03/04/2003 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 3/4/2003 Councilman Miller reported on behalf of Councilman Gareau, chairperson of the Recreation, Public Parks and Buildings Committee: 1) He attended the Recreation Commission meeting last evening on behalf of Mr. Gazeau. The following items were discussed: The new program supervisor was introduced. Under his duties will be coverage of the softball, baseball, soccer, football, girls' basketball, parks programming in general, Karate and the Irish step-dancing program. He comes from Ann Arbor, Michigan and the size of that program was considerable in that they had baseball and softball teams in excess of 400 teams for each of the leagues. He seems very energetic, and will be very positive for the program. Good luck to him on behalf of all of Council. Commissioner DiSalvo made a presentation and sand he was concerned that some of the trade-offs with the organizations such as NOSO and Hot Stove are not documented on paper. He feels it would be in the city's best interest to have those program trade-offs more formalized and in writing. Issues involving the ticket booth and the head cashier are being addressed. It's a hope that, through more diligent control of who is coming and going into the building, spick-up of about 5% of revenue, which represents $100,000, can be accomplished. Also, they are trying to address the issue of missed billing for some of the leagues, activities, and teams. The Recreation Dept. is looking at every opportunity to raise their revenue. The brochures were discussed, and the timing is critical. The commission discussed the lockers in the men's locker room. There are approximately 25 broken lockers- broken in such a way that make them theft vulnerable. They are instituting a program to repair the lockers; hopefully, they will be fixed within the next two weeks. Then there will be more random and frequent checks of the locker room to make sure they aren't being tampered with. It was indicated that we have a messaging system that has been available to the Recreation building and in place but hasn't been activated for some two years or so. That messaging system will be available; however, the personal response, the ability to actually talk to someone there, will also be available. Also discussed was the need far staffing for early morning hours as the building is sometimes opened as early as 5:30 a.m. for lap swimming and use by the schools. Mr. Miller suggested that the laid-off school crossing guards be considered for this part-time employment as they are accustomed to early hours. Numerous repairs are needed that are consistent with past year's request for consideration for funding. Everything from $30,000 bleachers, which has been an issue in the recent past, to an emergency lighting system that apparently is cross- wired and not working properly. One of the pools has a back flow preventer that needs repair at a cost of approximately $7,000. Repairs aze needed on the roof as there are 10 to 15 beams that aze rotting out around the support structure for the roof. The gymnastics heating unit is beyond its life span. Discussions were had about the rates, how soon those rates should be in place, if they were to be increased. and the fact that The commission received an inquiry from Mr. Gazeau and Mrs. Kasler about the pick-up policy for children. The response was that the nursery program, central playground program and summer camps do have spick-up policy in place. People in 9