WEBVTT

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 Good afternoon, everyone. It is 1231, and I would like to welcome everyone to the December

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 14, 2020 Parks Board meeting. This is our last meeting for 2020. I am Frances Punch,

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 chair for the Parks Board. And as of right now, we have one excused absence. Do we have

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 any participants from the public? We do not. Okay, thank you, Taylor. The first item for

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 consideration is approval of the minutes from the November 2020 meeting. Any questions,

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 concerns? Do you have a question, Mr. Emmerich? You are muted. James, I see you talking, but

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 you are muted. Sorry. Yeah, I just want them to go ahead and make a motion. They look good

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 to me. Okay. Anybody have any questions, concerns about the minutes before we move? Okay. May

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 I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Second? I second that. Just a point

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 of information, Frances, I'm sorry. Do we have enough people for a quorum to be able

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 to make that? I know we only have four in here. Is that? That is a quorum. Okay. And

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 actually we have five. We have Ms. Denona Lee. Oh, I didn't see Denona down there. Okay.

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 Thank you. We are covered. But thank you for your observation. Okay. All in favor? Raise

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 your hands. Ms. Lee, may I have an indication? Anyone opposed? Anyone opposed? Motion passes.

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 Okay. We're going to deviate from the agenda a little bit and we're going to move item

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 E up and we're going to discuss the Southwest Park master plan for the City of Denton Park

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 System. You are muted, Mr. Packin. I'm mute now. Gary Packin, Parks and Recreation. Drew

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 Huffman is going to chime in here as well. We've been working on our master plan process

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 for Southwest Park over the past few months. It's late summer. We do have a focus group

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 we have a meeting with them later this week to kind of go through the same process and

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 get them up to speed on kind of where we've been and what our next steps are. We have

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 a number of members of our consultant team on board. Mick Massey, Bill Smith are here

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 as well. And they're going to go through a PowerPoint and get try to gain some feedback

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 from you guys in regards to what you envision at the park. We have a number of platforms

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 that we've gathered intelligence from the community, whether it's our needs assessment.

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 We've had a couple public meetings. We've had some smaller group meetings. And then

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 we have our focus group as well. Obviously, Park Board is a main connectivity to our community.

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 So I'll make sure we're getting your feedback. And then we'll also be reaching out to City

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 Council now that we know who's all going to be on council once they're seated and get

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 some feedback from them. So at this point in time, I'll turn it over to Drew and see

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 if he has anything to add to that. And then we can kind of work through the exercise.

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 I think Gary went through all the really aspects of how we've put together this master plan

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 so far. And like Gary said, we can't do it without our consultants. They've been great

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 through all these different processes and public meetings. So we look forward to your

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 input. So I'll hand it over to Mick and Bill. Okay. Hello, everyone. My name is Mick Massey.

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 I'm with Barker, Rinker, CCAT architecture. We're based in Grapevine, Texas and in Denver,

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 Colorado. I'm working with Tignall and Perkins TNP. Bill Smith, who is on the phone.

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 I'm on the road today. So yeah, I'm on the road. So that's why I'm muted. You'll be

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 muted off. Thanks, Mick. You bet. And we've been working for a few weeks on actually a

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 few months on the Southwest Park programming and master plan for the new park. And we wanted

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 to use this day to give you an update and to take your input. So I'm going to walk through

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 a slide presentation that we've prepared that'll give you a little background on where we've

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 been and where we're going, as well as trying to solicit some input from you all today.

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 So let's just launch right in if we can. Okay. You know your staff. We're so pleased to be

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 working with such great staff in Denton. And we're also very pleased to be working with

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 a focus group that you probably recognize a lot of the names that are on this slide.

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 They've been very valuable to this process that we're in. It's a good sounding board,

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 if you will, and we're really pleased to be hearing from all of them as they've been giving

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 their input. Bill is on the left. That's me in the middle. And then we also include Dr.

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 Joe Walker from UNT. Y'all are so blessed to have a professor and Dr. Walker in your

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 community. My gosh, the level of service that you're getting is so far above other cities.

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 It's just great to have him on the team. He's also a dear friend of all of ours. So couldn't

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 do it without him. This is a schedule. I know you can't read it, but this is something we're

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 following along. But basically the bottom line is here we are in December gathering

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 more input. You're a part of that input today. Very exciting for us to get this input. And

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 then please just know that we're on schedule to deliver the final product, the deliverables

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 in March of 2021. That's our goal, and we're on pace to do that. So we feel really confident

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 with our timeline that we're on. The purpose of today's meeting is to gather input on this

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 really important park, really important park for Denton, Southwest Park. We had a focus

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 group meeting that's been mentioned that we're going to also hear from on Thursday, but this

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 is y'all's term, and we want to confirm some of the planned priorities that have been emerging

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 so far. So let's just jump right into it. Let me just say that in preparation for this,

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 I wanted to share with you that we're focusing on the big items. How do you get the big items

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 into the jar first? You know, like the old adage about the jar of life story, where you've

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 got the big rocks, you've got the medium-sized rocks, and you've got the small rocks. Well,

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 those are elements of the park. Think of them as such in this case. Today, we're focusing

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 on the big items. We want to make sure we get that right so that we can fill the jar,

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 fill the park, the park master plan. So what you see here, what we want to avoid is we

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 don't want to do it in reverse and not have everything fit into this park. So today is

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 about focusing on those bigger park items. And so we've been listening to the public.

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 We've been listening to your focus group. We've been doing a lot of other work. In fact,

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 one of the things we've revealed or uncovered is that your overall Park and Recreation Master

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 Plan, while it's in progress, has taught us that Denton approaches parks of this size

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 to be a primary related to as a city park. Now, a city park serves as a center, if you

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 will, it's a destination for recreation activities. And it is to serve the entire city or a large

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 region of the city. Does that make sense to everybody? I hope it does.

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 Just to give everybody an idea that we consider North Lakes Park, South Lakes Park to be our

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 city parks, the Mills property that we purchase, as well as Southwest Park, we envision those

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 to be city parks as well. And Quaker Town downtown could be considered a city park.

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 Although it doesn't necessarily fit the acreage and size, it's definitely one of the main

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 more probably on the top two gathering spots in the city. So that's give you an idea on

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 that, what other city parks are in the system. Very good. Thank you, Gary. So what what else

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 can a city park do? Or what's its function? Well, it's includes a wide range of amenities

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 that can be in a city park, from passive recreation to active recreation. And then some

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 things that might not be suitable for smaller parks. If you think about athletic fields,

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 for example, you wouldn't put a complex an athletic complex in the middle of a of a neighborhood

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 park as a just as an example. These are known as flagships, this is going to be a destination

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 for your residents. And it's going to be something of pride for the park system that we feel

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 very strongly about. So we're happy to take you all through this balanced approach that

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 we've been on this journey. First, we started with data collection, we looked at the city

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 of Denton focus group, and got their input, we did some public input, there's been surveys

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 done as part of the Denton Parks and Recreation open space master plan. So all this data collection

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 has been very useful to the team, and very confirming about what needs to be in the plan.

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 We're also using what we call best practices. When you look across the nation, when you

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 look across Texas, and you see parks of this magnitude, how they come together, what are

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 the industry standards, what are the elements that need to be considered that need to go

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 into this, this park, those are some of the questions we've been asking our design team.

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 And we want to make sure that what we bring to you is a balanced approach that fits into

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 the overall system of Parks and Recreation for the city of Denton. Then last of all,

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 we want to balance that with executive input. And we consider you all to be part of this

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 balanced approach. So we've been busy on the first two items, data collection and best

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 practices, but we were wanting to take a pause in the action of developing this master plan

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 and come to you today, listen to what you have to say, and gather your input. So first

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 of all, let us tell you what we've learned along the way about data collection. There's

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 been over 1200 points of contact from the general residential community on the facility

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 preferences through your surveys, through the Park and Recreation Open Space Master Plan.

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 That's very important because this is a voice of your citizenry. And we take it very seriously

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 as we're looking at all the elements of the park. Public input meetings, we've had two

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 of those. They've been online. They've worked very, very well. We did an online survey in

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 the meeting and collected some data there to also consider. And then we've had one Southwest

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 Park-focused group meeting, as Gary mentioned, whereas another one this week. We've also

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 through staff received a lot of emails, phone calls, and face-to-face discussions on the

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 master plan and what the contents thereof. So let's run through what the data collection

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 on the outdoor program results were. We heard from the public that trails were number one,

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 but they really value trails. And trails can be multi-use trails. They can be off-road

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 trails. They can be single-track trails. But people want to walk for exercise. And this

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 is really no big surprise in Texas. The second item on their priority was playgrounds, all

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 kinds of playgrounds. They can be small. They can be large. They can be destination playgrounds.

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 And then comfort, restrooms, very, very important on people's mind. They want to come spend

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 time at this park, and so restrooms would support that need. Then open space. Now think

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 of this as programmable space that you can just picnic in, fly a kite, kick a ball, be

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 with your family. Open space is very important, but that can also include activities such

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 as picnicking. And then people in Denton really value their trees. And looking at this property,

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 there's a need for more hardwood trees, and they value that. So that tells us we need

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 to really focus on trees and tree establishment, establishing a forest in Southwest Park. Outdoor

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 fitness. This is a growing trend across the United States right now. We feel like this

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 is a really important item, and so does the public. Small amphitheater for events, for

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 gathering, for being a community and coming together in the park. Very important element.

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 Number eight, athletic fields. You have a system-wide delivery of parks in your community,

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 and there are needs for athletics throughout. But this park can sustain it, and it's on

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 the public's mind, and it's ranked number eight. And then number nine was multiuse pavilion,

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 place for people to gather for family events, church outings, all kinds of things. You know,

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 events can take place there. And then outdoor learning and adventure. Now that can mean

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 anything from birding to education to partnering with your schools, but outdoor learning is

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 very much on people's minds, which is fantastic. Now we took a look at that from a staff and

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 a consultant standpoint. We asked ourselves, "Well, is there anything missing from the

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 best practices list for parks of this magnitude?" And we looked at the best practices, and we

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 did consider adding to that list dog park, because it is a regional park, because it's

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 going to draw people from greater distances, and it has the landmass to be able to support

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 it. That did make the list from the best practices standpoint. Now, if you compare those two

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 side by side, the good news is when you look at data collected from the public, you look

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 at best practices, those two lists are not that different. In fact, they're very much

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 aligned with each other when you look at the top 10 overall. Now the priorities might be

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 just a little bit different, but from a side by side comparison, that is very good news.

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 We're not far apart in best practices and what the public is saying, and that's very

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 encouraging. Let's look at indoor results, starting with data collection. This park has

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 a potential of having an indoor component to it, and we asked the public questions about

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 indoor recreation, and this is what came back. Number one, indoor walk/jog track. Again,

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 no surprise. This is what the number one exercise activity people look for in the public, usually,

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 for walking for exercise and walking for health. It's no surprise that that made the list as

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 number one. Oh, by the way, these are all number ones. They're one A, B, C, and so on,

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 because the public's first impression about indoor recreation for this park was that a

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 multi-use, multi-generational center would be on this site. Multi-generational means

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 that you're covering everybody from preschool all the way up to senior citizens in this.

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 It's a very efficient delivery of your indoor recreation. But there are also outdoor adjacencies,

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 and so they value the fact that there's this inside to outside connection with the rec

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 center that's indoors and then outdoor spaces like event patios and possible gardens to

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 grow vegetables and learn from. Adult fitness. Adult fitness is very much on their minds.

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 They need a place to go work out and be healthy. Senior programming, and this can be everything

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 from passive to active seniors. We see seniors right now as go-go seniors, slow-go seniors,

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 and no-go seniors, and this would be programmed to fit their needs. And then at gymnasium,

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 we have noticed that there is a gymnasium deficit in Denton. By that I mean there's

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 need for gymnasium space. And so as your population is growing and you're looking to the southwest,

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 it makes perfect sense, and it's on the public's mind that a gymnasium and sport courts would

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 be on their mind. Indoor playground. There's hardly a recreation center that we design

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 these days that does not have an indoor playground. There's an interesting fact that's going on

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 right now, and that is grandparents are, for the first time in America, more responsible

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 than ever for raising a grandchild or overseeing the well-being of a grandchild ever in our

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 country's history. And so sometimes that can be an inhibitor from a grandparent enjoying

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 the programs of a multi-use, multi-generational rec center. So having this playground is a

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 great destination for your community and will help all populations to be able to go to it

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 when the weather's not great. And then party rooms. Party rooms are very important, especially

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 if there's a really good playground or some indoor aquatics. This is like the number one

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 generating revenue space inside of a recreation center. And then indoor aquatics and lap pool.

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 This is item number two, the first being the multi-generational rec center, item number

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 two being the indoor aquatics with a lap pool. No surprise there it's on people's mind. They

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 valued indoor aquatics. And then I was really, really pleased to hear that the public recognizes

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 that a park maintenance facility is going to be needed in such a large park. It's also

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 going to be needed probably in your region of the city down there because of the size

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 of Denton. It's very efficient to be able to have employees go to a maintenance facility

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 such as this and be efficient in your delivery of maintenance as opposed to driving all the

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 way across town with vehicles and mowers and that sort of thing. So really happy that the

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 public had this on their mind. When we looked at best practices for indoor programming,

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 we thought you all might want to consider putting aerobics studios into the equation.

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 Also classrooms for classes and for art. And then outdoor aquatics. It could be as small

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 as a spray ground or even a little bit larger. And then there's room in your community and

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 when you look at the park and recreation open space master plan, there's the possibility

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 or the probability that a field house may be in your need to be discussed about taking

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 care of the needs of your community. So we wanted to make sure that in best practices

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 we've considered that the possibility that a field house may need to influence the outcome

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 of the park and rec or excuse me the southwest park master plan. So when you do the side

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 by side comparison of indoor recreation with the data that's collected and the best practices,

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 they're not that far apart again so something to celebrate the best practices list has a

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 few more items on it on indoor. And that leads us to where we are right now. If you look

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 at all this for the outdoors, the thing that's missing is hearing from you. It's hearing

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 from you all as advisors to the city. So we would like to pause and Gary and Drew and

00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:05.040
 myself, Bill, we're going to turn it over to you all to listen. Did we hear the public

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 right? Are we on the right track? What would you like to see populate a list that from

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 as executives of this community that needs to be over here from your input standpoint?

00:21:16.120 --> 00:21:24.160
 So I'm going to turn it over to Gary to facilitate and others. And Francis, would you like to

00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:31.520
 say a few words? >> Thank you, Mick. I would love to give you

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 just a little bit of feedback. I've had the opportunity to attend the two meetings and

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 I feel they were well run and organized. I had one question. If we did include additional

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 members from the Bonnie bray street, I knew that was a concern from the last meeting.

00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:59.400
 So that has been done. >> Yeah, we have some additional people plus

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 we reached out to one of the neighborhoods specifically that they're supposed to have

00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:10.280
 a an annual meeting and hopefully we're going to get invited to that. They hadn't scheduled

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 it as of yet to go talk to them. And that's the vintage neighborhood on the north side.

00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:21.600
 So that's definitely what's unique there is we do have some residents that don't live

00:22:21.600 --> 00:22:26.440
 in the city really close, but they do butt up against the building. So there's a, you

00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:31.440
 know, there's difference in the border there between the city and Argyle. And then it's

00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:35.840
 confusing for some of the residents too because they have Argyle addresses. So that's a little

00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:41.600
 bit of a challenge that we've been working through with the community. Maria has an online

00:22:41.600 --> 00:22:47.680
 survey for the outdoor amenities that she's going to bring up and run through that for

00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:54.440
 us. Keep in mind what's unique about this property is why we're asking the residents

00:22:54.440 --> 00:23:01.680
 that do live near the property, most of the users to this park aren't even in debt yet

00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:07.680
 because there's so many houses yet to be built. So while we're trying to gather feedback,

00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:13.720
 we also have to anticipate what's going to be there 10 years from now, 20 years from

00:23:13.720 --> 00:23:20.720
 now because this is a hundred year old park eventually, you know, and we have to anticipate

00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:25.280
 what the needs are. It's not going to be built all at one time. It can be built in phases

00:23:25.280 --> 00:23:30.760
 as it's needed and grow into its property. But that's the one unique thing about this

00:23:30.760 --> 00:23:36.920
 is this is an open field in the middle of a dense area. It's for the most part very

00:23:36.920 --> 00:23:47.560
 rural still. So we're just still growing into that. So Maria, if you can bring up your survey.

00:23:47.560 --> 00:23:54.360
 Can you guys hear me okay, Gary? Yes. Yes. How can I, how can I share the survey? I'm

00:23:54.360 --> 00:24:05.960
 trying to figure out how I share the link. If someone can give her the ability to share

00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:14.200
 her screen. I stopped sharing. So you can just go to the bottom and click share if you'd

00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:21.920
 like. Okay. Let me actually, what I need to do is send them the link. Oh, okay. I'm going

00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:26.200
 to send them the link and then they will have the picture survey to rank it for you and

00:24:26.200 --> 00:24:35.000
 then you'll be able to do the results. Gotcha. Okay. Send it to Eddie if you can. Okay. Okay.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:42.120
 Sorry guys. I was expecting to see the chat. So the way this is going to work is you're

00:24:42.120 --> 00:24:46.280
 seeing on the screen, you know, the left is the data collected, the middle is the best

00:24:46.280 --> 00:24:50.440
 practices and now we need your input. This link that's going to come to you is going

00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:56.200
 to be interactive. It's going to be kind of fun. So you get to give your preferences and

00:24:56.200 --> 00:25:03.400
 then we'll get the feedback and we'll be able to populate this empty table here with the

00:25:03.400 --> 00:25:08.580
 preferences from the part board. Does that all make sense? Everybody kind of follow along

00:25:08.580 --> 00:25:12.840
 them? Yeah. Bear with us as we're trying to do this online. It's the first time we're

00:25:12.840 --> 00:25:16.160
 trying to roll this out. If we need to do it the old school way, we'll do it the old

00:25:16.160 --> 00:25:27.360
 school way. And Mick, while they're doing that, I have already completed our surveys,

00:25:27.360 --> 00:25:34.440
 so I do not want to skew the numbers. Gotcha. You're so good. That's great. And I want to

00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:41.480
 point out though, by the way, that this is the outdoor slides and then we've got indoor

00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:48.520
 as a separate, you know, entity in there. So don't want to be confused. You know, first

00:25:48.520 --> 00:25:52.480
 rule is focus on the outdoor. You can see those outdoor elements that we heard from

00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:00.520
 the public and then the best practices. Can I interject? Yes. Eddie Valdez, management

00:26:00.520 --> 00:26:06.000
 analyst. Park board members, you can check your email right now. You should have received

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:22.560
 it. And it's just one link. You just click on it. So I forwarded that email to you. Maria,

00:26:22.560 --> 00:26:31.240
 this is Gary. Are we able to show the results as it happens? Yes, I'm going to send, also

00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:38.280
 send him the, as they're doing it right now, I'm going to get a link to the live analytics

00:26:38.280 --> 00:26:47.440
 so that you guys can view the responses. That's what you're asking for, right? Yes. Thanks

00:26:47.440 --> 00:27:04.280
 for doing that, Maria. That's impressive that you can do that. Now, if there's something

00:27:04.280 --> 00:27:12.260
 that's not on the survey that they want to add, can they do that as well? Not on, not

00:27:12.260 --> 00:27:26.280
 on this one. Maybe just included it in an email back to you. James, did you have a question?

00:27:26.280 --> 00:27:36.920
 Yeah, I do. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. One question I have for, is it kind of, kind

00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:45.000
 of combine some of these like, for example, athletic, athletic fields. One of the things

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:52.560
 I've heard is for mothers have multiple kids. And, you know, their kids might be playing,

00:27:52.560 --> 00:28:00.400
 you know, at different fields, maybe put a playground, a covered playground, a rest room

00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:06.080
 out in the middle, out the middle so the mother can, you know, watch her kids, young kids

00:28:06.080 --> 00:28:13.960
 in the playground. And at the same time, see your kids play ball or whatever it is, soccer.

00:28:13.960 --> 00:28:20.240
 Just, just an idea. But I'm thinking of, we had a lot of kids. So I believe, you know,

00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:22.760
 large families, you know, where they have a lot of kids, you're trying to take care

00:28:22.760 --> 00:28:27.640
 of them all at the same time, right? Yep. You must be, you must be running around in

00:28:27.640 --> 00:28:33.080
 our head because we were thinking the exact same thing. We've designed multiple ball fields

00:28:33.080 --> 00:28:39.960
 and you do have a situation where in league play or in tournament play, you've got families

00:28:39.960 --> 00:28:46.080
 that come there. Well, they come there with siblings, as well as the players. They come

00:28:46.080 --> 00:28:52.440
 there with grandparents. They come with chairs and ice, you know, ice chests. And sometimes

00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:58.480
 it's a full day out there. And so we want to really focus on their comfort. We're kicking

00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:05.100
 around some ideas about, you know, especially in tournament situations where the tailgate,

00:29:05.100 --> 00:29:08.060
 now that doesn't necessarily mean like a college tailgate. That means like a little league

00:29:08.060 --> 00:29:13.080
 tailgate where you've got soft drinks and, and, and maybe it's, you need a place to be

00:29:13.080 --> 00:29:17.560
 able to pitch one of those easy up tents, you know, where you can get into some shade

00:29:17.560 --> 00:29:22.440
 when it's hot. That's the kind of thing we're talking about. And playgrounds is very much

00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:25.640
 part of it. I'm really glad you're thinking about that, James, because we are too. And

00:29:25.640 --> 00:29:34.720
 I think it's a very important make Maria sent you the link to bring it up. And I would add

00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:41.280
 to James's comment. Actually, my mother just visited one in Keller, a dog park with a playground

00:29:41.280 --> 00:29:46.440
 next to it. So you could have your dogs play while also watching your children play. Oh,

00:29:46.440 --> 00:29:55.960
 and she thought that was a wonderful addition that didn't would enjoy. There you go. They

00:29:55.960 --> 00:30:02.460
 did that in Flower Mound, and it's the most popular covered playground in the whole the

00:30:02.460 --> 00:30:16.360
 whole town. Okay. And they have the restroom in the middle next to it. So you can, you

00:30:16.360 --> 00:30:35.960
 know, take care of essentials to. All right, let's see here. For some reason, I'm just getting

00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:46.820
 a blank screen on those results. Maria, are you getting the results? I am Gary. I am.

00:30:46.820 --> 00:30:56.260
 Let's let somebody who's got them the results share those. Gary, are you able to I'm hooked

00:30:56.260 --> 00:31:18.800
 up to my email. So I'm on a separate remote computer so I cannot

00:31:18.800 --> 00:31:26.920
 we could send them to Heather or Caroline, see if they could share it. Try it that way.

00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:31.900
 If not, we may have to just go old school. I want to make sure I got it. I have a lot

00:31:31.900 --> 00:31:55.160
 going on here. I didn't want to share my screen. Okay. Well, she's working on that. I want

00:31:55.160 --> 00:32:00.840
 to chime in real quick about the the one section on there of trees, the the trees that are

00:32:00.840 --> 00:32:10.600
 on that property, honey locusts. A lot of your second story second tier trees. Very

00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:14.460
 large needles on those honey locusts. There's some huge needles out there. So we are going

00:32:14.460 --> 00:32:19.640
 to have to replant a forest as we build that park. Obviously, we don't go in and clear

00:32:19.640 --> 00:32:24.040
 cut everything, there will have to be some areas that will have to be cleared for for

00:32:24.040 --> 00:32:29.640
 whatever was decided to go there. But at the long term, the trees that exist in that park

00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:34.840
 are for the most part not the trees that are going to be there forever. That that property

00:32:34.840 --> 00:32:39.320
 was cleared at one point in time and these trees grew in its place. So we're going to

00:32:39.320 --> 00:32:44.920
 have to figure out how to regrow that forest on that property over the next, you know,

00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:56.120
 2030 years. A lot of Mesquite. Yeah, Mesquite. Yeah, I see it. There it goes. Looks like

00:32:56.120 --> 00:33:03.320
 it's downloading. Am I staring my screen right now? Yep, we see a red diamond with a checkmark

00:33:03.320 --> 00:33:09.880
 in it. Mind if I interject real quick before we move on? Does anyone in your team have

00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:20.320
 a person with the name of Matt or Matt Hancock? Hancock. Yeah, he's not on my list. And he's

00:33:20.320 --> 00:33:24.760
 waiting in the weight room. So he's with TNP. He's part of the consultant. Yeah, you can

00:33:24.760 --> 00:33:49.200
 let him in. OK, thank you. OK. So. So it looks like trails. Scored the highest with 48 points.

00:33:49.200 --> 00:34:01.360
 Looks like forest came in second with forty six restrooms. Next at 40 open space at 35

00:34:01.360 --> 00:34:14.640
 playgrounds at 31. And then multi-use pavilion, 28 small amphitheater, 23 adult outdoor fitness.

00:34:14.640 --> 00:34:23.520
 Oh, excuse me, small. Yeah, small amphitheater. Twenty three outdoor fitness. Twenty two.

00:34:23.520 --> 00:34:36.840
 Outdoor learning at 20. And then. Dog park and then athletic fields, it looks like. Very

00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:43.680
 good. Thank you all for your input. OK, Maria, are you ready to switch to indoor? I don't

00:34:43.680 --> 00:34:49.520
 know. Forgive me, Guy. We had some glitches with the indoor. OK, well, we'll just do it

00:34:49.520 --> 00:34:56.360
 old school then. All right, I'm going to share. Just just to add, Francis, what we'll do is

00:34:56.360 --> 00:35:01.560
 we'll make sure that we add in the board members that are not present as well to make sure

00:35:01.560 --> 00:35:08.040
 their input is in there before we move forward on final numbers. Thank you. I was going to

00:35:08.040 --> 00:35:15.400
 recommend that. Thank you, Mr. Packard. Now, if you do want to do a visual survey, I can

00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:20.600
 I can fix the glitches and have it sent this afternoon to the individuals that are in this

00:35:20.600 --> 00:35:24.560
 meeting. Yeah, we could. We could at least just kind of go through and have a kind of

00:35:24.560 --> 00:35:29.160
 old school discussion on this and then we can share the link and they can do that. So

00:35:29.160 --> 00:35:35.120
 we have an official vote. That'd be very helpful. That sounds good. I see Mr. Emmerich has his

00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:45.400
 hand. Real quick question. Part of my problem making these inputs is that I don't know how

00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:54.360
 we how big picture is. How is Gary? How are we for sports fields? Are we up to par? Do

00:35:54.360 --> 00:36:01.960
 we have enough sports fields for the population of the city? So I guess that would help me

00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:10.360
 prioritize, you know, keeping kids busy is a big issue. So I'm just wondering, do we

00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:16.280
 have enough sports fields or not? So make if you want me to answer that. So what we've

00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:22.040
 looked at is and through all the data collection is the best practices also. So like what Gary

00:36:22.040 --> 00:36:28.360
 said in the beginning, we're designing and really master planning this park for people

00:36:28.360 --> 00:36:33.840
 that don't live here yet. So if you remember through all our conversations, especially

00:36:33.840 --> 00:36:40.920
 the biggest is the Hunter Cole property that's coming. 80,000 people will be coming to that

00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:46.680
 area in the next 40 years. So what do what needs to be there for the next 80,000 residents

00:36:46.680 --> 00:36:52.160
 of the city of Denton in the southern Denton. So what we know is South Denton today won't

00:36:52.160 --> 00:36:57.840
 be South Denton 40 years from now, because we've grown so much, you know, in our 90 square

00:36:57.840 --> 00:37:02.460
 miles what what today is North Denton won't be North Denton 40 years from now either.

00:37:02.460 --> 00:37:10.720
 So with everything in the planning process, we've taken really the that data, the knowledge

00:37:10.720 --> 00:37:14.680
 that we have of who's coming and when they're coming or when they're anticipated to come

00:37:14.680 --> 00:37:19.160
 and what needs to be there. So, you know, we do have Evers and Dena and North Lakes,

00:37:19.160 --> 00:37:25.800
 but is that is that enough for 80,000 more residents? So that's something if you really

00:37:25.800 --> 00:37:31.800
 think about what what needs to be there, especially with, you know, when we moved to indoor is

00:37:31.800 --> 00:37:36.280
 what we have today really even enough for the residents we have today, much less another

00:37:36.280 --> 00:37:41.720
 80,000 residents. That's just Hunter Cole. That's not that doesn't include all the other

00:37:41.720 --> 00:37:46.080
 developments that are that are developing in and around, you know, South South Denton

00:37:46.080 --> 00:37:50.200
 or Denton itself to be able to go there because just like all of us, you know, we go to North

00:37:50.200 --> 00:37:54.120
 Lakes to play for, you know, one reason or another, we go to South Lakes to play for

00:37:54.120 --> 00:37:59.480
 one reason or another. And really this 200 acres is the same size as South Lakes. Granted,

00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:03.840
 South Lakes doesn't have ball fields, but North Lakes does. You know, so it just happens

00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:08.880
 to be probably during the way it looks, the timing process of South Lakes and Dena, the

00:38:08.880 --> 00:38:13.720
 ball fields decided to go to Dena instead of South Lakes. So and then, you know, South

00:38:13.720 --> 00:38:18.360
 Lakes also has an opportunity that Dena doesn't in with, you know, our fishing ponds and

00:38:18.360 --> 00:38:23.220
 then, you know, with our natural space that's there and are, you know, the largest playground

00:38:23.220 --> 00:38:28.400
 we have in our system. So that's good. I'm just trying to get a reference point. So,

00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:33.800
 for example, in the past, when we looked at fields, the national standards recommended

00:38:33.800 --> 00:38:37.520
 some national standards. I can't remember what the standards were, but I do remember

00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:45.080
 what the standard is when it's like one baseball field for every 10,000 people. And you calculate

00:38:45.080 --> 00:38:51.040
 three and a half acres for every ball field that covers the ball field plus all the parking

00:38:51.040 --> 00:38:58.760
 requirements for that field, you know, practice areas next to it, you know, etc. But so and

00:38:58.760 --> 00:39:04.920
 there was soccer fields was one for every 10,000 and since soccer became more popular

00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:11.120
 then, you know, that got changed to one field for every thousand. I think medium size field

00:39:11.120 --> 00:39:15.120
 was a reference, not because there's a big, as you know, there's a big difference between

00:39:15.120 --> 00:39:20.520
 a medium size and a large field. So that's the kind of thing that I was looking for,

00:39:20.520 --> 00:39:26.560
 because you know, you're voting here on what we wanted as property. Okay, it's pretty obvious.

00:39:26.560 --> 00:39:30.560
 I think the needs going to be there for athletic fields. I don't know, because I don't know

00:39:30.560 --> 00:39:39.280
 the reference to it. I'm comparing it to that's the problem. So I'm trying to understand.

00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:44.600
 Today we're not saying that we're not saying that 15 baseball or softball fields are going

00:39:44.600 --> 00:39:48.160
 there and 10 soccer fields. We're not saying that at all. We're just saying how can how

00:39:48.160 --> 00:39:54.360
 can we rank what what our choices are at the moment? Right, but if we're in deep demand,

00:39:54.360 --> 00:40:01.120
 there was we were way behind on say soccer fields, I'm just going to pick them, you know,

00:40:01.120 --> 00:40:07.160
 soccer fields, we got, you know, let's say we have, you know, 200,000 people, kids that

00:40:07.160 --> 00:40:12.600
 play soccer, okay, and you need, you know, so that's 20 soccer fields by the old standard,

00:40:12.600 --> 00:40:19.480
 so and we only have 10 fields, that tells me we're woefully behind on soccer fields,

00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:25.400
 that would increase the value or the my vote on going for more sport athletic fields, you

00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:30.780
 see where I'm coming from? Yes, reference here. Can I chime in for a second? I understand

00:40:30.780 --> 00:40:38.680
 what you're saying, James. And I think what they're trying to figure out right now is

00:40:38.680 --> 00:40:44.720
 the community's, like how much they want those soccer fields, because it was ranked pretty

00:40:44.720 --> 00:40:52.640
 low in the top 10. And it was different than like the national standard. And so maybe our

00:40:52.640 --> 00:40:59.620
 community doesn't want to have those soccer fields as much as others. I don't know that

00:40:59.620 --> 00:41:03.520
 for sure, because I don't know the exact data. I'm just saying I don't know that we are like

00:41:03.520 --> 00:41:09.840
 exactly like every other community here in Denton. And so I think what we're trying to

00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:19.120
 do right now is understand what the Denton community wants and what the standard is for

00:41:19.120 --> 00:41:31.040
 everybody blanket it. If we could be polite and not speak over one another. Thank you

00:41:31.040 --> 00:41:37.200
 so much. Ms. Presley, please finish. Thanks. I'm pretty much done. I just because it I

00:41:37.200 --> 00:41:41.360
 just wanted to make the point that outdoor learning or I'm sorry, outdoor spaces and

00:41:41.360 --> 00:41:47.600
 open spaces and trails seem to be a higher priority than the like athletic fields. So

00:41:47.600 --> 00:41:53.040
 if we have a lot of space, but you need a lot of space for those things that were higher

00:41:53.040 --> 00:41:59.480
 priority. So it just I think that's what we're looking at right now is just everybody's ranking

00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:06.000
 of like what's most important before we use any kind of like algorithm to figure out how

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:13.000
 many people per acre of baseball field we have. That's what I'm hearing anyways. Thank

00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:19.320
 you, Lana for your feedback. Mr. Emmerich. Do you have a rebuttal or comment to her comment?

00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:24.000
 I agree. And I think the key word here is a lot of people have moved here yet. So the

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:29.760
 open I'm actually leaning towards the open space because open space later on in the future,

00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:34.400
 you can change it to practice soccer fields or baseball fields or if you don't have the

00:42:34.400 --> 00:42:41.440
 open space, then you have no chance for it. Absolutely. So if you have your survey and

00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:49.920
 if fields or athletic fields is in your number one, please rank it accordingly. I already

00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:54.720
 sent mine in. Yeah, just I'm just saying that it's without the backdrop of the need the

00:42:54.720 --> 00:43:01.880
 overall needs. Oh, that's all I'm lacking that perspective. I understand. Mr. Schutt,

00:43:01.880 --> 00:43:10.800
 did you have a comment? I mean, I think my my my comment was I think this is just we

00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:16.840
 can approach this in a way where all things equal from from from need perspective or from

00:43:16.840 --> 00:43:22.480
 numbers or metrics perspective. We can we can remove that off of the table and and consider

00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:28.320
 this maybe not even hard and hard and fast data, but more of kind of a gut feel of the

00:43:28.320 --> 00:43:35.120
 things that are important to people as a whole, not not not whether the need is being met

00:43:35.120 --> 00:43:39.640
 numerically or whatnot. But really, are these things that people are interested in? And

00:43:39.640 --> 00:43:43.760
 I think if we can step back and look at it from a little higher level, that might even

00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:50.840
 that might benefit us a little bit. Just just my thoughts. Thank you, sir. So do we have

00:43:50.840 --> 00:43:57.840
 what do we what do we decide on the indoor? I have updates real quick just to chime in.

00:43:57.840 --> 00:44:02.500
 We'll definitely look at how we compare and Eddie's actually tabulates all that information

00:44:02.500 --> 00:44:06.960
 every year for our park metrics survey. But the one thing that we do have to consider

00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:13.360
 to is everything that's on this list may not end up going into the park. And they may go

00:44:13.360 --> 00:44:18.500
 in other areas close to that that area if we can't fit them or the priorities aren't

00:44:18.500 --> 00:44:23.880
 the same. And that we are looking at other parks in that area too. So this is this is

00:44:23.880 --> 00:44:28.880
 good information for this parcel and it won't be the only place we use it for sure. And

00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:36.440
 then the other thing is, we we don't have a lot of large parks that are all upland.

00:44:36.440 --> 00:44:42.120
 We have a lot of property that's in the floodplain. So we can't put a lot of these spaces there.

00:44:42.120 --> 00:44:48.480
 So if we are going to need fields of, you know, large amounts or whatever, there's only

00:44:48.480 --> 00:44:52.720
 going to be a selective area that we can put those lists of going by more land that's upland.

00:44:52.720 --> 00:44:58.160
 So that that's the other thing to consider. It's not it's not real cut and dry and it's

00:44:58.160 --> 00:45:01.960
 not easy to decide because we're dealing with people that don't live here yet. The need

00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:05.880
 is not necessarily there yet. But we're trying to anticipate it and use this as a planning

00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:12.160
 tool and whatever's decided on the master plan, it'd be it'd be fantastic if it works out

00:45:12.160 --> 00:45:16.960
 exactly how we plan it today. But most likely, there's going to be some sort of adaption

00:45:16.960 --> 00:45:22.080
 to that along the way too. So this while this is getting us headed in that direction, it's

00:45:22.080 --> 00:45:28.220
 not the final final discussion point, I guess to say is a very good point, Gary. And that's

00:45:28.220 --> 00:45:33.160
 why we started with the jar. And we're trying to look at the big elements that people talked

00:45:33.160 --> 00:45:38.800
 about. Do they fit? Could they fit into the park? And so we needed your input kind of

00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:44.780
 like Mr. David said, you know, big level, is this is this the kind of thing that y'all

00:45:44.780 --> 00:45:49.320
 can imagine in your, your city park, we're going to go, we're going to take all this

00:45:49.320 --> 00:45:54.200
 input and start to play with the geometry and figure out what fits, look at all the

00:45:54.200 --> 00:46:01.600
 impacts of different things. For example, what's what about the traffic on the adjacent roads

00:46:01.600 --> 00:46:06.000
 coming in and out of this park, you know, we want to we want to try to bring a very,

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:12.800
 really well balanced part to you a master plan. So this is one step in a journey of

00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:19.360
 helping to shape the vision for this master plan. But we do need that empirical data.

00:46:19.360 --> 00:46:24.960
 Mr. James, we do, we need to understand what what that tells us. And then, just like Elena

00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:30.120
 said, we need to understand what the Denton community is responding to. So we're, we're

00:46:30.120 --> 00:46:35.040
 trying to mash all that together, just figure out what's the balance approach. And I hope

00:46:35.040 --> 00:46:40.920
 that makes sense to you. So we have fixed that we have fixed the the the challenge with

00:46:40.920 --> 00:46:47.080
 the indoor survey. So Maria has that up around sent over to Eddie. If you can share that,

00:46:47.080 --> 00:46:51.400
 can I chime in real quick, you should have received the email sent it about a couple

00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:55.520
 of minutes ago. So please take a look at your email. Let me know you haven't received it.

00:46:55.520 --> 00:47:01.160
 Thank you. And the reason why we decided to do this in person is just to really create

00:47:01.160 --> 00:47:07.280
 those discussion points and open up the, you know, ideas and feedback. So you know, James,

00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:11.560
 what you mentioned is a great question. But that's the purpose of why we're trying to

00:47:11.560 --> 00:47:19.140
 do this live. Pardon any of the technology kind of challenges, we're trying to figure

00:47:19.140 --> 00:47:23.320
 out the best way to do it ourselves. But we'll definitely be circling around with everybody

00:47:23.320 --> 00:47:26.680
 that's not here and make sure we get everyone's information and we can share that with you

00:47:26.680 --> 00:47:34.160
 in a future report. If I can say real quick, while while you guys are going through this

00:47:34.160 --> 00:47:41.320
 next section, I will fix the the sub ones and let you guys survey those sub the sub

00:47:41.320 --> 00:47:48.200
 priorities relative to the Recreation Center. So the survey that you received is the one,

00:47:48.200 --> 00:47:55.040
 three, four and five, um, to survey in order of priority and then I'll send the next one

00:47:55.040 --> 00:48:02.260
 that will be specific to the preparation within the Recreation Center. Does that make sense?

00:48:02.260 --> 00:48:10.280
 Is anyone having trouble? Excuse me, can you stop sharing so we can see each other? Sure.

00:48:10.280 --> 00:48:18.280
 I can only click to one and two. I can't click after that. Oh, fine. Let me go in and see

00:48:18.280 --> 00:48:24.760
 what's going on and I'll let him now fix that and holler back while he's presenting so I

00:48:24.760 --> 00:48:33.920
 don't slow you guys down. Just to confirm I had the same problem. You did? Okay. It'll

00:48:33.920 --> 00:48:38.080
 land on my hands. Yes, I can only choose to. Oh, good deal. Okay, I will go in and see

00:48:38.080 --> 00:48:44.480
 what's going on. Sorry, guys. In fact, a little queue at the top before you click it says

00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:51.000
 zero of two selected. There's like a little I guess, I don't know, a little thing right

00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:00.080
 at the very top and you can tell as soon as you open it. Okay, I'm on it right now. Thanks,

00:49:00.080 --> 00:49:11.440
 Gary. For the sake of time, Gary, what do you think about us doing this and bringing

00:49:11.440 --> 00:49:14.880
 the information, sending the information back? Because we're going to run out of time to

00:49:14.880 --> 00:49:26.720
 cover the additional information on the agenda. You're on mute. That would be perfectly fine,

00:49:26.720 --> 00:49:31.880
 you know, and if anyone has any questions, they can follow up in an email that Eddie

00:49:31.880 --> 00:49:40.360
 will send out and we can use that information and use that as our data collection. Would

00:49:40.360 --> 00:49:45.520
 you like me to just wrap it up here then so you can move on to your agenda so that y'all

00:49:45.520 --> 00:49:51.760
 will just respond individually with your ranking? Is that what I'm hearing? That would be great.

00:49:51.760 --> 00:50:01.400
 Okay. All right. All right. Let me just quickly share this and then we'll move on. All right.

00:50:01.400 --> 00:50:06.960
 You know, our next steps is to adhere to that agenda that I showed you earlier, that timeline.

00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:14.440
 So again, you know, we're here and we're hoping to crunch all this data, start to put these

00:50:14.440 --> 00:50:19.440
 pigment to paper, you know, start to design this park and bring some concepts back of

00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:23.560
 how these elements could fit together. And that'll be a work in progress too. You can

00:50:23.560 --> 00:50:28.220
 see we're building this layer by layer as we go along and y'all are part of the journey.

00:50:28.220 --> 00:50:34.840
 So we appreciate your input today. But we'll be back with you. I want to wish you all a

00:50:34.840 --> 00:50:40.400
 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We'll be busy starting the new year, starting to

00:50:40.400 --> 00:50:46.700
 put that pigment on paper and look forward to sharing with you what our findings are

00:50:46.700 --> 00:50:51.600
 and then get your input as to, you know, if we're going down the right path. So back to

00:50:51.600 --> 00:50:59.560
 you, Ms. Francis. Thank you. Thank you, Mick, for all the information. I am, I think that

00:50:59.560 --> 00:51:05.760
 the meetings are well organized and I thank you for that. And I hope you're receiving

00:51:05.760 --> 00:51:09.840
 the information that you need to move forward. We really are. And we're just so happy to

00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:25.260
 be working with you all. Thank you. Happy Holidays. Thank you. Okay, we will move back to the original

00:51:25.260 --> 00:51:34.120
 order of the agenda and receive an update for the City of Denton COVID-19 responses.

00:51:34.120 --> 00:51:41.920
 Thanks, Francis. Gary Pack in Parks and Recreation. I'm going to call on Caroline here in a second

00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:45.900
 to kind of give us an update in regards to some of the specific direction we're going

00:51:45.900 --> 00:51:54.080
 in regards to COVID. As you're aware, we have North Lakes Park and MLK are currently open

00:51:54.080 --> 00:51:58.940
 and we're still getting, you know, good use. I think maybe recently it slowed down a little

00:51:58.940 --> 00:52:06.080
 bit in regards to use at North Lakes, according to staff. And we're coming up to the holidays

00:52:06.080 --> 00:52:12.560
 as well. But we had originally looked at opening our senior center on November 30th after talking

00:52:12.560 --> 00:52:18.360
 to council earlier that month and giving them an update. And then our COVID numbers between

00:52:18.360 --> 00:52:23.960
 that time at council and the 30th started to tick up at a pretty rapid pace. And so

00:52:23.960 --> 00:52:30.920
 we're concerned about opening the facility up for especially that vulnerable population.

00:52:30.920 --> 00:52:36.960
 We do have, you know, about 25% of our users at our existing rec centers that are open

00:52:36.960 --> 00:52:46.160
 are 50 and over. And so we do have, you know, and 65 plus as well. So we do have seniors

00:52:46.160 --> 00:52:52.240
 at our facilities. So don't think they're not using them. But we are looking at a dedicated

00:52:52.240 --> 00:52:58.760
 senior programming area. We have heard from a number of seniors, they want their building

00:52:58.760 --> 00:53:05.480
 open. There's no doubt about that. And, you know, at this point in time with, you know,

00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:11.680
 based on August when we hit our first peak, we're four times that amount right now. And

00:53:11.680 --> 00:53:18.000
 it just it just concerns us. And we're trying to balance staff has done a great job of trying

00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:22.480
 to keep everything clean and keep up with our facility to try to make everybody safe

00:53:22.480 --> 00:53:28.480
 as possible. But there's a lot of unknowns. You know, we've had staff in our own organization

00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:35.120
 get sick. And the last thing we want is a staff member getting, you know, a customer

00:53:35.120 --> 00:53:41.440
 sick too. But, but that's, that's, that's realistically, it can happen. So we decided

00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:45.680
 that we were going to delay that and push basically to the spring, we had penciled in

00:53:45.680 --> 00:53:52.840
 March 1, as our reopening date for the rest of our facilities. But that's in pencil. And

00:53:52.840 --> 00:53:57.800
 hopefully the vaccine gets out soon. And we get and everyone gets that I don't know what

00:53:57.800 --> 00:54:02.200
 the timeframe is for that implementation. Since everyone has to go through that, I believe

00:54:02.200 --> 00:54:08.900
 twice with two booster shot that we'll try to get our facilities open as soon as possible.

00:54:08.900 --> 00:54:14.520
 We're planning for our pools to be open. So we're anticipating the vaccine, you know,

00:54:14.520 --> 00:54:19.320
 that's going to be distributed. And we can start reopening our facilities as quickly

00:54:19.320 --> 00:54:25.400
 as we can. Our staff are not happy not providing those services. That's what they live for

00:54:25.400 --> 00:54:32.040
 and it's a profession they chose. They want to get those facilities open. So it's definitely,

00:54:32.040 --> 00:54:37.920
 you know, a hard discussion. And, you know, making sure that we're, we're following all

00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:42.960
 safety protocols that we can to the best, the best of our ability. So Caroline, did

00:54:42.960 --> 00:54:47.520
 you want to chime in at all on any of the programming aspects?

00:54:47.520 --> 00:54:52.880
 We're continuing with our virtual programs. We have ramped up our drive through programs

00:54:52.880 --> 00:54:59.080
 this last Saturday, we had a hot cocoa and cookies drive through event at the Civic Center.

00:54:59.080 --> 00:55:05.400
 And then moving, like I said, our seniors are very active and want more programs. So

00:55:05.400 --> 00:55:10.440
 beginning in January, we'll have a more new schedule of programs to offer the seniors

00:55:10.440 --> 00:55:17.560
 each week, crafts, exercise, book, book club, they have a library there. So the senior center

00:55:17.560 --> 00:55:25.040
 staff is pulling books for the seniors, a puzzle exchange, so we can keep them active.

00:55:25.040 --> 00:55:28.600
 We are, like Gary said, we do have a lot of seniors who visit the recreation centers,

00:55:28.600 --> 00:55:35.400
 like you said, 25% are 65 and older, and then about 50% are 50 and older. So they are visiting

00:55:35.400 --> 00:55:42.600
 our centers. But we are just eager to serve as soon as it's safe, and we are able to do

00:55:42.600 --> 00:55:46.760
 so. And we do have a senior hotline. Do you want

00:55:46.760 --> 00:55:51.360
 to give that a plug as well? Yeah, so one of the concerns has been the mental

00:55:51.360 --> 00:55:56.200
 health of the seniors. And in the beginning, we were calling the seniors and reaching out

00:55:56.200 --> 00:56:01.400
 to them with little success. Most of them did not answer their phones when they did

00:56:01.400 --> 00:56:07.040
 not recognize the caller. A few of them called us back, but we have launched a senior talk

00:56:07.040 --> 00:56:14.560
 helpline. It's manned by our senior advisory council on Mondays and Thursdays. And we're

00:56:14.560 --> 00:56:18.840
 working on getting the word out. We'll have a senior magazine that is going to all households

00:56:18.840 --> 00:56:24.480
 with someone 50 or older in January, which will show all the resources that are available

00:56:24.480 --> 00:56:31.120
 to seniors in the area as well as that hotline. So we can get more people calling us and we

00:56:31.120 --> 00:56:41.720
 can get them the assistance they need. Did you give the number for the hotline, Caroline?

00:56:41.720 --> 00:56:56.200
 I can. Give me just a second and I will have that number for you. As I'm looking that up,

00:56:56.200 --> 00:57:14.800
 are there any other questions about the programs or activities we are currently offering? I

00:57:14.800 --> 00:57:26.580
 was curious why the craft thing was canceled. Sometimes it's in low enrollment. So some

00:57:26.580 --> 00:57:36.800
 of our programs do have registration requirements or that cost of service, but it was probably

00:57:36.800 --> 00:57:47.880
 role low enrollment was the reason. Sorry, I'm still looking for that number. What do

00:57:47.880 --> 00:57:56.240
 you find to be the largest participating of your events? Really? We've had the best luck

00:57:56.240 --> 00:58:02.600
 with our drive through events, anything that is free and require registration. That way

00:58:02.600 --> 00:58:05.560
 people have the convenience to attend. You know, you never know what your schedule is

00:58:05.560 --> 00:58:11.280
 going to look like on a day to day basis. So true. So those have been our most popular

00:58:11.280 --> 00:58:16.840
 events, but those ones that are currently are reoccurring in person group exercise,

00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:21.040
 those numbers have continued to increase. Like I said, we have seen a dip, but that's

00:58:21.040 --> 00:58:25.240
 usually a normal dip between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. And when we expect

00:58:25.240 --> 00:58:32.200
 those numbers to come back up a little bit in January, but it also depends on the COVID

00:58:32.200 --> 00:58:37.760
 situation. It seems like there's a lot more people playing disc golf. Like I know it's

00:58:37.760 --> 00:58:42.120
 always been popular, but every time I drive down Bonnie Bray, it is like, it doesn't matter

00:58:42.120 --> 00:58:47.680
 what time of daylight hours. I made that same observation and that parking lot is packed

00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:54.760
 always. Always. Yes. It's definitely, you know, the parks are heavily used right now.

00:58:54.760 --> 00:59:01.360
 There's no doubt about it. Whether it's disc golf or even our driving range is getting

00:59:01.360 --> 00:59:02.360
 more use.

00:59:02.360 --> 00:59:16.960
 So Caroline, when you find it, if you would put it in the chat and then we will, oh, oh,

00:59:16.960 --> 00:59:23.720
 do we even have the chat capability? If not, I'll make sure Eddie has it so he can send

00:59:23.720 --> 00:59:31.960
 it out to everyone. Fantastic. Thanks. Any questions or any additional information about

00:59:31.960 --> 00:59:33.360
 the COVID update?

00:59:33.360 --> 00:59:40.880
 I apologize. I have to step away for a second. There is something going on in the other room

00:59:40.880 --> 00:59:45.760
 and it sounds dangerous. I'll be right back.

00:59:45.760 --> 00:59:52.760
 So just to summarize, I mean, obviously it's still very fluid process with the numbers

00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:58.180
 and any governor regulations will definitely be following that. There's places that do

00:59:58.180 --> 01:00:02.040
 have senior centers open, you know, maybe restricted and there's some that are completely

01:00:02.040 --> 01:00:07.400
 closed like us. So again, there's people that are doing different types of services based

01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:12.000
 on, you know, their leadership decisions, but we felt is the best direction to go is

01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:19.240
 to be more on the conservative side and try to remain safe for that population, especially

01:00:19.240 --> 01:00:26.880
 from an indoor perspective. So sooner the vaccine gets out, the better. Hopefully we

01:00:26.880 --> 01:00:29.880
 can, you know, start to move forward.

01:00:29.880 --> 01:00:38.700
 Gary, I do have that number. So any seniors wanting to talk, they can call 940-349-8728,

01:00:38.700 --> 01:00:41.160
 but I will also make sure Eddie sends that to you in an email.

01:00:41.160 --> 01:00:52.820
 We'll repeat it one more time, Caroline. 940-349-8728.

01:00:52.820 --> 01:00:55.960
 Thank you so much. I'm sorry, Gary, did you say?

01:00:55.960 --> 01:00:59.640
 I'm sorry. That may have been in an email I think Eddie sent last week, if I remember

01:00:59.640 --> 01:01:06.040
 correctly, but we'll definitely make sure we get that out again.

01:01:06.040 --> 01:01:17.080
 Any additional information about the COVID for the City of Denton? Okay. Next item. We

01:01:17.080 --> 01:01:23.040
 are going to receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff input regarding a wildflower

01:01:23.040 --> 01:01:25.680
 planting program for the City of Denton.

01:01:25.680 --> 01:01:32.400
 Yes. Hey, how you doing? Drew Huffman, assistant director over operations and planning. So

01:01:32.400 --> 01:01:37.840
 we did take this to council last Monday and got a lot of good praise for it and there

01:01:37.840 --> 01:01:42.880
 should be, we spoke to the Denton Record Chronicle this morning, so look for an article in the

01:01:42.880 --> 01:01:48.640
 newspaper for this week. So let me share my screen and I'll start the presentation.

01:01:48.640 --> 01:01:54.320
 All right. Can everyone see?

01:01:54.320 --> 01:02:02.600
 All right. So Denton's wildflower planning program. So I want to just give you a little

01:02:02.600 --> 01:02:10.040
 input on where we got started. So this really started with some input from residents and

01:02:10.040 --> 01:02:16.520
 council members. We have a couple areas already that I'll show you in some future slides of

01:02:16.520 --> 01:02:21.520
 where we do already have some wildflower plantings, but we went through a lot of different community

01:02:21.520 --> 01:02:27.160
 partnerships and inputs, whether that was internal staff with parks and recreation,

01:02:27.160 --> 01:02:32.500
 our sustainability department, our environmental services department, the master naturalists,

01:02:32.500 --> 01:02:38.880
 master gardeners, native plant society, Denton County beekeepers and other DFW cities and

01:02:38.880 --> 01:02:46.400
 city of Austin. And I've spoken to people in Florida and Connecticut and Michigan all

01:02:46.400 --> 01:02:53.080
 over the US. So lots of different people have even, Mick and I have even had a conversation

01:02:53.080 --> 01:02:59.080
 in his past experience with the city of Richardson really started one of the first programs in

01:02:59.080 --> 01:03:05.360
 the mid nineties. And the gentleman that started it for at least for their maintenance department,

01:03:05.360 --> 01:03:11.360
 he's still there. So him and I talk, we probably talk monthly for the past seven or eight months.

01:03:11.360 --> 01:03:17.800
 And so they've had, they know the pros and cons. They've already had the heartaches and

01:03:17.800 --> 01:03:23.520
 the wins in this type of program. So it's been really good to be able to work with a

01:03:23.520 --> 01:03:29.600
 local city, you know, in our Metroplex to really see what works and what doesn't work.

01:03:29.600 --> 01:03:35.600
 So just a little background, here's a little picture to really to perceive and get you

01:03:35.600 --> 01:03:41.460
 to really see what this could be. So in the background of this slide, it kind of shows

01:03:41.460 --> 01:03:49.080
 you this is more of an interstate view of what wildflowers are with lots of different

01:03:49.080 --> 01:03:53.440
 traffic rolling it back and forth instead of it like we normally have it, whether it's

01:03:53.440 --> 01:04:00.480
 either taller grasses on I-35s or it's something in our medians where it's maybe a few landscaped

01:04:00.480 --> 01:04:06.160
 areas here and there. And then it's just Bermuda grass. This gives you a really colorful, you

01:04:06.160 --> 01:04:12.160
 know, escape as you're driving down the highway where maybe, you know, this is wildflowers

01:04:12.160 --> 01:04:19.840
 also serve as somewhat of a traffic calming. When you see color, you know, as you're driving,

01:04:19.840 --> 01:04:23.600
 maybe the stresses of traveling back and forth, you know, with traffic, you know, you kind

01:04:23.600 --> 01:04:28.400
 of lose that and you kind of step back and just enjoy your scenery, maybe enjoy your

01:04:28.400 --> 01:04:34.120
 drive to work or shopping or wherever else you're going to make that a little better.

01:04:34.120 --> 01:04:40.360
 So the wildflower planning program's mission is we're going to promote and improve and

01:04:40.360 --> 01:04:45.160
 improve and sustain a more environment by replacing vegetation in key public spaces

01:04:45.160 --> 01:04:50.320
 and public property with native plants and native wildflowers. So I really want to emphasize

01:04:50.320 --> 01:04:54.400
 that again. That's why I, you know, put that in bold letters, native plants and native

01:04:54.400 --> 01:05:00.520
 wildflowers. There's some other programs especially here in DFW that use native and adaptive.

01:05:00.520 --> 01:05:06.160
 So really with speaking to our master naturalist and master gardeners and native plant society,

01:05:06.160 --> 01:05:11.720
 we wanted to make sure that we took the adaptives out of our language and we only use natives.

01:05:11.720 --> 01:05:18.760
 So right now we have 200 and approximately 237, 240 acres of right of ways and open space

01:05:18.760 --> 01:05:25.320
 that we've identified. This is just phase one of phase 1,000. So this isn't just the

01:05:25.320 --> 01:05:31.960
 only 237 acres we're going to concentrate on, but this is wildflowers are a crop. So

01:05:31.960 --> 01:05:36.800
 we're going to establish these areas. We're going to plant the wildflowers and the native

01:05:36.800 --> 01:05:42.000
 grasses or prairie grasses. We're going to reestablish areas. This is going to take some

01:05:42.000 --> 01:05:47.940
 time. So this 237 acres we've identified, we're going to have this and really work towards

01:05:47.940 --> 01:05:54.820
 getting these areas established in the next two and a half years. So by 2022, 2023 is

01:05:54.820 --> 01:06:00.800
 when we'll really see the best crop of our flowers and hopefully the weather will participate

01:06:00.800 --> 01:06:08.940
 with us as we roll through this. So the cost is what is really another good factor in this

01:06:08.940 --> 01:06:14.680
 is it's not going to cost us anything. In fact, as the program grows, it will cost us

01:06:14.680 --> 01:06:21.040
 less because we're going to initially take $150,000 of what we would normally either

01:06:21.040 --> 01:06:27.000
 mow ourselves or contract those areas out to be mowed and we'll reestablish those with

01:06:27.000 --> 01:06:33.260
 wildflowers and native grasses and then we won't mow those. So except for maybe one time

01:06:33.260 --> 01:06:37.860
 a year, some areas will be mowed once a year, some areas may not be mowed but every three

01:06:37.860 --> 01:06:44.640
 years and it'll all be dependent on what species of vegetation is there. So that funding will

01:06:44.640 --> 01:06:50.820
 be diverted to continue to purchase either the materials we need as far as the seeds

01:06:50.820 --> 01:06:57.220
 go or rent or purchase the equipment needed to plant those seeds. So we will be planting

01:06:57.220 --> 01:07:02.960
 the seeds with a no-till seed drill. So it's very important that we don't completely disturb

01:07:02.960 --> 01:07:08.700
 the area because we don't want to cause another issue while creating something good. So if

01:07:08.700 --> 01:07:14.860
 we were to go in and till that property, then we cause an erosion issue. So especially us

01:07:14.860 --> 01:07:19.780
 being in the maintenance industry, we don't want to cause any more headaches on ourselves.

01:07:19.780 --> 01:07:26.380
 So we're going to use a no-till seed drill and of course broadcast spread like you would

01:07:26.380 --> 01:07:33.000
 anyway, but like we use for other seeds. So goal one, so we're going to identify and design

01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:37.380
 key areas. Maintenance will be completed by park maintenance crews. So this is important.

01:07:37.380 --> 01:07:42.240
 So we do have some wildflower areas and what was happening is that our contractors, you

01:07:42.240 --> 01:07:48.020
 know, their main objective is to mow. Well, sometimes they forget what areas they're supposed

01:07:48.020 --> 01:07:52.900
 to mow and not supposed to mow. So they did mow wildflower areas for the past couple of

01:07:52.900 --> 01:07:58.940
 years and you saw these pains as we went through contractors in the last couple of years. We

01:07:58.940 --> 01:08:02.740
 do have a really good set of contractors on board right now, but we wanted to make sure

01:08:02.740 --> 01:08:06.840
 that we took those areas from them that are going to be planted in wildflowers and we

01:08:06.840 --> 01:08:11.940
 were going to maintain those areas in-house. Therefore, we have more continuity. We will

01:08:11.940 --> 01:08:16.580
 have standard operating procedures. The SOP is written for how to take care of those properties.

01:08:16.580 --> 01:08:20.540
 Those properties will be properly signed and I'll show you those signs here in a minute,

01:08:20.540 --> 01:08:27.460
 but that was one aspect that we wanted to make sure that drew attention to. And then

01:08:27.460 --> 01:08:31.580
 so right-of-ways, so we will also pay attention to line of sight. So the main objective on

01:08:31.580 --> 01:08:35.860
 right-of-ways as you see here in this right-of-way is more of a residential and a thoroughfare

01:08:35.860 --> 01:08:40.860
 street where you have your wildflowers in the middle and then maybe some landscaping

01:08:40.860 --> 01:08:46.300
 and then the nose, the end of the median or where the turn lane goes in or where you have

01:08:46.300 --> 01:08:49.820
 the approaching streets and the cross traffic, you know, cross streets, you want to make

01:08:49.820 --> 01:08:55.020
 sure 30 to 50 feet away from that nose, depending on the speed of the traffic, that we don't

01:08:55.020 --> 01:09:00.120
 have any of the tall vegetation there to make sure that, you know, cars as you're driving,

01:09:00.120 --> 01:09:05.740
 you can see oncoming traffic and passing traffic and pedestrians and bicycle traffic to make

01:09:05.740 --> 01:09:11.880
 sure everything's safe. And then in certain areas, we'll also do a mode outer strip around

01:09:11.880 --> 01:09:18.880
 those medians or against that, you know, right-of-way or even if it's maybe an open space in a park

01:09:18.880 --> 01:09:23.100
 and it kind of backs up to someone's home, we don't want really tall grasses backing

01:09:23.100 --> 01:09:27.880
 up to their fence. So we'll make sure, you know, 10, you know, anywhere from five to

01:09:27.880 --> 01:09:34.120
 10 feet mode. So there's a nice, you know, patch there to where it doesn't create other

01:09:34.120 --> 01:09:42.380
 issues as far as, you know, insects or varmints or any other kind of pest. So open space and

01:09:42.380 --> 01:09:48.000
 what we also want to do is really promote habitat. So city of Denton, we're a B city,

01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:53.520
 you know, we're B city USA and monarch city USA. So this is really going to help in those

01:09:53.520 --> 01:09:59.080
 efforts also. And just like I talked about, reduce maintenance. So rolling into reduce

01:09:59.080 --> 01:10:03.900
 maintenance. So that's going to be, it's going to help reduce air pollution and greenhouse

01:10:03.900 --> 01:10:10.520
 gases emissions. So based upon the 237 acres and the amount of times that certain parts

01:10:10.520 --> 01:10:18.840
 of those properties get mowed where it's estimated that we'll reduce 36,000 pounds of CO2 per

01:10:18.840 --> 01:10:24.600
 year will be avoided because we won't be mowing so that those mowers will not be running to

01:10:24.600 --> 01:10:30.520
 be able to maintain those areas. So we'll have reduction in ozone and other air pollutants.

01:10:30.520 --> 01:10:35.560
 So we'll establish the no no-mow wildfire areas, establish the key low maintenance areas.

01:10:35.560 --> 01:10:40.440
 So that'll be times where maybe we're mowing just a small outer strip or we make sure that

01:10:40.440 --> 01:10:44.820
 we're mowing key times to increase seeding. We want to make sure that those those plants

01:10:44.820 --> 01:10:50.160
 go to go to seed so we can reseed. One, it'll help us save money because we're not constantly

01:10:50.160 --> 01:10:55.340
 having to reseed those areas. It's naturally doing it itself. And of course, decrease fuel

01:10:55.340 --> 01:10:57.040
 consumption through maintenance reduction.

01:10:57.040 --> 01:11:01.320
 Yeah, true. I would be interested to know, not necessarily for this meeting, you don't

01:11:01.320 --> 01:11:04.420
 need to research it, but I'd be interested to know what that number looks like too. I

01:11:04.420 --> 01:11:09.520
 mean, if we know the reduction in CO2, it'd be interesting to know the reduction in cost

01:11:09.520 --> 01:11:12.280
 of maintenance and fuel.

01:11:12.280 --> 01:11:13.280
 It's $150,000.

01:11:13.280 --> 01:11:14.880
 Oh, is that what was included in there?

01:11:14.880 --> 01:11:15.880
 Yes, sir.

01:11:15.880 --> 01:11:16.880
 I got you, I'm sorry.

01:11:16.880 --> 01:11:20.680
 So we've identified that's how much it's costing us or contractors to follow that.

01:11:20.680 --> 01:11:21.680
 Yes, sir.

01:11:21.680 --> 01:11:22.680
 Thank you.

01:11:22.680 --> 01:11:23.680
 So.

01:11:23.680 --> 01:11:24.680
 Thanks.

01:11:24.680 --> 01:11:28.800
 I wanted to show that Goal 3 is a sustainable environment. So really, if you look at this

01:11:28.800 --> 01:11:34.240
 picture in the background, we have non-native. So, you know, you have your fescue grass,

01:11:34.240 --> 01:11:38.600
 your perennial fountain grasses, and then look over here to your natives or your buffalo

01:11:38.600 --> 01:11:42.760
 grass, your, you know, your your black eyed Susan. That's something that's really popped

01:11:42.760 --> 01:11:48.520
 here in Denton. So just look at the difference in depth that those those root systems have.

01:11:48.520 --> 01:11:53.160
 So it's reduced soil impacts through conservation and erosion control. The course of deeper

01:11:53.160 --> 01:11:57.560
 and the bigger the root system, the more ground that that's going to hold and improve soil

01:11:57.560 --> 01:12:01.720
 health. So really with improving soil health, that's because of that root system, you know,

01:12:01.720 --> 01:12:06.160
 being so vast and being able to draw those nutrients and then water conservation. Our

01:12:06.160 --> 01:12:16.320
 native plants take less water than our adaptive plants and and then increase pollinator habitat.

01:12:16.320 --> 01:12:20.520
 So promote public understanding. So we're going to do this through educational signs,

01:12:20.520 --> 01:12:25.280
 community outreach and website information. So we're working with our public information

01:12:25.280 --> 01:12:32.520
 office, really, and with Maria. We have these no-mo signs, and we do have those in bilingual.

01:12:32.520 --> 01:12:38.320
 So they will be posted bilingual. And Frances, I see you. Yep. So we did think about that

01:12:38.320 --> 01:12:44.120
 before Maria's looking. We may change this a little bit. We want to make sure that really

01:12:44.120 --> 01:12:49.920
 with this sign that none of these flowers in this sign are adaptive. So we're double

01:12:49.920 --> 01:12:55.520
 checking on all that before these signs go in production. But the signs like this will

01:12:55.520 --> 01:13:00.520
 be posted. Also with community outreach, we want to make sure that our residents know

01:13:00.520 --> 01:13:06.000
 why it's not being mowed, that it's not being mowed for a beautification effort. It's not

01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:12.400
 just not being mowed because we just don't want to mow it. Those areas are planted in

01:13:12.400 --> 01:13:22.040
 a specific pattern or they're planted with these type of mixes for this reason. So location

01:13:22.040 --> 01:13:29.880
 and costs. So like I said, we have identified 237 acres, 240 acres right now. It's $150,000

01:13:29.880 --> 01:13:35.280
 in annual savings, which really is a savings from mowing that will be diverted to seed

01:13:35.280 --> 01:13:43.040
 and materials that we need now, which eventually as this is completely established and reestablishes

01:13:43.040 --> 01:13:50.840
 itself will be a cost savings. 32,000 pounds of CO2 per year avoided. And then here's a

01:13:50.840 --> 01:13:57.280
 list of the areas. A couple areas that I wanted to make sure that I showed you and you probably

01:13:57.280 --> 01:14:03.660
 saw in the AIS was the North Lakes Wildflower Trail. That area has always been programmed.

01:14:03.660 --> 01:14:08.560
 It's never been formalized for a wildflower area. We want to make sure it was formalized

01:14:08.560 --> 01:14:15.920
 in this process. Also the North Lakes Dam area, that 10 acres or so, it only gets mowed

01:14:15.920 --> 01:14:21.160
 once or twice a year. That's for the wildflowers to come up and then for it's kind of, it's

01:14:21.160 --> 01:14:25.460
 a birding area also. So we want to make sure that those birds, those are migratory birds.

01:14:25.460 --> 01:14:29.880
 They come in, they nest in the area. Once they leave and the seeds have dropped, we

01:14:29.880 --> 01:14:35.680
 go in and mow. And that's typically around August is when, due to those wildflowers and

01:14:35.680 --> 01:14:42.400
 that birding area. This is the next slide or next picture here. I have a wildflower

01:14:42.400 --> 01:14:49.280
 and prairie location map. This map will be accessible online soon. Tech Services is working

01:14:49.280 --> 01:14:52.760
 through that. We already have all these dots as you can see. There was a question that

01:14:52.760 --> 01:14:57.880
 did come up in a council meeting. Why do we have so many more dots in this area town versus

01:14:57.880 --> 01:15:02.880
 this area town? And if you really look through our mobility plan and where most of the construction

01:15:02.880 --> 01:15:08.160
 is going on right now, it's in the southern part of Denton, really, you know, south and

01:15:08.160 --> 01:15:17.620
 east of I-35W or I-35E. The idea is we, or not the idea, but we are working with capital

01:15:17.620 --> 01:15:22.240
 projects as we go through, you know, Hickory, as they're redoing Hickory Creek Road, the

01:15:22.240 --> 01:15:30.320
 plans for Ryan Road. 377 is under construction right now. 2499, we have a green ribbon. All

01:15:30.320 --> 01:15:36.880
 these different areas are being constructed on. We would hate to make an effort to plant

01:15:36.880 --> 01:15:41.720
 wildflowers there for it to just completely be taken out. And then, of course, then we'd

01:15:41.720 --> 01:15:46.680
 have to spend money to put it back in. So we'll wait for that to be constructed and

01:15:46.680 --> 01:15:51.880
 then, of course, parks takes care of all the right of ways, then we'll help plan that landscaping

01:15:51.880 --> 01:15:57.880
 effort for those new right of ways, and as the roads are widened and constructed.

01:15:57.880 --> 01:16:04.840
 So wildfires, benefiting wildflowers and prairies. So this is something that we work with the

01:16:04.840 --> 01:16:11.600
 fire department on. At Fire Station 7, off of Vintage Boulevard, there near the intersection

01:16:11.600 --> 01:16:18.320
 of Vintage and South Bonnie Bray, is the training center for our fire department. As you can

01:16:18.320 --> 01:16:24.280
 look in the background here on this charred piece of land, they had a planned burn, wildflower

01:16:24.280 --> 01:16:30.160
 burn for a training session for their firemen. So we work with them and thank goodness the

01:16:30.160 --> 01:16:34.360
 weather worked out great for us because we planted last Thursday. And as you know, we've

01:16:34.360 --> 01:16:42.880
 had rain almost every day since. So we planted with broadcast and we demoed some no-till

01:16:42.880 --> 01:16:47.840
 drill seeders. And so we really wanted to show the benefits in this area. And they planned

01:16:47.840 --> 01:16:51.800
 to burn this maybe once a year, maybe once every two years. So to really help show the

01:16:51.800 --> 01:16:57.560
 benefits of wildfires. No, we do not plan on burning our right of ways and our medians,

01:16:57.560 --> 01:17:02.800
 but this gives us an educational opportunity to show what the benefits are of those wildfires.

01:17:02.800 --> 01:17:09.040
 Because we're planting back what used to be here, you know, two and three hundred years

01:17:09.040 --> 01:17:16.080
 ago before Bermuda grass and all our adaptive species have come in. Wildfires really benefited

01:17:16.080 --> 01:17:21.720
 those prairies as you know, either a lightning strike caused it or, you know, humans did

01:17:21.720 --> 01:17:26.680
 it on purpose to make sure that they cleared those different areas out. So it reduces intensity

01:17:26.680 --> 01:17:33.360
 of unplanned fires, increases wildflower diversity, maintains habitat of grassland-dependent

01:17:33.360 --> 01:17:39.160
 birds, recycles nutrients, reduces invasive or less desirable vegetation. So that's your

01:17:39.160 --> 01:17:44.960
 KR bluestem, your Johnson grass, your Bermuda grass. And then preserve biodiversity by maintaining

01:17:44.960 --> 01:17:50.120
 habitats for species that need sunny and open conditions to germinate and thrive. So it

01:17:50.120 --> 01:17:56.960
 really helps burn that thatch down and get the taller vegetation down and, you know,

01:17:56.960 --> 01:18:06.280
 for more of a diverse environment or more diverse prairie and wildflowers. So sustainability

01:18:06.280 --> 01:18:11.320
 framework. So this really fits into sustainability is for their air or their air quality and

01:18:11.320 --> 01:18:22.080
 greenhouse gas management, land use and resiliency and public health. So I did just like I did

01:18:22.080 --> 01:18:28.200
 last week with council and I can take this down now. I wanted to say kind of what I said

01:18:28.200 --> 01:18:32.680
 in the beginning. This is just the beginning. So it's two almost two hundred and forty acres

01:18:32.680 --> 01:18:38.360
 that we have identified now. It's not the only two hundred and forty acres and we continue

01:18:38.360 --> 01:18:42.400
 to grow. Gary and I look at a lot of different developments in a lot of different land and

01:18:42.400 --> 01:18:46.000
 kind of really where we're going and what we're doing and how the city is developing

01:18:46.000 --> 01:18:49.360
 and how we're negotiating with developers and what we're going to do with that property.

01:18:49.360 --> 01:18:54.520
 And, you know, usually the first thing that comes up is, you know, what can we can we

01:18:54.520 --> 01:18:58.920
 do a prayer restoration there? So prayer restoration isn't just the grasses, it's the wildflowers

01:18:58.920 --> 01:19:04.400
 also. And, you know, we got Gary talked about earlier, you know, with quite a bit of our

01:19:04.400 --> 01:19:09.640
 property being in the floodplain, you know, what a better what a better place. So also

01:19:09.640 --> 01:19:16.360
 with that, this is just probably this is just phase one of many. And this is just phase

01:19:16.360 --> 01:19:21.080
 one of what I'm what I refer to as, you know, the three three big phases. We're looking

01:19:21.080 --> 01:19:26.080
 at right of ways and open space that parks takes care of. Then once this starts to get

01:19:26.080 --> 01:19:29.640
 established, we've already started working with our drainage department on how to really

01:19:29.640 --> 01:19:36.040
 benefit those riparian areas and riparian buffers and riparian areas for waterways.

01:19:36.040 --> 01:19:41.000
 So how do we reestablish vegetation there for a deeper root systems, those deeper root

01:19:41.000 --> 01:19:46.200
 system vegetation, they absorb more water, they clean the water better. And so therefore

01:19:46.200 --> 01:19:52.360
 we're benefiting our waterways that way. And then three would be our tech stock right of

01:19:52.360 --> 01:20:00.520
 ways. We all know that, you know, years ago, I-35, I-35W was full of blue bonnets and Indian

01:20:00.520 --> 01:20:06.980
 paintbrushes. And really that's kind of gone away with the way I-35s have or I-35 has continuously

01:20:06.980 --> 01:20:13.000
 been under construction. We have met with tech stock. We have plans for when that landscaping

01:20:13.000 --> 01:20:18.440
 gets put in as those the rest of the I-35s are widened for that to go back with native

01:20:18.440 --> 01:20:23.880
 vegetation and wildflowers. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that. So we are working

01:20:23.880 --> 01:20:29.820
 with all these different groups to make sure that this is beneficial for years to come.

01:20:29.820 --> 01:20:34.000
 And there will be, we've already started working on standard operating procedures. We've already

01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:39.560
 started working on format. This is just the start and the step to formalize these areas.

01:20:39.560 --> 01:20:44.600
 That way, you know, when Gary and I are retired, this continues to go on and it doesn't just

01:20:44.600 --> 01:20:52.040
 get changed, you know, years after we're gone. So, all right, I'll open it up for questions.

01:20:52.040 --> 01:20:53.040
 Mr. Schick?

01:20:53.040 --> 01:20:59.680
 I would like, well, I want to preface by saying I love this program for a half dozen reasons.

01:20:59.680 --> 01:21:04.800
 So my following statement doesn't take away from the fact that I'm in strong support of

01:21:04.800 --> 01:21:12.840
 this. I do want us to be careful when we sell this to the public, not to oversell the beauty

01:21:12.840 --> 01:21:20.680
 of wildflowers. And the reason is, you know, my company, BNSF Railway, went to this program

01:21:20.680 --> 01:21:26.920
 even on all of our corporate campuses for many of the same reasons that you're specifying

01:21:26.920 --> 01:21:33.600
 here. And those flowers look absolutely gorgeous about three weeks out of the year, right?

01:21:33.600 --> 01:21:41.600
 The rest of the time, it looks like grass that isn't necessarily mowed. Again, I don't

01:21:41.600 --> 01:21:45.260
 mean to take away from the overall impact of the program. I think it's wonderful. But

01:21:45.260 --> 01:21:51.720
 as we position this out to the public, I would caution us from going, it's just beautiful

01:21:51.720 --> 01:21:55.400
 wildflowers and, you know, it's going to be, because it isn't always.

01:21:55.400 --> 01:21:59.840
 And that's where the educational, really the educational push and the community outreach

01:21:59.840 --> 01:22:04.560
 will come in. And one thing I guess I didn't say to begin with, what we really have been

01:22:04.560 --> 01:22:08.640
 working on with a master naturalist and gardeners and native plant society, is how do we get

01:22:08.640 --> 01:22:15.480
 a bloom, some type of bloom, from like late February, early March, all the way to November.

01:22:15.480 --> 01:22:19.400
 Well, teach my company that afterwards. That would be great.

01:22:19.400 --> 01:22:25.240
 Right now, right now we have, we've started, as you know, you remember the mural at Robertson

01:22:25.240 --> 01:22:32.180
 and Bell. So when we met with those ladies, as the backdrop of that mural is purple, okay,

01:22:32.180 --> 01:22:35.800
 didn't high school was purple and yellow, purple and gold, right? The high school I

01:22:35.800 --> 01:22:41.900
 went to was purple and gold. So what better backdrop for purple is yellow, right? So how

01:22:41.900 --> 01:22:47.800
 many different yellow flowers do we know of? So the section between Robertson and the Morrison

01:22:47.800 --> 01:22:55.240
 milling milling property, we've ordered yellow flower, native yellow flowers to go there.

01:22:55.240 --> 01:22:59.680
 So as you now, not only do we have a beautiful mural to be there, but as you approach there

01:22:59.680 --> 01:23:04.920
 during different times of year, different yellowing flowers will bloom in that area.

01:23:04.920 --> 01:23:09.280
 So we're looking at how do you enhance the landscaping we already have with the landscaping

01:23:09.280 --> 01:23:14.380
 that can be, or different. Maybe it's artwork that we have, for instance, the mural that's

01:23:14.380 --> 01:23:20.440
 coming or, you know, the different right of ways. We really have to look at too, you know,

01:23:20.440 --> 01:23:24.520
 if you've been around Denton and if you put a shovel in the ground, one second you're

01:23:24.520 --> 01:23:29.080
 going to hit caliche, one second, you know, one part of town is black clay, the next is

01:23:29.080 --> 01:23:37.160
 red and the following is a sandy loam. So not all seeds can go in all sections of town.

01:23:37.160 --> 01:23:43.120
 We are trying to come up with Councilmember Davis recommended maybe a Denton blend. So

01:23:43.120 --> 01:23:46.600
 some of those flowers will do really good in certain areas of Denton and some of them

01:23:46.600 --> 01:23:51.460
 won't, but we're working on that too, on maybe coming up with a Denton blend. So, you know,

01:23:51.460 --> 01:23:56.120
 you could do it in your yard, you know, so. Well, anyway, nice work on it. I think it's

01:23:56.120 --> 01:24:01.680
 a great initiative. Real quick, I let Frances know at the beginning of this meeting, I'm

01:24:01.680 --> 01:24:05.600
 going to probably drop off here in just a few minutes, but didn't want anybody to think

01:24:05.600 --> 01:24:11.040
 I dropped off technically. But anyway, thank you for the input on all of it.

01:24:11.040 --> 01:24:22.960
 Thank you, David. My comment is, I'm sorry, Helena. I am complete support of this program.

01:24:22.960 --> 01:24:29.520
 I love the idea. Thank you for answering all of my questions, except for one. Well, you

01:24:29.520 --> 01:24:37.240
 probably did, but I just want to clarify. So there is a plan to on how you add the additional

01:24:37.240 --> 01:24:49.040
 parks, correct? Yes. Additional areas. Yes. So did I miss Dina on the list on. Yes, Dina

01:24:49.040 --> 01:24:55.880
 is not on the list and that's because certain areas. So we're in a planning process of kind

01:24:55.880 --> 01:25:05.960
 of adding to Dina and adding to that area. So. Thank you for clarifying that. Mr. Amrick.

01:25:05.960 --> 01:25:14.080
 Yeah, just two quick ones. Well, first, just a comment. I like the diversity of the flowers

01:25:14.080 --> 01:25:20.520
 that I think you're bringing to the forefront here. And one of the things the people we

01:25:20.520 --> 01:25:26.000
 bought our house from, they have flowers that cover that bloom just about every possible

01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:31.280
 time of the year, including winter, we get white blooms in the background. So that's

01:25:31.280 --> 01:25:39.780
 one A plus idea that definitely would be nice to pursue that, you know, try to keep it as

01:25:39.780 --> 01:25:48.940
 something growing in the flower. The other comment or question I have is, what's the

01:25:48.940 --> 01:25:58.060
 key people from pulling over to take pictures? That's what we want. And so what we will look

01:25:58.060 --> 01:26:03.920
 at is, especially when these are planted, is how that's why we pick when you look on

01:26:03.920 --> 01:26:08.880
 the list, you'll see there's some parks have been identified that we're going to do now.

01:26:08.880 --> 01:26:15.960
 And this is, like I said, phase one of a thousand. And so we'll add as we go. And then one particular

01:26:15.960 --> 01:26:20.600
 instance we looked at on, okay, how do we do this? And then how do we make sure maybe

01:26:20.600 --> 01:26:26.440
 when we plant it, we plant it in almost a curvy literature way to where you can take

01:26:26.440 --> 01:26:35.480
 a picture in a pocket that we've created and not trample on the wildflowers. So stop traffic,

01:26:35.480 --> 01:26:41.200
 for example, people pull over on the side of the road to take pictures, be kind of a

01:26:41.200 --> 01:26:46.480
 hazard too. So maybe. Well, that's why you're going to have, for instance, we already have

01:26:46.480 --> 01:26:51.360
 North Lakes and then, you know, we're looking at the 47 acres out at the Denton Energy Center.

01:26:51.360 --> 01:26:57.480
 That's a very low traveled road. You know, it's 40 something acres of open space where,

01:26:57.480 --> 01:27:02.000
 you know, really we could work with them on maybe having a small parking area where then

01:27:02.000 --> 01:27:05.600
 they could go into that wildflower area and take pictures.

01:27:05.600 --> 01:27:14.640
 Okay. I'm going to jump on Kate again. Okay. Brooke, Alana is before you. Oh, I'm so sorry.

01:27:14.640 --> 01:27:23.600
 Go ahead. Okay. It's all the passion. Okay. Just first of all, I love it. I love this.

01:27:23.600 --> 01:27:29.760
 I think it's a great idea. It's definitely the right way to move forward. I was just

01:27:29.760 --> 01:27:40.040
 curious about the Bonnie Bray, what's it called? The roundabout area and the new parks and

01:27:40.040 --> 01:27:46.920
 everything. I was just curious if it was in the plan to go ahead and do the wildflowers

01:27:46.920 --> 01:27:54.160
 now when the construction is finished or if that's going to be something that happens

01:27:54.160 --> 01:28:02.160
 in like phase two down the line? As far as McKenna Park goes? Yeah. Like, I mean, I'm

01:28:02.160 --> 01:28:07.880
 assuming there's right away. I'm not exactly sure if there is. Now on the Bonnie Bray project,

01:28:07.880 --> 01:28:15.000
 we've worked several different instances where we've landscaped that roundabout. We've worked

01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:20.280
 through that process. I don't believe that the funds were there at the moment to do that.

01:28:20.280 --> 01:28:24.780
 But when we did sit down with the engineers and worked through that landscape process,

01:28:24.780 --> 01:28:31.200
 it wasn't just wildflowers, but it was more of a native grasses and native plants to go

01:28:31.200 --> 01:28:35.680
 in there. We are looking at putting a sculpture in the roundabout as well. Something that

01:28:35.680 --> 01:28:43.240
 will create a visual opportunity so people don't drive straight through the roundabout.

01:28:43.240 --> 01:28:48.920
 So it's kind of like an awareness piece. So there's definitely a sculpture involved in

01:28:48.920 --> 01:28:57.000
 that roundabout whenever that's landscaped. So is the right of way area like that? I guess

01:28:57.000 --> 01:29:04.760
 it would be like kind of like the Bonnie Bray area near McKenna down to the highway. It's

01:29:04.760 --> 01:29:11.000
 like cement city and you've got just like these old kind of untaken care of areas down

01:29:11.000 --> 01:29:17.000
 Bonnie Bray, but it's also an entrance into our city for people coming in for like UNT

01:29:17.000 --> 01:29:20.760
 or whatever. So just wondering if that's on the radar?

01:29:20.760 --> 01:29:26.200
 Yeah, that's the process that I spoke about about working with capital projects as they

01:29:26.200 --> 01:29:33.680
 work through their process of design and construction of our different roadways, whether it be Bonnie

01:29:33.680 --> 01:29:39.200
 Bray, Hickory Creek, Mayhill is the first one that's been redone. We were to the table

01:29:39.200 --> 01:29:46.480
 with them almost in the beginning for landscaping, but the funding wasn't there. And so we can

01:29:46.480 --> 01:29:51.040
 go back even though that Bermuda grass was planted, we can go back scalp and then no

01:29:51.040 --> 01:29:54.360
 seed drill and broadcast and put wildflowers in that area.

01:29:54.360 --> 01:29:59.200
 So is that just going to become kind of like that every time there's a capital project

01:29:59.200 --> 01:30:03.920
 comes up, it's like routine to say this is how we're going to do the wildflowers in this

01:30:03.920 --> 01:30:07.720
 area? Yeah, if it's been identified for wildflowers

01:30:07.720 --> 01:30:11.960
 to go there, then yes, that will be the way. Would it be possible to get the like the big

01:30:11.960 --> 01:30:20.080
 list of possible areas that are going to eventually be planted? Or is are you ready to?

01:30:20.080 --> 01:30:24.480
 We're not ready for that, because we're still working with capital projects. And of course,

01:30:24.480 --> 01:30:30.320
 they're constantly working through their processes. So we are just because capital projects and

01:30:30.320 --> 01:30:34.680
 parks is now under one umbrella under public works, we're consistently working with them

01:30:34.680 --> 01:30:35.680
 on that. So

01:30:35.680 --> 01:30:42.960
 I have a couple more things brought and also the blend idea, I think is really cool. And

01:30:42.960 --> 01:30:46.960
 I was actually thinking about that when you were presenting. It would be awesome to be

01:30:46.960 --> 01:30:52.080
 able to like as part of your education program, to be able to like give people seeds. And

01:30:52.080 --> 01:30:57.680
 I was already thinking like, how can I incorporate that into my class? And like with the different

01:30:57.680 --> 01:31:04.480
 soils, it's like a great way to teach people all of that. And last but not least, my last

01:31:04.480 --> 01:31:09.320
 question or thing I would like to say I think is a great idea is your little idea to have

01:31:09.320 --> 01:31:15.480
 picture areas where people are not trampled the flowers, because I like love taking pictures

01:31:15.480 --> 01:31:19.080
 with my kids and the blue monads and all that kind of stuff. But then I always feel really

01:31:19.080 --> 01:31:24.200
 bad about trampling flowers. So anyways, I think it's awesome. Thanks.

01:31:24.200 --> 01:31:31.360
 We're building two places that at the razor ranch property that are photo selfie spots

01:31:31.360 --> 01:31:38.580
 for wildflowers. And we can also kind of we could probably create a Francis punch blend

01:31:38.580 --> 01:31:42.720
 for the junior park specifically location if we need to.

01:31:42.720 --> 01:31:44.280
 I love it.

01:31:44.280 --> 01:31:48.000
 Okay, Brooke, thank you for your patience.

01:31:48.000 --> 01:31:52.760
 No, you're good. I'm just playing off of everybody else. I totally want some of those packets,

01:31:52.760 --> 01:31:56.400
 because I definitely want to do a little package for kids and they can make their own seed

01:31:56.400 --> 01:32:02.440
 bomb. And then we can tell them where to go throw them. And then to I was thinking about

01:32:02.440 --> 01:32:05.760
 the whole pulling off on the side of the road. I feel the same way about our trails that

01:32:05.760 --> 01:32:11.300
 clear Creek when people stop and take their like wedding photos or graduate or whatever.

01:32:11.300 --> 01:32:15.960
 And I'm like, Oh, you look so cute. But if you could just like I'm walking. And so the

01:32:15.960 --> 01:32:19.520
 last time I was out there, I thought, Oh, we should carve out like little spots so that

01:32:19.520 --> 01:32:25.800
 people can go and take their wedding photo without, you know, having my dog jump on them.

01:32:25.800 --> 01:32:28.760
 That kind of thing.

01:32:28.760 --> 01:32:34.400
 Thank you, Brooke. Any other comments, concerns?

01:32:34.400 --> 01:32:42.080
 We appreciate the information, Drew. It was very educational, at least for me, it was.

01:32:42.080 --> 01:32:47.840
 I'm so sorry, I have one more thing I wanted to ask about. I'm sorry. And has there been

01:32:47.840 --> 01:32:53.360
 any talk about adding edible plants, like stuff we can eat?

01:32:53.360 --> 01:33:03.320
 It's coming. It's called garden scaping. So I'm, I'm working on it. And it's been one

01:33:03.320 --> 01:33:07.840
 of those juggling priority things when I can see Gary smiling, because we have had some

01:33:07.840 --> 01:33:13.480
 conversations about it. But yes, it's called garden scaping. And we have been in contact

01:33:13.480 --> 01:33:20.320
 with a consultant that specializes in garden scaping. And so, yes.

01:33:20.320 --> 01:33:27.120
 Okay. Thank you so much. Any other questions, concerns?

01:33:27.120 --> 01:33:30.480
 Thank you, Drew, for that information. You're welcome.

01:33:30.480 --> 01:33:36.440
 We will move to the next topic. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff input

01:33:36.440 --> 01:33:39.840
 regarding fishing areas within the city of Denton.

01:33:39.840 --> 01:33:45.680
 This was an item that James had asked about last month. So Drew put a short presentation

01:33:45.680 --> 01:33:50.080
 together just to kind of let you know where all the opportunities are and has the discussion.

01:33:50.080 --> 01:33:53.400
 All right. So we're ready? Yes.

01:33:53.400 --> 01:33:58.880
 All right. So parks and recreation fishing areas. So the first one that I wanted to highlight

01:33:58.880 --> 01:34:04.160
 was North Lakes Park. So we have two lakes at North Lakes. We have our Bonnie Bray Pond,

01:34:04.160 --> 01:34:09.200
 which is just off of Bonnie Bray, north of University, where you can come in and you

01:34:09.200 --> 01:34:14.760
 can park near the, or on or, you know, close to the horseshoe and fish anywhere around

01:34:14.760 --> 01:34:20.000
 the lake, or you can walk up on the, on the dam and fish off the dam, or even, you know,

01:34:20.000 --> 01:34:25.480
 we have some residents or park users that park over at the Goldfield Tennis Center and

01:34:25.480 --> 01:34:30.240
 then walk through all the way, all the way to the backside of the, I guess, the north

01:34:30.240 --> 01:34:34.360
 end of this pond. We also have our Windsor Pond. So we just

01:34:34.360 --> 01:34:38.960
 replaced last March this pier, the fishing pier. It's actually a little, it's 10 feet

01:34:38.960 --> 01:34:45.000
 longer than the old wooden one. This one's made out of HDPE, which is a type of plastic

01:34:45.000 --> 01:34:50.240
 that's really built the last 50 plus years. And it's, I've been out there several times.

01:34:50.240 --> 01:34:54.040
 It's really nice to go out and just sit, if you just want to sit and be on the water or

01:34:54.040 --> 01:34:59.080
 sit and fish. We also have South Lakes. So I wanted to

01:34:59.080 --> 01:35:04.040
 highlight South Lakes. So we have our, the North Pond at South Lakes and the South Pond.

01:35:04.040 --> 01:35:08.640
 The South Pond here has the dock, and this is our, really our most popular fishing pond

01:35:08.640 --> 01:35:14.160
 we have in our entire system. This pond, we, at this pond, we do have a partnership with

01:35:14.160 --> 01:35:18.840
 Texas Parks and Wildlife for our neighborhood, or their neighborhood fishing program. Here's

01:35:18.840 --> 01:35:23.800
 our catfish here in this corner of the picture to show you one of the ones that they stock.

01:35:23.800 --> 01:35:31.040
 So they stock the pond with catfish starting in late April, early May, depending on the

01:35:31.040 --> 01:35:35.720
 water temperatures. And they'll stock all the way until normally they do it sometime

01:35:35.720 --> 01:35:44.060
 around the end of October. And then usually the end of November, so it's usually the week

01:35:44.060 --> 01:35:49.140
 of Thanksgiving, they start our rainbow trout stocking. And they do that every two weeks

01:35:49.140 --> 01:35:54.000
 all the way until March. So they already have started stocking rainbow trout that the first

01:35:54.000 --> 01:36:00.040
 stocking was the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving. And of course they stocked last Friday. And

01:36:00.040 --> 01:36:04.440
 they'll continue to do that until March. It's a partnership where we pay very little

01:36:04.440 --> 01:36:10.200
 compared to what the fish stocking would cost. It's around $3,000 for the entire year. And

01:36:10.200 --> 01:36:17.240
 if we were to pay that out of pocket, it would be in the 15 to $18,000 range if we stock

01:36:17.240 --> 01:36:24.120
 the fish ourselves. So it's a really good partnership to have with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

01:36:24.120 --> 01:36:32.420
 We have Lake Forest Park, or where Wigley Field is located. So this, this pond and dam

01:36:32.420 --> 01:36:38.440
 is one entire project. So if you remember from lots of different conversations we've

01:36:38.440 --> 01:36:44.840
 had in the past couple years, the dam has issues that it needs to be repaired. Also

01:36:44.840 --> 01:36:52.040
 the pond needs to be dredged due to the amount of silt that's washed into the pond over the

01:36:52.040 --> 01:36:58.820
 years. There's 45,000 yards of material that needs to be removed from the pond to bring

01:36:58.820 --> 01:37:05.120
 it back to its original condition. And then clay core needs to be put into the dam. And

01:37:05.120 --> 01:37:11.460
 then the spillway you can kind of see in this picture is right here. It's not built to standards.

01:37:11.460 --> 01:37:16.680
 So we're going to bring that up to current standards to the 100 year floodplain. Currently

01:37:16.680 --> 01:37:23.360
 it's not even constructed to a 25 year flood. So all that's in the works. The bidding ends

01:37:23.360 --> 01:37:28.400
 January 4th. That's open for bid right now, but the bidding ends January 4th. And we look

01:37:28.400 --> 01:37:34.200
 to take that to council at the end of January, 1st of February to have that project started.

01:37:34.200 --> 01:37:38.040
 Frontier Park. So this Frontier Park, here's Unicorn Lake. Most of you know where Unicorn

01:37:38.040 --> 01:37:45.840
 Lake is. And we have just right over here off the screen is Briar Cliff Park. The movie

01:37:45.840 --> 01:37:51.880
 theater and restaurants are over here by I-35. If you take Frontier Drive, here's Frontier

01:37:51.880 --> 01:37:57.240
 Park. So it's just a small half acre to three quarter acre pond. It's just a, just a small

01:37:57.240 --> 01:38:01.480
 little neighborhood fishing program. This pond was put or never hit fishing spot. This

01:38:01.480 --> 01:38:06.840
 pond was put in when the developers built this neighborhood. We have Montecito Pond.

01:38:06.840 --> 01:38:13.820
 It's off Montecito Drive off of Hickory Creek Road. We have Clear Creek. So Clear Creek's

01:38:13.820 --> 01:38:18.200
 now ours. If you know, we, we oversee Clear Creek as far as the park, the parks department

01:38:18.200 --> 01:38:22.480
 goes. So I've taken my kids out here and we fished out at the confluence. And then this

01:38:22.480 --> 01:38:26.640
 is another little pond or one of the ponds and inside the wetlands that you can fish

01:38:26.640 --> 01:38:32.120
 at during certain times of the year. It is pretty, it's pretty shallow. So aquatic vegetation

01:38:32.120 --> 01:38:37.280
 does grow pretty thick in this pond, but during this time of year, you'd be able to get in

01:38:37.280 --> 01:38:42.200
 the water or not get in the water, but get in the water with your fishing pole. So future

01:38:42.200 --> 01:38:46.320
 areas. So we went over some future areas that we have up company and this, this young man's

01:38:46.320 --> 01:38:51.800
 at South Lakes fishing. So Mills property. So as you know, we do have the Mills property.

01:38:51.800 --> 01:38:56.760
 We don't currently have like good, we don't currently have access into the Mills property

01:38:56.760 --> 01:39:01.760
 due to, you know, we had some budget cuts and other COVID issues that we had go go on

01:39:01.760 --> 01:39:07.720
 last year. We do. Hopefully this year we will get a chance to be able to have a clear, clean

01:39:07.720 --> 01:39:15.800
 a clear path all the way into the Mills property, but there are fish in this pond.

01:39:15.800 --> 01:39:20.080
 Hickory Creek. So I know we've talked a lot about the trails and the Hickory Creek area.

01:39:20.080 --> 01:39:25.620
 So Hickory Creek, if you're familiar, this is country club. Here's Hickory Creek road.

01:39:25.620 --> 01:39:34.520
 We're getting this property through development. I have, I'm an avid fisherman and I have,

01:39:34.520 --> 01:39:39.280
 and I know several other people throughout the city and our residents and people even

01:39:39.280 --> 01:39:46.640
 come from out of town to fish this, what we call the leg of Hickory Creek road. The, during

01:39:46.640 --> 01:39:53.400
 the spawning season for sand bass, there's a, quite a few people that park along this

01:39:53.400 --> 01:39:57.880
 road here and enter the creek here and either wait up and down this creek to fish while

01:39:57.880 --> 01:40:04.560
 they're running. Also this, this is South Bonnie Bray. This is the new bridge. Here's

01:40:04.560 --> 01:40:08.760
 the old South Bonnie Bray. Here's the new bridge that they put in. This property here

01:40:08.760 --> 01:40:13.700
 was purchased through capital projects to be able to put that bridge in. This is also

01:40:13.700 --> 01:40:19.300
 part of the Hickory Creek trail. And there's a, there's a nice little fishing hole right

01:40:19.300 --> 01:40:26.880
 in this area right here. So Southwest Park property, there's two small ponds on Southwest

01:40:26.880 --> 01:40:34.240
 Park. So, you know, as we go through this process, we've talked about having, having

01:40:34.240 --> 01:40:39.640
 this, this area, of course, stay with this pond and this pond. So where we can create

01:40:39.640 --> 01:40:49.960
 a future, you know, small little fishing spots in Southwest Park. Pecan Creek. So Pecan Creek,

01:40:49.960 --> 01:40:56.760
 this area in green is a future trail for Pecan Creek. As you know, this is what was known

01:40:56.760 --> 01:41:04.140
 as Pebble Brook Park. Here's Mayhill Road. And then the trail will follow underneath

01:41:04.140 --> 01:41:09.820
 Mayhill and then follow Pecan Creek. And then here's a picture actually just south of where

01:41:09.820 --> 01:41:16.620
 the effluent water comes out of our reclamation plant. And this is, this was taken there.

01:41:16.620 --> 01:41:23.280
 So I will take this down for any questions.

01:41:23.280 --> 01:41:35.480
 And for someone who is not an avid fisher woman, is this, I'll catch a release?

01:41:35.480 --> 01:41:42.520
 No ma'am, it's catch and keep. And then though, depending on the species of fish, Texas Parks

01:41:42.520 --> 01:41:46.760
 and Wildlife sets those rules on, you know, on how, how large they have to be and how

01:41:46.760 --> 01:41:51.480
 many you can keep per day, what they call a bag limit. So I would, I would suggest anyone

01:41:51.480 --> 01:41:56.700
 that, and you do have to have a fishing license for fishing anywhere in the city of Denton.

01:41:56.700 --> 01:42:00.920
 You do have to have, we do follow those rules also. And those are governed by Texas Parks

01:42:00.920 --> 01:42:04.840
 and Wildlife. So if you, you were to fish, you know, anywhere those spots that I just

01:42:04.840 --> 01:42:10.320
 showed you, or you were to fish anywhere in Texas, I would, whether it, unless it's on

01:42:10.320 --> 01:42:15.000
 your private property, I would highly advise you to go get a fishing license. And you absolutely

01:42:15.000 --> 01:42:17.600
 need one to fish in our ponds. So.

01:42:17.600 --> 01:42:23.880
 Thank you, Elana. I don't know if this is part of getting a fishing license, but what

01:42:23.880 --> 01:42:29.440
 kind of education is given about litter from fishing? Because I always see like that Clear

01:42:29.440 --> 01:42:34.760
 Creek and other places where people are fishing, they leave their lines and it's just a mess.

01:42:34.760 --> 01:42:35.760
 It's awful.

01:42:35.760 --> 01:42:40.040
 Yeah, we, we make sure that we provide in those areas that we do see people fishing.

01:42:40.040 --> 01:42:43.800
 And we have talked about Clear Creek about adding, now that it's under our purview about

01:42:43.800 --> 01:42:48.920
 adding trash cans to Clear Creek to make sure that it's gone back and forth, whether we

01:42:48.920 --> 01:42:55.080
 add it and it causes more trash, we add it and hopefully people will leave no trace behind.

01:42:55.080 --> 01:43:00.640
 So it, we do have signs at South Lakes, you know, to remind people to pick up their trash,

01:43:00.640 --> 01:43:06.960
 they don't always do it. But, you know, we, we, as park maintenance, we do try to make

01:43:06.960 --> 01:43:09.280
 sure that that's cleaned up. So.

01:43:09.280 --> 01:43:12.640
 Thank you, Mr. Amrick.

01:43:12.640 --> 01:43:22.520
 Yeah, that's very good. That clears up the picture there. But one of the things I'll

01:43:22.520 --> 01:43:30.040
 just, a suggestion perhaps is that I do know that, or I believe still the Department of

01:43:30.040 --> 01:43:38.200
 Parks and Wildlife, TPW has an exception to having a license. And that exception is if

01:43:38.200 --> 01:43:45.280
 the city or town runs a tournament in conjunction and they, they let that, they contact the

01:43:45.280 --> 01:43:50.760
 Texas Parks and Wildlife and let them know there's a, you know, they want to sanction

01:43:50.760 --> 01:43:54.920
 a tournament, a fishing tournament, you know, like for kids, you know.

01:43:54.920 --> 01:44:01.360
 That happens once a year and until the year before we didn't have enough participants

01:44:01.360 --> 01:44:07.000
 register last year, obviously it was COVID, hopefully we get to do it the following year.

01:44:07.000 --> 01:44:13.240
 But Texas Parks and Wildlife does have one year throughout the season where they, it's

01:44:13.240 --> 01:44:17.600
 almost, you don't need a license, come fish, see how much enjoyment you can get from it

01:44:17.600 --> 01:44:23.760
 and then possibly go get a license after that. They do have that one weekend. So yes. And

01:44:23.760 --> 01:44:28.840
 that's normally when cities do the participation with those fishing tournaments and the kids'

01:44:28.840 --> 01:44:29.840
 fishing tournaments.

01:44:29.840 --> 01:44:35.160
 Right. And the good news is then the kid doesn't watch their parents get pulled off and taken

01:44:35.160 --> 01:44:43.400
 to jail, right? Yeah, just a good point. Just to raise that point of detail. Thank you.

01:44:43.400 --> 01:44:47.400
 Brooke, did I see your hand? Gary, did I see your hand?

01:44:47.400 --> 01:44:53.820
 Yeah, just to add one thing that we probably need to add to that is our paddling trails.

01:44:53.820 --> 01:44:59.800
 So we are adding, adding, adding, adding paddling trails to our trail system, but those are

01:44:59.800 --> 01:45:05.240
 good opportunities for people to actually fish too on kayaks. It's a popular sport.

01:45:05.240 --> 01:45:12.200
 So that'll get people in other areas, whether it's on the lake itself or in one of our creeks

01:45:12.200 --> 01:45:16.800
 to give them, you know, they don't necessarily have to be on shore to be fishing. They could

01:45:16.800 --> 01:45:22.000
 be in the water. So that's another fishing opportunity.

01:45:22.000 --> 01:45:30.480
 Okay. Ms. Denona, did you have? Just a quick question. Is there an interest

01:45:30.480 --> 01:45:37.500
 from the community on fishing classes? I know we do the tournament once a year. Any, any

01:45:37.500 --> 01:45:42.880
 interest in fishing classes? Just part of the recs?

01:45:42.880 --> 01:45:47.880
 That'd be a good one to bring Caroline. I know there she is. Perfect. Good, good timing.

01:45:47.880 --> 01:45:56.560
 We do offer some fly tying classes and fishing with our seniors and then the, the fishing

01:45:56.560 --> 01:46:02.160
 tournament for kids, but that's really all the fishing programs we have currently scheduled,

01:46:02.160 --> 01:46:08.900
 but it's something we can look at. Okay. Thank you, Caroline. Any additional

01:46:08.900 --> 01:46:15.520
 questions, concerns? Thank you all for that information. We will

01:46:15.520 --> 01:46:21.960
 move to our last category of today and it's the Dinton Parks Foundation update.

01:46:21.960 --> 01:46:31.440
 Hello. Okay. So I have my little agenda here. So I'll start off by saying, I got bad news

01:46:31.440 --> 01:46:37.280
 this weekend that we actually, so we got DBL funding, which was really exciting. Considering

01:46:37.280 --> 01:46:41.920
 the year, I didn't expect that we would get funding necessarily when you're competing

01:46:41.920 --> 01:46:47.320
 for dollars for homeless folks and people trying to get back on their feet. However,

01:46:47.320 --> 01:46:55.380
 we did get funding for the DWIF art project and our MOUs for the total amount that we

01:46:55.380 --> 01:47:02.120
 had asked for, for $9,000 and 10 cents. However, unfortunately I got the money in the bank

01:47:02.120 --> 01:47:09.280
 and it was $6,000 and 10 cents and there was an error in their MOU rather than the bank.

01:47:09.280 --> 01:47:18.160
 But we will continue our efforts to raise even more money, at least $13,000 for this

01:47:18.160 --> 01:47:25.640
 project. No, at least $20,000 is our goal. Also, we celebrate, per October, during October

01:47:25.640 --> 01:47:31.400
 is a month long celebration of parks and with the support of sponsors and Boo Bucket participants

01:47:31.400 --> 01:47:38.440
 and park partners, we grossed over $8,000 to help make parks better. We engaged 106

01:47:38.440 --> 01:47:44.280
 actual donors and gave out 126 Boo Buckets. And we're currently offering t-shirts right

01:47:44.280 --> 01:47:50.640
 now for Eureka too. And our goal is to do 100 donors before the end of the year. And

01:47:50.640 --> 01:47:57.800
 then finally, this is kind of new information, but we are doing a slide into 2021 and we

01:47:57.800 --> 01:48:03.760
 are working with the folks over at Eastside. They just share this new concept where you

01:48:03.760 --> 01:48:09.160
 do cocktails virtually for New Year's Eve or any kind of holiday party. And I had a

01:48:09.160 --> 01:48:14.720
 board member jump on it. And so we moved quickly and we're going to do a New Year's Eve at

01:48:14.720 --> 01:48:19.480
 nine o'clock. If you want to join us, we'll have a virtual cocktail class on how to make

01:48:19.480 --> 01:48:28.280
 your own New Year's Eve drink that evening. And then a Kiss 2020 Goodbye Kit that I am

01:48:28.280 --> 01:48:33.600
 in the process of working right now. And it's a balance between being snarky and being

01:48:33.600 --> 01:48:39.920
 professional. So it's a lot of fun. I highly encourage you to join us for this. This will

01:48:39.920 --> 01:48:45.920
 be our last Hoorah and last holiday for 2020 in this household. And then we'll gear up

01:48:45.920 --> 01:48:51.440
 again for the next day. We're also posting lots of great information about how to get

01:48:51.440 --> 01:48:56.360
 out all year long because we live in Texas. It's not that cold, y'all. You can get out.

01:48:56.360 --> 01:49:01.600
 And so we're just sharing creative ways on getting outside and still having fun. And

01:49:01.600 --> 01:49:06.880
 that's what I got for you. Any questions? I just want to say, I already bought two tickets

01:49:06.880 --> 01:49:16.160
 to your slide in for the New Year. That sounds fun. Thank you. Any other concerns or comments

01:49:16.160 --> 01:49:27.160
 for Brooke? Okay. Last category. I do. I sing for Brooke. Okay. Happy birthday. Oh, thank

01:49:27.160 --> 01:49:36.280
 you. I turn 40 next week and I'm collecting socks for my 40th birthday to give to local

01:49:36.280 --> 01:49:41.840
 homeless shelter at the junction. And I was like, I'm gonna raise 40 socks. Y'all, I have

01:49:41.840 --> 01:49:53.240
 302 pairs of socks in my office. So it's absolutely amazing. So thank you. Okay. I got distracted.

01:49:53.240 --> 01:50:02.440
 Okay. The items for the next meeting. Well, there was one item from last meeting that

01:50:02.440 --> 01:50:11.040
 wasn't on this agenda. The Fred Moore Park. We're going to have that on, it'll be on next

01:50:11.040 --> 01:50:19.160
 month. Okay. But we can give you a quick, just a short synopsis and rundown. The project

01:50:19.160 --> 01:50:24.240
 is going much slower than we anticipated. Caroline attends the meetings too. So I'm

01:50:24.240 --> 01:50:30.280
 going to let her kind of chime in. We're trying to get it nailed down to see exactly when

01:50:30.280 --> 01:50:34.280
 the timeline is. It seems like it's still a moving target, but Caroline, would you like

01:50:34.280 --> 01:50:39.640
 to give everybody a quick update? Yeah. So we've had some problems with the construction

01:50:39.640 --> 01:50:45.380
 documents not being as clear as they needed to be. So we've hired an outside architect

01:50:45.380 --> 01:50:51.280
 to help decipher some of those problems, which has really delayed the project and the construction.

01:50:51.280 --> 01:50:55.760
 So as we can, we have been working through those issues this entire time, but that has

01:50:55.760 --> 01:51:02.200
 pushed the timeline back significantly and we don't have a good set target right now.

01:51:02.200 --> 01:51:08.880
 But late spring is kind of what we're looking at, but it, it, it waits to be seen. We're

01:51:08.880 --> 01:51:13.280
 also having some problem getting supplies, different manufacturers having COVID going

01:51:13.280 --> 01:51:18.760
 through their operations. So timelines for delivering supplies. So that's kind of where

01:51:18.760 --> 01:51:22.000
 we are right now. It doesn't look like a lot has happened because it hasn't. There's

01:51:22.000 --> 01:51:26.360
 been a little bit more construction on the inside of the building that remains. Walls

01:51:26.360 --> 01:51:30.200
 are up and they've been working on bathrooms. So there are some things happening. You just

01:51:30.200 --> 01:51:36.960
 can't see them, but the project is definitely significantly delayed. Thank you for that.

01:51:36.960 --> 01:51:45.520
 Mr. Amrick? Yeah, just a quick, is that blueprints? Was that because the contractor has had problems

01:51:45.520 --> 01:51:52.320
 with blueprints or was it the, was it from us? I'm trying to find out where, where the

01:51:52.320 --> 01:52:00.560
 cause came from. We had some challenges during the design process. It was the original architect.

01:52:00.560 --> 01:52:04.520
 Just they weren't, the plans weren't as clear. Some items were significant items were left

01:52:04.520 --> 01:52:10.940
 out that have required us to seek a second opinion on how to build some of those features.

01:52:10.940 --> 01:52:16.720
 Okay. So notice what you're saying. Somebody forgot to put doors in right now. Just kidding.

01:52:16.720 --> 01:52:25.480
 We did have doors. That's about it. No, I'm kidding. Okay. Thank you so much. And the

01:52:25.480 --> 01:52:37.240
 next item is our parks board meeting schedule. Eddie, you want to speak to that? Hello, everyone.

01:52:37.240 --> 01:52:41.800
 Just a quick background. I know it's coming up, you know, towards the end of the year,

01:52:41.800 --> 01:52:48.080
 it's going to be January, 2021, just around the corner. So just a quick synopsis and a

01:52:48.080 --> 01:52:54.080
 quick background. As you know, that you members are going to be probably coming in for park

01:52:54.080 --> 01:53:00.600
 board and all boards and commissions sometime in January. I have the next 2021 scheduled

01:53:00.600 --> 01:53:05.440
 meeting for February, March, April, May. I haven't sent that out yet, but I got it booked

01:53:05.440 --> 01:53:10.960
 a little bit ahead of time and it's going to be between 3pm to 5pm. I think that works

01:53:10.960 --> 01:53:15.720
 best for everyone. But again, you know, with new members, you know, coming in, that would,

01:53:15.720 --> 01:53:20.880
 that could possibly change. But one of the things that is posing a little bit of a challenge

01:53:20.880 --> 01:53:28.800
 is trying to get everyone in the same page as far as for members and also for staff,

01:53:28.800 --> 01:53:35.760
 and also the staffing resources for getting board members to have a meeting. And I guess

01:53:35.760 --> 01:53:40.960
 one of the challenges on top of that is that we used to do 30 minute setups to get the

01:53:40.960 --> 01:53:46.160
 council work session room, which it takes a lot of staff resources to set up and also

01:53:46.160 --> 01:53:51.320
 break down now got added to in an hour. So it's a little bit challenging for the month

01:53:51.320 --> 01:53:57.520
 of January with holidays coming up as well. And also don't forget MLK is on a Monday,

01:53:57.520 --> 01:54:03.120
 June, January 4th is going to be the first Monday of the month, which I just found out

01:54:03.120 --> 01:54:07.840
 that there's a city council work session meeting. So we're only down to two Mondays and it's

01:54:07.840 --> 01:54:13.080
 completely filled because all of the other boards and commissions have to meet. So based

01:54:13.080 --> 01:54:20.400
 on the agenda right now, we don't have anything pressing. So I guess the options for everyone

01:54:20.400 --> 01:54:26.040
 is do you still want to meet the month of January? Or, you know, we can move on to February

01:54:26.040 --> 01:54:31.600
 for February 4th. I think February 15th or 14th, I'm going to send you send all of you

01:54:31.600 --> 01:54:36.760
 an email as well. Again, you know, don't forget that boards and commissions I don't know who's

01:54:36.760 --> 01:54:41.240
 going to be on reappointment, but that's going to happen in January as well. So whoever's

01:54:41.240 --> 01:54:44.680
 going to be the new members that's going to come in, hopefully you'll all be continuing

01:54:44.680 --> 01:54:51.320
 or most of you, but that could also change. So that's a little bit of background and also

01:54:51.320 --> 01:54:57.560
 would like your quick input if that's possible. We move it down to February or you all want

01:54:57.560 --> 01:55:02.840
 to meet, but it can't be probably on a Monday. It'll have to be on a weekday, maybe Thursday

01:55:02.840 --> 01:55:20.040
 or Friday, possibly. I'm good with the Monday's, the first Monday in February. You know, I'm

01:55:20.040 --> 01:55:28.840
 also surprised that that's as a secondary, but continue consistency and schedule. I have

01:55:28.840 --> 01:55:36.460
 it scheduled on February 15th, 3pm to 5pm. That's going to be the next availability.

01:55:36.460 --> 01:55:41.660
 So I got it scheduled for February, March, April and May. And it's going to be very close

01:55:41.660 --> 01:55:48.120
 to around that time period because usually city council meetings meet on the first Monday

01:55:48.120 --> 01:55:53.160
 and Tuesday or the first week of that month. So it poses a little bit of a challenge for

01:55:53.160 --> 01:55:58.720
 us, but hopefully that is so I guess the question is January. Do you all want to meet or do

01:55:58.720 --> 01:56:07.080
 you want to do it on a separate day? No, besides Monday.

01:56:07.080 --> 01:56:12.360
 Doesn't matter to me. If we need to meet, then we can figure out a way to meet. If it's

01:56:12.360 --> 01:56:17.960
 not essential, then I'm okay taking a month off and giving you guys a little bit of a

01:56:17.960 --> 01:56:23.360
 break to happy holidays. If I mean, if something comes up, we could

01:56:23.360 --> 01:56:27.960
 definitely reach out if there's something that's, you know, critical. As of right now,

01:56:27.960 --> 01:56:32.920
 we don't have anything that's mission critical from a timing perspective. We are working

01:56:32.920 --> 01:56:40.200
 on a few land dedications to the city that, you know, we've briefed you on in the past.

01:56:40.200 --> 01:56:46.580
 So they're going to be going to council here in January. So other than that, we really

01:56:46.580 --> 01:56:52.400
 don't have anything that's mission critical. On the 15th of February, that's Presidents

01:56:52.400 --> 01:57:02.240
 Day. Is that going to be a city holiday? I believe no, let me double check. It's not.

01:57:02.240 --> 01:57:09.280
 I just asked, I've been wanting to ask about this while we're on the subject. Can we just

01:57:09.280 --> 01:57:15.360
 like say if these meetings are going to be three to five or if they are going to be 1230

01:57:15.360 --> 01:57:21.440
 to 230? Personally, for me, I just got my spring schedule. And I mean, they're going

01:57:21.440 --> 01:57:26.400
 to miss half of it at the beginning or half of it at the end. But I would just like to

01:57:26.400 --> 01:57:32.560
 go ahead and get my Mondays planned out for the semester, at least. So is that what you

01:57:32.560 --> 01:57:39.880
 are saying? Like they're going to be three to five from now on or what I and on a date

01:57:39.880 --> 01:57:48.760
 and time perspective, we I have it set up on 3pm to 5pm from all the way up to May,

01:57:48.760 --> 01:57:55.440
 except January. So I can send out that list to everyone. And it seems that most park board

01:57:55.440 --> 01:58:04.180
 members are available at that time. So that's why I'm just going to leave it at 3pm to 5pm.

01:58:04.180 --> 01:58:08.960
 We realize that having the meetings during a day is challenging and we have, you know,

01:58:08.960 --> 01:58:14.040
 David had to leave and Kent's been tied up with with work and we've had other boards

01:58:14.040 --> 01:58:18.760
 with the same issues and we realize this is a challenge and we've passed on the memo from

01:58:18.760 --> 01:58:24.960
 Francis about our last, I guess, last month's meeting with the concern about the missing

01:58:24.960 --> 01:58:29.600
 meetings and the attendance policy. So hopefully we have something we can share with you soon

01:58:29.600 --> 01:58:36.080
 on that. But we appreciate all the flexibility you guys had so we can continue to move forward

01:58:36.080 --> 01:58:42.320
 with our operations and in the business that we need. Hopefully, we can start meeting in

01:58:42.320 --> 01:58:49.160
 person soon, but I'm not sure when that's going to take place.

01:58:49.160 --> 01:58:53.400
 But thank you, Gary, for giving me that feedback because that was my next question. So we will

01:58:53.400 --> 01:58:59.760
 about the absentee policy. So if you could give us an update when you receive it, that

01:58:59.760 --> 01:59:08.880
 would be ideal. I so I guess we need to vote if we want to meet in January. Let's do that

01:59:08.880 --> 01:59:16.640
 one first because we already know we're meeting in February. Francis, can we vote with only

01:59:16.640 --> 01:59:31.520
 three members? Oh, we got four. Sorry. Disregard. Okay. So the question is, does the park board

01:59:31.520 --> 01:59:41.840
 want to meet and need, feel a need to meet in January 2021? Is that raise your hand for

01:59:41.840 --> 01:59:56.760
 yay? Okay. Anyone oppose? Okay. So it looks like we do not see a need to meet. Oh, motion.

01:59:56.760 --> 02:00:10.640
 Wait, of course, I didn't do that correctly. I need a motion to see that we do not meet

02:00:10.640 --> 02:00:23.200
 as a board for January 2021. May I have a motion?

02:00:23.200 --> 02:00:28.960
 I will make the motion that we will not meet in January of 2021. And we will resume in

02:00:28.960 --> 02:00:41.280
 February. I need a second. I'll second it. I'll second. Okay. If that motion passes that

02:00:41.280 --> 02:00:49.520
 we will, the parks and Red Bull will not meet in January 2021. Eddie, does that suffice

02:00:49.520 --> 02:00:55.280
 what we need it? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. And have a good happy holidays.

02:00:55.280 --> 02:01:02.640
 Okay. I need a motion. If there are no other concerns or comments, may I have a motion

02:01:02.640 --> 02:01:16.400
 to adjourn the meeting? I will motion to adjourn the meeting. May I have a second? I'll second.

02:01:16.400 --> 02:01:25.360
 Anyone opposed? I mean, all in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? The glass is either half full

02:01:25.360 --> 02:01:32.880
 or half empty. No matter which way you look at it. Okay. Motion passes. Meeting adjourned.

02:01:32.880 --> 02:01:46.880
 I have 232, Eddie. Thank you all and happy holidays.

