02-17-26 PTRC - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Parks, Trails & Recreation Committee – January 20, 2026 Page 9 specifically to pickup trash. Is there list of tasks that they don’t do, that would then fall to the participants of this program? Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky said there is a plan for each park and part of that plan sometimes is minimum maintenance. All of Arden Hills park spaces have a maintenance plan. They may be doing some of the things, including making time for minimum maintenance. If a group wanted to come in and do something new, upon approval, that group would have to maintain whatever task they presented. If that same group decides to discontinue maintenance, the City will not be responsible for maintaining that. Typically, a group that adopts a park would take over some of that minimum maintenance and possibly enhance it by doing a little bit more. Chair Julius said she likes the draft document definitions. She suggested segmenting the content into categories to make everything more readable. She thought outlining a “commitment level” with options from low, medium to high commitment. Separating it by commitment level may be helpful when applicants are deciding what they want to commit to. It might also be helpful to list the parks and the key responsibilities needed at each park. Maybe there’s a map of parks and the adopters can be shown on the map. Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky said this program is not intended to create any additional work for Parks and Recreation Staff. It is not intended to remove anything from the Public Works Maintenance Plan. It is not intended for PTRC to take charge, either. It’s meant to engage individuals, groups or businesses who want to do something above and beyond what is currently in place. Committee Member Johnson said when she worked on rain gardens, the City gave people opportunity to do amazing things with the rain gardens. The ownership was on the homeowner. If they decided to stop maintaining it, that rain garden received no further attention. She said the work being done at Floral Park is amazing. The park looks gorgeous. If those volunteers stop doing that, it would be horrific. Residents are used to going through that park and seeing that beauty. We have to have contingency plans. How do we do that? If that group stopped the work in Floral Park tomorrow, what do we do? Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky said due to staffing levels at the City, we would not be taking on those additional projects. Committee Member Johnson said the next step would be recruitment. Hopefully the groups will want to sign up for 5 years. Her other comment is she believes Boston Scientific paid for the picnic shelter at Cummings Park. She said adding an option for larger entities to donate money towards larger features like that may be helpful. Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky said the City is aiming to raise a lot of sponsorships for the 75th Anniversary. Monetary donations for parks assets would probably fall under the sponsorship program. She summarized that she heard PTRC say add a list of parks and identify different commitment levels. Committee Member Johnson thought we could request an exit plan. Parks and Recreation Manager Skalicky said that is a good idea for the groups that are doing big projects.