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Park Board Minutes 2007 10-11-07 United City of Yorkville APPROVED Yorkville Parks and Recreation Department Board Meeting Administration Office - Riverfront Building, 201 W. Hydraulic Street, Yorkville, IL 60560 Thursday, October 11th, 2007, 7 : OOpm Call to Order: Chris Rollins called the meeting to order at 7: 18 pm. Roll Call: Chris Rollins, Ken Koch, Van Truman, Debbie Horaz, & Vickie Coveny Kelly Sedgwick (arrived 7:30) Introduction of Guests, City Officials and Staff: Superintendent of Parks - Scott Sleezer Director of Parks and Recreation - David Mogle Joe Plocher, Ward 2 Alderman, City Council Liaison to Park Board (arrived 9:06 pm) Public Comment: None Presentations: Dave Mogle showed a video clip of children playing at Hiding Spot Park that was shown at the NRPA Trade Show for Game Time. Scott Sleezer said that Game Time is getting a lot of interest in their equipment. He spoke with the CEO of Game Time, Tom Norquist, and he said that Tom wants to do a special project with Yorkville once a year and wants to know how he could do that. Scott said Tom took some suggestions from him and would like him to come to their headquarters in Alabama to brain storm some more ideas. Scott felt like this is a great opportunity and is excited to have this kind of a relationship with a manufacturer; no one else has this opportunity and we should take advantage of having something different. Chris Rollins felt that this is a great opportunity due to the many parks that we need to build. It is exciting to have equipment that no one else has. Approval of Minutes: Minutes - Regular Park Board Meeting - September 27, 2007 Dave Mogle wanted first amendment on page two, fourth paragraph down it should say seconded instead of seconds. Second change on page two first paragraph under old business the verbiage "that we were pretty much done" should be replaced with with a few exceptions" and add the verbiage "have been reviewed" 1 should be added at the end of the sentence. The last sentence of the same paragraph should say, "see" instead of "pull". Next amendment Dave made was under old business second paragraph the verbiage "we might" should be replaced with "and also." Next change is on page three last sentence should read: Swithin said she would let Scott know. On page four where it says "Rotary" it should say "Rotary Park." Second paragraph on page four the verbiage "they" should be changed to "we." Chris Rollins made the motion to approve the minutes of the Park Board Meeting of September 27, 2007 minutes with amendments made. Debbie Horaz made the motion and Ken Koch seconded the motion. The motion was unanimously approved by voice vote. Bills Review: With no questions or comments regarding the cash analysis or bills list Chris Rollins made the motion to approve the cash analysis bills list as submitted. Ken Koch made the motion and Van Truman seconded the motion. The motion was approved by roll call: Rollins-Yes; Truman- Yes; Sedgwick-Yes; Koch-Yes; Horaz-Yes; Coveny-Yes Old Business: Quarterly Review of Planning Retreat Objectives Dave Mogle reported that progress on some objectives have been delayed for reasons outside of our control. One is the Hoover property. Mogle noted we couldn't move ahead on this until we resolve some of the issues. He also reported that the community survey is going well and that we have 350 written surveys and we're shooting for 500. He said that hopefully we'd have this done within thirty days. Van Truman commented on the report of action items and deadline dates. First he stated that these deadline dates are really target dates and he suggested for the dates that we've surpassed to come up with revised target dates. He wanted to have future date to shoot for. Van also suggests that the report keep the original target dates however show the revised dates because it's important to show what the original plan was and so we can see how far we've fallen behind or how far we've come. Also there will be a sense of urgency to do what we need to do to get moving on the ones we've fallen behind on. Mogle said that we'd be looking at this in a couple of months and he Scott and Sue could rearrange some target dates. He also added that we should start thinking about where to go from here for next year. He thought that we could designate a board meeting where there's not much on the agenda and brainstorm on new objectives for the upcoming year. He would like to start as soon as the second meeting in November. Rollins felt that we should revisit our goals and see if we can't come up with some fresh objectives within the same goal structure that we already have. He doesn't feel the goals have changed much but we need some fresh objectives. He feels we should pick some meeting themes such as land acquisition or staffing and to have a thorough discussion on those issues. Mogle suggested then that we decide what topic will be discussed at the next meeting so everyone can come prepared. Rollin's said that a lot of these topics will have a lot of background information on them. Rollins suggested that the Board needs to have a future session to talk about what if there is no more land cash or what happens if we don't get any more subdivisions. What would we do in these instances and what would happen to what we have on the drawing board? He felt that the benefit of having a kind of discussion like this would force us to think outside of the current reality of how this gets built and the impact if land cash does or does not come in. He stated we need to plan accordingly. Deb Horaz felt that we shouldn't put in writing how many parks we'd build within a certain amount of miles. Mogle said that we'd discuss this before we make a master plan. He said that we are already talking about master plan items such as land acquisitions and he felt that we are on the right path. Hoover Property Ad Hoc Committee Formation Chris Rollins reported he and Dave Mogle attended the Hoover Property meeting with representatives from the Forest Preserve District, Mayor and city staff. He noted that they have a wide range of opinions. They told us that they had people on their board that felt that the City needs to put up more money toward the cost of the purchase of the final parcel. The referendum passed and they just signed a big check to buy the last piece and they felt that the City should have helped them. Rollins felt that the agreement says that the County will own the property, not the City, so for the City to pay towards the purchase was not thought to be the intent of the agreement. The agreement does say that the City has some obligations to lease back the active recreation portion of the park for a 3 fee and we also have an agreement to annex the property and provide city services to that park such as city water, sewage and police protection etc. Rollins noted that because the City was a partner in the agreement it made the project eligible for grants that would have been less possible without joint participation. The project also received 1.5 million through OSLAD Mogle said. The total cost for the property was 18 million dollars of which according to speaker Dennis Hastert's office, 15 million came in grants. 13.5 million came from Hastert's office. Rollins noted that the City helped on the front end with our money, which made it possible to contract with Corlands to hold the land. They were relying on us strongly at that time. Now that we've come to an end and they passed the referendum and they have the ability to pay for the final parcel, they should use their money for this purpose. Now the next phase is we have to fulfill our obligation to bring City services, annexation and lease of the property. Rollins wanted to get both boards together to make joint decisions. He said we need to find out how to proceed with development because essentially now they're our landlords. David Mogle showed the draft conceptual plan that Laura put together. We need to meet with them and let them know what the people in the community want to see. We should go prepared to answer questions and tell them why we want certain things such as baseball fields. We need to have joint committees. Van Truman stated that brings us back to this agenda item. We need to assign a Park Board Member to that committee and this person will have to advocate for the Park Board. He said this would be a recommendation body but with persons that had authority to make decisions. Deb Horaz asked if they could vote on decisions made and Rollins said that we still need to decide on a process for these meetings because this is something new. Van thought they would have to take it back to the council to make decisions because no one person here can make up a quorum. Mogle said that we're looking at October 23rd for the first meeting if the City can get one of their council to attend the meeting. Chris Rollins said that he'd agree to serve on the AD HOC Committee if someone is willing to be his backup. Van Truman nominates Ken Koch as his back up, Debbie Horaz seconded that motion. Ken Koch said that he would be Rollin's back up to the meetings. 4 Rollins feels that we should look into what the Forest Preserve is doing and what their needs are. Sedgwick brought up a question about the county seat. He asked how are we going to handle the questions from Plano residents asking why do people of Yorkville get to use the park. Rollins said that we should also investigate what is the legal relationship between the county seat and the county government. New Business: ROW and Easement Requirement for Phase 2 Dam Project Dave Mogle stated that the he got an official email from the state that phase two project is on its way with an open bid on the 16th of November. They feel it will be an 18-month project but if the weather cooperates then they would like to have it done in 13 months. It is a definite and it's in the state budget. Mogle passed out a letter with a map of the easements explaining that some of them are temporary and some of them are permanent. He said that the temporary easements are for the course of the construction and they are restored back over to the City. The permanent easements the City will still own. It just can't build or operate anything on them. They have to have unrestricted access so they can maintain the dam facility and they shouldn't have to get permission to do so. Mogle showed where there was going to be a future boat ramp and stated that we will still be able to put that in. Rollins asked if there was consent to grant easements to the state. The decision to grant the state the easements was unanimously approved by voice vote. Mogle noted that the state was asking for a temporary easement to stockpile dirt and gravel behind the ComEd station in the open area for the course of this project. They would like to have some kind of written permission. Rollins said this is not something untypical. Mogle said that there will be some trees that will be removed as a result of phase 2 construction, but they will be non-quality trees, mostly Green Ash and they will be in parcel 3 right along the bank. Scott Sleezer noted that the heavily wooded area is much more to the east. Timber there won't be touched Mogle said. Sleezer said that we would try to work around the 20" diameter, 100-foot tall trees. Mogle noted there is something else we could talk about and that's the style of pedestrian bridge we want to build. Scott Sleezer said that what ever the state is willing to provide is what we should take 5 because we tried to build before and we couldn't get the funds. He suggested after it was built we could look at engineering it to our liking later if we wanted to. Mogle said we have some time to determine the style. Mogle summarized that we agreed on the easement and the storage and he noted that he and Scott would talk more about the trees in which ones will stay and which ones will go and the bridge option we decided that we will give it some thought and get some background information on bridges. School Board/City Council Joint Meeting David Mogle said that on the 12th of November, 6:30pm there would be an open meeting at the middle school. He encourages anyone who can attend to do so. He said a lot of things will be on the agenda and there are a lot of things that we spearheaded like the school park shared sites because of the letter that we wrote to Dr. Thomas Engler about the Fields of Westhaven. Also there's the topic of Windett Reserve and the boundary between the school and park that has not yet been resolved. Rollins said that there is a great deal the school board could learn from the park board and a lot of that is a planning process. It's hard to deal with anyone that doesn't have an open process. He feels that there needs to be a joint planning process and there isn't a process on the school board's side. He said that these joint meetings are good and we need to keep chipping away at these issues for the benefit of the community. Mogle said this meeting could be very beneficial for us. Reports: Director Report David Mogle reported on the Rain Tree park grant. He and Scott Sleezer are to give a three-minute grant presentation in Springfield for the $500,000 project. We did use a donation parcel so if we were to get the grant, the project would cost the City a net $150,000. We'd build tennis courts, ball field, playground, trails, and parking lot. Mogle also reported briefly on the NRPA conference. He reported five from the department attended and it went very well. He said they attended a lot of good education seminars and hoped by the next meeting he'd have a synopsis of some of the things they attended. Parks Report 6 No report Recreation Report No report Additional Business: Future Meeting Schedule & Agenda Items None Ken Koch brought up the question of when Beecher would get relined. Scott Sleezer said they would be getting it done this week. He said we spent $5,000 on paint. He also said that we had to paint often because of the summer we've been having and the grass had grown real well. He noted that there had been a huge problem in Illinois with grubs and they have damaged the fields. He said it's a huge cost in eradicating them and that we might have issues with soccer next year. He wants to see if we have to skid the field out and reseed after soccer season. Adjournment: Regular meeting suspended at 10:00 pm and executive session started at 10:00 pm Chris Rollins entertained a motion to suspend the regular meeting and enter into executive session for the discussion for the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body. Van Truman made a motion and Debbie Horaz seconded the motion. Chris Rollins called a roll call vote to go into executive session: Chris Rollins-Yes; Ken Koch-Yes; Van Truman-Yes; Deb Horaz-Yes; Kelly- Sedgwick-Yes; Vickie Coveny-Yes Chris Rollins entertained a motion to go back into regular session at 11:00 PM. Kelly Sedgwick made a motion and Debbie Horaz seconded the motion to end the regular session. The motion was unanimously approved by voice vote and meeting was adjourned at 11:00 PM. Next Meeting; October 25, 2007 Minutes respectfully submitted by Jamie Cheatham, Minute Taker 7