05/18/1999 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/18/99 maintenance of ball diamonds. The Recreation Commission will look at these suggestions in more detail at their next meeting along with the financial picture in order to make suggestions regarding this list of priorities. 2) The Recreation Commission met on the same evening with the following items being discussed: • A video was presented regarding the proposed skateboard park. Rae Ann Thomas and Mary Creadon presented information regarding their fundraising efforts, presented a booklet of information which included responses to surveys from surrounding neighbors to the proposed Rec Center site. A public hearing was scheduled for June 7 in order to present this plan to the public. • Residents were present at the meeting to discuss a shortage of gym space in North Olmsted. They brought to the attention of the commission that only two regulation basketball courts exist in the entire city. Although the facility agreement between the schools and the Rec Center which has been in place for several years works quite well, the increased usage creates a shortage of space presently. A family that was present and is very involved with the basketball program requested a feasibility study to be performed in order to consider building a facility. This will be discussed again at a later meeting. • The Mayor asked the Rec Commission to consider advising Council with regard to the purchase of Bradley Road property, which purchase was considered and denied in 1998. This purchase was first proposed at the end of the term of the last administration and reproposed in 1998 and is now on the table for reconsideration. The property consists of 9 acres at an approximate cost of $300,000 to $340,000. The timeframe and cost for developing this land was not presented. A future facility plan was presented which included four baseball diamonds. Although the Rec Commission generally agrees with the purchase of green space and recognizes the need for additional baseball diamonds in the city, several members of the Commission expressed concern about funding. The question was asked whether recreation money was to be used for this purchase or if the General Fund would be adversely affected by borrowing for the project, thereby potentially adversely affecting the recreation budget. The basis for concern is the priority list and slides presented by the administration which delineated several serious unsafe areas at the Recreation Center complex. This will be a topic again discussed at the next Commission meeting. • Councilman Miller suggested consideration of a bike path which would connect the Metroparks to the existing state bike path on Butternut. This is a timely suggestion since Butternut Ridge is due for considerable improvements in the near future. The lack of Issue 2 money may affect this plan, but it appeared that this suggestion shall be kept on the table when Butternut is addressed. • Residents who were present expressed concern regarding certain violent video games in the Recreation Center game room. They felt these games have an adverse affect on the behavior of some children, and the Rec Center should not be promoting such behavior by providing the opportunity for children to utilize these games in a generally unsupervised atmosphere. The Commission passed a resolution which mandated the removal of the three games that were in question and were determined to be most offensive and to have those games replaced with non-violent games. 4