 Good evening, everyone. I would now like to call the January 11th, 2021 Parks and Recreation Board meeting to order. Could we please start with the roll call? No, I'm mute Aurora. I am on mute. Thank you. Let's do this again. Sue Alberg. Susan mute too. It's our first meeting of the year, right? Yes, I'm here. Scott Conlon. Here. Yeah, Jeff Ellen Bogan. I'm here. Manos Gangwar. Presenting on here. Paige Lewis. You're here. Here. Nicholas Nobel. Is it? Dan Olson. He's here. He's waving. Okay. And then Council liaison, Aaron Rodriguez. Here. Yes. Great. Thanks, everyone. Well, since this is our first meeting of the new year, we are excited to welcome two new members. And I thought we could start just with a quick round of introductions. So if our new members maybe could start off just telling us their names and why they're interested, they were interested in joining this board. And then the rest of us that are continuing on could do a quick introduction. So Nick or Nicholas, do you want to start? Sure. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I'm Nicholas or Nick. Either way is fine. I am excited to be on the board because I want to work with the community to make our park system better. And Recreation System, of course. Time to get started. Great. Welcome. Scott. Hi, everyone. I'm Scott Conlon. I'm on the bicycle long line board. I've got an echo coming back. So I don't know if you guys hear that as well. But a long time resident and interested in transportation and parks. Things going on in Longmont and always interested in helping out with the city and finding out what's going on. Welcome, Scott. Great. Yeah, welcome to both of you. I'm Paige Lewis. I'm currently the vice chair and this is my third year on the board. Sue, do you want to introduce yourself? Sue Alberg. I believe it's my third year on the board. I actually can't remember. And then I was on the board many years ago in the 80s or 90s. Can't remember that either. I have lived in Longmont 40 years and I'm a big proponent of our wonderful, wonderful parks and recreation services. And I'm an avid swimmer. That's kind of where I speak a lot too. So welcome to both of the new board members. Thank you, Dan. Hi, I'm Dan Olson. This is my first year of my second term, so fourth year starting. And I'm an avid user like you all, both the parks, the trails, the pools, the rec centers, you name it, you'll probably see me there. And I like these meetings, so I'm weird. Great. Manos? Yeah, my name is Manos Gangwar. This is my second year in the board. I run a cricket and badminton league in Colorado and use long long resources a lot. The excellent facilities provided by the city of Longmont. Yeah. Thank you. And Jeff. Well, hi, everyone. I'm Jeff Ellen Bogan. This is my second year on the board. Was a big swimmer. Haven't been doing much with COVID, but I still love some pickle ball and love using our outdoor recreation and parks as well. Excited to be working with you all again this year. Great. Thanks, everybody. Jeff Bresner, do we want to introduce any of the staff or hold off? Let's hold off since we're running closer to seven. Let's make sure we give everybody the opportunity to talk before they have to check out. OK. So our first order of business today is to elect a chair and vice chair. So I am happy to open nominations for the position of chair. Dan. I nominate Paige. You please chair. I second that. I would be happy to do that. So thank you. Are there other nominations? Jeff, did you want to say something or you were? I definitely second that. Slow on the mute button. Sorry, Paige, I think you'd be great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Are there any other? All right. It feels odd to run my own. But all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And in any opposed. OK. Thank you very much. I'm honored to move from vice chair to chair and excited to work with you all in this position. So we do also need a vice chair, which I can vouch for is a really good and interesting way to kind of ease your way into understanding how the board works. So is there I would be open to nominations for a vice chair? Anyone? Anyone who's interested? Nominate. Yeah. OK, great. Sure, I do it. I saw Rob doing it. Anybody could do it. OK, so we had Nick. Nominated for himself to do it. And Dan said he would be open to do it. I think we need do we need a second and then we can I can second it. Which one? I think we probably need to second both of them. Yeah, I second both of them. OK, we'll start since Nick spoke first. We'll say all those in favor of Nick as the vice chair, please indicate and all those in favor of Dan as the vice chair, please indicate. Great. Dan, it looks like you are my vice chair buddy. Great. So congratulations. Thank you for stepping into that role. Sorry in advance, Paige. OK, let's move. Nick for being so. Yes, thank you. Nominate yourself. We're really excited to have you join us. But Dan is a voice of experience. So. OK, let's move quickly to approving the agenda and I would propose that we make one change. I would suggest that we because we have a number of public participants tonight who have called in to speak to the ice rink question. I would suggest that we adjust the agenda slightly to address the ice pavilion right after the public invited to be heard. And I would move that we approve the agenda with that adjustment. I move that all those in favor. Yes, I. Well, is anybody opposed? OK, great. So I think based on that, Jeff Reesner, I'm looking at you. Yeah, I think we can move to public invited to be heard. Yeah, I think that'd be great. OK, for those I believe. Yeah, joining us for public invited to be heard again. We'll have three minutes for you to speak when you are muted. If you would please state your name and address for the record and then you'll have your three minutes. We did have one that you mentioned, Aurora, Sue McHugh, but I don't see her on our list. So we'll go ahead with the next one. Yeah, I ask the question first. Sure. OK, yes, go ahead. I don't know if I'm missing something, but I would love a quick little explanation from Jeff as to why the city even proposed cutting the hours. Somehow I never got a communication. So am I missing something or could we have that background before we listen to people? Yeah, so the reason why recreation is proposing to shorten the season is because of the budget reductions that we had for the 2021 budget. As you're aware, with covid, we had a major impact on the operation budget in 2020. And we're not bringing in the revenues that we were expected to bring in. Because of that, our budget was cut by 25 percent of going into 2021, which was a little over one point one million dollars. So instead of certain programs being cut by council and the leadership staff, they recommended that we did a cross board reduction in the budget and that we would evaluate throughout the year, whether we were bringing in enough revenue that we could add things back on or if revenue continued to not be coming in, that we would have to do further restrictions or, excuse me, reductions. So when we made the proposal to the leadership team about opening the ice rink, the proposal was to open on November 20th and to close on January 31st because with covid, with restricted numbers and restricted access to all of our facilities, we're not able to generate the revenue that is expected of us. So that's why we're proposing that the season be shorter. And I have more detail that I will talk about after the public's allowed to speak. Thank you. So the first one that we'll unmute is Jerej. And do you want me to go on video too? I'm happy to, if you'd like. Just voice, if you could, that would be great. Sure. My name is Yuri Deputat. I live at 1183 Trap Creek Circle, Longmont, Colorado. I love our city. I love our town. I think it's got a lot of charm. I have two older boys in the Longmont hockey program. They also work at the rink and on behalf of my family and the other families in the hockey program, I really want to convey our hearty thank you to you guys, the Parks and Rec Board, the recreation staff and our city council members who have opened this up for ice rink and ice rink activities at the Roosevelt Park under the COVID restrictions. Our sons, our daughters have been holed up at home and are limited to social activities through online and virtual means. And what you guys have put in with the restrictions and the regulations, it's a very healthy and safe alternative for them to get out there, do what kids of their age would typically do. And it's just been awesome. And I just want to, number one, say thank you for what you guys have put out there. So thank you. In mid-March, many of the high school aged kids are later going to join the Longmont team. They've already sent out their newsletter or their email that says they're going to start the Longmont high school team for participating in the High Plains Hockey League. And those kids who would, the rink does close at the end of, I think it's the end of January, is that correct? Currently, that is the proposal, yes. OK, then they're going to have this kind of month of no ice time and all the skills that they've learned and their body has become accustomed to through the patterns that they're skating on the ice with. They're just going to lose traction in their development. So if there is some way that we can extend the ice hours for them, you know, we as parents are happy to pay the extra dollars. I heard that there's, you know, it's a budgetary reason. We're happy to kind of contribute to that, to make sure they get some ice time and continue on here. So be really interested to hear the update after this. And lastly, I just really want to thank the two people that I always see at the ice rink who made this program possible not only this year, but in previous years, Jason Bain and Gene Scott, they just do a phenomenal job with, you know, whether it's a limited budget or whatever they can do, they're always willing and helpful and just want to give a shout out to them. They're doing an excellent job for our city. So thank you. Thank you. OK, and next we have Mike Stallman. Hi, guys. My name is Mike Stallman. I live at 1003 South Bra Street. Got to remember that south because there's someone else that lives up there at 1003 Bra Street and they get my mail all the time. The, you know, I get that it's a budget thing, you know, so I don't really even plan on taking the full three minutes. I'll just like I want to thank you guys for doing what you do. And Jason and Gene and everybody over there are great. All the kids they have helping. My son, Graham is seven, so he's in his last year of mites. I get them all confused, but he's a little guy. And I just love that like it's a rec program. Like there's no pressure to make these kids all stars. Jason keeps it so fun out there. And yeah, it's just a blast to watch and Graham's loving it. He doesn't really he doesn't even know I'm on this meeting, has no idea what's going on. He just goes when I tell him to go. But yeah, he loves it. And yeah, wouldn't miss it for the world. So thanks for all you guys do and let the next person go. Thank you. All right. And next we have Connie Eister. Yeah, this is Connie Eister. I live at two fifteen Welch Drive in Lyons. And my son is ten and he is a squirt. And we also just love this program. It is such an amazing experience for the kids. I know I and a lot of other parents are committed to making the program as successful as possible. And if there's anything the parents can do to help out with the budget issues to extend the ice time for the season, I know there probably are a lot of us that would do that in myself included. So thanks for your time and thanks for letting me speak today. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Paul Secora. Yeah, hi, everybody. Go ahead. Yeah, hi. Am I coming through OK? Yes. Oh, OK, great. First of all, I wanted to thank everybody. Everybody here for having the public. Have an opportunity to speak tonight. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I just want to second everything else that everybody's been saying. I live at thirty six fifty one Clover Creek Lane in Longma, Colorado. My daughter, Jessica, has been looking forward to this hockey season pretty much since it ended last year. She enjoys it so much. And the program is, you know, the best around and she really, really enjoys it. I just want to agree with everybody else that we would love to have the hockey season extended and we would be more than willing to, you know, pay the difference of, you know, what it is to extend the season because we enjoy it so much and it would mean the world to her. That's pretty much all I have. And once again, thank you for having me. Thank you very much. And we have one more caller, Susan Massey. Hi, everybody. I again want to say thank you to all of you for volunteering and doing this thankless job that you do. It means a lot to all of us. And I'm apparently the one representing the figure skaters. So my daughter started at the rink when she was five. She's now about to turn 13. And she started with the Learn to Skate program and fell in love with it and started doing private lessons, not at the ice pavilion, obviously. But it's been a great learning experience for her and just a really growth opportunity for her. And I want to see that extended to other children as well. And again, happy to contribute some extra. I own a business here in Longmont and would be happy to be a sponsor or whatever we can do to extend the season, if possible. Oh, address, sorry, eight to seven tenacity drive. So just thank you. Be happy to help out if we can. Thank you. And Chair Lewis, that was our last caller. Great. Thank you so much. And thank you for all of those of you who took time out of your evening to come and speak with us. We always appreciate hearing from hearing from the public during the public and by to be heard. So now per our amended agenda, I would like to open it to comments and questions. Jeff, do you have anything else you would like to share with the board before we have discussion? Yeah, I would if you would mind. I guess the only thing I would say is, Aaron, do you have anything you want to comment on before you have to leave the meeting? You might have left already. Did he? OK. All right. Be him with the participants list. OK. So. First off, like Paige said, thank you to everybody for the support of the ice rink. This has been a very difficult time with covid, starting when we first closed in March and now the results of some of the impact that we had in in 2020 and what that's done to the twenty twenty one budget. Historically, recreations cost recovery has always kind of protected us from any type of major cuts that would happen within the city, because if you cut a portion of our revenue or a program, it also cut the revenue revenue that went along with that. But when you're not bringing in revenue, it has a different impact that no one else in the city organization faced that recreation is dealing with. Cutting programs, reducing programs, limiting hours is is going to be something that I think the board is going to hear from the public for a while just because of how much things are impacted and and whether it would be discussions about cutting the ice rink. If it would be reduced hours at the rec center or at Centennial Pool or any of our facilities, whether we can open the activity pools this summer, it's going to be something that we all talk about quite a bit. So it it's difficult and not something that we really want to do. But what I will say is that we are working with the city administration to see if there are other options to bring in additional revenue that could keep us open, at least through the end of February, which would be our preference. Part of the reason why we selected January 31st is you start getting into February, March at the ice rink. There are some consistent folks that come with the programming but the drop in skate really starts to fall off, especially right after the the first of the year. So we would be looking at it's a little over twenty seven thousand dollars we would need to be able to keep the ice rink open through all of through mid March. I have a PowerPoint that I can talk about the budget if Paige and everyone, if that's something you want me to take the time to do, that kind of gives a high level explanation of what's going on and why the budget was reduced. You want to take the time to do that. What is that interest of the board or the board members? Maybe you could just give me a thumbs up if you'd like to take some time for that. Great. OK, let's go ahead and do that. Right. Heidi, could you put that up? So this was presented to City Council in September. I have updated a couple of numbers that I'll go forward, but it gives kind of a good summary of of how we got to where we're at right now. If you could go to the next page. Hold on one second here. OK. Here we go. Thank you. So recreation is unique in that it has a financial policy within all of the city's budget policies. It requires recreation to generate at least 80 percent of everything that or most everything that we spend within the vision over the last 10 years. That number has actually been anywhere between 90 and 95 percent of self sufficiency. It does exclude capital expenditures over five thousand dollars, giving an example of that, the treadmills at our facilities. If the treadmills cost five thousand and one dollars, we don't have to recover it. If they cost under five thousand dollars, that would be included in our cost recovery. Free community events are excluded. Those are events like Rhythm on the River and Longmont Lights. Sports field maintenance is not included. The operation of the visitor center out at Sandstone and also youth enrichment enrichment programs. Generally, these are all programs that don't have a real ability to generate any revenue. Next slide, please. So what we experienced in 2020 was many of the guidelines that were adopted or put out by the state and by Boulder County limited the number of people that we could have in our facilities at any one time. And it also included a number of health benefits or, excuse me, things that we needed to do to help make the facility as safe as possible. During 2020, there were a lot of people that really chose not to come back to the facilities because they didn't feel like it was safe with the risk of being exposed to the virus. Next slide, please. So the budget was accepted that it cut revenue and expenditures by 25 percent, which was a total of one million one hundred and twenty seven thousand plus. Next slide. This slide shows you kind of a reference point of where recreation has been over the years in revenue. It shows where we were at the end of August and where we were at the end of each year, including the estimated number for 2020. So one of the big concerns that we have is that, you know, the budget was cut by 25 percent. Our revenue generated in 2020 was actually less than 35 percent of the budgeted revenue that was expected for recreation to come in. Next slide. So what the reductions did was it reduced across the board by 25 percent, all of the budget, excluding regular and part-time benefited employees and the matching benefits. It did reduce the budget by 30 percent for temporary employees. And the like I had mentioned earlier, it did not do any specific cuts to the budget, but was across the board and that based on what recreation staff could do to get more people in our facilities that we would make those priority and programs priority and do cuts in or other reductions in other areas. Next slide. So staff continues to make adjustments based on where we're at right now based on the current guidelines by the state and the county, as everyone knows, that we went early last week from red level to orange level, which worked out really well for places like the Rec Center, the Memorial Building and Centennial Pool because it allowed us to go from 10 people per room up to 50 per room right now, which is a real benefit that starts getting us at least back to the operational level where we were this last summer. But to give you an impact, an example of what that reduction does is at the Rec Center, historically, we've had over 1200 people come to the facility in a day and we were averaging less than 250 people a day during the height of the summer last year. So there really is a major impact on how we can offer our programs right now. One of the things that Council and the leadership team committed to us, that if things start getting back to whatever the new normal is, that we would be able to appropriate those additional revenues and add things back into our budget. But it also says that if revenues continue to decline or not coming in at the level that are expected at the new 2021 level that we could face further reductions. One of the other things that I'd mentioned specifically about the ice rink that becomes a challenge is that the ice rink under the guidelines is offered and opened under the outdoor events category of the guidelines. That allowed us to have 25 people on the ice at any given time based on the social distance calculator. You plug in your square feet and it gives you the number of people that you can have it in your facility at any time. The challenge that we have in ice that makes it not as doesn't help us by going to orange is that the new guidelines would allow us to go to 75 people on the ice. But it still requires you to use the social distancing calculator because we're not adding any more square footage. It keeps us at only 25 people on the ice at any one time. So it really continues to restrict our ability to generate revenue. So that's kind of a summary of where we are budget wise. Overall in the recreation and when we look at the recreation division, we look at cost recovery as a whole in the division. Although we do calculate by program area, the number that really is that matters within the budget office is the overall number for recreation. One of the comments that I received and I believe was forwarded to you all questioned about whether the revenue numbers were being fair to the ice rink. And I believe that it really is that one of the challenges that we have, Heidi, you're OK to shut that off now. Thank you. One of the things that we are experiencing with the virus is that we are selling very few passes. To whether that's a 20-punch pass or an annual pass that would go and make it available to any of our facility, the annual pass allows that and some of the other passes allow that also. So there really isn't any money that can be credited to the ice rink to help it show that it has more revenue coming in specifically to the ice rink. The other thing that there are a number of of expenditures that are covered in other areas of the recreation budget. We don't include any regular staff and employees in that budget. It for like Kerry Torback, who helps oversee the ice rink as the regular staff person, none of her salary is included, as well as none of the administrative costs for marketing and helping with rec track and that sort of thing. So we're really in a difficult place. Again, the one thing that I would say is we have a little bit of time before we can have to make a final decision. I know that people need an answer as soon as possible so that they can make a commitment to participating in those programs. But long story short, our proposal to open was to close on January 31st. So I'm able to answer, try to answer any questions you all might have. Thanks, Jeff. So we'll open now for board member discussion, Dan. Hi, Jeff for our page. I'm not sure do we have a plan duty? What should what can we do as a board? I mean, our main job is to recommend a city council things. And so are we looking for a motion to draft a letter to recommend it stay open longer or not? Or what is it? I mean, unfortunately, Aaron had to leave. But what would city council like from us? Or what what is it you see us doing, Jeff? I think more than anything right now, it's just informational so that you are aware of what's going on at the ice rink. I think, like I mentioned earlier, one of the challenges going to be throughout this year is ice may be just the first in a number of of impacts that we have throughout recreation that you may or may not hear from other members of the community because of the impact to other facilities, other programs that we may have to limit how we can offer those programs. So informational, we're not trying to judge your programs versus each other. I think it is within our purview, though, to make a pass a motion, make a recommendation to council. If there is something that we would like to share with them. Yeah, I would just say that previously. Yeah, that council may be able to come up with more money for one thing, but there are other things that may come up that they're not able to do that. So I'm not trying to downplay what you do tonight, but there is that bigger picture of the of the conversation. Are there questions or comments too? Yeah, I mean, I just first of all, I think that there's not a member of the board who doesn't sympathize and want to keep the ice rink open. So I think it's important the public understands that nor do we want to see other programs cut and from what you're saying, Jeff, it sounds like that's quite a reality for the next year that that's we're going to be having some decisions or you're going to be having decisions like that. Yes, I'm very fearful that, you know, as the vaccinations come out, you know, the word is that it could be, you know, into the summer before the general population starts getting the vaccination. And so that's five, six, seven months before we may be able to get back to normal. So I'm fearful that there may be more cuts. I hope is that there are other ways that we could backfill recreation so we don't have to do that. But based on what I know today, there is a possibility that that could happen more cuts. Well, one thing I heard from reading all the letters and from what the participants tonight said, the public participants, you know, there are many people are willing to help fund it. But what kind of precedent does that start? Or is that some of the city would even allow like, for example, certain groups, you know, could they do a fundraiser and say, here we're going to come up? I mean, what are those possibilities or is that opening a can of worms or? Well, that's always a possibility. You know, staff talked about, you know, would it work to increase fees? The challenge is that to cover the amount that we need to have, we almost have to triple our fees. So what may be five or six dollars right now would go to 15 to 18 dollars a visit and that that's just a ridiculous number that we really can't ask people to pay that kind of money for, you know, an hour on on ice. It just doesn't seem fair. There there are other options. Again, we're looking at along with the city manager and I hope we can make that happen. Nick, I think you had your hand raised. I did. Thank you, Paige. So so my question was understood that there's a 25 skater limit on the ice now. Are we are we maxing out that capacity today or are we still seeing, you know, less usage of the ice pavilion than that? The usage has been pretty good. I would say that it's been right around the 90 percent capacity, which in our experience over the last several months is actually pretty good. The challenge again becomes it's 90 percent of only 25 people per session. It's not, you know, there are there are times during the holidays, normal holidays that we can have 150 to 200 people on the ice to the point where it gets to be too crowded and it gets uncomfortable in that direction. The thing I failed to mention earlier that I think was one of your questions that you had sent me, Nick, was I also would like to commend counts are excuse me, the staff and the public on how well they've received the restrictions, how they're worked with reservation system staff making sure that things are safe. So there is no issue in my mind about the safety of using the ice rink. It's really about those impacts of limited numbers that can come in there at any one time. Jeff, Ellen Bogan, did you have a comment? Well, I mean, one of the questions was already answered, which Jeff said it would be about $15. I was trying to do the math of what would it really cost, you know, and, you know, obviously a few of these parents said that they would be interested in funding it, but I don't think anyone was thinking about funding $27,000. So I guess I don't have a specific question of the I'm just trying to think about how could there be a balance between what is a reasonable rate? Is it $9 an hour? Is it $11? I don't know. But clearly there's people that want to use this and let's imagine someone said, here's my $27,000 check. Could parks and rec keep it open? I guess that's my biggest question. Yeah, we could do that. Yes. And so I guess if you're if you're trying to make it balanced at $18,000, could we keep charging the current rate and then would we have the numbers? I guess I'm not. I'm wondering how much fundraising do we need balanced with the current rate? Or what would we raise the price to with a certain amount of fundraising? There's got to be some graphs or something that someone could make. But right. Clearly the public wants it. I think we as staff can do some work with the folks using the ice rink to see what that number is. If it's, you know, five or six dollars right now, would they be comfortable with a couple more dollars each time that helps reduce that $27,000? But again, I certainly wouldn't expect anybody to be paying, you know, 15 plus to go for an hour. You know, for the month of January, we're looking at sorry about that. I don't know how that happened. So for the month of January, we are looking at being about $19,000 behind. That's not included in the 27,000 number, but it was a choice that we made with the city administration that we knew we wouldn't be able to recover at 80 to 100 percent level. The ice rink has done very well. The last in 2019, which was recovering right at 100 percent. So to make the commitment to keep the ice rink open, you know, we're we're going to have to find ways to cover that cost. You go February and March. It's a 27,000 more. So yeah, go ahead. Menos is a private rental is an option option. All the people who wanted coming as a group and do the private rental. You say that once more. Is a private rental is an option in all the people who wanted to keep it open coming as a group and do a private rental. Then yes, we can we can do rentals, but it's still that the maximum number of people at a time is only 25. Okay. So I would just add from my own personal perspective. I mean, I think some of you know my son is part of the hockey program and we definitely would add to the appreciation that was expressed by many of the callers for having a what is I think a pretty unique outdoor recreation facility available to us. It's definitely been a blessing for keeping a 10 year old boy active during COVID times. I understand that the budget situation is really challenging. I wonder if we as a board might consider at least expressing our support for council to look at options for keeping the ice rink open at least through February and encourage council and or staff. I'm not sure exactly what the best messaging would be just to explore all the options that might be available. I mean, it sounds like we had one. Parents I think speak about potential sponsorship. You know, maybe there's some work that folks who use ice rink a lot could do in terms of you know, potentially lining up sponsors that could help make up for part of that cost. So I really do think if there's anything that we could do to keep this really unique facility going. That would be great recognizing that it's a difficult situation across the board. There are second to that motion. Second views. Did you want to second or yeah. I wasn't sure if you were second. You never wanted to make a comment. Is there any further discussion? There are members. We have a community member that has their hand raised. Did you want to open for a second comment? Am I allowed to generally once we that's totally up to the board. Generally we don't do that, but this is a unique situation. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. You're playing. How do you think? Yes, go ahead. Can you help us with that? Yes. So very anxious. The extra time you mentioned to keep things open until mid-March would be $27,000. If I prorate that straight, that might not be a prorate straight thing. It comes out to for the end of March that comes down to $18,000, maybe because of year-end cutover activities. It's $20,000. Let's say if there's a hundred kids enrolled in the programs that comes out to about roughly $200 per skater or per figure skater per family. If you got a commitment from us on in a I don't know. However, you would like us to present that to you that these families are committed to extending through end of February at a rate of $200 per person. That gets you to exactly where you need to get to in that simple math. Is that something we can agree on? I mean, that's, I mean, that's the people who are asking. Yeah, that's simple math of people who want to see this thing open. They love the program. I would guess that every dad and mom would sign up for that under these current conditions. And it'd be a real quick way to meet your needs for a financial budget. We certainly could do that. The $27,000 shortfall is offset already by $8,000 that we'd already have to bring in. So we would need $27,000 on top of that. But absolutely we can talk about that. I will, I will get with you tomorrow and we can work out more details about that. Does that work? Yeah, that's fine. If you want to take down my email, it's or it's a J. Deputat. My first letter, my first name deputat at gmail.com. And if you'd like my phone number, it's 720-839-1120. And I'm happy to coordinate getting signatures or whatever you need to get a headcount. But I would need some help. Maybe you guys could send something because I don't have all the figure skaters names and everything like that. I know it's confidential and I want to probably work through you guys to get some distribution out. Yep. Yep. We can do that. I will be in touch with you tomorrow. Sounds good. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. Dan. I'm not sure exactly what motion you made page, but does this need that necessary, you know, that we do it now or are we just going to direct Jeff to, hey, go talk to juridge and go forward. I mean, I don't know what we do now. I think it would still be an idea to do the motion. To make it. I wasn't really staffed to who the city council, just a reminder, the board really cannot direct staff. You are advisory to the board so are to council. So it'd be important that they hear that. Could you restate office restate? Yep. I move that we recommend to city council that they explore all options for sustaining the ice rink and associated programs at least through February and if possible through mid-March. That was me saying I second that while muted. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion before we vote? I suspect that Jeff is right that we will get if this when this becomes public knowledge for the city council that then the swimming group, the swim team folks are going to ask us to do this sort of thing, which is fine by me. But or do you see a can of worms here to Sue's point? You know, are we stepping on toes Jeff or is this good? Are you good with this? I'm okay with the recommendation to council. Absolutely. I do want I don't want it to become where we're competing against other uses where let's keep X open. I don't care if you close why I just want my thing to stay open and I think that would be a very difficult place for us to be. If does that make sense? It does. And the fact that we're bringing in extra money sort of obviates that because you're not asking to take away Jim time, you know, so I think we're not setting a precedent that we can't follow. Exactly. I agree. You well then I guess I do have the question. Are there other I know you've had to, you know, cut hours and different things like that for all the different activities, but have you done anything as dramatic as this situation where you're cutting, you know, to, you know, month and a half off of the ice time? Well, I think that some folks would think that not keeping the rec center open till 10 o'clock at night, not being open until 6 o'clock on Saturday or Sunday may have some of those same opinions that that's pretty drastic. Also, you know, the Memorial building is not open on the weekends. Centennial has some limited hours on Saturday, but I don't think it's open on Sunday either. So, you know, the other things we'd be looking at doing is, you know, maybe sunset is open, but it has different hours. I'm concerned about whether the activity pools will be able to be open this summer. And, you know, they're all, they're all great things and we as staff don't want to say, Hey, this is important and this isn't because the way recreation is set up is we really try to offer a program that serves as many people in the community as possible. I agree. I just, I agree that I don't want people to start to think that there's favorites or they have to start up some kind of a petition or a go fund me or I just, I do think that would be not in the best interest of the city. I would agree. I would hope people wouldn't do a go fund me for the city of Longmont. I, that's just me talking. Well, I do. I mean, I know the city has a lot of things to balance and I do hope across the board on recreation, all of our recreation facilities and open space that they'll give careful consideration to how important these resources have been and will continue to be as we make our way through the COVID situation. Council has always been very supportive of parks and rec and they've been great. Are we ready to vote on the motion? Sure. Okay. All those in favor? I don't see any opposed. Okay. I apologize for bringing such a difficult thing to you. First meeting off out of the out of the gate and Scott and Nick's first meetings ever. It's always this exciting. Come on. Okay. Thanks everyone for a good discussion and thanks again to the members of the public that joined us. Our next order of business going back to the agenda is to do the approved approval of the previous month's minutes. And so that actually is October from our last meeting was October 12th. Does anyone have any changes to the minutes? I had two very small ones. Let me pull them up for some reason. My computer doesn't want to pull them up. So maybe I can send them to Aurora leader. They're just typo. Yeah, nothing substantive. So, so if we pass the motion just with those changes, that way it covers us. There's two small amendments on page three. Okay, forthcoming. Okay, do I have a motion to approve the minute? Dan makes the motion. Do I have a second? Oh, or do you have a comment? You're just motioning. Okay. Do I have a second to approve the minute? Okay. Great. Thank you. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Do I think you're abstaining because you weren't here? Is that correct? It wasn't present at that meeting. So I wasn't sure if I, I mean, I approved them, but I wasn't present. I didn't know the protocol. My impression is that it's up to you to either abstain or. Okay. I approve. And Scott, did you vote? I just didn't see. I was abstaining as well because I wasn't there. Okay. Great. Thank you. The minutes are approved. And now we go to old business. Yeah, we have any old business? No. Okay. New business. We need to designate our meeting day and time, which. Currently, this is our meeting day and time on the second Monday of the month at 6 30. Our and our location is here on zoom until we're allowed to meet in person again, but for our new members, we generally meet at the facility off of sunset. Right. For these, this info will need three separate motions. Okay. Word is okay with the second Monday at 6 30. We need one motion for that. I move that we keep the meeting at 6 30 on the second Monday of the month. We have a second second. Great. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Hey, looks unanimous. Oh, okay. Yeah. What should we do for location? I would say that during current times, the meeting would be on zoom and and still recommend that the meeting stay at the parks building at the south seven or south sunset. You both let's include both of those. Okay. Someone like to move that we have our interim meeting location be zoom and we will reserve resume to our south sunset location as soon as possible. I need a motion. I move that we. That our meeting location during COVID times or when necessary virtually will be on zoom and when we can meet in person will be at the park and rec building on south sunset. Thank you. We have a second. Dan, thanks. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Great. Thank you. Okay. Designation for the proud agenda. Hope things. So we have some new direction this year. The city's legal folks are recommending that we only designate the city's website as the official location. Staff would still continue to post them at the rec center memorial building Centennial pool and that the other locations that we had before, but they recommend that we only the official location is on the website. Okay. Is there any questions or discussion about that before we make a motion? Yeah. Jeff, is that is this legal ease or so we're not responsible or why is that's a difference that must have come from the attorneys or something? Yes. Yep. And they recommended just doing online, but staff will continue to do the other locations that we're doing. Do you have a list of those locations like this include the library and all that stuff or the library no longer posts them so we can't they were on our list, but we wouldn't do that anymore. Let me see if I can find the full list and then I'll jump back in. Yeah, I mean, that's all right. I personally would look on the website myself. I just don't know if you've had other people complain in the past that it's not here. It's not there. I just curious. No, we have not. Okay. So it's I don't think you need to look it up unless you feel like it. Jeff, I was just curious. Okay. Okay. Do we have a motion to have the official location for the posting of crab meeting agendas be on the website? I move that the official posting for the crab agenda be on the city website. Do we put anything? I mean, do they put like by a certain date? Do we put anything like that in there to say? No. Okay. Great. Thank you. So do we have a second? Like a net motion. Great. Thanks, Nick. All those in favor? Hi. Great. Thank you. Okay. We're official. We have a meeting time and location and we're good to go. Okay. So our next item is to discuss 2021 crab agenda calendar. Jeff, if I'm recalling from last year, this is primarily gathering ideas for things that board members would be interested in addressing at future meeting. Yes. That's correct. And then staff will take that information, plug it into a calendar and present that to you at the February meeting. Great. Okay. So I would open discussion. What topics are on your mind that you would like to hear during our future meeting? Ann. I had some discussion with Jeff and David offline, but we discussed this past year, the trail system and working with Boulder County, but also add to that bike trails within the system, within the city. And what our, is there a long-term plan? And now that Scott, you're on the board, maybe you have additional info or experience. I think it would be great. It doesn't have to be right away, but sometimes soon we get a better feel for what all is going on and happening or not. And you know, maybe we could daydream about what should happen. So that would be a item I'd be interested in. Great. So Steve or David, are you still in the meeting? Yeah, I'm here. I think David's here. Yeah, we're both here. That's one of the reasons I invited Steve here to see you chat a little bit. Definitely a topic. I think that is important for our work group and we would love to see what the board feels about it, but Steve can definitely give you more details and, and thoughts about how we're moving forward right now. So. Yeah, Steve, you know the trails connection presentations you've done in the past. That might be a good one. Okay, I'll have to update them, but yes. Yeah. I think Scott's probably seen that ad in banana. We've had a yeah, it's been it's been are the direction of our street fund, which helps fund the trail projects has taken a bit of a turn in the past four or five years. And so there's some pretty high dollar projects that the street fund is is attempting to fund which obviously pulls money away from some of the the the smaller dollar trail projects that we've been trying to focus on. There's that there's also been a challenge of staff to build projects designed to build these projects and we've had obviously the challenges of COVID. That being said, I think that we have been successful in adding the spring ult to trail project between Steven Day Park and Union Reservoir, which I found out this afternoon is somewhat open. I don't it's not done yet, but it's for the most part open. I think people are coaching it, which is great. And we're working to look to fund that last connection of that corridor from Union Reservoir to Sandstone Ranch Highway 119 in 2022. I believe is the the year that we're looking to try to get that done, finished the design in 21 and then constructed in 2022. I'm happy. Hold on, Dan. I need to report right now, Steve. Thank you. But the future calendar. So that's I was just going to say, Steve, I think, you know, I think adding that I actually heard Dan, I think it's a great topic, but I actually heard from a couple other members to looking at kind of that play between those little those missing trail pieces that add some mileage, but also some of that longer range regional trail system too. So we can all add that all into one agenda item and Steve can have the evening. That'll be great. I can't wait for my evening. But actually one of the other things that we are discussing is with limited dollars where we look at adding trail connections where they're missing versus replacing existing trail corridors that are deteriorating. There's some along the old Gargi ditch North and 9th Avenue along the rough and ready ditch between Mountain View and Pace. There's there's several sections of trail that really need some work and they're all part of the same program. So it's a matter of prioritizing replacement over adding new and we're trying to come up with the best way to handle that. Yes, Dan. That's a nice segue into my next request, which is in the past. We have done field trips. Is there something we should be thinking? I mean, we're in covid. So it's not obvious how we do it. But maybe by summertime when we in the past we've done field trips, you know, I'm thinking of button rock was a great one. For example, that was way cool to go down in the dam. That was really cool. But is there something you guys would like to show us? For example, the left hand ditch bike park would have been nice this month or soon by the time we figure it out, it might be settled. But maybe Steve, this kind of example of overgrown versus new is there's you guys maybe daydream about is there something we should do as a board in the past? We've invited City Council. I'm just throwing that out there. I think it kind of got screwed up last year because of covid. But maybe we put that back. Come summer doing like a trail ride or something to look at the trail systems and explore the connections. I think back when we were dreaming in January before covid, I think that was on our list. I think the right page and yeah, I'd be happy to take the the board out to a number of different locations. That being said, I think there's a good conversation to be had as far as the value of trails that are not necessarily in the best shape being Rehabilitated versus adding new connections and obviously the same dollars go toward each of those prospects. So that's something we'll have to have to figure out as we're putting together this year's capital improvement program. Right. Other board interest for future agenda. I would like to know more about the volunteer programs that Park and rec has. I mean, I know that I hear people go out and do receding or do just different things with natural resources. But I feel like I wish I knew more about it and I wish I was still like it's a I should get involved myself. But maybe if I saw some visual like kind of what they're doing kind of be kind of exciting to see that. Also, I think David Bell promised a kayak trip down the water waterways. First, I will say that the volunteer piece who I'd love to have Danielle talk about that is a piece that I think we still even with a half-time volunteer career, we're missing a lot of opportunities for our community that really want to be engaged in the longer they're stuck in the house, the more they want to be out and engaged too. So I think we have lots of great opportunities and I'll definitely put Danielle on the list. One of the unfortunate pieces is that Danielle is that got a kind of a combined position which is which is half-time volunteer coordinator, half-time project manager. So I actually because she did so much with volunteer coordination. She'll be working with Steve and Kathy to try to get some of these regional trails done too. So is it right now. So we'll do that and then the kayak and I'm going to lead that to Dan Wolfer because if I'm we're getting kayaks and someone's leading us, it's not going to be me. A great trip. We did talk about that. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Other ideas of Jeff, you had a comment. David, did you want to talk about Macintosh at all? Yeah, if this is the time. One of the things that I don't know if you want me to throw an agenda item out there before the board of chats, but one things that we've seen throughout our system this year. You know, Jeff and the ice privilege is just one piece of that as people have lost opportunities to do other things. Our parks have been become extremely important to people getting out there for their mental and physical health. I think it's something that as professionals to feel that's what we're always trying to feel how we engage people to get more people out there. However, that comes with lots of different challenges on what people expect when they're parks, how much infrastructure we have in parks, what is a decent experience in a park, what is safe in a park be that on the water or in a COVID environment. So we are going to have to continue to look at how we manage some of these areas. They're getting a lot of use Macintosh is going to be prior our most challenging one. Dan and I are taking a kind of core team to look at that. We've used volunteers this past year. Jeff had provided someone with his rec staff that was repurposed while the rec centers are closed down. We had PD office out there and we still kind of we know that the public is not seeing up city staff trying to manage that property. Dickens Park the same thing. I don't think we get as many calls or complaints because we don't have the neighbors out there, but I think as a staff member and people to go out there and see it, we would recognize that there's their impacts out there that we want to feel how to manage. So I think with this board, I would just love to be able to use your expertise, your use of these facilities and help us think what what our parks don't look like, you know, in the coming years as we always thought it was going to be that increase in population on front range, which is still happening, but we just got a really quick look at what it looks like when a lot of people aside, this is the place they want to be. So I don't know how to add that as an agenda item, but it's something I'd like you to be involved with as you start hearing about ways that we help manage the public in our public spaces. Great. So I'm capturing that as options for planning for managing our parks and open spaces, balancing recreation needs and condition of resources. I think that works other idea. There's a chance that this isn't a good idea based on COVID and the budget. We just talked about, but I know for a fact, we talked last year about Centennial pool basically dying at some point. And I'm wondering if that's something we should come back to in this year at any point. So that in, I think they said five years that pool is gone. And is that something we should talk about this year or is that just off the table for now because of the budget? I think it would still be on. I think at the beginning of last year, council asked us to do some work to see what recreation facility or facilities are needed. And I think that could be a part of the all encompassing conversation. I think it'd be great to have a brainstorming session with the board and then move it to public taking public comment and having public meetings thereafter. There was a whole part last time I thought about going back and doing surveys again and things like that. I mean, is that whole process needing to start over again, basically? Yes. And that's the part I was worried about was like based on the budget, how could we possibly plan on spending all this money to build a new pool? But that's an excellent point. I do think that planning and being prepared for when times are better is a good idea though. Yeah, I just have to agree with that, Jeff. I think it's, I think we all have been very careful about not bringing up the possibility of a new facility, which would include a pool. But, you know, it's only a matter of time where we're going to be in really big trouble and not, you know, especially if we lose in Tenille. I think it's time, if it's the appropriate climate to get started very soon on that idea. Yeah. Great. I would agree with that. And I would also, I would be interested in hearing more about the Forest Health Partnerships. Like, you know, I know about the same Brain Forest Health Partnership that maybe that in related work that the city is doing to protect the watersheds and the open space. So at some point, I'd love to have an update and discussion on that. Do that. Now, I think one of the things that we've talked about in this event area, we're working really hard to bring brands right now for restoration work after the fires too. So that was all tying together. Dan. The Centennial Pool conversation reminded me that the ballot issue for a new pool failed. We, I would be in favor of re-upping that whole discussion and I don't know if that means we need a brainstorming session or what, but how do we go forward or even do we? My answer would, or my opinion up front is yes. How do we do better? What do we need? We needed something from the school district saying what they're building in any case, should this forward and how should this board go forward with some kind of ballot issue about whether we have a rec center or a new pool or an ice rink or whatever it is, you know, maybe that's an ongoing thing and item agenda every month or every other month or do we have a brainstorm session about it? I think that's what Sue was suggesting too, at least how I captured it. So yeah, I think we all agree on that one. Okay. Great. The notes. So I misunderstood. Yeah, I would like to explore the option in this budget cut. I would like to explore it for big corporates adopting the park and funding it like in EDE, one gas company funded the park. So that kind of option I'm looking if corporates which is in Longmont can fund those so that we have some dependencies freed up corporate sponsorship opportunity. Yeah. Scott or Nick. You're new. Anything you want to see on the agenda over there? One item that came up to me is obviously we spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, what new exciting parks we want to build, which is an important part of the work that we do on the board, but I think also what we said of sometimes is how do we account for and budget for appropriately the maintenance ongoing of existing parks infrastructure, especially as we're expanding to add new parks. How do we calculate that those projects and make sure that we're making sure we can continue to support these existing projects and they don't become outdated overgrown, you know, no longer usual to the public. Great. Thanks. Nick, this is Steve Ranzweiler. I can say that we are talking about that on a regular basis, but we're hoping to come up with a new assessment of how we're budgeting for maintaining our parks in 2021. So we can certainly involve Prav in that conversation. Fantastic. Anything else? That's a great list. Awesome. So I don't know, Jeff, I'll send you the notes that I took. I'm sure Aurora's got great notes too, but you know, and if there's anything I can do to be helpful in turning this around for the board for February, just let me know. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So now we are at items from staff. Does anyone have anything? So ongoing items is first, which is generally the. It's not on my script, Jeff. If it's not on my script, I don't know about it yet. All right. Well, we can just go to items from staff then. I don't have anything. Are there ongoing items that we should discuss? Generally the ongoing items are what is included in your packet and it does kind of a summary for the past period of time of what's going on and we're able to answer any questions if you have on those. I do have a question, but yeah, Dan, go ahead. I think Jeff, that's what I remember also, Jeff, was that ongoing items. That's the headers that you folks, the one from Jeff, from David, I forget if Dan Wolford has one, Steve often has one and like you said, Paige, we go through and ask questions about the various items in their thing. Is that next or is that later? I think it sounds like from Jeff, it's next. So I'm inserting it in my script and that's where we're going. So if anyone has questions from the materials that were included in your packet and there was a memo from David and staff, I think that covers all of the parks and open space and then there's one for recreation. Dan? I have a whole list. Should I start or you can shut me up when I'm done, when you think I'm done. Why don't you start with a couple and then we'll do a round robin. Okay, the first one for Steve mentioned was the workman in South Clover Basin Parks. Do we need to be thinking about park names or do you guys do that? I forget the order or how that comes up. We talked about workman, didn't we? Yeah, that already went to college. I keep waiting to see a final name. Well, that's why I brought it up because it says workman. Yeah, it'll say that until I'm done with construction because that's easy to relate to what the property is called. If you recall back in early 2020, the board voted to suggest to City Council the name Clover Meadows Park for South Clover Basin Neighborhood Park. I have not yet taken that to City Council and that's partly because it's I haven't gotten to that yet and partly because there's been other things in City Council's mind this past year. And if you will remember workman neighborhood park, the parks board direction was to name it after a local resident of Hispanic. Oh, thank you. Thanks, my fault. I was meeting with staff who would help me with that right when COVID hit. COVID hit our staff was more concerned with engaging the Latino population about COVID rather than naming a park after somebody. But I have since mid December been talking with those folks again and we have a meeting I believe next week, maybe late this week to talk about how to best come up with a recommendation for City Council. We did not feel going to City Council and just saying hey name it after somebody with a Latino last name was the best way to go. So we're going to engage the local leaders of the Latino population and try to get a couple of recommendations City Council for them to choose from. I don't anticipate that coming back to Park Sport unless unless you guys would like me to do so. There were some recommendations made by the public already. Yes. Okay. Yes, you're correct. And those would be included in whatever recommendations go to City Council. Yes, and but we felt it would be best to try to engage the Latino population and get a recommendation or two from those folks. Yeah, absolutely. That answer your question, Dan. Yeah, thanks. I have a couple more while you're on there, Steve. The St. Vaing Greenway Phase 12 and the missing Greenway Trails in your summary both mentioned land acquisition, whether that's ongoing, it's acquired or not and are we talking strips here or is this a new park following St. Brain or you know how much land do we think or what should I be visualizing? So for St. Vaing Greenway Phase 12, which for the board is between Golden Ponds and Airport Road. There's a single property owner who is obligated to dedicate land needed for the trail south or north. Both of the creek. Oh, the trail will be in the north side, but the land dedication will be on both sides of the creek to better protect the riparian corridor and allow us maintenance access to that corridor. I've been trying and they know the property owners know that they need to dedicate the land. There are some minor questions I have on the legal description that they've provided for us to assume dedication of the property. The same property owners are involved in some other negotiations with the city as far as land acquisitions not related to the St. Brain Greenway, but they're probably more focused on those right now that something to do with Costco. And so that's where the focus I believe of the land owner and their consultants is I'm continuing to remind them that I need to get this land dedicated. I'm trying to definitely bring that to their attention without compromising the land acquisition that the city is also working on from the same group of people. So I'm hoping David and I have been talking with these these folks. I'm hoping it happens in the very new future future. I will send them another email tomorrow to remind them that the St. Brain Greenway for the I should imagine a dozen yard strip on either side of the St. Brain there. It's actually it's it's more than that. But yes, this this the land that they're dedicating to us has been decided seven eight years ago. Oh, in general, a drawing on a Google Earth map. So getting into the meets and bounds and the legal descriptions is where we're trying to make sure that the details the eyes are dotted and T's across. Thanks. David, did you have anything to add to that? I think you're good. Other questions. Steve or just in general in general. From the board packet. Oh, well, I just had one question for Jeff under Roosevelt programming. I just didn't understand what the information was about the apartment complex. How about tied in with recreation? That was number four under Roosevelt. I didn't I just was curious. Oh, throughout the year with covid. Some of the recreation staff have been repurposed to do other things. Okay. One of the things that the city of Longmont is very involved with and now running is Longmont housing authority. And so I have two staff people that are helping with a remodel of one of the properties and their job is to help get people ready to be moved to get them moved. And then once the renovation is done to get them moved back to their LHA property. Okay. So it just really doesn't it's not a park wreck thing. It's just a repurposing of your employees. Correct. Okay. I've wondered that too. Dan. I have one while Jeff's on the hot plate. 150th year recreation celebration, something or there's another committee. Do we need to be interfaced at all or care? I think you should care. We're we're trying to work with the city committee. City of Longmont celebrates its 150th year this year. And so we're looking at trying to do some activities that would be along the lines of 150 things to do in Longmont in a year, which some of them are just going to a park. You know that that sort of thing. And as we get more information, I will have that on the agenda. I have another one while a more direct one, which is I read your statistics on usage and it's amazing. You know 90 plus 99 plus percent for a lot of this, you know, lap lanes and stuff, but I hear lots of complaining about the reservation system. Also, I use it a lot and I'm sure Susan the same boat, but is there a way or do you have a number for how many no shows there are you? I ask is because the only way to cancel right now is to talk to a staff member. Right, and that is an issue with the system. I don't have the number for no shows. It isn't as large as what I thought, but it is a an issue because it's taking spots from people that could go there. But there's no way to fix the issue right now. We've been talking on a regular basis with Vermont systems because the major complaint through this whole thing is how do I get in? I can't get in because you're two weeks out. Some people know how to use the system better than others and it is a challenge. Yeah, in particular the 6am Centennial or 5am Rec Center swimming lanes, you basically have to be up two weeks ahead at 6am to get a spot by 601. All the spots are gone. Literally, I don't know if any of you have tried this and then if something comes up and you want to cancel, you know, at the last minute, that's not possible and other folks are looking. I mean, it's inconvenient and it's, you know, nobody wants to get up in the hope that I could swim if nobody shows. That's not happening. So there is frustration for a very small number of people. It's a large amount of frustration. Yep, I agree. I'm hoping that going to 50 now in the pool and I'm also hoping that we're going to be able to at some point in time have more than one person in a lane that that will make things better at least. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. But anyway, you can't cancel. That's not happening unless there's a software upgrade. Right. I would love to hear an update on what happened. I know council talked about the dirt track that was created on the near left hand. Could you guys give an update on what the plan is for that? Yeah, I'd be glad to. So we really went to council. We went with three options. I'll start with the one that was really kind of pushed out there and that was really to go in right now, restore the area, fence it off, make sure that everyone's aware that that is not a place you can be and then work with education enforcement to manage that and then add an additional bike track area of some sort in that general vicinity. And I will defer to Steve on that final cost was that I think we ended up on that one as over a hundred thousand dollars to all of us. That right? Yeah, it's about 120,000. Yes. 120,000 dollars to all that. So the next two options really were we we know that that's where appearing area or appearing area has been very important to staff and council and to make sure we could at least get it closed off. Try to make sure we don't do any additional damage or have others do additional damage. So we wanted to do our due diligence by increasing fencing and signage bringing our seasonal summer Rangers and then do some educational work out there. There's kind of two ways we could do that. As you've heard throughout this night trying to just get the money as one part of it is other pieces trying to get the staffing to manage projects. So one recommendation was like was basically telling council that we could get the fencing up and get the signs up fairly quickly and then we'd look at the rebadge work as volunteer opportunities and CIP projects and this would need to phase that in over time. But know that we just wanted to decrease the degradation is going on right now. The second piece was really just having council takes with their contingency funds and start with that whole process and hopefully trying to get for a spring restoration project and kind of move that up again even with dollars. It's still because of the challenge to get the staffing and contracting and volunteer work in place. So staff recommendation was really let's get it closed down and then we can work on the phasing council went back and forth between let's throw some money out and get it done quicker sooner than later and finally came down to a second vote which was go ahead and let staff work it into their CIP project with some pretty strong. Direction from Harold that are our planning timeline will probably be a little shorter than we may have thought it would have been so it's a priority. We know it is we will then take the BMX bike track portion of it and Steve has some upcoming projects that get wrapped into in a couple of years. We also have some existing bike skills areas that Steve definitely identified as areas you can get to on trail without even having to cross roads. So our goal is right now. Dan Wilford and Timber Tosti are my parks manager. They've got contracts going to get the fencing in place. We'll be working to get more signs out there. We can start looking at seed mixes doing prep work on the area and then again the goal would be have something totally done in place by a fall a fall planting using volunteers and contractors. Dan thanks. I was just going to ask quickly if anyone has asked those that built the bike track to participate in the rehabilitation would be great to see them volunteer to repair the area. So I appreciate you saying that page in that volunteering and asking them. So as we do volunteer outreach when we know when that window is we know that neighborhood we were engaged with the process and we can ask and we had the push for doing more restorative justice program restored justice though is something that we just don't want to knock on doors and say you're in restorative justice. It really is there's typically a ticket's written through some sort of law enforcement agency then restored justice becomes an alternative sentencing program for that. So that really was a piece that was kind of off the table for us at this point but reaching out that community and working with that group I think would be great opportunity. We will definitely engage that. Thank you. Any other questions from the board pocket? If not, we would then move to items from staff. Any items from staff? I don't. Okay, no. Actually so Jeff I just would I don't really have anything else you guys really I think you did a great job of covering all the stuff that I was going to talk about which is the bike area Macintosh and those pieces. So I think it's great retract trails and and actually Nick I think the budget piece is something that as Steve mentioned we're talking about internally and how you look at those numbers with that increase use to make sure that we're protecting our resources with providing opportunities for the public new new new opportunities as well as maintaining what we have and a lot of our recreational areas interface with wildlife areas too. So we want to make sure we strike that balance appropriately so it's a good conversation how we move forward there. The other thing I want to say is not an update but congratulations to our new chair and and co-chair. I think you'll do a great job and again Nicholas I think it was great you raise your hand right there on the first day because it was getting kind of quiet there for a moment. So thanks for doing that. Hey, hey, Paige. We have a gentlemen that is wanting to talk. We only had one public invited to be her time tonight, but he's been waiting and I wondered if you wanted him to be able to talk right now. Yeah, sure. I'm fine with that. I wonder don't we usually have one towards the end of the meeting? Yeah, and because of the zoom we had gone just to having one at the early part of the meeting. But he has been waiting quite a while so Does anyone have any objections to hearing from this person? Great. Let's go ahead and do that. Thanks for letting us know, Jeff. Okay, Mike, I'm going to unmute you if you can please state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes. All right. Thank you. My name is Mike Whitten. I live at 1078 Redbud Circle. I really didn't have a whole lot that I wanted to comment on tonight. I was just hoping to kind of check in on some of the park rehab stuff. I've talked to Steve a couple of times about a year ago when we when you're working on the workman plan. I was representing the disc golf group unofficially, so I just wanted to check in to see what the schedule looks like for Lou Miller. And I know Centennial is on the schedule and I was having some technical problems getting into the meeting. So I missed some. I heard you guys talking about budget stuff. So I'm wondering if that's going to be affecting the schedules for that stuff, too. I wonder, Steve, is that something that you could follow up with Mike on directly? Or would it be better for us? I can give a very basic thing that yeah, that'd be fine, Steve. Budgets and schedules were adversely impacted by COVID. We're certainly coming out of those things. I would anticipate that we're going to start construction here in the next four or five months on workman. We have not removed any of the disc golf components that were included in the approved master plan. I know Lou Miller is supposed to also get under construction here in 2021. We are, you know, obviously we're working with limited staff and ever changing budget based on priorities outside of our control. That being said, this is the one thing that I wanted to mention to Jeff and to David and to the board is that the capital improvement program that we are going to be working on for 2022-2026. We have to have our recommendations in as staff by mid to late March. And so I would encourage you to read. Look up the previous previously approved CIP as well as maybe we have a conversation at some point in the next next couple months as far as what the board may feel might be their recommendations for how we prioritize our funds and staff moving forward in the next four or five years. David, you might want to add on to that. Yeah, I really want to say is that I almost, I know it's hard for the public. I think any more, but we're all living through it, but to constantly hear COVID, COVID, COVID and budget cuts, but it's just really is a reality. One of the things we're very fortunate with is that Steve Longman did a great job of maintaining staff, maintain the ability to maintain what we have. And in our group on like just we really didn't get cuts, but we had stuff put on hold just in case. So Steve and Kathy's budgets were basically the workman's south clover basin for base said we're not going to move forward with anything else at this point because we don't know what's coming up. So we're kind of a holding pattern on stuff. And Steve mentioned that things start opening up and things are looking better. We're in a pretty good spot where we can start moving quickly because those those funds are still out there. They're just being held because there are so many uncertainties in everything we're doing right now. Yeah, I remember the meeting where I lost 11 million dollars in about an hour. Didn't lose was just said hold off and so that was that was quite the sobering meeting that I had. Great. Okay. Thanks Mike for your call and even Dave for your responses. And it sounds like we should maybe Jeff and Dave put the capital improvement project list on the agenda for February just to review that and discuss. Yep. Any other items from staff before we move to items? Oh yeah, David. I'm sorry, I'm going to do one more thing real quick because I didn't get a chance. I just thanked everyone here, but there was something else that we were trying to get done. It's just so hard doing this remote piece and I leave it up to maybe I can work with Jeff and figure out how we do it. But I don't know how many people had a chance to see Paula Fitzgerald's book on this. I have copy of this for all of the proud members that I'd like to get to you. We can figure out how best we can do that. But again, just really appreciate all your work. This is a it's just a wonderful book. And I think it really goes to show that, you know, from the inception of Longmont parks have been a very important part of what this community is all about and having this group coming together and taking their time to continue that is this. I think just great. I really appreciate everything you do. The other piece I just found about today. I had no idea someone is doing this. We had a woman stop by the office and she did a book on Roseville Park. Oh, is it backwards to you guys? No, mine is backwards. So, so she did it. She did this book. Jeff, have you seen this? No, I haven't. That's awesome. And she is, I don't know if anyone can tell knows her name. And the Hargrove. Oh, yes. They've done some benches and stuff. They've done some benches and stuff out at Roosevelt as well. It's a fairly dense textbook. Not quite as graphic as policy. There is some really, really fascinating stuff in here. So this is something that she's going to have available from Amazon. I'll see if I get a couple copies and maybe put them in the Memorial building here and open library. I can't get these out, but definitely just for the fact you guys do such great work. I'd like to make sure I get a copy of this to you. So we'll Jeff and I'll figure out how we do that. Well, can we stop buying, pick it up? Yeah, if you give a call or shoot an email, we'll make sure there's somebody here to do that. Again, that's on top of the fact that we're all meeting and these means like this, we don't really have front door people or office people. So there's not always somebody here, but we will make sure if you guys shoot an email over and say the time that works, we can figure that out. Hey, again, where is here? Seven cells on set. Okay. So David and Jeff and Paige, sorry, just one last thing that we haven't met in a while, but I'm not sure if the board knows that the Dickens Farm Nature Area was awarded the, you're shaking your head page. So I did. Yeah, no, it's great. Cut your center around the notice about it to the board. Okay. Good. Yeah. The American Public Works Association Colorado chapter was awarded for the best park or trail project in 2020. We are submitting Dickens for a National APWA award here. Applications are due by early March, I believe. So something that hopefully we can bring attention to our city from all over the country. So I'm excited about that. Awesome. Yeah. Congratulations again about that. That was a terrific award. Great work, Steve and Paige. I can't stop talking here. So just a, I'm sorry, Heather just texted me. I don't know if you guys all know Heather, but Heather, it's just amazing to keep all this stuff going in the meetings along with Jeff staff. Heather is over the service center on South Sherman and she is there every day and she said she could also make them available. If you want to either send her an email or email, whatever is more convenient, but we can make them available over the South Sherman service center. Heather, anything else you want to say? We can go and pick up. No, just let it, just let them know that you're looking for Heather McIntyre when you come to the service center. I'd be happy to get it out to you. Thank you. Great. Okay. Items from the board. Does the board have anything they'd like to raise that we haven't already discussed? Jeff's got his hands full. Jeff E. That is. I guess, too. Okay. Just a couple of housekeeping things. One thing, and this is not, you know, don't take this as negative, but I hope that we don't have as many canceled meetings this year as we did this past year. And of course, there were all these different circumstances that I think is really important that we try to meet every month. And I feel like this past year, you know, it didn't happen as often. So I would really like to see that. The other thing is a housekeeping thing. I didn't get a notification for this meeting. I already talked to Heather about it because about a year ago, we all were supposed to create a crab email that corrects for more transparency. But I've had kind of hit and miss. Sometimes I get a crab email, but sometimes it's come to a personal email and like tonight's went to a very old personal email that I don't even use anymore. So I would just hope there's like some coordination. I know that different different people are sending out the information. So somehow did anyone else have this problem? Or is it just me? Nobody? I mean, I didn't look like I also heard. Okay. So I just I just think that somehow that that list, the crab, you know, list is somehow not necessarily going to each of the, you know, administrative people who are sending out in the announcements that will follow up and make sure we get that right. Okay. And then I was going to say, oh, just because I just created a new proud email. So I need to maybe we could just refresh the list now that we have new members. That's it. Go ahead. Who did you have? Yeah, I just wanted to real quick pursue on the the meeting and not me because this was a conversation that we've had with other other members too. And I would say I find his value and be able to share some of this information from staff and it it does have value. But Jeff got stuck in the one of being the messenger on that one that it really is our support staff that it takes lots to set these meetings up and it takes other people that aren't really within our work groups even to make that happen. So there has been some direction unless there's an actionable item that they prefer these boards are not meeting at this point. So Jeff and I will continue to try to figure that out. But that that's the direction that we've been given it just was at that task on these same people are having to be at water boards and I mean the same people saying these meetings up are having to do pretty much a meeting every night and it really is that that burden Jeff. Anything else you'd like to share just to see? No, but thanks for saying that because we don't want to cancel the meetings either but it's been pretty clear direction for us to only meet when there's a something needed action from the board. Well, I appreciate knowing that that I mean now that I know that that explains it. I just felt I mean I was just concerned. Yeah, and I again I again as much as I just like to say I appreciate all you do and just to have you guys cancel that it I'm sure it feels not as appreciated as we know that you guys are but it really is trying to appreciate respect that staff that has to be at board meetings and council meetings every night. Thanks. That's all I have anything else. Thanks to anything else from other board members. If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. And I move we adjourn. I move we adjourn. A second back. Thank you. All those in favor. Great. We are adjourned. Thanks. Happy New Year. Great to see everybody. See ya. Bye bye. Bye bye.