e e e e e e e e let's get the workshop started at 516 roll call please council member Cole here council member Wong here council member nordby here council member schwe is absent mayor Magi here can a motion to adopt the agenda please so move so move council member Cole second second council member Norby all those in favor say I I I thank you topic sir thank you mayor we got one topic on the agenda tonight and that's to discuss the uh parks and open space master plan I'll turn that over to Riley our community development director thank you uh so Council the uh purpose here tonight is just to review and provide any edits or any comments that you may have for the uh parks and uh space master plan uh this was a considerable undertaking by The Parks and Recreation Commission uh to update this plan and uh like I mentioned we're seeking review and comments uh before a a final uh formal approval at a future council meeting date um basically the overall purpose of the plan is to present um what we kind of call a logical and organized framework for exploring and recommending future improvements to our Park system uh so that they serve our uh the residents of North St Paul as well as businesses and visitors um this is done uh specifically in a couple different ways first is to evaluate uh Community input and analyze demographic changes in the city number two evaluate the existing Park system number three review uh future Trends in Parks and Recreation number four provide principles to prioritize improvements uh to the Parks and Recreation facilities so that the system can St relevant and functional number five uh provide City officials guidance on uh Capital Improvement projects uh number six be a 10e road map for the park system so that it meets the needs of the city's changing population and number seven approve the city's ability to seek and uh qualify for key grant opportunities again to help fund uh those Park improvements um this document obviously uh incorporates many other uh recent planning documents um that do provide a lot of key analysis for the city to consider uh including the 2022 Parks Improvement plan the 2040 uh comprehensive plan the 2022 Redevelopment plan master plan and the 2022 housing assessments uh needs assessments and and several other uh documents as well but uh more broadly uh I think we all know that the value of uh well-maintained and wellth thought out Parks um system is uh unmatched uh residents and visitors do specifically seek out uh parks and Open Spaces when determining where to live where to visit where to shop um Good Park systems provide uh immense health benefits physical activity contact with nature and the natural environment uh and social social interaction especially coming we're a little removed now from the covid-19 pandemic but really um getting uh people together and and interacting with each other uh with their families neighbors and visitors um our well-designed system raises the overall quality of life uh for our residents it increases property values and allows the city to attract and retain residents and promote uh and promotes business and economic development um I do want to thank the Parks and Recreation Commission for their work on this plan I started here and I think this was literally the first document that I looked at on maybe the second day that I was here um so I don't have a whole lot of the backstory that's why we have some of our wonderful Commissioners here I also do want to specifically uh call out and thank Sarah for her work on this as well from a staff perspective she's she's done a fantastic job on this as well so um we're here to help answer any questions or provide any input that you may have otherwise we'll look for uh any edits you may have and then we'll be bringing this back to a future council meeting can you start over we'll replay the tape send it to the booth in New York any questions after that email I sent you from a resident yeah I I did note that um we we uh mayor mongi did send me some emails uh specifically regarding disability data um that I think the whole Council uh saw uh Sarah and I will take a look at that uh along with the parks commissioner uh members and um determine if if that information needs to be incorporated uh with into this plan uh I think the plan overall does a pretty good job of of touching on some of those kind of ADA and disabil components already uh but we'll see if if uh we can beef that up a little bit yeah even the nice job in Dorothy Park they got passed to the to the playgrounds and everywhere else so we've been doing pretty well on that I'll start um first of all thank you very much for all the hard work I do appreciate it um my first comments are going to be about edits um the park I'm most familiar with in North St Paul is housy Park um just because I try and walk past it every day so on page 19 you for howy you have it listed as having basketball courts um which isn't necessarily accurate yes that I think it was the X was supposed to go in the ball field thing when they had the ball fields there nice catch yes um and then when you're describ in howy park you also talk about it being flooded in the winters my understanding is that's going away is that correct Brian um was my understanding that they filled that in that was uh part of that ball field that was out there and that was filled in yes because it was a low area when they took out the lne part is that correct Ron yep it's supposed to it's not we're not sure what it's going to do this year because we haven't seen it correct it's supposed to not flood they're talking a flooding for that okay yeah yeah on purpose for skating joking um so so those were were my um two edits or comments other than that I appreciate the hard work um and then the only other um question I had and I don't know this was more to Riley um about what other cities do is is there a let's say a cliff note or a condensed version um as we're making decisions about other things throughout the year that um that could be provided to us to make it easy to you know if we're looking at a project that might be next to the um Park to know what's planned for that Park just so it's easy and add our fingertips a small cliff notes of um what's needed and what what our 10-year plan is would be helpful to me as a a council member yeah th those are uh that's a that's a great idea what I have typically seen is um when staff uh writes their staff reports for you know for in this example um we would review The Parks master plan or the uh parks and open space master plan and see if there's any connections there that need be made and then we would put that into our staff uh report so that Council or you know whoever we're writing this for is is well aware of it um I have I have seen uh in in my one of my previous cities we we did um I mean something similar where we we had stated goals and we listed if the action met those those specific goals we could maybe look at doing something like that when it comes to park specific items uh I would have no problem incorporating that yeah that that'd be awesome in for my experience up two years unfortunately some of it's Fallen um falling through the cracks if we forget to ask on some of the stuff so uh I if you're committed to having you know the staff review the proposals that come before us how they affects the park and all the other plans that would be awesome thank you absolutely I have a quick question um I'm on page 28 looking at the Silver Lake Park amenities um and it's looking at the Improvement schedule and I see that um the beach and the sand volleyball courts um they don't necessarily have an improvement schedule can you speak a little bit to that I don't know if I can speak to that understand is of obligations I guess to me that's maintenance I wouldn't know any more about that than like the grass is going to be mowed um so that's probably why we didn't have that in there not that it's not important that but I was under understanding the necessarily a park obligation like a playr or walking path or something okay yeah we do have the Silver Lake Lake Association too that I know they've been very involved with that part of the area as well are you looking at the guard issue or it just says here that it's not applicable um and so I'm just kind of wondering why cuz it's all within the same vicinity I mean it's overall the public knows it as Silver Lake Park and so that's just kind of why I'm why I'm asking um and then I guess that leads me to another question is like what is the general like uh maybe this is like jumping the gun a little bit but I mean obviously we have Public Works that works on the maintenance component of it how is Parks and wreck and public works like how does that work together yeah I think I think Ron can speak to it better than I can um because I'm new to the park commission as well but um from what we've done is um and we're going to continue next week um putting in CIP recommendations for upcoming years um and when those recommendations come from the Parks Commission um pass that along to Riley and public works and and make that make those things happen but as far as previous how they work together I'll pass it to Ron hello hello um really we like I said with me taking over in the role that I have we really don't I want to say have we haven't worked together you know we take care of the maintenance that needs to be done um we do some swimming around the beach um for the you know the weeds and stuff that grow up on the beach um we maintain the the park the mowing uh we in as far as the sand on the beach we really haven't done anything other than like General cleanup of that um but as far as you know like when you're talking volleyball courts or whatever we maintain that we kill weeds in that we pull weeds from that uh we add sand we've added borders to some of those um volleyball you know courts uh Mulch and the playgrounds you know just the general maintenance so as far as working together you're talking us working together with the parks and wck commission or I mean you know like yeah just kind of like how is that yeah working together because well I mean I guess for right now um just with the change of over the past few years of different people and different roles um we would get a list of stuff that like let's say Sarah might bring some stuff back to us or you know say hey this is what got brought up in the Parks uh meeting last night um and I guess that's how we collaborate with them at the moment okay cool thank you I don't know if that answered the question or yeah I mean yeah just asking what you do yeah thanks okay any other questions off former you can go ahead first off thanks guys let me turn my mic on this is awesome um I was around for round one and it was during Co and it wasn't fun there was a it took us dang near I think a year to get to get the original draft put together um you know Riley and Sarah did a phenomenal job along with along with your help um it looks fantastic uh a couple of things that I know that were done in the prior packet the Improvement plan that I didn't see in this one um one was um the it's it's in here um like under description I got Silver Lake open and it talks about the playground equipment um um some of it was installed in 2006 expected life is 15 to 20 years I think there was a document that was created that had the the installation of the equipment the life expectancy and the replacement year um I thought that was created and I think that would help public works because I think that would fall under Public Works to be able to budget to know when that was documented I think that has already been created so it's just a matter of figuring out who whose computer file it might be in um the other piece that wasn't in here that I know we had many meetings worth of conversations on was a priority list of what the park and wreck wants to prioritize from a park standpoint um and I know that there was some there was you know like a one to five year plan a 5 to 10 and a 15 and Beyond um and I think it was all colorcoded and it looked really good um as I leave at the end of the year um you're gonna have two new people sitting up here that aren't going to probably be aware of any of it and I think you guys need to get credit for what the energy and effort that was put into it and they also think it'll help provide guidance um to not only the present Council that's going to remain but the new Council coming on board uh for example we have a um 1% currently right now in Dan's Levy tied in for Park and wreck we have no idea what th those funds are actually going to be spent against so that would that would help identify um you know identify that what what those fundings were going to be um and they were the priorities that came out of you guys and I think um at the time there are even roughed out dollar amounts that were put beside it which we know only the only time they're good is the day the numbers are written and they Chang the following day but um I think that would be a phenomenal tool for this going forward um as it shared with um you know with with with anybody else in the community as well as um anybody sitting up here on Council to make it easier to make funding decisions um for example um we've we've mcnight field was I think in the in that top bucket of what needed to be worked on um and we've already hired you've already hired a consultant to come by and provide recommendations and do studies and that's phenomenal um but there were two additional parks that they're looking at that weren't even tied in to that program so those are the types of things that I want to just make sure get updated um the the pocket park stuff to make sure that that gets that gets included in there as a priority as well as as we move forward because you guys have done way too much heavy lifting to to get version one and version two out so I just want to compliment everybody for for all the work and effort that went into it it's is that the old one this is can you come up to the microphone because we got a lot of people that listen so thank you do we we hope we do we hope we're getting a crowd you threaten to do something that's right I have the one that's approved that we have which uh that was in 2022 right huh it's well and that's the park Improvement plan right that's a different plan than this one yep So the plan we started with the park Improvement plan and then from there we kind of narrowed it down to what we wanted to do in one year three year five years and from the one year three year now we're working on howy we got howy done and that took like a probably a couple year process to get housy rolling uh so we're kind of we've been kind of working off of this and then narrowing it down a little bit to what we really want to work on so we do have have a list I just didn't see it in here under improve schedule or Improvement schedule there's some stuff in here that you know next maintenance you know every five years replace this in 2024 but you guys sat through and actually voted and did and had a nice hierarchy of of when you wanted to work on stuff and I don't see that or didn't see it in this document maybe we need to get it in there that's I just want you guys to take credit for the the work you put into it along with the list of Cu we have in the last two three years we we went out to all the parks a few of us and we talked about which how old some of these uh playgrounds were and then decided from there which ones we were going to improve at certain points and then we have with our Liaisons in each of our Parks they come back with information on what we should do uh as I know they want to work on a a gym or an ex say things sah I would just focus on this I would say that like it's easy enough that we have it in our Improvement plan we just go back and make a short vers yeah you yeah you have the Improvement plan which I believe that's what you're talking about because it's a document that he has right there then we have the master plan so really we need to combine correct me if I'm wrong both of those plans it lives in the master plan it lives in that plan correct that's the Improvement plan but we I mean I think we could easily make a one two page just kind of priority ranking taking boiling that down and putting that into here that's I don't think that'd be a problem perfect be super helpful yeah credit for what you did we don't forget start to start over thank you thank you thanks good all right well thank you everybody appreciate it I think we got uh appreciate all the hard work and thank you council member wol for I think it be good idea to get everything in one so we make sure we can not forget what's in the other one so thank you I do have one more thing how can this Council support you well I think part of it you gota come up yeah because I get notes after meetings that people say we couldn't hear people so thank you I feel like we're finally with this master plan getting approved as soon as we make the edits I think the big part is going to be we've been kind of in a halt State for the last since covid and we haven't made a lot of Park improvements and that hasn't felt great and that's not what the park commission has wanted um so as the sooner we get this done the better because I think the C Park commission is really ready to start start spending some of this money for good things um so I would ask for the help here is if there's any questions or any concerns about parks that we may already be studying or not studying um to bring that up like silver Lake's a really good example where we know that equipment is coming to age but at the same time like is there a bigger priority um and that's what we're weighing in the park commission but I would say as far as help from us is you know if you support this plan if you agree with that especially with new members coming in this year um educating the new members on on what this looks like so that we can pass when new things like mcnight Fields or some of these other potentially really big improvements to our city come about they don't get halted and lost in the process because it's a short window of when we can bid on getting the right contractors and then when we can build it itself so it's kind of a short window as some of you know who've lived through that so that's what I would say is that if you feel good about this master plan and you feel good then helping us push it along when we bring it to council to get approval for those items okay thank you I appreciate too that we're doing you know housy which is on the south side of 36 we had a lot of Casey park over in the north so I'm glad we're spreading it out and the big one is going to be mcnight because we've been all been talking about that because it has aged quite a bit and of course we have the some of the issues with the flooding and you know trying to understand what's the best fit for that much land that we can get our best bang for our buck on so thank you saw a lot of people I was gonna say a really great yeah thank you for your work and U thank you for continuing to work on this yeah awesome job it's all right a lot of work yeah it is [Music] [Music] appreciate great great I really appreciate the the survey that was been last year too I think it was pretty well received or there was a great participation um so I was happy to see that engagement and sue you are on page 67 I suppose so huh the yeah looks like it that's awesome is there anything else Riley on this or is that no I think we got some edits here that we'll make uh at a staff level and then uh bring it back at a future council meeting for more formal approval okay everybody good with that up here it's all good thank you thanks thank you for all your hard work thank you we'll uh I know any other any other business it doesn't like there's anything underneath it so we move we move for adjournment next anybody move for so move council members we thank you it took a while I thought you'd be on that coal second second moves yeah second second which one you gonna pick uh Wong all those in favor say I I I thank you and we will be meeting at uh 6:20 for our HRA meeting 6:30 we'll start our normal meeting and our next will be October 1st for our regular meetings thanks