All right. Well, this is a special, very short meeting of the Bloomington Board of Park Commissioners
just to address two items on the agenda. So Tim, filling in for Kim, can do the roll call, please. That's
right. OK. So for attendance, roll call, Kathleen Mills. Here. Israel Herrera. Here. Ellen Rocky. Here.
OK. And we do not have Jim, but we do have a forum.
So, as I said, we just have two items. A, one is the approval of the Greenville Limit Stone for rail
trail improvements. Yes, Rebecca Swift, Operations and Development Division Director, here to recommend
approval of the service agreement with milestone contractors for the Bloomington Rail Trail Roger Street
Crossing Project. The total is not to exceed $212,000 or $212,280,000.
Speak right now. Sorry. Words numbers. Um, anyway, milestone provide all necessary material labor equipment
to complete the Bloomington ranch arrived to frosting. Mostly this is to realign the frosting to improve
pedestrian safety. We're going to be putting in a new street light as well as an rapid flashing beacon.
That's going to be pedestrian controlled.
We are planning to pave each side of the road, a certain section of the rail trail, but just to clarify,
the rail trail will remain an unpaved trail for the most part. This is just to improve the apron on
each side of the Rockham Street. There was a little bit of grading needed and some site restoration,
but other than that, it's a pretty straightforward project. Happy to answer any questions. Okay.
Thank you. I have one question, but you are being answered.
All right. Any questions, Israel or Ellen? I don't have a question from here. OK. Ellen, do you want
to? No. Oh, I'll make a motion. Yes, I'll make a motion to approve a contract with Milestone for the
rail trail and Rogers Street intersection. I second. OK. And all those in favor? We'll call them.
started making a motion. Ellen, second is Israel. We'll call the vote. Kathleen Mills. Aye. Ellen Gryke.
Aye. Israel Hergera. Aye. Okay, that motion is carried. And then in our second item this evening,
we have, just hit that, just hit stop.
We have an ATU approval of the trail closure for rail trail improvements, which is also Rebecca's work.
Yeah. So in order to do the project, I just presented to you, we do need to close temporarily, but full
closure of the rail trail in this corridor. We're estimating less than 30 days. I put in here an estimated
start date October 15th, knowing that we had a delay a little bit for this session, probably be more
closer to October 20th. The contractor is estimating 21 days.
It will not require a full trail closure that entire time, but it's better to assume the full construction
schedule with. And there will be some temporary road closures, but obviously that is outside of this
application. I am just requesting park board's approval of the temporary full trail closure of the rail
trail. Okay. All right. Any questions about this for Rebecca? No, no questions. Okay.
So will we provide any, like, what kind of signage or what kind of communication are we doing to...
Great question. So big shout out to our communications manager, Julie Reagney. I'm going to be working
with her. She's already got a draft yard sign for me that's got a QR code. We'll actually put that out
on site. So people who arrive on site can scan the QR code and it takes them to a project page.
and they get a bunch of updates that we can update as the project continues. We're also gonna do some
social media posts. So between the social media, obviously that's a big reach for us. We have 14K followers
and then we do press releases as well. So there'll be a press release coming through the mayor's office
and as well as social media and then actual physical sites. Is there anything that's like trail closed
ahead or like any, I was just like, I don't know, you're just out for a run or trying to ride your bike
or whatever. Do you have any suggested
reroutes or anything. Great question. There is no actual detour for this trail. There's no way to reroute
people around it officially, so we will absolutely try to give people notice at major trailhead. So
the rail trail trailhead along Countryside Road, that parking lot, will have a yard sign there. It won't
be just right when the construction starts. It'll have to start at the major trailhead. So I think Julie
was estimating about 600 cents. Oh, okay, great. Okay. Yeah, not
I believe she's ordered those already. So we put those out ahead of the project with a QR code to a
project page to let people get updates. Great question. Thank you. Any others? No? Okay. Oh, well, make
a motion. Sorry. Please just next. I'll make a motion to approve the closure permit for the
Bloomington-Roucher or Rogers Street
I'll say. We'll keep second. Okay. And our roll call vote of all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Aye. In Israel, you did have a second in there, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. And that motion
is carried. So those are the only two items on the
Agenda for this evening. So, um, well, is there any public comment? You post these, but yeah, there
is not anyone else present online other than cats. So no comment online. Okay. All right. Well, then
with that, I will adjourn this special meeting of the Bloomington Board of Park commissioners.
From there, we're going to enter into a work session. So, Israel, you're certainly welcome to stay on
as long as you're able. I know you don't have the whole time. The purpose of the work session is to
get information from our consultant, Jamie Sabak, about the Matthew Plan process, where we're at with
that, and to allow you to ask some questions about the process and take the time you need. Yeah, I can
stay at least 20 minutes. Are we going to start now? What's six?
Uh, we will, we will start now. Okay. Yeah. So I can stay for thank you. Do you want to officially kick
off the, okay. Well, um, I mean, do we need to call to order as someone obsession or. I think you're
saying, yeah, sure. Okay. So we're, um, yeah. Okay.
So yeah, I'll call to order this work session for the Bloomington Board of Park Commissioners so we
can hear an update on the master plan. And we have two members here in person and Israel for a while
here virtually. And this is a follow-up from, when was our previous? April. April. April. April. April.
April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April. April.
April. April. April. April. April.
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Tim, did you want to share anything on the comment? And I know you've got
the driving. I'm good. I'm going to try and pull up. You're ready for your presentation, right? I'm
just here to share. Just a few slides to guide.
Yeah, I'll just say we have had yesterday and today a really great master plan site visit with Jamie.
We've conducted a number of staff meetings on different topics, both with park staff and other relevant
city staff. We had one on inclusion, accessibility, talked about the city's transition plan. We had
one on climate change and sustainability to help Jamie understand the framework that we're operating
in for recommendations in the master plan.
for when we get to strategic planning on our main priorities in the master plan. Last night, we had
a public workshop at Switch Bank Park. It was a really great workshop that Civic Bank put together
interactive in a lot of ways. Unfortunately, not super well attended. However, we will have a virtual
link coming to basically attend the meeting virtually online, which I think is going to be really cool.
And we will be sharing that out.
no doubt we'll get some good engagement from that. It's just another touch point with the community.
We also today had a provider network luncheon. So we got our SVPs from about 50 different organizations
with representatives who came representing areas that, representing organizations rather that have similar
or overlapping services to the Parks and Rec Department.
Obviously that is a wide footprint for us, so we had organizations that are representing youth and adult
sports, representing arts, venues, music, concerts, representing youth programs, representing youth
camps, and a lot of everything in between. Visit Bloomington, the library, the school district, and
basically it was presented as an opportunity to talk about service provision to our community, especially in a
time that's gonna have some challenges coming up for all of us. How do we overlap? How do we close some
gaps? How do we eliminate some overlaps, work together, be smart with partnerships? And it was a very,
very positive event for the 50 or so people who were there. We saw a lot of connections being made,
a lot of positivity, and just even unlikely partners made that people who might not have otherwise intersected.
having really great conversations about how we all collectively serve our community. So that was really
well received. And then lastly, we also did some financial work, both with our advisory team earlier
today, revealing some of the work that's been done so far that will come to Parkport eventually. And
then also with all of our staff, about 20 of them this afternoon had a session on how to do service
analysis for
fiscal results. So that is what we've been up to the last two days. I hope that wasn't stealing the
thunder that you were going to talk about. I was about to say what he said. That's where we've been.
Thanks Dan. If you wouldn't mind on the next slide. So first of all thank you for some time this evening.
We'll keep it brief because obviously most importantly it's an opportunity for you to ask any questions
of me that you may have. This is just a
kind of a refresh of how we approach master planning, particularly for public parking rec systems at
the municipal level. And obviously there's a pretty significant commitment and engagement. And we think
about that not only in terms of internal engagement or professional staff with going into an elected
officialist, but also trying to hear from a variety of different representative community members.
that really, as we think about it as a foundation from which you build a plan, a significant number
of analyses touch on some assessment. Tim mentioned some just in the last few days and I'll get into
some of the finer points of that in a moment. And of course, the intention is based upon what we hear,
what we learn, what we observe that allows us an informed plan for the organization. So just a quick
visual of kind of how it all comes together.
We are still on task. We actually started this process with a touch point with the project team back
in February, and we still believe we are going to be on task to complete this in that 12-month window
which we had hoped. And what can always be a challenge with these, particularly when they bridge at
the end of the year, are the holidays. So you can imagine we don't get a lot done between Thanksgiving
and the beginning of the year. And so I believe that we're going to be able to have a deliverable to
the organization in February 2026.
Real quick process tasks update, and again, really intention here to answer any questions that you may
have. We broke this process into phases. You know, it's more digestible, I think, in terms of, you know,
just staff understanding, and obviously from an organization coordination perspective. The first phase
that we worked on included the two tasks you see there. The full conditions assessment of Brian,
Our pool and most of all is complete. We have a summary report with a significant amount of data that
will inform some of the recommendations of the plan. And while we started financial sustainability quite
a few months ago, as Tim mentioned, we actually had to reveal this morning. So we got to see the data
that resulted from the analysis.
What that very simply does is it informs the organization in terms of what it costs to do business,
what it was a cost to provide the variety of services that are provided by women to correction
and recreation. Right now, the ball is in the staff's court because they've been provided with the data
as well as some, I'll call it homework, guiding principles around setting goals so that they're not
arbitrarily set. It's a very informed process. So we're anticipating probably in the next two to
three weeks, they'll have goals, and that will then allow us to see a draft that we invite you to assist
in. Next slide, please. Phase two, really, as you can imagine, this isn't a linear process, but phase
two really started in April. We had an opportunity to have immersive conversations with staff, of course
had some opportunity to visit with you and have the planning questions around what we thought the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were.
I asked you some values based questions that we believe to be priorities of the organization's equitable
community engagement started at that time and actually continues, we are soon going to see the release
of the survey.
that will be received by, I will say the majority, hopefully all households in Bloomington. And the
intention there is to complete the circle, if you will, relative to engagement. We've had focus group
meetings. We've had very brief questionnaires, three question questionnaires. We actually got 1,100
responses, which I think is outstanding. We did not expect that.
the three-question questionnaire, which included what are the priorities in this community as you see
them as they relate to parks and recreation? How do you hear about park and recreation services? Some
baseline questions that helped inform the survey that's about to be released. We had, I think we had
seven focus groups. We had folks from the business community, from IU. We actually met with two incredibly
amazing, intelligent young women who were in their teams who
actually knocked my socks off in terms of how thoughtful they were about the future and tree canopy.
And I mean, it was just impressive to say the least. I knew that's what they had to be. It was so impressive
to listen to them speak. And it just was like this rumor of optimism in terms of who they're handing
things off to. So anyway, really try to be thoughtful about who was at the table. And we had an opportunity
to visit this.
Organizational analysis, analysis, I would suggest. Tim mentioned a few of the things we've been doing
in the more recent. This includes everything from, you know, what's the financial outlook look like
relative to what's happening with SEA 1? We had an opportunity with the administrative support staff
yesterday, everything from customer service point of contact policy,
We're looking at climate action plans and how that connects to parks and recreation operations. So it's
a pretty robust look inside of the organization. And then what obviously all of this intends to do is
inform organization of priorities. What will be the umbrella under which plan is built? And those,
of course, those priorities will inform the action of the plan. And then phase three, Tim?
This is where we'll move into strategic plan development. So we've captured, if you can imagine, gathered
all kinds of information and insights.
It informs the priorities, the priorities become the umbrella in which we build the strategic plan.
The strategic plan is the actionable part of the master plan. We'll be back mid-January. We haven't
determined the date yet, but that will be the work session that we conduct with all of the staff to
build upon the priorities. And very simply, what we do is we say, if these are the priorities of the
organization, what are the intended outcomes? And we work backwards from there then to determine what
actionable steps will get you to realize those up.
That all feeds into the final master plan draft, which will be delivered to the project team for review.
They'll go back and forth. And obviously the expectation is to present that to you for feedback and
then ultimately for adoption. So things are moving forward. Like I said, I feel like we're in a really
good place in terms of timeline. Staff have been incredible to work with. We've had some great touch
marks during this visit as we've had with every visit. So that's a high level overview of the process.
So I will just open the floor for any questions that we have with me. I know we were going to have a
three touch point this evening, but more importantly, just want to make sure any questions that you
might have are answered. And while we have board member Galera on the line. Yeah, I mean, I guess, is
there like the three questions? I mean, were there certain results that
really stood out to you and like how, what do you think we'll see then in that engagement survey? Yeah,
I put that in there as a placeholder, just to give you an idea. We shared these last evening. So we
had a 24 by 36 boards printed. This was one of our stations and it was just simply to inform those who
attended. Here's what we've heard thus far. This is what we heard to be 1,100 responses.
The first board on the left, the question was what activities do your members of your household do to
improve health and general well-being? You can see the runaway winner there is walking, which frankly,
that's the number one response in any system across the country that I've ever seen, is walking is the
number one activity. But then hiking, followed by all the others that we see there. The second question,
what should the department focus on, prioritize, in order to improve better health and well-being across
the greater community?
conservation of natural areas. Second, expanded and or connect to trails and paths, which obviously
the bridge to walking exists and then three, taking care of what you have. So that connects to, I think,
some of the motive and intent of this process is understanding and possibly doing business. How do we
take care of the existing system that we have? And then the third one was really just a question, a
curiosity around how do you hear about
services provided by the organization. How do you learn about Wilmington Parks and Recreation? And you
can see really no runaway winners here, but social media, email, and city website tends to be the more
popular of common sources, followed by the guide. And then, of course, we had an other, which I would
honestly tell you, I'd have to look and see what the others were, but it was a pretty small segment
of the responses.
So these were among the things, again, focus routes, touch points with the staff, what we heard from
you that helped inform how we approach the questions in the survey that's about to be released to the
greater community. It's very insightful. Yeah. Is that like, you said walking is always number one across
the other systems. What about the...
focus, those priorities, like conservation was the number one for us. Is that also common? No. That's
interesting. I worked in Boulder. Yes. Yeah. If it's, let's say, wheat in Illinois, probably not. Yeah.
Right. Or trying to think, just Nebraska, like Omaha, Nebraska, probably not. Yeah. Interesting. It
connects to the values of the community. Yeah. If you're a community that really embraces natural areas and
environment and open spaces, that is definitely going to be at the top of the list. I would tell you
if we did that tomorrow in Boulder, my guess would be absolutely yeah. Every year that I was there,
we would do satisfaction surveys, we would ask questions, and the Senate was always taking care of our
open space, our green spaces, our trails. So yeah, the values of the community drive and help them to
respond to the spending section.
And I'm sure, I guess I shouldn't say I'm sure, but I imagine you were overly surprised by anything
that you said in the end. And we always look for key things, like repeat messages, key things. Those
are the things that really drive how you think about, you know, the next step in the process, how we're
going to frame questions. You know, what do we take away from this? You know, I think, again, there's
a kind of an innate expectation in a community like Bloomington that you would see these kinds of responses.
But yeah, this was one of the stations that we had last evening. It was just more of a, hey, FYI, this
is what we've heard thus far through the process. I think people were really interested and intrigued.
We had some follow-up questions based upon this station alone. One of the other stations was a QR code.
And this, again, we have a virtual engagement room that will simulate last evening. It will be publicized,
promoted through Julie's office.
We're going to have some boards like these that are going to move around systems so people could click
on the QR code. And it simulates last evening. But one of the questions that was asked was, imagine
being a citizen in the year 2050. What would you tell the department today that it needs to hear? So
a little bit of provocation to get people to really think that while you're building the system in the
moment, you're leaving a legacy over the next 25 years of the decisions that you make.
We let folks know the survey was coming out. We had a little kind of, I don't want to call it a voting
station, but we had ping pong balls and buckets and we asked people to pick two and their choices were
more services and more services to the system.
maintain high levels of service or stabilize our taxes and fees. You can only have two of those things,
which one would you choose? So people had a chance to respond to that. We had a department table, all
the staff were there to answer questions and have conversations with those. So while a small group,
a mighty group, and I think some really good discussion, and again, I'm really encouraged because of
the response we got for this, that we'll see the response to the virtual engagement opportunity.
unfortunate that yesterday was the only day it's framed. Yeah. Yeah. In like two and a half months.
Yeah, that's too bad. What did they, how many, how did the ping pong balls? It was pretty evenly split.
I will tell you, we do that with almost every master plan.
This was the first time that there weren't two runaway winners. Oh, really? What are the usual? Typically,
the runaway winners are Maintain High Levels of Service and Stabilize Our Tagger IDs. You had quite
a few people. However, I remember these two women in particular in the room going, we can pay for stuff.
And so they just said, we can afford to pay. So I think we had a pretty even split, but it was such
a small sample size. I want to be cautious, because once you see the virtual engagement room responses,
I think it'll give us a better sense of how beautiful that is for you.
how to fund parks foundation person in the realm. They're taught to the people who said they can pay.
How much? Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was really good. Again, it was a small group, but really
good conversations. We have the bike, polo,
folks who are young men who really seem to understand the value of community and talking good and really
being thoughtful about things. So yeah, it was, I thought it was really good. And staff were, we had
a good group of staff on site to answer questions and engage. So it was a really good visit. And as
I mentioned, now we'll be doing a lot of work on the scenes to everything we're learning. We've got
our survey team that's about to release the survey. We'll collect that information.
We'll start crafting some of the narrative for the plan, get that to the team for review, and then we'll
be back in January for the strategic planning. So, we are like, with the staff, like, I remember I was
talking about, like, how we're going to have these service categories. Is that right? So, I guess, what
sort of, I guess, is all sort of being done simultaneously, but is it like,
They kind of already know what the service categories are or how does the survey and form. Yeah, and
what sort of order the stress categories are part of the financial sustainability. Right. So those are
complete. They've been complete. We've got a draft of the continuum of the strategy. And now we've got
to fill in the blanks with the goals. Yeah.
informed how the staff will approach the recommended goals for the categories. That doesn't necessarily
inform the survey in and of itself, but obviously the fiscal realities and conditions of the community
help us consider how we want to ask questions so that the community is as informed as they can be when
they are responding to the survey. So while it's not directly connected, there is some connectivity
between all of it. Ultimately that
you know, the financial sustainability piece will come before you in policy. And then we'll ask you
to approve a financial sustainability policy that sets some of those goals and new cost recovery categories
and all of those things. And of course it can be renewed, updated, changed through the board at the
future, but that will be a board approved doc. So that is where people seem to file. And we'll have
a comprehensive presentation of all those pieces of the process.
And we'll be giving Tim and the team draft language with a policy that certainly can be modified and
adjusted as necessary. Any other questions? I don't know, like, I wonder, are you guys, I'm so excited
about so far.
I really wanted to do the conditions assessment, even though that's not my message today. We need data,
we need data to help inform our decisions. So I'm thrilled to have a chunk of data and experts to help
us, what, four pages, 4,000 lines of expense reports that we sent to your financial person. So we have
a lot on our plates and we know that we're not setting prices, maybe how we should be.
that's maybe still helpful. And our staff look at this as an asset. Like we need help, we just don't
have time to do it. So now we need to hire consultants. So that's been very great. Today's provider
lunch, I was so excited to see the people. We communicate on the phone, email, but never had face-to-face
communication. But at the lunch time, we were like, ah, you were. That was great.
Yeah, internally we do numbers, data, everything else, but that was well balanced a couple of days because
we have to go out and meet people and not only looking at the data. Yeah. Yeah, I think that financial
sustainability, it's not really that much different than what we've done, but it's a different way of
looking at it. And I think that mind shift is going to be really great.
Um, I think some people are all bought in and that's how their brain works and others will take some
time to make that switch, but it couldn't come at a more appropriate time when we're headed into,
you know, budget, uh, perhaps challenges and really thinking about what we're doing and why we're doing
it. And I think that's something that I've been talking to the rec staff about is just that intentionality.
It's like, what you're doing isn't wrong, even if it doesn't make money, but.
Are you thinking about it in the right line? And are we being intentional about it? Like, yes, we know
this one's not making as much, but we know this one is more. And I think what they're putting together
for us just gives that backbone to make those decisions in a more intentional way. And I think we've
been missing that intentionality. We've just been doing, we've just been doing, doing, doing that we
haven't had an opportunity to step back and look at it.
Um, from that intentional lens. Yeah. So I'm excited to be able to do that. Yeah. There's always something
coming down. You just have to like move on and like go to the next thing. We don't always have time
to like snap your fingers and pause time and say that, Oh, like, I just need like three days to dive
into the, it's never, yeah, that's never going to happen. So when we've been in like a more and more
and more, I mean, our community has like our land has our programming has and things.
Asked to do more or you've been doing more. And so now to like, one is what we've been doing appropriate.
And, you know, it's time to do that kind of like quality, maybe over quantity. Yeah. We haven't looked,
I mean, that hasn't really been a discussion in quite a while. It's resonated with everyone. I've talked
to the community today. Other people are like, yes, like that's what we need.
them set for their organizations as well. That's a good point too, because I feel like switchyard and
then there was the, I mean, not that it was a bad thing, but what went with the alley beautification?
There was something. The bicentennial bonds. The bicentennial bonds. The gateway. The gateways. Yeah,
there was the trees, the, yeah. And then hope well. And then hope well. Yeah, hope well. And then program
it all, run it all. Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah. It's been a lot under the last. It's like great.
Great problems to have, you know, you don't want to not do things. Yeah. But what's the best way to
write all of these things? Yeah. So again, we'll be back. We're looking at calendars right now, I think
in the second, third week of January, and we'll do the strategic planning session. We're also going
to be looking at the purpose of the organization.
of checking that mission and purpose and seeing if it remains relevant and what adjustments and updates
we can make based on dynamic social and environmental and economic conditions. Is it time to give that
a little bit of a new life? So yeah, and then after that we'll have a little bit. Is there any very
small preview of the pools assessment?
I can just tell you a little bit about it. They're in fabulous shape. Everything's good. But not so
bad. Don't quote me on these numbers because without it in front of me I'm forgetting and keto might
remember better than I do. What was the total between both of them that we found? That was 2.4. 2.4
was one of them. 2.4 was per million, which actually
surprised me as being a little bit low, but you have to remember too, that is to restore everything
to the condition that it is right now. That's not to make any improvements or anything. That's not only
improved, but the bus house and everything else. But again, that would mean restoring the bath house
to its current condition, which is not great to begin with necessarily. Wouldn't we spend that much
money on the bath house to restore it when
How much more would it be to thank you, Israel? Thank you. To make it better. And I would also suggest
that that's in today's song. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's changing rapidly, of course. And then Mills was another,
everyone was saying maybe two. Yeah. So it's a lot. How's the pool liner at Mills? Is it not as old
as, I know the Brian Parker one was replaced. Yeah, the Mills pool liner is much better shaped than
it used to be.
Yeah. The pool itself, the mechanical and everything else is much, much better shaped than Brian Burke.
That's right. It's much, much more accessible and used. Yeah. And bigger. Right. When was the mills
pool built? Sixty... Well, like fifty... Sixty-three? Sixty-three dollars. That's right. Brian
was fifty-seven. Sixty-three. Mills was maybe sixty-seven.
Within like 10 years after? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I had an opportunity to go to Terra Hall. They got
the food innovation project started and their spending 3.2 million to innovate their food is much smaller
than mix. When I visited, I was surprised to see. Where was that? Terra Hall. Oh, okay.
All the money that's there coming from the funding sources, the tax, no tax, that's coming from casino.
Casino money. That's the money goes in. I'm like, that's fine. Yeah. Funding sources like that. We asked
the controller if she could pay the casino, but she didn't say anything. She didn't really say she could
buy it. Yeah. Yeah. We need it. It's two people that have that kind of pay. Yeah. Always the money.
The bicycle polo group was like, if we raise money, can we donate it? She was like, who are you? They're
so awesome. This is really great when they've spoken at the meetings. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good group
of people.
more quietly. They're all trying to build community connections. So we're on the same side. Yeah.
Well, we appreciate, you know, just having a few minutes of your time to share the update, the links,
you know, an idea of where we are. This worked out really well, Dave, I'll put that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
perfect. Everyone, that project's going to get going and wanted to give you the update so this ended
up working out really well. I appreciate it. Is there a way to get on? Yeah. We'll do our next business
at our regular meeting on the 21st. Okay, yeah. Well, thanks for the update, John. Absolutely. Look
forward to seeing you both. Yeah.