I am calling them Monday December 5th 2022 parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting to order at 6 30 pm tonight's parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting will be held in person virtually by using Zoom as Chad and Levy I will be leading the part parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting and the public is welcome to participate when invited throughout the meeting members of the public May attend the meeting in person or join online via Zoom if attendees experience audio problems we suggest leaving the meeting and then rejoining this has usually fixed the issue additional instructions on how to participate are posted online at www.burnsvillemn.gov in the public meeting calendar as usual tonight's meeting is available for viewing on bsetv and the city's website if you're unable to participate this evening and would like to submit public testimony I encourage you to email your comments to City staff or mail your comments directly to City Hall so on to tonight's agenda our first area is adoption of the agenda um do any members of the commission have any changes to the agenda tonight staff do you have any changes to tonight nothing from Steph perfect may have a motion for the adoption of the agenda at a second second all in favor aye aye anybody opposed all right our second agenda item is our approval of the minutes and we are looking at the July 18 2022 parks and Natural Resources Commission meeting minutes are there any changes to those minutes all right Steph are there any changes all right um any do you have a motion to approve so move yeah second second all in favor aye anybody opposed perfect um citizen comments are there any members of the public on Zoom who wish to speak foreign a second but I'm getting no notification that anyone is there perfect and so tonight we are going to have a special guest with us Recreation programmer Jessica scalicki saliki um welcome [Applause] thank you all so much for having me my name is Jessica scalicki I work as a recreation programmer um here at the city of Burnsville um and tonight I'm gonna be speaking a little bit about our community engagement sessions that the um Recreation Department did over the summer in the summer of 2022. um so this was our engagement session schedule you'll see these six dates there and on each of those six dates we had two members of the Burnsville Recreation staff go out to that park for a few hours in the afternoon to engage with the community so they were in June July and August at different parks that we have around the city um and in addition to these six engagement sessions listed here and we also went to some community events um that were for the entire city that included the state of the city address our Public Works open house the fire station open house and the Citizens Academy um so between these four events here and then the six Parks dates listed on the previous slide Burnsville Recreation staff attended 10 events this summer in which we had conversations with the community and engaged with them with their thoughts about Parks and Recreation services in the city of Burnsville the format for these engagement sessions is we had two Recreation staff at each session we of course wanted people to talk to us so we brought Candy and snacks and some goodies that were a real hit with kids including these branded little beach balls we did bring written survey questions to each one of them but many of them we found that we you know didn't want to go up to somebody and either have a clipboard in our hand saying answer these questions or shove something they're facing answer these but so it really turned into a lot of like just more casual conversations as opposed to we want to find these like very specific answers and then in addition to having the goodies and the beach balls we also had um different marketing materials some Recreation brochures specifically our wreck Times magazine for the summer to give to people so I just want to talk a little bit about um the different questions that we had and kind of some answers we found to these different questions so one of the questions we asked um was what is your favorite park and why and as we were looking through the answers was it was either the park that we were currently at with them or the park that was closest to their house and um so for many people for example that first picture is there from Crystal Beach like the vast majority of people at Crystal Beach said Crystal Beach is my favorite Park um and if they didn't um they like I said they they named the park near their house which you know may be not even bigger than this room but it just happens to be because it's close to them that's that's their favorite there were from some notable parks that people mentioned um when they weren't at those parks and I took a small tally of of these that were mentioned and I noticed the reason these Parks specifically were mentioned is because of these um for like a better word like keynote features that we have at each one of them so we asked why and so obviously Nikolai Commons people said I like it because of the water features Alan magnet I love it because of the dog part Cliff then we actually did one of our engagements at Cliff Fenn but many people at lots of parks said they love it because of the splash pad Red Oak because of the Adaptive Pro playground and the pickleball courts and then of course the beach at Crystal Lake um so those were the kind of the biggest ones that people mentioned and or were already at invented were their favorite ones um this was an interesting question it was the second one that we asked I was surprised that um people mentioned programs that they would like for us to offer that we do offer um so um a lot of people when we asked this they didn't necessarily have something to answer and it was more so like I just really enjoy going to the parks um as you may know lots of people utilize our Recreation programs for kids or if they have families um and if they were you know didn't have kids or they were just taking a walk um they didn't necessarily know that we had Recreation programs but in any case people mentioned as in the second bullet point here you'll see people said oh these are the things I would love to see you offer and we we actually do offer those and it's story time in the park kids tennis lessons Sports Camps for toddlers and Youth Fishing again we talked at like hundreds of people um there wasn't much people said about what they want they mostly expressed like I'm just happy going to the park you know but those were the ones that we do offer that people didn't know about and of course we gave them the wreck times and told them hey we actually do have these um and then the programs that people asked for that we don't offer which we have varying levels of ability to offer where gymnastics archery ninja camps painting in the park more indoor weather activities for kids and youth sport sports leagues and that was literally all the answers people gave of what they would like uh that we that we don't currently um are there any parks amenities you would like to see um I wrote those everything anybody said here a lot of people just kind of expressed like I'm I'm happy with what we have um and kind of relating back to that first slide um people liked the park that they were at and said give me more of this even though this is great too so uh more splash pads more pickle barks pickleball courts uh anything goes on this slide so as you'll see they wanted an indoor water park someone said um something someone did mention um it was actually mentioned more than once and there's some parts that don't necessarily have access for wheelchairs or strollers to go on some of the trails or if they do and they might be a little bit overgrown or Roots were um growing in some people mentioned they would like some bathrooms probably at the small neighborhood community Parks um and then just improvements to their small neighborhood community Parks as well that people mentioned and then this is yeah some specific ones that people mentioned like I said there's a trail across Home West that somebody said has some tree roots um the concession stand had some staffing issues this summer so a number of people at Crystal Lake said oh I'd love for the concession staff to be open uh someone said that Sue trail park has some weeds that need to be cleaned up someone who lived next to it I don't even know how to say that Chateau Lynn Park said they could use some love and then um Oak Leaf West basketball courtly I specifically I haven't the next slide is about that um because one of the engagement sessions was there um the basketball court gets a lot of use and so it could also use some love and then there were lots of kids there and the kids said that they wanted some more swings and a zip line and that Park specifically um I myself was not there but the people who were there relayed this back to me they did not see very many adults there there were a lot of unsupervised kids having great fun playing basketball or um just running around the park um the adults who were there said they lived in the apartments near there and they all said that they did not receive the recreation times for sure that so that was a question that one of my colleagues had about do the people here actually receive this and if not is that something that we can fix and they recommended the staff said you know maybe we should check into keeping up that basketball card more than we do because we now see that there's really lots of kids that are here and making use of this park whether or not there's adults there as well um and then we also asked um if you haven't if they had participated in a recreation program um the majority uh said that they had not and if they had it had they had participated in a special event people talked about um events at alola Magnet park with dogs that we have um they also talked about um party in the plaza and then some very specific like Juneteenth or Pride big events that we've had this Summer that people attended and loved um at Crystal Park or Crystal Beach Park specifically um my colleagues talked to a number of parents and who said they had never attended and told them about um Thursday Rock and lunch hour and flicks on the bricks and apparently the parents were very excited to hear about those types of programs because they did not know about them um my this is my guess um is that people may accidentally the recreation time brochure um I myself I I am certain I don't live in birdsville but in the 10 years that I've lived in the Twin Cities I'm certain that I've received lots of you know equivalent Recreation times for sure and never once noticed one until I started working in Recreation myself um so for better for worse people just may see some flyer or some magazine and unfortunately just not pay attention to it and that's why they don't know that being said um of the people that we did talk to my guess this is you know don't quote me on this exact number but my guess is that anywhere from like 50 to 75 of people that we did talk to don't actually live in Burnsville so it makes sense that they did not receive our Recreation times for sure you know they were at Crystal Beach Lake specifically or they were specifically at the splash pad at Cleveland because that was the closest one to them My overall Impressions here is uh people generally really enjoy the parks if anybody had anything negative to say they were like pretty nice about it and like hey there's some tree roots like it'd be nice to you know get those fixed you know um a lot of people that come to our parks are from surrounding communities not just Burnsville um and then ironically enough you know like I said people enjoyed the park they were at and they're at Cliff Fenn and they're enjoying the splash pad they said give us more splash pads um and then finally that the special events seem to be pretty popular and our numbers would show that but you know the people we talked to also said that as well so that was our um our engagement sessions does anybody have any questions yeah go ahead well uh specifically to the part about archery where they talk told about the the archery program we have um I I do not know I was not there I actually read that um like as a written comment that for somebody who actually did fill out and it literally just said the word archery so um potentially the my colleague that was there said to uh told them about it but I I do not know but I will ask yeah question is there anything he wouldn't bring up anything about charging stations for their electric vehicles I did not see anything about that no and nobody mentioned it in their notes does anybody else have any questions I was curious about the penetration of not of knowledge of the programs and you know as you mentioned printed material doesn't always doesn't always get you know divd into very deeply yep if at all and when is there is there are there some other mechanisms you know I I I'm not always pushing the online stuff but is there ways of targeting that because you know through email or those kinds of communications glad you brought it up because it was something I wanted to mention so for example we do uh special event at Allen magnet dog park this is our second year we've done it and it's called Howell owing and it's a dog costume contest a puppy parade and a tricks for treats events and um you know last year we probably had you know 100 people this year we probably had 250 I mean a huge event for I'm only only doing in the second year and my very best guess of why so many people have attended is because for you know three weeks to a month in advance we've put a large sandwich board right there at the dark Park so we're targeting our target audience so every single person who goes for the previous month knows hey this is an event that's relevant to me so I can go so I again I'm glad you asked because specifically when my colleagues were at Crystal Lake Beach many people expressed that they did not know about things like Thursday Rock and lunch hour and our flicks on the bricks but if our Target demographic is there with kids at Crystal Lake Beach then potentially we could put out sandwich boards there the week of saying hey this movie is going to be this week at Nicolet Commons park or this event because they they're there I do know the Communications Department does have social media where they do um promote those events but it is for the entire city it's not just for recreation so people can't really follow say like a Burnsville park and rec Instagram to get just Recreation events um but potentially doing more targeting at that specific event where we know that demographic is maybe a way to get people to know about those events um I'm just I was just thinking and I should have jumped there first but the use of QR codes seems to have penetrated finally pretty well yeah temporary resource or temporary signs you know that that could you know be the equivalent of you know a yard sign you know uh those are you know those might be another Avenue for for targeting yeah at Crystal Lake Beach oh oh look at that there's you know I'm people always seem to have their devices with so yeah that might be uh that might be another mechanism and I didn't think of it until just you kind of triggered that so thank you yeah absolutely something we should definitely bring up to Raquel and the communications team that that's something we could do absolutely I'm wondering what would be the possibility of even partnering with the district a little bit at the end of the school year of I handed or something to go home with the kids here's what we have going on in the summer school's done we'll still keep you busy yeah that's a great question I'm going to give you two answers my first answer is I don't know but wait oh wait so don't answer it yet and my second answer is I used to be a school teacher and I know from my experience not here at the city of Burnsville that outside groups trying to get in to give Flyers to kids is extremely difficult so but maybe you can better answer that JJ yeah yeah um we have used the school district in the past to help get out whatever literature we have or whatever but um they're they're policies and their ways of sharing that information have changed as well as technology has advanced and so they've somewhat eliminated outside folks from advertising through the schools or promoting their materials through the schools but that's not to say we still partner with the school district on some of our adult athletic leagues and things like that and I know that the Community Education folks would probably be open to us swapping an ad for space and their brochure versus our brochure because we do know that there are people that look at both but there are also folks that just look at the school district brochure for their programming and there are folks that just look at the cities brochure for programming and maybe there isn't enough overlap so that is something we can continue to work with them on for sure sounds good um on a similar uh topic I guess I learned about the Halloween uh parade um because I take my dog to Pet Supplies Plus so obviously there's um some local businesses that help promote is that something that's frequent with a lot of businesses or is that just one specific target audience yes so for a lot of our special events we do do Partnerships with local businesses and I'm so thrilled to hear that that's where you heard about it they gave us a very large donation as well but for example another Halloween event that we did um was a drive through Halloween events and it was in addition to the Lions Club being there to hand out candy to cars that we're driving through I believe there's nine businesses that were there to both hand out candy to kids but also kind of promote their business as well with a big goodie bag of fun treats and also information about their business my colleague Dave Erdahl works a lot with our business Partnerships and sponsorships and pretty much every big special event that we do there is a lot of partnership with our local businesses whether that be a sponsorship or party at the plaza we have lots of local vendors who come if it's a special event it's going to have some sort of business and Community involvement in that yeah thank you thank you does anybody else have any questions Commissioners this item was just uh was on your agenda tonight as information only there is no formal action required here we were just we were excited to share with people what we learned over the summer and this seems to be a great place to do that so preliminary 2023 work plan draft and I'm going to invite Mr JJ to join us and present that's a hit all right good evening commissioners so um we are at a point uh in the year where typically we would get together and sit down and discuss um in a maybe more in a work session format the upcoming year and what we would like to see put on our work plan there would be input there would be conversation things like that given the timeline of things this year not having a meeting in November and as we look forward to 2023 uh the first Monday of the month is a holiday typically when that happens we meet on the third Monday of the month that is also a holiday uh so we got pushed out a little bit and so what I've done is I've worked with other departments to generate a list of the items that we know are going to be coming before you and I think we've got 10 or 11 items here I think we've got a pretty full list that doesn't mean I won't we can't entertain additional items if you have other thoughts on things like that but I I'm happy with the list that we have and I'm going to share that with you now so um first and foremost we have uh seven items that are that come to you on an annual basis they've been coming to you for years with a review of a Capital Improvements plan we typically do that in January next year will be February but but I'll bring forward all of the items that are on that list we do a deer management review we serve as a Citizens panel and public in input session for the city's storm water pollution prevention program um we also receive information from our natural resources folks on the state of our lakes in conjunction with that water pollution prevention program annually we have uh our sustainability coordinator present to us and give us that dashboard report on the things that she's been working on or we've been working on to improve um we take this item to the work plan to the city council we ask for their feedback on it and then ask if they have any additional items they would like us to look at and then last but not least I think this is the newest item that we've added and this might have been a year ago or two years ago but this commission has been great at it and that's jumping in to help out at some of the special events as ways to promote our Park system our trail system even the recreation programs and that's an item that I think was a few years ago you all said hey we want to continue to do that as as you open up new features or new amenities in the park system and things like that it really is a good place for you to be and promoting our Park system trails and things like that so we've added that as an annual activity so those are the seven things that will come to you each and every year now we get into that list of Special Projects um earlier this year we had our city engineer Jen desert come to us and talk to us about a multimodal plan for some of the areas in Burnsville she's gotten been making progress on that all year we want to bring her back and and have her provide us another update um Caleb our one of our natural resources folks has working on an ala Magna Park restoration project which is I know many of you have seen the work that's been done over at Terrace Oaks something similar to that who wants to come talk to us about it we used to have a house over in Allen magnet Park that house no longer exists and there's talk about putting a pickleball court in that area that's not without its Community engagement and public input so we would like to be that host for the folks that are working on that project Ryan Peterson would also like to come back to us and talk to us about the Lake Marion Trail Gap uh City staff has been working on a Heart of the City Frameworks Plan update as a way to continue to make the improvements that are now necessary and needed in the heart of the city after it's 10 and 15 years of Aging a center Village Plan update I know that Regina has been before us earlier this year but but again work is being done in that area and we want to be that sounding board for for her um we're looking at a replacement of our of one of the ramps over at the skate park and this is a significant purchase and so again this is the right place for uh for staff to bring this before you so that we can talk about it and why it's necessary and why it's needed and offer up an opportunity for additional public input um a lot of work has been done lately with Garrett and Caleb in reducing a number of the areas that we mow in our Park system so this Turf to Prairie conversion projects that we've been doing across our Park system I think we've heard about it but we haven't really we now have enough information to present something on how those Prairie projects are coming along uh one of the things that um well has been talked about with this commission before uh but I don't think we heard anything about it this year or for the last two years maybe but is the emerald ash borer and where we're at with that in our management of diseased trees so we'll bring our our tree specialist in to talk about those things uh Caleb was going to bring to us earlier this year a pollinator lawn demonstration project and that just got pushed to the side and pushed to the side and and so now we're pushing it to 2023 but he tells me they're going to bring it to us in 23. and there are um three playgrounds in our Park system that will be replaced in 2023 and we'll bring those three projects back to you for your review and um I guess approval on those items so as I said I think we've got 11 pretty decent projects special projects along with the six or seven items that come before you annually Commissioners if you have any thoughts on any of these items or if you have an item that you would maybe already know that you'd like to hear more information on we can add that to the list or we can have a brief discussion on that right now but again given the timeline of of where we're at in the calendar year when we have to present our work plan to city council which is typically in February and when we meet next Commissioners if you are satisfied with this list and this work plan I would entertain a motion to approve this and move this forward for council's approval sure The Plan update does that involve connectivity between the different trails with the different parks and they start to connect to each other uh commissioner Hamilton it might to some extent um our city engineer Jen desert was before us and talked about creating more bike lanes and Trail Lanes in shared spaces with automobiles right um so some of those bike lanes are connections through Parks um similar to Sunset Pond is a primary example right of getting people to and from or in and around the city on the Bikeway so yes there might be some if it does include some of that trail connection piece so thank you yes I said we talked about Lake variant Trail Gap project the big issue is funding has any of the funding changed Mr Donaldson I do not have that answer I'm hoping that uh Ryan Peterson our Public Works director does and that's why he wants to bring this item back to you in 2023. are there funding problems with any of the other things that are on the list commissioner Donald that's uh uh Donaldson that's very uh another very good question uh at this point I do not believe there are any other funding issues with any of these items um some of some of the work some of the projects um May depending on where it's at in in the in the phase like the Heart of the City Frameworks plan I'm sure there are some big ticket items that are in that but maybe not scheduled for 2023 because the funding hasn't been worked out um so it's a tough question to answer so this list of 11 is just the list It's Not By Priority per se correct it is just a list of items um commissioner Hamilton um in in generating this list and I was working with um uh Carolyn McFadden our our sustainability coordinator she presented to us for the first time this year she would like to move it back into so or do it in the spring for the whole year before rather than trying to do it in October for the nine months of that year so it's it's not in any priority list um and it it may not be even in a listing of this is going to be January this is February this is March all of those are still to be determined I guess when the best timing or the right timing is for each of these items so are there funds set aside for the magnet Pickle bar pickleball court I believe that there are commissioner Donaldson would that be lighting as well as the court itself that's a great question commissioner Donaldson and I hope that when Mr Peterson presents that he will let us know but I believe I believe it does include that I know that um obviously there was a house on that piece of property before so there there is electrical to that area you know that that's not one of the challenges of running that line uh but I I don't know specifically if there's a plan for that or not I'm wondering if when they discuss water quality if they could sneak in some information on um any updates with the drinking water that they the city's been looking at and then any updates with like I think I've mentioned last couple years Kramer Mining and how we're protecting our waterways with the mining and also with the landfill squeezing some pieces in there miss your woman drinking water update and again Kramer mining the landfill that's a done deal isn't it isn't it and I'm sure I'd be curious about um and or now the list is getting longer and longer and there may be a capacity issues but um Fisheries updates relative to the water quality um you know because we're we're about ready to see a bunch of little Shacks out on a lot of the lakes in town and to see a lot of activity and um so it'll be good to get a handle on that recreational end of things and how well that's how well that's going okay a Fisheries update as it relates to our water quality species diversity kind of can open and I don't I don't know how much time there is available for fishermen and fisher-person satisfaction but but there certainly seems to be a lot of pressure on these on these bodies of water so something must be working sure very well and possibly um commissioner Cleveland and Commissioners something as specific as that I'm not sure if our natural resources folks have those answers I'm sure they can connect with somebody that does that is something that I will I will check in on obviously tomorrow and and try to get that um update it or get these items updated onto our Master our out to our work plan um however if if they can't if it's not an item that we can um manage I I won't be able to put it on your list and we can have that discussion again the challenge that we have is the next time we get together this February 6th I believe uh I was trying to Target February 7th as the day we bring this up bring this to council for their approval so it might be challenging to get additional items onto the onto the work plan but we can certainly try well just wanted to get it on the radar and uh whether it's something that you know needs to be on the next agendas I think that's I don't think that's necessary but but it's something that I think that great time it's a use that's going to continue so great topic yeah you just want to know where to go catch fish [Laughter] don't we all one that I'd like to throw out there is just an update on the Food Forest in any expansion conversations around that that is something that you know what that is something I know that we can provide um it's it's uh even with the market Garden um and items um Market Garden our community gardens and the food Forest I know that is an item that we can provide um Jess who was just here and presented to you she can provide us that information so I will add that one to the agenda or to our list to our work plan for sure to tell you with water quality and the lakes uh I did a lot of kayaking this past summer and had to deal with an awful lot of weeds in The Lakes it's almost seems like the the weed situation is starting to encroach on more of the Open Water so is that a DNR issue or is that something that the city looks at Caleb has some answers to those issues Caleb would have some answers to the positions commissioners specifically commissioner Hamilton how uh how would you like me to phrase that item for the work plan no update on um I'll suggest updating on uh aquatic vegetation and invasive like Asian MILF oil and right and part of making Christmas and yeah very good an update on aquatic vegetation management yep that it can add all right you want a motion do we have a motion Commissioners I was I would entertain a motion for the 11 for the 11th special project and the additional five that we've just added an additional five that we've just added I saw them a second all in favor uh anybody opposed all right it passes um our final item is just a reminder that our next meeting is in February on February 6 2023 and with that do we have a motion to adjourn I still move do you have a second second all in favor all right anybody opposed all right have a great night everyone