- Okay. All right. Sorry for the little delay there. Um, I will now call to order. We good. Okay. Um,
- our August meeting of the Bloomington board of park commissioners and, um, Molly, can you start us off
- with the roll call please or Tim or somebody over there on that side of the room? You're good. Can you
- hear me? Yes. Okay. Uh, Israel Herrera, Kathleen Mills here.
- Okay, all right, so we do have everyone with Jim there remotely And as usual in our section a we have
- all the things we see recording in progress the payroll and claims Credit card refunds minutes from
- the last meeting and That sort of thing and then some some smaller contracts. So do we have a motion to?
- Move to approve the consent calendar Move to approve the consent calendar Okay, and do we can we do
- do we have to do roll call because Jim's up there, okay All right, so roll call vote of those in favor
- Is really over half Kathleen knows I Ellen Rocky I Jim Whitlatch I Okay
- Motion is carried past the consent calendar and then we move to section B our public hearings and appearances
- and There is a Bravo award All right, good evening everyone Emily boo community relations coordinator
- and I would like to recognize Alex Weissman with the August Bravo award Alex has been an adopted green
- space volunteer since 2022
- Focusing on the north end of the beeline trail from Fairview Street to Lampost 170 his punctuality and
- thoroughness in his monthly reports have been a great asset to my records and to our urban green space
- team in their efforts to locate and remove invasive species and hazards along his parcel because of
- Alex's dedication to removing invasive species along this section of trail over 100 other volunteers
- have experienced the importance of protecting our urban green space during weed wrangles and
- other neighborhood outreach events and
- We are very fortunate to have Alex as an adopt a green space volunteer for his longevity and consistency
- for his reporting concerns and positive suggestions and for his care about the quality of our shared
- environment Yeah, just like to say thank you very much for this award I really appreciate the recognition Yeah
- Yeah, I started doing this, I guess, eight years ago when I first bought my house. And my yard was overrun
- with Japanese knotweed and other bush honeysuckle, so I cleared all that out. And then I realized that
- it was just coming in from the adjacent parcels and the beeline and everything, so I thought I should
- do something about that too. So that's how I, you know,
- got connected with Jillian and Joanna and the rest of the gang. So yeah, I realized invasive plants
- don't really care about property boundaries or anything like that. So if I wanted to get my own yard
- under control, I would need to help out with my neighbors and my surroundings. So that said, I'd actually
- also like to take this opportunity to
- To thank the city for everything it does to support the work of me and other volunteers And also, I
- hope the city will consider expanding support for homeowners to tackle some of the bigger invasive plant
- issues on their property especially large invasive trees that are more than I could do with a with a
- handsaw and loppers I know we have a tree tree assistance program. So
- It would be cool if we could you know expand that if the funds are available Yeah, thank you so much.
- I really appreciate it. Thank you Alex really appreciate your Never-ending battle against invasive species
- Okay, and then we have a staff introduction this evening so we will meet Molly who's New in the office. Yes
- Hello, yes. I'm Molly. I'm the new office manager. I come from Illinois. My background's actually in
- athletic training. My master's is in public health. And I originally started working managerial-wise
- in physical therapy. So I managed a physical therapy office for four years. And then I came over to
- Indiana with my husband. He's getting his PhD in education from IU. So then I worked at IU Health for
- the past three years in primary care.
- as their office manager. So I'm just excited to start with the Parks and Rec Department for fun. My
- husband and I like to foster dogs. And then I also still do some athletic training on the side with
- the local middle schools in the area. So that's me. All right. Welcome. Thank you. Yes. OK.
- All right, and then in number three here in our public hearings and appearances We have an honorary
- naming request for less coin, which Mick will tell us about It's odd to be back on this side of the
- microphone Not that I haven't been on this side, but it's a pleasure to be here for this reason for
- sure I'm Mick Renison former Parks and Recreation director Deputy mayor and now current golfer at Cascades
- golf course and park user in general Molly are you gonna run the slideshow for us?
- Sure First I'd like to thank Kathleen you for receiving the letter and taking it to this level to getting
- it to the park board meeting and then also I want to thank Tim and Julie Ramey for their assistance
- in helping us do some research when you have someone with the career as long as less had less coin that
- was a parks board member for 44 years and
- Tracing back some of the history takes a little bit of time and effort and grabbing some pictures that
- were from the early years of his His work as a parks commissioner all the way to his last years were
- something we wanted to capture in this presentation. So our request Because of those 44 years of service
- less also served on the parks foundation almost that entire time is to rename or name the Griffey loop
- trail in recognition of less is 44 years of service to the park board and
- My colleague in crime is Mary Catherine Carmichael a former commissioner herself for a decade as well
- as a former deputy mayor for the city There are a lot of accomplishments we could list but we try to
- capture just some of the more salient and important ones Less was not responsible for 2,242 acres of
- land being acquired here, but his footprints on the park system
- to go back in time and say in 1978, what was exactly the number of park acres? Someone might be able
- to research that. Maybe AI can find that for us, but it's been added to considerably since the 1970s
- to today's acreage total of 2242 acres. That, by the way, is a significant amount for a park system
- of our size, and I'm finding that out in my part-time consulting role I do when I travel around the
- country and look at other people's systems.
- I would put this one up against any of that I've seen Les was offered also particularly interested in
- program expansion at the Banneker Community Center and the Allison jukebox Center Basically areas that
- serve children and sometimes underprivileged populations as well I've already mentioned his decades
- of service to the parks foundation board and we would not have our burgeoning Continuing trail system
- without less is vision we started with the
- trails and then added obviously the beeline the rail trail Cascades Park Trail and now I see the power
- line trail being added to the system as well and the first significant trail addition short of the original
- rail trail system was the Clear Creek Trail and the first phase of that was in 2000 so 26 years ago are now
- pretty large trail system was started and that was in large part due to less is vision and Our interest
- in and I'll get to a slide that talks about this community. Well, there it is the community engagement
- efforts My first year as director was 1996 I was coming from the sports world if you'd have asked me
- what I thought our community wanted I would have said a new ice arena or more basketball courts or Ten
- more softball diamonds or something along that line because that's what I knew we did a survey again
- at less is
- urging in 1995 in preparation for one of the many master plans five-year master plans that the part
- the department does and that survey said number one build trails It said that every five years throughout
- my tenure for 20 years. It said build trails So thanks to less is kind of urgent or urgency or making
- sure we were listening to the public our master plan has produced exactly what our public has wanted
- six of those and
- Less's tenure. I think this is kind of an interesting statistic. I didn't survive five mayors But but
- less did and that's saying something because you all know you were appointed by the mayor of two four-year
- terms so he was he went through a lot of mayors going back in time to Actually, his first one was Frank
- McCluskey. That's his first appointment started in the McCluskey area here's some of the highlights
- I think of
- Facility assets. There's also program things but just some of the things the trail system we talked
- about both municipal pools at Mills and Bryan Park were renovated The Twin Lakes ball fields were built
- and the indoor sports complex now known as the Twin Lakes rec center was acquired The new golf course
- at Cascades. I say new that was built in 2000 that was constructed at unless it does not play golf,
- but he was good about listening to the community that wanted to see another asset constructed there and
- the upper cascade skate park. None of us in the department knew much about skating. Again, we listened
- to the public, and the users told us what they wanted, and that resulted in the upper cascade skate
- park. But it was particularly interesting to watch Les attend those meetings with the audience that
- skates in our community. And then Alcott Park, all of our playgrounds have been upgraded during Les's
- tenure. Switchart Park, which the crown jewel, the last one I think he and I both saw it,
- come to completion during our tenures with the city. And finally, the Griffey Lake improvements, and
- those meant a lot to Les. Particularly Griffey Lake was a close, well-loved asset by Les Coyne. And
- then these are just some of the results of, again, I think a leader who made sure that the department
- and all of the staff knew that we should be doing things not just good, but with that extra 10% of effort.
- And the next slide kind of talks about that. That's less in a nutshell. He was always like, just do
- that extra 10%, Mick. That'll get us over the top. That's kind of the old good-to-great concept,
- and for less, it was the extra 10%. And these are just some of the characteristics that we all benefited
- from for less. Some other personal qualities. We had lunch every Thursday, and to talk about things,
- I personally witnessed all those
- Things from less I'm sure our staff did too. I'm sure they still do today and then here's just enclosing
- some pictures of Some events that less attended. This is one of the Crestmont neighborhood events. I
- Don't know what year All Cot Park you can see Joanne and Lloyd all caught at the dedication. This was
- right around 2000 a very much younger version of me And less I supposed to would say that
- This is less at the golf course grand opening of the new nine at Cascades where I do spend a lot of
- time but he was good about As a non golfer making sure that that we were paying attention to the needs
- of all of the residents recreation interest in our community This was mayor Allison with their hand
- in the air That was former director norm Merrifield and this is celebrating the now Waldron Hill Buskirk
- Park renovations that happened, you know I think this was like early 90s or so and
- and the very beginning of our burgeoning trail system, the Clear Creek Trail, the very first phase.
- This one probably not many people would remember, but this is the Seminary Wall Project, Seminary Park
- Wall Project, the historic wall. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as nice today as it did then, but there's
- Lloyd Alcott again, and Ted Deppie from our Parks Foundation, and Miles Brand, president of the Indiana
- University. So it's a very historic site in Bloomington.
- the original home of Indiana University as a seminary. Les and some fellow park commissioners, when
- we were initially beginning to get people excited about the first phase of construction on the Beeline
- Trail, that's right behind City Hall. Doesn't look that way today. And finally, our friend and colleague,
- Les. So we really appreciate the opportunity for you to consider naming the Griffey Lake Loop Trail
- with Les's name on it. I called him today and said, I don't want you to read about this or
- Your brother who works at the city now tells you, hey, I didn't know they were going to name this.
- I'm like, we don't know that they will name this. But in case someone asks you, Les, out in Oregon,
- we are requesting that you all consider this naming request. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.
- Well, thank you, Mick. And yeah, I would just add, when I first joined the Parks Board, I served with
- Les in everything that you say.
- Yeah, the memory that he had for all of the projects and yeah, as you mentioned, I mean, always pushing
- things to be better. I definitely witnessed that, so yeah. Thank you for presenting that and I think,
- any questions for Mick? I would second the, and fully support 100% this naming of less for this loop and
- it seems to me the least we can do. When I was first asked to serve on the Parks Board, the only thing
- that I've ever known about the Parks Board was Les Coyne because Les Coyne was the Parks Board as far
- as I was concerned with apologies to all those others who have served on it well and done wonderful
- things over the years, but Les was, is, and in my mind continues to be the Park Board. So I fully support
- this naming of this loop trail in behalf of Les as a minimum recognition of his services over the years.
- All right. Thank you. Thanks, Mick. You're welcome. Okay. Let's see. And then we move into our section
- C, other business. And first up, we are going to have the election of secretary. So
- That's Molly Yes, okay And just a note on the last item two that I've talked about with some
- folks individually But today we accepted, you know, the third party letter as the recommendation We
- can have conversations follow-up as needed and then I believe what we would do if we want to move forward
- And the board is comfortable with that would be to introduce that via resolution. Yeah at a future meeting
- So just wanted to give that procedural note there. And then in terms of moving into section C, election
- of secretary, obviously, Kim Clapp has been retired since April. And Molly is here now and ready to
- take on the reins of secretary. So I think we just need a motion, a second, and a vote on electing her
- as secretary. All right. I'll make a motion to elect Molly Cochran as secretary of the Parks Board.
- And a roll call vote of those in favor I'll do it Israel Herrera Kathleen knows I Ellen Rodkey. I Jim
- Whitlatch He said I okay Okay. All right. Great. Well that passes unanimously and again, welcome Molly.
- Yeah. Oh Jim can you say your vote again? It didn't quite come through I in favor Thank you
- You know how lawyers are. Well, I know, and I noticed I was on mute. I apologize. OK. All right. And
- then in item two, we have resolution 26-03 for adoption of some bylaws for the Board of Park Commissioners.
- And it's my understanding there's just a push citywide to make sure that bylaws are in place. Yeah.
- And we have some pretty obvious ones listed here.
- Let's see, Molly, is there anything else to tell us about the bylaws here? No, the bylaws are what we
- have been following in the guidance of the state of Indiana. We just need something officially written
- down to be able to put on onboard so it's public accessible that we are following these bylaws and they
- are the same as the code of Indiana already states. Okay. All right.
- Motion to approve resolution to adopt resolution 26-03 All right in a roll call vote of those in favor
- Israel Herrera Kathleen Mills aye Ellen Rodkey. I Jim Whitlach. I Okay motion is carried bylaws are passed
- And then in item three, we have the agreement with Championship Greens for port-in-place repairs.
- And Amy, you're not Amy. I am not Amy. Thanks for noticing. Mark Moratz, operations superintendent filling
- in for Amy. And I'm here to recommend approval of a contract with Championship Greens to complete some
- repairs for port-in-place servicing at five different locations.
- for the amount of $69,957 we've we went around all of our playgrounds this a Couple months ago looking
- at all the conditions of these surfaces and deemed that these were five that needed to be repaired for
- a lot of safety reasons RCA is one of them that is currently a tiled surfacing there that kind of like
- Brian taught lot last year where there was forming gaps and a lot of
- It's a curling of it causing trip hazards That will be a complete removal and redo of that area And
- the lower cascade and the swing set area. There'll be complete removal and repairing that replacing
- that actually Southeast Park and Highland Village, and I feel like a mr. Crestmont is the other one
- Okay And is that I can't remember from the previous ones is that is that?
- There have to be closed for a number of days to let it kind of settle and some of these will have to
- be closed for a couple of days Yeah, RCA will definitely have to be closed down for a couple of days
- Crestmont Should be able to just be a repair. It's just the top cap that they're doing really no sub
- base removal So all they got to do is add that new color code on top, okay? All right any other questions
- about this one?
- the contract the championship greens for foreign police repairs Okay, and a roll call vote of those
- in favor I Jim Whitlatch, I Okay motion carry. Thank you All right, and then in number four we have
- the Duke easement agreement Which you're gonna
- Director will be covering this one for Rebecca this evening This is a very minor easement acquisition
- for Duke Energy They brought this to us. They requested they said along Leonard Springs Road just west
- of the Nature Preserve They need to drop a new guy wire for their line it's tens of square feet They
- just needed to extend their easement a little farther to be able to do that They will pay the Parks
- Department a sum of one dollar
- Okay, and we're okay with that we are yes, it's it's the edge of the preserve it's right along the road
- There's very minimal impact. Okay All right any questions for Tim about this one Yes, yes, they brought
- it to us with a request for that for their line integrity they needed to add this Yeah Probably cost
- more money to record this than it does
- Thankfully, we'll send it I'll make a motion to approve the Modified easement with Duke energy for guy
- wire placement Okay, and a roll call vote of those in favor is real Kara Kathleen Mills. I Ellen Rodkey.
- I Jim Woodlatch. I Okay motion is carried and then in number five in this section I
- Tim will tell us about the 2027 general fund budget as it is budget season Yes, thank you Tim Street
- parks director I am asking tonight that the board of commissioners provides a positive recommendation
- on the passage of this budget Just a general reminder that the board of committee park commissioners
- is responsible is the fiscal legislative body for the non-reverting account City council is the fiscal
- legislative body for the general fund account So we will approach that
- Accordingly with the two staff reports here But it is always helpful and I like to bring you know to
- you what I'm gonna be presenting to council So the park board can can see and be behind what we are
- presenting to council. I have 20 minutes to present to council We will be presenting on Mondays budget
- hearing around 530 or just thereafter I'm gonna try to not give you the full 20 minute presentation
- right now because you as board of park commissioners Do you already know a lot of the stuff that we
- do? You're a little more
- Insiders than the City Council is but I would like to just kind of tell you What it is we're working
- towards so parks and rec makes Bloomington a resilient healthier and more connected place to live and
- play We're gonna talk about our master plan I know you all have heard me talk about our master plan
- and the priorities that came out of it I'm going to be sharing those with council again An overview
- of our department as it currently stands. We have 64 full-time staff positions
- We have 87 permanent part-time employees Permanent just means there's no time limit on their part-time
- employment with us That's actually a change that the department's made in the last year plus when we
- got that category of employment allowed by our human resources department That does not count additional
- seasonal temporary staff all told unique staff members that we have in a year Excluding full-time it's
- in the 400s
- So it's a lot of people that work for us across a year With uncertain revenues and property tax and
- local income tax things yet to be determined and swirling We set out to prepare as flat of a budget
- as possible Very difficult right now with the rising cost of everything with wage increases with things
- like that So some total our budget is up about 4% in terms of the budgeted amount year over year and
- and key budget needs and issues we're gonna be talking about in 2027 are maintaining and enhancing our
- level of service. This goes back to our first master plan goal, continuing our meaningful community
- impact, revenue streams are tighter, things are more expensive. We've seen partners, nonprofits in the
- community even shutting down like Curls Inc. It's a tough time and so maintaining what we offer the
- community is our first priority.
- Also planning and investing in capital needs the board will be hearing much more about that at our special
- September meeting And then this one's kind of broad but implementing priorities and actions that we
- determined from the master plan Some quick 26 highlights that we're gonna mention to council as a way
- of just sharing, you know a slice of everything it is that we do We've had these really great grand
- balloon partnerships with IU arts and humanities There's a third one coming up
- August 29th at switch yard Lots of natural resource and nature and urban green space highlights We achieved
- Bee City USA certification for the first time thanks to Joanna and a group That worked on that certification
- had another prescribed fire have maintained our bird town certification And in spring, I thought this
- was a great highlight of the way that we provide connection with nature There was a very popular great
- horned owl nest
- on the Jackson Creek Trail that drew a crowd every day for probably a month. Sports, I wanted to mention,
- I'm very proud. We have reduced rainouts at Winslow Sports Park by about 50% since last year. Of course,
- some of that is weather dependent out of our hands, but a significant portion of that, I can't say exactly
- how much, is also management practices by the staff, figuring out how to take care of and keep things
- from raining out.
- We've had far fewer frustrations, complaints, things like that coming to us from our baseball and softball
- teams this year. I stopped by Twin Lakes recently, and there was a really, really strong seniors class
- Wednesday mornings with about 40 seniors doing group exercise. Really great to see the different things
- we do for the community. Community events, you know, by the end of the year, we'll have probably around
- a million participations in our various events and programs.
- sports leagues, things like that. A lot of those are our large community events, like the 4th of July
- Parade, which is not exactly the 4th of July Parade seen here, but it's the aftermath on the beeline
- of everyone coming and going from it. Youth Day at the Market, we will have four of those this year.
- Those have been incredibly popular, and it's really fun to go visit and see what the kids are coming
- up with and sharing. We've been able to get $60,000 plus in grants from the state,
- for Banneker repairs, thousands of participations at Banneker camps. Other highlights, Urban Forestry's
- had a $40,000 tree assistance program that's gone out to 17 households at or below the AMI to deal with
- hazard trees on their property. That's through funding from the ESD department. City Legal,
- Parks and engineering all work together to save about half of the trees that were slated to go out for
- an in dot project on 10th Street. That is a significant win. We're gonna have the power line trail built
- in another year or another month or so here. Installed new lights at the switch yard pavilion and operations
- division has been working with ESD on a significant epic grant for energy efficiency improvements at
- the Busker Chumlee Theater. Lots of great things.
- The goals I'm going to be talking to council about include maintaining and enhancing our community impact,
- investing in critical capital needs, updating our website registration and communication systems, which
- that goal is a bit of an amalgamation of several different strategic actions that we identified in the
- master plan, and updating our reporting on core performance metrics. So just to talk to you about those
- four I'm gonna be talking about. The first goal, maintain enhanced community impact aligns with
- almost verbatim, our first master plan priority. Significantly, we had to reabsorb security costs from
- ARPA funding, which is no longer available. That is about half of the budget increase we're seeing for
- next year, so we saw about a $500,000 increase. 250,000 of that is park security. It's still important
- that we have park security, but we have made a cut from 2026 levels, knowing that we have to reabsorb
- this back into the general fund. We've cut between 30 and 35%
- of that budget, we believe we can continue to have effective security at that level while I hope, eventually,
- to not need park-contracted security, at least not in any great quantity, or not for special events.
- You're gonna hear me and staff talking about a focus on quality and partners and collaborators. We have
- some really good examples of ways that we've focused on quality over quantity. For example, we're gonna
- be thinking about that with concerts,
- The Juneteenth example that happened, well, on June 19th was, I think, a really great example
- of collaborating with partners for a really big, really great event, looking for ways to combine forces,
- put on really high quality events. Grand Faloon is another example, and continuing on that trend. You're
- gonna be hearing from us about investing in critical capital needs, a plan to issue a potential bond
- in 2027, around $7 million.
- we will be issuing a report and talking about that in September about the department's recommended priorities
- for investment so we can get board feedback and public feedback on those priorities. In our general
- fund for 27, the $245,000 in there does cover some critical things we need like backflow repairs, some
- equipment, a new dump truck to replace an aging dump truck that's on the fritz, and some roofing related items.
- Lastly, I mentioned this goal is a bit of an amalgamation of several different strategic actions. The
- master plan did identify some needs in this area and we worked on some actions from that to modernize
- and improve our reach and user experience across platforms. We've had a software action team really
- diving in and looking at the software we use for registration, for promoting programs, whether we need
- to enhance the one we're currently with or whether we need to move to a new one.
- We've already been looking into that. That ties into broader efforts across the city that we've heard
- about to update the city's website, which is desperately needed, and we're really hoping that that advances
- in 2027, as well as relates to how we mail out the program guide and what's in it. If you notice, the
- program guide you receive this time is about half the pages that it was before. Julie and her team have
- been working on that to communicate critical information while also finding ways to save some cost.
- I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the great success of our digital content team too and the reach and
- engagement that they continue to have with social media and growing our presence there. And then lastly,
- updating our core performance metrics. We were talking recently in our leadership team meeting and sort
- of kind of had an epiphany and a recognition that you know what, over the past three, four years we've
- Changed systems a lot in terms of how we report on goals to City Council and we had at first we had
- Trello goals we had budget goals and Our department I think more than any other department in the city
- is very diverse in terms of what we do the type of metrics and goals we're going to be tracking for
- urban forestry are very different than community events are very different from cemeteries are very
- different from Winslow Sports Park
- But each area does have key things that they track and we're gonna be looking at that to bring it together
- into a dashboard Universalizing as much as possible some of those metrics and then creating a dashboard
- I'm not gonna say it's gonna be live because that's a lot of work but frequently updated dashboard That
- we can have to share our community impact Those are the main things I wanted to hit on from the budget
- presentation here I think the rest of the things you're somewhat aware of I will
- We'll go through this slide and then I'll take any questions that you have. Overall, if you look across
- our inventory of programs and initiatives from 26 to 27, they're largely the same. We're focused on
- maintaining quality, partnerships, collaborations, all of those things that I just talked about. We
- do plan to invest further in resiliency towards the city's climate action plan with electrification
- funding from ESD. There'll be another $100,000 investment there next year.
- the rec division is currently really reevaluating the direction and Purpose of our health and wellness
- area and our partnership with IU School of Public Health They have a new Dean and potentially a new
- emphasis on health and wellness again Which we're really interested in exploring from a recreation lens
- And we're going to be partnering with City Bloomington utilities in looking at Stormwater detention
- drainage at Winslow Sports Park. There's a three acre playground
- playground parking lot there with zero type of stormwater interventions at all. And so every bit of
- rain that falls on that parking lot runs off and out of that park, sometimes quite rapidly. And partnering
- with CBU, we can do something really great there that can serve as a model for the community. I do have
- a chart. This is our 2027 budget overall. You can see our personnel expenses are up about 3%.
- That is due to cost of living adjustment, living wage increase, and tenure steps for staff. So very
- much a fixed raise going across there. Supplies are up just a little bit, a marginal amount. Things
- are more expensive. And then services are up largely because of that $250,000 coming back into the budget
- for security. However, we've made some other cuts. The other things that have gone up are
- and getting more expensive, our utilities are all going up across the board. And we've seen things like
- liability, casualty, premiums going up quite heftily as well. So we have been able to mitigate that
- somewhat with cuts in that area, but the 300 services line is up. And our capital line is largely the
- same, similar to last year, and I touched on those items that are in there. We do project a budget deficit
- again. The department typically enters a year with
- a budget deficit on paper. I looked up some history of that just so we're familiar with our comfort
- level with that. We have about $4.7 million cash reserve coming into the year in our general fund, a
- very healthy reserve. Over the last five years, we've added about $2 million to that reserve with surpluses
- in four of the past five years. On average, we started each of those five years with a $1.4 million
- budget deficit on paper.
- And then we have outperformed our revenue goals by about 107% and underperformed our spending to a tune
- of about 88%. So starting with the deficit on paper is actually okay and advantageous to us because
- we know there's some built-in savings throughout the year. This year, because of our expenses have gone
- up 4%, but our property tax revenues have not gone up. They are flat. That deficit has grown a bit to
- around $2 million.
- We know that we will not finish, you know performance wise with the two million dollar deficit and that
- we have cash reserves so I feel Comfortable with with where we are going into this year, but some longer-term
- determinations are really gonna hinge on city and county discussions about property tax and still trying
- to just understand the implications of Senate enrolled Act one there's a lot still not known and then
- working with
- The controller on their response with the county. There's some different levers that are held in different
- places about local income tax, which could replace some of the growth we're going to be missing from
- property tax. It's a very interesting time. We're lucky that we have stable, healthy, segregated cash
- reserves for our department. I think cash reserves are meant for times like this, so we know we can
- have stability, not have to make knee-jerk reactions or cuts while we figure out the bigger picture.
- But there are long-term concerns lingering.
- Will be happy to address any questions or concerns that you might have about the general fund budget
- I Wanted to rent a shelter or on the registration process or rent a ball field and I guess my question is
- Since it is wrapped up in the city website stuff. I mean is there is parks solely responsible for coming
- up with a better registration system or could there be a Citywide overhaul that parks could be a part
- of and this would be more streamlined this registration and good question so the the actual registration
- system which we would take and use and in some regards already use the one we have is registration for
- programs registration for sports leagues
- Twin Lakes uses it for memberships Several areas also use it for point-of-sale merchandise Concessions
- things like that. We're not consistent and part of what we want to do is one Minimize as many pay systems
- as possible down into one streamlined Registration parks software. So there are softwares out there
- that are basically built specifically for parks departments So that part is us You know, we already
- have an amount in the budget
- that we pay annually for our registration software. We're gonna compare costs with other ones out there,
- features, things like that, and look at that. Those softwares typically integrate pretty seamlessly
- with a city's website, and so there would be a moment where you're on our website and it says, you know,
- click here for program registration, and then you would seamlessly move to the website that
- is the registration software.
- maybe without even realizing that you've gone to a separate system. So there's two things at play there.
- One is we've gotta be reliant on the city's greater efforts to update the website in general, but we
- have control over the registration software. Okay, all right, thank you for that. I hope I didn't just
- accidentally reserve a baseball field, but I was just trying to see what was on there. All right, any
- other questions for Tim about the general fund budget?
- Yes All right, do we want to move to Put our support behind is Jim was good, too. I don't know. Does
- Jim have any questions? No, okay. Okay. All right. Thanks. All right. Well, I'll make a motion to approve
- or to move the 2027 parks journal fund budget and
- forward to the City Council with a positive recommendation Okay in a roll call vote those in favor Israel
- Herrera Kathleen Mills. I Ellen Rocky. I Jim Whitlach I Okay motion is carried to support Tim's general
- fund budget for 2027 and then in item six Tim will also tell us about the 2027 non reverting budget
- Yes, thank you for putting up with more of me here So this time I'm going to recommend that the board
- of park commissioners Just reviews the 2027 non-reverting budget. So a couple procedural reminders the
- 20 the non-reverting budget is dictated by local city code in chapter Excuse me entitled to chapter
- 20 that designates certain entrepreneurial revenues to be able to go into a separate parks non-reverting account
- which is then underneath the fiscal authority of the Board of Park Commissioners. This is a chance to
- review the non-reverting budget. We do not need to have specific action on it tonight. The next step
- would be if there are no concerns or no changes, we would bring a resolution to the board at the start
- of the new year to adopt this budget. However, we've learned in past years that it's best for us to
- maintain the same schedule with non-reverting and present it to you with the general fund because there
- are certainly some things
- can go back and forth, and the timeline that we work with the controller, it's important to dovetail
- these together. I don't have a presentation on this one. It's a little more straightforward. And the
- table in the staff report first really tells the story that our non-reverting account is healthy. We
- do budget a slight deficit in the non-reverting as well. Not as much. I'm sorry, Tim, I'm sorry. The
- link in our agenda
- is taking me to a second copy of the general fund budget. So I don't think we have a staff report for
- the non-reverting. OK, I can get that. It's the same thing. No, I have two different things. So that
- worksheet, but then those two. But that's just the general fund budget again. It's the same amount twice.
- When I click the link in the staff report, the one that says budget overview worksheet, that is pulling up
- PDF of the non-reverting by category for 2027. Is that what you're getting? Yeah, so if I click budget
- worksheet I get like a table, but then when I click staff report, I'm just getting the same memo again
- The same general fund memo. Yeah So just didn't know if you have a separate cover sheet oh Yes, we do I
- And if it's something we just want to take a look at later, if you don't mind. We can, since we don't
- need specific action tonight. But if you have that worksheet pulled up. Yeah, I have the worksheet.
- We generally have the same information in there. Sure. So we can take a look at that right now. OK.
- The only thing you're really missing was some of the background I was just talking about. And importantly,
- there's one table comparing 26 to 27. In 2026, Molly is pulling it up.
- and we can make this available. In 2026, we budgeted a deficit of 172,000 in the non-reverting out of
- about 2.3 million expense. For 2027, we're actually reducing that deficit. We're already outperforming
- our revenue by quite a bit in non-reverting. This year, we're pretty conservative. The net budget deficit
- for next year is negative 116,000.
- I feel very comfortable that we've actually moved that one in a good direction, reduced the budget deficit
- there, and have this going in a good direction. Most of this is similar program support as previous
- years. Significantly, there's a couple expenses in category four in non-reverting, namely one at Twin
- Lakes to refinish the floors, which is a regular periodic maintenance item that needs to be done.
- And one at Twin Lakes Sports Park to replace degraded railing that is in poor shape So all of the category
- information that the staff report really summarizes what's in this table So you have the full information
- at your fingertips and we can can look at this over the coming months before we have to appropriate
- Via resolution in January and resolve any questions or issues, but I will be happy to talk about anything
- right now if needed
- All right, any other questions or comments for Tim So we can just hold off on any action on this yes,
- we'll make sure we we Amend and get that staff report out appropriately so that you can look at this
- and then if there are any concerns before we make you know An appropriation resolution at the start
- of the year. We would want to discuss that ahead of time All right
- I Have it open and I think Molly has it open. Yes, so we will We will redistribute that appropriately
- Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Thank you Tim and then in the report section this evening first one Leslie
- Brinson will tell us about Benchmarking which I thought was interesting idea. There you go.
- Is that your idea? Uh, I
- It was a joint effort between Tim and I. Each year, the National Parks and Recreation Association puts
- together... Was that a nice way of saying that? I forgot to introduce myself to you. Leslie Brinson,
- Recreation Division Director. Each year, the National Parks and Recreation Association puts out an agency
- performance review report. In this particular year, over 800 organizations, 850 agencies provided information
- into this report.
- We also entered our information into this metric system They pull all the data together and put it into
- a report so that you can see where your parks system is Relative to other park systems. They do break
- it down Not only as just general park systems, but depending on the number of people in your community
- You can compare yourself to similar type organizations. So Tim and I took the report and we pulled out some
- Metrics benchmarking items that we thought were appropriate and just kind of compared to where we are
- with again parks departments with a similar size community The numbers are based on 2025 And it's important
- to note that not everybody thinks of the terms the same so when we talk about trails it might mean one
- thing another community might include a
- Sidewalk message, you know what? I mean like so some of the language or so. It's not an exact science.
- I guess I would say But you can see the first one in properties trails and assets a typical parks department
- of our size has one park for every 2333 residents in Bloomington we have one park for every 2450 residents
- so we're right on par for what we do that number does include
- Parks nature reserve cemeteries, but does not include things like Banneker or Frank Southern or places
- that might also have green space. It is truly just talking about parks and trails The next one a typical
- parks and rec agency manages seven point seven acres of parkland per 1,000 residents we manage 28
- 2.1 acres of parkland for 1,000 residents. So it's a pretty drastic increase of the amount of space
- that we are managing I think it also goes to we might have less parks But our parks tend to be bigger
- in size and so a lot of communities might have a lot more Neighborhood or smaller parks which changes
- how many parks they have per residents we have less parks, but they tend to have larger acreage in them and
- Overall agencies tend to have one playground per 3,656 residents. We have one playground per 2,975 residents.
- So in general, we have more playgrounds than a typical agency of our size.
- Most agencies of our size manage or maintain 18 miles of trails. We do 34 miles of trails I think it
- speaks highly to what Mick was saying about how our community just continues to ask for trails and we
- continue to deliver at a impressive rate
- On the staffing level typical parks and recreation has twelve point two FTEs for every ten thousand
- residents We have fifteen point one FTEs for every ten thousand residents So we do have a little bit
- more staffing per resident. That is a combination of full-time and seasonal hours worked in that statistic
- From an expense and revenue side, a typical parks agency has an operating expenditure per capita of
- $131.13. We have a per capita spending of $158.12, so we're spending more per person in our community.
- A typical Parks and Recreation recovers 34% of their annual operating expenditures from their non-tax
- revenue. We recover 36% from non-tax revenue, so we're right on par there. So that's that non-reverting
- budget you were just looking at. And a typical Parks and Rec Agency has $43.19 revenue per capita.
- We have 57.8 revenue per capita. So we're making a little bit money per person as well.
- Programming wise the report is way more
- budget and property and less about programming, but we wanted to make sure we at least added one programming
- note so that you could we could highlight our staff the typical Park and Rec agency offers 300 programs
- annually and of those 80% of them are fee based we offer 325 programs annually and only 60% of ours
- are free base or fee based so we're offering not only more programming, but we're offering more either
- no or low cost and
- In conclusion the bit this benchmarking exercise shows that Bloomington parks continues to outperform
- comparable agencies across the Country in particular department manages nearly four times as much acreage
- as national average and
- Obviously the 1200 plus acres of Griffey Lake nature preserves plays a big part in why that number is
- so high But even if you removed Griffey Lake, we would still be at thirteen point six acre acres managed
- Perth one thousand So we would still nearly twice the national average even if you removed Griffey from
- that graph
- Compared with our average numbers of parks per residence, Bloomington actually has a similar number
- of parks, but we manage, again, much more acreage. It's advantageous as in a general multiple. Small
- parks take up more time to maintain as our larger parks. We have 34 miles of paved trails and also stand
- out as being well above the national average. Although through this benchmark, it's harder to consider
- since it does not have direct correlation to the population size of each department.
- The benchmarking exercise shows that Bloomington parks continues to operate and be responsible for a
- strong system of parks trails Playgrounds and more while exceeding natural averages national averages
- of revenues and cost recovery However, maintaining this robust system also takes both staff time and
- fiscal resources and we must steward our system carefully to maintain these standards on the programming
- side we continue to offer many programs but benchmarking again shows We need to look at additional
- appropriate fees
- for some currently programs So it's great that we're offering more at less But we need to continue to
- look at that average. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions about this report Okay, thanks Leslie
- that it was interesting to see the comparisons Yeah, and the bright spots with the playgrounds and the
- trails and yeah It's good to put some numbers through what we think we already do, you know how we feel
- but it's good to put some data behind it and
- Yeah, the green space of the cemetery does is included in our parking acreage Okay, any other questions
- Thanks Leslie All right, and then it's almost the end of the aquatic season. So Chris has the 2026 season
- update Hello, I'm Chris hammer come the facility manager for the pools Yeah, just have kind of a report
- for you. Thank you report for you on aquatic season Obviously with the price schedule coming up We want
- to make sure we got the aquatics report to you guys before we get into the the price schedule for next year
- 2026 aquatic season had several accomplishments. It also had several challenges as you guys are well
- aware Major focus obviously was just figuring out what was going on with Mills pool Staff discovered
- when we tried to fill it up that it was not filling all the way So a lot of time was spent by mark and
- his crew to try to figure out What exactly was going on with that? we
- After Park staff members could not determine the nature of the leak a leak specialist company was called
- in company spent several days investigating And we were able to mitigate it enough so that we could
- open mills pool obviously a little bit late But we don't have an exact diagnosis and we still have to
- look into it a little bit more as we get into the end of the season We've received a quote for around
- $18,000 for additional leak repairs, but are not confident performing this work will until we figure
- out exactly what's going on with it and
- Further discussions about repairs at mills pool are warranted Staffing we've been really blessed to
- have a lot of people return over the last couple years It's it's something that helps us out allow a
- lot with our staff continuity this year We had 60 of our 84 total staff members were returners. So we
- had 71% staff retention rate, which was
- super helpful for us. We did have one staff member that I want to call out specifically that is leaving
- or left in the middle of the season. Evan Gray was our aquatic specialist. He was super helpful to us
- as we came in and knew very little about aquatics. We were ice arena people. So figuring that out as
- we came in, he had a lot of experience in aquatics, helped us out a ton. And now he left. He went on
- to start his nursing career after he graduated college. And now we have Leo Nelson as our new aquatic
- specialist.
- Costs about operating outdoor pools continues to increase chemical costs staffing expenses facility
- maintenance All the things that we've spent several of these meetings discussing Obviously, we continue
- to see the pressure on the sustainability of the current operating model
- We Brian has spent three hundred thirty one thousand dollars as of August 14th Obviously, we still have
- a few more weeks of the season left as opposed to three hundred twenty seven thousand dollars in all
- of 2025 Despite attempts to lower chemical costs staff operating model overhauls other things that we've
- tried to put in place to lower those costs Mills spent just under $20,000 less in 20 then in 2025 despite
- being shut down for almost an entire month
- And then there those notice those are very noticeable, especially late in the season when MCC SC returns
- We just don't get enough people coming in and it's it's a challenge to deal with that Evaluation is
- required to determine whether the current operating schedule remains the most effective use of department
- resources Alright, so yeah, I'll pull up here I just want to show you guys a couple of the numbers here
- the outline will show you how many pool patrons came in expenses versus revenue and then
- just a discussion about facilities in the future going forward. So in 2025, those were the numbers,
- about 11,000 at Mills, 23,000 at Bryan. Through August 14th, obviously Bryan has had more. Some of that
- is because Mills was closed, so more people were going over to Bryan. And Mills obviously was not open
- for a month, so that's part of the numbers there. Rentals, we had 44 hours rented this year.
- 563 kids were approved on the pool fee waiver. That was a change that we made of Now the kids are the
- ones that get approved and then they they bring the adults with them This year we had a we had a lot
- of people come to the pool movie this year We had 73 patrons come to it last year. We had two pool movies
- and only had 71 total So this was this was a little bit of an improvement and almost 4,000
- camp participations this year one of the thing I want one of the things that I wanted to point out here is
- Alec, who is the sports specialist, did a bunch of research figuring out how many people are actually
- coming in on the fee waiver. This is total fee waiver entries. If we show up as a family, it's not just
- one, it's all four of us showing up. That's the total average per day that we're open, and then you
- can see as we go up in temperature there as well. Expenses versus revenue, Brian.
- You can see expenses staffing cost continues to be the highest expense staffing all the lifeguards and
- attendance You can see here as well Rentals and swim lessons on there and our concessions Alec our sports
- specialist completely runs the concessions. He did a really good job this year That's obviously only
- through August 14th as well Mills
- You can see all those expenses numbers there. I'll just leave them up for a second so you guys can take
- a look. All right. And then this, I think this is probably what you guys are most interested in is the
- cost recovery totals. So we see cost recovery at Bryan is 76%. At Mills is 24%. And then our total is
- 63% across both pools. That's part of our discussion now as part of our master plan
- Goal setting is kind of changing the way that our cost recovery Percentages work and making it less
- split up by facility and more split up by what programs were actually offering and that kind of thing
- Yeah, so one of the things as we talk about the future of the pools This is something that we brought
- up last year with the August pool numbers Obviously, we don't have the numbers in yet for this year,
- but I just wanted to bring this up again as we look at this
- We're seeing, if we look at just weekend days, when we get into those August times, we're seeing that
- during the season, if you count just weekend days, we're actually operating in a little bit of a surplus,
- and then when we get into August, we end up losing almost $40,000 in August. We don't get the number
- of people coming to the pool, for one, especially now as we move into these days where it's gonna be
- 80 degrees or less, there's just going to be fewer people coming. And then we also deal with, we've
- still got to run all the pumps all the time, we've still got to keep the chemicals in the pool so that
- it stays balanced and all that. So that's where that expense comes in. All right. Aging facilities feature
- use. Mills Pool obviously caused the leak, caused the delay to opening.
- We're having that meeting to discuss the capital bond spending including potential pool renovation Swim
- lesson numbers continue to be a problem as we as we look going forward It's something that we've talked
- about potentially doing partnerships or just completely overhauling our swim lesson program And then
- our August usage of Brian pool And then in Mills Mills usage numbers just suggests that maybe a change
- in strategy might be needed one of the things that Alec did when he went through and researched a bunch
- of these numbers for us and
- Mills revenue didn't cover the cost of staff For 43 of the 45 days it was open Just the cost of staff
- not the cost of the pool chemicals and all that stuff just the cost of the lifeguards and the attendants
- that are there And the two days that it did cover were the first two days that it was open when we had
- an issue at Brian and Brian was closed So it's it's really it creates a challenge going forward and
- like I said, it suggests we may need to change the strategy so part of that conversation
- We're considering exploring an alternative operating strategy for Mills pool that places a greater emphasis
- on aquatics programming So instead of having so much just open swim time where we're kind of unsure
- what the revenue numbers are gonna look like Maybe using Mills as something that offers more programming
- so we could run longer versions of swim lessons there we could run more Aqua fitness or different things
- like that that would that would we would know how much revenue we're gonna make and we can staff it
- for that specifically as part of that we would
- We would still want to have certain times that are open swim times as well It wouldn't be just closed
- Mills down other than this program and it would be Trying to figure out what are our prime times for
- for that open swim and going forward This approach could continue could allow the department to continue
- using Mills as an important community aquatic facility While focusing its operation on activities that
- require dedicated water space and scheduled access I
- Brian would continue to be the primary general outdoor use pool. We see that in the numbers almost four
- times as many people are going to Brian as are going to Mills, but we would really prefer to you know,
- we want to try to keep Mills open if we can and move forward on Just making it a sustainable long term
- We want to gather initial feedback from you guys on on this programming focus model Any decision is
- also continued contingent on the mills pool repairs as well I mean obviously we have to figure out what's
- going on with that
- Before we can move too much forward on anything We also want to discuss just aligning the end of the
- outdoor pool season more closely with the beginning of the MCC calendar We talked about the numbers
- a little bit We we believe that closing both outdoor pools when MCC returns to school provides a clear
- seasonal operating window reduces our staff Issues that we run into at the end of the year all the all
- the people that we rely on are all students either in college or high school we have very few
- Not high school or college students and they all go back to school and it's just a real pain to try
- to staff at the end of the year And it also would limit limit operating costs We recognize that pools
- also provide an important service and outlet to the community and long-term decisions may need to be
- made after capital investment priorities is set and decisions are made We obviously one of the couple
- of things that are coming up we want to consider significant renovations and that upcoming
- parks bond that we're having that meeting about We're considered we want to have the discussion about
- closing both pools when MCC starts the the school year Transition mills to focus on that programming
- side and then we want to one of the things that we really want to focus on Coming this this coming year
- is redesigning our swim lessons I'm happy to answer any questions you have All right. Thanks Chris I'm
- sure I've said this the last couple of years, but I mean speaking as a
- someone who works at MCCSC, it's just absurd to me that the hottest month of the entire year is like
- kids, for the most part, aren't going to the pool because they're back in school and they're busy and
- it's so silly. But I know you don't have any control over that. I think also along with that, once school
- starts back up, they all start back up their sports and all that. So they're busy all the time. They
- don't have time. Yeah. So my question is about, I'm curious if you have any theories
- the swim lessons being downed if you know our people do you think kids are going on their let their
- lessons to the YMCA the IU outdoor pool or they're just not as many kids taking swimming lessons or
- We've had some conversations with Bill Ramos who has been a big part of IU Pools in general for a long
- time and so we're kind of hoping to pick his brain a little bit on how we can improve our swim lessons
- I in my personal opinion one of the biggest challenges we face is
- We get our staff about a week and a half before the pools open And so and we've got to train them all
- and the lifeguard duties and all that kind of stuff And so swim lessons has kind of been an afterthought
- on that We just we need them we need them to make the pool safe first before we can focus on swim lessons
- versus if you look at a YMCA or an IU pool they can train their staff and
- any time throughout the year because they have access to the indoor facilities. So that has
- been a conversation topic that we've had internally. We haven't talked with IU yet, but potentially
- doing some kind of a partnership or something like that where we might be able to improve our swim lessons
- that way. But to me, that seems like the biggest focus. My wife used to teach IU swim lessons, and that's
- one of the things she's talked about a lot too. OK. That's interesting. Thanks. Yeah. Any other questions
- or comments for Chris?
- meals or the options in order to solve this situation. And the other activities, the aqua fitness or
- the lab swimming, that won't be just for children but also for adults and for students who are not part
- of the YMCA. So I think that is one thing that we can do for solving that problem with meals.
- Because the balance is very high, it's visible. Something is happening. Something is happening there,
- and something should be done to see what is working incorrectly there. Oh, not incorrectly, but what
- could we offer to have more people there? Yeah, I was curious, the revenue,
- Like on one of those slides the revenues kind of down on mills. Is that do we include? Like fee waivers,
- I guess like we know like our Do we think about like how many users are still using that pool even though
- maybe we don't we're not Like accepting admission fees from some of those we do We don't consider fee
- waivers as part of the revenue
- Anymore it was something that we considered in the past when we had People the Parks Foundation was
- funding. Yeah. Yeah was funding it where we had the stay cool numbers and stuff like that We don't consider
- fee waivers as part of the as part of the revenue I would note that overall more fee waiver users are
- coming to Brian and they are to Mills and I would say that
- It was kind of surprising to me. We have 563 kids approved on the fee waiver, and we only are averaging
- 26 at Bryan and 18 per day at Mills. That seems crazy to me. It seems like it would be way higher than
- that with as many kids as are on the fee waiver program, but it's just something that I wanted to include.
- I don't have a
- An answer for you really just other than just I just think it'd be interesting to see like so then like
- what's the ratio there like I know there's more 26 people maybe per day coming to Brian and it versus
- 18 at Mills but like so what it what is the percentage though of the total user group though so like
- 26 of I don't know if there's 150 people coming to Brian and
- 40 people coming to Mills per day, but just kind of like understanding what the you know What the what
- is the percentage of pool users that is using a fee waiver to enter each pool? I don't have those numbers
- today, but I know yeah, just something that we could like maybe look at as well and then yeah, I think
- just getting a little bit more information about
- peak hours for open swim at mills just to because I do think I agree that the programming for introducing
- that to to Mills as an option to kind of boost revenue and just overall use of the pool but then just
- ensuring that you know we've got we're still got
- Plenty of open swim time for kids to show up. I'm hoping that it drives interest in Mills again, too.
- Yeah, absolutely. I think it's something that... Hey, Mills is the programming. Yeah, I think a lot
- of people just don't know about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We'd be super excited to go do our swim lessons
- over there and stuff. Yeah. I think that... Well, and frankly, the people I know who use Mills are like,
- love it because it is not brand. I much prefer going to Mills with my family. Yeah, same. I mean,
- it's like... Yeah. It's much quieter. It's so much quieter and just more chill. Yeah. Yep, absolutely.
- rental 40 hours, rented this year. So can you explain more about the rentals, Chris? Yeah, so actually
- that's part of the conversation about the programming as well as we would hope to open up a little bit
- more rental space throughout the week. Because one of the challenges that we deal with with our rentals
- is if a little kid wants to rent the pool for their birthday party, they have to wait until after seven.
- And for some families, that's way too late. I wouldn't rent the party, rent the pool for my little kid.
- We had 44 hours of rentals this year split between the two pools. It's down a little bit But also we
- missed almost a month of mills that would have normally been open And right. Yeah, go ahead right now.
- There's at 715 to to 915 930 and they Start They start in June and They're Thursday Friday and Saturday evenings
- Just for people or companies also renting the space It depends sometimes we have Church groups that
- rent it sometimes we have school events that rent it and then sometimes it's just an individual wants
- to rent it as a birthday party
- Like an individual family will say, hey, we're gonna have our birthday party here. Oh, that one person?
- Yeah. No, no, no. That's a lot of money for one person. Yeah, that's what I like to do, yeah. Just get
- those pesky kids out of the way. Yeah, exactly, yeah. My one lane. That'd be funny, yeah. So I guess
- on that note, too, the town I grew up in, we had night swim, seven to nine, actually, like the pool
- closed for a portion of time. I'm sure we had that at some point in Bloomington. Not sure if we did
- or if that ever went away.
- And obviously, we're extending staff time, you know, for lengthening the number of hours that were open,
- but just curious if we have, like, ever thought about adding that as, like, an additional source of
- revenue, like, and just, I don't know if, like, some families, like, it's like, if their parents do
- work and can't take them to the pool during the day, come home, have dinner, and then could, like, go
- swim in the evenings, like, since it's so late, so late. We have considered it. Yeah.
- that makes me particularly nervous about that is just a lighting situation currently. I haven't done
- enough research on it, but you're required to have a certain amount of lighting if you're gonna have
- night swim. And I don't think that we meet that requirement right now. So I just would worry about it
- being unsafe with being that late. But I mean, even seven to nine, we're open for pool rentals. So we
- could probably do like a seven to nine, but it's just something that the pool schedule has kind of been set
- 11 to 7, so we haven't added that, but it's something we could consider for sure. Okay. Yeah. I can
- add something else, but I can't remember. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Awesome.
- Thank you. Yep. And then Chris has also got another report this evening about the slightly beleaguered
- Frank Southern Ice Arena. Yes. We finished painting today, so it looks like an ice arena now.
- You guys know we had the ammonia leak in March of 2026 two days before the arena scheduled shutdown
- date We've been preparing to safely open for this season We were obviously we've talked a lot about
- different things that we had been doing we had been working on the II AR standards We had been working
- on just making trying to put things in place more more
- Computer records of different maintenance items that we're doing and stuff like that just so we have
- all that in one place After the league staff members completed mandatory reporting to the EPA We held
- an incident debrief with the Bloomington Fire Department Monroe County emergency management and Monroe
- County schools We've prepared we prepared a list of things that we have presented to you guys in the
- past of things that need to be done in this
- This report was presented in March of 2026 We have worked through a bunch of these things that we were
- supposed to get done before we open Staff met with representatives of the EPA in early June and received
- a report of recommendations from the EPA in July that is linked within your Park board items here We
- met with the Bloomington Fire Department this week to do our tabletop discussion and
- Had some conversations with them about a couple more things they'd like to see But they seemed overall
- pretty happy with everything that's in place We met with MCC to provide an update on you know work and
- what we've been doing We'll continue to have those conversations going forward facility checklists and
- and reporting procedures have been updated like we talked about to just make sure that everything is
- standardized in a document that we can see and we can present or pull or whatever we need at any given time and
- And we've started our conversations with our stakeholder groups to discuss one of the two options of
- reinvestment, either building a new ICE facility or reinvesting in our current facility. The table on
- the, I think it's the third page, contains all of the items that have been checked off. Three significant
- items remain in progress. Installation of the iWash station, which you guys approved as part of your
- consent calendar today.
- We're working on installing a panic door exiting the compressor room And then we need some diagrams
- that we're waiting on from our ammonia contractor These items are are technically not required to be
- completed until 2029 But as part of our discussions we wanted to get get them done before we open up
- for this year We I have another discussion that I would like to open up with you guys so staff would
- like to begin to also begin a discussion with the board regarding a
- potential shared stewardship model for the ice arena. The goal would be to explore ways for the ice
- arena and its primary user groups to share responsibility for certain aspects of arena operations while
- helping control the cost of ice. So one of the most important things for us, we don't want to charge
- exorbitant fees. Hockey's already a really expensive sport. Figure skating's already a really expensive
- sport. So how can we keep the ice price as low as we can while also not losing a bunch of money and
- putting ourselves in danger of losing the ice arena?
- as an initial concept We would charge whatever price we just be determined in the price schedule next
- month And then we would say if your group wants to volunteer this many hours We'll bring that ice price
- down a little bit and that would help us because one of our as you saw with the pools the biggest cost
- for us is our staffing and and obviously anything that's required as far as safety or
- Supervisors that have keys and all that would still be our staff but We could have somebody that can
- stand out there and make sure that kids are being safe while they're doing Public skate, you know, we
- don't necessarily need to have us especially train some person to be out there for that This would be
- developed as a structured program with clearly defined responsibilities training requirements supervision
- appropriate limitations We want to make sure that we're doing it properly
- And it's something that has been used quite a bit in Minnesota, which is kind of the gold standard for
- ice arenas and specifically community ice arenas where they, they're almost all in Minnesota are owned
- and operated by their parks departments. And that's one of the, we are one of the dying breed, honestly,
- with ice arenas that are owned by a parks department because so many places have given them over to private
- Entities and then the prices go through the roof and kids don't get to play for for as cheap as they
- were and that kind of thing so it's something that we really want to focus on keeping and We think that
- this is something that would help us do that We would be interested in hearing any concerns or questions
- that you guys have with this potential path Well, I think that's a creative idea and I don't know if
- the YMCA still does this but years ago they had something similar where you could get it sort of a discounted
- membership if you volunteered in there and
- As you say sometimes you just needed some people to you didn't need to any special skills, right? Just
- needed humans there Yeah, so yeah, I think that's a creative suggestion and I also appreciate that You
- know the feeling that as parks are I mean it you want to keep the prices down you want to keep it available
- for everyone so yeah, we've had a lot of success this will be
- In the report as we get into the end of the season, but our house hockey program Thanks in large part
- to you guys Approving the prices that you have our house hockey program has grown tremendously in 2023
- We had five total kids that were registered for just house hockey Outside of the travel program and
- this past season we ended up with 57 kids And we're continuing to expand that program going into this
- year so I'm really excited about that and
- You know, we've seen a lot of success with that. But like I said, we just want to make sure that we're
- we're operating it in a way that Allows us to continue doing it forever and doesn't ever get to the
- point where hey Why are we losing so much money at the ice arena? We just need to be done with it volunteer
- share program is great and kind of in the same spirit as You know everything else of just making sure
- it's a community space I mean the only thing I would say is like
- from a liability standpoint, just making sure that people are trained and that we're covered that way,
- so that if there were to be another leak or something else happen that it's all above board. What's
- the open date for the? September 1st. Coming right up. We're going to be building ICE all next week.
- You guys should stop by. It'll be great. I'm very excited about it. That's awesome. Yeah. Did anyone
- else have a question about the ICE arena?
- Okay, I just was gonna I thought of the thing This has made me remember the thing about the pools too,
- which is do you get a sense that most of your guards are also guarding at IU or the why or and like
- working in multiple places and it has there ever been like a lifeguard share like Partnership of like
- those employees or yeah would staff both you know could
- Could float between different facilities or something like that like shared with and I guess and I assume
- our rates are probably also Comparable with what like like most lifeguards in Bloomington are getting
- paid the same amount no matter where they work We pay our guards significantly more more. Okay other
- places do so we have seen we have seen a lot of guards come over from The why specifically I think people
- are pretty
- Stay at the at the IU pools because it's a you know, they've worked there during their while they're
- going to school and that kind of thing but We have seen several guards that have come over from the
- Y And we we do we pay our staff significantly more than they're getting paid at other places Living
- wage it's all living wage requirement. Okay. Yeah, we just pay them what the living wage requirement
- is so But we we
- do have a few guards that work at both the Y and our pools. And some of them are swim lesson instructors
- at both or different things like that. But it's something that going forward, we really wanna explore
- more of that partnership idea. I know, like we talked about with talking to Bill Ramos, just trying
- to figure out what ways we can work together and try to offer, for our pool at Bryan,
- And Mills we're the only pools that really have slides that people that kids can come and use So what
- can we offer that's not necessarily competing with these other pools, but we can all join together to
- share Sharing the resources that we have so that we can offer everything that possible to our community
- Thank you Chris, thanks for all that information All right, and then then we come to public comment which I
- Any unknown faces now Leslie says no public comment. So is I don't know if Molly if there's anyone online
- No one online. Okay Okay, and then back over to Tim you have any reminders? I'm gonna keep it short
- and sweet because we've talked at you a lot this evening our next regular meeting is September 17th
- a normal Thursday 5 p.m. Meeting that will be for normal business including any follow-up we have from
- this evening and
- As well as the first look at fee schedule updates We're going to do that again in two phases where we
- bring them to you one month get feedback And then look to adopt those in October And then we have the
- special meeting on September 28th Which will be focused on the facility and capital investment report
- Which we will get out to the public and you via a press release on board, etc
- probably a couple weeks beforehand is what Julie and I were talking about. So that report could be reviewed.
- We'll invite public comment at that meeting. We'll have an online public comment period after the meeting
- as well to just ensure folks can have their voices heard. And Chris and others have been inviting different
- stakeholder groups involved that might want to be there to give public comment to that meeting as well.
- Lastly, the link to the non-reverting report in the agenda has been fixed. So you can now see that there.
- and that will be posted to onboard as a follow-up. Okay. All right. Thank you, Tim and Molly, and thank
- you to all staff who presented. With that, I'll adjourn the August meeting of the Bloomington Board
- of Park Commissioners.