Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Parks And Recreation Advisory Committee - 09/09/2020 PARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE Regular Meeting * Wednesday, September 9, 2020 5:30 p.m. Webex MINUTES I. Call to Order by Jacob Warren, Agenda Coordinator, at 5:46 p.m. II. Roll Call of Members: • Present: Jacob Dryden, Lawrence Heatley, Amy McCoy, Alissa Mejia, Casandra Lorentson, Howard Schauer, Florence East, Hannah Husby and Twila Stevens, and Diego Solis. • Absent: Mandy Cox III. Public Comment • Public comment received from Janie Endemano and read to board members by Jacob Warren. Ms. Endemano explained that there is a canal that runs along the North side of York Crossing, turns Northeast, crosses Lipes Blvd, and continues to Faye Webb Elementary. She is suggesting that the City convert a dirt road that lies next to the canal into a trail along with the creation of a linear park. The linear park would be a total of about 0.31 miles long. This option would give students and parents a safe, straightforward route to Faye Webb Elementary and Kaffie Middle School as well as providing the neighborhood residents access to the field, track, and new playground at Brockhampton Park. This suggestion was offered as a safe alternative to either driving or walking through busy traffic. IV. Adoption of Minutes • Regular Meeting – Adoption of Minutes from August 12, 2020. Minutes from August 12, 2020 were passed unanimously. V. Police Department Report • On September 3, 2020 a mini warrant round-up was conducted at various parks. There were 18 individuals arrested for warrants ranging from defecating in public to assault. • There has been some success at Ben Garza Park due to frequent contacts from bicycle and enduro officers. Our officers have monitored Ben Garza Park and have advised groups who sit on the basketball courts that the courts are for people who are playing basketball and if they see anyone playing basketball they are to leave. These groups have been complying. • The Police Department is currently in the process of sending contacts to reclaim carts from transients with the cooperation of HEB, Family Dollar and Dollar General. VI. Old Business and Possible Action • No items listed. VII. New Business for Discussion and Possible Action • Election of Officers – Twila Stevens made a motion to nominate Alissa Mejia as Chairperson. Alissa Mejia motioned to nominate Twila Stevens as Vice-Chairperson. Motions were seconded by Howard Schauer. Motion passed unanimously. • Bond 2020 Program – Assistant Director Joseph Johnson presented the Bond 2020 Program item. The guiding principles of the proposed projects include enhancing the functionality of recreational areas to promote recreational activities and investing in large, impactful new or replacement amenities in lieu of low budgeted maintenance projects. North Beach will have new bathrooms constructed and the existing parking lot renovated. Bill Witt Park will receive new swimming pool designs with restrooms, lockers, and a parking lot. West Guth Park will receive a new playground, a skate park, and small picnic areas. McNorton Park, Brookhill Park and Academy Park in District 1, Cuiper Park, Sherwood Park, Sam Houston Park and Temple Park in District 2, Windsor Park, Retta Park and Douden Park in District 4, and Crossgate Park, Brighton Park, Brandywine Park, and Capt. Falcon Park in District 5 will have their playground equipment replaced, new shade structures installed, and a pour-and-play fall zone installed. Maps of the discussed districts where the parks are located were briefly presented along with photos of similar shade structures. The shade structures are planned to be installed around mid-October and will help to weatherproof the proposed new playgrounds. A PowerPoint showcasing the Bond 18 initiatives including twelve new playgrounds will be presented during the October 14th PRAC meeting. Twila Stevens asked if the shade structures will extend the life of the new playgrounds and if that was the reason why we chose to use them. Johnson stated that was part of the reasoning and that any prevention of UV rays from harming the plastic will certainly extend the lifespan of the new playgrounds. VIII. Committee, Liaison/Staff Reports – • Island Strategic Action Committee (ISAC) – New liaison Twila Stevens volunteered for position. No new reports were provided. • Watershore & Beach Advisory Committee – New liaison Howard Schauer volunteered for position. No new reports were provided. • Flour Bluff Advisory Committee – Liaison Florence East reported developments for Flour Bluff Area Development Plan. Audio feed was intelligible. The flyer for the Flour Bluff Area Development Plan was distributed to all board members and staff members. IX. Director Reports – Tracey Cantu, Interim Director • Reported City Council’s approval of the new 10-Year Master Plan. Parks and Recreation will be starting work on the Master Plan soon and will include the PRAC board members throughout the process. It will be an 18-month process that will showcase areas of improvement for the department. Becky Perrin, Assistant Director • Reported the renaming of the Latchkey program to After Hour Kid Power. School will be starting in a couple of weeks and the After Hour Kid Power program will grow in stages. After school starts, the program will be at roughly 25% growth. A few weeks after that the program will be at roughly 50% growth, and a few more weeks after that it will be at about 75% growth and will be active in 26 different schools. There have been concerns that we won’t be following CDC regulations, however, we are certainly following the recommended CDC guidelines. We have also been contacted by the London school district this week to provide services in two of their schools. Since our rec centers and senior centers are closed right now, we’ve been cleaning and painting the inside and outside of these buildings. Senior centers have had plenty of curbside activity as they come in to get entertainment packages. We’ve also increased our meal production for seniors. We were creating about 300 meals per day when they were coming to the centers. We have increased that number to anywhere from 1300-1600 meals per day. Our athletic programs are having new leagues introduced for softball, baseball and basketball. Proper CDC guidelines are being followed for these activities as well. We have also received some COVID funding for meal prep for our senior centers, so we haven’t had to turn anyone down and all requested meals have been provided. We are currently limiting permitting for events until we hear more from the Governor about opening up more throughout Texas. We’re planning on permitting some of the events that have been canceled once more information is divulged. That’s it for program services. Communications has been busy keeping everyone informed about any relocations and other actions as well. Joseph Johnson, Assistant Director • Reported that Park Operations has been busy mowing within the usual 14-day cycles amidst the rain, hurricanes and special projects. New quality directional signs were installed at Water’s Edge Park. We just recently had a contract approved to redo two shoreline medians across from Water’s Edge Park. The contractor we’re hiring will emulate the other medians going down Shoreline Drive to include new Esperanza plants, palm trees and grass around mid-October. We’ve continued installing the 14 new playgrounds and we have about 5 left to install. Once all the playgrounds are installed, work will begin on installing the shade structures. We also bought a new playground for Vineyard Park in District 5 with our operational funds and included it in the current 14 playground instal lation project. It won’t have the pour-and-play due to it being a niche park. We went against the master plan to make this decision as the park is heavily used and needed a new playground. Beach Operations has maintained the City very well during the hurricane season. Roughly 500 tons of sand and debris has been moved throughout the cleanup efforts over 8 miles of beach. They also made sure all portable restrooms were setup for Labor Day weekend. During holiday weekends we’ve been borrowing a trash truck from Solid Waste. We’re now looking at purchasing a trash truck in the future due to it enabling us to empty trash cans much faster. The City Manager supports the decision, so we are currently looking into finding a trash truck that will work with the budget . Permit sales have been low, but we did make $18,000 this weekend. Latchkey and Rec Center have aided in the permit sales tremendously. Aquatics has been difficult to deal with during the pandemic. There isn’t much information on the Governor’s Strikeforce list. We’ve had to use whatever guidance is available along with common sense. Swimmers have been upset that we aren’t allowing people to share lanes, but we’re going to continue that practice for now. We’re looking at bringing back swim lessons in October as long as the instructor doesn’t need to be in the pool with everyone. Swim teams are still swimming currently. Alissa Mejia stated it was announced at some point that all the beaches were open, but for a while Zahn Road was still closed and people were upset about having to go around Newport Pass. Was that a County or City announcement? Johnson responded by stating that was a City announcement. Engineering opened the road and we closed it again the next day. Right after Hurricane Laura hit, it was announced that Corpus Christi wasn’t hit that hard, but we were. We ended up with 3-4 feet of sand on our beaches and the tides were all the way up to the dunes. The beaches were opened prematurely. That announcement was made on the Thursday after Laura hit and by that weekend people were visiting the beach, however, we hadn’t had any time to perform maintenance. That was the main issue regarding Newport Pass. For Zahn Road, we collaborated with Public Works and put in 135 yards of limestone in the soft spot on Zahn Road and that fixed the issue there. Additionally, our lifeguards performed excellently throughout these storms and we only had one drowning. X. Committee Member Comments/Announcements/Agenda Requests • None. XI. Adjournment at 6:38 p.m.