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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - PRAB - 06-16-2011MEETING MINUTES CITY OF MILTON PARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY BOARD Thursday, June 16th, 201111:3o a.m. Executive Conference Room CALL TO ORDER Meeting was called to order by Chairman Mark Reed at 11:43 a.m. ROLL CALL Roll call was taken by Mark Reed. MEMBERS PRESENT Wallace Brittain Kathi Cook Mark Reed Sandy Sheley MEMBERS ABSENT Scott Stachowski Jack Flowers Post 3 Vacant OTHERS PRESENT Cyndee Bonacci, Parks and Recreation Director Tom Gilliam, Recreation Program Coordinator Quorum was announced by Mark Reed. APPROVAL OF PAST MINUTES Motion to approve minutes of the May 1g meeting was made by Kathi Cook and seconded by Sandy Sheley. The vote was unanimous and motion carried. PUBLIC COMMENT None NEW AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS a) Cyndee stated she wanted to provide and update and receive input regarding the IGA improvement projects. She stated that the Crabapple Park project was underway. Lose & Associates are providing the engineering and construction administration. A survey by another firm was taking longer than anticipated. Once engineering is completed and approved, the project would go to bid for the required 28 days. The construction should take go days. This puts the project being completed in the fall. Cyndee also asked if there was any truth to the rumor that the little red building on the property was an old post office. Member of the Board said they would ask around and see what they could find out. Cyndee reminded the Board that originally Fulton County BOE had Hopewell Middle School on its list for field improvements prior to the IGA being completed. The project was actually bid out in early 2011. Due to the timing of when the IGA was executed, Fulton County would like to move forward with their initially proposed improvement project using SPLOST funds. The delay of the signing of the IGA has caused the City to be behind on getting the project underway. FCBOE proposes completing the project as planned and having the City reimburse FCBOE just the money allocated for those improvements. Cyndee is waiting to see a scope for the improvements to make sure that everything that had been planned by the City was included. By allowing them to proceed, it would put the field improvements back on somewhat of a timeframe to be used this fall for programs. Cyndee stated that based on an estimate she had received and money set aside, the City would allocate $35,000 for the field improvements at Hopewell. Other money was still set aside for the baseball field improvements. Mark made a motion to amend the IGA to include a financial arrangement with Fulton County Board of Education to allow FCBOE to make the field improvements at Hopewell Middle School and the City of Milton would reimburse the cost of these field improvements for an amount not to exceed $35,000. Kathi seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous and motion carried. Cyndee stated that she had visited Cogburn Woods and Birmingham Falls recently with a contractor. For Cogburn Woods they discussed the scope and the budget. Both felt that the work could be completed at or within the allotted budget. However, he strongly recommended delaying the improvements until late spring because there not being enough down time left this summer. The heat would be an issue as well. Basically, he stated it would be a waste of money to try and make them improvements now. He suggested asking FCBOE to wait until next spring. Mark made a motion to ask Fulton County Board of Education to delay the improvements at Cogburn Woods until the end of the school year in spring 2012. Kathi seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous and motion carried. Regarding Birmingham Falls, Cyndee stated that this field was a little different situation. When the sod was installed for the new school in 2009, the netting was not removed from the sod. Now the netting has made its way to the surface and is a major trip and safety hazard. To really do the field improvements correctly, the netting would need to be excavated and removed. The City does not have enough funding for this large of a project. The City set aside funds to add the irrigation, topdress and sprig the field. The contractor recommended asking FCBOE for financial assistance to do the project right both for the safety of the students at the school as well as the program participants from the City. He stated that the planned improvements could be completed by the City if FCBOE would not contribute but that the netting would always be a problem and would just put a band-aid on a much larger issue. He also recommended asking for these improvements to be delayed until spring due to the same issues as Cogburn Woods, heat and not enough time before school starts back. Mark made a motion to ask Fulton County Board of Education to provide financial assistance to the field improvement project due to the fact that the sod was not installed correctly when the school was built and it is a safety issue for the school before it is a safety issue for the City. The motion included that the financial assistance would include the cost to remove the netting and associated costs outside the scope from the City. His motion also included a request to Fulton County Board of Education to delay the improvements at Birmingham Falls until the end of the school year in spring 2012. Kathi seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous and motion carried. b) Cyndee provided a brief recap of previous discussions regarding North Park. Cyndee stated that since the City initially proposed making Alpharetta whole with regards to current Milton 2 fees, Alpharetta proposed splitting the total annual cost of the park evenly between the cities. The City of Milton does not agree with this option since the operation, oversight and ownership of North Park would still be Alpharetta. Several meetings and discussions have been held regarding the North Park issue over the past year. Cyndee requested and received financial information from Alpharetta and has reviewed it to make another proposal. Cyndee provided this information to the Board. Cyndee's recommendation was to offer the current fees collected from Milton residents ($80,000) plus 50% for a total not more than $120,000. This would keep Alpharetta whole with regards to income currently being received plus cover any additional participation as well as additional maintenance needed due to increased usage of park amenities. The City of Milton would be subsidizing operation of North Park not just specific programs. Mark suggested the arrangement be renewable annually and the contribution amount be evaluated based on participation by Milton residents. Cyndee suggested that any money paid to Alpharetta for North Park should be allocated just for North Park. After discussion, Mark made a motion for the City of Milton to negotiate a one year, renewable option agreement with the City of Alpharetta with the first year being an amount not more than $120,000 with subsequent years based on analysis of participation by Milton residents with all funds paid being allocated specifically for North Park. Sandy seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous and motion carried. Cyndee stated she would provide this information to Chris. c) The discussion regarding committee assignments was deferred by Chairman Reed until the July 201h regular meeting since two members of the Board are absent and one seat is still vacant. d) Cyndee began by reminding everyone her last day would be July 5. She stated that she had offered to help through the transition by being available part-time until a successor is in place and up to speed. She thanked the Board for their support over the past 1.5 years. Each Board member thanked her for accomplishing so much is a short time and stated she would be missed. Cyndee also stated that Human Resources was actively recruiting for the position and so far approximately 3o applications have been received. Kathi Cook left the meeting at 12:35 p.m. A quorum did not remain. COMMITTEE REPORTS a) Finance and Capital Projects —Mark mentioned he saw where mid -year budget amendments had been submitted and asked how the City was with revenues and expenses. Cyndee stated that for Parks and Recreation no additional funds were requested, only moved within the department. She stated she didn't think any department would have additional requests for funds unless it just involved covering fuel costs that had fluctuated during the year. b) Programs and Partnerships — Cyndee stated that discussions were continuing with Birmingham United Methodist Church regarding use of their facilities. A meeting would be scheduled soon with HYA to see if they had interest in using the baseball field beginning next spring. Cyndee stated the agreement with Eagle Stix Lacrosse was moving forward for this fall. Their incorporation and other documentation had been received. At Chris's request, Cyndee asked of the position of the Board was still the same regarding the George Baker Complex and W2W Sports. The remaining Board members acknowledged that it was and that an agreement could be worked out for the spring once more information is received and discussed. Cyndee stated that discussions were also continuing with the YMCA about a potential partnership specifically looking at youth soccer. An agreement is being considered for the spring. Cyndee and Chris have received an email regarding setting up a meeting with the new high school principal Dr. Spurka. Cyndee would no longer be here for the meeting but Tom and Chris could meet with him later in July. Dr. Spurka has been very supportive of partnerships with parks and recreation during his time in Roswell. The North Fulton Slow Pitch survey ended May 31. There was a lot of feedback received in support of a regional program. The program would begin in the spring for only two to three age groups. Roswell may go ahead and move forward with starting a teen league this fall. CITY STAFF REPORTS AND COMMUNICATIONS Cyndee provided board members with a summary of various updates in writing prior to the meeting. Cyndee reminded the board of several upcoming special events including the summer concert series, Community Kickoff, Mayor's Run and Milton Roundup. Information for Roundup sponsors and vendors will go out over the next week. OTHER BUSINESS Wallace asked if any land had been identified for additional parks through a parks plan. Cyndee stated that the Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Master Plan would address that. She stated that she had studied the map of Milton and laid some locations out in her head. She had also been contacted by two land donors with property in locations she had in mind for parkland. We are still waiting for a final response from those two interested donors. Wallace stated that he had a property in mind that would make great parkland and he stated the owners might be interested in the tax incentives associated with donation. NEXT REGULAR MEETING DATE Thursday, July 20th, 11:3o a.m. LOCATION OF MEETING ➢ The location of the meeting will be the Executive Conference Room at City Hall. ADJOURNMENT The City of Milton Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting officially ended at 12:35 p.m. when there was no longer a quorum present. Discussion continued until 1:30 p.m. DATE APPROVED: �� / /L Mark Reed, Chair Milton Parks & Recreation Advisory Board 4