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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1985-09-10 Park Board MinutesEDINA PARK BOARD Edina City Hall September 10, 1985 8:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT: Joan Lonsbury, George Warner, Bob Christianson, James Fee, Bill Lord, Andrew Montgomery, Jean Rydell, Virginia Shaw, Mack Thayer, Don Wineberg, Marilyn Wooldridge STAFF PRESENT: Bob Kojetin, John Keprios, Ed MacHolda, Madelyn Krinke, Pat Greer, Marion Ward, Richard "Andy" Anderson OTHERS PRESENT: Bill Greer, Al Ward, Donna Hipps Dedication of Van Valkenburg Park preceded the Park Board Meeting at 7:00 p.m. I. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF AUGUST 13, 1985 MEETING Don Wineberg moved for approval of the minutes of the August 13, 1985 meeting, with correction of date on minutes from 12th to 13th on page 1 and with the correction of last page to read "Residents in attendance at Park Board Meeting August 13, 1985." Bob Christianson seconded the motion. Motion carried. II. ART CENTER REPORT Bob Kojetin introduced Pat Greer and Marion Ward, co -directors of the Art Center. Bob expressed his appreciation for the excellent job they have done at the Art Center in providing a very valuable service to the community. Bob stated that about 40-50% of the youth in Edina are involved in sports, and the need for something for the other 50% is met to a great extent by the programs at the Art Center. Providing cultural activities for the entire community is a very important service which is provided by the Art Center. Pat Greer presented several fact sheets showing membership receipts and fees and charges. She stated that when the Art Center opened 8 years ago there were 287 memberships and presently there are 366 memberships. There was no restriction placed on non resident memberships, because in the beginning there was a need to draw as many individuals as possible to build the memberships, and as a result, the Art Center has been serving a lot of other communities. The ratio of students has been two-thirds adults to one-third students. Memberships and the Art Gallery have brought revenue to the center. Shows have brought in $1300 in the past year. 2 Pat further stated that the size of the various rooms at the Art Center limits the number of possible students that can be in a class - in most classes, that limit is 8. Only the Nichol's Studio can accommodate a larger group of up to 15. The center is equipped for the handicapped. Pat also stated that she feels the Art Center provides a very valuable service to the community, but realizes there is a lack of funds to cover the expenses. She referred to page 2 of her reports, concerning ideas to help cut the deficit, outlining steps that have already been taken to reduce costs and to increase profits. Pat showed in her analysis of costs and income that in order for the Art Center to show a profit from class fees, they would have to increase the charge for each class from the present $55 to $88 per session for each class, which would price them out of the market. Therefore, other methods of funding must be looked at. Marion Ward said that she is very pleased with how the Art Center has grown in the past 8 years and feels very good about the services they provide. Marion listed several promotional things which are done each year to promote the Art Center, including showing a slide presentation many times to service clubs, school classes, etc., art demonstrations at MN Zoo, displays at several realty offices, Expo, Art Fair, Dayton's Art show, from which they have received donations. Marion also mentioned some of the many special events and programs which have been offered at the center. Bob Kojetin stated that the Council would be meeting September 17, at 7:00 and the Park Board Finance Committee should be at that meeting. Bob explained that 50% of the $2.29 per hour class registration fee goes to the instructor and the other 50% for administrative staff and cost of the building. If we are to balance the Art Center budget, we would have to raise this fee to $3.36 per hour per student, or $88 per class. It was noted that instructor's fees had been cut back according to the number of students in the class. The question which arises is are we trying to accomplish a self supporting center? Pat Greer mentioned some other things that had been done to decrease the deficit and ideas which will be implemented in the future. A new category of membership has been created, a $10 membership which will be called the "Friends" membership. The all -city mailing which recently went out brought a lot of registrations. The possibility of more corporate donations is also seen as something to pursue strongly. Bob Kojetin stated that something different about the Art Center is that they have only part time employees who all work about 20 hours a week, no full time employees as at the other facilities. He stated that Marion will be retiring the first of the year. Joan Lonsbury thanked both Pat and Marion as well as their husbands, for all the hard work they have done at the Art Center and congratulated them on the success of the programs. Joan feels there are a lot of hidden costs in other programs that are not shown in budgets, and that a lot of money is used to support all the other programs and some of the cost of the Art Center should be underwritten just as it is in other activities. 9 III. FORESTRY Bob Kojetin stated that this year the operating budget will be changed and tree removal on the boulevard as well as those in the parks will be on the Park budget. We have been responsible for aquatic weed control also, but that will now go to the Engineering Department budget. We do not have funds budgeted to do a 100% control job on the aquatic weeds, just as with the dandelions. We can currently treat only 20% of the shoreline by state permit on some lakes and all of the water on small ponds under one acre. We presently are treating 21 lakes and we cut weeds in the Millpond and Mirror Lake. Mr. Kojetin reported that we have had a tremendous loss of elms due to dutch elm disease this year. He showed the chart of losses from 1971 and it appears that the losses will approach the record high set in 1977 of 1800. It appears that about 1500 elms and 300 oaks will die in 1985. A lot of the trees that were privately treated for dutch elm disease, especially the larger trees in the Country Club area, are now dying from Dutch Elm disease. There are 122 boulevard trees now marked for removal which must be removed by April of 1986. To date 380 elms have been removed from the boulevards. Bob Christianson asked how long a person has to remove the trees after they are marked. Bob Kojetin replied that generally the tree is to be removed no more than 20 days after being tagged. According to Bob Kojetin the heavy losses of elms trees will cause a big increase in the tree budget - a 30% increase primarily due to the large size of the elms because of the extra expense of grinding the stumps by contract labor. We are continuing to maintain tree removal and also contract tree trimming in the City of Edina in order to help slow down the spread of Dutch Elm Disease so that all of the elms will not be lost at one time. This would be devastating to the community if we lost all of the trees at one time. We should be cognizant of the fact that we do not have a very ambitious tree planting program in the City of Edina. We have been planting an average of about 50 trees at the miximum per year with a little reforestation of areas in the City that do not have trees. The residents in Edina generally do a pretty good job of planting trees within their own yard, especially on the west side of Highway 100. We are presently growing a small number of trees in our nursery at Braemar which will be planted in the parks and some on boulevards. We also have a contract with our contracted forester, Bob McGuire on an experimental basis whereby we pay him approximately $60-$70 for a tree that he has been growing in his nursery over a period of five years. We have paid him a maintenance cost for the upkeep on these trees and have also purchased the original seedlings which are "whip" size. We will be harvesting the first of these trees next year. The $60-70 investment for these individual trees which will be in the 3-4" category will be worth about $300-$400 a piece, depending on the species. At the present time there are approximately 250 trees in his nursery from 1-5 years of growing time. In the long run, this will not be enough to reforest the total city boulevard trees which we would be faced with if all the elms are lost. Of course the loss of boulevard trees also includes oaks lost to oak wilt. 4 Bob Kojetin introduced Richard Anderson of the Park Maintenance staff who is in charge of the tree removal and tree maintenance program for the parks and boulevard, who added to the statistics of tree removals and the amount of time and money it is taking for removal of the stumps by private contractors. Because of the larger trees that are being removed this year it has taken much more time and money to remove the stumps and for them to fill in the holes with black dirt and seed. IV. RECREATION REPORT John Keprios reported that all associations are experiencing a decrease in numbers of participants in all sports. The Football Association had to combine 7th and 8th grade for the first time in many years. The Firearm Safety program has begun and there are a lot of members of the Optimists who are teaching the classes. We will again be hosting the Adult State Football Tournament this year. John Keprios reported that the Edina Baseball Association is planning to donate some money to Braemar for a new sound system which will be worth approximately $2,700, because they experienced a larger profit due to more income from tournaments this year. The Edina Hockey Association has approved donation of $25,000 to be used for improvements of the lights at Braemar Arena and other capital improvements. V. OTHER Joan Lonsbury reported that she had attended the seminar sponsored by Larry Laukka in July and it had been a very worthwhile meeting. She noted that the program director from Detroit had presented some very exciting ideas for programming a facility such as Edinborough and mentioned that such programming would be key to the Edinborough park. Joan also mentioned that Paul Foss had spoken at the Council Meeting on September 9th of his concern over parking in Utley Park because it had been dedicated as a War Memorial Park. Bob Kojetin reported to the Park Board that he had gone back into the files pertaining to Utley and the dedication of the park and from what he found it appears that only the flag pole area was dedicated as a War Memorial, not the entire park. Bob Kojetin stated that the Hockey Association and the Gymnastics Association have been meeting to discuss the possibilities for a joint project at Braemar where the Hockey Association is interested in building a new natural ice sheet with a roof, and the Gymnastics Association is looking for some new type of building. During our first joint board meeting a discussion came up in regard to the condition of the present pavilion facility. Bob Kojetin had indicated that at the present time we are in need of repair of the concrete floor and the plastic pipe which is leaking in the Pavilion. We hope that we will be able to stop the leaking this year, but within a year or two a major project will have to be done to replace the concrete floor and plastic pipe at the Pavilion. A preliminary estimate for this job is $210,000 to put in a new refrigeration floor and $40,000 to remove present concrete floor and piping. After a discussion of the joint associations an idea was brought up that maybe if a new floor would have to be replaced maybe the old Pavilion could be turned into a 5 gymnastic facility and a new pavilion would be built with an adjacent sheet of ice and roof along side. The present floor in the Pavilion and the size of the building would be very adequate for a gymnastics facility. There would have to be some upgrading of heating of the building. The Gymnastics Association and the Hockey Association will be appearing at the Tuesday evening council budget meeting to request a feasibility study to look into this type of facility for the Braemar Arena. The list of Park Board committees was handed out. Bob Christianson made a motion THAT A RESOLUTION OF THANKS BE WRITTEN TO THE EDINA BASEBALL ASSOCIATION AND THE EDINA HOCKEY ASSOCIATION FROM THE PARK BOARD. Don Wineberg SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED. VIRGINIA SHAW MOVED FOR ADJOURNMENT. BOB CHRISTIANSON SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED.