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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-12-07 P & R Set Agenda w/Handouts CITY OF CENTERVILLE PARKS AND RECREATION AGENDA Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - 6:30 P.M. Red = Set Agenda I. CALL TO ORDER 1. Roll Call II. SET AGENDA III. APPEARANCES 1. Mr. Rob Faust, Eagle Scout Project Update a. Cornerstone Peace Stones — Installation Complete (See Pictures Provided by K. Amundsen) IV. CONSIDERATIONS OF MINUTES 1. November 2, 2011 Committee Minutes 2. November 29, 2011 Committee Minutes V. COMMITTEE BUSINESS 1. Park Benches for Trailside Park 2. Status - Committee Member, Resignation — K. Selander Appreciation Letter 3. Skate Night Flyer & Placement VI. UPDATES 1. Council Update — Council Liaison King VII. OPEN ITEMS & STATUS 1. Donation Requests (Deadbroke, Running Aces & Eaglebrook) 2. Cornerstone Park Kiosk 3. Skate Parties (Volunteers, Supplies, Bonfire Site & Etc.) 4. Trail Signage 5 Aluminum Can Project VIII. ADJOURNMENT PARKS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES Tuesday, November 29, 2011- 6:00 p.m. Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, the Parks & Recreation Committee of the City of Centerville held a scheduled meeting Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at Centerville City Hall, 1880 Main Street. Present: Chairperson Patrick Branch Vice - Chairperson Jon Grahek Committee Member Kevin Amundsen Committee Member Brian Peterson Committee Member Suzanne Seeley Committee Member Mark Haiden Absent: None Appearances: 1. Tom Wilharber, Mayor 2. Mr. Dallas Larson, Centerville City Administrator I. CALL TO ORDER Roll Call Chairperson Pat Branch called the November 29, 2011 Parks & Recreation Committee Special Meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. II. SET AGENDA Motion was made by Committee Member Haiden, seconded by Committee Member Amundsen, to set the agenda as proposed. Motion carried unanimously. III. Consideration of Minutes Consideration of the November Parks and Recreation Committee meeting are deferred to the December 7 meeting. IV. Purpose: This is a special meeting of the committee for one specific purpose. In September, the City Council made a budget decision that resulted in the reduction of two staff members. That decision has had a major impact on the Parks and Recreation Committee. This special meeting of the Parks and Recreation Committee has been called to assess that impact and to make recommendations to the City Council manage that impact. V. Discussion Points The following items are extracted from the regularly scheduled November Parks and Recreation Committee meeting. They are included here and were used at this special meeting of the committee as a departure point, so as to build upon rather than repeating what had transpired at previous meetings. • Who do we contact if we know we can't make an upcoming Park and Recreation meeting? • How will the rest of the committee be informed if there will not be a quorum present? Or that the meeting is to be cancelled? • Will there be a staff person who can research previous decisions, motions and historical data? • Who do we contact for legal requirements? (Posting for quorums and additional meetings, coordination of committee email communications, forwarding legal questions or issues for input from the city lawyer, etc.) • Removing a committee member to record meeting minutes does not work well. Essentially, one of our members is removed from discussions, brain - storming and the group interactions. Overall our meeting is less effective. • Park and Recreation Committee members did not volunteer to be minute takers. We may lose members who do not type well or who feel it is a poor use of three hours of their time. • The Park and Recreation Committee will have a more difficult time recruiting volunteers with more of our volunteer hours going to "support issues" and less to offering our community park related programs. • These issues will be difficult to overcome. All committee members present indicated they would like the City Council to address these concerns. VI. Issues: 1. Taking meeting minutes and preparation of meeting packets: Taking and preparing meeting minutes is a burden on the committee. Committee members are volunteers interested is maintaining and improving the City's parks. Committee members did not volunteer to do secretarial work and lack the required skills. Because of our limited skills, taking minutes removes one committee member each month from full participation in the meeting discussions. 2. Consistency of staff support from the City: Parks and Recreation has gone from having a dedicated full time City staff assistance to (in the perception of the committee) no staff assistance. 3. Legality of Committee actions: There are certain State statues, such as the open meeting and record keeping, that the committee must follow. In addition, the committee members are volunteers; not elect officials nor city employees. There are limits to what volunteers can do. Actions that obligate the City should be done by either City staff or elected officials/ 4. Access to Parks and Rec History There is a frequent need to research or to know the past history of committee and council actions. Consistency of actions or decisions from one year to the next is an important aspect of management. Membership on this committee has been rather stable, but as individuals are record keeping is not. There is a continuing need to have access to minute or general knowledge of past actions. 5. Projects requiring research and follow -up during normal business hours: In prior years the Parks and Rec staff assistant handle all committee business that had to be done during normal business hours. The majority of committee members are not available to do business during the normal work week. VII. Proposed Solutions 1. Hire a Scribe: See the recommendation below. The committee has tried to have a committee member take the minutes. That is not a satisfactory solution. The committee strongly feels that a dedicated and skilled person is needed to take and maintain the minutes. See actions items 2. Increased Assistance from the Staff: The general perception of the committee members is that the committee has gone from excellent staff support to no staff support. The City Administrator needs to take action to provide the committee the needed support. This support may come from multiple staff members rather than one dedicated member. See City Administrators e-mail message to his staff dated Nov. 30, 2011. 3. User friendly Special Events application: The City has a Special Permit form. That form is a one size fits all form that covers the complexity of major events. A simple one page form is need for those who come in and request the use of a city park for a single event or for use of sports facilities on a regularly scheduled basis. This would simplify the process and ensure the required minimum information is available. 4. Add an "Action Item" section to the routine meeting minutes: To make it easier to track action items, a new section will be added to the standard meeting minutes. See section X below. 5. Recruit volunteers to take on specific projects: It may be helpful to recruit a series of volunteers to work specific projects for the city. Examples of these project may include: Music -in -the- Parks, Fete de Lacs sporting events, maintenance of city gardens, city historian. VIII. Recommendations: 1.1. The following motion was made by Committee Member Seeley, seconded by Committee Member Haiden. The motion carried unanimously. "Request City Council approve funding to hire a committee scribe. The requirement is for five to six hours per month to transcribe meeting minutes at an estimated cost of $900 per year." IX. Adjournment: Motion was made by Committee Member Grahek. Seconded by Committee Member Peterson, to adjourn the November 29 special meeting of the Parks and Recreation Committee at 7:35 p.m. All in favor. Motion carried unanimously. X. Action Items: Action item Assigned Person Due Date Date Closed Committee Scribe - present D. Larson 12/14 Open recommendation to Council Scribe job description P. Branch 12/8 Simplified Special Permit City Staff 12/30 Form Action item section added to P &R Committee 12/07 committee minutes Plan to improve staff D. Larson 12/07 See e -mail assistance note from D. Larson to staff 11/30 Page 1 of 2 Teresa Bender From: Pat Branch Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:20 PM To: Teresa Bender Cc: Kevin Amundsen; Seeley Suzanne; Suzanne Seeley; Brian Peterson; John Grahek; Mark Haiden Subject: Fwd: Park and Rec Teresa, would you please add this to our package for next week. Or maybe easier - as we have your package - just make a few copies for the table. Fellow committee members, please read Dallas Larson's note to his staff. Note is below. We may want to attach a copy of this note to our meeting minutes for 11/29. I was pleased with the meeting last night. I though that we had made some real progress. Hope that you all agree. Pat Begin forwarded message: From: Dallas Larson <dlarson @centervillemn.com> Date: November 30, 2011 10:04:40 AM CST To: Greg Burmeister < GBurmeister @CENTERVILLEMN.com >, Kris Sweeney <ksweeney @centervillemn.com >, Michael Jeziorski < MJeziorski (a7CENTERVILLEMN.com >, Paul Palzer <PPalzer(a.CENTERVILLEMN.com >, Rick Chase <RChase c(�.CENTERVILLEMN.com >, Tedd Peterson <TPeterson @CENTERVILLEMN.com >, Teresa Bender <TBender@CENTERVI LLEMN.com> Cc: Tom Wilharber <TWilharber a.CENTERVILLEMN.com >, Pat Branch <PBranch@CENTERVILLEMN.com> Subject: Park and Rec Staff, I met with Park and Rec Committee last evening in an effort to resolve their concerns over the loss of staff support when Kim Stephan was laid off. We had a good meeting and I think everyone was satisfied on the way forward. A number of issues were identified. First, it seems clear that they will need a meeting secretary. Park and Rec is requesting that Council appropriate up to $900 for next year to support their meetings. Park and Rec Minutes will, in the future, include a summary "Action List" which will identify items that are to be accomplished, by whom and when. Minutes will be copied to Paul so he can help keep track of the Committee's expectations of staff. We will do several other things to help them mitigate the loss of staff support: 11/30/2011 Page 2 of 2 1) Staff will prepare a simple Facility Use Permit form that can be used by people that would like to reserve park facilities. We will also develop some policies to streamline the approval process for these requests. We may suggest that repeat users be given administrative approval without having to go to Park and Rec or Council. Approvals granted in this manner will be communicated to Park and Rec so they can be aware of what is on the schedule. 2) Communications to the Committee will be routed through Teresa, copied to me. This will help them stay on track with the Open Meeting Law and will assure that all of the members get the same information. Teresa will also keep the minutes and other official records of the Committee. 3) Paul will attend their meetings (Mike is backup). Paul will be the primary staff liaison through whom Park and Rec will communicate their needs for staff support or other resources. It will be Paul's duty to provide that support or to advise Park and Rec, and me if something is asked for that isn't included in the budget. 4) Staff will assist Park and Rec to create a manual to document steps for each of their major events: (Skate Night/Hay Ride, Music in the Park, Movie Night & 8K Run) We may need to make other adjustments as staff to help Park and Rec with their work and programs. We will be as flexible as possible in this regard. Dallas Larson, Administrator City of Centerville 1880 Main Street Centerville, MN 55038 651- 429 -3232 11/30/2011 PLACE ON CITY LETTER HEAD Mr. Kevin Selander 1662 Hunters Trail Centerville, MN, 55038 Thursday, December 1, 2011 Dear Kevin, Please accept our most sincere appreciation for your five years of service to the City of Centerville as a member of the Centerville Parks and Recreation Committee. Centerville is fortunate to have a very active all volunteer Parks and Recreation Commit- tee made of engaged citizens, such as yourself. During your five years on the committee, Centerville has added three new parks, continued our traditional skating parties, intro- duced music-in- the - parks, added competitive running events to Fete des Lacs, and most recently completed a connecting trail system. You may have completed your time with the Parks and Recreation Committee, but we hope and trust that this will not end your participation in Centerville civic affairs. You will always be a welcomed participant in Fete des Lacs, youth sports, or a future position on the City Council or one of our committees. We all owe you a debt of gratitude. Centerville is a great place to live, because we have involved citizens, such as yourself. We wish you and your family many years of happi- ness and growth in Centerville. Sincerely yours, Thomas •ilharber, Mayor