WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=uxgzqXbYrUA

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: uxgzqXbYrUA):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Called to Order; Minute Approval Discussion
- 00:02:55: Committee Housekeeping: Membership & Park Sponsorship Programs
- 00:04:10: Town-Wide Yard Sale Feedback and Future Improvements
- 00:05:52: Geocache Program and Open Spaces Committee Updates
- 00:06:56: Cleanup Day: Success Review and Biannual Consideration
- 00:09:35: Parks Director Update: Restructuring and Shared Responsibilities
- 00:13:47: Pickleball Courts/Tennis Courts and Pool Opening Plans
- 00:17:04: Founders Day Discussion and Fall Event Ideas (Halloween)
- 00:20:37: "Be Good, Do Good" Program, Christmas in July
- 00:22:51: Adjournment


Part: 1

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I'm going to call the meeting to order for Wednesday, May 13th. Starting time is He's just poking it in the wrong way. Uh starting time is 6:09. We're in the Barre Town Hall room.

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In attendance is myself, Brian Faria. Michelle Sparks. Justin Chekka. And we have Alicia online. Um We're having a little little bit of

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IT problems. She's in and out. We have approval of minutes for the 2026. I have the minutes for 2026. Yeah, somewhere. Hold on. Uh Actually, it's April minutes, not March minutes. March minutes I think we

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approved. But we didn't approve them before because Sure. We didn't have enough people here. All right. Give you a couple minutes to review the minutes. Well that's That wasn't intentional.

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You always talk in rhyme. >> [snorts] >> We don't hear anything from you, and then we hear a giggle. >> I'll email these to you. >> Perfect. Do you generally do? Yes. >> Okay. Where's the mic? Is the mic on the camera? Is the mic up there? >> It's up there. Our mic is right there in the

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ceiling, that green light. That big square. But there is a mic on the camera, yes? Also? All right. Motion to accept minutes from This is April. I'll second. All [clears throat] those

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approved or in favor, I. I. I. I. I. There we go. So, that's all four of us. All right, can I have my copy back? Yes ma'am. Did you sign it?

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Did you date it? No. I'll write the date in for you. It wants to be legible or you want it to be legible? Oh, we can see it now. Cool. So, here you go, Justin. That's the signed minutes. All right.

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Committee housekeeping. So uh how many of us that are there? Uh so, there's five. Okay. Mike, uh Kevin, Kevin O'Neal I've been doing that the whole time. Kevin O'Neal couldn't make it tonight and Emily could not make it tonight. Okay, so

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Emily's still with us, too. Yep. Um So typically uh you would go vote this stuff here, the Park and Rec Sponsorship Program, Do Good, Be Good, Geocache Program. Emily would handle the geocache unless you know anything about it.

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Uh cleanup day success. I think we kicked ass on that. I don't know if there's anything to talk about. Town-wide yard sale. Um I thought that was a huge success. Do you have any feedback or anything? >> Uh no. It did went It did go very well. Um you know,

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being the first time that I handled the paperwork on it and uh the data like I I probably plan it a little bit better next year, but it We had 40 participants and uh I heard a lot of positives. So >> Yes. I do have a suggestion moving forward for that.

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Um when I cuz I saw the map when it was sent out, my suggestion would be like So, I know that each house had a number and I'm assuming that number is based on like when like their order of registration. >> Yeah. I would try and group the numbers

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by neighborhood. Yep, understood. >> Yeah. That way they don't like Yeah, the list. You don't see like Brian Road, Brian Road, Brian Road. I feel like all of them are together. And I I totally get that. I Again, people came in last minute, so they got added to the bottom, but I I

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think moving forward, it can easily be done. So, good suggestion. Um I think given the success, I know we had talked about it. This was our second year doing it, right? >> Yes. Yeah, I think we had initially talked about investing in signage. I think maybe at this point in time we're

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seems to be getting better and better each year. And we next year, you know, review it. It'll stay in the minutes, but maybe we look into signage and maybe you know, hand it out and recoup them at the end of the day. We We did do that. Oh, we did do signage? >> So, we had we had enough then with the 40? Yeah, we bought uh Melissa ordered

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10 more before she left. Oh. There we go. Um So, good suggestion. Yeah. Apparently. Um Mhm. All right. Geocache? Is that Is that >> That's That's Emily's That's for Emily's

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program. >> Okay. Um I know she came and picked up some stuff I left for our bands and >> Okay, cuz I was going to say that at one of the last meetings we Melissa was going to get some stickers and wristbands to put in the geocache.

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>> She came in and picked all that up, so. I also know that um Emily went and spoke in front of the uh open spaces committee about having uh those guys assist with getting them out on the trails and stuff like that, so.

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I don't know where that went, but it's not the Um whenever it does go live though, too, we might want to put something on Facebook so that if there are the geos like especially along the new rail trail, people aren't mistaking it for trash and

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thinking that we're littering because some of them may not be familiar with what geocaching is. >> That's I will go on open spaces. >> Okay. Oh, okay. Cuz those are the guys that do the trail maintenance, so they'd they'd be the ones ripping it up, but yeah. Um I agree.

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Clean up day was a success. I think we talked about that last time, so. Yeah. Yeah, we had a lot of people come to the table in here. For clean up day? Yeah. Like I don't know if >> lot of people. I mean, a lot of people who hadn't even signed up. Yeah.

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Mhm. Yeah, we've got a lot of photo documentation of it. Um bigger and better next year. I I was going to ask is it something we want to try and do biannually or do you think it once a year is sufficient? I almost think a fall clean up might be nice.

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I like the idea of a fall clean up. My concern is that we're asking the sponsors for double payment. That's just my initial, you know what I mean? I was also thinking it would also would have been I I wonder if it would have

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been good at the same time as the the um the yard sale. Just as I was driving around this weekend, there was people everywhere. Like if you're out walking around like I'll grab a trash bag, but and that might just be my thoughts. But um yeah, I'd be I I'd love to clean up day.

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I'd be definitely interested in doing it two times a year. Alicia, thoughts? Yeah, I think a fall clean up wouldn't be bad cuz I mean like you're using the parks and everything all summer long. There's bound to be trash places. Yeah.

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Especially around the water. >> Bring it back bring it back up in the fall and see if everybody has an appetite. Yeah. Yeah, we'd want to want to make sure we do it once college gets back in. You know, Wheaton was a fairly big lifting force.

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And that would also be with the kids back in, so it'd be after summer break, but yeah. Yeah, maybe like a near like September or early October. All right. So we'll bring it back Jesus, it's May. I was going to say we'll bring it back up in June, but

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if we're going to do it, we almost got to figure it out now. I think if you If we talked about July and August, we'd have time. Yeah. All right. Revisit in July then? Yep. That was a good suggestion.

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Any other new business? Um not necessarily new under the parks director update I have a few things to talk about. All right. I think it's all you then. Um as you know program um

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previously the director position um is open. Um we're doing some restructuring internally. It's it's been posted as a program coordinator position rather than director. And that's something that doesn't need to be approved at town meeting? >> No.

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Is it a full-time position part-time? >> Part-time. Same thing. 30 30 something hours a week. Um it's under the Department of Public Works. Um we've already started interviewing. We

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had three interviews today with another two or three for the what rest of the week. So we do have some uh Who's doing the interviews? I am. >> Myself uh the HR personnel person and um um

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the assistant town manager. The assistant town manager Shannon. And that person's responsibilities would be the same or they're responsibilities shared? >> it'll be shared with me because you know partly in the in the idea of bringing the parks department under

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the Department of Public Works or the Parks and Rec under was was already going to be sharing the responsibilities. So that was the whole idea behind it was taking some of that um DPW already maintains

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the parks in general. So it was Melissa coming to DPW working together to try and get things done. Yeah. Having it under one roof umbrella kind of helps that collaboration. Like if you notice we've been out at every one of them already. Some of the things Melissa wanted to get done this this year um

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we're working on currently. Volleyball nets some um leveling of the surfaces, some resodding. Um we got uh a cleanup coming up on May 18th with the high school kids. Oh, so they're doing that for their senior day of service?

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>> Yeah. Yeah, both parks, Tricentennial and Everett Leonard. We've got quite a few there, so we're going to get a lot of good mulching done and some weeding and and overall cleanup completed so I just think the the mixture of the two together makes

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sense. So, yes, it'll take some of the budgeting aspect of that away from from this park program coordinator, having them focus strictly on programs and um you know, the everyday park running of

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the different things that we do along with the social media aspect, so Who's doing the social media now? Me. Okay. Yeah. Good job. >> budgeting would be combined? No. I I guess com- combined isn't the right

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way. Like, for instance, highway, water, and sewer are all under me, but they're all separate budgets. Parks would remain a separate budget. Okay. But instead of director managing the budget, you would

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manage the budget. Correct. Correct. In coordination with them. You know, before Melissa left, that was kind of the plan we were going to go forward with. We were going to kind of collaborate on that type of stuff anyway, so um I certainly do not want to be a program coordinator.

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Um so, it makes sense. Well, the parade is fun. Oh I I [laughter] look forward to taking part of it all. I just don't have time to Right. >> to do the everyday the everyday aspect of it, like the social media and and that kind of thing, but >> Deal with lifeguards who aren't showing

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up on time. Stuff like that. So, having said that, the pool will be open. We kind of went back and forth on what we're going to do will be of the the timing of of the vacancy, Um but I worked with some of the

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lifeguards that are coming back, the manager Olivia. We get the pool guy going to open it the week before Memorial Day. So um the hours of running it and what we offer at the pool may change a bit, but um

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overall we'll we'll hope for smooth sailing going forward. What is the target date? >> on the the pickleball courts or the old tennis courts at the middle school. Was anything still being done

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with those? Yep. Um That's on the warrant That's on the warrant article for town meeting on Monday, so hopefully pending the funding um again, I suggested we do portable courts rather than um

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re-trying to resurface those courts the tennis courts, which has some structural issues with them. I don't know if you've been up >> cuz her and I were talking about them a couple of times and she was hoping to maybe get half of them as like pickleball and then maybe the other half

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we could use it as like um street hockey because the middle school does have a hockey team and I was looking into a street hockey league um just because Franklin offers one, but it's so far away from our town and if we're offering hockey, why it would be

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like something nice to have. So that's definitely something we can explore. Uh the plan is to install six courts, so half of the tennis courts. That is correct. And it'll be something like you see up at Gillette when they do the out I don't know if you've been up there they have the outside pickleball

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courts. They're tiles that go over the court. Interlocking tiles. >> Yeah, so that first of all, if there's a uh a issue with the structure, and we can just remove them, right? Um Um But also

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I guess they've tried already to crack seal. They've tried to level that and it just keeps kind of sinking. So, um I think the portable ones will will will be the way to go. And pending the uh again the warrant article this this coming week I hope to

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get that installed by end of summer. That's the plan. Now, going back to the pool, what's the target date for opening it? Is it like the same cycle with the last day of

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school? Same kind of Yes. Uh so, it'll be opened a few days part-time the week before the last day of school. Please don't call me, but I think the last day of school was June 15th or 16th. I'm not positive. You guys might know better. day of school. Like I

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said, June 23rd is the last day of school. >> [laughter] >> Uh so, that week before I think the 19th, the Thursday and Friday it'll be open basically part-time. Um and then once school is over, it'll be open the full-time. Um

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We do have lots of rentals booked um both from before Michelle uh Melissa left and and since. Um basically all of July and August is pretty full with weekend rentals. Um and and a lot of weekends in June. So.

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That's the plan. And we always do pretty well on the rentals. Yeah, it seems like >> Not pretty well, we always book up. >> Yeah. It seems like it. Um I already mentioned the Northern High senior day. So, I think that's the updates I have.

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Unless you have any questions for me about anything going forward. I got nothing. Nope. All right. Nope. Other business not reasonable reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance. Anybody?

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Alicia, I know you got stuff. No. No, not today. We We have We have nothing to do with Founders Day, correct? Nope. Okay. No. No, the town does. What? But we But the Parks and Rec we does not. Okay. We as Parks and Rec chose not to. And

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I unless a whole group comes in here and wants to run a sub committee for Founders Day, I I just assume keep it that way. Yeah, no, they I've met with them from the from the town's standpoint. So, um again, the DPW and Parks and Rec mixture

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I think is going to bode well going forward. So, the town is a co-sponsor of it. Um but like you said, not this particular committee. Right. We don't want to hold a separate event in in conjunction with Founders Day. I think something in the fall, Brian,

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would be cool. Not at the same time as Founders Day, though? No, that's July. Right. No, that's in July. July or June? Um I think it's end of June but the VFW >> Yeah, it usually It usually coincides

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with the end of school. Yeah. Well, we could always revisit Frank's um um Halloween Monster Bash idea. I always thought that was good. Everybody follows the follows the parade down. As the parade goes, all the kids

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get behind it and follow it. We have a party at the middle school. Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, I always thought that was a great idea. And you know, fairly inexpensive. We have to throw the cost of a couple of janitors on top of it and

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um you know, we talked about different ways we make it profitable. Um I think selling pizza would you make a killing. All the kids eating sugar, sitting at the parade like they're just going to be throwing pizza down their throat and you have a DJ and you know,

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something like a monster mash. And I thought it was a great idea when he proposed it. But it would be our fall event. Oh, in coordination with the Halloween parade, that's huge. Right. Right. We need a coordinator just for that.

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Are you volunteering? You know. I don't know what you said. She just took her seatbelt off. You can tell she's getting ready. Yeah. No. If I could I would, but with the kids and their school stuff, I wouldn't

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be able to. Stay tuned. Yeah. Yeah, not with senior year this this fall. But yeah, I I We got that in in [clears throat] October. We're going to have the lighting of the green in December.

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Mhm. Do we have anything in November? No. No. No. So Vanessa, we could do a farmers market or something like that, like a craft fair. We could do like a craft fair or we could do something like giving back,

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like if we could like collaborate with like giving back like meals or something. Yeah. With someone. We could always work together with someone, but I don't know who. Um What is going on with the be good, do good?

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Are we still continuing that program? Cuz every month like most of it would be >> no comment to that. >> Okay. I I that's >> [laughter] >> sporting. Yeah, I know she did the sporting last month. >> the sporting. I think this month we're we're going collect for the animal the animal shelter. Oh, so it's something

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different every month? >> Every month was something different. She had a calendar. She had the calendar. I'll be quite honest with you, I haven't done anything with it for this month. Oh, I thought it was just the No, she did the prom dresses, she did sporting goods, she did Halloween costumes.

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>> to do something once a month. She did have a calendar set up. >> costumes are a huge hit. Yeah, we have to continue that. I mean I'm It was a little weird. She would have me try on all of the prom dresses that came in. And I'm sure you looked you looked beautiful in all of them,

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Brian. Brian, you're a beautiful bride. Always a bridesmaid for the >> [laughter] >> So, I can revisit >> And now you know the difference between a sweetheart neckline and A-line and empire. I can revisit that calendar and

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see at least what's coming up the next few months and see if there's something uh get it organized, but stay tuned. Yeah, we'll say I mean, don't quote me on it, that it there was like a Christmas in July to

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start collecting toys for the upcoming season and Well, September might not be a bad time. Again, we were talking about the fall event. September might might not be a bad time to do the fall clean after we do a spring clean, after we do a fall cleanout.

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Might not be a bad event. Again, get everybody together, see if we can get somebody to sponsor it. Again, we can revisit later. Yeah, revisit later. All right. >> need t-shirts. It's just trash bags. >> I'm a little afraid to ask, Alicia,

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anything else? Help. I've become the queen of anything else today. Come on. Um all right, motion adjourned. Second. All those in favor, I. I. All right.