you you you good evening and welcome to the Burnsville parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting for May 20th 2019 our first item of business is to approve the agenda from the previous meeting on April 1st 2019 are there any items that commissioners would like to add to the minutes from the previous meeting seeing none do I have a motion to approve those minutes second all in favor and it is so moved the second item is for citizen comment are there any citizens who would like to address the Commission this evening seeing none that will bring us to the next item of business which is a Parks and Recreation master plan update presented by hind camp Amber Jacobson and David Ayer doll map chair forgive me we are on a new agenda management system I believe the first item we missed is we have to adopt the agenda for this evening oh I did miss sorry I didn't mean to skip ahead I didn't know what you were looking at there okay we'll skip back to the the proper first item of the evening which is to a job adopt the agenda don't have a motion to adopt the agenda for the evening and a second again okay all in favor aye aye as well and it is so moved now that brings us to the proper fourth item of the evening which is that master plan update good evening commissioners I'm gonna start this tonight with an introduction and just a kind of a refresher on our Park and Recreation System master plan and that is just a I'm very excited about having our recreation staff here tonight to have the opportunity to present this information to you and give you an update on parts of the frameworks plan that are in the basically the last chapter of that master plan update from 2017 you may recall that the park and recreation system master plan was adopted by council 20:17 the plan contains a lot of work from the citizen committees citizen groups volunteers coming forward I think there were two or three different reviews by this commission and another work session on it as well and the master plan itself is not a document that is the park and Recreation Department telling the community what we were doing rather it's a document on the community telling the Park and Recreation Department's what they would like to see done over the next 10 to 15 years so they drove the process that finally came out like I said with ten focus areas that that make up our frameworks plan and in that frameworks plan there are recommendations and strategies for each of those areas you'll see tonight that we've accomplished some of those things and we've moved on and created some new strategies and in some areas we're still working to take care of those items that were listed in the original document in 20 and 18 when this commission was creating their annual plan you folks decided that you wanted updates on our master plan and how we're doing and you asked for those twice a year we did that last year and it was a little bit monotonous I had a big list of items and I ran through it as quick as I could and a lot of those items were already before you once or twice before with projects and things like that so I took a little different approach or we took a little different approach this time around and it's not often that this Commission gets to hear about what the Recreation Department is doing but we are going to take this opportunity to talk about a couple of things in the frameworks plan that really relate to the recreation department and the work that they're doing we're at a point in the recreation department where we've accomplished a lot of things over the past couple of years and we've also come forward this year with a few new and exciting programs that we want to use this place to to make a very public notice of the things that are coming up this summer in front of you now are the ten areas that the frameworks plan really came down to tonight we're going to focus on the three areas that again like I said involve the Recreation Department they are playing aquatics programming and demographics and revenue generation and I brought three of our recreation programmers tonight does that help talk about each of the areas they're going to come up and give a little bit about who they are in the area that they focus on and then they're going to give you updates on each of these areas so first I would like to bring out the amber jacobson and I believe she's going to talk about playing aquatics ever hello as JJ said my name is amber Jacobsen and my role within the department is to program for adults 62 and older I coordinate the cities volunteer program and also oversee some community and special events throughout the year another aspect of my responsibilities is to look at current trends in the recreation field this includes looking at the changing demographics in our community and adapting our programs and services to meet the needs of these demographics so as JJ mentioned here is our original recommendations and strategies and we have been working on those and have accomplished many of those as you know from being part of the nature play terrace oaks grand opening that incorporated the ropes and nature base play features were a big part of that and I believe that there was a presentation last month on the ad a accessible play features and playground that is going to be happening at Red Oak Park soon so before you is our the original set and now I would like to share some of the new strategies that we are working on there or that have recently been accomplished within play and aquatics unique playground being added to Wolf Park when looking at redeveloping the playground at Wolf Park there was a desire to incorporate unique playground structures that are not currently part of other parks within our system and this new playground will be going in this fall the ad a playground at red oak will be made possible from a donation from the Burnsville lions and currently city staff the School District and the Lions are working on a art together on a committee brainstorming on ideas of what this should look like we are currently working on the RFP and will be coming back for more feedback on design and with additional information on that the pickleball courts and Tennis Complex was reconstructed at red oak this past fall and there have been very popular there's a lot of play out there the shade structure was recently installed just last week which was another donation by the Burnsville lions and the courts again we have a lot of people playing out there and that is you know utilizing oops we have lights out there for night play and the newly constructed complex will allow us to expand opportunities for all demographics in the community currently we have programming for all ages with beginner pickleball lessons clinics and intro classes and we hope to add more things throughout maybe the end of summer into fall based on what we hear from people as they're playing out there the Rec Department will begin to provide beanbag boards a community event and at Crystal Lake Beach to give people additional opportunities for recreation weather out there there is a volunteer group that will be putting up the new baskets at the red oak disc golf course and that provides a unique play opportunity and encourages the more diversified groups in the park and then paddle board rentals were started last summer as another amenity at Crystal Lake Beach that can be utilized by the public next up is David O doll who will talk about programming and demographics thanks I'm David ur at all recreation programmer I've been with the city for just over two years now I oversee all the youth and family programs as long as as well as the special events that go on through the city such as flicks on the bricks on Friday night movies Thursday rock and lunch hours and I oversee a lot of the summer playground programs that go on Camp Explorer and kids have summer and things like that so one of the focus areas that I'm going to be touching on is uh programming and demographics and it's one of the areas that we are always looking to improve on and that's expanding what we are actually currently offering as well as looking for new and improved ways to engage our community a main component to this is simply just trying to get some ideas from community members and looking for ways we can keep up with trends and offering new fun things so here are the recommendations and strategies that we were sad that are established in the original parks a master pan original parks master plan again I would like to expand on these and share new set of strategies that we are working on or that we have already accomplished so with the purpose of the master plan which is prioritize programs to help our future development and redevelopment a major component of this is community vision and engagement we want to involve and attract many members with what is going on throughout the city as much as we can so with that there was a know your neighbor interactive work session focus on teens and tweens it was called it's a interactive work session at Diamond Head Education Center everyone was in the community and non community members were welcome as well and it basically was just a way to get an idea of what the youth want to see and it was very very successful we got to have really really deep conversations with some of the the teens we partnered with the YMCA is c19 one was involved there and it was it was a really good way not to just hear from you know the youth and in teens but also be there as a presence and just know that we are trying to get their input in things like that there was an annual celebration on the third Saturday in May so two days ago on May 18th it was kids to park day and we wanted to do something to kind of celebrate that day and what we did was we had a registration party for what for our summer programs so that's an opportunity for kids parents families anyone that wants to or who was at the park for that day and they can come and ask questions we have our staff out there that are doing it popping games activities answering questions we have fliers printouts and it's a good way just to to get people who are at the parks informed with what we're going to be offering and things like that and looking at trends in the recreation field many cities have been exploring with the idea of pop-up parks so this strategy can be a great way to revitalize areas in Burnsville that have been forgotten such as you know neighborhoods that there used to be some programs going out there it's a way that we can allow the public to tell us what where they would want some program so how we kind of have it set up right now it's our first summer that we're going to try this they're basically gonna reach out to us through email through me and and say one where they would like some pop in activities or games and what we will do is we'll have our staff maybe once a month a couple of them go out to these locations and just bring whatever that the public would like to see ball games crafts whatever maybe sports so it gives them an opportunity to you know if there's you know if if certain families can't get to certain places via transportation this is our way to come out to them and help out with that so it also gives community members just the opportunity just to express what they want to see all right new programs and events that we have been offering is our camp Explorer program we've been doing kids of summer program for some years now and I kind of wanted to create something more structured have an all-day program so you know parents can allow their kids to be active within the park system all day long so like I said camp Explorer is a new program we started last year last summer we had really positive feedback our registrations reach maximum which was 35 which that's what our buildings usually hold at our at our parks so this year we decided to expand the program and we are now offering at two sites instead of just one and that's gonna be at this debut and red oak so we're excited for that and we've had a lot of positive feedback and this started with a focus group that I did in 2017 and that's kind of how we learned that this is what community wants to see all day more structured along with having the option to do the normal kids of summer which is a little bit more free play and things like that this spring we offered a family event to celebrate the springtime we called it excellent spring adventure and that was hosted out here at the City Hall downstairs in our community rooms this event reached maximum at 80 registrations it was basically an event just to celebrate the springtime we had a Easter egg hunt outback that we coordinated we had an Easter Bunny for pictures face painting carnival games downstairs and we also had breakfast goodies for families so that went very well next year we plan on splitting the event into two separate sessions in order to bring in more people just with capacity purposes and things like that Friday night boogie I began last summer we only had one date saw that it was something that the community members really enjoy it and what Friday night boogie is is it's paired up with our movies in the parking we're gonna have Zumba before and then we also have entertainment along with in dance instruction so this year we're gonna have salsa night and we're also going to have a DJ one of the nights and basically just a dance party for anyone to kind of come to Nicolette comments park and just kind of have fun on a Friday night so what we saw is that it wasn't just older people coming we had a wide range of different ages we had young kids we had college kids show up we had some adults and it was just a good mix of all different you know types of ages and people so with that being said we decided to add a second date this summer so we're gonna have two and we're excited to see how that goes pickleball clinics like amber touched up on we have the grand opening May 30th so we are looking forward to accommodating that demographic and in putting on Maura or events and and things like that there these are just some pictures at the egg-cellent adventure you can see the Easter Bunny that's kids doing the egg hunt out back and then we have just some other pictures with the fishing and things like that so have you guys look at that I can see I will now pass it on to Scott you're gonna touch on revenue generation good evening commissioners and thank you for for allowing us to speak to you tonight and I know you guys get to listen to mr. Ryan all the time and so I'm sure it's sure it's nice to have a fresh face up here a little bit but again my name is Scott Heitkamp I oversee all of our adult athletic leagues all of our field scheduling field rentals I work as the city staff liaison two of our youth associations and I have done our warming houses for the past three seasons so I'm gonna speak with you guys a little bit about our revenue generation so what are the areas that we're we're always looking at in when developing our programs or continuing to develop our programs and services our ways to improve the program and ways to bring in additional revenue however however we can do that partnerships and sponsorships sponsorships are a great way to do that with local businesses throughout the community so we're always thinking of how can we how can we partner with local businesses to to enhance our services to bring in a different demographic to bring in more audience and more more participants to our programs so working with local groups and organizations to involve them in to work into our community programs to get them involved to get their business out there into and to also have a benefit on the city's end of things so it's a little bit of a win-win situation in which they can bring something to the table and then it benefits our program enhances our program and makes everything better in that in the long run so providing additional sponsorship opportunities that may not have been there in the past always looking at our sponsorship policies whether it's a whether the how big of the event is for example looking at looking at ways we can change the sponsorship titles to to bring in a more more appealing audience or to bring in a wider range of businesses throughout throughout the community so that they would would benefit from being a part of our event couple a couple examples of this are the Lions Club of course they've been a very generous partner with us recently the National Guard has has stepped up as well northern mighty longus has shown interest in sponsoring all of our adult leakes so working with them to to again have that win-win beneficial relationship with them a couple other examples Easton has has sponsored some of our softball fields at Lackland and then and at other local businesses as you know throughout the city again this is the original recommendations and strategies that were established in the parks master plan one thing I do want to say about the parks master plan is that you hear a lot about cities and communities going through the parks master plan process that gets stuck on a shelf you really don't hear about it ever since since I've been here we've always been circling back to to that parks master plan and looking at these frameworks and trying to figure out ways in which we can accomplish all these strategies and recommendations that have been established so our supervisors and staff have done a great job of putting that forth so one of the one of the the big ways in which we're looking at revenue revenue generation is increasing the opportunities for food and beverage renting in the parks the party on the plaza events that are coming up on June 6th and July 25th are huge ways of doing that we have 10 food vendors that are signed up for each of those dates and you know that range is anywhere from cotton candy and ice cream all the way up to a Philly cheesesteak that you can get so that's that's been great to bring in those again attractions to attract people to the parks and attract the the citizens of our city to our to our community facilities one project that I've been working on a little bit here is the looking at some underutilized field space that we may have in the city we've we have seen a little bit of some some underutilized fields that have gone whether that's a baton ball field that maybe he only has one practice on it throughout the year whatever that is looking at that field and trying to work with some youth youth associations on how we can better utilize that field and how we can increase rental opportunities we've already had a couple a couple instances with that this year in which we've had an outside group come in and say hey I would like to practice with my with my baseball team working where can we go so being able to work with them and finding a place for them to go is a has been a great thing program and rental opportunities as amber mentioned the new pickleball courts at red oak that expands the opportunity for rental revenue it expands the opportunity to to hold classes and clinics and tournaments maybe there's an outside group who wants to hold the tournament with us and that again is additional revenue that we can bring in an outside group into our facilities again with the with the red oak the disc golf new baskets coming in that may attract a a group to come and utilize our facilities so that they can so that they can experience the the new amenities that have reached in our parks advertising at our athletic complexes I the I mentioned Easton being a part at at or Lac Levon softball complexes reaching out to to other businesses that may reach out to us and try and figure out how we can incorporate them into our programs so if they can support us and we can support them as well an additional revenue through through new leagues we we established a a beanbags league this year which is something new it's a non-traditional sport that that we haven't seen so that's that's taken off a little bit so we've had what we have is an establishment of an an in-house league which is adjusting just focused on staying in Burnsville every week and then we have a traveling league in which we partner with other communities around us Apple Valley savage Egan Farmington Rosemont one listen take fill Lake fill there we go so we have all come together to to create a beanbag traveling League in which each week you go to a new community you go to a new park and you're playing the with the same same league and you get to experience a new Park and that that has 25 teams in it right now being a being that it's the first year is a tremendous tremendous feat for us so again that's just improves the opportunities for a just additional revenue throughout our programs oh this is also a this is also a picture a little bit of a flyer of our new beanbags leave that are on the left and then our Parks Department actually stepped up and helped us construct the beanbags boards they as you can see they took off and ran with that and created the highest quality boards that they could and they're absolutely tremendous so this it was a great way to incorporate them into our programs as well any questions from us three I'm just curious with all the activity at red oak is there a possibility for refreshments there refreshments well a food truck or another kind of refreshment vendor sure so I think I think we're always looking at again looking at expanding how we can increase bending you know into our parts and we have designated areas that had specific park locations in which we can have a food truck for example maybe there's a tournament that comes in and we can have a food truck come in and serve beverages or serve serve food whatever it may be so again that's another that's another way in which we can look at it on our end and expand and hopefully we can make that work so the you talk about the disc golf red oak have you done any research with that community that uses it pretty frequently there's always people on there there's a large flooding problem in the one corner I think one hole has been permanently under water for the last two years now so I don't I mean I think it has to do with like storm water right we've has pretty wet springs I don't know if there's a thought and like redesigning it so that they're able to use a hundred percent of it the other thing I noticed when I Drive by there is they use it a lot at night so what they do is they go out and they put their glow-in-the-dark I don't know anything about disc golf but I watch them do this glow-in-the-dark kind of apparatuses around the chains so when we're replacing the basket so it might be good to just check in with them because I think they use it in non-traditional hours too and they seem to have a lot of fun there's always giggling and laughing and that stuff so when we're we're thinking about replacing those baskets it might be good to just check in with that crew to make sure that we're we're meeting their knees so that they can maybe not have to spend time putting ropes through the chains and that type of thing sure so we have a very vocal and passionate group that that has have reached out to us as city staff that has expressed what they would like to see it at this course they have they have a lead on Thursday nights in which they pay to utilize our facility they have about sixty members of that league so I don't think they'd be too shy to reach out and to put together a list of recommendations of things that they would like to see happen as well perfect that's good cuz I know that they are pretty well cooker walking through they're just great they're very passionate I have a lot of fun out there so I wish I knew how to disco but we won't go there so my other question is the kids in the park day was this past Saturday and it was the same day as the open house for the maintenance facility and the same day as the native plant sale so as somebody that would have went to all three I could pick maybe two of the three and it seemed like there wasn't really it was really tough to try to make all three so I don't know what's going forward maybe some closer collaboration with like the the scheduling so that there's not so much overlap for those types of things I mean all three of those likely would be targeted to the same kind of group right I spent two hours sitting on trucks at the maintenance facility on Saturday so I really don't have time to go over to the kids in the park kind of events too so I don't know if some of that kind of coordination might be appropriate next year if you're thinking about it sure so I'm gonna have David come up here yeah so last year we headed out at all the sites yep registration party and this year the weather was pretty cold yeah so we actually decided to reschedule and we actually paired up with the touch-touch a truck some representatives and I had a table there and we were promoting our our programs and we had flyers and things passing out and opportunities for people to register for that so I did not see it and I was there so you know maybe some more visibility might have been good - yeah and our plan is to reschedule it closer to program start dates our program start in the 17th that's when most the program starts so we're looking to get our staff out to act the actual sites closer to the program start day which would be better for you know promoting that that type of stuff so yeah Fischer Newman last year was our first year our first attempt at participating in this national day of kids to park day and last year we took the approach that we would go out to our Park sites and invite people that come to us this year we had a little different approach in mind before the weather turned on but our approach this year was to we're still going to have a site at one of our locations where chose Vista view I believe right David so we were going to be at a location if people wanted to come to us but we were also going to go to the people so we have plans at being on site down at Clifton Park and we had plans of being on site over at Nicolette Commons because we know that any day of the week those parks have people at them but playing and participating so that was the original intention it was to be go to the people this year and I'm sure we'll keep that in mind as we go forward next year and participate in this National Day of kids to park great it's like one last question sorry I was reading about the pop-up parks you mentioned so help me understand that concept a little bit more so you're gonna ask the community members what they like to see and then you're gonna tell them what's gonna be there and then you're gonna let them know when it's gonna be there is that accurate yep so I'm working with the communications department right now two pieces together so they're gonna be Averett putting some promotional materials out there to get the word out that that's what we're we want to hear from the community members and my contact information is all gonna be on that promotion and we're gonna basically just take people's input and say you know see where they would like some of our staff to go out to and they have to you know give us reasons why you know they want to see us come to this certain area for you know whatever reason and once we look through everyone's or once we find an area that would be beneficial for that then we're gonna once a month we'll get our staff just go out there on a Thursday and for a couple hours and we'll tell them exactly what we heard from them and then we'll we'll further promote it once we have a plan for that okay great sorry I do miss that before yeah so it was just helpful to hear that extra explanation yeah and again it's a it's it's kind of a tryout summer other cities have actually tried this and in it's it's worked and they they now have their own truck that will go on and they have a schedule of their own and that will go up to the park so we're kind of seeing if this is something that community really wants to see and how it kind of works that's just a first summer so we're keeping it pretty simple at this point and then hopefully you know once people start to hear about it and becomes a good thing you know we can make it make it a reoccurring thing and get some form of schedule and you know things like that great Thank You commissioners our kids a summer program has been in place for many many years about twenty thirty some years I think it is and over the over the last recent years we've started to pare that down just because the numbers in enrollment didn't match or didn't make sense to have three staff at a site for a handful of kids that were coming to the program we know that there are still kids in neighborhoods but we no longer offer a program and that play North River Hills comes to comes to mind and so I'm hoping that they'll be one of the neighborhoods we target to say hey tell us what you want would you be willing to come out on a Thursday and maybe try to revitalize our programs as well as again bring a program to those kids that are being underserved maybe so when you're doing that type of targeting are you plan on doing like geo-tagging that type of thing in that particular area for like you know like Facebook Linkedin those types of things in terms of like trying to get to that population or are you thinking like just general Facebook I didn't know if like because of the fact that you're you're really targeting a smaller area or smaller geographic area some of this geo taking that they use and like conventions so I'd actually be super effective for trying to get to that particular group of people that you're trying to target that type of technology might be better explained by our communications department and how we would go about that but we do have the capability when we're doing a project in a park we're able to identify the neighborhood within 300 or 500 feet so we would use whatever mechanism that is to again identify those those families in that neighborhood great sounds exciting I think that's the end of my list still don't know other commissioners questions/comments that's a self comment it's been a fun hearing all the exciting stuff happening I know I'm gonna try out the yoga at Crystal Lake Beach this summer thank you and for me just a general comment that kind of goes across the board I'm very encouraged by the efforts to increase visitation to the parks and offer extra vending opportunities in the parks so I hope that with that we are matching the opportunities for the citizens to properly recycle or put in the trash or compost the extra waste that will be created from all the extra visits and that's a good problem to have so making sure we have proper receptacles that are overflowing or going to help to meet the ends and outcomes of another one of our environmentally sensitive goals that we have for this commission so just a general comment about that if there's nothing else from commissioners rjj I would think the I think the presenters for their time and and for your presentations and there's no formal action required here so that brings us to an end of that agenda item thank you that does bring us to the fifth item on our agenda which is miscellaneous and we have staff commissioners the Minnesota Recreation and Park Association it's a organization that our department belongs to is gonna recognize the city for their work with Archer Park in the new park down now they're for archery that recognition will take place at the council meeting on June 18th at 5:30 p.m. all of you are welcome to attend again that is a project that you accepted input on you part of the project you've been there you've seen it and now here's the excitement part of it you know the work that we did is being recognized for it for the work that it is so you've heard that the grand opening of the pickleball courts at red oak is going to take place on May 30th it's a Thursday night amber is going to lead that charge and we have planned a few matches between our police and fire department they are also doing a community cookout so all are welcome to attend and I don't know if they're cooking hamburgers hot dogs or what they're cooking but please please attend commissioners I think we've got a role for you there as well helping out in all areas passing out additional park maps or trail maps or providing answers to two questions that anybody in attendance might have so we hope that you all attend and be part of that grand opening as you've done the last two or three big grand openings we've had so and then the last note is that our parks next car parks Commission will be a short turnaround will be on Monday June 3rd I think at that meeting we have an update on our annual state of the lakes and I believe that deer management plan as well so short turnaround way back on June 3rd Thank You JJ for that extra report I'm sorry honorary calendars now that does bring us to the end of our formal meeting agenda been do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so move and a second second all in favor okay and I as well it is so moved thank you for attending or watching the Burnsville parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting