e e e e e e e greetings welcome okay let's call the meeting to order um I don't know what comes next uh I
believe that we say welcome thanks everybody for being here uh Sarah would you mind doing a roll call for us please absolutely Laura Greenley karp here Sarah zarka here uh Lloyd Greek is absent uh Dave andren here Ben Hansen is
absent ingred Kohler here uh Rachel Lucas and Cassidy schwe is absent wonderful okay um has excuse me has everyone had a chance to review the agenda and is there anything that you
want to change nope I make a motion to adopt this month's um um agenda agenda I second wonderful any
discussion great okay now we're going to move on to the approval of the minutes same do a minutes oh sorry uh all those in favor say I I all those oppos say no I'll get
this I will get it um agenda but the next one is the approval of the minutes yeah but you should normally we do last month's agenda isn't that what we just approved we just approved this this
I meant to say do we approve last month's agenda I make a motion I'll second that for great any discussion all those in favor say I all those opposed wonderful now we can move to the
approval of the minutes yes okay great that's what I meant to ask do the minutes look okay to everybody is there anything that need to be amended or pulled out I make a motion to
um to approve the agenda for February 26 meeting I'm talking about the approval of the minutes yeah for the 20 January 22nd January yeah oh yeah we just did that no no we didn't the agenda so do I
say motion to approve yes we accidentally approved this month's agenda before we approved uh last month so now we're approving the minutes from last month okay I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from January 22nd
meeting yes I perfect um any discussion all those in favor I all those opposed okay uh members of the public nobody nobody
wonderful uh so we can move right into commission business uh let's start with a the hga final document approval yes okay so um from our last meeting uh when trig here was was here from hga um he
made the couple of updates um that were requested including adding more information on the artificial turf um and made a couple of changes to some spelling errors the final document was provided to you in your packet and so we
just need a formal recommendation from the commission to bring this to Council um next week on March 4th I'd like to make a motion to approve the hga document the final mcnight field
plans and City plan U and recommend it to the city council I'll second that great any discussion all those in favor hi hi all
those opposed great yay perfect was that wording fine yes okay yep okay uh the second item is the overview of the Park and Recreation Commission is this the
this is what you had requested so if there's nothing prepared for today that's fine yeah um we can move it to next meeting so I was just going to I'm just going to frontload the idea ask if the commission would be okay with that and then we can follow up after wonderful so for the overview of the park and recommission I thought that it
might be a good idea for us to add a brief segment at the top of each of our meeting recapping what we have previously worked on or most recently are working on and what our next like few goal items are going to be I think
sometimes it is in the information from the last meeting but it also isn't always super clear in a tangible way and I'd like to have that at the for like as a part of our packet like a like a five minute review yeah review and a statement of kind of what our next steps
are yeah kind of like a tone set of like okay this is what we have been working on this is where we're working like where we're going so everybody has a shared understanding if you're here or if you're not here I like that that will provide some clarity um yeah I like it
okay and if that's something that's okay with the commission that's something that Sarah and I will work on um throughout the month I'll send the document to her she'll make sure that it fits what we need it to fit and then it'll be a part of our agenda yeah I don't know if we need to have that be a motion or just like an
agreement like people are okay with that yeah I think that's fine okay great yeah I think we can try and see how it goes I mean it's there's nothing wrong with recapping yeah exactly I mean television does it every time you watch it right commerci back yeah we will we will make
our own trailer or our from the last episode that's what we that's what we will make so yes okay um wonderful so we'll move forward with that we'll try it out and um we'll see we'll see if
that helps our smart and agile brains remember month-to month what we are working on sure great okay so let's move on to the review of the park assignments yes so this was requested last meeting to talk about just a touch
base since we lost a commissioner um last year we have the addition of Rachel uh making sure that uh folks are still okay with the parks that they were assigned to as a liaison um and so I included what we had from last year and
we can just either say if we're okay with keeping the same Parks if we'd like to switch around what if there's new or different expectations this year for liaison kind of how that's going to look moving forward okay um so it looks like the
open Parks without Representatives right now are going to be Northwood uh rotary Tower yeah I was wondering about rotary it looks like not ours we can't plan
anything on great so we're just going to let that go so then we are going to uh so it's going to be Northwood I was assigned Northwood and Tower okay perfect North need to change no I just want to make sure that I know
and Veterans is ours that we oversee no way not that was a question it's it we don't overse there is a committee for that so we don't need to oversee that wonderful so really it's Northwood and Tower and Rachel you were assigned those Parks
okay are there any other changes that are requested does anybody else want to change Parks have other ideas or thoughts or well with my two parks that I share with Lloyd
um I have you know we don't talk a lot either but with that said um I'm just wondering how we should be um foreseeing it for instance I have not uh in the
13th month that I've been here I have not had any uh meetings at all with the task force at Southwood um so I like today I I walk through the Park just kind of looking at
things that have been done and stuff like that um so without any guidance from them it's hard to bring anything forward to the the park commission for recommendations other than what I see not knowing if we have master
naturalists that are working on any kind of project or what they have laid out so I think we need to somehow have better understanding what we want to do with that part cuz that is is really a heavy a heavy used part there's um a lot of
dog walkers just a lot of naturalists that walk through there so uh I need something from the park commission to see yeah we'll just leave everything up to a task force or do we want us Lloyd and I to go into a different direction
for overseeing some of the stuff that will need some funding and stuff I mean I know some of it comes under General uh maintenance like we still have quite a bit of uh and I'll bring that up in my my reports but there's
certain areas that need to be addressed throughout the that Park so so I know that the city reached out to the task force you all sent an email um to them do you want to recap what that email
said quickly yeah um so and and they just wrote back thanks so there was no questions or anything feedback back from it but more or less um we're not going to be taking um any sort of improvement or funding
requests directly from the task force anymore um they all need to come through the commission specifically liaison so Dave and Lloyd um to make any formal requests which will come back to the Parks Commission and then we can um go through our normal process from there um
so are they're going to be treated just as any other Park or task force would be so Dave my question to you is would you be able to talk with Lloyd and maybe like start getting on the taskforce agenda and if that's too much work then maybe ask the commission if there's
someone else who might want to I don't think they're meeting oh can I sorry can I add so they aren't actively meeting right now I don't yeah um they reached out to me um after your email just to ask for some clarification they're not
actively meeting now because of um um Kathy's passing I believe Dave is it Dave had back surgery um so they just haven't there Daryl had darl had back surgery so they haven't had a chance to
get together and talk and so I think one like starting point is can we get them to resume a meeting and then like you were saying can you and Lloyd be a part of that meeting I've over the last 13
months I've reached out to Daryl several times done the same thing um like when we talked about the budget last year uh they didn't request anything but that I do know that within the next 10 years uh
like I mentioned the observation deck will probably have to be rebuilt uh I checked that out today it's fairly sound but it needs some work around it we have a couple trees that are actually starting to grow underneath uh the observation deck um the bridge when you
walk across it still does the oil canning boom boom boom boom as you walk across it I don't know the age of that within the next 10 years we should think about upgrading that so uh so there's definitely things that we need to
address at Southwood yes um I apologize for cutting you off can you finish your thought well my thought's going to go I've said this a lot since I've been on this commission but my fear has always been this like what happens if something happens to Kathy trundle and it has and my fear now hearing that they haven't
met in this long is that it's going to be really hard for unless there's a really motivated person that comes forward because it sounds like the people who've existed have probably been under Kathy's kind of command uh because she was such a strong leader at that Park that my question is going to go back
to as a we have a nature preserve we don't have a commission for every Park in the city so how do we or the city or how does the city need to be more involved like I think we almost need to make a wish list and you and Lloyd are obviously the most knowledgeable of this
is like how do they how do we go about managing this park if we don't have a task force you know like how do we make sure that the Buckthorn doesn't grow back and that all these things that they've worked so hard to keep out how do we make sure because I don't know if other cities have task force for their
nature preserve or if there's the cities running it but I I think there needs we've needed this for a long time but Kathy was really just an angel that kind of helped us do everything but how do we actually bridge that Gap so not to sound bad but in case we don't need a task force or we don't have one how do we
actually because as Park Commissioners we can't always be in there being like all right Sarah we need to get the Buckthorn like the city's going to have to take on some of that so I think we need to create like a here's how to proceed with Southwood maybe it includes the Improvement plan of like the deck needs to be replaced in 10 years that
you know maybe it's going you en Lloyd meeting and kind of making that list and saying what is it that the city needs to own it might be like twice a year you need to have Buckthorn poles or twice you know just so that they can budget that in too um or else it's going to
fall back on volunteers and like in this scenario we may not have them to fall back on Sarah do you have guidance around like I know Silver Lake has their organiz or their Association organization like how do these relationships work in the city outside
of the task force ultimately there's it's not neither them are official with the city so um we don't oversee what they're doing or anything like that we just will help subsidize funding got it more or less um so it's no different
than a just a random group of residents meeting and saying hey we're going to clean up this park that's how the task force and the Silver Lake Association is essentially okay so maybe where we need to start is I do know so I know Tiffany
and Caleb Brian are actively a part part of the task force and have been trying to like move it forward as some of the other members have had their own um situations come up I feel like we need to do uh like we need to connect we need to
connect with the people who are actively doing what they can right now um figure out where they're at and in an Ideal World how we can partner as a Parks Commission with with them and I agree
with you Sarah that that partnership needs to be more formalized um I feel like the city has gone through a process of formalizing these kind of like historical relationships and this has kind of pushed us to that place as well so maybe that is our next step is we
talk to who's a part of it and then we as a commission or the city provides us guidance on what that formal partnership needs to look like going forward I have a question yeah what does the task force do great question do we not no we do we do
yeah yep go ahead because years ago I was one of the founders for the task force and this is specific for sou Southwood only southw only for Southwood and it started out we had several citizens that were going for
their master naturalist agenda yep and South would open up a a big opport for them to what they called the Capstone project a couple of them took on um the Waterfront
uh bringing that back so we were not getting a lot of erosion and stuff like that one took on uh developing um a butterfly garden another one took on what we call the Oak Savannah um so a lot of stuff was taken
out of there at that time uh did a lot of volunteers a lot of people the task force volunteered a lot of time a lot of hours to it um it was part of the task force that for instance the observation deck that was all done by
volunteers myself being one of them Terry F long um we had a residents from North St Paul who wanted to give back but anyway the task for would meet and say for this certain area we needed and want to keep everything as close to N
nature as possible cuz it is a nature preserve um throughout the years they wanted to bring it back to what it would have been say a 100 years ago and we would buy certain plants that were
native to Minnesota in this area at the time so there we purchased different plants and stuff like that uh there's a company up north that matter of fact I drove up there like three times to get their plantings so what we would do is get together um schedule like a
Buckthorn pole uh a lot of volunteers or plan on doing um some plantings or stuff like that uh part of was the park clean up those kind of things but task force would say okay we need to kind of clean this area out or we had a lot of storm
damage how many of us can get in there and do that um I was like I said one of the founders of it uh I don't don't remember if Floyd was on the original or not Dave Nelson there was quite a few of us um so when we needed something we
would bring it to the park commission we would ask for either funding or help or something and then the park commission would take that on the city council once it made that approval it was all said and done okay and if I'm if I'm
remembering correctly this task force was created when the Parks Commission was significantly less form right right so in the years since the task force has been created there's been a ton of like formality and oversight
and organization um put into the Parks Commission so the task force was was formed out of a need of we don't want this land to go go to waste and now now that we have more resources people City
support all of those things it's kind of it's it's less on them okay they're like our Grassroots organization and now it's like more on us to maintain um and just kind of like figuring out what that formal partnership looks like so like to
answer one of your other questions minona for instance because um a couple of us went to motanka years ago to see how they were handling a couple of their bigger parks and with buck Thorn and the whole bed but they don't have a task
force they have um a city worker uh who's in charge of trying their parks are huge um to redo those so they have a complete plan they have they're not relying on volunteers and stuff like
what we did we volunteer a lot of volunteer work uh now that that's changed over the years I think as the park commission that's why I took on Southwood again um is because I I know how things used to be but we used to meet at least once a
month to say hey this is where we're I'm at with My Capstone project um can you see in 3 months I'm going to need to do some plantings can we get this purchased that kind of stuff I'd like to see that happen again where it doesn't have to be
every month that they meet but if they are meeting it doesn't have to be formal with the task force but at least let the park commission know what their thoughts are and are they and a lot of them were actually neighbors around the park
there's a few that didn't live by the park Kathy is one of them um who brought different ideas in yeah so I think that I think that's a good summary of of how it started and where where it was and
now going forward how can we make all of those things come together could we check with other cities that have nature preserves and see how they're handling it absolutely that's a great idea I love not Reinventing yeah exactly exactly a lot of them do have their own
paid employee there so and we we may not have our own paid employee but we do have the commission we have public works and then there is a spot for volunteers there they just maybe don't have to carry as much as they've been carrying so to close the loop on all of that
we're going to check in with the Southwood task force members who are having conversations it doesn't even have to be a formal meeting see where they're at where going to check in with other cities who have nature preserves about just kind of like what that
maintenance oversight looks like and then with those two pieces of information we're going to come back at the next meeting and then we're going to talk about um next steps right did I miss anything no okay although um if you're in touch
with a couple people on that task force yep if you don't mind have them contact me yep and I'm the liais on like and they yeah they reached out to me cuz like I know them but they also know from Sarah's email specifically to reach out
to you and Lloyd about any um any things and they know that you are the parkle Aon so yeah I can I can definitely let them know cuz there like I said I just walked through there today and I'm going okay there's I know what this now report on what the city's been doing um but
there's other things I I'm just kind of wondering where the task force is at as far as how they want to and we can find we can find all of that out in the next few weeks and bring it back for everybody to have that discussion can I just uh two points on this one's a
question um knowing we have two Representatives on like a Southwood or some of these bigger parks would we consider having two Representatives un likee Casey um knowing Rachel is over there I don't want to like force volunteer you but I think sometimes well Ben's on it oh he is okay yeah I just
sometimes I think two eyes are better than one in those situations that was my first question the other thing is I know we have from last year but I I don't mind keeping my Parks but I want to kind of self-nominate myself for mcnight as well because I've been pretty involved
in that planning um and speaking to that Park so as we go and push development I would whether we have three people or whether Lloyd would want to step to one of my other Parks or Dave or whoever but I I would like to be part of mcnight um that would be my only request and I
don't mind keeping all three but if I need to swap or whatever I'm happy to but just knowing that I'm involved in all those meetings um I know Dave has been too but I would say it it would be my I guess assumption and understanding is that the members of the subcommittee
that work directly with hga will continue to be a part of those discussions with those three parks and I just want to clarify that with you yes okay so we all form if your name if your name isn't here you're still on the hook for it um as we move forward that's fine
that's fine I agree with that okay uh so much sense Rachel would you like to be a part of the Casey sign me up okay also I would love to be a part of Northwood too I have this very big dream for that Park so I'd love to um work with you on that
yeah exactly my pen doesn't work but that's okay thanks um okay ingred are you okay with silver and Dorothy yes yeah um silver for sure that i' I'd always like
to be you know I live a block off of so that's yeah um for sure and then Dorothy makes sense I um it's close and I can check in on it now and then and um yeah
I'm I'm cool with both of those okay and Dave you're good with yours yes okay um we still have rotary open though right R is not ours yeah I thought veterans was not ours both NE
okay all right um okay Sarah do you want us to give you just like a quick list of changes I think I have them written down so the only ones I have just a recap Northwood uh Rachel and Laura yep and then Rachel you're being Tower and then
added to Casey yep yep that's the only changes perfect awesome I'll send that list back out to too okay so everybody has it okay do we feel good about moving on to the next topic mhm okay great okay
so the next topic is the discussion on Park and wre commission meetings in the park Sarah do you want to provide the oversight on that and then we can chat a little bit about the other stuff we talked about sure absolutely so from last month's meeting it was brought up
that maybe we want to bring um some of our Park commission meetings back into the parks to have more interaction with the community and get more Community engagement um and help guide improvements or decisions moving forward um I spoke with our city manager Brian
frandle he was absolutely okay with it being uh moved into the parks um and then I did share with the commission today which I think Laura will touch on too um some feedback we got from a person from the public about
accessibility and issues there in relation to having meetings in the park um and Laura developed a a good response that I think we can send back to them as well um but I'll hand it off to you so basically the key points of the feedback
from the public is accessibility is not just physical accessibility to the place it's making sure you're providing like auditory accessibility that there's parking that the resources are all there they want to make sure that we are fully thinking it through
um and so I put together just kind of like we heard what you're saying these are like in summary what we were thinking and so the key points were selecting locations that are physically accessible including Pathways and seating providing auxiliary AIDS or
Services as requested in line with Ada guidelines ensuring the meeting materials are available in alternate formats upon request and if specific accommodations are needed we encourage attendees to reach out in advance so we can make necess NE Arrangements um just
as a like we hear you thank you for providing feedback and these are the lenses that we're going to look into going forward um Sarah and I chatted about maybe what the auditory piece of it would look like in the Parks and um teachers in classrooms and even in like
uh churches they'll wear like the microphone here and then people can have a set of headphones that amplifies it um just in hand uh Sarah's going to check to see if the might have something like that already but that would take care of
the auditory uh support that we were um maybe concerned about or not addressing uh specifically and that like in summary that would allow us to be ADA Compliant in the parks would we be recording in
the Parks yes we have to yep and so Sarah subtitles that yep and Sarah requested that if if and when we meet in the Parks the meeting itself takes place in a park building because she needs to be able to take a clear recording and
take really good notes and so that seems like a reasonable a reasonable request I think that's a very good response I think it addresses the concern um IT addresses the ADA compliance perfect just limits our
location it does because yeah yes Casey or Casey and howy yep yep and I I I feel like kind of like we got to we got to bridge the gap right like we want to be able to go out into the parks and have those meetings our formal meetings can
happen at Casey and housy in those buildings our informal Community check-ins can happen at our events that are taking place in the Parks so would it be possible because we wouldn't have to do this every month would it be possible without having cameras and
stuff all set up to have like an informal meeting to meet with people people at the various Parks so that way we kind of understand where people are coming at cuz we want to make sure that we're complying with uh the
Ada um and I know what some of the stuff we do the fire department does have portable speakers and stuff that I'm sure we could use if we schedule something ahead of time um and have Public Works set that up um but yeah I
think we what we used to do back in the days when we met at the parks we'd hear from the people who were using those Parks small because we would announce it you know like a month ahead of time that we were going to meet we're not able to do that anymore because of the specific
accommodations that we need to make that's why I'm asking if it was like a special meeting where it's not a formal Park and wreck meeting is that doable are we allowed to all four show up at Northwood and talk about you know I I'm
I'm I feel like there's not we're not really allowed because that's a meeting correct that's that's an there's no such thing as really an unofficial meeting of all of us how we addressed this before is that um we would go in smaller groups
like two or three um and we would just say okay between now and next month can we make sure to visit all of the can everyone visit all of the parks or we had our assignments um just to kind of like check in I I love touching base
because even though I've been on the Parks Commission for a long time it's been a long time since I've well a couple years now since I've looked at Northwood um and I actually going to the park is inspiring and also motivating
because you go oh that that Park structure is holding up well or uhoh we put that in 5 years ago and look at this is already falling apart you know it's just incredibly informative and motivating to get out there in the park but I don't think we can do it as a full
group I don't think that's allowed um but we could organize and break up into groups of two and you know go visit parks that way or just do it individually there also is a great opportunity where if you time your visit outside of this when people are using
the park already like you just walk up and you say hey I'm on the Parks Commission you're he using it tell me what you think like that solves that problem and it doesn't have to be um like a formally organized thing and then we also can check in at our events um that we're doing and then on top of that
we're having the formal meetings at howy and Casey the summer and that's like a pretty tiered approach of like how we can meet the community needs so I think if we focus on those three things that that will get us back to at least like a good foundation of having an understanding of what people are looking
for is there anything on the website that allows people to um you know register a complaint or feedback or something about their park or not specific to the parks but that's certainly something we can do if that's
wouldn't hurt us to have that Avenue as well for people to just be able to kind of go gosh I have an issue you know with this swing broke and you know or I'm worried about this park structure or something um they can it they can rather than go to the
city website and then have that bit of information kind of float around for a while and then get to us maybe it we look at that once a month and see if we have any feedback from the public that's a good idea is that something we could fold in absolutely okay great I feel like you kind of do that like you'll get
the you'll get a random email or whatever and you send it on to us but like if we formalize a process of hey you can't make it to the meeting or whatever send us your notes absolutely okay great um
okay we feel good mhm yeah okay would you like a summary or do you feel do we want to have dates like Are there specific days we looking at to be at casy or housy this year so I can go ahead and start planning that yep my
suggestion would be June and July because of hour daylight hours or J August well August gets darker get start con yeah so June and howy July at
Casey okay yeah sound good okay I like it okay so just to touch back on the the for the website and stuff is there a way to set that up so let's see
if there was a concern at Silver Lake ingred would get that so she could look in into it more being that is her park or something for southw I would get or Lloyd would get I can certainly make that a habit if we want that to be for me to forward it on
there's not a way for it to directly go to you but I can certainly filter it as needed I yeah I would say uh the easier the the broader the category the better so like it's an email that comes to park and wreck but Sarah knowing that I'm the rep for
Silver Lake would would then say oh she would bring that to my attention right so yeah just our own process not a not a way for someone to directly right email me or what perfect do that and if that process somehow becomes extremely
overwhelming due to the capacity of feedback we're receiving we can look at making it maybe like a more formal whatever but it sounds like it's a small part of communication that you're receiving yeah yeah okay perfect
perfect okay um our next item is discussion of posting and opening for a student commissioner position for our Park commission um so I'm not sure if you all are familiar but the Arts commission has if not one two they have
one student commissioner from the local high school cool uh who sits on the commission and is a voting member nope not a v voting member um but an opportunity to learn about what this process looks like provide like super
important feedback um and insight that maybe we don't have and aren't getting on a regular basis um I feel like it's a super valuable resource and so I wanted to bring it to the group to see if they would be open to having a student commissioner on the commission love it I
like being you I fully support that get a Young Person's opinion um it's good experience for them leadership experience for them get them into local government and they it's kind of hard to find good resume builders they'll be perfect for job and
school applications as well for sure I I also want I want a uh a daycare provider uh bit of feedback I've always said that the the the pros who know the most about what our Parks need yeah are kids
they're the first you know they they know um and then daycare providers who are in the parks with groups of kids and can kind of really get you know because I and the reason I think about it is because my neighbor across the street was a daycare provider for many years
and you know I'd be going off to my park and W commission meetings and I'm thinking I should just bring you along as an expert each time um because she would have she know you know she she had lots of advice on Park they they're
they're the they're the ones who are the most informed about what kids love to do in Parks yeah um you know I would say at that point there probably should be a commission member I mean I think like so probably not like a liaison no I just meant it would be nice
if you know anybody yeah but I do love the student uh idea too stud I was thinking like you were saying um if we could do some sort of uh like feedback form or survey and send it to targeted people students
teachers daycare providers to get feedback I think we'll have really good reception yep and I think that's something we've done previously and I think it's going to be a part of what we continue to do with hga yeah so maybe we can Loop it into that and just make sure
we're hitting specific subgroups that we think are high users um because that feedback would yeah absolutely be super valuable yeah okay one wonderful so we are okay bringing on a student commission two one
or two do we to make a motion for that no we don't need to make a motion I can get that posted do we want to do one or two do we want to start with one see how it is going and then open it up again my inclination is to because it's super intimidating as a high schooler to come
and sit in this space as one person even as like a very like highly qualified high school student it's a lot it's a lot to up here as an adult so yeah okay if we're open to it if we could do two and see what happens okay where would they
sit I might have to have them here yes that was my first yeah I know me too squeeze in yeah um and then what that will look like we'll post it and then Laura I'd be in touch with you you and I would probably do interviews okay we'd have to come back to the commission
everybody would approve their resume and what we suggest and then it would go to council just like a commissioner would so it would take a little bit but we can start will this be post at the high school yeah so we'll post it online and then we'll push it through I can send it
out to all of you too so you can promote it as well we'll push it through our contacts at the high school as well um see what we can do sounds perfect okay uh our next item reports from staff we have a budget update yes
so from uh Laura your request to have budget information provided each month this is what I got from Finance I am not a person that can read these so um especially when I'm not feeling 100% um it's hard for me to read them but the
numbers are here so there's both um our Park dedication fund um information as well as Park fund information um it's not 100% the numbers aren't 100% set because we're still in audit so some of the
books are open from last year um but if this is something we want to see or I don't if we want to see different numbers I don't know how we want to see that each month I'm happy to provide what we want um but this is what I got for this month what is the most streamlined method for you um and maybe
the easiest to digest for us is there a marriage of those two ideas uh like what's the most streamlined for you just providing yes but I can also try to get more clarity on exactly what numbers we care about in this Sarah don't you remember
that we've been through different forms of this in the past I feel like there was one Finance person who came to us with one page that really made a lot of sense when I look at these Pages I'm like well there's too much on there I you know for them to break it out of
there because this is like a system they're using but I mean basically you can just look at the total assets yeah I know we have 1.1 million nice is that but the my question though is is that more than we had last year is that enough to do what we want to do this
year we're rich yeah that's a lot we're rich that's a lot okay we need to do something with that what the moral of that is well how much do we owe on Casey yet I don't know the answer to that it was supposed to
be 10 years that's that argument I got into last year c a big bubble so we built it in 2016 10 years technically it should be paid off like let's just call it 2027 um yeah because that was the last
project I was involved with um and you were on board at that time but I I think we got to be getting really close with that project being completed paid for that's something that we can get so
I think that's like the one piece that and they did get answer they he came back to me and told me I just don't remember mem shot um so yeah okay so yes roughly we have 1.1 million
um and that is a lot of money that we should start doing stuff with in the same breath being said we were asked to not spend until our planning was more formalized we could not have a more
formalized plan then what we do now so going forward after our plan and stuff is approved at Council and our Park Improvement plan was already approved those are our two guiding documents that we can move forward on and start doing stuff but we're not using our budget
this budget for the hga repart some of it will potentially okay and ju and I apologize if this question um is I'm I'm not trying to offend you are you familiar with the difference between the park dedication fund and the park fund
okay so when you build a new building in a city you have to give a certain amount of money to maintain or create a new green space and that is our Park dedication funding to create the Green Space to it's a certain percentage yeah
yep it's a certain percentage and it can only be used to uh make something new essentially right yes addition fix yes yeah if you build a building to house like 400 people the goal is like
now you got to give them some pay some outdoor space to use and a lot of these buildings rather than spend the funds themselves to build a playground or a park or a dog park or something they just give that percentage to the city and that goes into a separate bank account for us yep and so then by Third
Street that Park would be out of here okay and then the park fund is the money from the general budget of the city that is earmarked into Parks but we can use both of them we can use both of them but for Park funding you can't use it to
maintain a current park that's the catch is like we yeah I'm sorry yeah the the dedication one you can't be like Oh I'm going to dedication is new only yes right yep so those are the two differences thank you
yeah okay and uh yeah I just asked that we get the budget just in front of us every month again it was something that was super helpful in the past and I think just going forward knowing how much money we have is it'll kick us in the butt so yeah exactly we got it let's use it exactly in speaking of budget this was going to be my question all
this feels more appropriate here can we since our Park plan was approved right yes yeah the park and open space master plan has not been oh it hasn't no it goes on March 18th so they had they was the meeting we
came to speak at like back in like December was it but they had asked for more information they wanted us to include the park Improvement plan in that basically get rid of the park Improvement plan and combine it all into one document so we have to wait for hg's thing to get approved first because
that's part of the park in open space master plan then it will go so Ideal World let's say it gets approved on the 18th can have we already discussed sorry I wasn't here in January but have we discussed in that March meeting like we can start talking about where to spend some of this money based on the plan we
laid out and the time line like can we I don't think we've said that but I think we can say that here I want to because it's spring and so nothing's getting done this summer anyways probably at this point with bids and everything so I would like to hopefully it's approved if not I still think we can have the conversation
um to take a look at and maybe Sarah you could help us with maybe just that that list of the five year threeyear one year you know that page that we had was like kind of the and then talk through the priorities um and I know we've already talked about what we want at our park so you probably have that in the back of
your head but just putting us to a task to say well we said this was one year and then also we should have a better understanding with the HDA and what we hear from Council next Tuesday yeah kind of what kind of money we need to spend from the park board and then I'm hoping
maybe we can have a discussion with Council to say is this like a Casey Lake thing where we're going to have to bond some of this and or maybe we take 50,000 out of our account every year to help fund mcnight or whatever we do right just so that we can look at that in tandem because I I don't think we can just say we want to plant all these
parks and then we've got this $1 million project sitting over here so um and that's part of the goal or what I'm H hoping excuse me will be the the overview are like this on the last episode portion of our um meeting
will be exactly what you're talking about this is our one three fiveyear plan this is what we've done this is what we haven't done and that's like where we ground ourselves every single meeting yeah I would just love at that March meeting to start at least picking off some of those projects that aren't
the $500,000 projects we've got some $5,000 projects in there that we could we could tackle really easy and start working on and maybe even get things done this year that could be cool yep um let's start spending some of this absolutely so after all of those things
are approved and we have a meeting next month we'll frontload that in March our plan is to start making decisions around actually spending the smaller chunks of money that we can Chuck off the list so my question is on March 4th there'll be
a few of us going in front of the city council to uh endorse the hga proposals um we're not going to get any feedback from them until you know probably two
months um well they've seen these plans so they're not but they haven't seen the prize tags yeah they have they have they're a little I'll give you a heads up they're a little shocked by it so it's not going to be an easy sell I'll just say that so
then we we you know we all have to say we may have to say well let's put this park on hold for five years and then move forward with these Parks so we have to be willing to to say probably by April which one if
nothing else which Parks we would really want to push for to start spending some decent money we I think we'll have more answers than you think on Tuesday I don't think it's going to be like sign off go run with this but I think they are aware of it which means they've been having their
own thoughts on how to either fund it or what they think is worth it or not worth it the reality is if we wait five more years it's going to cost five times as much got it we wait another year is going to cost look how much eggs cost come on so I think we'll have some answers
out of that at least enough to frame a conversation at the end of yeah well and we have the February meeting so this is the febru oh my God literally thought it was January just good enough we're just good
enough I want to make sure that the commission here is is ready to go to bat on certain parks that we've seen that hga is has come there's there couple still have a couple little design things
um so those are I want to make sure that if they say we need to put this on the back burner you know for another year or two or that was I mean we had discussed that day I don't know if you were in that meeting but we had discussed that as a roll out plan with the HDA thing it's like we were never going to be able
to fund all three of them at the same time the importance was mcnight that is the biggest importance and then we get to those secondary Parks I also think that it's important that we don't go too far into hypothetical right now because we don't have all the information we have a lot of information and we do need
some more from Council and I think we should just pause where we're at in regards to this because it feels like we have a shared understanding and then in our March meeting which is next month um we can have h a conversation with as much information as we can AG cool okay
perfect so let's see now we are going to move on to reports from Commissioners I do have one more thing I'm Sor sorry um I didn't add it in here because I just got the information um so we have scheduled a
park cleanup day for May 17th oh good to um and the reason that date was chosen is to kind of create a cleanup month so the first weekend in May is going to be the citywide garage sale second weekend is a Citywide cleanup day where you can bring your stuff to Public Works to get
rid of and then it'll be the park cleanup the third weekend so and that week also we'll see um the high school doing their cleanup around the city as well um so we've been in touch with them also um the Silver Lake Association is
Wonder is happy to also host theirs on May 17th on that day um so it's kind of all coming together in one great month um we're looking at doing it from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. um so that we can schedule Public Works to come around
after that to pick up the garbage um bag um I will not be in the country that day so the day before that um and we can talk about this in coming months too if we don't want to spend time on it today
butting at the yeah yeah I never the second Fe I'll the second February yes too good Sor that was awesome I will have bags and gloves and all of that brought to City Hall so they can be picked up by you guys for whatever Parks you want to work on I think I think we
need to focus on a few Parks that'd be my suggestion um just so that we have a concentrated effort at a few parks and we can do another cleanup later in the year too if we want to rotate what parks we're working on um but that would be
how I can help anyway is have stuff ready for on Friday before for you guys to pick up so okay thank you sounds good yeah that's all I got okay thank you um all right let's do the reports from Commissioners and park
Liaisons uh let's just go down the line um I will say quickly just about this so this in my history has been uh more informal just kind of like what's front and center front of mind I think Dave for you it's more formal like you have a
you have like a a a routine of what you go through in like Park inspection and stuff like that or just like a general like I walk through this and I saw um so my question was going to be like do we as a group want to formalize our
expectations more around like what we're reporting on from the parks specific stuff or is it just we're fine with however in-depth or uh high level people want it to be what would formalizing it look like just uh
so um a checklist it it could be a checklist or it's like you specifically went to Northwood Park you walked the whole park you checked for graffiti you checked for any like Rogue things that could hurt children playing that you
couldn't just deal with yourself and then like bring it back and you do that for each one of your Parks I feel like we don't need it to be formal would be my thought yeah that's totally fine I just wanted to ask the question it really has been is there anything of
concern in your Park that you want to talk about that's kind of the it's not like let me give you an overview of how the park is doing it's more like these are my concerns there's a broken thing over here or um or or um yeah um I think
that I think that sounds good we have newish Commissioners so I just want like I don't know if we ever made that expectation clear so um if we just frame it with the like what is Con what did you say what issu you know any kind issues and concerns okay perfect that
are cropping up can I ask I know this is usually the moment where we go and we kind of report our Park can there be a section within this commissioner report that's like discussion topics of like I always feel like that's a hard place for us to be like actually I want to bring this up but where's a good place to do
that when it's maybe not related to my specific Park yeah I agree um I know sometimes that can happen like you you have that idea that you want to bring to the meeting ahead of time do you feel like you would have it ahead of time enough to turn it into into an agenda
item for Sarah sometimes yes sometimes no like one of my topics tonight yes I probably could have sent that to her the other one popped up as we were talking about things okay so that would just be like I don't want to derail the conversation 30 minutes but just I don't know because it's like when it's not
necessarily like I don't have something to bring up about my specific Park but about the parks programs in general like I wanted to like ask a question or like get thought so I like a discussion period time and then if there's something that needs we cap the time so people don't go on a tangent and it
takes 40 minutes so I did ask the question about time capping and um the city went back and forth on it they don't like the idea of capping people's um time but our commissioner time like you're into so if I was like ingred you
have two minutes to tell me what you think about your Parks they they don't like that they don't feel like it's uh fair and so um I agree that we want it to be concise um and sorry no it's okay
it's okay so my first question is can we add can we add like a whole another bullet point to this can we put it right after when we meet with the public you know we open we have an open form for the public to address us maybe right
after that we have like an open form from this commission to bring it up my only question is that hasn't allowed us to talk about the other things yet which sometimes spark like what Sarah was talking about the additional conversation that they want to bring up
I like it at the end I like it next to the issue you know the reports from the Commissioners maybe it's separate like let people get through their parks that I don't because I'm the one who going to do it is going to derail on a topic when I go get through my Parks so well I can make a suggestion so when I was on the
Arts commission every month they had a a spot that was updates from subcommittees and they would just discuss what's going on in their subcommittees oh yeah we can have that as an item under commission business action items and recommendations like at the very end of all of our discussions there um yeah I
mean it's not a subcommittee thing I wanted to ask no but but it can be a discussion Park discussion can be a permanent thing in our agenda there could we cap that part of the agenda not a particular because you know like how
the public forums like what 15 minutes you have three minutes or yeah yeah like that's where I'd saying like cap it that way in case one of us else maybe okay maybe what our agreement is is that we are not formally capping
people um with time frames but we are informally asking our friends to not talk for more than 3 minutes and maybe one of us will watch the clock as that's happening and give a gentle reminder that time is running long I feel like we should start the discussion session with
that reminder yeah yeah so it are you okay with that yes okay so our agreement will be we will have two uh opportunities to talk about uh parks in general the first is going to be like a Parks uh discussion or
subcommittee us as individuals identifying as a subcommittee sharing out that information and then the other is an opportunity to share issues and concerns so that that will allow for two different pieces and then the um the parks discussion will be an informal
3ish minutes of discussion is that okay sure okay perfect so since we can't go back in time we'll do issues and concerns first uh I'll just go down the line Sarah to Rachel and then we'll come
back and we'll do the discussion piece at the end go down the line and then we can wrap up cool uh no concerns or issues from my parks me either um I'll continue to report like I have in the past um Public Works has
been out and done more uh Ash boore removal in Southwood they still have um a few piles of from the storm damage that are laying out by a couple of the paths um these still have to do more
work on uh a lot of the storm damage um um other than that everything at the at Southwood is uh pretty much Clear is only like 5% ice on one of the trails and other than that it's everything's
looking good um as far as mcnight Fields everything of course until this agenda gets moved forward from HDA uh is on hold I do know the city has really got a huge huge stockpile of
ash trees there so hopefully Excel will open up and get rid of some of that so that's all I to make mulch no because it's the ashbo oh Ash got it but at southw with if you want if you walk
through there recently I mean some of the trails are a little muddy and stuff but there is a lot of storm damage trees that could be used as much for the trails so uh Sarah and I have had a I have a
request out the public works on maybe something we can do out there so uh and I'll wait to hear back from that but uh and like I said as long as we don't we're not hearing from the task force which I really would like to if you want to reach out to those
people um and like I said I know Daryl's getting better but he's not 100% so at least if they can get some of that through the liazon either me or Lloyd so we can start moving forward with some of their projects so we know how much Ramsey County is doing and stuff like
that so but other than that that's all I've got to report so I have no concerns about Silver Lake or Dorothy okay yeah um I noticed drainage issues with both Northwood and Tower Park um most
substantially Tower Park there been a lot of spots with standing water and this was before all theow melted oh wow okay yeah um cuz I'm sure there's as the snow's melting you're already at piles but this was before all the snow was melted like every everywhere was still
covered in snow spots of sing water um there were a couple electrical concerns I had I took photos do I email them to you yeah absolutely I don't know if they're an issue or not but I figured I would bring them sure to you um no
graffiti or anything I thought both of the actual Park struct playground structures looked great um that's it okay great thank you all right um so this is our gentle reminder
that we are going to talk about Parks General discussion items and we'd like you to ideally talk for 3ish or less minutes perfect first one's quick when did the pickle ball nets go up back at Housey uh it's I don't know that but I
can certainly follow I would love to play this weekend but drove by last weekend cuz I wanted to play CU I was like it's nice out I'm going to go try to play cuz I haven't got to use them yet and I'm like oh wait there's no Nets then it got me thinking like when when when do those go up so sure I just wonder if it's you guys have a set date
or if it's like you just ask public works because I think with the weather getting nicer it would be nice to be able because I think those would get used right now basketball nets too okay I add to that yeah perfect just I mean we may get some rain or snow but I don't
think it's going to stick too long with the weather so okay um still my three minutes Dave um and then my other big concern was after the Fire and Ice event which I know kind of came on quick and steadily um it really got me thinking about because I was there Rachel was there but it was basically just park
Commissioners and then like two other people and I felt so bad because the event was really beautiful and done well and I wasn't at the January meeting so I know I didn't get the because you guys talked about it there but um it feels like if we're going to do and I know we
have a new person that kind of plans these events but if we're going to do events to have enough notice on our side to be able to just help liaison some of that information like I run the Jan's Facebook page and like I was like I was shocked I'm like we're having this event like I shared it like two days before I'm like I kind of felt like an idiot
honestly because people are like shouldn't you know about this and I'm like uh I feel like I should I just I would like some notice like I know there was a lot of exceptions this year with people coming and going but um I just think it's a general rule like we should
at least have some like six-month visibility to these planning events so that we can help share the information or volunteer or help or plan schedules around it um that's that was all I had to say about that so and I do want to say yes at last meeting too was that
last meeting that Ava was there I'm sorry my memory I don't feel great um the February meeting yes the first February meeting um she did bring the whole year worth so hopefully that could help moving forward and she did reach out asking for people to commit to volunteering at certain events as well
fire and I did sneak up there because it was like our meeting and then like the week after could you res because I didn't see not but just that I wasting yeah it's an email email from um
Ava pardon Ava sent Emil agreement I and let me know they okay perfect 15 seconds to spare great job um
I I don't have any discussion items but I did want to say that for our overview of the parks I'm going to add the events the upcoming events like for three months out um to be a part of our meeting so that that's front and center
too yeah when you say overview um on the last episode which apparently is what I'm calling it now yeah um or yeah on the last episode will include the 1 three fiveyear plan a budget overview event plan oh no budget is not a part of
it and um event plans so that that's a part of what we're talking about Dave I just going to say as taking care of tennis Nets and stuff for 25 years we usually don't put any of those Nets up until the end of March just so you know
okay but weather's changing yeah but March they could have 3 ft of snow we appreciate the Insight I'm just saying can they come down pretty quickly I they depends on the style there's a couple different styles one
style yeah it takes it takes roughly 25 minutes to a half an hour to put one net up so I mean yeah I think I think that's good to note but yeah find out either way yeah sounds per we need a lot of money for it
and I'd rather take them down for like one big snowstorm in April or something than not people use them for a couple months when we could okay anything else I just wanted to let her know just because the weather was nice for a couple of days it was freezing a week ago
so I mean some guys want to go out do some goling not me but but there are nets that other like um I saw Maplewood has their Nets up uh I drove past some other ones there was somewhere else too that they had their Nets up so I mean we can't you know maybe they
don't take them down but maybe they don't take them down but then when they go to use them they're rotted so yeah TBD on the Nets TBD on the Nets excellent um great I had a um I had
a couple concerns about when I looked at the event list and was signing up for the ones I wanted to do um I and I I emailed Ava right away and just said you know I see that this 5K is happening on a Tuesday or a THS it was a weekday and
I just offered my advice on probably moving that to a weekend that you'll get a better turnout whatever um so there and there was another one that I had a question of but I I emailed her directly so so there there are a few of those events Sarah when you get the list you
might see that some of them are TBD you know they will be determined but um a couple might change based on a little bit of feedback um so that's all um a couple things I think we need
to somehow advertise our events better I feel like we're not actually communicating with the public I don't know how we can reach them I don't know if we should do like a quarterly flyer in the utility bill saying like go to the website for our events or here's a
QR code with a list of our events or something but I feel like we're not reaching the public on these events and I feel like we should look into that and try some different things to see if we could get more reception because we have really cool events and I think people would really like to go to them but
they're not hearing about them IDE um I think it would be a really cool idea if we is anyone familiar with the Minnesota state parks hiking club like the you where you um get a badge for going
to yeah yeah so at the state parks you can join the hiking club for the state and you go to the different parks and they have a designated hiking route and you hike this route and there's a password and then as you get the different Parks you get different prizes
um they also have a Park Passport so you just go to the park and then like when you arrive at the park there's a sign or whatever you get a stamp I think that would be an excellent way to encourage people to visit all of our parks yeah um I think that' be a we could do it either
catered For Children catered For Adults do a summer program what have you but I think that's a really cool idea I would like to do that that I love that actually we um you keep going in my I I don't know how to proceed in doing that
so feel free to discuss or talk or whatever well something that we've seen is a massive um what's what I would call it like economic and cultural uh development velopment within like Outdoor Sports is something called like run Club you're familiar with what a run Club is like people meet up they get
together and run like when you were saying that the first thing I thought you were going to say is like a hike club or something and maybe it's a way of formalizing like meetup groups of like either walking or hiking through our park so maybe you could or maybe we could organize it on a set date like hey hike Club is meeting Saturday whatever I
love that and the other thing we're seeing is it's actually one of the biggest shifters this is funny but um biggest shifters of dating people are getting really this has just been a massive study we did at Target so just interesting information but like people are shifting to wanting to meet in
person oh and there's a dating element to it but there's also like an elderly component of people wanting to get out and meet people so there's like these couple different factors moms trying to get together meet other moms in the community so there's different ways you could segment it that people are just really itching to meet people in person
and let be less on the digital Forum with what's going on in the world right now um so maybe there's a way to comprise it with like getting people together that will spread the news of events get more people involved in the city and then you could give them the passport or whatever like because I do feel like a passport thing would be hard
or a stamp unless someone's physically there to give it to them I love it well you can always you can always have a photo and bring it to City Hall and get a stamp from somebody at the desk at City Hall um you know like there are ways that you could put the um you you
could say document your visit in some way email self with a sign or something but the the Parks have it where they just have stamps out on the building and then you take it and do it but I had ideas for um like specific themed walks to like a foraging walk or like a full
moon walk or so I I would uh two things one suggest that the local community ed Department would love to partner on helping uh set those events up in the Parks okay um and the community aded
department is already restarting polar explorers which is a kids summer passport event in the Parks five different events at five different Parks each part each event they get a punch on their passport and there's a free
activity to do and then at the end they turn it in and they get a polar explorers hat for free so yes so and that's already happening this summer so if you wanted to look at adding like an adult element to that in
some way or you want to see how that works or you want to like use that as a pilot it's already happening perfect um and so we could build off of that model and when you say community ed that's the North St Paul Maplewood Oakdale Community yes the youth programs
coordinator's name is Laura Greenley karp so if you wanted to connect with her she might be able to she might be able to help you contact information yeah she might be able to help you um with that and she could also connect you to The Adult Enrichment coordinator who
would love to be a part of that too yes yes yeah I love yeah so we'll we can get you connected with those people yeah doesn't some of this fall on their Evas stuff not necessarily not if it's going to be like a casual if it's a
casual thing doesn't have to be with the city yep obviously we would clue Ava in because she would be a partner in all the stuff that we're doing but she also is Extreme open to ideas and has told me herself that she has she wants to do like 8 million more things she's just
one person so she's excited about new events and stuff and people who are excited to bring us a partner as well exciting to have fresh ideas like goes back like remember they used to have like Fitness in the park that was like an outside club that would to and do I know like every Saturday it was huge
doing thata in a couple different yeah there's three different ones jazzer size yoga and pound pound me I'm a fitness instructor yes there you go we'll connect you Sarah fitness instructor
with exactly okay all right if nobody else has anything to add to their discussion portion um we can I make a motion to adjourn I second oh um any
discussion uh all those in favor say I all those opposed meeting adjourned