06-20-06 PTRC Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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PARKS, TRAILS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING DUNE 20 2006 Page 2 of 5 • good time to talk. A recognized champion for trails and natural resource interest, Governor Andersen is certainly deserving of this memorial. Some of the debate going on in the legislature talked about trying to reinstate some of the money he put in the 1960's that was taken away a few years ago. I think if there was a recommendation from your parks and trails committee and your city council supported that charge, there certainly is a process in place for the county to give you their recommendation. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Chair Henry had the following corrections for the May 16, 2006 minutes: • Page 2, Item 3, first bullet, second item, should read "Ramey County Sheriff to host meeting on flu pandemic planning" • Page 4, Item 6, seventh paragraph, last sentence, should read, "Committee Member Bauman stated that he might be able to design a small course for the City." • Page 4, Item 6, eighth paragraph, should read, "Committee Member Crassweller asked where staff would consider placing a bocce golf course." Committee Member Wheeler stated she was not present for the May 16 PTRC meeting. MOTION: Committee Member Straumann motioned, seconded by Committee Member McClung to approve the May 16, 2006 minutes as amended. The motion carried unanimously. 4. O&M DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION DISCUSSION(Michelle Wolfe) Ms. Wolfe stated she spoke with Chair Henry last month and he expressed the PTRC's desire to have an opportunity to have input as the city moves forward with plans for the Operations and Maintenance • Department. At that time it was asked if the city planned to fill the position. Ms. Wolfe's response was that the she did not want to fill the position until more thought was given to the current structure and if it would be best for the city going forward. Also, she would like to receive input from stakeholders, interested parties, staff and council. This was actually the first step in the information gathering stage. The timing of this meeting was such that it worked out that the process could start out here. One of the concerns she has was that the city currently is pretty much fully developed and there is not much in terms of population changes and things of that nature. If TCAAP were developed that could change. The framework vision that the Council adopted contemplates a significant amount of open space: park,amenities, etc. It seems that whatever the city does,it should be flexible enough to adjust as the city moves forward without having to shift employees around in ways that could create personnel issues in the future. Ms. Wolfe stated that the bottom line was that she was not sure if one of these four charts would be what is recommended. It could be one as presented or it could be one with some fine tuning. The plan was to put some ideas down on paper for people to react to and provide feed back and comments. She stated that she felt very strongly about the maintenance aspect and the fact that the city has eight employees who are crossed trained across the board, in park maintenance, water and sewer, storm water utilities and street improvement work. It would be a real detriment to split the labor pool into two departments as flexibility could possibly be affected. Most cities feel our current organization is a real advantage and are envious of cities like us that have that pool. Committee Chair Henry state he understood that Arden Hills has universal maintenance staff,but this is a really small city with a really small staff. Does it really get that difficult to share people if you put them in different departments?