the lines as we're doing it now. >> The other issue with with it [clears throat] that will require a rehabilitation of the field. I mean right now we have a concrete floor which

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is coming out. It's broken. I mean it's it's not it's useful but it's a problem for us the older people can play in the surface which is hard it's difficult if you recover that and

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make it a proper pickable co with a softer feel it will be improved >> you want a cushion surface is what you're looking for >> can I ask a question um so you guys haven't discussed Um, Mulan yet?

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>> The rain? >> No. >> So, have you because that's part of the wreck plan because our kids play like hockey right through. So, >> is there a way to expand?

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>> Just quickly, we we don't own DCR. It's DCR property. >> I understand that. You don't also own Cunningham either. >> We don't. We don't. So you looked at that. However, but to the pickle clawers, well, >> back in the day when my daughter and son

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played hockey, we went to Hyannis a lot and they had a great um [clears throat] indoor rink and they had um courts and they had a suspended track. And so I'm wondering if we could partner with DCR.

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DCR at seven brush wanted a long-term lease. But if you go by Yulan during the summertime at Jamali's by there, there's nobody in the parking lot. They resurfaced it a couple years ago and it's not there. So, is there an

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opportunity to partner with DCR short term to use their parking lot during >> Did didn't they also I'm just I'm not a pickle ball player, but didn't they also have like a pickle ball tournament inside the facility recently? Correct.

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Yeah, >> you should come and play. I'll teach you. >> Okay, great. I have plenty of time. I have plenty of time. >> Um I think so I don't present an opportunity to look there. Also, um the

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other recreational sports that you guys haven't discussed is skiing. My kids are skiers and >> [snorts] >> um so we used obviously blue hill for ski team. So again during the summer there's not a lot going on just hikers

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and and bikers. So is there any um opportunity there to to to expand some programming and also um the Egan centers with the the um you know the the swimming and if you go to

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the Boy Scout camp they've got an incredible um amphitheater up at the Boy Scout camp. So I feel like if we're looking at partnering with private organizations, you know, why aren't we looking further um and expanding that

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view? The other um lot of land I don't think you looked at was the basketball court on um isn't that Trimman Parkway? >> Road. >> So that has been in great disrepair for >> forever as long as I can remember.

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>> So you know if we're focusing on kind of the west side of town, why aren't we focusing on that? Isn't doesn't the park department own that over there? Brush Hill Road. There's one parcel there. Yeah. >> Truman Highway with those basketball

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courts is Boston property. It's not >> Yes, the basketball courts is Boston property, but there is a parcel that's down closer to as you get to Matapan that you that that's really close to the river. So, that would take a lot of development to develop that into court.

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I I think your point's a good one. Like I think we're looking at all these opportunities. What I will say is our our planning study was really focused on townland that we own and control. And then from our feedback from a lot of sports groups is it's been very difficult for some of these private

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partnerships. Whereas like it just recently we've had good luck with Milton Academy. They've been a good partner in the last few years with Kevin to get some of our programming over there. But to be honest like straight up DCR has been very difficult to deal with for a lot of our sports teams. we haven't been

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able to like put put like storage pieces and so that's very difficult to be able to play sports there when we have to basically bring everything for instance soccer if we want to play soccer there we don't have we can't bring our own nets there right and so that's a challenge so um just some of the

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feedback on like priv private pieces >> and instead of like Milton Academy they don't pay in my opinion as much in their pilot programs as they should but when they redo their fields so they redid their fields you down a few years ago. Perhaps we should

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partner with them and instead of them giving pilot program, maybe they should come in and field. So they're already having the contractor there. >> Lisa, are you trying to say something on the

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>> teams? She's unmuted. We're trying to probably should we mute her? >> Um I I I so I think this is a great conversation. What I what I would like to do because I know the pickle ballers are in the room and you guys are obviously very [clears throat] adamant

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about this. What I would also say is we meet monthly. The parks department does. We're our doors always open. So I would say is come back and meet with me. You know I'm an architect as well. So, I'm happy to look at stuff with you and and figure figure this out um and and see what other opportunities there is in

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town. So, >> yeah. >> So, that's what we considered at Andrews Park. The next park is Flattly Field. >> Andrews is in East Milton, right? Like behind >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

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Um, Flatly Field, uh, was a largely open field with not much way in the development. Some of the feedback we got from this facility was that the natural turf had been beaten up pretty good and was in need of repair. Um, there's not a lot of parking opportunities and the

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parking that is there has traffic concerns. >> Um, there's not other amenities, so if you know a younger sibling comes with a family, there's nothing there for them to do. Um, and so there was opportunities there for kind of a lot of

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improvement. Let me make sure I don't >> don't do it. Yeah, I do it right. >> Oh, sorry guys. So, what we looked at is what could we do on Flatly that would be a complete reconstruction of the field? How do we add parking? Um, and what we came up with is a 60 space pvious

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parking lot with one synthetic turf field with athletic lights, two smaller youthsiz natural turf fields that could play a bunch of youthsized sports, whether that be lacrosse or soccer. We've added two pickle ball courts.

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We've we've also added a youth uh playground with has play structures that range from 2 to 5 and 5 to 12. It's pretty consistent. uh breakdown. We've also added a trail network that helps get access to all the facilities while being cognizant of that existing outer

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walking path to [snorts] the facility. Um this would provide >> could you could there be two next to >> could you put four quarts in? It's >> very possible. Yes, I would say that's what they're looking for. Four. >> I've had it both spots. So, the answer is yes.

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>> Okay. Um, >> it's I I think one thing that we're just going to want to be cognizant of. I I I keep referencing this park cuz my daughter plays soccer and and I love this one park name. It's called King Kade in Quinsey. If anyone knows that one, it's [clears throat] got it's a great reference of a park because it's

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got not only does it have synthetic turf, but it has very natural landscaping around it as well. It's got a track, it's got basketball, it's got fitness courts on every single piece of the path. So that park is is uh it's

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just a really good reference. So I think we want to be careful of how much we balance out recreation activities with some of the natural landscape as well um which is there. So that's really what we were focusing on with this park specifically um with still having some

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natural like having a lot of the park be natural and then some be synthetic as well. Now, to go back to the original conversation we started, our recommendation to the town was that they needed three to four multi-purpose rectangular fields and two to three 60

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ft baseball diamonds. Um, the town currently has a project out there that's taken a long time to go through or is still in the process of going through, but there's a potential for synthetic turf field at Lower Guy Field. That would be a plus two field in inventory

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for the community. And if we converted one field at Flatly from natural turf to synthetic turf, that's another plus two. And so that's a way for the community to get plus4 fields in their inventory and at least meet what we think is the need

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for uh multi-purpose rectangular fields. The thing we've not been able to address through this study is where we could add additional softball baseball diamonds. Um one of the things we've gotten at was not having the ability to practice as much for those teams as well. Um, you'll remember that I showed you an

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opportunity at Pierce Middle School. Maybe there's an opportunity there where if we were able to f add plus inventory on the rectangular fields, the community down the road may consider, do we convert Pierce over? It was only half a flag football team. Anyway, if we've got two rectangular fields and that works,

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maybe there's an opportunity to convert Pierce at some time. >> What what I will say with just to address baseball and softball, I was on the softball board for a while. Um, Steve's been here, you know, he's been representing baseball for a while. Um, what I will say is the softball. We've

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got a number of things. We got a dugout at at uh Kelly. We also are putting in uh this when is that going to be? Like pretty soon, right? Is there's going to be a new uh basically a new batting cage, pitching cage at Gio. And there's

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a there's potential plans for a phase two um around Geo Field, which is our softball field at the high school. So that that's in place. And then Steven also has a uh application in to create from a 50 uh diamond to a 70 diamond.

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That's like basically convert that can convert that field. So that was a part of this master plan too. >> And you're making improvements to Andrews Park, right? So >> and we're making improvements to Andrew Park. So it's not only just like you know new fields and what we can look at, but it's also you know representing what

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can we make improvements on what we currently have as well. Um, how long would it take to reconvene Plat Lake Field versus Kelly? Okay, that's one question. And how much would

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would it cost us as taxpayers or is this money coming from the state or is or where's the money? >> Yeah, we haven't identified that. Yeah. >> Yeah. I was say I think it's important to note that these are all, you [clears throat] know, proposals, none of which are funded at this point. >> Exactly. None are

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>> none are funded at this point. So you know there's a going to be at minimum a time horizon even if everyone were in agreement >> with what to do. >> Yeah. As you know government works really fast, right? So >> so uh >> yeah. >> So

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so we got to crawl before we can walk, right? I I think you know I've always been a a big proponent of good planning. So we're we're we're there. We're trying to find good planning and then funding. There's lots of ways to fund things, too. So, we'll we'll we got to look into

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that. As a part of this study, Ryan also will include some budgetary numbers for the for our commission to look at so that we can bite off some of these things. I already mentioned the CPA is a great source for some recreational funding. So, that that's one good community service uh source. There's

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also state grants. So, one one other thing that we need to do in town is to create our open space and wreck committee. We got to finish that report because then that unlocks state funding. So that's also another avenue that we need to unlock. >> Have you guys consulted USA to see if they have any pickle ball funding

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opportunities? >> No. >> No. I know they do tennis courts. So just give it a look and see if there's any funding out there for USA. >> Um >> USPA or >> TA United States Tennis Association.

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Um they definitely fund tennis courts. So, I don't know if there's an opportunity for pickle ball. >> Um, who owns this land? Flatly. Who owns Flatly? >> Who owns Flatly? The town. It's town property.

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>> Did you say the open space and wreck um plan is is separate from like the findings from here? >> Yeah. So there there's there's like two basically this is a recreational plan and the other one is more of an inventory plan. I know I know Meredith and Maggie are here so maybe you could

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speak to that. It's a little bit different. I had met the consultant um Horsley Whitten before we went into this >> and before we went into this planning and they basically gave us advice that we should do a separate recreational master plan because they weren't going

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to get into the detail and depth of the study. >> I [clears throat] was holding my comments for the chair at the end. Should I continue to do that? [laughter] >> I I think we're all I think we're I think we're there. I think we're there. I think we're there. Right. I I was just going to

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>> I I think we're there, so we're open. Yeah. >> Okay. Well, I I I would obviously like to I'm here for pickle ball, and I realize this is a bigger picture than pickle ball, you know, >> but we'd also like to be part of the master plan. We don't want to be off on

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our own, you know, and um I looked at a um study done in 2023. And I also apologize too because I feel like we should have been here with you sooner than today, but >> No, it's fine. >> But anyway, anyway, the um

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>> they had uh in Kelly Field where we play now, there were several different options for adding pickle ball courts on either side. I even went down there with my tape measure, measured it all out, and we could fit easily fit four quarts beside those tennis courts. We could

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even because I spoke to the neighbors where we play now are already used to the noise. So if we can keep our pickle ball courts on that end then we you know the noise is is is it with us right? >> Yeah the noise. >> So one of the things I was thinking of is we slide the tennis courts down put

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the pickle ball courts right where they are now. The tennis people get new resurface tennis courts. We don't encroach any further into the you know than we do now. You did mention that earlier on the on on that end. It comes out a little further towards the fields.

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I don't know what else. >> We're looking at one option. >> We got to look at we got to look at it. But anyway, it's a it's and then we could continue to use the tennis courts with temporary markings for us that aren't being used most of the time. So, we could easily get three courts plus we could get, you know, if we needed to cut

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it back to not attack a field, we get three permanent courts and then temporaries, you know. Yes. >> So, so I appreciate your and and that's why you're here now. And we we said like listen, this is like a final draft. >> Ryan can go back and plug this is what he does on a on an, you know, a basis.

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So, he can look at that and say, okay, how do we get in there? There's no reason, John, we can't consider Kelly Field given everything that you just suggested. Obviously, you know, >> there's no funding at this point. >> I I understand, but there's no reason from a planning standpoint we can't

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discuss that and consider that. I think for all the reasons that you've discussed, right, I think I think that's heard for sure. >> If we just can get it into this program, you know, back and look at Kelly for a second. >> Yeah, sure. And to the same point, right, when we look at this, I I think

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when we make some decisions like this, maybe two pickle ball courts here aren't good, right, at Flattley and maybe they maybe they're better at Kelly and they serve your save save the you know, serve the group better there. Um, you know, that's some of the decision-m that needs to happen. The one really great amenity

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about Flatly Field is there's not a ton of abutters around that field. So like so that is a huge benefit for anything that we're trying to >> show the tennis court. >> I know. I feel bad. I should have reition if you want to see it. >> I've seen I went over and talk to John

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during the while we were waiting. I I think there's certainly an opportunity there to make that work and >> we we probably should pull up like a Google map that's actually the county field because this one is not Kevin has >> it makes it makes sense.

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>> Was that was that study from Bill Madden? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And they had put pickle ball courts at both ends of the >> three. Whoever whoever's part of pickle ball, could you cuz like the cashers I

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don't think you but I might have seen it at one point. I think it would be very helpful to send us that to send us that study or if Kevin has it if you have it then maybe he'll just share it with us >> before I leave. >> Okay. >> And then and then the bigger thing is to

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provide it to uh Ryan. >> Okay. >> So what you're you're suggesting basically is to divide them up and then and then reposition them. Just taking these three sliders down. >> If you shift them over, if you shift them to the left, they're 60 ft. They won't impact those trees. And then we

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can fit 60 ft by the 120. >> You're not cutting down trees, right? >> You're not cutting down trees, right? >> No. Okay. >> I know what no trees. >> No, no cutting down trees. >> Trees. No trees. We may have to We might have to leaf blow a lot of pipes. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

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>> But anyway, and and I don't know. It just seems quick and easy, you know, easy. What's there? >> Nothing. >> Is it? I think they're talking. >> I saw his plan. They're over here. >> Just to give you a general sense of like funding.

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>> We wouldn't go to the roof, right? >> We just redid over here. It went out originally. I want to say it was like 70k or something. It's probably about 100k at least. But regardless of

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the right >> so John you're over here these are the existing tennis courts and you want this >> yeah so what what what I'm saying is that that that we shift this

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>> 60 ft and we put four pickle ball courts right here and They got a new over the shifting >> just keeping that surface >> fields on the left side. Why don't we

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make those people? But the reason for >> leave those three tennis courts, but the reason being is that these people are used to pickle ball courts. These people are not. >> Yeah. I I I I will tell you the the big

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your biggest challenge for doing something here is noise and neighbors. You you have that. So what I would say is you absolutely like listen we're here to help you work and work through it but you would definitely want to make sure that these abutters and stuff also know

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what what's happening here >> what days are you playing pickle ball and how how do you join it sounds like a >> lot [laughter] called the passive sport Excellent. [laughter] >> That's it, guys. So, anyway, >> I think that's it. Is does anyone else

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have conversations or anyone else have questions? >> Yeah, just earlier when you broke out the uh number of fields, uh I'm with Milton softball by the way. Uh it said we had six fields. Three uh town Cunningham Park and then the two

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Holton's field. >> We don't really use it much. >> Very it's very restrictive. Very like >> they put like you can't store like earlier can't put bases there. You can't put equipment. So we hardly use it. Okay. So, I was just wondering in this

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is, you know, we're open to suggestions >> at Andrews in the top right corner that if you were looking like the top very top back corner, I don't know because it's soccer and lacrosse are different than um

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in the spring. >> Yep. if we could carve out a softball field there >> and like play into the multi-purpose rectangular field as your outfield >> and then also >> it's jammed. I understand but it's something we could look at right we could >> I think you have a topography issue

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there and you also have ga >> fall it's going to be right so that's not a conflict um >> and then the other the other field too I suggest is the deep right field that uh g the middle field

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>> so if you go all the way down the right field line there's space there because the baseball field is um I think It's American Legion or Babe Ruth >> and they don't seem to be playing in uh the spring cuz in the spring it's

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>> Yeah. Do you know who uses it? Soccer. [laughter] >> So soccer uses that soccer uses that field. >> I never see them there. >> In the fall they there in the fall. >> In the fall. In the spring you have Milton High uh freshman team uses it and be Ruth. >> Yeah.

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>> Okay. >> Yeah. >> I just suggest >> Yeah. I I I think though, you know, we had we like listen, I support baseball. Baseball's huge in this town, too. But one potential was like, you know, do you go down to two Babe Ruth fields? You

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know, Ryan said most towns, right, don't have three 90 ft baseball fields, but one is private at Cunningham. So, we were nervous to say, hey, listen, we're going to we wouldn't want to give that up. So, we said, let's leave that one where it is. That is a big amount of

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space. Um, so that's kind of where we ended up settling on that one just because Cunningham can do whatever they want, right? It's their it's their it's their field. >> It's almost impossible if you lose a 90 back. >> To your point, Tommy, though, >> you theoretically could put a softball

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down the end for young kids and use it when Babe Ruth is not playing, >> right? >> You know, they do use it, but it's not >> 10 hours a day, >> right? Like I I just noticed unused space in town which we don't have a lot of. >> Yeah.

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>> Just if we could look at it because we have over 400 girls in the program >> and with four fields really it's just tough. >> It is. >> You know like they said earlier practice is non-existent, >> right? >> But we do it like you know deep outfield batting cages,

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>> right? >> You know trying still national, >> right? [laughter] But but but but you know I just want to say like you know that is the problem in town, right? Everyone's got an interest just like you guys have a huge interest for pickle ball. Trust

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me, my daughter plays softball and we're huge softball people, but guess what? We have one field on all these parks. I would love if we had four fields, right? I would it would be great if we had four fields and we could do tournaments and everything else. We just don't have that in Milton. But we do have three fields

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and we'll continue to improve them. Um they're getting better. We, you know, we've got the dugouts now and and we'll continue to add and make the amenities better. >> Didn't we have back in the day part of the agreement with Grand L was supposed to be allowed to use those fields over there? >> You guys,

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that's that still exists and those are still in use by both Little League programs as well on on a restricted basis though. >> It's it's not free use, I should say. It's not anytime we want. There's specific days. >> Yeah. Just anecdotally, I will say like

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and what we've heard too is that like programs in this town can't practice as Tommy said, but there's like field hockey programs in town. They literally just don't practice at all. They only play games. And to me, that's a huge issue, right? And so that's the reason why we did this study is to really

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expand the the youth so that we can keep kids interested in wreck leagues, too. Because one big um one big uh trend these days too is that there's an equity issue too because at the end of the day kids will go out and they'll go to club because then they can go practice or whatever, right? And then they're not

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we're not keeping them here in town for, you know, for rec leagues. Well, you know, talking about children who wanted to play sports, I want to tell you that pickle ball is going to reach schools and the

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schools are going to need to fabricate more sports because the people the children are are going to be part of the curriculum for sports. >> Yeah. and and and that's happening in many in many cities around >> my my youngest daughter just went with my with with my wife two days ago to

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play pickle ball at like at West Ro >> maybe she'll be the big pickle baller >> did we miss anybody else from questions I want to make sure >> uh I have a question um and thank you for for doing this work of course but there has been shoot on on Milton and

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when I look at the wounds and look at the work is as part of your planning process, how do you include all the voices? What are the voices that are not represented? What are the way that you will get for example I've been I work for this state so I I work for this state for years and

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then here I'm in the town I'm looking for 10 years I don't know about this one I wonder is there a process by which you go to inform people about what you do so then there are more involvement with more of us to be able to really know and understand the town is ours and I think

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we could also take advantage of everything that's happening and I think we also really have specifically when you're looking on the on the other side on the other side we're dealing with we're dealing with major issues we're dealing with policy dising and then there's no space there's really

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no space in the voice so I'm trying to understand is that a concern and how do you create space when you do the planning so then there is voicings um I'm amazed like me

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not even know not even a call so That's really what I'm saying. So is do you have a process by which there's a certain conversations about how to include those those voices and really how do you really identify and connected with people that might have the internet

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but don't really have the door open to them because quite quite frankly if I didn't have an email from low scale man I would not be here. >> Yeah. >> You know so this and that has been an ongoing issue. So, I'm trying to say, okay, as part of the plan, what can we do?

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>> Yeah. >> I mean, the first thing I I want to thank you for showing up. I I think we've had two great community meetings and they've been in July. So, for whatever reason, July July was it. I I will say we're trying to reach a net as large as we can. I mean, some of the good things is we have really good

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people that are involved with our sports, so we brought them in. But, there's plenty of other folks that are in town that are, you know, representing passive sports. I talked about the fitness court people. They they've come to us. So we tried to include them in as much as we could. Um so

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>> you've advertised the public. >> We've advertised it publicly. We put it on social media. It's been in the Milton Times. It's been in >> Yeah. I didn't didn't Wasn't this in Milton? >> This one wasn't. >> This one wasn't, but it has in the past.

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>> Yeah. In the And so then I think >> this town. So that that went out. Yeah, >> I think communication just in general at a government level >> needs to be better >> can be improved upon >> can be improved upon 100%. >> And that survey we did with the

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community did get 1300 responses. >> So that was so that was we were pretty happy with that. Like 1300 people responded. You know our our town is 28,000. So yeah but 1300 responses was pretty good. We we felt it was a pretty good and that was a long process too. Um

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I think we gave almost two and a half months to >> two and a half months to respond to it. Yeah. >> I know in um November we recently held a forum um to discuss the communication in

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Milton and and kind of to like understand I know there was like a survey that was done to understand where people were getting like the majority of their information from. And I know um the this the findings from that um were that most of the communication that's

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happening within Milton it's happening from word of mouth and it's where it's happening from whether or not you you know someone who's like you know directly connected and people are are sharing things in that way. And so I'm wondering if the like the information

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from that um from both the survey that was conducted and um all the findings that we had from the forum if those are being implemented into how you're communicating with people about you know the changes that are to come and ways in

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which um you can get more engagement and and more um you know a collective understanding of what everybody's needing and wanting to feel uh connected to to the town and to each other within here.

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>> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think actually um Nick Milano, the town administrator, I think we have a new assistant town administrator, that that's one of his focuses is working on communication within the town. But to speak to what's going on here, the our

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town park and wreck website >> has we've been trying to upload everything that has been presented to the public on that website. >> And [clears throat] I think you just reminded me too, we also have this as a remote meeting. Listen, what I think a

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lot of us parents too are busy these days and you know, so what I would like to do too, maybe Ryan, if we could just ask anybody who's online, if you want to raise your hand and and ask any questions, um, that would be great too.

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And I I do see some other folks online. >> Um, but that's another communication that I think has been very helpful for us because maybe people can't come to inerson meetings. Um, so at least we have some followers online as well. And then we also record these meetings. So

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then those are also shared on Milton Public Access TV. So that that's another communication uh piece that that kind of goes out to the community. >> Awesome. >> And and then I I I had said to some other folks too, we meet monthly and so like I know we meet early in the morning

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so that's tough for some people. I know it's like 7:30. Um, but I I think um our door is open or also we just email us. Send us an email and we'll we'll make time. >> We'll make time. >> Are there any calendars that you can like subscribe to so that you can know

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when uh upcoming meetings are >> on on our town website. You should be you can subscribe to to a calendar. >> Yeah. Awesome. >> Yeah. >> Um I just want to thank you for raising the issue around communication. So, um,

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there's a small group in town called, it's a non, we're a nonprofit. It's called Partnership for a Healthy Milton. And, and the forum that Jess was mentioning last fall was bringing together tons of different key stakeholders in Milton last year to

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really talk about communication because it's really an issue of inclusivity. People who stay in the know, people who are in the know stay in the no, people who are out of the know. And so it's actually an issue that the partnership worked with a lot of partners, a lot of

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folks and including Caroline Carolyn and um uh the town the assist the new assistant town administrator um is wonderful and has agreed to take on communication and I know there's a working group working with him around it

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um related to partnership for healthy Milton and some other folks. So, just to put it out there, I really appreciate you raising communication as an issue because it's such an engine of everything we do. And so, I appreciate that and just want to let folks know

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hopefully it will be addressed in the next year or two in terms of like solutions and and hopefully maybe even this year some more immediate solutions. So, just want to thank you for putting that out there. >> Can I just make a comment? I don't don't know if there's a balance between I'm

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not on Facebook. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm one of those people. But is there a balance between people who aren't on Facebook and Facebook? Do you use both platforms? You know, the the town platform. I look

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at the town platform all the time. You know, the internet. I can see most but not all of the things that >> I I think we try our best. And you know, I'm on the CPA committee, so I know we struggle with our communication, too. Um, I I will say it's it's a struggle

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sometimes. We try to do our best. Like, I think Bonnie like tries to get out, you know, to town email and stuff. Um, but I I think it's certainly something that we can continue to improve on, right? Um, the one good thing with the CPA is like now we have an admin for our CPA. We just hire we just hired her

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recently and so that will be a big boost for our for our uh group because they can get out uh you know they can get out word you know we're all volunteers at the end of the day so it's it's also you know that's a challenge to us as >> Did we miss a question on the side of the yes >> yeah I had a question first of all I

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love all these plans as a parent that spends a lot of time at Flatly and Andrews [clears throat] oh my god these would make such a big difference is this field here the only one that you're recommending lights on or are you recommending lights for Andrew as well?

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>> We don't typically recommend lights on a natural turf field. >> Okay. >> Um only because you're already using the heck out of them to begin with and so if I throw lights on them, >> you guys are going to play on them until you off >> and then Kevin's going to be like, I can't maintain it, Ryan. What did you do to me? >> Yeah.

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>> It's just hard [clears throat] when it the early 400 p.m. >> It is sun down. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. just an anecdotally like >> anyone who know my my wife's president in Milton soccer so um flatly which is

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totally used this way as well is they've rotated the field so much recently that like the wear spots are just getting so bad right because they're just constantly rotating. We don't have fields that we can rest. We don't have that much field space that we're like hey we have an abundance of grass that

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we can just let it rest. >> Um and so um that's the challenge as we go forward. I I would love to say I would love to go find 20 acres in Milton and go develop them as far and have beautiful beautiful soccer fields. I just if someone finds it and and then

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has the money to pay for it, then our doors open, right? >> We'll figure out how to how to fund it. But, you know, that's just a realistic case that we have in town. >> Yeah. >> Kevin, I have a question for for you. Um, in terms of lights, um, [snorts]

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would would lights be prohibited at Kelly Field because of the cost or because the danger of kids coming in and being there all night >> neighbors and and the you and kids being

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there. Yeah. >> Okay. I I I think at a certain point too um the only pl the only fields that we have in town right now with lights on are the high school and we did a major CPA project with that. That that was a huge improvement by the way. We took H

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hallogen lights and went to LED lights. That saved the town. It's saving us money because the energy usage for that uh those lights are huge. But that's also really expensive. That was like a I don't even remember. It was like $250,000 or something, Tommy, at the time >> 300

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>> 300,000 and and we have a new proposal in this year just for Brooksfield and that's $450,000. That's just for lights >> and that's just for LED. solutions also large like when you're in a residential area >> it's a good solution more costly the impact

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>> yeah yeah the impact is big so if we put like lights at Kelly right this is just some of the issues I'm going to see like if we do pickle ball those neighbors who might be applicable to that during the day might be okay we'll deal with it during the day but let me tell you if you start playing pickle ball around 10

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8 10:00 at night you're going to be getting major noise >> trust me our group won't be We're all >> over. [laughter] >> But what I will say is at least if we do put them here, >> you don't have any issues with neighbors or anything, right? You could put lights

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on pickle ball courts here and you could play, >> you know, at a time. Throw this out. We we certainly haven't talked about this with the board. The other thing those lights can do is we can turn them down so that when there's not an athletic game going on. There's a lowle light around the field so that people could

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use a walking path at night. It can have like a safety level of light and a playing level of light. So there's a lot of flexibility that can happen there cuz I know it's kind of an isolated spot. >> The one the one great thing about the new lighting is it focuses the light on the surface where old lights would just

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spill out and it would really be uh a nuisance to neighbors. But the new lighting is just so much better. >> Um, but I I would think too as we go forward and develop these plans and there's lighting, there's going to have to be times when like the lights can't be on for a certain time and all that,

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right? Um, you know, it only makes sense to play so late, you know. >> So, so they could be turned off if we ever got lights at Kelly. They could be turned off. >> Are you talking the whole field or just pickle ball? >> Pickle ball. [laughter]

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Whatever. I mean, but you could shut them off so that the kids wouldn't come. >> You shut them off at 8:00. >> You're right. >> Any other questions? >> So, what what are the next steps from here? I'm not sure if you said that.

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>> We have a report. >> We have a report that we're done. >> Sorry. What are Somebody asked, "What are next steps?" >> We have a report that we're putting together. Um, it's basically done. We should have already provided to the rec commission, but we haven't quite yet. I

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was kind of playing with some of the language over it. Um, we're going to issue that report to the rec committee. They're going to review it, give us some feedback, and then after we correct that feedback. Um, I assume it'll be made available for the public to comment on

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and and review themselves. And then our next challenge is is how we move forward on some of these improvements. But we're already starting, as I mentioned, we already have some some of these initiating. Andrew's Fields, which you saw tonight, that's in for CPA funding, right? So, that went through an

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eligibility stage. That's now going to go to go to a funding stage. That's one project that we'd pick up on. Steven's got one application in for the for the baseball. So, we're already starting to initiate some of this work. Some of the big work like Bladley is a whole another piece, right? We know it's going to come

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with big funding and so >> but I'm a good fundraiser. >> Judy will tell you that. >> So, >> awesome. >> Yeah, for sure. Nice to meet you, Rob. >> [music]