practices
yeah
well actually they've had really good
men's baseball teams they had a lot of
players from
like the caribbean or something at one
time yeah and so they they had a really
strong
d3 school or i don't know i think
they're naia or something like that
isn't that weird now so you can recruit
heavily if you're not they have
different rules well you can recruit d3
you just i think a lot of them have like
you can't just does id park with her now
because it's
nice
okay
welcome everybody to our new senior
center it's really nicely
done it's very impressive how you guys
fix this up you never know it was a gas
station at one time
um can i have a
motion to call the meeting to order
um all in favor say aye aye
um
call the roll uh ann brennan yeah claire
sabellas jessica sparks yeah joanne
pickerel here uh roger carroll here okay
um mike
the next thing i'm barb griner all right
barb how are you doing
i just wanted me
are you
are you done with this retirement
well yeah
i think it's uh fairly fitting that we
are doing a retirement find out
in my new role
in the new office because you don't know
barbara's actually coming back in two
months three months uh two months
uh two months on june 6th yeah and we'll
be working part-time in the
senior center
uh with kristin so it's sort of fitting
that we're doing this here one time we
did a record meeting in the senior
center yeah um
um but we have some uh
you know obviously we want to take a
moment to recognize barb
and her accomplishments over the past 33
years
of service to our community and to this
department
we've got a couple things that we're
going to read off but before we do that
i just want to
say a few things about barb
and the impact that she has had on
this community and
this department and our staff and myself
personally um
obviously barb's uh
um
large reputation precedes her in this
community
she has um uh she has on a professional
level done so many things that some of
you may or may not know about but i'll
share some of them with you um
the lacrosse program that we all get to
see and enjoy um is a brainchild of barb
from 20 plus years ago probably at this
point um
bringing that to the city at a youth
level and sort of fostering it with um
gosh why am i drawing a blank uh on her
name um
jillian um
fostering with jillian from a youth
program and as her kids sort of went
older
fostering that into the um what was a
club sport then for a while with the
schools before it became a varsity sport
um her obviously her work with the
harvest festival and seeing that from
its very early stages and running that
for many many years uh i found out
recently through this retirement process
that we used to have a um
a synchronized swimming yes which bar
uh brought to the department three years
yeah you can believe that we competed
and um
and it was amazing i one of the comments
on facebook was the jean shaw who came
anything i did is i just answered the
phone
can i do this
you can do this bowling team
bowling team yeah john did that though
john did
[Laughter]
the bowling team what else what else
should we discuss um
um
field hockey yeah bringing field hockey
and the youth field hockey program uh
and frankly it goes you know the list
goes on and on of the college friends
barb has had and the impact
that she's had on our community um and
it doesn't stop with uh
her specific role with the department
what she's done with darn
um is um
uh
you know i don't know how it's it's just
it's amazing the work that they have
done and barbara's been with darn since
the beginning she's been sort of our
conduit to darn as a department and
whether it's raising money to help you
know pay people's rent or
pay their water bill or keep them
in their house
or make sure they have food on their
table
or make sure they have presents during
the holidays
[Music]
barbara's had a profound contact
i know you're part of your big part yeah
and um with marguerite you just kind of
follow
yeah
our scholarship program has been
what barbara's overseeing for it's sin
since inception probably 20 years ago
now
and has been the
connection with the the counselors of
the schools to make sure that all the
kids that need support have it and have
access and
she's worked very hard on that and it's
been a passion of hers and it's meant a
lot to our community
our families our community and very
important
uh but her impact is obviously much
bigger than
uh the work that she has done um i think
her legacy
uh will be is is in uh
the staff that she has fostered for the
last
15 20 years plus
um i've done i did the math
you know i'm not going to do the math
i'm going to say the math out loud yeah
but the uh you know we've joked for many
years
for a long time
you know
i am the next closest
in age to bar within our department
um we're getting all of my yeah yeah and
uh and i was in school with her kids
um and so she has been a motherly figure
to us
imparting her wisdom
her passion
her knowledge
it's a legacy that
you know hopefully this staff we a lot
of them will be working there for
decades uh to come but it's a legacy
that you have left
um and i can't thank you enough both
personally and professionally what you
have done for
all of us
so
far thank you for your 33 years
and for being the person you are and for
all you've done
there you go
[Music]
for those that don't know these plaques
are up in our office and we have
um plaques back
i mean we have probably 40 times up
there
well even before john
who worked before who was the director
before john
oh
yeah there's um somebody from the third
floor
[Music]
um and so
it's pretty cool i mean uh
it's it's cool from a staff standpoint
to be able to see the history of the
people that you know frankly came before
us and helped build the department
and get us to where we are today and
you know some of them we all knew or
know
uh who we worked with whether it's day
old or
um
john um
john brennan or john barr
um and some of them
i've only heard about by name but it's
pretty cool to be able to see
their impact and what they've got so
we're excited that if you sit on the red
board
[Laughter]
[Music]
2022
now this is kind of a summary of
everything that i've said
sacrifice heart with all these machines
oh i'm sure
of um in city best state as a recreation
parks employee and advocate large impact
in our community and on this department
not being understood
to as a legal program computer
bar created to manage the range of
program offerings that allow to connect
everyone in our community
from preschool sports sport programs to
youth art and dance the development of
jefferson camp the introduction of
lacrosse and filmmaking programming
adult fitness programs such as yoga boot
camp and pilates tennis lessons nature
adventures lifelong learning lessons
community events such as important july
5th day run and harvest festival and
much more of ours brought so much
opportunity common experience
togetherness fun and excitement to our
community
during the course per career of our
passion for providing opportunity for
all was evident
with local non-profit organizations are
through the years darwin has organized
clothing drives rates and distributed
funds to help families in need stay in
their homes take utility meals pay
utility bills put food on our table
connected students with educational
support services advocating for
affordable housing support providing
limited advice for kids and families and
much more
barb also names the oversight of the
department's marianna will work use
scholarship fund and create our current
senior discussion
georgetown mentioned that everyone had
access to the recreation parks program
and under their ability bargain only
brought passion and commitment to this
department and the community but she
also brought personality to the office
yes she did
she was a great co-worker
situations her positive impact on the
recreation department will be evident
so um yeah so um actually
i i'm i'm not joking um
you just answer the phone and you listen
to somebody's idea and as long as it's
more
and um
you could probably go with that's how
lacrosse started a kid from hartley came
in and said hey my sister loves lacrosse
i'll coach
like will you guys do a girl's team and
so i went into john and i said we need a
girl sport so
you know uh we struggled a little until
we got jillian we had i had carol hearts
to do it for two years field hockey
coach i said you can just do it it's
just like field hockey didn't know
anything about it
you know we got we got through it just
like yeah yeah just like but um
yeah it's it's
and
nothing can happen without a good
director you know i had john barr
mike i i wasn't there with john
brennaman but um you know nothing
happens unless they say yes and so
i've always had um
you know very supportive directors that
pretty much let me do whatever but
obviously swimming come on like
that was kind of weird you know
and um you know so
uh
and
you know it's it's just not one person
you know it's it has to take the whole
the whole group that's so supportive
and
you know i i mean i'm very touched by
all the the nice things but
in my mind in my heart i know it's it
wasn't me it was
just answering the phone and saying yes
and going to the director and then
having everybody help so
it's totally a department thing and um
you know
when i was in city council
i probably wasn't the most
heartfelt night but it gets down to the
fact that um
we have the park and
you know we're a mile from downtown we
have the same region
it's up to you guys you're the front
line not council you've got inside a fun
line
and you have got to protect it
and um
you know we have a lot of good ideas we
have to
you know with everything else
progress you have to take old in the new
we have to blend it but you know we have
we really do
have to be very conscious of
the park because if we're not
we won't happen and um i always tell
john better than mike
uh
it's our global warming it's like our
little one
we have to start caring about it we do
need a shelter house and that really is
a need because we're gonna hope to do a
lot of nature programming out of it so
um i think that'll be great and um
you know uh
other than the schools
uh in my opinion
nobody or nothing touches
families like director
so
again
mike is very true so he is not going to
ask him for money unless it's right into
the tent
so just
i would just ask you to trust his asks
and um
and they're never going to be
on a lying board
over the top
it's
it whatever he asks for it has been well
researched and it's the cheapest
so
so i mean it's it's most economical
you know it's like you could trust with
what we ask for as far as money and
um
and like i said you know what we do you
don't see
we just see some of the families that
live here
and what
you know i know all of you make a really
good salary and you're comfortable
but um
to live here it takes a lot and if we
don't nurture everyone um
we're just going to be this upper class
white community and there will be no
diversity and there will be no single
parents and there will be no
people of color
and so
when we say like oh the camp is really a
good deal
well you know when you make fifty
thousand dollars and you have two kids
and your husband doesn't name everything
sending two kids to camp two 20 minutes
a week
and uh we're very fortunate to have this
now endowment which is terrific
but um
you know just uh just be aware that not
everybody
makes
four hundred thousand dollars here and
that you know
doesn't have to worry about money
because
uh we want to be a community that
that opens our arms and
embraces everybody
and you know we can take care of them
that's who we are
you know i sound like joe biden that's
who we are you know we are that and we
can do that and we can't care for people
but um
you know
just trying to do the best you know we
always have to try to offer the best
program at the least cost
and
ann's husband came up through this and
it's called public recreation and it's
giving
the best we can for the cheapest and
god love like
allowing me with this 10 discount for
speakers because
you know uh that was that was
that was like
my biggest passion is making sure that
we could give something to seniors too
and at a lower cost but
uh just know that um
it's our mission to include everybody
and um
and just make sure we always take care
of everyone and even those kids
i don't have a wine
and i could i mean i'm speaking from
this because i see the emails and i see
the requests
and i see that hey we owe 500 on our
water
we don't know you know we were behind
you know the city is very hopeful with
watermelons and stuff but um
just you know
just not everybody lives in a really
comfortable house and everything all
their bills are paid on time
and we want to make sure that we are an
inclusive community and that we welcome
everybody and we give those kids an
opportunity to go to a good school what
do you want your kids to go to school i
mean that's why they live here
but we have to take care of them so
that's it
take care of the park give us our money
that's that's my that's my yeah that's
my tweet and uh and it and it's has
never been a job for me
i
you know
i loved what i did i loved the people i
worked with
especially this last crew
but
if i could stay there forever i would
but when we took the staff picture
and i think you all remember this on
sesame there's one thing that doesn't
belong
so it was the lady with the gray hair so
that's
i didn't want to move on but
you have that moment and you know it's
time
so it's been my pleasure
[Laughter]
as a board we wanted to also thank you
officially um and you know we echo the
words of mike and natalie and you know
appreciate your service to the city and
the community and to the rec department
so um i'm proposing a resolution for the
board to approve and i think you guys
all have a copy
where it says whereas bob griner was
hired by the bexley recreation and parks
department on march 14 1991 and my
understanding is that was when you were
full-time hired
whereas barb's impact on our community
is vast as evident by the wide array of
programs she provided from youth sports
to dance classes to yoga to camp to
nature activities to special events and
more and whereas barf has always been an
advocate for serving the under
underserved and providing opportunity to
all and has done so through her efforts
and with darn and oversight of the
mariana holbrook scholarship fund and
whereas barb's creativity and drive help
during bring new programs to the
community such as the jeffrey summer
camp youth lacrosse nature walks and
more
whereas barb has been the heartbeat of
the recreation and parks department
providing passion for our work imparting
wisdom on our fellow employees and
giving direction for how to best serve
our community and whereas barbs marx
has forever been left in this community
and those she serviced and the friends
that she worked with now therefore be it
resolved by the recreation board that
this recreation board thanks barbreiner
for her 33 years of service and for her
indelible mark she has left on our
community actually is a more special
place because of bart bryant so i move
that the board um if there's a second to
approve this resolution in honor of all
the hard work and dedication barb's
given this community
all in favor say aye bye thank you very
much
[Applause]
sure
[Music]
education department
and you are
particularly i think we're all indebted
to you for the work you've done
in
not only the community at large but
really intentionally
identifying the needs
of children and families
that have unmet needs
and as persistently as you have done
over the years
so we are all indebted to that and for
all the other wonderful things that
natalie and i have mentioned
so
i'm grateful for your friendship and
your happiness
[Music]
on what your next adventure you've done
a little bit more time stuff
and you can stay and take
yeah
thank you very much
you're retired then it's like mom can
you take me to the airport at four
o'clock in the morning so uh that's what
i'm doing tomorrow so i'm gonna go home
and um
uh hopefully go to bed
oh yeah
yeah well
it's another thing
[Music]
thank you
huh
do you play
[Laughter]
yeah
and then
you just get on with the course on
wednesday or friday it's kind
is
but um
like four years ago at all the places i
played yeah so we would leave like on
friday all of a sudden
so it really started taking off
yeah and now like yeah after the courts
are done
well this is this
yeah i mean i think the pickleball
courts are used more than the tennis
courts
yeah
well it's weird it's the mornings are
really busy but afternoons tend not to
be as busy at least they used to be for
some reason which i'm quite sure why but
um
yeah it's fun
um i don't think i did the minutes so do
i skip over that
i think did i skip over doing
to approve the minutes of march 2nd 2022
second
second all in favor say hi
okay
that was really nice and touching for
everybody i mean barb is really just uh
it's hard to put in words what she's
contributed to the community and so
appreciate everyone's remarks about that
so
something more
um
and i want to be clear i like barb and i
didn't
work out this speech because i'm about
to ask for money um
seasonal staffing update um
you know obviously we went into this
year
sort of
expecting the staffing would be a little
more difficult with um
the impact of covid uh the impact on you
know
working in that environment
uh the the expected somewhat expected
impact on uh costs for staffing moving
forward um we did build in i don't know
if everyone remembers we went through
the budget process we built in some
additional funds
recognizing that we expected our
staffing costs to go up in order to
staff
but what we have seen is that it's
much higher than even we had anticipated
in terms of being able to
get seasonal staff at so and we've had
some of this conversation to counsel but
i want to um bring the record sort of up
to date you know we're in the
what is usually the back end of our sort
of our main summer seasonal
staffing period you know it really
starts at the beginning of the year and
try to wrap that up by basically march
early april
um
and uh we have uh
we have
it's been really difficult to get staff
frankly to even get applications um um
we've gone you know
with camp
uh we were sort of looking at sort of
ten dollars an hour starting um going
into this year
and uh it hasn't been sufficient you
know we have sort of three
sort of metrics that we've used to
determine it's not working um some of
them are more anecdotal and some of them
are more uh specific with numbers but um
you know first of all we got a lot of
direct feedback from potential returning
staff
that you know what we were intending to
pay was not going to work for them uh
and we saw a much lower retention rate
on staff than maybe we would have seen
in years past some of that is also
you know look it's all it was it's been
a hard couple years to work in the
daycare environment with cobin and i'm
sure that also had some sort of
wear and stress on people that's been
difficult but um
we had much lower applicants by the end
of march
we only had 13 new applications uh for
for our summer camp program in which we
usually will get 30 to 40 applicants
um and after going through the
interviews with those 13 uh
we dropped down to nine because at the
time the rate that we were going to
provide was just insufficient for four
of them to even consider it um
um
we also had uh we reached out to
individuals that we that that we knew in
the community that we thought might have
an interest in you know anecdotal
conversations i'm making
you know much more at
chipotle wouldn't make sense those sort
of conversations have occurred with
numerous people so
taking all that sort of into
consideration and understanding that we
didn't have we don't have the number of
staff needed to meet the demand we have
for our camp program
uh we did some analysis um and looked at
you know katie service i reached out to
different camps to see what they are
sort of paying what their what their
sort of growing rates are and we're
saying this sort of across the board
they're all dealing with that and
we sort of settled on twelve dollars an
hour being our floor
for our uh pay for our seasonal camp
staff
um and had the conversations with
council we think the budget can
accommodate that although it'll be
really tight and it depends on what
happens with our numbers
um but we've sort of let council know
that it's entirely possible we're coming
back to them at the end of the summer
saying look we're paying 12 an hour
we're hoping we can get through on what
was passed with the budget but we might
have to ask for additional funds in
order to do that we had conversations
with council they had some very um good
questions which i think we were prepared
for because we'd already sort of
evaluated which is you know uh what is
our what are our ratios are there ways
to think differently about you know our
ratio normally is sort of we try to be
eight to one can we maximize that ratio
and therefore you know help reduce the
number of staff maybe that we would need
even though we're paying more and we
have and will do that um
and are taking that into consideration
in terms of how we operate uh the camp
some of the
ratio requirements are dictated by uh
licensing with uh jfs i think it's um
don't quote me on that i think six to
one with the youngest age group eight to
one and ten to one or it might be eight
ten twelve i can't remember off the top
i had eight ten twelve um for the three
different camps so we're gonna we're
gonna make some adjustments there um and
i think we can still offer a very good
program uh with a slightly increased uh
ratio
um obviously some of the
um
[Music]
the relaxing on some of the coven
measures will also help with the number
of staff we need where we don't have to
pod them in separate groups and when the
numbers get low enough we can combine
them and therefore have instead of two
staff we can have one staff so those are
all things that we are going to be doing
um but the reality is when you increase
essentially 20
in you know some cases a little more
than that uh your your salary wages it's
gonna have an impact on a budget that is
um
260 thousand dollars somewhere in that
neighborhood i think remember correctly
so you're talking about
fifty thousand dollars plus um
of additional costs that you know maybe
it was not too the other thing that you
know is is a real impact of increasing
the floor if you will is
you know if we have
if historically we have camp staff
working at nine to ten dollars an hour
and we have then the you know the
leadership positions being at you know
twelve dollars an hour and then the
directors being at fourteen dollars an
hour and then they're boston at six 17
an hour and so on there's a trickle-up
effect of that um
there really isn't a big difference
between these levels
where it's like okay well if we add two
dollars to this push it's not gonna
we're still gonna have some sort of
distinction between those levels and
um
you know there's some
trickle up if you will in this case
impact to that that we'll have to
continue to keep an eye on
um
you know
another example of that is um we we
hired two new full-time rec coordinator
positions
um
uh marshall drewery uh and the gentleman
by the name of reese i won't
for
public record sake no reason to put out
his name but he um
uh was supposed to start yes one monday
and
got another job on a better opportunity
right so
those are all sort of the impacts of
this and he's you know
in his position as a rec coordinator it
would be
of our full-time position sort of the
lowest paid of our full-time positions
right which is this again a step above
you know leadership positions in our
seasonal stuff um so a step above
for example a camp director um and so
again that's sort of
are some of the things that we're seeing
and
and aware of so
all that to say council was supportive i
think um of of us going to 12 so we've
gone to 12
for our camp um this is also we're
seeing the same issue with our preschool
program um
i will say as we move to twelve dollars
then the first week we got i think katie
said like 13 new applicants and as it
has been effective
um
uh we continue to get more applicants in
which then you have more interest so it
is you know
it is obviously uh the feedback is has
made it really clear that it was a good
decision it wasn't like hey we're just
paying this for the sake of paying and
it actually you know
impacted decisions for employees um
preschool's in the same boat
kate swindle did a
analysis with jcc i think christ
lutheran and maybe one other um and
they're you know they're starting pay
now for their lead teachers around
twenty dollars an hour um we're
currently at about 17.
um
so uh you know the difficulty
you know obviously we the board passed
an increase in our rates for those two
programs and it was a little higher than
maybe we would normally do recognizing
that our costs had gone up but i don't
think it's not going to cover a 20
yeah you know increase that we're seeing
from a salary standpoint and and so the
board's aware the vast majority of our
expenses on those types of programs is
in salary wages it's not like
we're like well you know
equipment is staying the same price and
that's half it's not you know 85 percent
of our expenses are our salary wages are
higher um
so we're gonna have
you know i've had i've met with kate
katie sarvis and kate swindle who run
those two uh programs and we're
evaluating sort of everything that we
can do to keep costs down to maximize
our staff numbers um but some of the
stuff is set right we've already we've
already
have a full preschool based on a certain
pay rate
based on a certain cost for the program
so we can't exactly change that nor
do i think we'd want to at this point uh
same with camp um there is still money
and we'll have these discussions with
the administration about the federal
funds help offset sort of um
hazard pay if you will there's the
opportunity to offset someone at least
for this year i bring this up uh
you know a to keep the board informed
but i don't think this is
i'm more concerned about sort of the
five-year
sort of impact of this
because right now there may be federal
funds to help with some of this from a
city's budget standpoint but next year
there may not be in the year after and
you know it's not like we're going to
take a step backwards we're not going to
go for the 12 hours
whether or not we'll see sort of a slow
and you know it slows down on how
quickly that goes up and maybe we make
it up over time because that number
stays the same for a couple years and
you know we increased the camp program
by three or four percent and all of a
sudden we're sort of back into the right
sort of cost to revenue ratios but
um
these are our big drivers on our budget
and when you have this sort of an impact
on that uh then it's it impacts it on a
sort of a rec fund transfer sort of a
level right which we've had some
conversations about
you know up before before covert we went
from what was 400 000 subsidy from the
city's general fund to the rec fund to
you know being in the in the black and
and adding 100 000 to the rec department
and essentially not necessarily needing
any uh
transfers from the city although there
was still you know we had some debates
with the mayor and some of you may
remember about
um philosophically whether there should
still be a rec fund transfer because
that's sort of the city's tax investment
in what we do as a department um
and i i think at the time we had i think
i may have said something along the
lines of you know things are really good
now who knows where things you know who
knows what could happen not obviously
expecting to have a pandemic
as much as possible yeah i think that
was some of the debate in the mirror
so
it's something that we're going to
continue look at it's something that we
all need to be aware of it's something
that council will need to continue to be
aware of um
and there'll have to be some sort of
more global philosophic discussions
about what the impact of that is
down the line and how the city decides
to deal with that um i need to continue
to crunch numbers and sort of look at
you know really what are we talking
about in terms of impact but you know a
very simplistic view would be to take
our styling wages for our camp and add
20 and be like well that's what it's
going to do
um
it's not quite that it's a little more
in depth than that
we'll try to kind of break it down a
little more um closer than just sort of
a general 20 add-on but
um the other thing is and council's
aware of those two issues with pool and
i'm not sorry with camp and
in preschool
the preschool one is going to be really
tricky preschool has a lot less
flexibility in camp because we have a
building with walls that only allow so
many kids and one of the issues we have
with the space at jeffrey which is
amazing but we have rooms that hold like
13 or hold
nine or hold whatever and uh at 13 you
need two staff members well if we wanted
to do a 12 to 1 ratio
and maximize sort of we could increase
kids without increasing expenses but we
can't do that in certain central rivers
so it doesn't lay out as simple and you
know one of the things we'll frankly
look at
because we want
for some of you that maybe may have been
around i'm not sure if the board was
around maybe back in 2009 right when we
had a lot of
eight nine when obviously economy wasn't
very good and we had layoffs and
and everything else one of the things
that was looked at really closely was
eliminating the preschool program at the
time because it wasn't covering its
costs
and so back then we sort of you know
i will say from from a office from a rec
department administrative level you know
i think it has since then been very
important to us that we're never in a
position where the conversation of
eliminating those sort of things
uh could
happen because it wasn't covering costs
and we did a lot of things to improve on
on those but
uh you know it's a concern that i have
moving forward and
and so one of the things we could look
at is to maximizing the priest one again
this wouldn't affect this year because
we're already set for this year but you
know we take these classrooms and hold
13 or 14 and say you know what we're
only going to hold 12 kids and we're
only on one teacher because then we can
make it pencil out but that then that
becomes a discussion of less kids being
serviced right less people in our
community receive the support that they
might need so those will all be things
that we'll continue to talk about and
think about
since we had the
wreck since we had city council meeting
i think the next two days later
um
natalie had a meeting with swim safe
which is uh the pool management company
and uh as you know i don't know please
jump in at any point but um they convey
basically the same issues that we're
seeing which is that they can't they're
not paying their staff
enough uh to get people to be lifeguards
um
what we asked them last year right so we
said this is what we were paying because
i think they were going to pay more
because they did that
we at least want to start where
your kids
yeah well and the big thing for us when
we went through the rfp process was to
make sure that our staff were not going
to get paid less
than what they were getting paid with us
um and so they committed to that and
then built a you know a proposal based
on sort of numbers that we expected them
to hit from a staffing standpoint fast
forward two years later
and
the pricing is a lot higher now for
staff
than what they had anticipated um so
they have told us and they did an
analysis and they it's broken down which
i'm looking at it seemed reasonable
right in terms of the amount of hours
they think they have in the staff and
what those costs are uh what would
equate to about a 30
was a 34 000
34 000 increase
in um the contract for
thirty three thousand dollar increase
for silent wages and the other area
they've been hit is a 4 000 increase on
chemical costs
okay so 32 and then four 33 and four
it's roughly it's just under 37 000
now
we haven't and i haven't um i mean carl
reached out to me to be a texas this
afternoon about trying to talk tomorrow
so
um
you know
one could make the argument on the
chemical side that
you know look if the chemical prices had
gone down you wouldn't have adjusted our
contract
chemical prices have gone up should we
be adjusting the contract you know
that's something i'll probably reach out
to mark official to see whether
it makes any sense
on the
me personally i don't think that holds
water when it really when it comes to
the salary and wages in which we try we
indicated very specifically we wanted
them to pay and that has changed and
they can't staff it so the other thing i
would also say is
uh you know this needs to in order for
this to work in order to have a
management company has to work for them
if all of a sudden we hold their feet to
buy on things and they're like look this
doesn't work anymore then all of a
sudden we don't have a management
company um
and these are real you know it's not
like they're bringing up things that
we're not seeing uh in our own sort of
operation so
that is money that we frankly probably
cannot cover within our existing budget
um i think our i think what i i told the
mayor is i think we have
in contracts we have 210 000
and the contract as it was for swim safe
is about 188 000
uh there's some additional built in
there because there's things that they
could bill us for that are above and
beyond the contract uh if we have an
after hours event that they staff it
then we have to pay for the additional
staff those sort of things so we always
built a little bit in there
understanding there could be additional
costs um so you add thirty seven
thousand thirty
yeah thirty seven thousand dollars to
that and
we're already above
that 210.
um
so
that's uh
that's something i haven't talked with
council about and i will at the next
meeting and frankly we'll probably have
a res uh
ordinance to increase it because we know
we we're not going to be able to get
through no matter what right
annual right
and then would remind me when we signed
with them last year
i keep forgetting how this worked we
signed with them but wasn't it for
a
it wasn't just one year they gave us an
rfp for three years all right and they
get pricing for three years but it's
each year we both have to agree to move
forward with the next church that's what
it was okay so um and they had just sort
of reasonable and it was 180 i think was
last year
yeah and i think it became 183 188 and
like 192 or something like that for the
three years so very reasonable sort of
cost of doing business increases right
um
but
it's it's not you know
at this point it's not going to work
probably it's what you know we're going
to hear unless we're willing to right
make some adjustments and i get that i
mean it's it's not an unforeseen i don't
think anyone can see that we're gonna
see this sort of increase
um
[Music]
uh
[Music]
what were we at
we were at 9 50. so basically
for the starting rates
the other bit of that is we also got
word that poolside grill
this was last week
our our vendor for concessions uh who we
just signed a two-year contract with
21
sorry
um
is is not going to come back because
they can't staff
so
you know they have some of you may be
where they obviously have their
investment with
i'm gonna
butcher their names butcher yeah
just say butcher unintended
um
uh
so that's a focal point and they because
so we have also reached out to natalie's
been working and i appreciate all now
it's a lot of cool stuff she takes all
the lead on this um
so all the information i'm giving you is
thanks to that by the way um
is uh she's reaching out to
she's reached out to local
municipalities
um i am reaching out to um
capital's food vendor not that they
would have any interest in it um
and she's also reached out to swim safe
and swim safe has provided us a
an estimate on running our concession
stand
and it was 35 000
plus the cost of food so the way that
they would structure it is they would
just provide the staff
they'd buy the food they'd send the bill
for the food onto us and we would get
all revenue
you know what we know historically about
the um
about the concession stand is you know
obviously we know what different vendors
have done in there for revenue side
because they pay us a percentage
um and as as few as what seven years ago
we were they were the receipts were
around 47 000 and last year it was 120
000
um
receipts
yeah what we what we what
um but it was they that was the most
that was by far the most that we've ever
seen i mean i think the year before
which poolside girl did it the year
before i think they were in the 70s
yeah around 70 000 and they had a pretty
big jump last year which was interesting
given that we had a reduction in hours
right
well they really upgraded their venue
didn't they in terms of yeah and they've
done it they did a great job you know
oddly enough i think too i mean they had
done a pretty good job even the year
before uh i think
the reality is last year when we we
reduced the hours so people the general
public wasn't there from two to four
because of our camp program
well that meant the general public was
there at lunch
or at dinner um and it probably had some
positive impact on on the concession
because when you're there is when you're
eating normally and so now instead of
going which is a pretty high use time
from one to four or whatever um and you
do lunch before and get dinner
afterwards you're there sort of if you
want to do it cool uh i don't
i'm i'm
i don't have any
evidence specific to that but uh it sort
of uh is a
theory that makes some sense at least um
anyway
you know my
swim safe is willing to do it
assuming they get to staff um
uh we're gonna continue to look at all
of our options um i i if i'm being
honest i don't love
the idea of
having a third party run it without any
it's going to sound bad without like
skin in the game
in that setting
uh we're just like we're gonna get
whatever we're gonna get regardless of
whether we do a good job or not whether
we um
whether the employees do a good job of
making sure they
get paid for their fries when they give
out fries and get paid for you know i've
been around i've been around the pool
for a long time and i remember very
clearly as a kid
people knowing people that work at the
pool having maybe
you know access to some free food from
time to time
um
and uh i think you know when you're
running a business office you have a lot
more oversight on that and you're less
really and so if
we're only receiving the revenue that
comes in
and uh
and they have no sort of uh
there's no impact on them if the revenue
is lower
um
that does concern me a little bit but uh
also then what are you know what are our
options um so it's even no impact on
even waste forgetting about giving away
food waste you're right
yep
yep um
so
you know some of natalie feel free to
jump into some of that i think initial
uh
information now he's gotten some of
these you know municipal pools a lot of
them are doing in-house themselves
we don't have a lot of experience doing
that so that's a little bit sort of you
know
disconcerting yeah
[Music]
um
concession open when it would end and
what are the hours that we've run in
session
basically
now it's obviously up to the
operator if they want to
not go in that certain time or close
early because there's
in their proposal did have some reduced
hours
yeah they had some built-in reduced
hours based on sort of what they saw
and when they could get staff right when
school still had built-in hours okay
they had some they had some reduction
from what would be our normal
right operating the full
size that we wrote
three days a week
i mean it just makes me a little nervous
that we have
i mean it depends on what we get for
proposals but
having the pool company also do the
concession stand is a lot of
responsibility for one company and let's
be honest like things come up for kids
and they so i don't have a fear they're
gonna be shuffling staff around and it's
just
it's gonna get confusing real fast and
if they're not
this is just me being crazy about this
but like uh food safety is a thing
so every company within understands the
importance of food safety and that kind
of thing is important too so maybe if we
get an a great proposal from another
vendor
and i was just thinking like
company makes a hundred thousand dollars
do you send them gross receipts for
i mean maybe we just up the take a
little bit
more than ten thousand dollars i don't
know i don't know what the going rate is
we take five percent
i mean we can maybe figure that out a
little bit to make up costs but it just
makes me nervous making
an entity that doesn't is not in the
food service business in charge of the
pool cycle yeah and that's a fair point
um
they do so
it's not their their main focus they
they do manage some other pools
potentially they have some experience
with it i will say that oh it's not like
it's like this is an idea what do you
think can you guys do it you know how to
make fries
yeah i mean even when we went today
right even when we went to the rfp they
made it clear that that's a service that
they do they can't provide um so they
have some but i hear your point and you
know uh obviously there are
certifications to be a lifeguard so it's
not like they can be like hey we're to
take people out of the concession stand
and go be a lifeguard
and
now they could go the other direction i
think that would be important that they
have some sort of clear sort of lines
that guards are not intended they're not
working there to be concession workers
but but your point is valid which is
when you're sort of up against it what
are you going to do to try to make
things work
um
and you know i i think i think we agree
that if we can find a third party vendor
that we feel comfortable with
that that would be ideal
uh the good news is at the very least we
have
a backup to the backup um maybe worst
case scenario i just
the question we got to figure out what's
the timing on this you know like what
one point is do we have to pull a
trigger so that they can get staff and
be comfortable that they're going to be
able to do what they
are promising as they're going to do
and they're not flexible at all trying
to negotiate something that gives them
some skin in the game
so make it a little more reassuring to
you guys we have talked about another
well the other option is rose city does
this with something with swim safe they
want nothing to do with the concessions
they said you run it you take the money
you get the revenue
and you have the expenses so basically
it's just we're not taking a percentage
which reduces our liability but right uh
it means that and i don't mean
although i guess maybe that is what i
don't mean like safety liability but in
terms of a loss you know right it's only
good we're not gonna lose anything on it
yeah um do you get a help like decide
menus or anything like that or you're
just completely
at that point i have no skin in the game
here you go um i think that they're
typical from what i've understood their
typical concessions they're very basic
you know you're simple just concession
food hamburgers hot dogs nothing like
outrageous corn dogs
not every kid likes them apparently
robots are all sticking there
[Music]
yeah
probably not
i mean it seems to be that option if you
came down to it's sort of better in a
way than
the one where you guys are paying
everything and then just get the revenue
where they
um
you know obviously they have an
incentive to run it right if
it's their risk and everything else in
terms of what they're buying you know
as opposed to just i don't know if the
way the first option is they just buy
their food and then just send you the
bill and
that becomes kind of problematic
potentially not say they're cheating you
or anything it's just that there's no
incentive for them to be more cautious
or more
frugal in terms of what they're buying
and what they throw out and all that
kind of stuff and again there's
into that point the loss to us in that
situation is a maximum of basically nine
thousand dollars right right because
that's what we would have made off of um
uh off of um poolside growth they're
operating so and it's unlikely you're
gonna duplicate what they made last year
yeah i mean under any circumstances so
it's probably gonna be much less than
that
probably uh although you know not to get
too nitty-gritty that the contract with
swim with um poolside grill was
12 with a cap of nine mm-hmm so even if
they had done 80 000 or whatever it
would have still been in that same
ballpark but
um
so there's yeah but yes to your point
it's you know
there's no guarantee we've even gotten 9
000 or 10 000 so we're looking at now 50
000 increase for seasonal staff which
is very much then maybe another
for pool 33 3 000 for staff and 4 000
for chemicals 37 000 and then but then
in general just and then another 54
like the um
camp staff the ten go from ten to step
up you know what uh
don't quote me on that okay uh i'm
trying to give a general idea of sort of
a 20 increase to what our salary is
roughly at this point we are not going
to become we're not going to bring an
ordinance to council asking for more
money for camp at this point okay um
we think we can do it within the budget
but as as the payroll goes along in the
summer we may have something in front of
them that may need emergency passing in
august in order to pay goals for the
last you know part of the of the year
how many people do you have to hire for
the summer camp on a seasonal basis
um
it's in the neighborhood of 50 50 50 60.
how many do we have right now
yeah
yeah um
now again they've the last week they
have felt much better about it the
leadership of the campus felt much
better about where it's at yeah um
but i think they i think they needed to
hire someone in the neighborhood of 20
to 25 minimum right uh of new staff and
at one point we only had nine applicants
so and i think in the last week since we
increased it basically
they said we're at 13 or 14 new
applicants so um obviously the more
applications we can get the more choosy
we can be about the quality of staff
there's a lot of benefits
uh to be to have a lot more applicants
than we have positions needed but at the
very least we make sure we're meeting
our minimums and those are based on our
current registration numbers in terms of
what they they think the numbers they
need to have and our registration i
think we talked about this maybe last
last meeting but our registration was
pretty strong it's not coming at us a
little bit um it's been a
pretty strong strong restrictions
any questions
on that the only other staff question so
if we have a staff member who does like
the aftercare program during the school
year and then goes to the
we also then have to consider a i have i
don't know what the aftercare staff
makes would they be going to a lower
level when they go back to aftercare
that's a good question and so no we we
um if we have somebody that's going over
multiple programs yeah we ultimately end
up paying in the highest okay too
although aftercare went through the same
issue where we increased after care now
aftercare generally speaking is a little
before all this was going on aftercare
was a little higher because
we're trying to get people at a time
where it's hard to hire because they're
not out of school
and we're also asking them coming for
two hour three hour stints as opposed to
an eight-hour day so you sort of have to
pay them a little more to incentivize
them to make the trip out from wherever
they're coming from so they were already
getting paid a little bit more but even
that we increased that um during
copenhagen okay incentivize i think uh
we're closer to 13 in our aftercare
program with our
seasonal stuff yeah i would just think
it would be weird if they went back to
aftercare
and we have the same same situation with
some some preschool staff some some like
support staff in the preschool
department uh preschool
program that then do camp and
historically preschool staff gets paid
more than a you know high school kid
coming into the camp program we sort of
just matched that same that same rate
quick question natalie for you the third
party vendors for the pool
you said hillyard uses one is it a local
um
[Laughter]
yeah i'm just wondering like scotty's
would they be interested or catering
company they they can't handle
yeah any numbers gonna be challenging
like i said it's not aramark that's with
capital this capital just changed their
food service i've also reached out to
the schools but i think that's all
in-house now yeah um
um
so yeah we'll reach out to anyone that
we think might have an interest in doing
you seem well stacked over there yeah
you know we've talked about like if
there's a really good like graduating
senior that's an entrepreneur it could
be a really good opportunity to make a
pretty good amount of might be a lot of
work right yeah and whatever but um you
know there could be an opportunity for
high school kid that you know you i
think about licensing kids that start
lawn care businesses or
or what's the name we did the dog care
business but you know somebody came in
and did that did a really good job with
that they could make a pretty good
amount of money over summer but yeah
well the other thing isn't capital have
a hospitality program because they took
over the airbnb
yeah well i think capital does too
because they i think they bought the
airbnb they did they did and i think
they're staffing it so i mean those may
be places that you could look yeah yeah
i mean columbus state's a good idea
the camera mental school yeah that's
good
and then who's heading the like trade
programs i'm drawing a blank right now
for the high school
steve shapiro shapiro yeah so he may be
a good connection when you said the idea
of a high school senior with an
entrepreneurial spirit that maybe he's
going into the food industry
i wouldn't even think wonder about like
a food truck if a food truck wouldn't
have
like shift your instead of being mobile
all the time would you like to take over
the
full-size grill spot for an entire
summer
seven days a week i think it's a great
idea especially all these people are
ramping up with a free truck though
outside in schools
no i think i think to your point is they
would just come in and operate their
menu
[Music]
yeah i'm not sure
you know that it would make it fairly it
would make it complicated people coming
and going and out checking and checking
out we're just shifting their business
and keep the food quality there it is
the residents as you guys both know
the residents i have never heard the
residents talk so much about bexley
pool's food quality oh my gosh so
you're right that's going to be a hard
shift we're back to
uh
not frozen patties
up to your gfs yeah
on season's opening update director's
report now yeah record update um
uh pleased to announce that um
city councils had a second read on
appointments for boards and commissions
a number of different boards and
commissions are on that uh but there are
two rec board members ali d'angelo and
tim veswinko
who are in front of the
council uh i think the third read will
be at the next meeting next tuesday next
tuesday it does have emergency language
so that they would be able to vote on
stuff at the may meeting uh immediately
after its passage um so i i fully
anticipate while the full board for they
may i mean whoever
full eligible award for may 4th meeting
uh which would be nice
of the records on our attendance
sure each other and then it just
especially
[Music]
um
senior center advisory committee the
members are ann geldes peggy lazarus
larry matson
andrew pitts michael spielman
rachelle steinberg jenny walsh and
jessica sparks from the record
um
there's a meeting set for next i think
it's the thursday or the 14th
um so we'll have our initial kickoff
meeting and start to talk about sort of
roles and expectations how many are
there now
that's a great question i think there's
seven plus just one
yeah seven plus um the liaison for the
record
jessica
um so that's exciting i think there's a
good mix um obviously kristen's been
working hard on that there's a good mix
of
i'm to say new blood in terms of the bac
and not having just like the ac board
move to the
advisory committee board it's a good mix
though that still has some of that
history and some of that
institutional knowledge with what the
bac has been
plus some new ideas with your thoughts
so that that'll be good
um
full membership update um
uh the early bird membership deadline is
april or may 1st
um
we've got signs in today so thank you
yeah that was great thank you to the
schools uh they've allowed us to put
some signage up at the uh the three
buildings we're also going to put
employment signs up there uh next to
them saying hey our membership or
get it to work uh seriously yeah it's
great yeah so watch some yard signs uh
just
put out there
[Laughter]
[Applause]
[Music]
there you go
[Music]
i'm sure
[Laughter]
[Music]
um
yeah it's 450 to 500 and usually it's
the last couple weeks so
um we don't read a whole lot into what
those numbers are because
[Music]
uh any questions on that
did you get all the information you
needed from us on that you know you sent
about
we need to send you something back for
our membership
did everyone respond
i think so okay
and what happens after that i will which
i will put you guys in the system and
you'll see that
as you receive a membership okay so
there'll be
cards there when you go
yes
in what systems
okay
okay and once it goes
all right um commonwealth park update uh
as you maybe some of you have seen
there's some orange fencing that's going
on so construction fencing um
the project is set to officially start
on april 18th
um
they've we've been towards a three to
five week project depending on whether
there'll be a big sort of uh driving
impact on that um we have communicated
with letters to the uh neighbors so that
they're just sort of in the loop
um
um i received maybe two respond to
letters that came back to me but
generally i think we sent out
50 or so letters um
we are also going to put a sign up just
a banner up just that has some
additional information that'll be uh on
the on commonwealth again we're only
working at this point on commonwealth
west we'll be doing east in the fall
again the the major improvements are
drainage
um an irrigation system put in and soil
improvement and turf replacement
again when i use the term turf
we are talking about natural grass
we're getting that question next yeah
um i thought the long term is turfed and
stands and
no no we have also i also made it clear
that we weren't taking these down
yeah baseball
i'm really clear there weren't any
really
vertical uh additions essentially with
this project and there wouldn't be any
trees that were taken out as a result of
this project or maybe trees that come
down for other reasons but it has
nothing to do with this part
um
they're also as part of this project
we're also putting in the follies this
is again this is all in line with the
master plan that was done in
in 2018 i think um we're putting follies
on the entrance at uh at some point
we'll be putting on follies on the
interest of columbia heading north
um
so there'll be these two structures on
the um
[Music]
the south side of sort of the
commonwealth south in colombia uh and in
those will they will ultimately house
some equipment for like the irrigation
system but also there'll be a permanent
restroom in one of those as well
some storage stuff um we're having an
architectural firm working on that uh
and i don't think we're too far behind
doing some of the um
columbia street improvements that is a
part of that master plan which is
designed to make the two parks sort of
stitch together a little more uh allow
for more pedestrian sort of passage
along columbia
um
just to give again this isn't right on
the this isn't gonna happen in the next
i don't think it'll happen next year but
the next couple years we'll probably be
looking at uh in calls for an island it
calls for
widening the streets to get around the
island but bearing at the end so you
know
really slow down traffic going through
there um
it's really it's a really cool you were
on that master plan it's a really nice
plan so we're starting to do some of
that there are plans in the work which i
think we've had some conversation about
the water the pond potentially being
added at the
west side of commonwealth west parkview
edge um
and there's some design process going on
there as well but um
we'll see i think that's
that'll be more of a fun that is more
likely to be funded through private you
know fundraising efforts where this is
this site is more
um
done with city dollars um
and then this will hopefully be usable
by the fall at which point we'll
eliminate the um
the east will not eliminate we'll redo
these deal
so so you're aware from a school's
perspective i did reach out to eli just
to give them a heads up that that field
will the east field will not be usable
for
field hockey middle school field off to
use that and so i told them that we can
have discussions about schneider park as
a potential location okay um
i haven't heard back but just so that
you know so they can plan accordingly
um
yes yeah
that looks really
good if
we play like i said the other night
there were three different teams two
different teams playing circling out
every hour in the hour and it's
i think it's a really great addition
yeah it is
it's held up pretty well i mean um we're
being very intentional about um
aeration and overseeding and
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chemical applications and
you know what we need to do to maintain
it at a pretty good level it's you know
it's it's a natural grass surface so
it's gonna get its wear and tear and we
gotta you know we we're checking it
fairly regularly on rainy days and even
closing it if we need to close it and
try to prevent you know
extended damage to our
normal damage but extended damage to it
but um
yeah it's
and we're excited about some more
programming opportunities and events
that are going to happen down there with
the jazz and the parker's gonna have an
event down there
uh with a barbecue fest and so there's
some some fun stuff going have you any
discussions or thought about um you know
we talked about a long time ago about
trees around at least the playground
down there which is kind of um
sort of barren where the the kids
equipment is whether there's a
possibility of planting trees or come
tighter shade around there
yes
susan tree commissioner has reached out
about planting two trees over there so
we're gonna look at doing that good um
there's also been initial early
conversations about adding a splash pad
there there just to the south of the
shelter and it would be when i want to
be really clear when we talk about the
city the mayor has a lot of interest in
adding a handful of just sort of water
splash pad features um the entrance at
um
to the trail at um
maine and parkview is is potentially
another site that might happen we're
talking you know about a concrete pad
with just some spray features that shoot
up we used to go to capital yeah
something similar that very basic but
something that kids can go enjoy and
cool off and
uh it would be a non-recyclable water so
it wouldn't be something that has to
have a system that has chemicals that we
have to maintain and that sort of thing
um yes yes it's good for
a maintenance perspective
um
so there's some discussion on that too
which would also at least help with
cooling people off some kids off uh
isn't that where the dog park is gonna
be to out there the dog park will be a
part of schneider it'll be at astor just
north of atwork that astro dead ends to
the
linear section of the park in the creek
uh and and they've started construction
on that as well i think the fencing
company that they're working on getting
in there to do that so
yeah it was really exciting a lot of a
lot of great things but you're right
it's hard
you know that's what it's interesting
you bring it up because one of the big
discussions we have today at the main
event meeting which does the jazz in the
park which we're going to do over there
is how we're going to deal with shade
for the musicians and for the people
watching it and
on a big open field that is there for
athletic use there's only so much you
can do but on the front on the edges
we'll continue to walk that way
um
but yeah it's
there are things that it works really
well there there are things that maybe
doesn't but we'll continue to just get
improvements um
jeffrey mansion cooling tower is uh
uh you know we're in contract to have
that
uh replaced and the location moved
the new cooling tower has been ordered
uh an invoice has been sent to and again
thank you to the gina and chris olsen
foundation which is
um
which is donating a hundred thousand
dollars to the project um so an invoice
has been sent to them um because we're
now in contract and that's moving
forward it looks like it's realistically
it's not going to get moved until um
uh till the
august ish because of just how long the
lead time on getting the actual
equipment
um but that's that's moving forward uh
what will be the total cost is it more
than 100 oh yeah yeah which we knew it
was going to be it was uh it's around
two
once around 220 i can't remember the
contract amount exactly it might have
been no more than that
um
but yeah we knew that it was going to be
leveraged against city dollars in order
to get that accomplished
um and the city has already approved the
funds for that obviously before we went
into the contract
um
you know we can uh this is sort of off
topic or we're talking about the mansion
we hosted the state of the city last
thursday
and um that was the first time we sort
of had our av system is mostly done
which is great
um there's still some punch items on the
exterior um
that they're gonna do they still need to
paint some of the railings that they put
in that you probably maybe have noticed
are still in this silver sort of the
base coat and they need a black
some different brick stuff um
but you know it's
99
and operational and
that's been exciting we're learning how
to use the equipment but
any questions on any of that it's very
nice i think it'll be great for more
corporations to come in yeah right yeah
lunch programs and we added um acoustic
dampening i don't know if anyone has
been
yeah we've had a couple events in there
and it was really obvious that just the
hard surfaces just bounced and
um we added acoustics in both spaces one
is less obvious
what we call the carriage board uh i'm
sorry
we call the courtyard uh which is the
area furthest north we used to drive
through it um that has the glass ceiling
there's not a lot of great places to put
these sort of acoustic panels without it
really impacting the aesthetics but
there's we they did a really good job
with that um
no it prevents
it prevents
and aesthetically
it works um
frankly what was there what's involved
is just a mechanical sort of painted
mechanical lines and types so
um
and the company did a really good job
there was a couple issues we had when
they put it in that
the back side so they're all white to
match the ceiling but the back side of
these panels
were yellow and the light was reflecting
off of it so it created this yellow tint
on the ceiling
uh and we like this kind of work and
they came right back and came to the
back side of it
we're great it looks a lot better
maybe that small business okay
that's right sure go ahead um uh jeffrey
park landscape plan uh we met with uh
dan and barb triffity and helena andrews
met uh about three weeks ago
um to discuss um what you know we have a
grant for which has heard of put
together a landscape plan to have
landscape improvements along the drive
into the mansion focusing on the north
side where they've cleared out a whole
bunch of sort of undergrowth that was
by a large invasive money sign
which looks a thousand times better but
to put some potential plantings along
the north side of the drive uh we had a
lot of great discussion about the circle
as the other another focal point uh for
this landscape plan
uh
and a
bed on along clifton avenue by the pool
so those are three
cascading walls those are three areas um
we had a lot of great discussion i
appreciate man being there and i
appreciate uh mark providing their
feedback
um ultimately
i think we were pretty much all on the
same page on everything except the
circle which there's a lot of good
discussion on that which is
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is going to provide us the two different
options which is what we sort of
discussed
uh for the circle so
she'll provide the two different ones
the basic just being one being more um
i'm going to say understated less
vertical less right now we have four um
uh japanese maple trees that are in the
circle and so one would be sort of going
back to
more just a manicured lawn and less
vertical and one another would be sort
of recreating to some extent what's
there there what's there now with the
japanese vehicles and keeping those
vertical elements there uh so we'll look
at those two
and figure out what direction you want
to go from the time you just give me an
update
she's going to try to get it to us in
the next two weeks
um
and
to me what makes some sense so there's a
couple things is that the jeffrey family
is having their five year they do every
five years although this is an odd year
because
um
um five year family reunion on
memorial weekend
um so we'd love to have some of these
improvements in place by then that's a
type of note let's see if that works
um
what i would like to do in terms of sort
of
the procedure of how this will work is
um
obviously
we'll bring these
we'll bring these designs to the board
to the board to altitude the ultimate
decision approval of whatever design
people move forward with uh before that
it will have
my hope is we'll have an opportunity to
have the tree commission to look at it
give technical sort of feedback to the
board to consider
again tree commission doesn't make the
decision on that they have a lot of sort
of technical knowledge on on their board
so having them look at it giving
feedback for the board to then consider
in terms of what the board wants to do
tonight
so presumably i'm hoping
she'll be able to present helena we'll
be able to present it on may 4th
uh
um
and if we can get to a point where we
can improve it i should take a step back
i would also provide it to the recorded
advance that will be the first time you
see that so whenever we get it whenever
it goes
which might be two weeks earlier then
you guys would also get a copy of it so
this will be what's going to the
proposals for the circle the circle and
the drive on the north side the circle
will be two options
the driver in the north will have a i
think a fairly defined plan but
obviously if there's
thoughts on plant material or the
massing of that plant material that
knobs the board can give feedback on
that we can make adjustments that's
entirely possible the circle is going to
be the one that's more like hey which of
these two options
and the uh so the other ones will be
pretty
fleshed out and ready for
sort of more nitpicking sort of so the
trees that are there and either option
they're gonna be torn down or they are
they don't not necessarily so here's
here's i'll get into the crux a little
bit
so we have
uh one tree that was taken down within
the last
five or six months late last year i
think um
there's there's four in there uh or four
there two of them were older and two of
them were replaced within the last five
or six years i guess
um so we have you know
we have instead we have yeah we have two
trees that look younger and two trees
that are older and then the one the
one's been taken out the other one will
probably need to be taken out in the
next year or so it's probably
realistically it's on its last limb um
and so then the question is how do we
get you know moving forward how do we
sort of stitch that sort of back
together
and it's it's possible that that
stitching is we take it all out and
start over but it includes putting trees
back in okay um
you're not you're not you're not trying
to make judges or lobbying or anything
no no what i'm saying is
what i'm saying is one option
what i'm saying is in both cases if
we're going to still have trees in there
there's two ways to to approach that one
is take them all out and start over with
trees presumably japanese maples again
because i think we've all really enjoyed
those there but
um
that you start over so you have like um
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but i think in our discussion it was if
we want to have trees there's two ways
to look at
sort of stitching those trees together
which is
buy bigger trees to replace the ones
that we have now which obviously is a
cost associated with it or
yes yeah that's what yeah
that's what i'm saying
or i like that which is a which is
possible uh presumably there'll be a
cost that's different because buying a
bigger tree is sure it's an exponential
cost in terms of that but or you look at
you know even potentially
um
you know
taking those trees out and moving them
somewhere else and bringing in four that
are similar in age and size and starting
sort of that process over again so
uh or
that's one approach or we don't go back
with sort of those vertical elements we
go to something else so those will be
the two options that are given how we
get there with the tree side would be
i'm not sure what you'll do and what if
we can't agree on that
we have an odd board we have an odd
number of board members
so we'll have to you know you know i
think the board doesn't you know this
you guys i think the board does a great
job of working together to find a way to
get as close to consensus as possible
but have half hit with trees did you get
this
uh the splitting of the babies right
[Music]
the lobbying has started
i do love a japanese table
they are beautiful
japanese paper
beautiful tree i think we have four in
our small lives
yeah
my random question how
bad is the honeysuckle invasion at
jeffrey
um
it's not great but i think we've done a
pretty good job of trying to keep we
spent a lot of time on we've got a lot
of volunteer groups that have come in
and worked on it um
the bloomers have done a great job with
upfront on trying to eliminate that
ron's done a pretty good job of trying
to deal with it in the woods in the back
yeah
it's interesting too because one of the
difficulties with the honeysuckle
especially on the given that we're on
the creek's edge is
it does provide some erosion protection
um
so it's it's a difficult thing to take
the honeysuckle out unless you're
putting something back in to help with
erosion and the hillside and especially
where we're at there's a big elevation
change
right there at the creek at jeffrey park
and so
it's sort of a double-edged shore and
it's something that you know we need to
continue to think about planting stuff
along the creek to help with erosion and
take on himself
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the mayor had a
chart on the water levels over the last
three years in allen creek and it's just
the content the context of his
uh presentation was on flooding in
basements
but it was just it's amazing the levels
yeah compared to what we've seen
historically in the last 25 years right
yeah i get little goosebumps every time
rain is showing for days
yeah
yeah and i don't i guess we've had big
that was about water levels and
sometimes i'm like is the water level up
because we're putting more water into
there or is it up because there's more
rain right it seems like you've got a
lot more rain yeah and a lot more heavy
storms and a lot more
yeah a short period of time
yeah
yeah and saturated ground already yeah
um a quick plug on becky bloomers
they're going to start up again
we have been meeting with them regularly
they will they would love anyone from
board or city council that has any
interest in coming over and spending a
couple hours on thursday mornings
um
they're looking for any volunteers that
they can get and uh
um planting is that what they're doing
they're doing cleaning up and they're
doing you know look uh
this first year there's a lot of just
maintenance general maintenance that
needed to happen as they get done more
of that it'll be more sort of manageable
sort of attention but they'll be weed
pulling i mean we'll have to be dealing
with leads we'll deal with wheat every
year um
there'll be um some planting that'll be
a part of that
um
yes
we have those conversations
yeah um right now we don't have a lot of
planned plan things for them i mean even
this even this um design that we're
talking about out front is going to we
expect that to be done by a
grounds crew not you know that might
then by vendor yard barbers
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yeah i mean we have a lot of new
landscape with the mansion project along
the
you know along the west east side of the
building that will need to be maintained
there's a lot more sort of area of
uh we that will be needed along that and
the north side right now too um so i'm
sure we'll keep them busy
yeah
yeah i'm sure that'll keep them very
busy
they've also been involved and hopefully
people have noticed the urns that
they've planted
julie kessler shout out to julie kessler
who has really done that she's uh
she's done a tremendous job on planting
those and it's doing a seasonal thing
with that
they've been it's been a really nice
addition are they gonna do the beautiful
where did these planters come from out
front uh you know what's so funny uh
kristen sent me a text christian
schweitzer who's managing this sent me a
text today and goes was this you're
doing and i'm like
i know they're going to be there uh i
think the city i don't know if they had
some extras that they were like
they sure yeah because he's putting out
more bike racks right now maybe he's
like oh yeah we need to get some plant
material in here so that's exciting i
mean those are the nice lanterns
it'll be a nice improvement we get some
nice flowers on there yeah really yeah
there we go it's good
so maybe is that a bloomers project
well their focus is over at jeffrey but
you know beautification partners from
the community foundations for
anyone else have any new or old business
they want to bring up
um the motion to adjourn
second
yes yes i think she is she was not happy
then
she's not one