Right. I'd like to call to order the September meeting of the Bloomington Board of Park Commissioners.
And could we start with the roll call, please, Kim? Kathleen Mills. Here. Israel Herrera. Here.
Jim Whitlatch. Here. And Ellen Rodkey is absent. OK. Ellen is absent. We do have a quorum this evening.
And we've moved just a little bit from our usual time to make the meeting work this month.
So first off as always we have the consent calendar so Some things that we are used to seeing pretty
much every month and then also some smaller agreements or addendum or update to agreements. So do I
have a Motion to approve the consent calendar move to approve the consent calendar All right, and Do
we need a roll call vote? Okay? Oh
Virtual, okay. All right. So all those in favor of the consent calendar Hi. Aye. All right motion carried
And then next up in Section B our public hearings and appearances we have quite a few staff intros but
first a Bravo award that goes to Kate Smith and
Good evening everyone Emily book community relations coordinator and I would like to recommend Kate
Smith for the September Bravo award I would like to recognize Kate with this award She began volunteering
with us in July and has already amassed almost 36 hours of volunteer service She has been involved across
all facets of our volunteer programs weed wrangles community events bugfest Leonard Springs nature days
and more myself and all of our program staff appreciate Kate for always arriving on time for her scheduled
shifts and
Completing any tasks with a smile and going above and beyond to assist staff and ensuring that
all participants have the type of great experience our events are known for So thank you Kate for all
of your hard work Thank you, and I just want to say really quickly I just want to say thank you to Emily
and everybody at the parks and rec and especially the community of volunteer coordinators um
It's a lot of really great work. I also want to make it I want to share that like I'm a part of this
program because of the opportunity that was granted to me by the Monroe County pretrial diversion program,
so I think the work that they're doing Emily included is Really incredible and gives us an opportunity
to not just move forward but make progress as well, which I think is really important. So Yeah, thank
you very much. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I
That your handsome dog up there in the slide cake. Yeah Okay Okay, and then in b2 we have a staff intro
of Daniel Melwood Hello Daniel Melwood Been working at Cascades for as part-time for four years now
and just now recently got the full-time labor position and
About a month ago working here with Brad Scroggins as the superintendent So I'm just really grateful
to both him and keto and Jason Sims and everyone that cascades everyone here for the opportunity and
We look forward to making cascades even better than it is Okay. All right. Great. Thank you Okay, and then
We have next in the staff intros, we have Tristan Berube? Berube? Berube, yes. Berube, okay. So hi,
my name is Tristan Berube. I'm a first year master's student at the O'Neill School at IU. I'm getting
my master's in environmental science with a concentration in water resources. I got my undergrad bachelor
at Purdue University in environmental geoscience with a minor in environmental politics and policy.
And I'm excited to work on projects with the Parks and Rec Department.
Okay, welcome Tristan. Thank you All right, and then our next staff introduction is Stefania Should
I try you you tell me how to say your name. All right, Stephanie Agama. Okay. All right. So My name
is Stephanie Agama I am a freshman at IU studying finance and international business at the Kelly School
of Business and I got placed here as a cogs scholar and
So I'm basically here to help out and just I guess attend events and do whatever I can Okay, great.
Great. Welcome. Thank you And finally in our staff intros we have Zoe mine urban green space fellow
Zoe Oh, okay. All right Okay, okay
Okay, and then we will move into our section C other business Where Sean Marler will tell us about the
agreement with Marvel lighting for switch our pavilion LED lighting Good evening. I don't think I've
ever been first before Sean Marler switch our recreation facilities general manager. I'm here to recommend
for approval contract with Marvel lighting for the
amount of sixty one thousand two hundred thirty six dollars This money and the contract is
for the installation of secondary lights and the pavilion at switch yard park. It'll add It was 12 Excuse
me 24 24 additional fixtures to improve the lighting there since we open switch yard the two complaints
we were always getting in the pavilion
Were the sound and the lights so we addressed the sound a couple years ago with the dampening panels
And now we're going to take a shot at addressing the lighting The complaints were that it just was too
dark around the in the evening. We often have some events where they need lighting and it is a little
dark the 12 existing lamps there are very attractive. They're very nice but they're actually meant more
as accent lights than actual
Heavy functional lights, so it is a little bit dim for some events. Okay All right Happy to answer any
questions on All right move to Approve agreement with Marvel lighting for switch yard pavilion LED lighting
All right, and all those in favor. Hi. All right motion. Carry. Thank you Sean. Thank you. I
Then next up and see to Frank Southern ice arena rental agreement template Chris Hamrick Except it's
keto. Yep, this is busy today. So I'm pinching again for Chris. Okay, Satoshi keto sports service division
director stuff recommends approval of Frank Salson Center facility rental agreement form after analyzing
and evaluating previous partnership agreement at FSC and
Staff indicated that there are no partnerships, but rather simple rental agreements. Therefore, the
arrangement should be terminated and new facility rental agreement form was created. Just to give you
background, Frank Salson Center will accommodate five to seven rental groups each year. Staff previously
created partnership agreements for each rental group, but will now use this
rental template agreement instead Any deviation from the terms laid out in the template agreement would
require the approval of the board? Happy to answer any questions Okay, that sounds like a good way to
streamline things What kind of partners are these or what kind of kind who rents this for this under
this agreement? Braids organization
Skate a hockey group braids junior senior. Are you hockey club? figure skating what else okay, so So
somewhere I may have misread it, but it said that was typically six times a year I must have misread
that as a six groups or because I would think that these all those groups were in it a lot mm-hmm okay,
then my other my other question is I
I think it's two hundred ninety five dollars an hour or something like that is what the fee is How did
we come up with that amount? Have we looked at? Similar I mean, I know it's so expensive to operate
that facility and I just want to make sure we Thought through how much we're charging for that. Yeah,
we look at other areas Columbus fishers they have ice arena and that they look at look at a
Their fees and try to make it competitive All right. Thank you. Thank you Move to approve the Frank
Southern ice arena rental agreement template Okay, all those in favor aye Motions carried. Thank you
keto. Thank you. Thank you and then in C3 we have the agreement with adventurous play for Brian Park and
Ages two to five playgrounds surfacing replacement Amy. Hi, I'm Amy lion back operations coordinator
and I am here to recommend approval of the contract with adventurous play to remove existing Surfacing
and replace it at the Brian Park two to five playground The contract is for thirty seven thousand one
hundred that was well under budget for what we had put aside So that's gonna allow us to do a couple
of other projects
And we're got great recommendations for this new company. So we're excited to have another vendor that
can do surfacing And is the since the one there is 17 years old is the type of surfacing different from
yeah right now It has rubber tiles right they pull apart and then weeds grow in them and they start
to really break down So this is going to be a solid rubber surface one Uniform surface they're gonna
it's called poured in place
So it will be just solid. Okay. And do you have to shut down the playground for very long? There will
be a short closure, he said. He estimates about four days, so not too bad. Okay. So this is the first
year with this company? Yes, this is the first time we're using them. And they can highly recommend
it? Yes, I actually did ask for recommendations and talked to someone, one of their, who they've worked
with in Ohio.
Yeah, they're pulling out the rubber tiles that are there that are really old and they're gonna just
break that down to the there's concrete underneath we're gonna power wash the concrete get it really
clean and then they'll pour in the new surface and
the same same footprint path or footprint That's the existing playground surface right now No, just
this one project, yeah All right move to approve agreement with adventurous play for Brian Park and
2-5 playgrounds surfacing replacement All right, and all those in favor aye All right motion is carried.
Thank you. Thank you All right, and then we have some more LED lighting in c4 Rebecca Swift will tell
us about that agreement
Yes, Rebecca Swift operations development division director. This is the one we just couldn't do in-house
The ceilings are just too tall at Banneker Community Center Thanks to funding from our economic and
sustainability development department They are funding this project as well as the LED conversion and
multiple city-owned properties including the animal shelter sanitation fire station four and five so
they are funding this project and put together the contract packet but as a park property we wanted
to make sure we
Gave it through for your approval Happy answer any questions Move to approve agreement with Cassidy
electric for LED replacement at Banneker Center All those in favor. Hi. All right motion. Carry.
Thank you, Rebecca and then Haskell Smith has a couple of items c5 is the agreement with Davey resource
group for Kirkwood tree planting
Good evening Haskell Smith City Forester staff recommends the approval of this agreement with Davie
tree expert company to remove five poor health trees and replant 20 trees around the downtown square
and along Kirkwood and some of the raised bed planters The mount not to exceed eighty five hundred dollars
and the funding source is the bicentennial bond There's been Some work to improve some of the downtown
the Kirkwood corridor and
One of the suggestions was to plant more trees. So we've worked to increase the number of trees along
Kirkwood and I thought it'd be a good time to get some of the old ones out that aren't looking very
healthy and Yeah, happy to answer any questions about that And are these trees the ones that you see
that have the metal grating around them? Okay, not all of them some I think five of these are the and
then 15 are in the raised bed
planters on like corners and they were flowerbeds 13 of them used to be flower beds and landscape beds
and now we're converting them to tree pits Okay, and I assume trees in that environment don't expect
to last quite as long as Trees in a more natural environment. Yeah, I mean with any urban tree. Yeah.
Yeah the lifespan is likely shorter than the natural environment
World trees in what sense like they're dying they're damaged they've been Brutalized over the years
of just living in an urban environment Orment or just missing. Yeah To some extent yeah, if somebody
gets a hold of one too hard potentially And then there will be 20 20 new ones, right?
The fiber being replaced and then there's 15 additional trees planted that didn't exist before Yeah,
20 total so 15 additional trees between the square and Kirkwood corridor East Kirkwood
Move to approve agreement with Davey resource group for Kirkwood tree planting All those in favor aye
Motion is carried and then Haskell also has c6. Just the third quarter risk report for urban forestry
Yeah, so we're
Chugging along here this year. We had 50 high-risk trees identified by tree keeper earlier this year
I think we're down to just a handful of those. I've reassessed all of them Some are on a pruning list
for deadwooding actually scheduled for next week Fewer being removed. I've got some on a plant health
care program and One's getting a cable in it to alleviate. So here shortly the 50 trees will be not
The high-risk list anymore outside of that just as a few key points We're up to a little over 1200 trees
pruned on the year 260 removed a schedule of 730 to be planted and we've Between all that and then our
inspection and inventory. We've worked on about 5,000 trees this year. Oh And then I have
Seven new tree grates to go in and the downtown area. We'll get that scheduled just as soon as we can
Okay, never a downtime No the tree. Okay All right. Any questions about this for Haskell? I noticed
in the report you had that information or the picture and I've seen them on the as I've been walking
around the this is not a pedestrian and
Walkway on the greats if it's I think your report said if it's more than a half an inch off I'm just
I mean I get why that's there and I'm aware that People trip on that and there have been lawsuits and
it probably came from risk management or the insurance company or something like that I'm just a little
curious about the wording a little bit why it doesn't just say caution or something like that. I
We have since changed stickers. It should say caution if there's one that still says pedestrian walk
away It was supposed to be removed. It might have just been one that we missed Yeah, there's one actually
where in the city building over by force. I saw it this morning. So it In the city building over by
4th Street Or the my old office on 4th Street that the city now owns where the fire department
was temporarily So, okay, so did they do say caution now and then I guess is there a plan for
Repairing those or making sure that we don't and instead of putting a sticker on all of them Can we
get do how do we and I don't know how easy that is I assume it's a little bit of a hassle that changes
every time we have some flooding or Who knows what happens if they get out of whack again?
I'm sure yeah, everyone's a little different. We we do a lot of different things We can expand the tree
grades to if the roots are pushing them up if it's something where there's just been
Soil build up we pull them back remove the soil and readjust them Sometimes they just have to be replaced
or removed We're looking at different things for long term rather than mulch to go in there But yeah,
everyone's a little different slow and steady the caution is just to kind of Let folks know in the meantime
until we can get get there to fix them. Yeah. Thanks Appreciate that Move that we
Approve the quarter three risk report for urban forestry All those in favor, hi All right motion carried.
Thank you Haskell. Thank you guys and then in c7 Tim Street will tell us about the general budget for
2026 Good evening park commissioners Tim Street director of Bloomington Parks and Recreation Kim is
gonna pull up budget presentation here tonight
This is basically the same presentation that I gave to City Council a few weeks ago regarding our general
fund budget I've trimmed out a few things that the board of park commissioners would already know about
our departments and I don't need to go over with you, but it is still a great overview of Where we are
at this moment in time and where we are going So just a reminder that for parks the board of
park commissioners has authority to approve our non-reverting budget of which I will actually be back up to
Our first version of that for 2026 to you in section D And the park commissioners basically present
a recommendation to the City Council On whether or not to adopt the general fund budget, but the City
Council is the fiscal authority for the general fund budget Things working That's all right
While walk him is pulling that up. I'll just mention In the packet is the full printout of every account
and there's about 20 something parks general fund accounts. Forgive me. I'm forgetting the exact number
right now That range from you know sports divisional accounts, you know, there's a general fund account
for the pools There's a general fund account for community events. There's a general fund account for
gardens and
That full breakdown of the budget is in the packet if you'd like to see exactly how things are allocated
for 2026. But the presentation is meant to give you more of an overview. I always love this slide that
Julie Raimi puts together for us just as an overview of everything we have to offer and everything we
represent to the community. We're a big part of keeping our community running and making Bloomington
a vibrant place to live.
Some of the numbers that stand out to me on there is the almost 24,000 public trees that we have inventoried.
As Haskell said, never a dull moment. The 38 miles of trails, the 11 pickleball courts, and we are currently
at 64 full-time staff. And ultimately, if I had to just parse our mission down into a short statement,
as I did for the council, I would say we make Bloomington a healthier, greener, and more connected place
to live and play for everybody.
And that is more connected both in the physical sense We build trails literally connect people through
the community and also of course through a programmatic sense And that our parks offer places for people
to connect with one another and to connect with the environment in a wide variety of ways Just to highlight
a few 2025 successes we completed a whole slew of park success ability projects with our final ARPA
dollars and
One of which will actually be celebrating this Friday four to six, which is the building trades Accessibility
improvements which are complete and lovely There were other things like the the tactile map here at
switch our park that we unveiled this summer I want to thank Sean Marler He put a lot of work into the
research along with the Community Council for accessibility on coming up with this tactile map which
is just an incredible way for us to represent our inclusive values to everybody and
We are in the midst of working on our master plan for 2026 to 2030. I'll touch base on that a little
bit more. We've had great success with some various studies and grants for the Banneker Center, including
a Ball State Historic Architecture Preservation Study that has given us recommendations on how to take
care of the building from a grad student in historic architecture there, as well as a DNR grants to
replace the front steps that the board has approved and will be starting soon.
We of course Becky Higgins retired and Leslie Brinson has stepped in as our recreation division director
She's very busy right now while she waits to fill her previous position But she's doing a great job
excited to have her You've seen even tonight a number of sustainability improvements like the LED going
in in the various facilities Completed some infrastructure projects. Those are a lot of those are still
finishing up yet this year paving RCA court basketball court
crack repair at the pickleball at RCA Miller showers paving repairs and a new cemetery path connecting
to West Adams and Let's see planters and growth you've seen that be a topic Joanna has has led
Great revival of the the downtown courthouse square planters It's very tricky to balance being native
forward and of course pleasing opinions of everybody But I think that has been a big success and I think
the Kirkwood planter project that you just heard about Replacing trees is exactly the type of project.
We need to be thinking about it
brings more trees, the environmental benefits of those, the heat island mitigation benefits of those,
while also reducing the incredible burden that we discovered we had in taking care of 60-something.
What was that number? 93 downtown planters. That is a lot of planters to be taken care of. So we're
trying to really work smart and focus on quality, not quantity, of things.
And of course, just our community reach through all of our various programs, after-school programs,
community events, Fourth of July Parade, Stay Cool Bloomington pool days, as mentioned, were a vital
part of making Bloomington a vibrant place to live. We just received official news after attending the
National Rec and Park Association Conference last week that we were re-accredited for the next five
years. We were also a beta standards tester.
for new standards for national accreditation So big kudos to Leslie Brinson for leading us through those
new standards. These are our visitors that came to us in June and it's it's a good experience to invite
people in to basically Poke around at everything you do and find the cracks and and offer us ways to
to maybe improve just that little bit more
Of course, we've opened Hopewell Commons continues to be a focus for us to activate And I want to highlight
the farmers market as a particular success this year I think about a month ago. We passed the total
attendance that we had for the entire year last year It's a vibrant active space for the community 60
plus vendors and I think a stat that
highlights the real effectiveness of our community relations team is that they specifically targeted
a campaign to Increase reach on social media for the farmers market and thanks to Caleb and Julie and
that team We saw a four thousand percent increase in Facebook interactions on the community farmers
market page The average visited visitors it's about
I think at the time I ran this it was like 5200. It's maybe even inched up a smidge since then but over
5,000 weekly visitors to the farmers market 5000 plus Just a reminder I touched on this at the beginning
Parks is a little bit Partitioned in the way we maintain our city finances from the rest of the city
and that state codes are
sets up a separate general fund cash balance for Parks and Rec. We started this year with about a $3.8
million cash balance. We have a healthy cash balance, which I'm grateful for as we enter some uncertain
financial times. That is what it is there for, is to help us navigate uncertainty and mitigate whiplash
decisions and effect on the community offerings.
We are funded through a combination of property tax and program revenues. Four of the past five years,
our general fund has finished with a surplus. We do typically start the year with a slight deficit budget
that allows us freedom to navigate projects and various things that happen throughout the year, understanding
we can budget for 100% staffing all year as well, but we never actually achieve.
They move up, they move on, positions are hard to fill for a while, and that always affects things too.
And the non-reverting account I will talk about separately. This just shows our last five-ish years
of budget. As you can see through the COVID years, I believe the first year down there is 2020. Looking
over the captions.
The last one is six, so five, four, three, two, no, the first year there is 2021. You can see a lot
of our supplies and services did increase, as well as a steady increase in personnel those years. A
lot of inflation, a lot of rising costs of things. Since then, we have really stabilized our supply
and services budget. And the major increase that we're seeing, we actually prepared a budget this year
where our supply and services and capital
Totals were actually flat and actually a little bit down from last year But the major increase we're
seeing year over year is the effect of the city's salary study for civil employees and the anticipated
effect of a raises for our AFSCME employees This is just what I was talking about our category two three
and four budgets which is everything that's not personnel and
Actually reduced from four point five six to four point three eight million Even though that included
support for Hopewell Commons for the first time Our park security is in ARPA for the final year. It's
already been obligated in ARPA for 2026 that is obviously a large expense that when ARPA funds go away,
we will have to
Really figure out so things are great for 26 with security, but we know we've got that looming Contract
out there that we need to figure out as we prepare for 2027 Category one increased about a million dollars
from various salary impacts and we did eliminate one vacant position That was created before my time
as director and that we essentially found a way to
manage our processes and everything without this position. It had been held vacant, and we decided now
was the time to go ahead and eliminate that position. So while we have a healthy cash balance, we have
a healthy outlook, I have every confidence we're gonna finish this year again with either very close
to the mark we set or right in the neighborhood in terms of finishing with the surplus. It's clear that
with Senate Enroll Act 1,
We're still trying to understand the property tax cap limitations of that that are gonna phase in over
time. The city as a whole still has a lot of decisions to make about whether or not to enact a local
income tax. So I feel very comfortable for 2026. We have a budget that will allow us to continue to
offer all of the things we need to do for our community. But we have to be really smart
Moving forward we are going to feel these impacts more in the future I know municipally we go through
these periods of expansion and contraction We are looking at things like when full-time positions open
up as vacants making sure we evaluate those Is this something that we need? Is this something that we
have to have we are looking at things like our program offerings like our downtown planners and
We need a real focus on quality over quantity. We've had an incredible period of growth and new capital
items and Switchard and Hopewell and Bicentennial projects these last years, and I think as you know,
our master plan is very much focused, and we were fortunate that we'd already selected this focus before
we knew anything about Senate Enrollment Act 1 on financial sustainability. Next year's budget, after
that tangent from me, sorry,
has about 260,000 in proposed capital needs. Critically, Banneker Center building repairs identified
from our historic architecture study to really work on solving some water penetration issues with that
historic building. Various equipment replacement and a replacement maintenance vehicle, all just replacing
things that we need to replace periodically. I mentioned key challenges, property tax caps, aging facilities.
We continue to deal with extreme weather and growth
I'm really glad we didn't have the microburst of 2024 again this year, but we did have a tornado that
our urban forestry and ops crews had to spend a lot of time dealing with. And of course, vandalism and
bad behavior continues to be a drag on our resources as well. Just a brief update on master plan, and
I mentioned this was prepared for the council board. You're more aware of this than they were, so I'm
not gonna go into this in great detail,
Spring and summer we went through a lot of our initial input gathering from the public in the fall We've
been working on these items coming up for October site visit community workshop survey Provider workshop
and then this winter will be the time where we actually take all of this community input
it gets turned into our community needs assessment and from that community needs assessment comes our
actual master plan goals and our decision making with how will we finance, how will we prioritize where
our limited dollars go. I'll touch on this at the end of the meeting. So that said, that is the end
of the presentation for the Parks General Fund. And I'm happy to answer any questions about that budget.
Before you all make a motion Thank you Tim You had just a couple things maybe three or so in the capital
projects Are there other things that you feel like are urgent? But the just not sure if the money will
be there or are they're not so urgent. It's okay to wait or I Think we have a lot of other high-priority
capital facility needs out there and equipment
as well. I think we've identified the ones that are the most critical that we feel comfortable that
we can fit in our general fund budget request and pay for with our property tax and general fund revenues
that come in. There's a couple other things that you'll see in the non-reverting as well that are more
dealing with enterprise accounts. I think critically, we are looking at the master plan and concluding
that process before we make
some other big decisions about investments. We've stood up here with the council and with you and talked
about our aging facilities, in particular our 1950s and 60s two pools, the ice arena, the Banneker Center
and the Winslow Sports are all in particular aging facilities that have a lot of needs. We're trying
to get a better understanding of what bonding will look like,
now and in the future, understanding when we have some capital bonds from parks that have been issued
in the past that are going to expire on the property tax register and what opportunity we have to then
make a smart investment, a targeted investment that considers the community needs assessment and put
those dollars most critically to where the community has the most needs. All right, and then just another
quick question. You've got the budget worksheet
Report that you run down just the pools on the ice arena have lease payments on them I believe in the
pool line that would be the solar panels that are at the pool And I believe in the ice arena line that
would be both the lease payment for the Zamboni Okay, that's what I thought did not to purchase the
Zamboni and lease it instead but also the solar panels that are on Frank Southern Center, so
The 2017 solar panel deal installed a lot of solar capacity and we're still paying for that debt service
for a while. Okay All right. Thank you. Any other questions for Tim? No, do we need a motion to I believe
a motion to recommend approval to council. Okay move to Recognize and approve the 2026 parks and recreation
general budget I
All those in favor aye All right, and then we'll move into our section C Report or D. Sorry reports
to hear about Bee City USA designation with Joanna Here to share the exciting news with you Bloomington
is officially a bee city we
Okay, I'll give you a little background I worked with the Environmental Commission to put together the
the Bee City Resolution and we presented it to Common Council on September 3rd for a review and approval
and it was approved and we are moving forward with our commitments and
to Bee City USA and basically Bee City is an initiative from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Insects and basically we are working together departmentally to create pollinator habitat, but we want
to connect the dots throughout the community. So the Bee City designation gives us a platform to
to do that, and we also, you can go to the next one, Kim. We also have, okay, a unique partnership.
Oh, oh, oh, I have it, pardon me. Okay, how exciting. Okay. Maybe, okay. I think we skipped one. But
we have a unique opportunity in that IU was just accredited as a Bee City, a Bee Campus this spring,
so they have,
Started the process. So we are looking forward to partnering with them to sort of navigate through all
of our requirements, but we Are also excited just to for the opportunity to work with Indiana University
This Bloomington was their last campus to be certified They're all their campuses throughout the state
are officially be campuses as far as I know so we also have
Nearby city Columbus, which is a bee city. So we are yeah, we have lots of support locally So it just
it makes sense that we would expand the network So the I'll give you some of the background. Okay, you
guys are all pretty well aware that pollinators are struggling and Fun fact, Indiana has over 430 native
species of bees. That's a lot and
So, and that does not include honey bees, but they're critically important to the ecosystems throughout
the state and region and world. So, we're excited to connect with community members such as Sycamore
Land Trust, Indiana University I mentioned, potentially Mother Hubbard's Cupboard,
Monroe County identify and reduce invasive species and and many others to connect the dots like I said
to educate the community on the importance of pollinators and why We should preserve habitat useless
pesticides and Plan be proactive because we know climates are changing habitats are changing and we
need to adapt so together we can share our knowledge and
Hopefully build a more pollinator Friendly community and region so Basically, I won't read all this
but we also Prioritize insects with them through our partnership with project wingspan, which is an
initiative of the pollinator partnership to do native seed collection events to share throughout the
region with
Communities and individuals to create pollinator habitat on their own properties through plants and
seeds So we're excited to just see I build build on what the good works that we're doing so I Can you
know me I can just go on and on about this. This is like this is exciting stuff So some of the the dry
dry information as the the Bee City liaison I'm responsible for
Guiding the committee and submitting annual reports and just taking care of all of the details, but
we will encourage the committee to take an active role and
We'll be excited to see where this partnership goes. So we do Get to us dollar sign. We have another
sign. We have Bird City tree city Bike our bicycle friendly city. So now we're gonna have a bee city
and we're yeah We're just looking forward to making Bloomington even better than it is We do have an
annual fee of $400 which is determined based on our city's population and the Environmental Commission will be
covering that through their budget, but one of the fun things that I'm looking forward to is access
to kind of behind-the-scenes information from the Xerces Society about pollinator Initiatives and just
new news how we can be better at what we're doing. So This is good and that will also save us money
because we spend money to send staff to trainings and buy materials and whatnot and
There's that and I will stop and turn it over to you Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah
exciting news. All right. Yes And no any questions any questions for Joanna City city city and when
we also the bike seat, you know, yes and And tree city for blooming sing. Mm-hmm
Yeah, we're pretty great, huh? Thanks. All right. Thank you Joanna And then finally in section D Tim
will return to tell us about the draft of the 2026 parks non-reverting budget And that is right you
can pick right up where I left off here Okay, would you just advance it one there's only a couple slides here
Thank you So as mentioned this report tonight is just informational you all do not need to approve the
non-reverting budget at this time We present it to you. So you have a chance to look at it ask any questions
And if there is a question or an issue that we want to go through more in depth we can do that and we
will bring the non-reverting budget back to the board at the start of January to appropriate it officially
in the new year and
So the parks non-reverting budget is our enterprise fund that captures revenues from all of the non
tax and non admission Revenues that we get so there is an ordinance a local municipal ordinance in title
two that says all of the general admission funds from things like the ice arena the pools the golf course
go to the general fund and
but all of the enterprise funds, so things that we do, swim lessons, concessions, selling things, certain
programs that people pay to register for, all of those things support the non-reverting account.
This year, the non-reverting account started with a $1.4 million cash balance and is anticipated to
finish with a surplus. It's performing very well this year.
Of course at any time I apologize that should say additional appropriations may be approved in the future
There are from time to time needs that come up that we bring back to the board throughout the year to
adjust the non-reverting budget But the the bottom line is that we aim to keep that cash balance steady
the non-reverting budget
Also pays for the Twin Lakes revenue bond that is included here We have two years left of paying that
revenue bond, which would be a significant accomplishment when we finish that But as you can see the
the current year budget 2.08 million with 2.3 million in expenses As mentioned it is a deficit budget
on paper We will outperform that this year. We will finish
in the black, I'm thinking by at least 100 grand. Part of that is we don't want to get overzealous with
revenue estimates. And part of that is we can budget full expenses, but there's always things that don't
finish. So I am working on this. I want us to get this a little bit more in line in the future, but
we don't have any budget performance issues. And as you can see, next year's budget, 2.07 versus 2.2
million is a lot closer in line.
Part of that was the 2025 budget also included the one-time new turf investment at Twin Lakes rec center
This year's budget still contains a few things like that a piece of equipment for the golf course that
they're non reverting funds can support and other one-time expenses so that said
We could take questions on the non-reverting budget now, or as you study the chart that we gave you,
we have a lot of time between now and when we officially appropriate it in January to make any revisions
or comments or answer any questions. Okay, any questions at this point for Tim? I don't have any. No,
I don't either. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Tim. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. All right, and then,
Finally, in our section E, we'll see if we have any public comment here in person or online. If anyone
online has a comment, please raise your hand icon.
Okay. All right, and then we will go back to Tim for any final announcements Kim I'm gonna make you
do work. Well, oh you're ahead of me. Thank you Okay upcoming things master planning site visit October
7th to 8th We will be having staff meetings on various topics related to the master plan and then three
main events so on October 7th from 6 to 7 30 p.m. That's a Tuesday and
We will have our community workshop at switch yard Park Pavilion. This will be a public meeting workshop
Not open mic time, but we're gonna have some different stations where people can interact Find out what
we've discovered so far in our master planning process from the questionnaire that we put out learn
about the mailed statistically valid survey we're getting ready to do and also provide some other input
on where parks should go what we should be doing and
October 8th at the Convention Center. We are hosting a provider network luncheon. This is parks and
rec staff and We've invited a lot of organizations that provide services that overlap with what parks
and rec does This is in fact to identify areas in the community and
between parks and these providers but also amongst themselves. I think we are richer when all of these
organizations can work together, identify service overlaps or service gaps in areas like fitness and
outdoor rec, youth programs, youth camps, and a number of other categories, arts, music venues that
we've identified where parks touches a lot of these areas and it is a chance to bring the community
together in what is admittedly a very interesting time for funding and
Maintaining these community program offerings to identify overlaps gaps and opportunities for collaboration
And then we will have the park board work session that you all have been invited to to get an update
officially on the master plan with our consultants From 5 to 6 p.m. On October 8th in the Allison conference
room from here. We'll do the survey and Then we will really get into the meat of developing the plan
this winter Kim, can you advance one more?
Since I had the slides up already, and there are so many community events coming up, I thought I would
just put a list here of probably missing something critical, too, that you all can yell at me later,
but Trick or Treat Trail, Howl at the Moon, Dealer Departed Cemetery Tours, Skate and Scare. The ice
arena is actually open now. They've been experimenting with a little bit of an earlier soft open this
year to see how feasible it is. I appreciate
their innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. It has been going well, and we've been able to retain some
groups here in Bloomington that would previously be renting ice time in Columbus. So experimenting there
to see how do we maximize the facility. Festival of Ghost Stories, Bloomington Pumpkin Launch.
As I mentioned, I'm not even touching on everything. October is a really busy time for our event staff,
for the community connection that we provide.
Apart from the work session our next full Board of Park commissioners meeting will be Tuesday October
21st at 4 p.m. Back here. So that is one of our alternate days that we had to schedule this year Okay.
All right. Great. Lots of things to look forward to in October. All right. Thank you, Tim Thank you.
And with that I will adjourn the September meeting of the Bloomington Board of Park commissioners