Here is the transcript with speaker names added based on the context and introductions provided within the dialogue. [0:00] **Joe Wicklund:** uh one more person coming in and we've got a couple who now who have logged in uh in the online setting so so we'll jump in in just a second to get started but um it's not a it's not a super lengthy presentation today but it'll be a chance to show and kind of hear some background work on what's gone into this uh part of what is uh hopefully of value today is we're gonna touch a little bit on how the referendum operates and i'd love for folks to ask me questions about that as a whole before we even talk about or well we're talking about the project and the possibility of it happening as well as what 3.9 million dollars should that pass gets you and what it doesn't my name is joe wicklund i'm the community engagement and communications director for the city of hermantown [0:45] **Joe Wicklund:** we've got outside partners well kind of like outside and inside partners who've helped with this trent is our works with norfolk consulting engineer david bolf is our city engineer and not able to be here today so trent will kind of cover the engineering piece and luke sydow from sas and associates we'll dive into some of the landscape architecture and some of the logic that's gone into kind of where we're at right now in terms of the fickner park project as a whole you could say that some great work has gone in and you'll get to see that today we've worked with some of our peers in various levels of baseball and some community members from not only just baseball groups and other ones on what could be possible should the referendum pass um so in some ways this isn't a [1:30] **Joe Wicklund:** starting point but also if you're if you're seeing some of this information and you've got a great idea or some questions or some passionate thoughts about other ways the park could be utilized this is still also kind of a starting point too for that so don't feel like oh my gosh the ship has already sailed and decisions have already been made but at the same time some really good work has gone in um to to being able to show you what we'll show you today for folks who don't know when we talk about ficner park as a whole it is not just one baseball field it is not only uh just baseball and softball and those sports that happen at the park so we've got this image up on the screen right now that'll kind of cover that there's a lot more that happens out there in terms of just gathering space skate park [2:15] **Joe Wicklund:** basketball playground equipment and stuff so it truly is in a lot of ways hermantown's central park i don't think you'd run into a lot of folks both on city staff side or users of the park who who feel like it is the central park that maybe our community deserves or should have and that's part of where the referendum and the opportunity to fund something different with sales tax comes into play but do keep in mind that we have a variety of different users groups who use this but i think a lot of folks initially think about baseball obviously because that's the predominant piece that happens at fichner park uh two pieces up on the screen that i want to talk to you about again we'll we'll save all the q a a little bit for the end we've got a couple pauses built in here but first i want to talk about the referendum as a [3:00] **Joe Wicklund:** whole to maybe answer some questions about that so this november there will be uh three questions on the ballot and put a tiny pin in that for a second uh because there was uh some efforts made to determine whether it would be three questions or one question that i can dive into later but at this point uh we do know that there will be three questions on the ballot relating to the three components of the community recreation initiative fickner park and its reimagining the uh ability to co to complete our trail system across the community and then a second indoor sheet of ice uh for our hockey program and community needs 3.9 million is flagged for uh fitner park and we'll tell you again a little [3:47] **Joe Wicklund:** bit about what that opportunities that creates and opportunities uh to do different things in our park and of course it doesn't take long to spend 3.9 million um and leave some things out that you can't there was a lot of work done uh after the fact because the starting point of this entire process to be able to put those questions on the ballot was actually 2018 um which feels like not only a lifetime ago but like a totally different universe than the one we live in today and that's pre-pandemic uh all the changes that have gone in into people's lives around work around the cost of materials around inflation around the importance of some people say how can you possibly even be thinking about something like a park at this time and other people have said oh my gosh the pandemic has showed us that there's nothing more important than outdoor [4:33] **Joe Wicklund:** quality gathering spaces so all kinds of different opinions on how those have impacted us as part of that we worked with legislators to have some variation built in on our 2018 proposal through the special session some of that included the idea that we would be able to take the three questions that were originally approved and form it into one because we've always looked at the initiative as a whole as one project that impacts community recreation health and wellness as a whole that was not able to be moved forward because there wasn't a special session that was in part of the omnibus tax bill there was another piece in the omnibus tax bill that added 10 percent to each one of those numbers 3.9 uh and the other numbers for the trails and for the [5:20] **Joe Wicklund:** hockey arena that did not move forward because again there was not a special session there was not a tax or spending bill passed and then the last piece is there was uh four million in bonding uh requested that was probably built in only if that 10 piece didn't happen and that would have been more specific for the hockey arena that also again didn't get off the ground it didn't even get into any kind of bill um that senator bach had worked on um in in case the other pieces didn't happen none of that happened obviously because there was no special session um so if you've heard kind of different pieces on how the referendum has the possibility of operating there's still going to be a special session tomorrow we can get an email that says everybody's in business but at least for the purposes of where we're at today we're going to operate with what we know which is three questions [6:07] **Joe Wicklund:** and 3.9 million specifically for fichner park it is also important to note that whether one two or three of these pass the sales tax increase will only be a half percent regardless so let's say it's just the fickner park project that passes hermantown will have 0.5 a half percent increase on their sales tax let's say two of them pass the trails and the fickner park it's still only a half percent increase if all three go it's still only a half percent increase part of my job over the next many months it's already happened and it'll ramp up quite a bit after labor day is to educate folks that they're in the best position to make the choices that they want to make on the ballot and one of the things that i know is most [6:53] **Joe Wicklund:** concerning for me is i will still not be able to reach every interested voter on this project to help them understand that you could fill in three bubbles and it's still only a half percent sales tax increase two bubbles one bubble the increase is either going to be zero because none of these projects pass or a half percent because one two or three in any combination will pass so it's not one and a half if three happen it's a half regardless the monies are certainly different the time frames are certainly different but the tax that folks would experience whether they were at menards or whether they were making a purchase that was sales tax eligible in hermantown will be the same whether it's one two or three um a bit of that is the beginning of my education and the work that i'll be [7:38] **Joe Wicklund:** doing with folks a bit of that is to also recruit you to help tell that exact same story whether there's one two or three projects you're passionate about just to be able to have folks be able to make the clearest decision because it will look like three questions and there's certain wording pieces that have to be there so but no matter how those pass half percent uh important considerations in regards to fitner park as it is as a whole there's certainly access and ada issues um in terms of the design there's bathroom issues um if anybody uh has has been a part of spring baseball and high school baseball and softball in our area that's an uphill battle with weather as it is um it's also in some ways literally an uphill battle at frickin park because field one which uh hosts our high school teams in hermantown is the lowest point so it is the wettest part for the [8:25] **Joe Wicklund:** longest part in fickner park so there's been many years where the hawks baseball team has played zero to five home games at all in their current design uh the other amenities not just baseball but the sport court basketball the skate park are also aging we have certain abilities through our park dedication fees and the things that we do when new developments come to town and things like that to be able to maintain and make some improvements going forward in fitner park and and stubner park and keene creek and rose road and all the different parks that we maintain but certainly there's not ever going to be a point where 3.9 million dollars of park dedication fees are available to do uh some of the things that are uh on the plate here uh as part of the local option sales tax um [9:13] **Joe Wicklund:** the work that luke has done trent has done our engineers and our designers help create you know phased in master plan approaches should um you know the fickner park piece not pass or any of the pieces past so we'll continue to still try and make our parks you know as great as they can be um but there won't ever really be a situation where 3.9 million dollars worth worth of of any kind of funding is likely to show up and make the impact that this can at that time uh at that point i'll turn it over to i think trent's going to start and you've got a picture both for folks who are in the online setting there's again some handouts that you'll see here talking about some of the preliminary work and what's possible for about 3.9 million in terms of the fitner park improvements [10:01] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** well everyone um maybe i get a little bit closer here so luke and i have been spending quite a bit of time we've taken a lot of your input over the last couple months and kind of starting to gauge how we initially tackle this and looking at it more from a master planning standpoint and like joe said we have a lot of aging infrastructure things that are deteriorating you know like our you know the basketball court gets used quite often so there's a skate park things that are really starting to fall apart out there and those are some of the amenities and again a lot of you know that this is primarily a baseball use facility so trying to replace the infrastructure that we have that's getting damaged and then also maintain everything that we already have and currently use [10:48] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** so what we've done in this in this iteration um trying to make this look a little bit more like a um a baseball and softball field complex something that would be used for little league also and trying to get these four quadrant type fields is really what we're trying to go for um so what we've done here is with field one that's that's the one we're really having the issue with that's the the primary high school field and um as joe said it's it's really low it gets wet and it stays wet for a good portion of the spring well the best solution to that is to raise the grade all around it bringing in two three feet of fill and providing some type of a turf field something that will provide a longer use not just in [11:34] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** the spring but in the fall too you'll be able to use it use it quite a bit longer and what we've also done is we've reorientated it so it's kind of a little bit more back into what we would call a four plex of these baseball fields and um so it is facing a different direction but i think that's going to be a good alternative and something that's really going to drastically improve for both the community anybody that wants to use it you know it's it's going to be multi-use you're going to have be able to have baseball softball i mean you know even soccer things like that can play on this field so the other fields that we have that number two that one will shift a little bit that's the one that's to the northwest that's kind of shaded in that really light [12:20] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** green so it'll shift a little bit further west we'll come in there we'll re returf it redo the infields redo the fencing for new dog outs new bleachers it'll stay pretty much at its same similar dimensions to allow for both softball or little league and then the other two existing fields that are out there they'll kind of primarily just they'll just stay the same as they are right now just because that's kind of where our our budgets are landing we're just not able to to meet the expectations of completely replacing those and the t-ball we know too from previous discussions is quite a big quite a big user and there are a lot of people that are around those t-ball games every week so [13:07] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** we've really provided a pretty big update for that one too so you'll have you know some type of a smaller abbreviated dugout um smaller field and we'd have fence around the whole thing rather than just the two wings of fence that you have that you have now so with the basketball court skatepark so that's kind of right in the middle of everything right now and we're looking at putting it north of that existing west parking lot mostly because it's kind of a it's more of an independent use from what the fields are we think it's just a better place over there so it's kind of it's more independent people don't have to park in the parking lot and come into the baseball complex to be able to use those [13:54] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** and then we'd also the other thing that we needed to replace is the um the playground so the playground will be be rebuilt re-improved and um placed kind of in the in the center there so from a parking standpoint we're not planning on doing anything with the western parking lot at this time we're just gonna leave it as it is again the budget just doesn't offer for it right now um but we will look at redoing that eastern parking lot which is just it's gravel and just just not in good shape right now so we'll be replacing that and i think we're looking at about somewhere between 50 and 60 stalls so it'll be a little bit more efficient than parking people than a normal gravel parking lot would be so then other engineering things you [14:40] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** know we'll just have our typical stormwater management type practices kind of built in around so luke i don't know if you'd like to just maybe run through some of the other site amenities that you've that we have shown on here [15:02] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** thanks um trent pretty much um put everything put over hit everything on the head um just want to make sure we we emphasize some things that that are more part like within this the ball complex as well so we have a common core we have a for all for three of the fields but we also have a press box new dugouts fencing landscaping a shade structure and a modified or improved playground is [15:27] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** on both the north side north end there's a two different uh batter cages and on the south side there's two battery cages as well those are the the green squares on the north and south side the playground we chose to put to leave in the center core because a lot of the youth activities when when a family's in playing baseball it gives the kids other things to do when people have multiple kids it's it's pretty nice to be able to see that so we chose not to to isolate that component from the ball fields like we did for the basketball and the skate park which are typically done by some of the older kids and can be more stand alone to avoid those user conflicts one of the things that you see most [16:12] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** in this is that all of it is the center core that gray area that centric core is the area that's it's going to be accessible improvements for handicap and higher in elevation which will allow the water to go to where it's typically supposed to go onto a ball field rather than onto the ball field itself so we're in this case we're putting storm water in the southeast and the southwest corner and running that water around to back up to the north to rocky run and on the north end you see the a trail system that connects the existing pavilion to the sport courts and back into the center of the the core of the baseball complex and you [16:57] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** see a stub of that trail system which moves to the north it gives us an opportunity to when and if budget permits that we tie into rock a new bridge and then expand the the future abilities for the north portions of the site we know it's a we know it's a bigger complex we wish there were you know the six million bucks to do it all once but the 3.9 million is a pretty good start towards towards uh getting the fields up dry and having a lot more use throughout the year a little bit more on a little bit background to type back to the beginning and the parts that that allowed us to be [17:44] **Joe Wicklund:** able to ask for local option sales tax that the state legislature was most key and excited about was one that this wasn't a single use park even though it was primary use park baseball being the primary user but that it did have those other amenities and allowed itself to be a family-oriented park and that made replacing uh and reimagining wear basketball skate park uh the playground could be was was a pretty critical component in this a compliment to baseball that we work closely with is that they seem to prioritize those non-baseball pieces as high as we had to so that we're really accommodating understanding that not only did uh baseball families who are here on the playground but also [18:30] **Joe Wicklund:** some great opportunities to be able to pull folks unrelated to baseball into a true central park parking is always a discussion like trent mentioned one of the big changes that might get lost but is important in this is that there are 54 give or take new stalls that'll allow that gravel parking spot over at old city hall and the historical society to be reconfigured in a way that's both a lot more usable a little more a little less wild west when folks are parking out there now and using that space as well again the the piece and we can talk more about this in q a and bounce ideas and thoughts off of us but the idea is that that 3.9 million to to be able to do this or anything that looks like this gets unlocked um should [19:17] **Joe Wicklund:** uh that question on the november ballot get 50 percent plus one person um to uh to approve it um so the choice for this to happen really truly does belong to the community uh as opposed to you know even your city council or city staff for the folks on the design side it'll be really be the community that decides uh if they want this or not any questions or thoughts uh about this the referendum the design the park the use anything that anyone is wondering about i'm going to start i've muted everybody in the online community so we can start with the folks in city hall and to make it more accessible for the folks who are online if you [20:03] **Joe Wicklund:** could come up i think i've got the microphone turned on you just ask your question so that everybody could hear it otherwise we've got a small enough group i can probably repeat it um and then if you're in the online setting we've got a handful of folks hit that hand raise button if there's uh something that you're interested in asking about in this particular project or if it doesn't get answered in the questions that come from inside city hall first [20:32] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Jason Young] jason so it's interesting we the uh questions about like tennis and pickleball um were less of a factor at the beginning when we started this with the legislature because hey there wasn't uh you know a tennis peace to this park as it was i think pickleball you know in 2018 is like it's on full-blown rocket ship in the amount of folks who do it um compared to where it was then um so probably what makes the most sense is we we have a second design and and there's no hesitation in showing it to you but i want to be clear that the piece that we've walked through already is what is able to be accomplished at this moment using 3.9 million dollars uh and [21:18] **Joe Wicklund:** the above and beyond of that is kind of adding to a park that that we weren't able to does that make sense jason so but we did have enough through this process to know hey we've got to know what a second phase or next steps would look like and start to be creative about that so i guess i'll kind of call that piece up and we can trenton luke can kind of come back online and talk about it a lot of what you'll see on the screen right now is there'll be a few key parts i'll walk through and then i'll let trent and luke walk through more more exactly um but the changes that you'll be able to see is this is i guess you can imagine this being everyone's dreams come true version and there's probably versions in the middle jason of these two um but you'll see that there are two [22:03] **Joe Wicklund:** prime fields on the baseball side of things and that the turfed multi-use field uh kicks over to field three and a kind of a vastly improved grass field exists still in that flipped format on field one and then at the top of this picture you can see kind of like like luke alluded to future expansion whether that future expansion is now or in the future depending on this project where it creates a lot more opportunity on the old football field trenton luke do you guys want to add to kind of walk us through this version [22:36] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** yeah i think you know the four plex is a lot more developed in this scenario rather than just having the three fields that are meant for softball little league we have two there that are primarily used for that the other two can also be [22:48] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** used but this also provides a second full-size baseball field so it lends the opportunity you can have both jv and varsity baseball teams playing at the same time within the same complex so we won't have issues with travel or trying to coordinate times so i think that portion is a lot more well developed and i think everybody in this room can probably agree that this is you know a lot more preferable but at this time it's just it's um above and beyond that 3.9 like joe said and um we'll have to look at other sources so the other big piece of this is that northern um football field really right now it doesn't it doesn't get a lot of use today and [23:35] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** this would be a great way to make use of it by adding tennis courts the pickle ball is taking off you know we can move some of these other amenities too like the the basketball and the skate park can go up there as well it gives us room to expand if we find that those those uses are being used more than we thought they would we can expand it then we can provide some type of a nice pavilion up there and again kind of kind of separate this use from the baseball use and have an area that's more um community of all ages and the baseball field system being a little bit separate so [24:16] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** and and and in this situation we still prioritize the the t-ball down in the southeast side of the of the court or the park next right adjacent to the parking lot so it's easier for grandparents and parents to get to get to that um but this is a much more developed like trent was mentioning it's a much more developed plan and more um but it's still a very unified park with that the connector between the north portion and the southern portion and then one other thing that we didn't really talk about was the existing parking on the south side right off of maple grove just leaving 16 car parking parking cars there because it's already paved that's just cheap [25:03] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** affordable i should say so we're using looking at that as maybe a handicap parking and then have that central or close to the center core [25:06] **Joe Wicklund:** and with these additional amenities should this uh you know be explored you've got in the upper left hand corner of this particular picture you know then that parking lot can be expanded from the amount of cars it has now to another handful to get that to a 121 versus uh where it's at today or some amenities put in there in terms of of views and then if you kick up to what would be the old football field or a chance to do some more dynamic court pieces up there it'd be another 42-ish cars and parking up there obviously to [25:48] **Joe Wicklund:** accommodate what would be happening up there we've we've gotten feedback from from the tennis and pickleball community that obviously those courts can be multi-court um and so when we see this picture and you see one and three don't interpret it as being one and three interpreted as being dedicated space and and like trent mentioned that that box that's open on the on the far right side of this is already built in to expand further um numbers on this are give or take 6.3 no i feel like i'm off 5.3 yeah so an additional 1.2 to 1.3 million to go to this level um but again what part of our discussion today was to be [26:34] **Joe Wicklund:** both clear on what's possible but clear on what is on the table in regards to the local option sales tax now so the the difference between the two for folks at home i'll page back through them and i'll use the two close-up pictures but the 3.9 piece you know turfs field one uh flips it and there was a lot of discussion about that and a lot of it hinged on accessibility for multi-fields foul balls ending up on maple grove road and uggstead road being a lot more frequent and dangerous than home runs as well as being able to upgrade field 2 and t-ball and then still being able to maintain the key other components that are outside of baseball like he said the playground the sport court the skate park although [27:20] **Joe Wicklund:** those two find a very different home than they do today versus the larger scale piece as i'll kind of click between the two up close pictures that that kind of revamps pretty significantly two baseball fields uh still flips field one but keeps it natural turf uh makes field three the multi-use turfed you know the astro turf throat back a better term the turf field uh still is able to redo field two um but really kind of dials in this as a baseball complex and then pushes the sport courts the basketball court the skate park up onto the football field and then opens up the opportunity to explore what uh community tennis pickleball those types of pieces would look like but again [28:06] **Joe Wicklund:** that's out of the range of 3.9 so that's kind of the two differences [28:16] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Jason Young] so jason's question is will we be looking at private funding to help cover the balance and jason and i have known each other since we were both in college so i'm gonna he's not gonna feel bad that i re reword his question for him um if it were possible to expand into the larger park the more desirable park that has that it would take funding uh on the private side um the only rewarding i'm saying is is that a plan at this exact moment yeah there's certainly discussions about that and certainly uh actions being taken but at this moment is there enough for us to say that's the park we're attempting to make not at this moment um but also it's not november um and this is in some ways like i [29:02] **Joe Wicklund:** mentioned the beginning a beginning part of a discussion for some folks um and a starting point and for others hey there's a lot of pieces that of work that have already been done so it'll be interesting the the important part if you're passionate about or invested in those particular areas that aren't able to be included at the 3.9 budget i would tell you the best advice jason is to connect with me on the communications and community engagement side because that will help us shape what is possible obviously again we look at these the community recreation initiative as one project trails fichner park uh the additional arena and so there may be interest in being able to do private funding that goes across three projects um but all of these [29:47] **Joe Wicklund:** pieces again are for lack of these are you know city projects so any private funding we don't want jason young to go out and try and raise that money we want to work with you on ideas on how that could work because inevitably that's something that the city will have to carry the ball across the finish line on make sense and i that was gentle on the rewarding of the question so that i made everybody clear that we're not doing the big one yet today uh other other questions or things that people are wondering about uh i will tell you we would want an online question um you know why the switch on field one uh and i can tell you that flipping that you know right now home plate is tucked in the corner of maple grove and unstead road in essence this would turn the fields with center field uh is there and there were kind of a [30:33] **Joe Wicklund:** couple of prevailing pieces in that one was the idea that that accessibility piece for folks you know who might not be as able as you are to be able to see a baseball game there without having to be a long ways away from bathroom facilities concessions facilities and that right now there's kind of two pieces for concessions for that and obviously when we raise that field everything's going to change there and does it make sense to rebuild a second press box a second bathroom a second set just to serve one field that's probably not the best use of limited dollars uh the other piece was of course the idea that you know foul balls are more frequent than home runs um except maybe when i was pitching jason and the uh and the idea is you know if you've been i've i've played on fickner [31:19] **Joe Wicklund:** field at coachella finger field since i was since it was almost felt like a brand new field and and the fact that we've we've played so many baseball games there without any incidents on augstad road in maple grove is is is really astonishing uh and this will at least change the calculus of where most baseballs end up so there's less kids parents and players you know having to cross that street to fetch a foul ball only home runs and so that was the driving point there'll be different views different angles the sun will be in different spots but again those are those are surroundable cons in that process and it felt like this was a better fit in terms of flipping that field [32:12] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering audience member] so the question in case folks online can hear it is what is the time for construction to completion and construction i would firmly smile in your direction and say well it starts with you know i somewhat jokingly but somewhat realistically say it starts with 50 plus one in november uh but let's let's assume this part of the recreation initiative passes i'll turn it over to luke and trent in a second but the overwhelming priority in this is certainly to get it done as soon as possible but also to get it done in a way that causes the least amount of impact to park users while it well it happens you know what what way can we build this park in a way that doesn't take all whole summer and a whole baseball season out of the mix and i think we'd be in a spot where overall we'd work closely with our [32:58] **Joe Wicklund:** user groups to make that happen can we do construction in quadrants so folks move around or stuff um but let's to answer your question more directly in a world where we just flat out did it you know shovel in the ground to don i'll let i'll let trenton luke kind of talk about how projects like this can play out [33:14] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** so we've already kind of been talking back and forth with some of the other user groups too and with the timing of when this you know the the games would end in the fall um we're thinking that we could do a lot of our soil corrections kind of build up the site do some of that work in the fall before winter let it settle over the winter and then pick it up right away in the spring and mow through and hopefully get all of it done in the summer so i think it's i think that's more than doable if we [33:44] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** can take care of a lot of our soil corrections that first fall um so we're our goal is to not let it extend into two full construction seasons [33:53] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Sandy] yep sandy so sandy's question's a good one it's it's the allocation of the tax dollars which i am totally not going to rattle off off the top of my head but 3.9 million for this 11 something 10 something for the arena 4.5 for the trails both of those neighborhoods is there a logic and how we got to those numbers the answer is yes they're not equal numbers in terms of 3.9 and 4.5 and 10.89 not being the exact same numbers but in 2018 when we started was the idea of what can be done at the lowest possible amount of sales tax but the maximum amount of impact across a variety of projects uh obviously there are going to be communities that [34:57] **Joe Wicklund:** are looking at a very similar time frame and similar projects starting now that will have the advantage of doing that all post pandemic post price changes post inflation we didn't have that advantage being on the front end um but that's where those numbers came from there was a great deal of i don't want to say like horse trading or understand but like what is possible to make fichner park the project we're talking about today as palatable and world-class and those are those are two big things on a very different spectrum as it can be with putting the least amount of sales tax burden on folks that number is [35:42] **Joe Wicklund:** through all of our work and efforts and working with other communities to find out was 3.9 million pretend we're in the trails version of this meeting and that same question gets asked to be the same answer we feel like based on the work we did in 2018 and into 19 4.5 gets us our trail system and is able to lessen that sales tax burden certainly building an arena is more expensive than the trails in the parks so that's obviously why that number stands out to folks quite a bit all three numbers are lower than we wish they could be that was part of why we worked with senator bach and others to be able to building kind of that inflationary slash cost change bump um that we hoped and still hope could happen in a special session but [36:28] **Joe Wicklund:** are not holding our breaths on um and then uh the bonding piece that i mentioned that some folks are going to know about was it was a very separate piece of legislation that was targeted specifically for the types of things that can happen at a hockey arena in terms of economic impact in a northern minnesota community that aren't as possible with trails and are certainly diminished at a baseball complex in our neck of the woods um so we that's kind of the work we did to land those numbers most we can get least amount of sales tax impact most amount of impact on the individual projects that again we're viewing as one whole project um the way the law is designed there can't be like monies bouncing back and forth between these uh whether it was one question or [37:13] **Joe Wicklund:** three questions that's still going to be the case because part of what we had to do to be able to get this um you know approved to be able to be on the ballot to be able to be decided by community members was to be pretty exact about the monies we were working with and where they were going um do we wish we had more on every project absolutely um and i think some of that harkens back to jason's question whether we're talking about arenas whether we're talking about trails or segments whether we're talking about you know picnic tables along trails or we're talking about turf or different things at a park there is obviously additional levers that can be pulled along funding but it won't come out of sales tax and obviously there is a concerted effort both from residents from elected officials from city staff [37:58] **Joe Wicklund:** to not have it impact any other taxes in town and it won't do that so it would be private funding on some of these pieces and then for folks in the know we've been able to start our trail projects through grant funding and we continue to try and explore grant funding for that that's a longer more arduous road but those exist for certain aspects of the trails project and probably there's grant funding for certain aspects of the park project but again those are here and there competing with other communities less certain this type of funding is there should the residents of our community decide they want it in november [38:52] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Sandy] so sandy's question is you know based on all of those moving things that have already moved since 2018 much less 2022 will 3.9 get us this i feel like basic plan is like wonderful yeah wonderful option hey i'll turn it over to luke and trent to talk about how they determined what price point fits 3.9 based on the projections they're doing [39:23] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** yeah so you know like uh joe was saying with some of the other projects and how money gets allocated so we we do that same thing internally we go back we look at luke's done a couple pickleball courts tennis courts recently i've done a football stadium recently and look at see how much those are costing compared to what we're looking at here and naturally just being in northern minnesota we deal [39:38] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** with a little bit of inflation and so some of the prices and the cost estimates we've done already we've already inflated those numbers a little bit and then we've also added on another five percent contingency just in case we run into things that are unknown um while we're building so we feel pretty comfortable with where we're where we're at right now and um obviously hope not to hit any roadblocks that um cause issues [40:02] **Joe Wicklund:** so yeah that with the exception sandy and this is both related to this project another you know how we approach everything in terms of projects city hall but barring the unforeseen we feel pretty confident that this can be delivered for 3.9 now go ahead [40:28] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering audience member] [Music] so the question is and i'll kind of page through the slides to make sure i've got it so we're looking at we'll call it option one right now and you can see where t-ball is located in relationship to field three i think that's called and you can see obviously in this configuration field three becomes a lot larger and t-ball gets kicked down in the corner and your question is if we do this option does that mean that this is off the table the short answer is you know obviously anytime we do this type of planning we want to be able to be far out into the future and so funding wise if there was the opportunity to move the t-ball field which is a smaller piece we could always do that but i do think this version that you're looking at right now is really an incredible final version and less [41:29] **Joe Wicklund:** because of t-ball and more because you have two of the larger fields i think if if it wasn't possible to do um kind of this this version the much more expensive larger version i think that you would see the turf ending up where field one is now and the thoughts about field three over the long term would be totally different maybe that's a larger but not a larger natural turf feel something like that down the road because certainly based on cost the turf part will only be laid down once um and so that's kind of that that flip that would mean that it doesn't preclude a larger field down the road being on field three because of where t-ball is but the turf part really dictates [42:16] **Joe Wicklund:** that once would you guys does that kind of fit with what you're thinking [42:25] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** yeah and i mean anytime we're working through some types of these master planning phases where we're doing kind of a first phase that's more generalized and we want to do further build out in the future you always kind of end up with these things that end up being sacrificial as you're moving forward which is unfortunate but that's the that's the reality is you know it's not going to deter us from being able to to add on to this um but it's something that we'll just have to look at relocating and yeah if that situation does come up we'll probably end up looking at it a lot differently than we would right now um in this in these preliminary phases [43:03] **Joe Wicklund:** and with that being said as part of this being a preliminary phase you know again we're looking at option one right now could the and i'm don't these guys are the experts on this but moving the t-ball field to the option to location at this point would certainly have some cost that hasn't been considered but it's something that we could take a look at does that still fit with 3.9 million so that field 3 doesn't get touched at this point but t-ball is down by that new parking lot possibly and we'll take a look at that but at least at this point we just haven't yet [44:11] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Jerry] so jerry's question for the folks online is is is there an outside of labor construction the costs that you'd expect to kind of vary you know traditionally in the upward direction undergrads of construction is there a is there a soil piece is there a somewhat known unknown that could change the shape of this project um and i'll leave it up to you guys to answer that on the engineering side [44:53] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** yeah and that's typically underground where we usually see those issues luckily this has been used as a park for for quite a long time we know what it's got for foundations there that's what we really run into a lot regionally is running into foundations that are unknown utilities that are unknown if yeah bedrock but i feel pretty comfortable that since we're building it [45:02] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** all up we shouldn't get into any of that but you know if there's any type of peak material or buried topsoil down there that can't support what we're building that's the type of stuff that would be an unknown that we don't we have built something into the price already to take care of soil corrections but if it gets more expansive than that then that's where we run into issues [45:30] **Joe Wicklund:** an example of that jerry that i can think of in terms of like real life in a hermantown process so if anybody has a lot of folks have experienced the boulder trail coming out of stebner park down to the end walls property but there's a second piece that we were able to build in recent years that goes from morris thomas road into keene creek and we had a pretty good idea that that was a sloppy project to [45:49] **Joe Wicklund:** make it work but it was it was wetter muddier and more challenging soil than even expected um we were still able to make that happen without you know great burden to any taxpayers or any pieces like that but but did we have did we encounter an unknown that created some challenges totally um but was it within the scope that still makes it possible to deliver for example that project you know close to budget this project on budget and those types of things yeah so again if there was something under the soil that was completely unexpected that would be the only thing [46:34] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** [Answering Jerry] no they haven't been done yet they're part of our um they're in our budget to do that so um it's just a soft cost that we have a retainer for at this point in time um so as we move forward you know if this does get approved that's that's when we would do that so it would be sometime next year and the question for folks online was have have soil boring's been done to this point they haven't yet [46:53] **Joe Wicklund:** any other questions here in council chambers i'm gonna unmute our folks in the uh or at least give them the chance to unmute if any of our folks online want to uh you know jump in you can just ask a question if you're one of the online folks you're all available to do it otherwise again if there's any uh in council chambers questions please just fire away [47:19] **Joe Wicklund:** and while folks are kind of thinking about that i'll give you kind of a lay of the land of the work that extends beyond a specific project to the referendum as a whole again the work that we'll do at city hall is entirely educational about it and you'll start to see more materials about that come labor day with the start of school when folks are are a little bit more engaged and it's a little bit closer to the election on uh the types of things that sales tax does and doesn't do the types of places you encounter that um we're close to wrapping up a study uh that will determine the amount of sales tax with with a pretty high degree of accuracy that how much of it actually gets paid by hermantown residents versus other residents so that folks will hopefully have access to a lot of really good information when they make their decisions in november and so some [48:06] **Joe Wicklund:** of that's ongoing but you won't see kind of a diluge of that information until until kind of after labor day as you get closer to it any other final questions as we wrap up sandy [48:46] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Sandy] yeah so sandy's question is hey as we think about you know the quad kind of set up where where all the home plates are closer together what what's kind of built in to protect those folks from foul balls whether they're kids at the playground or parents at the concession stand piece [49:15] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** yeah so we'll if once we get into the design phase we'll look at how we want to do that we'll talk with user groups um that's obviously our goal is to make that a part of the project to protect all the pedestrians and you know we would typically either have a backstop that's chain link fence with a hood on it or um a lot of school districts recently have been going towards you know a netting material so it's a it's actually stands a lot taller than a than a wire mesh fence would and it's you know it looks good you can see [49:32] **Trent (Northland Engineering):** through it a lot better you don't go cross-eyed looking through it watching the batters it's something that that's where everybody's kind of going these days so but we are looking at that that would be something that would be included to keep everybody safe within the complex and um i think what it finally ends up being is just something that we'll look at during user groups when we get there [49:45] **Luke Sydow (Sas & Associates):** yeah in addition to that we are showing a shade structure over the playground in part that's been part of the fall balls foul balls and where the si the way this the the playground sits in this plan you have to hit a home run really to to be in the way they're we're back quite a bit [50:17] **Joe Wicklund:** well not a guarantee sandy that foul balls won't find kids but but better better than better than just letting them wing it other other questions or concerns or thoughts again whether we're talking about the fickner project or the referendum as a whole the yep go ahead jerry [50:57] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Jerry] [Music] and so folks in the online setting jerry's really salient point is which whichever direction the project goes if we're in a world where this passes and we have 3.9 million or whatever we we design a park that allows for future steps to make sense versus having to tear up something that we've already done or something brand new to make it the best possible park i think to that point jerry i think i think luke and trent have done a great job of thinking ahead on that certainly you know it's it's one thing to have these types of plans and another thing to actually be standing here in november with the money to spend and a little bit to sandy's point what you know what will 3.9 million dollars get you today versus tomorrow versus six months from now um but i do think as long as we we continue to think about the park as a whole and [52:02] **Joe Wicklund:** even our other projects that the trail plan is all all of our parks as a whole how the trails connect them um i i hope i hope folks feel really confident that that that type of mindset is driving it uh that if we take one step forward it creates opportunities to take whatever the second third and fourth step might be without having to go backward any last pieces before we wrap up i'm going to go ahead [52:48] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering audience member] yeah that's that's definitely always a consideration if we start to find where we're getting into these fine-tuned estimates where we're running into those issues then yeah that's when we start looking at doing things as alternates and um yet to be determined yeah and so the question just so that everybody can hear it is you know have we thought about ways of of taking you know if we think i'm going to page back to the initial project here the 3.9 million dollar option what are the most likely cuttables or the alternates should uh price be in it and trent's answer was you know at this point we haven't lined up what those alternates would be i know should we pass this we'll have a better idea what those will be but also some of that will depend on discussions [53:33] **Joe Wicklund:** with the user groups and what folks feel is for lack of a term most not havable at the start you know a two batting cages versus one and again i'm just shooting from the hill uh what types of amenities are in the skate park versus not you know depending on how how close it is uh those will be the types of things that we would have discussions about a little bit later down the road we wouldn't be losing fields we wouldn't be losing some of the major amenities you know prime candidates and stuff like this is do we need all the concrete do we need all the bituminous those are big costs that we can drive things down with [54:20] **Joe Wicklund:** so i vaguely remember uh getting an education from uh luke sydow phd uh that that traditionally his beautiful trees end up on the outside looking in when we come into those parts too they're already in that alternate yeah so some of that mindset is at the ready should we should we be in that but we'd also be in a spot based on the work that we've done on the front end where i don't think we'd be making those choices in a vacuum i think we'd be making them discussing them with user groups and again some of that might be this or that or someone might be let's not do this part now let's let's find a way to to get there down the road and then to jerry's point we have a down the road plan and a little bit of that you've gotten to see today between the the two projects obviously different amenities when we start talking about the old football field tennis pickleball [55:07] **Joe Wicklund:** kind of almost a whole second park north of rocky run but certainly a mindset that that is going to be used differently going forward [55:23] **Joe Wicklund:** [Answering Coach Ward] yeah so coach ward's question is hey when we focus on the football field portion of this and again that's probably our like favorite part of the ideal plan because it almost you know you're getting almost what feels like a second part i mean in this addition is there is there more to be able to be added as their usable land my answer to that would be yes and yes so some of that is built in in that that spare box that you see right there we'll see how crafty i can get with my with my cursor if folks can kind of see where that is there's obviously ability for additional tennis pickleball pieces there but also the configuration if we're in a spot where we know that this is a go sooner than later the configuration of this we would reach out to again yourself jason [56:36] **Joe Wicklund:** other users about what's the smartest way to put this together the same way we did with baseball to get the most bang for whatever buck that would look like again obviously a lion's share of the work has gone into what does 3.9 get us because that's the task in front of us but if we do think in a master planning approach and in a phased approach you can kind of see those steps already being taken yeah thank you great question i think this will be like the fourth or fifth time i've offered to let you escape to the next day and there's always been another question so any last questions whether online or here in city hall i will hang around i don't know about [57:22] **Joe Wicklund:** trenton league schedule i'll hang around for a little bit to answer questions offline if anybody has any questions i also think i'm going to do a little bit of tabling because i know there's a big event at fitner park on saturday but we're also going to take this recording and make it available for folks so it doesn't have to be placed in time specific and they'll have access to reach out to again me joe wicklin at city hall to be able to toss in their two cents talk about what's possible between option one option two or other pieces that um you know other user groups other passionate uh areas in our community that we might not have thought of in this process still have a chance to weigh in um but i do want to thank everybody for coming in for logging in online and and for being a part of this uh kind of important step in the community recreation initiative thanks everybody