you you good evening and welcome to the November 18 2019 parks and natural resource meeting first item today evening is to look at the adoption of the agenda commissioner staff do you have any comments changes from staff okay then we'll move on to approve over minutes we have minutes from June 3rd August 19th and October 7th staff commissioners any comments or changes madam chair commissioners can I jump in here for a second just explain the backlog of minutes so we had our meeting in June we did not have a regular meeting in July so the June minutes got pushed to August in August we had a work session so we didn't approve any minutes at that meeting and then when we got to September again we found ourselves without a meeting we got to October and we were starting on a new software system for our agenda management and somehow somewhere our minutes got lost in space and they weren't attached on last month's agenda so we are here tonight with the backlog of minutes and I would ask you either approve those all as one if you see fit or if you see something that needs to be changed we can approve them date by date okay thanks JJ commissioners are there any additions or changes to the minutes all those in favor all those in favor okay we'll move on then next we can look at citizens comments I'm are there any comments from citizens be none will go on to item fourth of the evening and we're gonna talk about sustainable winter maintenance practices and Jeff Radek welcome and we're looking forward to hearing about this during commissioners thank you for having me this evening jeff Radek assistant public works director I oversee operations and maintenance probably haven't been here for over a year so so I'll give you a little induction all all operations and maintenance under me you mostly often see me parks renovation CIP pride is mostly what I come to the Commission for but tonight we're talking about what we do day to day in public works and as you see out on the roads and give you a little background into that and understanding of what we're doing and hopefully you understand it's a it's as sustainable as we can get and opportunities we have for improvement and things along those lines so I'll be throwing a lot of information at you and if you have any questions just jump in I probably I'll probably address it later or if it's not in my presentation I'll take it right away otherwise we have a place at the end for questions as well I broke our discussion down into six parts basically the demand for services and the practices that have evolved to suit those demands for services for one your maintenance preseason activities that we that we take on to get ready to respond to snow and ice and with best management practices also event planning as that goes into as we go into each event how we prepare for the event to make sure our practices are suitable for the event and the conditions that are presented for each event and also in event activities the active activities that we take on and the adjustments we take on as we as we're in this snow or ice event to maintain the best practices possible and get the most most bang for the material we are putting putting down and also this discussed a little bit chlorides in our waters how that has been Minnesota is leading the country and understanding of chlorides in our waters and how our winter maintenance practices have a have the effects on animals and then also what what are we gonna see in the future what's on the horizon for snow and ice control and chlorides in general approximately thirty years ago snow and ice control was looked at as essential essential public service but we were doing it trying to be as cheap as we could do it in those days we were you we were down to following once after a storm using just sand or salt and sand combination and approximately it depends when you when you see it approximately 25 to 30 years ago we saw the social and economic demands for same-day services bare pavement those things come along the lines and as it's evolved now today we will get grace probably on one commute first no a nice event but if the signal is not off for the next commute we're in trouble phones will be ringing nonstop at that point so that that's kind of where the demand for services has gone from and then gotten to and I as some of you may know I started off in engineering in Burnsville probably fifteen years ago even more than that probably close to twenty years ago and in those days we did pond clean outs and in those days there was sand Delta's in our ponds at the I thought Falls of all the all the storm sewers and now today we we hardly ever see that it's much more natural erosion that's causing Delta's on the ends so I've seen the progress since my time here that we are making so the old saying and snow and ice control if you threw sand salt mixture you you'd never be wrong you'd always have the right right material for the conditions but you'd also never be right okay you never you never have the right application of materials I would be over applying one and not applying enough of the other kind of as the as the saying goes in the mid-1990s I'll probably date myself but better living through chemistry if you understand if you understand that slogan that is pretty much what happened to the snow and ice control industry in late 90s to early 2000s it's can we can we do this better with with chemicals and can we can we meet the demand that we that's requested by the citizens and uh well we probably weren't ready in the mid late mid to late 90s early 2000 we probably weren't ready the industry probably wasn't up to the stuff um so we started at that time we started throwing straight salt which pretty much that's kind of what we call it going to straight chemicals and where chemicals are effective and going to straights and when just our braces are are effective some things we we didn't know at that time I mean application was as best as Juno noted on the plow driver you know some and I think what you got to was we were way over applying chemicals when we first went to straight salt as you can see by the by the dead grass on the boulevard there you usually don't see that anymore if you if you do now it's we really we didn't do our due diligence so but that was pretty common as when I first went to straight salt we kill boulevards and things along those lines and I think in in the effect we were we were probably over at the at the time when we knew salt and sand mixture so if you when you took away the salt or we even took away the sand we were probably over applying salt by double and from what we can get to today with different techniques we were probably half as effective with what we were throwing so you can when we first changed to a straight salt you can say we are down about four times in our application rates from what they were that 25 years ago so we knew we were doing bad we were killing boulevards and this is the first time that you know chlorides came in into our waters and we realized hey we're not doing good here and the whole industry in itself did a major self correction application of chemicals instead of just Joe snow plow driver Joe knowing the right rate of chemical for your street or the main nicola avenue or or your cul-de-sac we go to application or gates and application charts and we actually calibrate the you know see one of the pictures calibrating the spreader to a pounds per Lane mile and then also the technology helped us out quite a bit we've got automatic ground speed controllers no longer dependent on the snowplow driver to turn off the sander as it as he comes up to a stoplight it automatically does it for him starts again when he starts moving then I think our understanding of of the process and how it is evolved as we understood it was not the straight salt that we were throwing on the on the street that made the that made it effective it was actually the combination of the salt and the moisture that was coming down to make the salt brine as it was effective and we got to you got to the point or the industry got to the point that hey can we make salt brine and apply it to our roads basically short-circuiting the whole process that it needs that we need to get to salt brine which is the stuff that actually gets underneath the ice and gets it from by not binding with the road so that industry is that industry is taken off probably in the last 10 to 15 years and you still see some people are it's not not super effective in some situations so some people are still holding out on it burns will adopt it probably both mid-2000s 2005 2007 somewhere in there and we've been on it ever since and it's more of a preventative maintenance technique we are down to a third or a sixth of the application rate of dry salt when we're using salt brine but it does have its limitations its temperature and humidity sensitive you can actually freeze salt brine to the roads you don't want to do that so you have to know what you're doing and you end up hauling a lot of water and if the snow event comes as freezing rain first you've lost all your chemical on the road so it can all be lost and that also can be costly I can tell you a anti-ice event on our mains probably cost the city 10 to $15,000 so we usually don't want to throw that if we know we're gonna get rain on the front of the event so that's why you know hey this is super effective why don't we see more of it that's because we're not trying to we're not trying to lose anything and then we've also got on to pre-treating of salt so this isn't mixing the wet and the dry together mixing the salt brine and the salt together it starts the reaction quicker and doesn't and it kind of gets away from the side effects of having to haul a lot of a lot of a lot of water with you we can haul water and salt you see the the site saddles side sail tanks on the dump trucks nowadays most versions of trucks have them that's holding salt bearing and we're mixing the salt brine in the spreader at the back of the they see the back of the dump truck is this is the spreader that's where we we're mixing probably ten gallons to a ton of salt so so we're mixing it up in the spreader is going down the road and you can kind of see the inside of the dump trips have become a lot more complicated nowadays to be able to handle that but it's also really effective if I was gonna say I had to throw it throw a handful of salt at you would you take dry salt or would you take what salt most everybody would take dry it close their eyes and understand it was sting a little bit but what still sticks to the road and that's that's pretty much how we how we use almost everything and then it also pre wet pre-treating pre weddings about the same thing pre-treating you can actually let it dry and use it in the dry form or you can pre wet within the truck it's both about the same thing but it allows us to run different chemicals with the salt so sodium chloride straight rock salt that's the white salt you see quite often you see MnDOT using blue salt blue soap is usually mixed with calcium chloride usually drops down the drops down the temp effective temperature of the salt at that point and then you see the green salt which is magnesium chloride treated salt that drops the temperature even farther down so we're using a mixture of all of those sometimes one events using one technique sometimes an event is using all techniques that we have in the toolbox kind of preseason activities we break up we see it as material management talent management and equipment management we buy our we buy salt both rock salt which is straight sodium chloride and treated salt off the state cooperative purchasing contract they combine a lot of the cities and counties together and within the state and they bet it for lowest cost and we buy off that contract and we and we store it at the Public Works facility on 35e and County Road 11 we only do have one hour haul times are not too bad for being the one city so we don't need salt dumps in various locations so we store it on-site it allows us undercover so we're relatively relatively good for material management as if you watch the council meetings before we had to ask for more money for salt we usually budget for the average winter and we had two winters that were not average way above average and we requested additional money for salt for this year and now yeah but we called salt barn salt building is full ready for ready for this winter so we also do Talent Management Public Works is a lot of learning on the job before and it still is but we do a lot more their classroom education simulated training and some actual and event training we have a street crew leader whose job specifically during the all events is training and that's and that's everything that's from driving the vehicle safely not hitting curbs and cul-de-sacs to application rates and what's effective when and letting them understand what we're trying to get to it which is hauling and throwing the least amount of chemical we need to make the road safe and also equipment management getting that equipment back up and running for a lot of it hasn't has not been hooked up to the trucks all summer and we're in a very corrosive environment I think your cars really bad some of our trucks are seen to see the worst of it we're out in every aisle all day long and so we need to get that those trucks calibrated to the salt that shows up for that year obviously it would depend where the salts come in from its mind and different location has different texture different qualities to it so we've calibrate the trucks to the salt that shows up and getting that equipment basically through the shopping and ready to go for the season so this event planning what we do were we look out we look out basically on a weekly basis and then we run we start getting more active on the three to five-day window before an event now we do have a private weather service number one question I get asked are they any better than regular weather man no not really but they do give us the information we need things like you know how is the precipitation and come down we're more concerned about pavement temperatures and we are about air temperatures you know what's the humidity going to be precipitation types inches per hour and we're looking at on it on a city level so we can make city level decisions instead of you know a lot of a lot of them are based on the metro area for commercial weather services so it does help us when we wouldn't give it up but I don't think they're any better than anything else if anti-icing is plan to be effective you'll see that 24 to 48 hours before and and it's usually the window you can get it to stick to the road and still be effective after that you're losing you're losing some of it and then we we all said we're talking three to five days of talking staffing plans timing of the event we're going to need people on both commutes we're gonna have to split the shifts what are we going to need to do to respond to that event and output and our application plan what are the temperature is going to be for that event what material coincides with those temperatures for applications and are we looking at is there going to be one type of application are we going to change it in midstream quite often though the worst time of day is that morning dawn commute oh it's the coldest temperature we have no sunlight and I'm going to tell you nine times out of ten we're going to glaze over with ice for that morning commute and there's just nothing we can do about it so but we are gonna we're gonna use much practices as we can get to be effective at that time event activities we usually have a supervisor in several hours before each event and we usually have somebody in public works in the city or at the facility through the event till it's done we also have police and fire and technology that can help us out quite often we get these you know I think today was 20% chance of freezing rain never has developed yet but I know I can get up in the middle of the night and I can check the check my phone and see cameras and Burnsville and her Street supervisor can do the same thing and we also have a police and fire who are here to help us out and they say that they'll call us until night tell us that 20% actually happened and then you know we have he probably can't see the chart very well but the chart is basically a temperature weather conditions precipitation and what's going to be effective in those situations and that's pretty that's kind of how we how we go along based on on the predictions and then we'll start adjusting from there you know if it's warm or if it's colder than it then it was going to be will change the application rates and I see the little picture and the thing is a pavement temperature we have those in the trucks in the airport back pavement temperatures as we're going so we can adjust to be effective not throwing we don't want to throw any more salt than we need to first it more salt we need to do more time it takes us to be out there and get the event over with and also it's you know it's harmful to the environment so we want to be as effective as we can with the least amount of material that we can be so we are adjusting as we can go cards in our bar as I said MPCA is probably in the country and the understanding of chlorides in the waters they do have seven County Twin City metro area TMDL four chlorides and they're testing for chlorides there's no we haven't met any TMDLs in Burnsville for chlorides the yes the TMDL total maximum daily load okay so it's the concentration of chemical that happens in the water on the daily basis obviously chlorides if they're running off the roads that's in the spring of the time of the year when that's gonna happen we don't have any of that are hitting the limit that they've defined for effects to the waters closest thing we have is Thompson lake in West st. Paul I believe in nine Mile Creek in Bloomington so chlorides inner water it's much it's much more understanding than just municipal and public snow and ice control public snow and ice control is actually less than 25% of the whole snow and ice control industry so that 75% is actually on the private side so what do you do to get those people understanding it's basically down to education training and certification we've done some really wonderful things as you see episode 11 of sustainability meant one of the first ones was winter sustainability tips that we that we did for salting on your driveway and understanding how much you need to be effective there and not over something MPAC MPCA has also done operator certifications you can do operator certifications for roadway people you can have good operator certifications or parking lot and sidewalk people and we were starting to see it you could drive by burns asunder and you see those salt piles covered up with tarps that's very good yeah we don't know I'm not losing any of it to precip in the old days we just we we knew we'd lose someone we just left it out there and we and did what it did and we were not that way anymore and I just drove by yesterday I believe a Township a townhome association had salt and plastic barrels by each group of units that they're doing that so we're getting we are getting to the private side and they're adjusting their practices as much as we are and more and we're getting there and I think everybody's doing it better through the picture of the street sweeper cup you can see us now if we if we get melt the gutters in March we'll start street sweeping to get that material back up before it becomes mobile and starts going into the storm sewers so everybody is adjusted their practices to help before the chlorides get into the waters unfortunately chlorides are much more complicated than just snow and ice control you have missing municipal wastewater actually the three creeks in Scott County there are contributed to private water softeners going through the wastewater treatment plants wastewater treatment plants aren't decided to get chlorides out of the water and though and the groundwater in that area most of most of all the cities are on groundwater and the farmers it sorry farmer not gonna contribute to the streams usually but they're gonna salt soften all their water it's not municipal eise often and so everybody's gonna have a water softener at home that backwash is chlorides down down the sewer system and goes into the streams so those three streams in Scott County are not actually contributed to snow and ice control those are contributed home water softeners and you also get chlorides from natural decomposition of soils and minerals and things along those lines and you also get fertilizer runoff most of the most commercial fertilizers are 50 to 75 percent salt so they're all most of them are salt based so as you as you're trying to get phosphorous out of fertilizers we're trying to be as conservative as we can be with fertilizers in general because they are salt based what we're going to see in the future you're probably going to see the routes that are closed to brine machines are going to probably go all liquid and when we can get those turnaround times to be equal to our are straight salt trucks you probably see certain routes go to liquid the only you see gps-guided snowfalls that stuff is coming if you're ever familiar with the farming community sometimes they they can bury their fertilizer right underneath the crop rose right underneath their future crop rows with GPS technology so obviously that stuff's gonna come to the municipal and we're going to be able to apply salts right down the driveway even when the drive lanes covered up and you can't see it so now it's coming also autonomous snowplows are coming states are you see those foul trucks or those crash trucks on the interstates they are actually testing out on top of this crash trucks that fall a truck in front of them so initial on following orc and implying is you see it many trucks going down the highway at one time I we're gonna quickly see one of those probably be a ton of autonomous following the one in front of it or the one behind it connected to both of them and one of the challenges we're really we're really sitting now is on-demand snow and ice control services you can do download an app on your phone and you can get somebody to follow your driveway in place so salt to your driveway and have to have no education no certification no insurance they don't have to be anything so that that really concerns us the private industry is going in the right direction and we don't want this on-demand services to interrupt what we're seeing in the private industry any other questions yes well you plow a lot of paths out there first day Monday morning but is there any follow-through on those trails to make sure that as well as it can be yeah so we I mean we will go back with our two to three days later and and check them and but if you do notice and trails and paths are our second priorities for us so we asked you do the service request if he if you know if there were two days out and you haven't seen it yet or it's just been broken open that hasn't been cleaned up give us a service request and we'll fit those in and as we close out an event and go to another one we'll fit that work in and any of that we only salt and sand and trails and sidewalks in the heart of the city further for the council policy when we get really bad events yes we will we will play with chemicals on to make sidewalks safer has there been any conversation about moving to more of an a state or adding that in at all uh currently acetates are are expensive they're mostly used on the airport side of things if they get their prices down and it becomes more available yes but right now it's not economically sustainable at least for us any other questions commissioners thank you that was very informative it's come a long way from when I was younger and you could ice skate on your row thank you for having me thank you okay next on our agenda is our sustainability update we are gonna hear from sue bass thank you good evening I'm sue bass environmental specialist and sustainability coordinator for city of Burnsville I'm happy to be here this evening I'll be talking about a few things for different things tonight updating the sustainability guide plan that's something that were in the process of doing right now also the climate adaptation plan talk a little bit about that and briefly talk about the 2018-2019 sustainability dashboard and that's activities that city of Burnsville has completed during the last year and a half about and end with the sol smart program updating the sustainability guide plan originally the guide plan was adopted by the city council in 2009 and we have been working to complete a number of the strategies and activities we've completed some of the goals and that acted in that plan and so now we're looking at what's next how do we work help the city move forward and sustainability for the about the next ten years the city has hired a consultant services of pale blue dot to assist the city and develop beingness update and the updated plan will be aligned with pertinent planning documents and identify next step sustainability strategies I just had to throw this picture in of Laura she is our Minnesota green Corps person we applied to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to have someone from Minnesota green Corps and that is part of AmeriCorps so it is a person that's working to help us with sustainability and recycling at no cost to city of Burnsville and she'll be with us for the next 11 months what we've done so far in the update for the sustainability plan we've reviewed the original acai plan and as I said looked at things that we've already done we've completed things that has technologies that have changed and it just isn't pertinent anymore and then also things that we that are new and we need to look at in 2009 Eevee charges electric vehicle charging stations weren't but we didn't even hear about them now they're coming online quite a bit we conducted initial community outreach and I'll talk a little bit about the outreach in a few minutes we looked at a community baseline assessment taking a look at valle neural populations light noise tree canopy cover kinds of things so took a look at all that and we were we are we have worked with the employee sustainability team and are continuing to work with what is the sustainability team and as employees from different departments that come together and talk about all the different sustainable activities and this is so there will the team will help us figure out the strategies and actions plans for this new plan and then we have reviewed the process with city council and now the PNR see so what we will be doing in the future is assembling a stakeholder group so outside of employees will look at different groups that would be interested in working with us to develop the sustainability plan we'll develop goals strategies actions and then put together a draft sustainability plan and then we'll have the community react to that draft plan and see what their reactions are responses and then we'll review the draft plan and the out what the responses of the outreach will review that with the City Council and again with the PNR C and then finally refine and finalize the plan so I just go through some of the areas of focus that we are intending to look at when we make this plan land use transportation renewable energy buildings and efficiency community health solid waste ground cover and that ground cover does include forestry it's and pavements you know what is the ground cover for city of Burnsville and how do we want to deal with it there was a water local food access fleet and equipment so the community survey that we've done we have currently we have had 208 responses which is very good for a community survey there have been surveys and other cities that there's 2530 responses so 200 is very good we're thrilled with that and in that survey what it showed was that the top concerns for sustainability is clean and reliable drinking water reduction of landfill waste reuse and recycling high quality Park facilities and programs improving stormwater man attachment and watershed increasing the health of Burnsville trees and reducing energy consumption so those were the top concerns from the responses that we received and over 80% of this respondents were concerned are very concerned about climate change over 91% which is really surprising to everyone that has seen this over 91% of respondents reported being personally impacted by climate change so if you're interested you can still take the survey and it is that pale blue dot Burnsville sustainability survey so and I can send that out ok all right is it also in the city of Burnsville website yes it is yes any questions on that section I'm updating the sustainability guide plan commissioners any questions no no ok great the climate adaptation plan and I just thought I'd take a minute to talk about mitigation versus climate adaptation mitigation is when it's what we do to keep climate change from getting worse so that's to mitigate it and that's basically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and that has in the past been associated with sustainability climate adaptation is okay we're experiencing climate change and this is how we need to adapt or create a resilient community so they're that they're separate they separate issues are separate ways to deal with climate change but many of them cross over and so we are going to be including a lot of those a lot of the climate adaptation kinds of strategies into the sustainability plan and the plan this climate adaptation plan is excuse me partially funded by an MPC a grant and also the consultant that is doing the sustainability plan is also doing the climate adaptation plan so it makes a easy way to combine the two the next thing I want to talk about is the 2018-2019 sustainability dashboard and so I think first so this picture is at the food truck rally and that was minimal waste events we've collected organics and we asked that the vendors signed an agreement that they would provide compostable materials so that everything could be composted put into the organics and that or recycled so that event plus the back to 80s car show and party on the plaza those who are all events that had compostable materials and so we were pretty excited about that and we're hoping as we move forward there'll be more of the events that will be minimal waster zero waste electric charging stations as I said this isn't something we thought about in 2009 but we have put in three stations a to two of the stations have had the ability to charge two cars so it's actually five electric charging stations and they're all around hoc heart of the city - in the ramp - in the deck and one across the street at a parking lot all electric fleet vehicle so we purchased a vehicle can be plugged in and for code enforcement Department and very excited about that - there's an electric line marking robots which is was very interesting that it reduces not only gas but labor costs are reduced as well and it stripes athletic fields sue by chance do you have any video that or a picture of the robot I don't it's update next no I couldn't get the video to work it's a cool little thing it is yeah so electrification of Transportation and equipment which is great for reducing greenhouse gas emissions okay Ochs of anna restoration again this was I put this on the first slide I think amazing to me that's quite quite a difference and that's at Terrace Oaks taking out the buckthorn and allowing the habitat of and proceeded it was seated with natural gas grasses and wildflowers so that wildlife can back in and also it's a good place for young Oaks to flourish we are right in a grant right now that will can we'll try to continue to keep it that way it's like a Phase two so we can do prescribed burns and things like that okay so water conservation yes that's an interesting program so we in this last summer 2019 summer of 9 20 19 we offered rebates of up to $200 to residents who installed WaterSense approved irrigation smart controllers so that helps reduce our use of water and commissioner you have I was going to continue that program I did talk to the water person about that and it depends upon finances I think except that we have such a wet summer your watering system anyways so I said now do I want to invest that this year but in a subsequent year it might be you might get a lot more takers I think they're gonna look into that it's budgetary concern and I think they did were able to get some kind of a grant maybe for this so if they can do that again good point though it was really what year 59 homeowners did take advantage of that rebate program and I was going to say to pumping water for city of Burnsville pumping water is that's where we use the most electricity of anything you think it's buildings or something else but pumping water is very energy consumptive I didn't realize that and then the comprehensive 2040 comprehensive plan there is a lot of sustainability measures that are put into that that was put into that plan and we are going to be looking at that as well when we develop the sustainability plan so those plans mesh and yeah I think that is if for that dashboard and what did not get into the dashboard that happened this just recently is that city of Burnsville has received a bronze designation from the National soul smart program and it recognizes Burnsville for taking steps to encourage solar energy growth and remove obstacles so it reduces the barriers that people see to put solar on their homes or homes or in their backyard or wherever so the steps that we've done include a solar handout which is all these are on the website a solar residential permit checklist and then a solar inspection checklist and then there is also staff training about trained on different aspects of solar and residential putting solar in residential homes ok and there's our electric vehicle so and the electric charger only people are standing in front of it you can see it any questions I see that the recycling people have been doing a lot on Facebook and it really looks like they're making real headway in getting people to aware of recycling thank you so much I know this staff recycling staff work very hard at the take over for Burnsville Facebook take over and have some fun with the two so yeah we they are trying very hard to use the different forms available social media forms available for getting out to the citizens Thank You mr. Donaldson I would echo that in that over the summer they were out at party on the plaza and at the food truck rally walking around educating people searching the garbage cans the recycling cans the sustain of the compostable garbages and trying to sort it out as they went throughout the day and that can make for a really long day but they did a great job of it thank you so much appreciate it I assume that there's plans than to go from the bronze to the silver program a very good question commissioner we we worked hard to get to the bronze and I know there's always that other goal to get to so I think in the sustainability plan if it's appropriate I think that's one of the things that I would like to see perhaps in there is looking different ways to get to the next level and that soul smart program I think that's a great idea and I'll write that down any of their questions or comments thank you thank you appreciate it okay our next item will be a update on the Parks and Recreation master plan and JJ Ryan will be discussing that with us good evening commissioners this is an item that we put on our work plan last December and you asked that we review the accomplishments and the projects twice a year so this is the second time that you are getting this information hopefully back in May we hopefully from the May meeting until the November meeting there will be different information but hopefully it's all been good information so just to back up a little bit because then we do have some new commissioner it weren't with us in May we're gonna talk about the ten areas they're identified in the parks and recreation master plan that came up with the areas of focus called the frameworks plan these are recommended recommendations and strategies that have kind of set us out on a path for improvements in our Parks and Recreation programming and planning currently this year we've been working on over 35 projects and as I said you've asked to hear updates on those projects twice a year here are the ten areas that are identified in a frameworks plan I don't know that I need to read those for all of you as they're up on the screen in front of you but these kind of cover a broad spectrum for us and our Parks and Recreation Department and I think we've got at least one or two items in each of these areas that we've been working on throughout the year so as I said before the frameworks plan is a tool it's a guide to help us along to plan for the future and usually when we come across a bigger project we then come to you for your feedback and your input on the on that project or that plan or program the goal of the frameworks plan is to help the park and Recreation Department fulfill our mission of enhancing community through people parks programs and facilities so the first area and our focus and our frameworks plan is high quality natural areas yet here's the strategic statement that was put together by our consultants when we created the plan in this area a lot of this work comes from our Natural Resources folks and Caleb Aisling in particular the alum treatments at Wood pond and a Keller Lake you can see some of that was done late fall last year while there's a plan for next spring 2020 he's been working on grants to control invasive aquatic plants at Keller and Krista Lakes he's expanded buckthorn control efforts and a number of areas including early lake and crystal lake west you may recall I know Commissioner Cleveland we talked about it a little bit the discovery of the is it the rust rust patch bumblebee during one of our native plant restorations and some of our different parks we completed a second year of the prescribed goat grazing at Civic Center Park and we explored a new project called edible gardens in our city there it is rust patch bumblebee here in Burnsville and what presentation wouldn't be complete without picture of those beloved goats there they are they were out at Civic Center again this year in that same area and again once again a great attraction not only are they very efficient at what they do but a great attraction a great educational piece for the schools around the area our second oh sorry Commissioner Donaldson well so they're going back to the same place year after year are they effective at eliminating the buckthorn or are they just cutting it down great question commissioner Donaldson I believe they are effective at eliminating it but it takes a few years to continue to maintain that and for the new growth to start the growth that they will not eat well they choose not to eat so but I'm not familiar with the number of years that we need the goats back in one particular area in order to be effective the next focus area we have is our trail trail centers and connections this might have come on board we might have heard about this late last year that the the Lake Marion green ray Greenway project we've heard about it quite a bit but that self segment I'm sorry the north segment the rolls Bluff segment is complete that goes from Williams drive up to Kramer Nature Preserve the south segment is the part that we were working on earlier this year as it runs through Kelleher Park and so that's we're hoping yet that that's a anticipated construction of 2020 2021 somewhere in there and then the other piece I have here is a parks finder map it's it's available on our city's website it's a little bit different than the mapping system we've had before but first here's the here's copy of the trail that shows the completed section and a picture of that was taken I believe it was a late fall last year so not all the growth has come back in yet but you can see it's completed and we had to do a number of switchbacks just to get down that hill at a reasonable grade and then here's that park finder map you can see all the parks identified with like it looks like a Christmas tree and a green circle as well as our Park and recreation facilities identified in those gold colored circles now this is just a snapshot of the webpage it's not the actual website it's not the actual link but if you hover over the tree it pops up with a list of the amenities if you drill into that if you click on it you can then see different pictures of the park different pictures of the amenities you can see on the right-hand side you can pick and choose which amenities you're looking for so if you're looking for the archery range or if you're looking for a horseshoe pit you click on that specifically and the rest of the rest of the parks will drop off so it's a very cool tool we're hoping that we can create or come up with some more ways for our citizens to utilize this as they're looking for things to do out in our park system our basic park services this is this is a very broad area to be honest about what we found when we started the project started the parks and natural parks and recreation master plan is that we needed to really do some work on improving our ATA accessibility so a lot of the work that we do is in that area but also we heard that people wanted more drinking fountain more access to water and they wanted us to provide more information on pet waste controls and practices and things like that one of the things that came before the Commission a few years ago was a concern that we noticed down at Nicolette Commons Park and the ability to as kids were playing in the green space along Nicollet Avenue you know if a ball went long or wide or something kids really had an easy access to run out on the Nicolette Avenue and that caused some concerns thankfully there's been no issues but putting a fence along that beautiful Park and along that beautiful view of the park and the aim Center seemed a bit much so they created a natural barrier some plantings and a couple flowerbeds there and they've completed that project now and it looks very nice and in its continuing to do its job some of the other work that we saw on our last part tour was the defective pavers or the where that those pavers down in the park have have taken over this over the years so those pavers are under constant replacement plan they've done crack sealing in parks we added shade structure at Rose again thanks to the Lions Club for their contributions to that and we've added a drinking fountain at the skate park and at red oak park as well here's a cut here's a picture of that shade structure out at Reddick this was really put in place for the people that are playing pickleball and today typically it's active adults or seniors that are playing pickleball although it's open for all ages but when people want to take the rest from playing pickleball they don't want to do it the Sun so again the Lions Club was very gracious and helping us put up the shade structure the athletic fields and open spaces we have found that you know over the years over the past ten years the same number of kids aren't playing baseball and softball today as they were 10 years ago even in this community the same number of kids aren't playing soccer they're looking to different sports maybe individual sports or new new sports that are coming online lacrosse ultimate disc golf or Ultimate Frisbee rugby things like that so we're trying to make sure that we're providing the right spaces for the activities that people are playing in our community during our last parks tour we were down at Sioux Fisher fields and that was after a large rain and event and we found that the wind picked up and removed one of our dugouts from its from its base so we took a look at our structures down there and found out that we needed to replace those dugouts so this late this summer we did replace 10 dugouts down at Sioux Fisher fields we've been conducting a field space and assessment with our BAC and VA sports clubs about what types of field space they're actually using for practices and games to make sure they are getting the right amount of field space without without overkill within reason because well if we do have fields that are being under used or not used at all we're not going to continue to stripe them as a soccer field or as something else that's just waste of time money and effort and maybe there's a group out there that would like to use it for something else so we're trying to really zero down on that and try to figure that out and how we can be more efficient with that in the future we also partner with the National Guard to replace disc golf baskets at Red Oak Park they look very nice out there it's a nice little touch up to the disc golf course that gets a lot of play throughout the year sue mentioned the robotic field striper and again I apologize I have a video it's really very cool but this robotic field striper you put in a plan with an aerial of that Park and it tells you where to drop it down the robotic painter down in a way it goes push start and it backs up it starts and goes and I know I'm simplifying it a lot more than what it is but it's very cool very efficient it's one person and a little robotic cart versus one person on a tractor with gallons of paint their own sprayer and human error quite honestly so and again we've internally we began a process for evaluating each of the 76 parks and the amenities that we have in those parks we're finding that once upon a time it was somebody thought hey here's a nice trail that goes into the woods and should put a picnic table here for somebody walking by that would like to you know sit down or maybe have a picnic there but over time we found out that the uses of those hidden picnic tables aren't really for picnics anymore there may be for activities that shouldn't be happening in our parks so we're taking a look at what should belong in each of the parks and what shouldn't belong and then we're going to create a plan for removal replacement whatever it might be what's best for each of the parks that we're looking at here's a picture of the beautiful new disc golf holes that we have playing aquatics changing trends and demographics have us looking at all kinds of different park amenities and different types of things to do in our park system and we're going to try to capture as many of them as we can and draw people to our parks we've added a Gaga ball pit at Neil Park Commissioner Donelson I have a picture of it coming up so bear with me we've created beanbag leagues both an in-house league and a traveling league a recreation department is part of a group called soar south of the river recreative which involves our surrounding communities and often times there aren't enough people in one community to create a full league or a full event so we partner with our neighbors to create an event and so this traveling league that play one weekend burns about one of our parks we're going to savage and play one of their parks Eagan and play at one of their parks so it's also helpful for each of us to get people out and about in the entire area and get to see all of the amenities and parks that are available to them so and then this past year we've replaced cedar bridge and Keller Lake play equipment mr. donalsen this is a Gaga ball pit it's it's like playing dodgeball inside of octagon the ball stays on the ground and you bat the ball at anybody else in the ring they get hit they're out or if they get hit three times they're out kids love it absolutely love so this one this one happens if you over at Red Oak Park where we have a full day camp Explorer program the other one that I said we added was that Neil Park where we have a full day of kids of summer tykes and kids of summer for the older kids so both of these get used quite a bit these particular gah-gah ball pits are temporary so we can pull them on the ground and relocate them if we need to but I think that would be not a very wise idea on our part with the kids that are using these parks so they really like them here's a picture of our beanbag League this one's over at Neil Park these are boards that were created last winter by our park maintenance staff and honestly last winter we went down to take a look at the progress they were making on these boards and they put in such detail and attention to detail and care into creating these boards to make all ten boards the exact same with the exact finish and the exact everything it's absolutely fantastic these little sticks are coming out of the ground right here these are scoring poles on the far side closest to the building you can see that so they added even more to it than what we even expected out of them so very cool these are the play areas at Keller and Cedar Bridge one of the challenges we talked about with cedar bridge is that it was built on the side of the hill and how do we fit in the playground and the basketball court without basketballs rolling down the hill and into traffic every time you missed a shot so we've created these two playgrounds here the playground at Cedar Bridge Keller Pro Ghana Keller has and I was not aware of this and tell just today but the player on Keller has an app you can download that can help you find and explore new games and things to do in the park that's relatively new for us and we're a little bit torn in that okay well we're going to a park you don't play but do you need an app to tell you where to play but it's a feature we're at least willing to try at this point so if you do get out exploring with your children next summer please find it and try to give it a try and let us know how it goes sport court and fitness this is where folks have talked about adding more pickleball opportunities basketball and tennis and maybe even adult fitness equipment to the parks as I mentioned we opened the pickleball courts last fall but we had our grand opening this summer and you can see right away that it wasn't necessarily all about playing pickleball but it was about coming out in the community enjoying some of the food that was being cooked up by our police and fire department the Lions Club was obviously there is they were huge huge contributors to the pickleball courts and the shade structure there and yes in the top right corner some pickleball was even played and folks had a great time out there I know Commissioner of Donaldson I believe you were there that high a few others of you came out to support the event and help hand out information on our park system there is a really fun night and I think everybody had a good time community facilities we heard that people are really happy with the facilities that we have in our park system with the ice center and the golf course and in the Ames Center as well and they want to make sure that we continue to maintain those facilities so they are attractions for our community one of the things that we've done in this this also includes our warming house program but we've implemented changes to our warming house program so that may be a warming houses that are underutilized aren't staying open all hours that they've been really originally scheduled for we had some meetings with neighborhood groups and talked about and talked through it with them and everybody was was on board with that everybody's okay with that however the skating rinks at the community parks Neil Park North River Hills some of those larger areas with multiple sheets of hockey rinks or larger skating areas will continue to keep those open until we hear otherwise until we hear that they're not necessary things like that so and then last summer a new roof was installed at the Burnsville Ice Center this is quite an undertaking this was a really big project two large barrel roofs that was a project that was over a million dollars so the investment is still there to continue to maintain that Ice Arena and people enjoy enjoy coming their programming at demographics we were asked to create new programs that would engage the community diverse populations and keep up with trends that are happening in parks and recreation one of the things that I believe David all talked to you about in May was the expansion of the camp Explorer program we went to two full days sites one is that red oak one is that Vista view we filled both of those had great feedback and kids really enjoyed it we added a party on the plaza event that I again saw some of you at this summer this summer it was two days was on June 6th in July 25th next year we were going to a three-day series live one in June July and one in August these are full day events from 11 a.m. till 9 p.m. with lots of music and games and activities and food trucks so it's been they were both of the events were well received and a great time and we got very lucky with the weather food truck festival we've been planning a food truck festival and then our planning department came to us and said hey we're working with the Burnsville center they do this back to the eighties thing but they need this they want to spice it up anything you guys can do and we said well what if we put our food truck festival with that and so we created this kind of two different events in the same place kind of approach and it really worked very well again weather helps and it was another nice day for that Dave her dog and probably talk to you about the nature nuts and the fishing programs that have been again a huge success some of those nature programs that we're doing because don't get enough of it so parents are really looking for those types of activities for the kids to participate in and then we also participated with ISD 191 and annoy your neighbor workshop again a chance to get out and engage with the community and talk about things they want to see your areas of concern anything like that so here's a picture of the back to the 80s event you can see the DeLorean from Back to the Future on the left and then down the on the right-hand side as a picture looking down the food-truck alley and the people that were there mingling about what not revenue generation again our consultants told us that we need to take a look at what are we doing to generate new revenue streams or revenue options through our park system and one of those was the food trucks in our parks and things like that and so we think we did that with the food truck festival with the party on the plaza and then the other piece we have of that is that we adjust their fees to make sure that our cost recovery goals for our programs was maybe more in line rather than just offering a program to a community to the community we're making sure we were at a break-even point not necessarily planning to make 10% on the cost of the program but we wanted to be at least break even so that the the programs can continue to grow and really taking a closer look at that through our After Action reports and through evaluation of our programs has been really helpful and our programmers have done a super job at evaluating programs and tweaking the programs and changing them so that we are meeting those goals but still providing quality affordable programs - the last thing is the communications plan although it talks about wayfinding and signage in our parks and ways to provide more information to our residents we've done this sensor master plan was originally developed and some of it courtesy you folks through our parks pocket map through our trail map through the it's going to be a discover your community parks booklet that's going to be coming out and then we've also created these other items here we've started meeting monthly with our communications department we take a look at all of the programs that are coming up in the next month and making sure not only that they were in our rec times brochure that went out at the beginning of the season or beginning of beginning a spring or beginning a fall but also that they're hitting the board outside on Nicolette Avenue that they're showing up on our reach display that's on the TVs as you come into City Hall if it is a larger event we now have a banner down on the corner of County Road 42 and Nicollet that we were able to put up a banner for party on the plaza imagine the banner for winter lighting ceremony is up right now but it's a really different way to help advertise our programs as I mentioned we were working on and discover your community parks booklet this will show off our community parks and the offerings of amenities and things you can do at those parks and then the park hunter program was unique in how it came up and back in March when we were reviewing the third-grade essay contest one of the families or one of the students wrote about how on a Saturday he and his brother go out to the park system with their mom and they'll go past three parks and they'll write down what they liked at each other three parks and then they go back to the one park that they vote on and that's where they play for the day so we're gonna take a look at how we can build on that and where we can take that with the help of hopefully with the help of the Firefly credit union who was part of that process for the third grade essay contest so here's the discovery of community parks we've had the benefit of having two great interns over the past two summers and what you have here is you'll have Civic Center Park is one of our community parks and it'd be a booklet so on top it will have the picture on the left and on the bottom it will have a map of the park highlighting where all of these amenities are at here on the Civic Center campus the next page will be lack of on and bottom page of that will be a match of Lok LaVon highlighting where you can find the shelter of the tennis court the ball fields things like that so again another opportunity another way to get people out and exploring our parks and some of our larger parks that have all kinds of great amenities in them to to use commissioners with that I think that's the update I think it was a little bit different than what you heard in May I apologize if there is some repeat information there but if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them Oh Cleveland I'm just curious I see the Rose Park has been renegotiated Felice Cleveland I can tell you that they always have a 30 day out okay so yes we've renegotiated that you may have noticed that driving by was renegotiated primarily because they had to take over a portion of soccer field number four or that area down by soccer field number four and add some additional parking down there and so that's why the lease at that time was renegotiated oh thanks yeah so the natural play area over Terrace oaks was flooded for the majority of the spring and into the summer is there anything that can be done to mitigate the flooding I don't know that we can do anything to mitigate the flooding but I can tell you that we are looking at additional parks in Burnsville where we can add nature play areas so that's a great amenity to have in at Terrace Oaks east and that northeast part of the city one of the areas that we are looking at as another possibility would be down at Loch Lomond Park there are a couple areas right next to the playground there that would be great under that tree areas that already is a natural natural play area and just providing some additional items there would be such an easy addition that we're looking at expanding those options okay let's just put like a kayak spot there too it's good that'll be an option as well any other questions or comments Thank You JJ thank you next we'll talk about any miscellaneous items JJ Academy yes commissioners again our next meeting is not scheduled until December 2nd at that time we will have a non-televised work session usually in December we then sit down and talk about the items that we want to see on our work plan for the next year so we'll talk about any items for 2020 that I know are gonna be coming before you but also if you have any ideas or thoughts or plans on maybe what it is you would like to hear more about that's where you bring those in that information to us and then we'll put it on the work plan so that I can share that with the proper Department and then we'll get them here at some point throughout the year for Fito send information ok thank you may be broadcasting the Vikings game at the same time unfortunately we will not be working and then commissioners I would like to also invite you to that winter lighting ceremony Wednesday the 26th the night before Thanksgiving 26 mm-hmm before Thanksgiving down in Nicolette Commons Park it starts at 6 o'clock it's always a great event so come on out for that thank you for joining our 18 November 18th meeting can I get a motion to adjourn second second favorite any nays thank you you