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Minutes of a Meeting of The Parks and Recreation Commission May 2, 2005 presented to the members. This will not be on the Agenda for Council for this coming Wednesday because Ms. Wenger wanted input from the Commission. She was hoping it would be on at the second Council meeting in May so that the city can move forward, get a consultant on board, and get the project started. Mr. Miller noted that, as the process is going on, it would be nice if there were no major breakdowns in the Rec Center’s ice or pool areas or leaks in the tennis area or the heating and ventilation issues in the tennis area. What would Ms. Wenger propose that the Commission do while this process is ongoing: for example, if there was a determination that the soccer fields needed lighting improvements. This is just an example: does the Rec Center maintain what it has in the interim while this process is going on until there are some things on the table? Ms. Wenger replied that she has left this up to the Commissioner and the directors of the departments; she would not presume to tell them what to do in terms of maintenance, and certainly there is a safety issue to be addressed: there might be some things, such as the tennis study, that could easily be rolled into this type of planning process. All the types of plans that the Rec Commission would like to see, whether it’s basketball, volleyball, tennis show an infinite amount of interest in the community, and a lot of people that want certain things addressed. The Rec Center will realize that there will be substantial cost savings if an approach like this is taken, where there is one planning process addressing all recreation needs so that tennis will be addressed. There will be more “bang for the buck” by taking this approach. Savings will be realized, so that in the meantime if you need to expend some funds to maintain while the planning process is going on that one would not be losing anything. Ms. Wenger would not anticipate that this process would go beyond 2006 so that budgeting can start with a plan in place for 2007. The city will have an expectation of the consultant. There was a lot of input from the planning process. Ms. Wenger believes that there must be effective ways of gathering information from the community; the city does not want to have a six-month long survey process, because in the meantime, every day the facilities get older and what is being gained from the survey is not worth it. There can be a lot more efficient ways of gathering public input along the way so that the Rec Center can have a plan in place and start chipping away at its long-range plan for maintenance and improvements. Mr. Miller said that Springvale was left out, understandably so. There is, however, property at Springvale that has been discussed as an alternate site for tennis courts or baseball or volleyball fields, so Mr. Miller asked that, if the Commission agrees, it includes that portion of Springvale for purposes of any study, if that’s the way to go. The city does own the property, and it’s really not being utilized. Unless there is some major expansion or bigger use of Springvale, the land will still be there. Mr. Kelley said that the property Mr. Miller is speaking of is along the east side of Canterbury Road between the Clubhouse and Butternut Ridge. There would really be no issue in using it for recreational purposes. Mr. Kelley did not believe that the objective the Commission is seeking was taken care of by Ms. Wenger’s proposal. The Sub Committee was set up to talk to the schools about updating Page 5