Good afternoon, everyone. It is 1231, and I would like to welcome everyone to the December
14, 2020 Parks Board meeting. This is our last meeting for 2020. I am Frances Punch,
chair for the Parks Board. And as of right now, we have one excused absence. Do we have
any participants from the public? We do not. Okay, thank you, Taylor. The first item for
consideration is approval of the minutes from the November 2020 meeting. Any questions,
concerns? Do you have a question, Mr. Emmerich? You are muted. James, I see you talking, but
you are muted. Sorry. Yeah, I just want them to go ahead and make a motion. They look good
to me. Okay. Anybody have any questions, concerns about the minutes before we move? Okay. May
I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Second? I second that. Just a point
of information, Frances, I'm sorry. Do we have enough people for a quorum to be able
to make that? I know we only have four in here. Is that? That is a quorum. Okay. And
actually we have five. We have Ms. Denona Lee. Oh, I didn't see Denona down there. Okay.
Thank you. We are covered. But thank you for your observation. Okay. All in favor? Raise
your hands. Ms. Lee, may I have an indication? Anyone opposed? Anyone opposed? Motion passes.
Okay. We're going to deviate from the agenda a little bit and we're going to move item
E up and we're going to discuss the Southwest Park master plan for the City of Denton Park
System. You are muted, Mr. Packin. I'm mute now. Gary Packin, Parks and Recreation. Drew
Huffman is going to chime in here as well. We've been working on our master plan process
for Southwest Park over the past few months. It's late summer. We do have a focus group
we have a meeting with them later this week to kind of go through the same process and
get them up to speed on kind of where we've been and what our next steps are. We have
a number of members of our consultant team on board. Mick Massey, Bill Smith are here
as well. And they're going to go through a PowerPoint and get try to gain some feedback
from you guys in regards to what you envision at the park. We have a number of platforms
that we've gathered intelligence from the community, whether it's our needs assessment.
We've had a couple public meetings. We've had some smaller group meetings. And then
we have our focus group as well. Obviously, Park Board is a main connectivity to our community.
So I'll make sure we're getting your feedback. And then we'll also be reaching out to City
Council now that we know who's all going to be on council once they're seated and get
some feedback from them. So at this point in time, I'll turn it over to Drew and see
if he has anything to add to that. And then we can kind of work through the exercise.
I think Gary went through all the really aspects of how we've put together this master plan
so far. And like Gary said, we can't do it without our consultants. They've been great
through all these different processes and public meetings. So we look forward to your
input. So I'll hand it over to Mick and Bill. Okay. Hello, everyone. My name is Mick Massey.
I'm with Barker, Rinker, CCAT architecture. We're based in Grapevine, Texas and in Denver,
Colorado. I'm working with Tignall and Perkins TNP. Bill Smith, who is on the phone.
I'm on the road today. So yeah, I'm on the road. So that's why I'm muted. You'll be
muted off. Thanks, Mick. You bet. And we've been working for a few weeks on actually a
few months on the Southwest Park programming and master plan for the new park. And we wanted
to use this day to give you an update and to take your input. So I'm going to walk through
a slide presentation that we've prepared that'll give you a little background on where we've
been and where we're going, as well as trying to solicit some input from you all today.
So let's just launch right in if we can. Okay. You know your staff. We're so pleased to be
working with such great staff in Denton. And we're also very pleased to be working with
a focus group that you probably recognize a lot of the names that are on this slide.
They've been very valuable to this process that we're in. It's a good sounding board,
if you will, and we're really pleased to be hearing from all of them as they've been giving
their input. Bill is on the left. That's me in the middle. And then we also include Dr.
Joe Walker from UNT. Y'all are so blessed to have a professor and Dr. Walker in your
community. My gosh, the level of service that you're getting is so far above other cities.
It's just great to have him on the team. He's also a dear friend of all of ours. So couldn't
do it without him. This is a schedule. I know you can't read it, but this is something we're
following along. But basically the bottom line is here we are in December gathering
more input. You're a part of that input today. Very exciting for us to get this input. And
then please just know that we're on schedule to deliver the final product, the deliverables
in March of 2021. That's our goal, and we're on pace to do that. So we feel really confident
with our timeline that we're on. The purpose of today's meeting is to gather input on this
really important park, really important park for Denton, Southwest Park. We had a focus
group meeting that's been mentioned that we're going to also hear from on Thursday, but this
is y'all's term, and we want to confirm some of the planned priorities that have been emerging
so far. So let's just jump right into it. Let me just say that in preparation for this,
I wanted to share with you that we're focusing on the big items. How do you get the big items
into the jar first? You know, like the old adage about the jar of life story, where you've
got the big rocks, you've got the medium-sized rocks, and you've got the small rocks. Well,
those are elements of the park. Think of them as such in this case. Today, we're focusing
on the big items. We want to make sure we get that right so that we can fill the jar,
fill the park, the park master plan. So what you see here, what we want to avoid is we
don't want to do it in reverse and not have everything fit into this park. So today is
about focusing on those bigger park items. And so we've been listening to the public.
We've been listening to your focus group. We've been doing a lot of other work. In fact,
one of the things we've revealed or uncovered is that your overall Park and Recreation Master
Plan, while it's in progress, has taught us that Denton approaches parks of this size
to be a primary related to as a city park. Now, a city park serves as a center, if you
will, it's a destination for recreation activities. And it is to serve the entire city or a large
region of the city. Does that make sense to everybody? I hope it does.
Just to give everybody an idea that we consider North Lakes Park, South Lakes Park to be our
city parks, the Mills property that we purchase, as well as Southwest Park, we envision those
to be city parks as well. And Quaker Town downtown could be considered a city park.
Although it doesn't necessarily fit the acreage and size, it's definitely one of the main
more probably on the top two gathering spots in the city. So that's give you an idea on
that, what other city parks are in the system. Very good. Thank you, Gary. So what what else
can a city park do? Or what's its function? Well, it's includes a wide range of amenities
that can be in a city park, from passive recreation to active recreation. And then some
things that might not be suitable for smaller parks. If you think about athletic fields,
for example, you wouldn't put a complex an athletic complex in the middle of a of a neighborhood
park as a just as an example. These are known as flagships, this is going to be a destination
for your residents. And it's going to be something of pride for the park system that we feel
very strongly about. So we're happy to take you all through this balanced approach that
we've been on this journey. First, we started with data collection, we looked at the city
of Denton focus group, and got their input, we did some public input, there's been surveys
done as part of the Denton Parks and Recreation open space master plan. So all this data collection
has been very useful to the team, and very confirming about what needs to be in the plan.
We're also using what we call best practices. When you look across the nation, when you
look across Texas, and you see parks of this magnitude, how they come together, what are
the industry standards, what are the elements that need to be considered that need to go
into this, this park, those are some of the questions we've been asking our design team.
And we want to make sure that what we bring to you is a balanced approach that fits into
the overall system of Parks and Recreation for the city of Denton. Then last of all,
we want to balance that with executive input. And we consider you all to be part of this
balanced approach. So we've been busy on the first two items, data collection and best
practices, but we were wanting to take a pause in the action of developing this master plan
and come to you today, listen to what you have to say, and gather your input. So first
of all, let us tell you what we've learned along the way about data collection. There's
been over 1200 points of contact from the general residential community on the facility
preferences through your surveys, through the Park and Recreation Open Space Master Plan.
That's very important because this is a voice of your citizenry. And we take it very seriously
as we're looking at all the elements of the park. Public input meetings, we've had two
of those. They've been online. They've worked very, very well. We did an online survey in
the meeting and collected some data there to also consider. And then we've had one Southwest
Park-focused group meeting, as Gary mentioned, whereas another one this week. We've also
through staff received a lot of emails, phone calls, and face-to-face discussions on the
master plan and what the contents thereof. So let's run through what the data collection
on the outdoor program results were. We heard from the public that trails were number one,
but they really value trails. And trails can be multi-use trails. They can be off-road
trails. They can be single-track trails. But people want to walk for exercise. And this
is really no big surprise in Texas. The second item on their priority was playgrounds, all
kinds of playgrounds. They can be small. They can be large. They can be destination playgrounds.
And then comfort, restrooms, very, very important on people's mind. They want to come spend
time at this park, and so restrooms would support that need. Then open space. Now think
of this as programmable space that you can just picnic in, fly a kite, kick a ball, be
with your family. Open space is very important, but that can also include activities such
as picnicking. And then people in Denton really value their trees. And looking at this property,
there's a need for more hardwood trees, and they value that. So that tells us we need
to really focus on trees and tree establishment, establishing a forest in Southwest Park. Outdoor
fitness. This is a growing trend across the United States right now. We feel like this
is a really important item, and so does the public. Small amphitheater for events, for
gathering, for being a community and coming together in the park. Very important element.
Number eight, athletic fields. You have a system-wide delivery of parks in your community,
and there are needs for athletics throughout. But this park can sustain it, and it's on
the public's mind, and it's ranked number eight. And then number nine was multiuse pavilion,
place for people to gather for family events, church outings, all kinds of things. You know,
events can take place there. And then outdoor learning and adventure. Now that can mean
anything from birding to education to partnering with your schools, but outdoor learning is
very much on people's minds, which is fantastic. Now we took a look at that from a staff and
a consultant standpoint. We asked ourselves, "Well, is there anything missing from the
best practices list for parks of this magnitude?" And we looked at the best practices, and we
did consider adding to that list dog park, because it is a regional park, because it's
going to draw people from greater distances, and it has the landmass to be able to support
it. That did make the list from the best practices standpoint. Now, if you compare those two
side by side, the good news is when you look at data collected from the public, you look
at best practices, those two lists are not that different. In fact, they're very much
aligned with each other when you look at the top 10 overall. Now the priorities might be
just a little bit different, but from a side by side comparison, that is very good news.
We're not far apart in best practices and what the public is saying, and that's very
encouraging. Let's look at indoor results, starting with data collection. This park has
a potential of having an indoor component to it, and we asked the public questions about
indoor recreation, and this is what came back. Number one, indoor walk/jog track. Again,
no surprise. This is what the number one exercise activity people look for in the public, usually,
for walking for exercise and walking for health. It's no surprise that that made the list as
number one. Oh, by the way, these are all number ones. They're one A, B, C, and so on,
because the public's first impression about indoor recreation for this park was that a
multi-use, multi-generational center would be on this site. Multi-generational means
that you're covering everybody from preschool all the way up to senior citizens in this.
It's a very efficient delivery of your indoor recreation. But there are also outdoor adjacencies,
and so they value the fact that there's this inside to outside connection with the rec
center that's indoors and then outdoor spaces like event patios and possible gardens to
grow vegetables and learn from. Adult fitness. Adult fitness is very much on their minds.
They need a place to go work out and be healthy. Senior programming, and this can be everything
from passive to active seniors. We see seniors right now as go-go seniors, slow-go seniors,
and no-go seniors, and this would be programmed to fit their needs. And then at gymnasium,
we have noticed that there is a gymnasium deficit in Denton. By that I mean there's
need for gymnasium space. And so as your population is growing and you're looking to the southwest,
it makes perfect sense, and it's on the public's mind that a gymnasium and sport courts would
be on their mind. Indoor playground. There's hardly a recreation center that we design
these days that does not have an indoor playground. There's an interesting fact that's going on
right now, and that is grandparents are, for the first time in America, more responsible
than ever for raising a grandchild or overseeing the well-being of a grandchild ever in our
country's history. And so sometimes that can be an inhibitor from a grandparent enjoying
the programs of a multi-use, multi-generational rec center. So having this playground is a
great destination for your community and will help all populations to be able to go to it
when the weather's not great. And then party rooms. Party rooms are very important, especially
if there's a really good playground or some indoor aquatics. This is like the number one
generating revenue space inside of a recreation center. And then indoor aquatics and lap pool.
This is item number two, the first being the multi-generational rec center, item number
two being the indoor aquatics with a lap pool. No surprise there it's on people's mind. They
valued indoor aquatics. And then I was really, really pleased to hear that the public recognizes
that a park maintenance facility is going to be needed in such a large park. It's also
going to be needed probably in your region of the city down there because of the size
of Denton. It's very efficient to be able to have employees go to a maintenance facility
such as this and be efficient in your delivery of maintenance as opposed to driving all the
way across town with vehicles and mowers and that sort of thing. So really happy that the
public had this on their mind. When we looked at best practices for indoor programming,
we thought you all might want to consider putting aerobics studios into the equation.
Also classrooms for classes and for art. And then outdoor aquatics. It could be as small
as a spray ground or even a little bit larger. And then there's room in your community and
when you look at the park and recreation open space master plan, there's the possibility
or the probability that a field house may be in your need to be discussed about taking
care of the needs of your community. So we wanted to make sure that in best practices
we've considered that the possibility that a field house may need to influence the outcome
of the park and rec or excuse me the southwest park master plan. So when you do the side
by side comparison of indoor recreation with the data that's collected and the best practices,
they're not that far apart again so something to celebrate the best practices list has a
few more items on it on indoor. And that leads us to where we are right now. If you look
at all this for the outdoors, the thing that's missing is hearing from you. It's hearing
from you all as advisors to the city. So we would like to pause and Gary and Drew and
myself, Bill, we're going to turn it over to you all to listen. Did we hear the public
right? Are we on the right track? What would you like to see populate a list that from
as executives of this community that needs to be over here from your input standpoint?
So I'm going to turn it over to Gary to facilitate and others. And Francis, would you like to
say a few words? >> Thank you, Mick. I would love to give you
just a little bit of feedback. I've had the opportunity to attend the two meetings and
I feel they were well run and organized. I had one question. If we did include additional
members from the Bonnie bray street, I knew that was a concern from the last meeting.
So that has been done. >> Yeah, we have some additional people plus
we reached out to one of the neighborhoods specifically that they're supposed to have
a an annual meeting and hopefully we're going to get invited to that. They hadn't scheduled
it as of yet to go talk to them. And that's the vintage neighborhood on the north side.
So that's definitely what's unique there is we do have some residents that don't live
in the city really close, but they do butt up against the building. So there's a, you
know, there's difference in the border there between the city and Argyle. And then it's
confusing for some of the residents too because they have Argyle addresses. So that's a little
bit of a challenge that we've been working through with the community. Maria has an online
survey for the outdoor amenities that she's going to bring up and run through that for
us. Keep in mind what's unique about this property is why we're asking the residents
that do live near the property, most of the users to this park aren't even in debt yet
because there's so many houses yet to be built. So while we're trying to gather feedback,
we also have to anticipate what's going to be there 10 years from now, 20 years from
now because this is a hundred year old park eventually, you know, and we have to anticipate
what the needs are. It's not going to be built all at one time. It can be built in phases
as it's needed and grow into its property. But that's the one unique thing about this
is this is an open field in the middle of a dense area. It's for the most part very
rural still. So we're just still growing into that. So Maria, if you can bring up your survey.
Can you guys hear me okay, Gary? Yes. Yes. How can I, how can I share the survey? I'm
trying to figure out how I share the link. If someone can give her the ability to share
her screen. I stopped sharing. So you can just go to the bottom and click share if you'd
like. Okay. Let me actually, what I need to do is send them the link. Oh, okay. I'm going
to send them the link and then they will have the picture survey to rank it for you and
then you'll be able to do the results. Gotcha. Okay. Send it to Eddie if you can. Okay. Okay.
Sorry guys. I was expecting to see the chat. So the way this is going to work is you're
seeing on the screen, you know, the left is the data collected, the middle is the best
practices and now we need your input. This link that's going to come to you is going
to be interactive. It's going to be kind of fun. So you get to give your preferences and
then we'll get the feedback and we'll be able to populate this empty table here with the
preferences from the part board. Does that all make sense? Everybody kind of follow along
them? Yeah. Bear with us as we're trying to do this online. It's the first time we're
trying to roll this out. If we need to do it the old school way, we'll do it the old
school way. And Mick, while they're doing that, I have already completed our surveys,
so I do not want to skew the numbers. Gotcha. You're so good. That's great. And I want to
point out though, by the way, that this is the outdoor slides and then we've got indoor
as a separate, you know, entity in there. So don't want to be confused. You know, first
rule is focus on the outdoor. You can see those outdoor elements that we heard from
the public and then the best practices. Can I interject? Yes. Eddie Valdez, management
analyst. Park board members, you can check your email right now. You should have received
it. And it's just one link. You just click on it. So I forwarded that email to you. Maria,
this is Gary. Are we able to show the results as it happens? Yes, I'm going to send, also
send him the, as they're doing it right now, I'm going to get a link to the live analytics
so that you guys can view the responses. That's what you're asking for, right? Yes. Thanks
for doing that, Maria. That's impressive that you can do that. Now, if there's something
that's not on the survey that they want to add, can they do that as well? Not on, not
on this one. Maybe just included it in an email back to you. James, did you have a question?
Yeah, I do. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. One question I have for, is it kind of, kind
of combine some of these like, for example, athletic, athletic fields. One of the things
I've heard is for mothers have multiple kids. And, you know, their kids might be playing,
you know, at different fields, maybe put a playground, a covered playground, a rest room
out in the middle, out the middle so the mother can, you know, watch her kids, young kids
in the playground. And at the same time, see your kids play ball or whatever it is, soccer.
Just, just an idea. But I'm thinking of, we had a lot of kids. So I believe, you know,
large families, you know, where they have a lot of kids, you're trying to take care
of them all at the same time, right? Yep. You must be, you must be running around in
our head because we were thinking the exact same thing. We've designed multiple ball fields
and you do have a situation where in league play or in tournament play, you've got families
that come there. Well, they come there with siblings, as well as the players. They come
there with grandparents. They come with chairs and ice, you know, ice chests. And sometimes
it's a full day out there. And so we want to really focus on their comfort. We're kicking
around some ideas about, you know, especially in tournament situations where the tailgate,
now that doesn't necessarily mean like a college tailgate. That means like a little league
tailgate where you've got soft drinks and, and, and maybe it's, you need a place to be
able to pitch one of those easy up tents, you know, where you can get into some shade
when it's hot. That's the kind of thing we're talking about. And playgrounds is very much
part of it. I'm really glad you're thinking about that, James, because we are too. And
I think it's a very important make Maria sent you the link to bring it up. And I would add
to James's comment. Actually, my mother just visited one in Keller, a dog park with a playground
next to it. So you could have your dogs play while also watching your children play. Oh,
and she thought that was a wonderful addition that didn't would enjoy. There you go. They
did that in Flower Mound, and it's the most popular covered playground in the whole the
whole town. Okay. And they have the restroom in the middle next to it. So you can, you
know, take care of essentials to. All right, let's see here. For some reason, I'm just getting
a blank screen on those results. Maria, are you getting the results? I am Gary. I am.
Let's let somebody who's got them the results share those. Gary, are you able to I'm hooked
up to my email. So I'm on a separate remote computer so I cannot
we could send them to Heather or Caroline, see if they could share it. Try it that way.
If not, we may have to just go old school. I want to make sure I got it. I have a lot
going on here. I didn't want to share my screen. Okay. Well, she's working on that. I want
to chime in real quick about the the one section on there of trees, the the trees that are
on that property, honey locusts. A lot of your second story second tier trees. Very
large needles on those honey locusts. There's some huge needles out there. So we are going
to have to replant a forest as we build that park. Obviously, we don't go in and clear
cut everything, there will have to be some areas that will have to be cleared for for
whatever was decided to go there. But at the long term, the trees that exist in that park
are for the most part not the trees that are going to be there forever. That that property
was cleared at one point in time and these trees grew in its place. So we're going to
have to figure out how to regrow that forest on that property over the next, you know,
2030 years. A lot of Mesquite. Yeah, Mesquite. Yeah, I see it. There it goes. Looks like
it's downloading. Am I staring my screen right now? Yep, we see a red diamond with a checkmark
in it. Mind if I interject real quick before we move on? Does anyone in your team have
a person with the name of Matt or Matt Hancock? Hancock. Yeah, he's not on my list. And he's
waiting in the weight room. So he's with TNP. He's part of the consultant. Yeah, you can
let him in. OK, thank you. OK. So. So it looks like trails. Scored the highest with 48 points.
Looks like forest came in second with forty six restrooms. Next at 40 open space at 35
playgrounds at 31. And then multi-use pavilion, 28 small amphitheater, 23 adult outdoor fitness.
Oh, excuse me, small. Yeah, small amphitheater. Twenty three outdoor fitness. Twenty two.
Outdoor learning at 20. And then. Dog park and then athletic fields, it looks like. Very
good. Thank you all for your input. OK, Maria, are you ready to switch to indoor? I don't
know. Forgive me, Guy. We had some glitches with the indoor. OK, well, we'll just do it
old school then. All right, I'm going to share. Just just to add, Francis, what we'll do is
we'll make sure that we add in the board members that are not present as well to make sure
their input is in there before we move forward on final numbers. Thank you. I was going to
recommend that. Thank you, Mr. Packard. Now, if you do want to do a visual survey, I can
I can fix the glitches and have it sent this afternoon to the individuals that are in this
meeting. Yeah, we could. We could at least just kind of go through and have a kind of
old school discussion on this and then we can share the link and they can do that. So
we have an official vote. That'd be very helpful. That sounds good. I see Mr. Emmerich has his
hand. Real quick question. Part of my problem making these inputs is that I don't know how
we how big picture is. How is Gary? How are we for sports fields? Are we up to par? Do
we have enough sports fields for the population of the city? So I guess that would help me
prioritize, you know, keeping kids busy is a big issue. So I'm just wondering, do we
have enough sports fields or not? So make if you want me to answer that. So what we've
looked at is and through all the data collection is the best practices also. So like what Gary
said in the beginning, we're designing and really master planning this park for people
that don't live here yet. So if you remember through all our conversations, especially
the biggest is the Hunter Cole property that's coming. 80,000 people will be coming to that
area in the next 40 years. So what do what needs to be there for the next 80,000 residents
of the city of Denton in the southern Denton. So what we know is South Denton today won't
be South Denton 40 years from now, because we've grown so much, you know, in our 90 square
miles what what today is North Denton won't be North Denton 40 years from now either.
So with everything in the planning process, we've taken really the that data, the knowledge
that we have of who's coming and when they're coming or when they're anticipated to come
and what needs to be there. So, you know, we do have Evers and Dena and North Lakes,
but is that is that enough for 80,000 more residents? So that's something if you really
think about what what needs to be there, especially with, you know, when we moved to indoor is
what we have today really even enough for the residents we have today, much less another
80,000 residents. That's just Hunter Cole. That's not that doesn't include all the other
developments that are that are developing in and around, you know, South South Denton
or Denton itself to be able to go there because just like all of us, you know, we go to North
Lakes to play for, you know, one reason or another, we go to South Lakes to play for
one reason or another. And really this 200 acres is the same size as South Lakes. Granted,
South Lakes doesn't have ball fields, but North Lakes does. You know, so it just happens
to be probably during the way it looks, the timing process of South Lakes and Dena, the
ball fields decided to go to Dena instead of South Lakes. So and then, you know, South
Lakes also has an opportunity that Dena doesn't in with, you know, our fishing ponds and
then, you know, with our natural space that's there and are, you know, the largest playground
we have in our system. So that's good. I'm just trying to get a reference point. So,
for example, in the past, when we looked at fields, the national standards recommended
some national standards. I can't remember what the standards were, but I do remember
what the standard is when it's like one baseball field for every 10,000 people. And you calculate
three and a half acres for every ball field that covers the ball field plus all the parking
requirements for that field, you know, practice areas next to it, you know, etc. But so and
there was soccer fields was one for every 10,000 and since soccer became more popular
then, you know, that got changed to one field for every thousand. I think medium size field
was a reference, not because there's a big, as you know, there's a big difference between
a medium size and a large field. So that's the kind of thing that I was looking for,
because you know, you're voting here on what we wanted as property. Okay, it's pretty obvious.
I think the needs going to be there for athletic fields. I don't know, because I don't know
the reference to it. I'm comparing it to that's the problem. So I'm trying to understand.
Today we're not saying that we're not saying that 15 baseball or softball fields are going
there and 10 soccer fields. We're not saying that at all. We're just saying how can how
can we rank what what our choices are at the moment? Right, but if we're in deep demand,
there was we were way behind on say soccer fields, I'm just going to pick them, you know,
soccer fields, we got, you know, let's say we have, you know, 200,000 people, kids that
play soccer, okay, and you need, you know, so that's 20 soccer fields by the old standard,
so and we only have 10 fields, that tells me we're woefully behind on soccer fields,
that would increase the value or the my vote on going for more sport athletic fields, you
see where I'm coming from? Yes, reference here. Can I chime in for a second? I understand
what you're saying, James. And I think what they're trying to figure out right now is
the community's, like how much they want those soccer fields, because it was ranked pretty
low in the top 10. And it was different than like the national standard. And so maybe our
community doesn't want to have those soccer fields as much as others. I don't know that
for sure, because I don't know the exact data. I'm just saying I don't know that we are like
exactly like every other community here in Denton. And so I think what we're trying to
do right now is understand what the Denton community wants and what the standard is for
everybody blanket it. If we could be polite and not speak over one another. Thank you
so much. Ms. Presley, please finish. Thanks. I'm pretty much done. I just because it I
just wanted to make the point that outdoor learning or I'm sorry, outdoor spaces and
open spaces and trails seem to be a higher priority than the like athletic fields. So
if we have a lot of space, but you need a lot of space for those things that were higher
priority. So it just I think that's what we're looking at right now is just everybody's ranking
of like what's most important before we use any kind of like algorithm to figure out how
many people per acre of baseball field we have. That's what I'm hearing anyways. Thank
you, Lana for your feedback. Mr. Emmerich. Do you have a rebuttal or comment to her comment?
I agree. And I think the key word here is a lot of people have moved here yet. So the
open I'm actually leaning towards the open space because open space later on in the future,
you can change it to practice soccer fields or baseball fields or if you don't have the
open space, then you have no chance for it. Absolutely. So if you have your survey and
if fields or athletic fields is in your number one, please rank it accordingly. I already
sent mine in. Yeah, just I'm just saying that it's without the backdrop of the need the
overall needs. Oh, that's all I'm lacking that perspective. I understand. Mr. Schutt,
did you have a comment? I mean, I think my my my comment was I think this is just we
can approach this in a way where all things equal from from from need perspective or from
numbers or metrics perspective. We can we can remove that off of the table and and consider
this maybe not even hard and hard and fast data, but more of kind of a gut feel of the
things that are important to people as a whole, not not not whether the need is being met
numerically or whatnot. But really, are these things that people are interested in? And
I think if we can step back and look at it from a little higher level, that might even
that might benefit us a little bit. Just just my thoughts. Thank you, sir. So do we have
what do we what do we decide on the indoor? I have updates real quick just to chime in.
We'll definitely look at how we compare and Eddie's actually tabulates all that information
every year for our park metrics survey. But the one thing that we do have to consider
to is everything that's on this list may not end up going into the park. And they may go
in other areas close to that that area if we can't fit them or the priorities aren't
the same. And that we are looking at other parks in that area too. So this is this is
good information for this parcel and it won't be the only place we use it for sure. And
then the other thing is, we we don't have a lot of large parks that are all upland.
We have a lot of property that's in the floodplain. So we can't put a lot of these spaces there.
So if we are going to need fields of, you know, large amounts or whatever, there's only
going to be a selective area that we can put those lists of going by more land that's upland.
So that that's the other thing to consider. It's not it's not real cut and dry and it's
not easy to decide because we're dealing with people that don't live here yet. The need
is not necessarily there yet. But we're trying to anticipate it and use this as a planning
tool and whatever's decided on the master plan, it'd be it'd be fantastic if it works out
exactly how we plan it today. But most likely, there's going to be some sort of adaption
to that along the way too. So this while this is getting us headed in that direction, it's
not the final final discussion point, I guess to say is a very good point, Gary. And that's
why we started with the jar. And we're trying to look at the big elements that people talked
about. Do they fit? Could they fit into the park? And so we needed your input kind of
like Mr. David said, you know, big level, is this is this the kind of thing that y'all
can imagine in your, your city park, we're going to go, we're going to take all this
input and start to play with the geometry and figure out what fits, look at all the
impacts of different things. For example, what's what about the traffic on the adjacent roads
coming in and out of this park, you know, we want to we want to try to bring a very,
really well balanced part to you a master plan. So this is one step in a journey of
helping to shape the vision for this master plan. But we do need that empirical data.
Mr. James, we do, we need to understand what what that tells us. And then, just like Elena
said, we need to understand what the Denton community is responding to. So we're, we're
trying to mash all that together, just figure out what's the balance approach. And I hope
that makes sense to you. So we have fixed that we have fixed the the the challenge with
the indoor survey. So Maria has that up around sent over to Eddie. If you can share that,
can I chime in real quick, you should have received the email sent it about a couple
of minutes ago. So please take a look at your email. Let me know you haven't received it.
Thank you. And the reason why we decided to do this in person is just to really create
those discussion points and open up the, you know, ideas and feedback. So you know, James,
what you mentioned is a great question. But that's the purpose of why we're trying to
do this live. Pardon any of the technology kind of challenges, we're trying to figure
out the best way to do it ourselves. But we'll definitely be circling around with everybody
that's not here and make sure we get everyone's information and we can share that with you
in a future report. If I can say real quick, while while you guys are going through this
next section, I will fix the the sub ones and let you guys survey those sub the sub
priorities relative to the Recreation Center. So the survey that you received is the one,
three, four and five, um, to survey in order of priority and then I'll send the next one
that will be specific to the preparation within the Recreation Center. Does that make sense?
Is anyone having trouble? Excuse me, can you stop sharing so we can see each other? Sure.
I can only click to one and two. I can't click after that. Oh, fine. Let me go in and see
what's going on and I'll let him now fix that and holler back while he's presenting so I
don't slow you guys down. Just to confirm I had the same problem. You did? Okay. It'll
land on my hands. Yes, I can only choose to. Oh, good deal. Okay, I will go in and see
what's going on. Sorry, guys. In fact, a little queue at the top before you click it says
zero of two selected. There's like a little I guess, I don't know, a little thing right
at the very top and you can tell as soon as you open it. Okay, I'm on it right now. Thanks,
Gary. For the sake of time, Gary, what do you think about us doing this and bringing
the information, sending the information back? Because we're going to run out of time to
cover the additional information on the agenda. You're on mute. That would be perfectly fine,
you know, and if anyone has any questions, they can follow up in an email that Eddie
will send out and we can use that information and use that as our data collection. Would
you like me to just wrap it up here then so you can move on to your agenda so that y'all
will just respond individually with your ranking? Is that what I'm hearing? That would be great.
Okay. All right. All right. Let me just quickly share this and then we'll move on. All right.
You know, our next steps is to adhere to that agenda that I showed you earlier, that timeline.
So again, you know, we're here and we're hoping to crunch all this data, start to put these
pigment to paper, you know, start to design this park and bring some concepts back of
how these elements could fit together. And that'll be a work in progress too. You can
see we're building this layer by layer as we go along and y'all are part of the journey.
So we appreciate your input today. But we'll be back with you. I want to wish you all a
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We'll be busy starting the new year, starting to
put that pigment on paper and look forward to sharing with you what our findings are
and then get your input as to, you know, if we're going down the right path. So back to
you, Ms. Francis. Thank you. Thank you, Mick, for all the information. I am, I think that
the meetings are well organized and I thank you for that. And I hope you're receiving
the information that you need to move forward. We really are. And we're just so happy to
be working with you all. Thank you. Happy Holidays. Thank you. Okay, we will move back to the original
order of the agenda and receive an update for the City of Denton COVID-19 responses.
Thanks, Francis. Gary Pack in Parks and Recreation. I'm going to call on Caroline here in a second
to kind of give us an update in regards to some of the specific direction we're going
in regards to COVID. As you're aware, we have North Lakes Park and MLK are currently open
and we're still getting, you know, good use. I think maybe recently it slowed down a little
bit in regards to use at North Lakes, according to staff. And we're coming up to the holidays
as well. But we had originally looked at opening our senior center on November 30th after talking
to council earlier that month and giving them an update. And then our COVID numbers between
that time at council and the 30th started to tick up at a pretty rapid pace. And so
we're concerned about opening the facility up for especially that vulnerable population.
We do have, you know, about 25% of our users at our existing rec centers that are open
are 50 and over. And so we do have, you know, and 65 plus as well. So we do have seniors
at our facilities. So don't think they're not using them. But we are looking at a dedicated
senior programming area. We have heard from a number of seniors, they want their building
open. There's no doubt about that. And, you know, at this point in time with, you know,
based on August when we hit our first peak, we're four times that amount right now. And
it just it just concerns us. And we're trying to balance staff has done a great job of trying
to keep everything clean and keep up with our facility to try to make everybody safe
as possible. But there's a lot of unknowns. You know, we've had staff in our own organization
get sick. And the last thing we want is a staff member getting, you know, a customer
sick too. But, but that's, that's, that's realistically, it can happen. So we decided
that we were going to delay that and push basically to the spring, we had penciled in
March 1, as our reopening date for the rest of our facilities. But that's in pencil. And
hopefully the vaccine gets out soon. And we get and everyone gets that I don't know what
the timeframe is for that implementation. Since everyone has to go through that, I believe
twice with two booster shot that we'll try to get our facilities open as soon as possible.
We're planning for our pools to be open. So we're anticipating the vaccine, you know,
that's going to be distributed. And we can start reopening our facilities as quickly
as we can. Our staff are not happy not providing those services. That's what they live for
and it's a profession they chose. They want to get those facilities open. So it's definitely,
you know, a hard discussion. And, you know, making sure that we're, we're following all
safety protocols that we can to the best, the best of our ability. So Caroline, did
you want to chime in at all on any of the programming aspects?
We're continuing with our virtual programs. We have ramped up our drive through programs
this last Saturday, we had a hot cocoa and cookies drive through event at the Civic Center.
And then moving, like I said, our seniors are very active and want more programs. So
beginning in January, we'll have a more new schedule of programs to offer the seniors
each week, crafts, exercise, book, book club, they have a library there. So the senior center
staff is pulling books for the seniors, a puzzle exchange, so we can keep them active.
We are, like Gary said, we do have a lot of seniors who visit the recreation centers,
like you said, 25% are 65 and older, and then about 50% are 50 and older. So they are visiting
our centers. But we are just eager to serve as soon as it's safe, and we are able to do
so. And we do have a senior hotline. Do you want
to give that a plug as well? Yeah, so one of the concerns has been the mental
health of the seniors. And in the beginning, we were calling the seniors and reaching out
to them with little success. Most of them did not answer their phones when they did
not recognize the caller. A few of them called us back, but we have launched a senior talk
helpline. It's manned by our senior advisory council on Mondays and Thursdays. And we're
working on getting the word out. We'll have a senior magazine that is going to all households
with someone 50 or older in January, which will show all the resources that are available
to seniors in the area as well as that hotline. So we can get more people calling us and we
can get them the assistance they need. Did you give the number for the hotline, Caroline?
I can. Give me just a second and I will have that number for you. As I'm looking that up,
are there any other questions about the programs or activities we are currently offering? I
was curious why the craft thing was canceled. Sometimes it's in low enrollment. So some
of our programs do have registration requirements or that cost of service, but it was probably
role low enrollment was the reason. Sorry, I'm still looking for that number. What do
you find to be the largest participating of your events? Really? We've had the best luck
with our drive through events, anything that is free and require registration. That way
people have the convenience to attend. You know, you never know what your schedule is
going to look like on a day to day basis. So true. So those have been our most popular
events, but those ones that are currently are reoccurring in person group exercise,
those numbers have continued to increase. Like I said, we have seen a dip, but that's
usually a normal dip between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. And when we expect
those numbers to come back up a little bit in January, but it also depends on the COVID
situation. It seems like there's a lot more people playing disc golf. Like I know it's
always been popular, but every time I drive down Bonnie Bray, it is like, it doesn't matter
what time of daylight hours. I made that same observation and that parking lot is packed
always. Always. Yes. It's definitely, you know, the parks are heavily used right now.
There's no doubt about it. Whether it's disc golf or even our driving range is getting
more use.
So Caroline, when you find it, if you would put it in the chat and then we will, oh, oh,
do we even have the chat capability? If not, I'll make sure Eddie has it so he can send
it out to everyone. Fantastic. Thanks. Any questions or any additional information about
the COVID update?
I apologize. I have to step away for a second. There is something going on in the other room
and it sounds dangerous. I'll be right back.
So just to summarize, I mean, obviously it's still very fluid process with the numbers
and any governor regulations will definitely be following that. There's places that do
have senior centers open, you know, maybe restricted and there's some that are completely
closed like us. So again, there's people that are doing different types of services based
on, you know, their leadership decisions, but we felt is the best direction to go is
to be more on the conservative side and try to remain safe for that population, especially
from an indoor perspective. So sooner the vaccine gets out, the better. Hopefully we
can, you know, start to move forward.
Gary, I do have that number. So any seniors wanting to talk, they can call 940-349-8728,
but I will also make sure Eddie sends that to you in an email.
We'll repeat it one more time, Caroline. 940-349-8728.
Thank you so much. I'm sorry, Gary, did you say?
I'm sorry. That may have been in an email I think Eddie sent last week, if I remember
correctly, but we'll definitely make sure we get that out again.
Any additional information about the COVID for the City of Denton? Okay. Next item. We
are going to receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff input regarding a wildflower
planting program for the City of Denton.
Yes. Hey, how you doing? Drew Huffman, assistant director over operations and planning. So
we did take this to council last Monday and got a lot of good praise for it and there
should be, we spoke to the Denton Record Chronicle this morning, so look for an article in the
newspaper for this week. So let me share my screen and I'll start the presentation.
All right. Can everyone see?
All right. So Denton's wildflower planning program. So I want to just give you a little
input on where we got started. So this really started with some input from residents and
council members. We have a couple areas already that I'll show you in some future slides of
where we do already have some wildflower plantings, but we went through a lot of different community
partnerships and inputs, whether that was internal staff with parks and recreation,
our sustainability department, our environmental services department, the master naturalists,
master gardeners, native plant society, Denton County beekeepers and other DFW cities and
city of Austin. And I've spoken to people in Florida and Connecticut and Michigan all
over the US. So lots of different people have even, Mick and I have even had a conversation
in his past experience with the city of Richardson really started one of the first programs in
the mid nineties. And the gentleman that started it for at least for their maintenance department,
he's still there. So him and I talk, we probably talk monthly for the past seven or eight months.
And so they've had, they know the pros and cons. They've already had the heartaches and
the wins in this type of program. So it's been really good to be able to work with a
local city, you know, in our Metroplex to really see what works and what doesn't work.
So just a little background, here's a little picture to really to perceive and get you
to really see what this could be. So in the background of this slide, it kind of shows
you this is more of an interstate view of what wildflowers are with lots of different
traffic rolling it back and forth instead of it like we normally have it, whether it's
either taller grasses on I-35s or it's something in our medians where it's maybe a few landscaped
areas here and there. And then it's just Bermuda grass. This gives you a really colorful, you
know, escape as you're driving down the highway where maybe, you know, this is wildflowers
also serve as somewhat of a traffic calming. When you see color, you know, as you're driving,
maybe the stresses of traveling back and forth, you know, with traffic, you know, you kind
of lose that and you kind of step back and just enjoy your scenery, maybe enjoy your
drive to work or shopping or wherever else you're going to make that a little better.
So the wildflower planning program's mission is we're going to promote and improve and
improve and sustain a more environment by replacing vegetation in key public spaces
and public property with native plants and native wildflowers. So I really want to emphasize
that again. That's why I, you know, put that in bold letters, native plants and native
wildflowers. There's some other programs especially here in DFW that use native and adaptive.
So really with speaking to our master naturalist and master gardeners and native plant society,
we wanted to make sure that we took the adaptives out of our language and we only use natives.
So right now we have 200 and approximately 237, 240 acres of right of ways and open space
that we've identified. This is just phase one of phase 1,000. So this isn't just the
only 237 acres we're going to concentrate on, but this is wildflowers are a crop. So
we're going to establish these areas. We're going to plant the wildflowers and the native
grasses or prairie grasses. We're going to reestablish areas. This is going to take some
time. So this 237 acres we've identified, we're going to have this and really work towards
getting these areas established in the next two and a half years. So by 2022, 2023 is
when we'll really see the best crop of our flowers and hopefully the weather will participate
with us as we roll through this. So the cost is what is really another good factor in this
is it's not going to cost us anything. In fact, as the program grows, it will cost us
less because we're going to initially take $150,000 of what we would normally either
mow ourselves or contract those areas out to be mowed and we'll reestablish those with
wildflowers and native grasses and then we won't mow those. So except for maybe one time
a year, some areas will be mowed once a year, some areas may not be mowed but every three
years and it'll all be dependent on what species of vegetation is there. So that funding will
be diverted to continue to purchase either the materials we need as far as the seeds
go or rent or purchase the equipment needed to plant those seeds. So we will be planting
the seeds with a no-till seed drill. So it's very important that we don't completely disturb
the area because we don't want to cause another issue while creating something good. So if
we were to go in and till that property, then we cause an erosion issue. So especially us
being in the maintenance industry, we don't want to cause any more headaches on ourselves.
So we're going to use a no-till seed drill and of course broadcast spread like you would
anyway, but like we use for other seeds. So goal one, so we're going to identify and design
key areas. Maintenance will be completed by park maintenance crews. So this is important.
So we do have some wildflower areas and what was happening is that our contractors, you
know, their main objective is to mow. Well, sometimes they forget what areas they're supposed
to mow and not supposed to mow. So they did mow wildflower areas for the past couple of
years and you saw these pains as we went through contractors in the last couple of years. We
do have a really good set of contractors on board right now, but we wanted to make sure
that we took those areas from them that are going to be planted in wildflowers and we
were going to maintain those areas in-house. Therefore, we have more continuity. We will
have standard operating procedures. The SOP is written for how to take care of those properties.
Those properties will be properly signed and I'll show you those signs here in a minute,
but that was one aspect that we wanted to make sure that drew attention to. And then
so right-of-ways, so we will also pay attention to line of sight. So the main objective on
right-of-ways as you see here in this right-of-way is more of a residential and a thoroughfare
street where you have your wildflowers in the middle and then maybe some landscaping
and then the nose, the end of the median or where the turn lane goes in or where you have
the approaching streets and the cross traffic, you know, cross streets, you want to make
sure 30 to 50 feet away from that nose, depending on the speed of the traffic, that we don't
have any of the tall vegetation there to make sure that, you know, cars as you're driving,
you can see oncoming traffic and passing traffic and pedestrians and bicycle traffic to make
sure everything's safe. And then in certain areas, we'll also do a mode outer strip around
those medians or against that, you know, right-of-way or even if it's maybe an open space in a park
and it kind of backs up to someone's home, we don't want really tall grasses backing
up to their fence. So we'll make sure, you know, 10, you know, anywhere from five to
10 feet mode. So there's a nice, you know, patch there to where it doesn't create other
issues as far as, you know, insects or varmints or any other kind of pest. So open space and
what we also want to do is really promote habitat. So city of Denton, we're a B city,
you know, we're B city USA and monarch city USA. So this is really going to help in those
efforts also. And just like I talked about, reduce maintenance. So rolling into reduce
maintenance. So that's going to be, it's going to help reduce air pollution and greenhouse
gases emissions. So based upon the 237 acres and the amount of times that certain parts
of those properties get mowed where it's estimated that we'll reduce 36,000 pounds of CO2 per
year will be avoided because we won't be mowing so that those mowers will not be running to
be able to maintain those areas. So we'll have reduction in ozone and other air pollutants.
So we'll establish the no no-mow wildfire areas, establish the key low maintenance areas.
So that'll be times where maybe we're mowing just a small outer strip or we make sure that
we're mowing key times to increase seeding. We want to make sure that those those plants
go to go to seed so we can reseed. One, it'll help us save money because we're not constantly
having to reseed those areas. It's naturally doing it itself. And of course, decrease fuel
consumption through maintenance reduction.
Yeah, true. I would be interested to know, not necessarily for this meeting, you don't
need to research it, but I'd be interested to know what that number looks like too. I
mean, if we know the reduction in CO2, it'd be interesting to know the reduction in cost
of maintenance and fuel.
It's $150,000.
Oh, is that what was included in there?
Yes, sir.
I got you, I'm sorry.
So we've identified that's how much it's costing us or contractors to follow that.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
So.
Thanks.
I wanted to show that Goal 3 is a sustainable environment. So really, if you look at this
picture in the background, we have non-native. So, you know, you have your fescue grass,
your perennial fountain grasses, and then look over here to your natives or your buffalo
grass, your, you know, your your black eyed Susan. That's something that's really popped
here in Denton. So just look at the difference in depth that those those root systems have.
So it's reduced soil impacts through conservation and erosion control. The course of deeper
and the bigger the root system, the more ground that that's going to hold and improve soil
health. So really with improving soil health, that's because of that root system, you know,
being so vast and being able to draw those nutrients and then water conservation. Our
native plants take less water than our adaptive plants and and then increase pollinator habitat.
So promote public understanding. So we're going to do this through educational signs,
community outreach and website information. So we're working with our public information
office, really, and with Maria. We have these no-mo signs, and we do have those in bilingual.
So they will be posted bilingual. And Frances, I see you. Yep. So we did think about that
before Maria's looking. We may change this a little bit. We want to make sure that really
with this sign that none of these flowers in this sign are adaptive. So we're double
checking on all that before these signs go in production. But the signs like this will
be posted. Also with community outreach, we want to make sure that our residents know
why it's not being mowed, that it's not being mowed for a beautification effort. It's not
just not being mowed because we just don't want to mow it. Those areas are planted in
a specific pattern or they're planted with these type of mixes for this reason. So location
and costs. So like I said, we have identified 237 acres, 240 acres right now. It's $150,000
in annual savings, which really is a savings from mowing that will be diverted to seed
and materials that we need now, which eventually as this is completely established and reestablishes
itself will be a cost savings. 32,000 pounds of CO2 per year avoided. And then here's a
list of the areas. A couple areas that I wanted to make sure that I showed you and you probably
saw in the AIS was the North Lakes Wildflower Trail. That area has always been programmed.
It's never been formalized for a wildflower area. We want to make sure it was formalized
in this process. Also the North Lakes Dam area, that 10 acres or so, it only gets mowed
once or twice a year. That's for the wildflowers to come up and then for it's kind of, it's
a birding area also. So we want to make sure that those birds, those are migratory birds.
They come in, they nest in the area. Once they leave and the seeds have dropped, we
go in and mow. And that's typically around August is when, due to those wildflowers and
that birding area. This is the next slide or next picture here. I have a wildflower
and prairie location map. This map will be accessible online soon. Tech Services is working
through that. We already have all these dots as you can see. There was a question that
did come up in a council meeting. Why do we have so many more dots in this area town versus
this area town? And if you really look through our mobility plan and where most of the construction
is going on right now, it's in the southern part of Denton, really, you know, south and
east of I-35W or I-35E. The idea is we, or not the idea, but we are working with capital
projects as we go through, you know, Hickory, as they're redoing Hickory Creek Road, the
plans for Ryan Road. 377 is under construction right now. 2499, we have a green ribbon. All
these different areas are being constructed on. We would hate to make an effort to plant
wildflowers there for it to just completely be taken out. And then, of course, then we'd
have to spend money to put it back in. So we'll wait for that to be constructed and
then, of course, parks takes care of all the right of ways, then we'll help plan that landscaping
effort for those new right of ways, and as the roads are widened and constructed.
So wildfires, benefiting wildflowers and prairies. So this is something that we work with the
fire department on. At Fire Station 7, off of Vintage Boulevard, there near the intersection
of Vintage and South Bonnie Bray, is the training center for our fire department. As you can
look in the background here on this charred piece of land, they had a planned burn, wildflower
burn for a training session for their firemen. So we work with them and thank goodness the
weather worked out great for us because we planted last Thursday. And as you know, we've
had rain almost every day since. So we planted with broadcast and we demoed some no-till
drill seeders. And so we really wanted to show the benefits in this area. And they planned
to burn this maybe once a year, maybe once every two years. So to really help show the
benefits of wildfires. No, we do not plan on burning our right of ways and our medians,
but this gives us an educational opportunity to show what the benefits are of those wildfires.
Because we're planting back what used to be here, you know, two and three hundred years
ago before Bermuda grass and all our adaptive species have come in. Wildfires really benefited
those prairies as you know, either a lightning strike caused it or, you know, humans did
it on purpose to make sure that they cleared those different areas out. So it reduces intensity
of unplanned fires, increases wildflower diversity, maintains habitat of grassland-dependent
birds, recycles nutrients, reduces invasive or less desirable vegetation. So that's your
KR bluestem, your Johnson grass, your Bermuda grass. And then preserve biodiversity by maintaining
habitats for species that need sunny and open conditions to germinate and thrive. So it
really helps burn that thatch down and get the taller vegetation down and, you know,
for more of a diverse environment or more diverse prairie and wildflowers. So sustainability
framework. So this really fits into sustainability is for their air or their air quality and
greenhouse gas management, land use and resiliency and public health. So I did just like I did
last week with council and I can take this down now. I wanted to say kind of what I said
in the beginning. This is just the beginning. So it's two almost two hundred and forty acres
that we have identified now. It's not the only two hundred and forty acres and we continue
to grow. Gary and I look at a lot of different developments in a lot of different land and
kind of really where we're going and what we're doing and how the city is developing
and how we're negotiating with developers and what we're going to do with that property.
And, you know, usually the first thing that comes up is, you know, what can we can we
do a prayer restoration there? So prayer restoration isn't just the grasses, it's the wildflowers
also. And, you know, we got Gary talked about earlier, you know, with quite a bit of our
property being in the floodplain, you know, what a better what a better place. So also
with that, this is just probably this is just phase one of many. And this is just phase
one of what I'm what I refer to as, you know, the three three big phases. We're looking
at right of ways and open space that parks takes care of. Then once this starts to get
established, we've already started working with our drainage department on how to really
benefit those riparian areas and riparian buffers and riparian areas for waterways.
So how do we reestablish vegetation there for a deeper root systems, those deeper root
system vegetation, they absorb more water, they clean the water better. And so therefore
we're benefiting our waterways that way. And then three would be our tech stock right of
ways. We all know that, you know, years ago, I-35, I-35W was full of blue bonnets and Indian
paintbrushes. And really that's kind of gone away with the way I-35s have or I-35 has continuously
been under construction. We have met with tech stock. We have plans for when that landscaping
gets put in as those the rest of the I-35s are widened for that to go back with native
vegetation and wildflowers. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that. So we are working
with all these different groups to make sure that this is beneficial for years to come.
And there will be, we've already started working on standard operating procedures. We've already
started working on format. This is just the start and the step to formalize these areas.
That way, you know, when Gary and I are retired, this continues to go on and it doesn't just
get changed, you know, years after we're gone. So, all right, I'll open it up for questions.
Mr. Schick?
I would like, well, I want to preface by saying I love this program for a half dozen reasons.
So my following statement doesn't take away from the fact that I'm in strong support of
this. I do want us to be careful when we sell this to the public, not to oversell the beauty
of wildflowers. And the reason is, you know, my company, BNSF Railway, went to this program
even on all of our corporate campuses for many of the same reasons that you're specifying
here. And those flowers look absolutely gorgeous about three weeks out of the year, right?
The rest of the time, it looks like grass that isn't necessarily mowed. Again, I don't
mean to take away from the overall impact of the program. I think it's wonderful. But
as we position this out to the public, I would caution us from going, it's just beautiful
wildflowers and, you know, it's going to be, because it isn't always.
And that's where the educational, really the educational push and the community outreach
will come in. And one thing I guess I didn't say to begin with, what we really have been
working on with a master naturalist and gardeners and native plant society, is how do we get
a bloom, some type of bloom, from like late February, early March, all the way to November.
Well, teach my company that afterwards. That would be great.
Right now, right now we have, we've started, as you know, you remember the mural at Robertson
and Bell. So when we met with those ladies, as the backdrop of that mural is purple, okay,
didn't high school was purple and yellow, purple and gold, right? The high school I
went to was purple and gold. So what better backdrop for purple is yellow, right? So how
many different yellow flowers do we know of? So the section between Robertson and the Morrison
milling milling property, we've ordered yellow flower, native yellow flowers to go there.
So as you now, not only do we have a beautiful mural to be there, but as you approach there
during different times of year, different yellowing flowers will bloom in that area.
So we're looking at how do you enhance the landscaping we already have with the landscaping
that can be, or different. Maybe it's artwork that we have, for instance, the mural that's
coming or, you know, the different right of ways. We really have to look at too, you know,
if you've been around Denton and if you put a shovel in the ground, one second you're
going to hit caliche, one second, you know, one part of town is black clay, the next is
red and the following is a sandy loam. So not all seeds can go in all sections of town.
We are trying to come up with Councilmember Davis recommended maybe a Denton blend. So
some of those flowers will do really good in certain areas of Denton and some of them
won't, but we're working on that too, on maybe coming up with a Denton blend. So, you know,
you could do it in your yard, you know, so. Well, anyway, nice work on it. I think it's
a great initiative. Real quick, I let Frances know at the beginning of this meeting, I'm
going to probably drop off here in just a few minutes, but didn't want anybody to think
I dropped off technically. But anyway, thank you for the input on all of it.
Thank you, David. My comment is, I'm sorry, Helena. I am complete support of this program.
I love the idea. Thank you for answering all of my questions, except for one. Well, you
probably did, but I just want to clarify. So there is a plan to on how you add the additional
parks, correct? Yes. Additional areas. Yes. So did I miss Dina on the list on. Yes, Dina
is not on the list and that's because certain areas. So we're in a planning process of kind
of adding to Dina and adding to that area. So. Thank you for clarifying that. Mr. Amrick.
Yeah, just two quick ones. Well, first, just a comment. I like the diversity of the flowers
that I think you're bringing to the forefront here. And one of the things the people we
bought our house from, they have flowers that cover that bloom just about every possible
time of the year, including winter, we get white blooms in the background. So that's
one A plus idea that definitely would be nice to pursue that, you know, try to keep it as
something growing in the flower. The other comment or question I have is, what's the
key people from pulling over to take pictures? That's what we want. And so what we will look
at is, especially when these are planted, is how that's why we pick when you look on
the list, you'll see there's some parks have been identified that we're going to do now.
And this is, like I said, phase one of a thousand. And so we'll add as we go. And then one particular
instance we looked at on, okay, how do we do this? And then how do we make sure maybe
when we plant it, we plant it in almost a curvy literature way to where you can take
a picture in a pocket that we've created and not trample on the wildflowers. So stop traffic,
for example, people pull over on the side of the road to take pictures, be kind of a
hazard too. So maybe. Well, that's why you're going to have, for instance, we already have
North Lakes and then, you know, we're looking at the 47 acres out at the Denton Energy Center.
That's a very low traveled road. You know, it's 40 something acres of open space where,
you know, really we could work with them on maybe having a small parking area where then
they could go into that wildflower area and take pictures.
Okay. I'm going to jump on Kate again. Okay. Brooke, Alana is before you. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Go ahead. Okay. It's all the passion. Okay. Just first of all, I love it. I love this.
I think it's a great idea. It's definitely the right way to move forward. I was just
curious about the Bonnie Bray, what's it called? The roundabout area and the new parks and
everything. I was just curious if it was in the plan to go ahead and do the wildflowers
now when the construction is finished or if that's going to be something that happens
in like phase two down the line? As far as McKenna Park goes? Yeah. Like, I mean, I'm
assuming there's right away. I'm not exactly sure if there is. Now on the Bonnie Bray project,
we've worked several different instances where we've landscaped that roundabout. We've worked
through that process. I don't believe that the funds were there at the moment to do that.
But when we did sit down with the engineers and worked through that landscape process,
it wasn't just wildflowers, but it was more of a native grasses and native plants to go
in there. We are looking at putting a sculpture in the roundabout as well. Something that
will create a visual opportunity so people don't drive straight through the roundabout.
So it's kind of like an awareness piece. So there's definitely a sculpture involved in
that roundabout whenever that's landscaped. So is the right of way area like that? I guess
it would be like kind of like the Bonnie Bray area near McKenna down to the highway. It's
like cement city and you've got just like these old kind of untaken care of areas down
Bonnie Bray, but it's also an entrance into our city for people coming in for like UNT
or whatever. So just wondering if that's on the radar?
Yeah, that's the process that I spoke about about working with capital projects as they
work through their process of design and construction of our different roadways, whether it be Bonnie
Bray, Hickory Creek, Mayhill is the first one that's been redone. We were to the table
with them almost in the beginning for landscaping, but the funding wasn't there. And so we can
go back even though that Bermuda grass was planted, we can go back scalp and then no
seed drill and broadcast and put wildflowers in that area.
So is that just going to become kind of like that every time there's a capital project
comes up, it's like routine to say this is how we're going to do the wildflowers in this
area? Yeah, if it's been identified for wildflowers
to go there, then yes, that will be the way. Would it be possible to get the like the big
list of possible areas that are going to eventually be planted? Or is are you ready to?
We're not ready for that, because we're still working with capital projects. And of course,
they're constantly working through their processes. So we are just because capital projects and
parks is now under one umbrella under public works, we're consistently working with them
on that. So
I have a couple more things brought and also the blend idea, I think is really cool. And
I was actually thinking about that when you were presenting. It would be awesome to be
able to like as part of your education program, to be able to like give people seeds. And
I was already thinking like, how can I incorporate that into my class? And like with the different
soils, it's like a great way to teach people all of that. And last but not least, my last
question or thing I would like to say I think is a great idea is your little idea to have
picture areas where people are not trampled the flowers, because I like love taking pictures
with my kids and the blue monads and all that kind of stuff. But then I always feel really
bad about trampling flowers. So anyways, I think it's awesome. Thanks.
We're building two places that at the razor ranch property that are photo selfie spots
for wildflowers. And we can also kind of we could probably create a Francis punch blend
for the junior park specifically location if we need to.
I love it.
Okay, Brooke, thank you for your patience.
No, you're good. I'm just playing off of everybody else. I totally want some of those packets,
because I definitely want to do a little package for kids and they can make their own seed
bomb. And then we can tell them where to go throw them. And then to I was thinking about
the whole pulling off on the side of the road. I feel the same way about our trails that
clear Creek when people stop and take their like wedding photos or graduate or whatever.
And I'm like, Oh, you look so cute. But if you could just like I'm walking. And so the
last time I was out there, I thought, Oh, we should carve out like little spots so that
people can go and take their wedding photo without, you know, having my dog jump on them.
That kind of thing.
Thank you, Brooke. Any other comments, concerns?
We appreciate the information, Drew. It was very educational, at least for me, it was.
I'm so sorry, I have one more thing I wanted to ask about. I'm sorry. And has there been
any talk about adding edible plants, like stuff we can eat?
It's coming. It's called garden scaping. So I'm, I'm working on it. And it's been one
of those juggling priority things when I can see Gary smiling, because we have had some
conversations about it. But yes, it's called garden scaping. And we have been in contact
with a consultant that specializes in garden scaping. And so, yes.
Okay. Thank you so much. Any other questions, concerns?
Thank you, Drew, for that information. You're welcome.
We will move to the next topic. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff input
regarding fishing areas within the city of Denton.
This was an item that James had asked about last month. So Drew put a short presentation
together just to kind of let you know where all the opportunities are and has the discussion.
All right. So we're ready? Yes.
All right. So parks and recreation fishing areas. So the first one that I wanted to highlight
was North Lakes Park. So we have two lakes at North Lakes. We have our Bonnie Bray Pond,
which is just off of Bonnie Bray, north of University, where you can come in and you
can park near the, or on or, you know, close to the horseshoe and fish anywhere around
the lake, or you can walk up on the, on the dam and fish off the dam, or even, you know,
we have some residents or park users that park over at the Goldfield Tennis Center and
then walk through all the way, all the way to the backside of the, I guess, the north
end of this pond. We also have our Windsor Pond. So we just
replaced last March this pier, the fishing pier. It's actually a little, it's 10 feet
longer than the old wooden one. This one's made out of HDPE, which is a type of plastic
that's really built the last 50 plus years. And it's, I've been out there several times.
It's really nice to go out and just sit, if you just want to sit and be on the water or
sit and fish. We also have South Lakes. So I wanted to
highlight South Lakes. So we have our, the North Pond at South Lakes and the South Pond.
The South Pond here has the dock, and this is our, really our most popular fishing pond
we have in our entire system. This pond, we, at this pond, we do have a partnership with
Texas Parks and Wildlife for our neighborhood, or their neighborhood fishing program. Here's
our catfish here in this corner of the picture to show you one of the ones that they stock.
So they stock the pond with catfish starting in late April, early May, depending on the
water temperatures. And they'll stock all the way until normally they do it sometime
around the end of October. And then usually the end of November, so it's usually the week
of Thanksgiving, they start our rainbow trout stocking. And they do that every two weeks
all the way until March. So they already have started stocking rainbow trout that the first
stocking was the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving. And of course they stocked last Friday. And
they'll continue to do that until March. It's a partnership where we pay very little
compared to what the fish stocking would cost. It's around $3,000 for the entire year. And
if we were to pay that out of pocket, it would be in the 15 to $18,000 range if we stock
the fish ourselves. So it's a really good partnership to have with Texas Parks and Wildlife.
We have Lake Forest Park, or where Wigley Field is located. So this, this pond and dam
is one entire project. So if you remember from lots of different conversations we've
had in the past couple years, the dam has issues that it needs to be repaired. Also
the pond needs to be dredged due to the amount of silt that's washed into the pond over the
years. There's 45,000 yards of material that needs to be removed from the pond to bring
it back to its original condition. And then clay core needs to be put into the dam. And
then the spillway you can kind of see in this picture is right here. It's not built to standards.
So we're going to bring that up to current standards to the 100 year floodplain. Currently
it's not even constructed to a 25 year flood. So all that's in the works. The bidding ends
January 4th. That's open for bid right now, but the bidding ends January 4th. And we look
to take that to council at the end of January, 1st of February to have that project started.
Frontier Park. So this Frontier Park, here's Unicorn Lake. Most of you know where Unicorn
Lake is. And we have just right over here off the screen is Briar Cliff Park. The movie
theater and restaurants are over here by I-35. If you take Frontier Drive, here's Frontier
Park. So it's just a small half acre to three quarter acre pond. It's just a, just a small
little neighborhood fishing program. This pond was put or never hit fishing spot. This
pond was put in when the developers built this neighborhood. We have Montecito Pond.
It's off Montecito Drive off of Hickory Creek Road. We have Clear Creek. So Clear Creek's
now ours. If you know, we, we oversee Clear Creek as far as the park, the parks department
goes. So I've taken my kids out here and we fished out at the confluence. And then this
is another little pond or one of the ponds and inside the wetlands that you can fish
at during certain times of the year. It is pretty, it's pretty shallow. So aquatic vegetation
does grow pretty thick in this pond, but during this time of year, you'd be able to get in
the water or not get in the water, but get in the water with your fishing pole. So future
areas. So we went over some future areas that we have up company and this, this young man's
at South Lakes fishing. So Mills property. So as you know, we do have the Mills property.
We don't currently have like good, we don't currently have access into the Mills property
due to, you know, we had some budget cuts and other COVID issues that we had go go on
last year. We do. Hopefully this year we will get a chance to be able to have a clear, clean
a clear path all the way into the Mills property, but there are fish in this pond.
Hickory Creek. So I know we've talked a lot about the trails and the Hickory Creek area.
So Hickory Creek, if you're familiar, this is country club. Here's Hickory Creek road.
We're getting this property through development. I have, I'm an avid fisherman and I have,
and I know several other people throughout the city and our residents and people even
come from out of town to fish this, what we call the leg of Hickory Creek road. The, during
the spawning season for sand bass, there's a, quite a few people that park along this
road here and enter the creek here and either wait up and down this creek to fish while
they're running. Also this, this is South Bonnie Bray. This is the new bridge. Here's
the old South Bonnie Bray. Here's the new bridge that they put in. This property here
was purchased through capital projects to be able to put that bridge in. This is also
part of the Hickory Creek trail. And there's a, there's a nice little fishing hole right
in this area right here. So Southwest Park property, there's two small ponds on Southwest
Park. So, you know, as we go through this process, we've talked about having, having
this, this area, of course, stay with this pond and this pond. So where we can create
a future, you know, small little fishing spots in Southwest Park. Pecan Creek. So Pecan Creek,
this area in green is a future trail for Pecan Creek. As you know, this is what was known
as Pebble Brook Park. Here's Mayhill Road. And then the trail will follow underneath
Mayhill and then follow Pecan Creek. And then here's a picture actually just south of where
the effluent water comes out of our reclamation plant. And this is, this was taken there.
So I will take this down for any questions.
And for someone who is not an avid fisher woman, is this, I'll catch a release?
No ma'am, it's catch and keep. And then though, depending on the species of fish, Texas Parks
and Wildlife sets those rules on, you know, on how, how large they have to be and how
many you can keep per day, what they call a bag limit. So I would, I would suggest anyone
that, and you do have to have a fishing license for fishing anywhere in the city of Denton.
You do have to have, we do follow those rules also. And those are governed by Texas Parks
and Wildlife. So if you, you were to fish, you know, anywhere those spots that I just
showed you, or you were to fish anywhere in Texas, I would, whether it, unless it's on
your private property, I would highly advise you to go get a fishing license. And you absolutely
need one to fish in our ponds. So.
Thank you, Elana. I don't know if this is part of getting a fishing license, but what
kind of education is given about litter from fishing? Because I always see like that Clear
Creek and other places where people are fishing, they leave their lines and it's just a mess.
It's awful.
Yeah, we, we make sure that we provide in those areas that we do see people fishing.
And we have talked about Clear Creek about adding, now that it's under our purview about
adding trash cans to Clear Creek to make sure that it's gone back and forth, whether we
add it and it causes more trash, we add it and hopefully people will leave no trace behind.
So it, we do have signs at South Lakes, you know, to remind people to pick up their trash,
they don't always do it. But, you know, we, we, as park maintenance, we do try to make
sure that that's cleaned up. So.
Thank you, Mr. Amrick.
Yeah, that's very good. That clears up the picture there. But one of the things I'll
just, a suggestion perhaps is that I do know that, or I believe still the Department of
Parks and Wildlife, TPW has an exception to having a license. And that exception is if
the city or town runs a tournament in conjunction and they, they let that, they contact the
Texas Parks and Wildlife and let them know there's a, you know, they want to sanction
a tournament, a fishing tournament, you know, like for kids, you know.
That happens once a year and until the year before we didn't have enough participants
register last year, obviously it was COVID, hopefully we get to do it the following year.
But Texas Parks and Wildlife does have one year throughout the season where they, it's
almost, you don't need a license, come fish, see how much enjoyment you can get from it
and then possibly go get a license after that. They do have that one weekend. So yes. And
that's normally when cities do the participation with those fishing tournaments and the kids'
fishing tournaments.
Right. And the good news is then the kid doesn't watch their parents get pulled off and taken
to jail, right? Yeah, just a good point. Just to raise that point of detail. Thank you.
Brooke, did I see your hand? Gary, did I see your hand?
Yeah, just to add one thing that we probably need to add to that is our paddling trails.
So we are adding, adding, adding, adding paddling trails to our trail system, but those are
good opportunities for people to actually fish too on kayaks. It's a popular sport.
So that'll get people in other areas, whether it's on the lake itself or in one of our creeks
to give them, you know, they don't necessarily have to be on shore to be fishing. They could
be in the water. So that's another fishing opportunity.
Okay. Ms. Denona, did you have? Just a quick question. Is there an interest
from the community on fishing classes? I know we do the tournament once a year. Any, any
interest in fishing classes? Just part of the recs?
That'd be a good one to bring Caroline. I know there she is. Perfect. Good, good timing.
We do offer some fly tying classes and fishing with our seniors and then the, the fishing
tournament for kids, but that's really all the fishing programs we have currently scheduled,
but it's something we can look at. Okay. Thank you, Caroline. Any additional
questions, concerns? Thank you all for that information. We will
move to our last category of today and it's the Dinton Parks Foundation update.
Hello. Okay. So I have my little agenda here. So I'll start off by saying, I got bad news
this weekend that we actually, so we got DBL funding, which was really exciting. Considering
the year, I didn't expect that we would get funding necessarily when you're competing
for dollars for homeless folks and people trying to get back on their feet. However,
we did get funding for the DWIF art project and our MOUs for the total amount that we
had asked for, for $9,000 and 10 cents. However, unfortunately I got the money in the bank
and it was $6,000 and 10 cents and there was an error in their MOU rather than the bank.
But we will continue our efforts to raise even more money, at least $13,000 for this
project. No, at least $20,000 is our goal. Also, we celebrate, per October, during October
is a month long celebration of parks and with the support of sponsors and Boo Bucket participants
and park partners, we grossed over $8,000 to help make parks better. We engaged 106
actual donors and gave out 126 Boo Buckets. And we're currently offering t-shirts right
now for Eureka too. And our goal is to do 100 donors before the end of the year. And
then finally, this is kind of new information, but we are doing a slide into 2021 and we
are working with the folks over at Eastside. They just share this new concept where you
do cocktails virtually for New Year's Eve or any kind of holiday party. And I had a
board member jump on it. And so we moved quickly and we're going to do a New Year's Eve at
nine o'clock. If you want to join us, we'll have a virtual cocktail class on how to make
your own New Year's Eve drink that evening. And then a Kiss 2020 Goodbye Kit that I am
in the process of working right now. And it's a balance between being snarky and being
professional. So it's a lot of fun. I highly encourage you to join us for this. This will
be our last Hoorah and last holiday for 2020 in this household. And then we'll gear up
again for the next day. We're also posting lots of great information about how to get
out all year long because we live in Texas. It's not that cold, y'all. You can get out.
And so we're just sharing creative ways on getting outside and still having fun. And
that's what I got for you. Any questions? I just want to say, I already bought two tickets
to your slide in for the New Year. That sounds fun. Thank you. Any other concerns or comments
for Brooke? Okay. Last category. I do. I sing for Brooke. Okay. Happy birthday. Oh, thank
you. I turn 40 next week and I'm collecting socks for my 40th birthday to give to local
homeless shelter at the junction. And I was like, I'm gonna raise 40 socks. Y'all, I have
302 pairs of socks in my office. So it's absolutely amazing. So thank you. Okay. I got distracted.
Okay. The items for the next meeting. Well, there was one item from last meeting that
wasn't on this agenda. The Fred Moore Park. We're going to have that on, it'll be on next
month. Okay. But we can give you a quick, just a short synopsis and rundown. The project
is going much slower than we anticipated. Caroline attends the meetings too. So I'm
going to let her kind of chime in. We're trying to get it nailed down to see exactly when
the timeline is. It seems like it's still a moving target, but Caroline, would you like
to give everybody a quick update? Yeah. So we've had some problems with the construction
documents not being as clear as they needed to be. So we've hired an outside architect
to help decipher some of those problems, which has really delayed the project and the construction.
So as we can, we have been working through those issues this entire time, but that has
pushed the timeline back significantly and we don't have a good set target right now.
But late spring is kind of what we're looking at, but it, it, it waits to be seen. We're
also having some problem getting supplies, different manufacturers having COVID going
through their operations. So timelines for delivering supplies. So that's kind of where
we are right now. It doesn't look like a lot has happened because it hasn't. There's
been a little bit more construction on the inside of the building that remains. Walls
are up and they've been working on bathrooms. So there are some things happening. You just
can't see them, but the project is definitely significantly delayed. Thank you for that.
Mr. Amrick? Yeah, just a quick, is that blueprints? Was that because the contractor has had problems
with blueprints or was it the, was it from us? I'm trying to find out where, where the
cause came from. We had some challenges during the design process. It was the original architect.
Just they weren't, the plans weren't as clear. Some items were significant items were left
out that have required us to seek a second opinion on how to build some of those features.
Okay. So notice what you're saying. Somebody forgot to put doors in right now. Just kidding.
We did have doors. That's about it. No, I'm kidding. Okay. Thank you so much. And the
next item is our parks board meeting schedule. Eddie, you want to speak to that? Hello, everyone.
Just a quick background. I know it's coming up, you know, towards the end of the year,
it's going to be January, 2021, just around the corner. So just a quick synopsis and a
quick background. As you know, that you members are going to be probably coming in for park
board and all boards and commissions sometime in January. I have the next 2021 scheduled
meeting for February, March, April, May. I haven't sent that out yet, but I got it booked
a little bit ahead of time and it's going to be between 3pm to 5pm. I think that works
best for everyone. But again, you know, with new members, you know, coming in, that would,
that could possibly change. But one of the things that is posing a little bit of a challenge
is trying to get everyone in the same page as far as for members and also for staff,
and also the staffing resources for getting board members to have a meeting. And I guess
one of the challenges on top of that is that we used to do 30 minute setups to get the
council work session room, which it takes a lot of staff resources to set up and also
break down now got added to in an hour. So it's a little bit challenging for the month
of January with holidays coming up as well. And also don't forget MLK is on a Monday,
June, January 4th is going to be the first Monday of the month, which I just found out
that there's a city council work session meeting. So we're only down to two Mondays and it's
completely filled because all of the other boards and commissions have to meet. So based
on the agenda right now, we don't have anything pressing. So I guess the options for everyone
is do you still want to meet the month of January? Or, you know, we can move on to February
for February 4th. I think February 15th or 14th, I'm going to send you send all of you
an email as well. Again, you know, don't forget that boards and commissions I don't know who's
going to be on reappointment, but that's going to happen in January as well. So whoever's
going to be the new members that's going to come in, hopefully you'll all be continuing
or most of you, but that could also change. So that's a little bit of background and also
would like your quick input if that's possible. We move it down to February or you all want
to meet, but it can't be probably on a Monday. It'll have to be on a weekday, maybe Thursday
or Friday, possibly. I'm good with the Monday's, the first Monday in February. You know, I'm
also surprised that that's as a secondary, but continue consistency and schedule. I have
it scheduled on February 15th, 3pm to 5pm. That's going to be the next availability.
So I got it scheduled for February, March, April and May. And it's going to be very close
to around that time period because usually city council meetings meet on the first Monday
and Tuesday or the first week of that month. So it poses a little bit of a challenge for
us, but hopefully that is so I guess the question is January. Do you all want to meet or do
you want to do it on a separate day? No, besides Monday.
Doesn't matter to me. If we need to meet, then we can figure out a way to meet. If it's
not essential, then I'm okay taking a month off and giving you guys a little bit of a
break to happy holidays. If I mean, if something comes up, we could
definitely reach out if there's something that's, you know, critical. As of right now,
we don't have anything that's mission critical from a timing perspective. We are working
on a few land dedications to the city that, you know, we've briefed you on in the past.
So they're going to be going to council here in January. So other than that, we really
don't have anything that's mission critical. On the 15th of February, that's Presidents
Day. Is that going to be a city holiday? I believe no, let me double check. It's not.
I just asked, I've been wanting to ask about this while we're on the subject. Can we just
like say if these meetings are going to be three to five or if they are going to be 1230
to 230? Personally, for me, I just got my spring schedule. And I mean, they're going
to miss half of it at the beginning or half of it at the end. But I would just like to
go ahead and get my Mondays planned out for the semester, at least. So is that what you
are saying? Like they're going to be three to five from now on or what I and on a date
and time perspective, we I have it set up on 3pm to 5pm from all the way up to May,
except January. So I can send out that list to everyone. And it seems that most park board
members are available at that time. So that's why I'm just going to leave it at 3pm to 5pm.
We realize that having the meetings during a day is challenging and we have, you know,
David had to leave and Kent's been tied up with with work and we've had other boards
with the same issues and we realize this is a challenge and we've passed on the memo from
Francis about our last, I guess, last month's meeting with the concern about the missing
meetings and the attendance policy. So hopefully we have something we can share with you soon
on that. But we appreciate all the flexibility you guys had so we can continue to move forward
with our operations and in the business that we need. Hopefully, we can start meeting in
person soon, but I'm not sure when that's going to take place.
But thank you, Gary, for giving me that feedback because that was my next question. So we will
about the absentee policy. So if you could give us an update when you receive it, that
would be ideal. I so I guess we need to vote if we want to meet in January. Let's do that
one first because we already know we're meeting in February. Francis, can we vote with only
three members? Oh, we got four. Sorry. Disregard. Okay. So the question is, does the park board
want to meet and need, feel a need to meet in January 2021? Is that raise your hand for
yay? Okay. Anyone oppose? Okay. So it looks like we do not see a need to meet. Oh, motion.
Wait, of course, I didn't do that correctly. I need a motion to see that we do not meet
as a board for January 2021. May I have a motion?
I will make the motion that we will not meet in January of 2021. And we will resume in
February. I need a second. I'll second it. I'll second. Okay. If that motion passes that
we will, the parks and Red Bull will not meet in January 2021. Eddie, does that suffice
what we need it? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. And have a good happy holidays.
Okay. I need a motion. If there are no other concerns or comments, may I have a motion
to adjourn the meeting? I will motion to adjourn the meeting. May I have a second? I'll second.
Anyone opposed? I mean, all in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? The glass is either half full
or half empty. No matter which way you look at it. Okay. Motion passes. Meeting adjourned.
I have 232, Eddie. Thank you all and happy holidays.