08-19-25 PTRC-Cancelled -No Quorum

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Parks, Trails & Recreation Committee – July 15, 2025 Page 10 Discussion ensued regarding how residents can get a paper copy of the passport and Committee Members confirmed they were checking on the letters they were assigned and updated if they have had to replace any. Committee Member Olson said she met with the Lions Club and Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky to discuss the Community Picnic. The biggest thing was trying to get more participants either through word of mouth or extra advertising. Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky said there will be some health focused vendors at the event. Committee Member Johnson provided a trail update. She met with Rich Straumann on June 25. They came up with a vision. She wondered if anyone else would like to be a part of that. We want to figure out how to engage people to figure out how to connect all the trails and find grants that may help pay for them. Committee Member Olson noted that Rich Straumann used to be on the PTRC and now serves on a committee for the northwest suburban trails. He’s a wealth of knowledge on all trails. He’s an advocate for trails and connections. Committee Member Jacobson said the roundabout wasn’t mowed last year. We contacted Ramsey County. It’s been mowed three times this year. That wasn’t the intent. The tall prairie grasses were designed as a feature of the roundabout. Now it’s short green grass. She doesn’t know if there is anything else for us to do. This roundabout is owned by Ramsey County. If we want anything different, we would have to take responsibility for maintaining it. We looked at the requirements for traffic control on a Ramsey County road. Arden Hills doesn’t have the traffic control equipment the County requires, if we had a work group work on the roundabout. She asked the PTRC what their opinions are. Should we just leave it and let Ramsey County mow it. Council Liaison Rousseau remembered we were going to wait until it fully developed and see what it looked like. She asked if the issue is that it still isn’t looking like something the residents want. Committee Member Olson said the Black-eyed Susans were about to bloom and they mowed it all down. It was about to be something. We did do a little weeding. It started to come in and they mowed it down again. Council Liaison Rousseau asked how those flowers got there. Committee Member Olson said that was what was planted. They planted some really pretty things that were going to bloom at different times. It was part of their planting. Committee Member Jacobson said was proposed to the engineer was to do a coordinated plan where we would work with Ramsey County. She hasn’t gotten much feedback from them. Discussion ensued regarding who could be contacted regarding what could be done.