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Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting March 7, 2005 hole right now with a lot of water sitting under it, and when the maintenance crew drains it, the water seeps up through the cracks and the pool cannot be painted properly. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed, but it needs to be. These are things that are not in our normal budget to take care of on an annual basis. Mr. Miller asked Mr. Stein to elaborate on the quality of the lines under the ice and the compressors. Mr. Stein said that the parts are still being replaced. The parts are still being made. It’s not a bad system; there is more modern, more energy efficient. The lines are one-inch tubing every four inches on center. The steel header goes out the center with about 300 little one inch pipes sticking out – those are all steel – and at the ends they are called U-Bends. Every U-Bend and the steel header is a mass of rust. Mr. Stein is afraid to melt down just to allow the period of three months of oxygen down there to continue more rust. He thought that by staying in a frozen state the oxidation doesn’t happen. When those break, there is a problem. The entire rink must be drained. Thirty years old – steel sitting in the dirt – Mr. Stein could not say when they are going to break. If you step on it wrong, it’s broken. How thick can a one-inch pipe be? It’s just a matter of time. When it goes, there must be a major renovation. Mr. Miller asked what the ball park estimate would be to complete a major renovation correctly. Mr. Stein said it would be anywhere between $300,000 to $600,000 for a new rink system – concrete with equipment – but this was priced a few years ago. It was observed by the school board that there has been so much talk and so many plans and so much debate that nothing gets done. Things should be done in a timely fashion and people will support progress. If nothing is done, the citizens will be very hesitant to support anything. That’s why it was important for the Board to renovate the outdoor track last summer, where there hasn’t been a whole meet in seven years. People just talk it to death and nothing gets done. It wasn’t that hard; it was just a matter of sitting down and delegating things to be done. That’s just a small project, but it was a show of good faith to people who want to believe in us and want to see things get done and want to support it. Whatever we decide to do, it should be done right. Renovation does not mean first class, and North Olmsted understands that we own property that can be made to meet today’s needs. When you talk about a rink that’s efficient, that is what should be done. Again, the school district should be a part of this. If not, the schools will lose the rink and the pool. General conversation about the maintenance issues that would cost so much that the schools and the Rec Center should take it to a bigger plan than just fixing the matter. It was agreed that, as Mr. Jesse said, it might be a 30% increase for double the impact. Mr. Jesse said that right now the Rec Center has more needs than plans as far as the actual numbers. What you see here is what Tom Stein put together ten years ago. It’s a beautiful, practical plan, but it’s between $5 and $10 million. It expands what is already here. His concern, before going to the voters with a major capital improvement plan for the city’s facilities is that we must look at the matter and ask if that is really what people want. There may be a $5 or $10 million facility that no one utilizes. It’s very important to get a survey out to the people, as the schools have done, which the Rec may hopefully utilize. The Rec can expand upon that Page 6