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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-08-12 MINUTESCity of Cottage Grove Parks, Recreation & Natural Resources Commission August 12, 2002 Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, a regular meeting of the Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources Commission was duly held at City Hall, 7516 - 80th Street South, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, on the 12th day of August, 2002. Acting Chair AI Boche called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Al Boche, Allan Dubois, Kathleen Kullman, Tammy Schwartz, Eddy Wuorenma (7:15 p.m.) MEMBERS ABSENT: Paul Barthol, Steve Morse OTHERS PRESENT: Associate Planner John Burbank Ice Arena/Recreation Manager Zachary Dockter Council Member Pat Rice The agenda was approved as submitted. Minutes of the July 8, 2002 meeting approved as mailed. ,1411EW BIAMINESS A. Appointment of Youth Seat Staff recommends that Amanda Totino be placed in the youth seat on the Commission. Al Boche made a motion to appoint Amanda Totino as a youth member of the Commission. Seconded by Allan Dubois. Motion carried. B. Kingston Field Lighting Discussion Boche stated that with the number of teams in the Soccer Association, there isn't enough time to get all the necessary games in. The Soccer Association has proposed to install lighting, with the help of the City, at Kingston Park to aid in the scheduling of such events. Dockter reviewed a letter from Xcel indicating where the light poles would be placed at Kingston. The letter stated that fields #3, #4, #9 or #10 seem to be the best options. After receiving the letter from Xcel, option #10 seems to be impractical because the light poles need to stay 25 feet away from the power line. So, that leaves the option of Kingston #9, Parks Commission Minutes August 12, 2002 K which is the farthest from any homes. Otherwise the lights would have to move to fields #3 or #4, which would be much closer to several area homes. Burbank mentioned that he sent out a letter to residents surrounding that area requesting their attendance and input on whether the lights should be placed at Kingston Park. Those comments were invited. Leroy Davis of 7535 Jensen Avenue stated that he had nothing against the lighting in particular, but he had some issues with safety at Kingston Park. He claimed there are kids driving through the parking lot, whipping their cars around and it is becoming real dangerous. He's wondering if the lights will contribute to that by keeping the park open later. He suggested putting up some sort of gate and blocking it off. He suggested that the speed bumps have helped to deter some of the speeding but he is still afraid someone's going to get hurt. Pat Horst of 9493 Indian Boulevard South stated he would also not like lights in the park because of the added traffic and safety concerns. He feels it will be endangering the walkers and bikers traveling through the park. If something does get put up, he feels there would be a need for extra security of some sort. He felt that the installation of lights for the extra half hour or hour doesn't seem to be practical and also asked why they couldn't use the high school fields. At Boche replied that he has talked to the school district several times and they say the fields get beat up so much over the year that they need time to recuperate. Mr. Horst would like to see the funds allocated towards this lighting project used at other parks i.e. new field or other large projects. Jon Cheney, 9299 Indian Boulevard South, stated that he wanted to echo some of the other concerns, but didn't have any immediate concerns as to the effect on neighboring homes. However, he had some other concerns about the park in general. One being that the turf is not in very good shape and it needs work. Secondly, the current light on the park building is not enough to deter some of the vandalism and night activity. He'd like to see more parking lot lighting. He reiterated his main concerns were: Is this a good use of City resources and do we want to contribute to the abuse of the fields? John Palmer, 9285 Indian Boulevard South, stated that one of the major reasons he likes living where he's at is that it is next to a park and the park has no lighting. That's all he wanted to state. Dale Johnson stated that he is the current president of the Soccer Association. He gave a brief background of how many kids were in the program and reiterated that scheduling is the main problem. They have to start games as early as 5:45 p.m. and finish at dark. To answer some of the questions and concerns, he stated that tthe coaches would have keys and would shut the lights off as soon as the games were over. They would have the lights off by 10:00 p.m, every night. If anything, the lights and the presence of more people would deter the cars from cruising through the parking lot. He stated that the program seems to be growing at a rate of about 10% per year and they haven't gained any fields in the last five years. It is really crunching their scheduling efforts. As far as the budget concern, it will not be totally out of the City's budget. Soccer has agreed to defray some of those costs and the details of that will be worked out later. A question was asked about using the Cottage Grove Junior High more and Dale responded that those fields are in absolutely Parks Commission Minutes August 12, 2002 3 horrible shape. They use them as they can, but the grass is unplayable. It is mostly weeds and bad turf. Tammy Schwartz asked about lighting Highland Park instead. Dale responded that they only use the one field now and that's because there is not enough parking. They used to use two fields but the parking was inadequate. A question was asked if there would be any additional games played on those fields. Dale replied that there wouldn't be. The intent is to finish just the games that are scheduled under the lights. Boche requested that staff look into getting some construction, maintenance and energy usage costs for the September meeting. Burbank also suggested meeting at Hamlet Park for the next meeting to see the lights there, survey the Hamlet Park expansion and see the new shelter in place. The Commission agreed. The next meeting will be held at Hamlet Park and not televised. C. Oakwood Park Amendment Burbank reviewed the topic of selling part of Oakwood Park in coordination with the realignment of the roadway. There will be more detailed maps of what trees will be lost and what land will be taken. The intent with the sale of the land would be to put that money towards the Hamlet Park expansion plan. He stated that they intend to do some of the grading fairly soon. So, he wants the Commission to continue to review the plan and verify that they would still like to go ahead with it or whether they want to put a stop on it for further review. He also wanted to point out that the playground structure will have to be moved. He stated that the current area where the play structure is located is far away from the shelter, the parking lot and other amenities. Hopefully the play structure can be moved closer to those areas with the proposed grading of the site. He showed a map of the trees being lost and he stated that the trees being removed would be accounted for by planting new trees into other parks. Eddy Wuorenma asked what the cost to the City would be for these additional changes? Burbank replied there would be some additional cost involved in the grading of these properties, but those costs would be recouped from the sale of the land. Schwartz asked if there are already people interested in these lots? Burbank replied that there has been some interest in purchasing these lots by commercial consumers. Schwartz also questioned why the Lamar Park land purchase request was denied? She asked how we cannot allow the sale of 30 feet to that gentleman, but now allow the sale of thousands of square feet at Oakwood Park? She thought the City would be contradicting itself. She also asked if there were any other parks in the area that have commercial establishments abutting the park. She said it feels weird to put a commercial entity right next to a park. Burbank responded to Schwartz's comments about the difference between the Lamar Park sale by stating that the sale of that 30 feet wasn't in line with the long term goal of that park and a potential roadway could go through that parcel of land. That is something else that will be discussed in the meeting; the development of master plans for the parks. If at that time, we decide the land is of no use, we would feel more comfortable selling the 30 feet of Lamar Park land to the resident. In Oakwood Park's case, we know the plans for that area and feel comfortable selling that land and using those monies to develop other parklands in the City. Boche moved to direct staff to proceed with the plans for Oakwood Park as is. Seconded by Dubois. Tammy Schwartz voted nay. Motion carried four to one. Z Parks Commission Minutes August 12, 2002 D. Lamar Fields Review 4 Burbank stated the reasoning for a master plan have become evident in recent discussions. Staff has been working on such a plan by putting park inventories together. Hopefully, we can then bring these back to the Commission and begin to develop 10, 20 and 30 year plans for the parks. We will then have a response to purchase requests of park land. In regard to the Lamar Park situation, staff believes Lamar Park should be placed at the top of the list and a master plan should be started for that park. Kathleen Kullman asked if there would be a need for expansion at Lamar for adult softball. She questioned if we turn teams away or are the fields being used to capacity? Furthermore, would we need to expand? If we did add more softball fields, would we allow more adult teams into our Recreation program? Dockter replied that there is room for up to 12 teams per night and three of the four nights do not fill. So, at the present time there would not be a need for more fields. Wuorenma expressed his concern that we do not have much parkland beyond the ball fields and if that's a future road access or a parking lot, we probably should not give up the little bit of land we have. There is no guarantee that we'll ever get any more land behind the current park. Schwartz also commented that it doesn't appear that there's any long term goals for that park and she feels we could give that resident his 30 feet of land and possibly even sell the rest of the land as a usable lot. That money could then be put back in the Park Trust Fund. She said she typically doesn't support the sale of land, but in this situation where we have no use for it, and it's an awkward piece of land, we should consider it. Wuorenma stated, once again, that he doesn't want to get into piece mealing parcels of parkland. If we sell 30 feet here, what happens if someone at Kingston wants 25 feet. Schwartz commented that it wouldn't make sense to sell those pieces of land so we should be able to take it case by case. Council Member Rice responded that sometimes you can't really do that. When you make a decision, people will go back and use them for leverage in other cases. Dubois also stated that he doesn't see why the Council couldn't say yes to this sale of land and say no to all other requests for sale. Boche responded that we need to develop a master plan to make sure that this is what we want to do before we start selling the land. Boche stated that they would like to keep the recommendation to not sell that parcel of land. E. Park Facilities Inventory Review — Draft 1 Burbank updated the Commission on the park facilities inventory. He stated that staff is collecting inventory data and the ideal situation would be to have a book with appropriate maps for each park and a table showing dimensions of fields, length of trails, number of grills, shelters, etc.... He's hoping this will give us a better idea of what is out there, what we need to plan for and help us set some standards. He showed a map and stated that we have a GIS Intern who is working on the park maps to show the aerial photo and to show the way some of the parks are being developed. He was looking for comments from the Commission. He's hoping the finished document will be ready by next summer. `;; Parks Commission Minutes August 12, 2002 OLD BUS I I[NtSS A. Hamlet Park Renovation — Draft 2 5 Burbank reviewed the second draft of the Hamlet Park renovation and noted the key points. One of those being the addition of the parking area and the removal of one of the baseball fields in order to save the football field. Burbank reiterated that we would meet at Hamlet next month and that would give us an opportunity to walk around and see how this will be layed out. Kullman asked about a letter that was written to the Bulletin about Hamlet Park and the skating park there. The letter said the skating park equipment was beat up, broken and needed to be fixed. She asked if there has been any response to that. Dockter responded that the Youth Service Bureau has been working to correct these problems at the skateboard park with materials purchased by the City. B. Peter Thompson Family Park Update Dockter updated the Commission that the new park off of 65 will hopefully be up for grading this fall and construction next spring. Hopefully it will be up and running by the end of the summer or early fall of next year. The park will have a soccer field, baseball field, hockey rink, basketball court, playground structure and a park building. That park building has been set up to allow for storage, maintenance room, office and dressing rooms. It is staffs hope to take this building and use it as a cookie cutter for the replacement of the other park buildings. It sets out to be a very nice park and is being constructed by Newland Homes in lieu of Park Trust Fund monies. C. Renaming Policv Burbank stated that the Council voted to not approve the renaming request from the Commission. Council requested that the Commission and staff come up with a policy before we rename any of our fields or parks. Burbank also stated that the renaming policy, as stated in the last meeting, is being wrapped in with the donations program that's been discussed within the Marketing Committee and City staff. Look to get more information on this issue at upcoming meetings. A. Golf Division Burbank pointed out that Bruce provided some financial data in response to the article written in the Pioneer Press. So, if there are any concerns with the River Oaks Golf Course they can review the provided financial data. The golf course is in fine shape. Parks Commission Minutes August 12, 2002 B. Ice Arena Division No Comments. C. Parks Division No Comments. D. Recreation Programming Division P Amanda reviewed some of the Parks and Rec. programs. She stated that they are currently in the middle of Adventure Camp and the playground programs have just closed for the year. E. Planning Commission No Comments. F. Council Agendas No Comments. G. CGAA Boche reviewed the CGAA report and wanted to note that the Soccer division spent over $5,000 repairing netting at the parks. He also wanted to point out that the CGAA's contributions benefit all user groups, not just their own. H. Historic Preservation No Comments. None STAFF COMMENTS Staff reminded the Commission that the September meeting will be at Hamlet Park. x Parks Commission Minutes August 12, 2002 AD OUIl IVfI =NT Motion to adjourn by Allan Dubois. Seconded by Eddy Wuorenma. Motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 p.m. 'Tammy Schwartz left at 8:40 p.m. El