Bangor Parks Committee reviews master plan, elects Ryan Robbins as chair

[3:37] Tracy Willett: Winter solstices knowing that, okay now solstice, it's like oh we are alive now. This is a monthly meeting of the Parks Recreation Harbor Advisory Committee. I'm Director Tracy Willett, Parks and Recreation. Typically you'd have a chair in this meeting this evening and we'll get to that in a minute on the agenda. As we often do, we have some new members. Let's go around the table and introduce yourselves. I'm going to go to my right, Ryan Robbins, committee member. [4:12] Suzette Holly Furrow: Community member, community member Susan Balloon. I am the council liaison. Who's that, Furrow, community member? [4:28] Tracy Willett: And again, thank you all for coming, thank you for joining us this afternoon. Probably a few meetings in your week that you've got to check off and attend. So the first item is a review of December minutes. I will tell you that the person running the audio visual at the December meeting kind of failed at the audio part of that, so we aren't able to have minutes for you or notes for you this evening. Fortunately, that same guy is not running the audio tonight, so you should be able to hear. We'll have minutes, hopefully we can figure out a way to come up with something for the record for December as well as have notes for tonight. So have nothing for you for that. The next item is for the group to elect a chair as you do each year. We started doing this and they'll look at you Mr. Robbins, I believe it's two or three years ago, anyway somewhere in that neighborhood, yes. Most if not all advisory committees have a person that serves as the chair. For this particular group, it's essentially to oversee the meetings each month, needs to communicate with us as staff of their particular items that you like is included on the agenda with staff. Mc John, sorry, we are just at the point of electing a chair for the committee. There's six of you here tonight, so we're good. So anyway, we're going through that. It's not, I don't believe it's a real labor intensive task. It's essentially to be the representative of you all as a group. If there's particular items you would like staff to come back to you with, it's The in the role of the chair, but it's essentially to run the meetings each month and keep these in order. I'm gonna look at you, sir. You've done it before. Forward huge labor intensive task, but anyway, so at this point it's up to you all to either volunteer yourselves or if one person in particular everybody agrees, that's fine too. But I'm going to stop talking and let you all decide from there. I'll throw my hat in the ring. Okay, Ryan Robbins. Anybody else? The book for Ryan Robbins favor for this so We just passed the vote. All right, Mr. Robbins will be chair of your the department advisor committee for your calendar year. Thank you. Because the other time we did it never really, I was like on there for like two or three. Well, you're on when I first joined. Yeah, and then and Kim just did it right in British Parliament, you know, when you guys are just satisfied that went on that evening. So yeah, I appreciate you willing to arrive. So I'll turn it over to you. All right, so review of facilities master plan and project recommendation. So each January, the last couple of Januaries, what we try to do with you folks is on our medical production rec.com I reached off on the city's website facilities master plan that we completed in 2021 and we've been trying as best we can to keep somewhat on task with that plan and as well as a page I shared with you also budget and a capital request each year equipment needs essentially happen in the city. So we'll just kind of go through that with you. Have a discussion with you if we continue to be on track versus there's a particular area you like us to focus on. What I would do first with you is there's a short, there's a midterm. So let me go down through the list and kind of go through what we've been trying to. Let's start with a short term list. Cascade Park, we have focused on some half request for funding completed is a master plan for the park. That's also on our website as well. So Cascade part we are in the process of trying to initiate with a Park Service registering is a historic place that starts with a state process and all candor we haven't been able to dedicate as much time as we hope to work on that. The map of the plan we did get done, that is completed and you'll see identified in the capital plan, that single-sheet capital plan, an engineering design for Cascade Park that we're working on now. Cascade Park is one of those signature parks here in the city. Significant amount of history of the park. Certainly it's well attended and utilized virtually year round. It's connectivity to the amenities over there, the connectivity to Saxo Park up on the Dorothea Dix property, and then you can continue to connect through Easterly Community College, eventually my trail I end up over Essex Woods. So and third amenity for us, we are currently working with our engineering division to work on the engineering design portion, which was the next step identified in the master plan. That will include updating the waters, the park circulation. I will tell you that we have this will be good information for you all to have if you get asked in the spring. We have a significant leaking issue at Cascade right now, which we aren't able to run the fountain consistently as we have in the past. We try to turn it on for specific events, primarily wedding events. It's a very popular the destination for winning events or other weekend events that folks look for the fountain to be used, but as far as running daily, we've had to, we've really had to scale back on that because so that talks about Cascade Dakin pool. We have been had a couple of meetings with a group called What's Left of the Friends of Dakin Pool. That group was started back probably they were 15 to 17 years ago. We're responsible for the building of pool houses there. Now the group has starting wants to kind of wrap up its effort. They're minimal in numbers now, so what we've been doing with them, they do have some funding left, is working with that group to add some amenities over there, maybe not necessarily a splash pad like you see here master plan, but maybe some sort of water feature and or adding some amenities for shade play, etc. So that work is going on with the Friends of Dake. They have some funding left that they would like to share with the city to make those amenities happen and kind of wrap up their graphics. We did recoat the inner liner of the pool a number of years ago. It was actually two years ago. It was part of a funding request and you'll see a reference to it in your capital plan on The single sheet initially, we were hoping to do both Bacon and Panko at the same time. We did not have enough budget time for both pools, so we decided to do Daisy's first, and we'll continue to ask for the additional funding for Panko later on. But they didn't get done. The logic was Dakin was the older of two pools, the surfacing inside Dakin at the time was, and they were 20 years old and needed the attention a little bit more than Panko did, taking the decision to take the time. I'm going to page. Two of the short term list, Broad Street Park, what was formerly known as Gomez Park. We've had a couple of different iterations of a plan there. We're now going down the path of perhaps using that space for some historical recognition along the stream, but nothing definitive yet. But that's, that's, we have, we're still had a few ideas about that. At one time we were had thoughts of maybe the food trucks over there, but we have that hasn't really materialized yet. So that's, that's still a work in progress. At Broad Street, handled Hamlin, you will see us start to do some assessments of the rock retaining walls that are in the middle of the stream, both at Hamlet, Hamlin, and Norm Big, and the decision has been made, let's, let's resolve those issues, get that work done first before we really start to tackle anything on either Handle Parkway or Norvega Parkway. And I say those on the assumption that everybody knows where those two places are. Okay, condescending stream trail, if you've been on the trail lately. And actually if you go out there tonight, you will see we've added lighting down the trail from the county parking lot on off of Court Street. We went as far as we practically could given the terrain and ledge and other material that's in the ground. The digging down on that trail is challenging at best. Then we added some lighting at the end of the footbridge on both sides, and added lighting on the section of trail between the footbridge that's behind Penquist to where it comes out behind Eastern. Fire protection on Harlow Street. Just recently this past fall, we added additional lighting at Gateway Park in the parking area. We coupled that while the contractor was there adding the improvements to 14th Street extension. We reclaimed the pathway and the sidewalk around Gateway Park and add in light fixtures there. So we'll continue to add lighting. We have funding available currently to add lighting as best we can. Along the trail, likely we'll start to focus on some sections along Valley Avenue. Continuing with Condescending Stream Trail, the Bangor Noontime Rotary has committed to partnering with the city to make trailhead improvements and signage improvements along Condescending Stream Trail, so both financially and with volunteers. So that's a project we're working on with them. So some work is getting done along Condescending Stream Trail. And as you see, we've tried, I think we've had this discussion with the group before, we've tried as best we can to keep this as an active. It's been a very valuable document for us, and hopefully for you all as a group, you can see that we tried to use it to identify projects going forward. The consultant that did the master plan for us led to this through community outreach, assessment of facilities. Facilities. The dollar amounts that are associated with this were developed back when the plan was done in 2021, so certainly we try to take that into consideration when we identify projects. The short-term list, we'll finish up, you'll see identified as Second Street Park. It's now called Talbot Park. Certainly the Y project changed our efforts over there. We did carve about an acre near the play structure over there. What you don't necessarily see in this plan, and we'll talk about, mention now, we started in 2009 a process of identifying a play structure per view to replace. Wouldn't you know it, we're in those, the lifespan of a typical play structure is 15 to 18 years, and we're, we've come full circle, believe it or not, we have come full circle. So we currently have funding to replace the structure of Williams Park, which is over in Hancock Streets. We were able to utilize to be developed block grant in funding because of the low to moderate income neighborhoods that 's there we're going to start the circle again unless there's sentiment or advice that we should think otherwise so using that logic you will likely see us request funding to replace play structure at talbot park it made sense to kind of hold off on that and we may still hold off until the Y project is indeed done from there the next structure to replace I can recall top of my Head would be down east. We have a play structure at down east from the next one. Would be these structures similar in nature, meaning they're all similar in size and scope, or are they all different? So it's a great question and a good question, and certainly for you also to answer your question. We have done what was referred to as a 5 to 12 deposit property with the exception of Hayford Park. Hayford, we did a separate 2 to 5 year old structure and a 5 to 12. Does not mean we need to keep doing that. And we're at the point with Williams we get asked from time to time to do different things, so not opposed to having some feedback. Hey, instead of doing the typical 512 composite structure with the events all tied together, could we do maybe an interactive panel to the side or a sensory panel or I'm going to use the term accessible but they make features now that are all inclusive. This would be a good opportunity to have that discussion now before we get too deep with the rfp process if the composite structures have directly been going works for everybody then we'll keep doing that. We are we sometimes get in our and we do the composite and try to include as many events as we can. When we have done the rfps before request proposals we make sure to include here's what we want to make sure is included two slides some what was referred to as top swings bucket belt swings make sure you have at least three ground level of play events. We don't include roofing because roofing takes away from the total value of what you can include for other events, so we try to include as many what's referred to as play events as possible. Is that entering question at all? Yeah, okay, yeah, I didn't know if there was different sizes based upon the location and the volume of play that's being put on there and the second part of that question is the age or the replacement level based upon usage or just simply age, meaning is there one that is being overused that can be fast forwarded into the your timeline of cycling versus one that has had very little use that maybe can be you better utilized for a park that has way more usage, you know what I mean? So we'll take Williams first. Williams is aged and wear and tear, so for example we've got a climbing event at Williams that is worn and needs to replace. We've got some activity panels over there that are worn if you replace the swings are dated move actually move the structure but out of the trees we put it there however many years ago the Trees weren't nearly as large as they are now, and incorporate a whole new set of swings into it. So in William's example, it is indeed wear and tear and needs to be replaced. But we get down the line, I'll use Banger Gardens for example. We could get the Banger Gardens and yes, typical life is 15 to 18 years, but we might be able to get another four or five years out of it versus Down East that's got significant wear and tear. I will tell you that the structure at Talbot, the same kinds of issues at Williams, because of climbing events that are, we've had to take together, literally take together with enough to keep the climbing net going, you're exposed footings, etc. So that is wear and tear. Little city, little city, because it seems to be wearing a little easier, might last a little longer. So to your question and to your point, certainly as we get going, if we start to assess, I use Broadway for example, Broadway, we may find while Broadway is getting beat up because it's getting used, we do that next versus we'll see. So Still Water could be the same chamber, the same thing. So yeah, we can start to better assess and as we go, as we replace, are there features that, hey, I, one of you was at such and such a park somewhere and then it's really cool play feature that would be cool to see here. There are natural features that become more prevalent in now and play structures, rocks, logs, etc. So yeah, there's some really creative things you could do that's outside that typical composite structure. Hopefully I answered your question in a lovely way. But what we have done when we did this before, we tried to go to places that had shown the most wear and tear. We were able to couple that with using the block grant funding. We were able to exhaust that first. Then we started asking for the capital request. But that, we're in that cycle again, in that cycle again. Play structures, and it's interesting. Interesting. Hayford, we incorporated a fairly large climbing net over there, which is quite popular. At Fairmount, we included a, they call it an expression swing, where you can get in the swing as an adult with a toddler and swing at the same time. That would be popular. Fairmount seems to be that destination park next to Hayford, Broadway. I think anecdotally is one of those destination parks because of its proximity. Little City is more of a neighborhood park. Still waters over here. How was the, I know this is separate, but how was the basketball court called at Fairmount? So the basketball court at Fairmount, we re-tiled a year ago. Yeah, just recently, I think, right? Yeah, a year ago. Answering how much you lose track of time. The more time will buy you. What was three years ago was actually fine. Yeah, that one was pretty recent. Yeah, we retiled that yet a couple years ago. It seemed to be holding up. Yeah, I see it gets a lot of use. Yeah, so the quarter fair not familiar is they're plastic piles. That was made possible through a TF from one of the neighbors. The original tiles, it was wear and tear. We were able to and we just missed the warranty, you know. We actually got into the warranty. That's right, we're able to do it with warranty. So we were able to get that replaced. Hayford Park, that basketball court got repaved part of the painting last fall. We just need to strike it and we'll try to pick off some of those app courts that need repaving through the pre-dating program. Anything else before I kind of move on? So the next list is kind of midterm list. So if we look at the column, try to keep on the timeline. So the reason you have the midterm project list is we're kind of in that time pattern now. We're currently in the pistol year 26, I'll just complete 25. And a lot of these on this list were still, we haven't done a whole lot of movement with yet. Let me just go down through quickly. Brownwoods, really we haven't focused there yet. We've already talked about Condescape extreme stream trail. We have not done the multi-use trail study. I haven't done that yet, but it's been a lot of work because we thought about happening at on the Tennessee stream trail. Cole Park is another one. Actually Cole Park was another one of those play structures that we've replaced. Community garden, everybody around the table is familiar with the community garden located on the street. We own the reserve property a little bit during the generation. We may know that, we know that the haunted hut's over there. So the community garden is much in the same general geography as when we started over there back in 2012, 2011, 2012. Currently at the community garden, we're up to 270 some odd beds over there, where you're told it's the largest community garden in the state. So you can see here there's a number of projects that we were going to actually do the parking lot in this current fiscal year, and we actually, I believe, postponed that. That so that's one area that we haven't done a whole lot with yet usually right area is actually should be a Panko pool Hayford we've already talked about that Williams Park if you're not familiar with them we reclaimed a tennis court unused tennis court over there let's say four or five years ago and instead have three pickleball I'll do a pick of all courts over there and back then it identified and be adding some shade Davenport Park is the where the main Monument is over at the corner of the Main and Cedar Streets Hamel Hamlin and Norvega Parkways you've kind of talked about already Stillwater Park over on Howard Street see there what they talked about and that identifies in fiscal year 27. Summit Park our engineering staff is starting to dabble into a master plan over there Summit Park is Thomas Hill so it's primarily the green space that goes from the top of where the standpipe is down to Ohio Street within this may be a little known factor on the table but then Summit Park is a earthen there for some time tapen pretty straightforward of that what has that acted So what's interesting about Essex Woods, some of this work has already happened through the efforts of some volunteer groups. So we've been working with the local chapter of the England Mountain Bike Association, They have created some beginner and intermediate level mountain bike trails up at Essex Woods that proved quite popular. Essex Woods is where the mountain park is located. There is a full court basketball court up there as well as a house. center what we have started doing is working with a consultant on a short a small level to help us with the management plan for the trails specifically our city forestry department is working on overall management plan forest management plan for us similar to what we did out to the world in Perry City Forest as a matter of fact one of our park rangers somebody from Forestry was out there today, found quite a large black cherry tree which is unusual. The birding opportunities at the bottom of Essex Woods are some of the best in the area if not the state so working on that management plan. So that might be something we think about later on, and the rest of them at Summit Park and handle him, and we've already talked about. So for you folks tonight, it's just kind of a, are we on the right track pertaining to the plan? Is there something I haven't talked about that you would like to consider, the timing of this and why we're talking about this tonight? We'll start the budget process here internally sometimes, so for purposes of this group and seeking some feedback from you walls, the timing. Time of work in that we'll have a meeting probably tonight among a couple of other things. I do want to make sure we talk about with you tonight, we can have another discussion in February when we start to put the budget together. If there's a capital project in particular that you didn't see talked about here, something to think about and something to talk about, the site structures, something entirely different, is there a missing link between the short term and the midterm? Because I'm seeing the. Fiscal year 23 for the short term, don't say look, and then the midterm, maybe it's just a little bit near term. So yeah, so then the midterm is essentially 26 is what, in 27 and 28, which is explained more closely in the budget, but is there another sheet that has the 24 and the 25 of things that were done in 24 and things were just getting done with the previous? This final one that's a near term, and I don't apologize, I didn't bring the near term because most of those were dated. I don't, you can see. That on the screen, so what you're seeing here is the entire plan by facility and then short chart near term, short term, so short term is 24. Yeah, and this was all made, you're missing a page, by missing a page, you plan that at least a couple of years, yeah right, 21. So you might have been missing a page that what you're saying, so the short term says page one of two and the back page is two of two, so I think the short term is complete, okay, but it only shows 2023 and then we skip right up to 2026. because what i'm asking is there a 2024 yeah it's on the screen on the screen so somewhere along the way you hear i missed one well i missed one to you is that everything right there yeah pretty much yeah for 24. Yep, so let's go down through that quickly. You'll see Cascade reference again, you'll see Broad Street reference again. I guess what you're missing is Hayford, so Hayford Park is the playground update, which we did back up here, this day stream trail I have a family we talked about, so it was the bottom section that didn't get included. Oh, okay, I see now. Yeah, we're still up to 23 and then the rest of 24. So that's the things that we just got done with, so somewhere in there let's make sure that we didn't decide as [Suzette Holly Furrow: well so] 25 should have started. There's some 25 ones and I will tell you she made an effort, so there I, there's 23, 24 and 25 there. Yeah, yep, we've got the total for 23, so that's an end placement is 24 for 24. Yeah, and then is there an end of 25 because we didn't see anything for 25 yet. So one thing we did do that you may not see here is I'll make sure you get those to you, but you can see them on the screen, is there a second, there's, there a fourth page of that one that must be, I think that's it, so the fourth page would be just a line, a total line of the amount, dollar amounts, which I can get over there, but I believe that's what the fourth page was if you're holding those. So I'm glad you brought that up because it brings up news. So Union Street rec area included in the last two capital plans and you'll see in the capital plan where the replacement of the light fixtures we have done, so all three fields, all three softball fields in Union Street, that project was done this fall. Initially we were going to do one field at a time. We did an RFP for the first field that came in smoothly more than we had budgeted, so we paused the one field requested and was approved for funding for the next two, do the project all at once. By doing that we save significantly in mobilization cost by doing it all at once. In addition to that, a contractor that was hired out of the proposals that we received was already doing a similar project in Brewer, so we're able to save a little bit from it was RL Todd careful we did that project with. So currently at Union Street all three softball fields have new LED fixtures which should save some electrical costs for us down the line. We also at the same time last fall added drainage and resurfaced the infields at Union Street, so we have been fortunate that we were approved for a fair amount of funding to improve things at Union Street. And we kept a couple of the old utility poles, we think we might be able to add some practice lighting. I'm going to look at Mr. Trott, he's been out there for a few practices today, and adds practice lighting to the soccer cross fields, either that or add lighting to new poles. trying to figure out what's going to be best for that and cost effective for that now to union street for any sort of activity once we open it up in april right up through the end of october it's a busy place it's a busy place one of the products you see identified in there is re-striping the parking lot and trying to summon the park reality is we're we're pretty shoehorned in at Union Street. We use just about every available square foot of space that's available to us. We are surrounded. So the parking lot specifically, it is striped about the best we can stripe as far as capacity. What we do now out there is try to schedule activities with the parking lot in mind. Saturdays and Sundays out there, whether it's lacrosse, soccer, high school activities, John Batt, softball, spring, soccer. Our activity is the capacity of the parking lot. So those have been some significant, we've been fortunate to be able to be approved for funding as we go on some of these projects. union street this past fall was a busy place activity-wise and between the lights the infield and the drainage and it was three different contractors doing three different things i'm only looking at you can appreciate what there's a lot of use out there a lot of use football game out there for sluggers and a place yep and i didn't like having to walk to the no it really is i mean we've we've made the city has made a good invest significant investment out there in the last few years new building the lights the current work i just talked about it's a busy place it's really our only outdoor sport facility available the number of groups that make use of it we have a home school group that's out there on tuesday and thursday mornings i believe it's tuesday and thursday mornings and it's easily 150 to 200 school-age kids out there doing different things it's busy so between what i've shared with you and hard copy and what i missed and what we have here on the screen i guess the message to You tonight is staff has we've made this very active document for us and back to how I started earlier in the listing you have from our capital project in our budget we also balance that with equipment needs that we have. This does not include the golf course or the golf course solves an enterprise fund. I will tell you that the golf course we've been focusing on track sand traps bunkers on the Kelly nine that was one of the projects that we focused on our capital plan for that then probably Neighborhood of 20 years in year 26 probably neighborhood 20 years since we did anything with the bunkers on the Kelly 9 and so it was time so we dedicate some funding in the golf course to start working on that rock can share that with you he's here next time with you but we started that last fall to labor intensive work the sand is here so we could start working on it as long as weather permitted this past fall so let's pick it back up in the spring it was done the Kelly nine gets used Extensively and that's where we put folks we have tournaments we have to close the 18. Folks go on the Kelly nine you want to talk a little bit about Sawyer Arena recently again the only other thing that you probably don't see on here year recall that the feasibility studies that we did for both Sawyer and the park and rec center came from this original master plan that was one of the first projects we tackled and as I think I shared with you folks counseling the orientation and I'll be re-engaging with council about coming back with a question about replacing both Park and Rec Center and Sawyer Arena. The need continues to grow. The need continues to grow in both facilities. The boiler is still leaking. We're trying to figure that out. We just took a barn down at parks and rec and at Sawyer we had we went to start the chiller back in October we discovered there was significant damage to the chiller is obviously the refrigeration that creates the ice the trailer is the original unit when Sawyer Arena was first put together by then Banger youth hockey and it's been the same since essentially the arena opened 30 years ago. Those parts you don't just go and get off the shelf. So the company that we used to maintain the chiller for us gave us an estimate to replace the coils that circulates the glycol to freeze the ice. In the meantime we had open soy arena, we have youth hockey group, regional hockey, major black bears, as well as Banger High School, John Baps High School, Hand Academy use it, as well as our own Learn Escape program. So we have rented a chiller, yes, you can rent them for a nominal fee, that is sitting out behind Sawyer Arena now. It has been since we opened, all of this, all of this will be covered by our insurance, so that's good news. So if you go behind Sawyer Arena, you'll see on a flatbed truck a rental chiller. We all in all, I think we were two and a half weeks delayed opening, are right, so area another busy place again, the three high schools and the co-opping of Bangor and Brewer this past year didn't necessarily so change our rental demand, and an academy everybody uses ice early in the morning, and then John Babson and Flint City come in the afternoon, drew black bears after that, our learner skate program is full and was a wait list for our first session, 70 plus skaters in that we have and so we're typically there on a regular night until nine o'clock at night, seven days a week, seven days with public skating. We have a stick and pump group that comes in at 11 in the mornings, then a public skating after that, and then we open it up for dedicated figure skating after public skating, and then the high schools. So yes, we've been on a rental killer, the good news is the parts have been here, train, which is the company that's gonna make repairs, just started making repairs, you've been out there in the last couple of weeks, we had to trim some trees so they can cram some pieces onto the chiller. As far as investments of soy arena, which is outside of this, that would make some significant repairs to the mat, when a lot of things that the contractor did when they left by preparing the mat, no guarantees along that last, so we tried what we can to mitigate board dashboards leaning, typically about this time each year they start to lean into the bleachers, hasn't been that significant yet fun fact for the new members, I don't know if you guys knew, but the ice is actually on top of sand, there's no concrete floor. That's a good point. It is a sand floor. What typically takes us two weeks to build the ice from scratch to opening, we're able to condense in about a week to get going as quickly as we could. That's been kind of, so by doing that, we kind of have to layer along the way between getting the ice set up, getting to a point where we can paint it, which we do, we paint the ice white then we paint the lines. So far so good, so far so good. It's a 30 plus year facility operating a 20-year program in a nutshell, and I'm not sharing anything with you that we haven't shared before, so recall for this group. And amongst all of this is the report that was produced by the council planning special committee back in the summer we had some discussions with council in the fall about a ballot question we're going to come back with that is [49:45] Suzette Holly Furrow: the goal still to try to get something on the June. That would be our goal. Yes, that would [49:51] Tracy Willett: be our goal. Obviously that's all for the council to decide. Yeah, that would be our goal. And for this group again, if you've done it out of the building, we do the absolute best weekend with each facility. If you haven't been in parks and rec lately, we took the wooden barn down, we're not going to replace it. Our plan would be to, and actually that is removal was in that cabin plan you have there in front of you. We did quite well with that, so that project should be well within what we budgeted. What's left to do is some finished work with some loam and seating. We'll just make a green space for kids to use in kids cave, our child care program. We tried to button up the end as best we could, how trying to figure out the logic of how that was attached to that building. We stopped doing months ago. It was an interesting process to get it down. So back to all of this, you want to let it sit for a while and come back with some feedback in February, that's fine too. We tried to have these project discussions with even folks are out there. I know we've talked about and I think it was identified in this master plan at some point some sort of city space or amenity in Judson Heights that we had, we keep going to that. We had a plan to create kind of a nature walk green space plan out there, and hopefully we can make that happen. Is that, was that on the short term or the, I remember seeing it at one point, that's what I was looking for actually. Yeah, no, I think it was identified as Recommendations supplemental to do something out of just tonight. Other than that we talked, you meant you asked about the management city forest. That might have, I think that timing that happened about the same time as this, and again we're now working on Essex Woods. Take a little different attacked, we'll be using contractor for the rails themselves in our city forestry department. What we're working with, we have a one of our park rangers who comes from a forestry conservation law background so between two of them they'll be working on that. What's the power center for 2029, 840,000? So that number of plates there to rehabilitate or do we do away with the palace? So that is essentially a placeholder there for now. The house center building, which building up in Essex Woods, there's an opportunity there to candidly we struggle to program up there. Currently, the main academy for modern music utilizes that building on the weekends. We utilized it on hit or miss basis. What Americorps teams have been here, we house the Americorps team there. The dog park folks have used it from time to time for activities, but that building hasn't been really consistently programmed since police athletic league did that from quite a few years ago. Police athletic league has since dissolved, but we keep the building, we keep it power on, water on, heated because of the modern music you use that every Saturday for rehearsals, etc. Good starting point again, we don't, I mean if again we will continue to utilize this facility master plan back the city forest management plan. We have had a, we have struggled candidly with trying to dedicate staff and time and resource some of those items. One thing I will tell you that we just did our third one, it is for the maintenance of vegetation out there, and it's a pretty cool pro program for us. We do wreath making classes so the wreath making classes that we do came out of that management plan. Staff will go out and clip the greenery from the city forest to use for the wreath making class. Forestry as a contractor out there right now working along the roads to cut back the vegetation along the roads. It's there's two things, it helps with the overall health of the vegetation and forestry out there, and it helps with wildfire mitigation, which is that close to the roads. So that's what's going on out there right now, so if You hear about a contractor out there cutting things? That's what they're doing, that's what they're doing. At some point we'll talk with you folks about some further mitigation with selective cutting of some undergrowth out there to help the overall health of the city force. That magic plan has been valuable for us as far as identifying color replacements, trail rehab. We've tried to use Americorps teams when they've been here, we've tried to accomplish that with our rangers and partnering with that with assistance from public works and amongst the other things that go on, obviously other things go on. I was just looking because I've been going out there for 25 years, I'm looking at some photos that I took in like 2000, 2001, and the arboretum, it's amazing how much that grew. Yeah, the arboretum is one place that, yeah, that's that I'm gonna call it harvesting, but it's a misnomer in that we're not out there harvesting for timber, we're out there harvesting with the health of the property more than anything else. We've got some folks now on staff tonight, we'll do a realized job of messaging that and the management plan talks about that, main plan describes that. City forest is a valuable unique amenities that not many municipalities have available to them to make sure that we are keeping as healthy as we can for long term. Are we on the right track so far? I mean, what you all see, is there something we're blatantly missing? Yes [57:02] Suzette Holly Furrow: I have a question Tracy about the so the surrounding towns is Camden, Brewer that use, they use it, there's kids from all over, pretty much, pretty much. And is there, is there an issue with the showers there too or is that so [57:20] Tracy Willett: the issue is the number of blocks. So well, I will tell you that if you were there, you knew we had an issue with the public side of the restrooms. We had a bit of a backup last couple of days, so I don't, pets, okay, somebody, yeah, so we got that resolved. The showers, the locker rooms, there are six of them along the 13th street side and staff does, if you've ever had kids have played hockey over there, it's a bit of a jenga puzzle to try and make sure that you align locker rooms as best you can between games and between practices in addition to that with co-ed hockey teams providing the appropriate space to accommodate o.n. So yeah, yes, there is an issue with lock and the lack of them, hence why when we do the when we do the feasibility set that was one of the things to identify is we need more lockers and then the shower specifically when that expansion was done in 2003 we worked with the funding we had since we had a shower specifically there are they share each locker set up two shares shower the [Suzette Holly Furrow: question i'm] curious about the robotic molars so product out there now such as robotic more it's gps coordinated the theory is that you can leave them in a space, they're battery operated, you geofence it, and it runs itself. We just like the automated striker, yeah, same kind of stuff. So we put it in there and it kind of aligns with some of the other things that the city is trying to do with climate action. As far as priority, we had some other things that had a little higher priority, so we pushed it out to another year. talking about here it best used probably be on the athletic field or a flat surface such as a little city for example a little city a fairly flat space green space that could easily geofence still want to park maybe a little too much perhaps chafing something like that again we'll keep picking from this i want to make sure that this group had a chance to weigh in if you wanted to we'll start a budget process probably in february that's a little timeline they'll need to be in front of alpha by april so come february if you or in the meantime for you to think about your capital plan we felt like at the time that this map job of laying out a timeline as i said the amounts they're a little stale for sure i mean you're all driven that business i mean things keep going up all the time so how do you treat supplemental allocation meaning it's i mean you're forecasting three years out totally knows what some of these prices might turn into is it a reallocation after plan or well you've got Your budget and you're looking at an expense from three years from now, how do you pull like some of the other supplemental things that aren't necessarily on the short term or the midterm and or that you're adding because of our input or community input or whatever, or an overage in the originally quoted price that's now like, how do you, how does that allocate, how is that allocated from the city? It kind of, so are you asking, so for example if I took, picked a project out of here that had projected costs, I'm gonna look at this utility facility improvements Cascade, which is this third one down the short term, and it has a projected cost of 260 000. Because your question how do I, how do we make that a realistic number in a capital plan, so if it really depends on the project, so I'll take that one for example, so utility facility improvements, that's kind of what engineering is working on now, so currently funded is an engineering design plan for the improvements at Cascade, so that will give us an updated number on things like circulation, Repairing the pools. Changing the electrical. So that could go from 260 to 280, for example. Play structure. If a play structure identified in this plan as 75,000, but now it's, I mean, right now we're in the area of 235,000 to replace both the structure and the swings meetings with Howard Williams. That's contact with a playground rep. So it depends on if we can find a consultant, get feedback from a contractor, hey, if we want to do 500 feet of new trail along the Kodeska Extreme Trail, what does that look like realistically for cost? Does that affect whether you might want to move something up in case it gets so part of the budget discussion will be okay, what can we as a department, what can we do, we absolutely, what really do we need to do now versus what could we do in 27, the lights for example, so the lights of Union Street, the lights used street as I shared with you, we were going to do one field at a time, we have budgeted three hundred thousand dollars to do that for the next three years, that estimate was based on that's What we received a year to a year and a half out from that. So we did the RFPs for field one at Union Street, came in over budget, so we stopped and made decision to do funding for all three. In the meantime, went to the bidders at the original project, if you were to do this all at once, would your number be the same, it would be different. Indeed, it came back different because of the normalization savings. So we're able to get all three of them done using funding that we had been approved for in one year, adding funding we approve for following year, complete the entire project. Is that making sense at all as I go? So is there a definitive policy logic approach to all the projects as far as calculating additional costs? Not necessarily, each project brings with different dynamics, try to come up with the best educated estimate at the time we do our capital requests, because I know that sometimes we're off. I'll give you another example, boiler, I just finished the boiler replacement, so when consulting with our contractor, we thought the boiler replacement would be X, it was more than X. Now we have to make a determination what we're going to do next. So the feasibility master plan is a guide in the capital improvement request is the actual, yes. Even though you have future forecasts 27 and 28, that doesn't become a real number until you become that fiscal year. In moving the needle with our group or community outreach or changes from the comprehensive plan would have to make it on to the capital improvement plan for 2026, which is being voted on. We're in 26 right now, next month. So I get where you're going and I'll come back to you. So we're in fiscal year 26 now, so we'll start the FY 27 process internally here in February, to be presented finally to Council for consideration in April. From that timeline, council then have an opportunity to meet with us as departments to go through our requests and through from April until Council typically has the first reading of the budget in June they'll be back and forth about. So fiscal doesn't match calendar, your master is based upon calendar, yes, expectation you'll see that she also identified fiscal year. So that second column that says FY, that's basically that's fiscal year, and there was some consideration that I, if I would, the discussion we had with the consultant, yeah, there are some projects that we may, that she knew, they knew were going to be expensive, that it's a guy you, it's guide, been a guide for us, very active guide for us Because for us a staff, and hopefully for you all, it laid out a pretty definitive and pretty clear objective guideline for us to continue to follow going forward. Do we get them all in line with that? No, I think we shared with you some of the things we kind of pushed off because for us some of these other projects seem to make more sense to focus on first. Cascade Park, Cascade Park, the feasibility study, some of, but some other things we might have pushed out. The feasibility study was one of the first things we did from this master plan. So just to be clear, this capital improvement request that is what you did right now, this is for, this is already approved? Yes, yep. So when, I guess my question is, when's the next cycle if you're saying we're going to start in February for fiscal year 27. The fiscal year is July 1 to June 30. Yeah, I was just going to mention that. I remember when the first estimate came out for the light replacement at Mansfield, that was 225. So yeah, no, that's probably, that's a great example. So the replacement of the lights at Mansfield Stadium is currently, we have probably a bill for that, so we ought to do an RFP for that. Estimate was based on an updated estimate from a money card. So they will update that number and they've been to Mansfield before. And it'll be the same with Mansfield, it will be a little easier in that we can utilize the current mass poles and it'll start to be retrofitting the lights at the top of those poles. So that'll help. i answered your question okay well sometimes i get i was just curious now like you're asking for feedback like when if there is any to make amendments to or adjustments like what is that timeline like are we talking about it three months prior or two months prior one month prior before any actionable what we try items are on the request we try to do it was important we felt to have this discussion with you all let's try to time it up as best we could around your meeting schedule to align with the process. So going back to the process that we mentioned that we use for the budget process for the city, getting feedback from you all of anything that we should at least try to include in a capital request to council. You said you have this meeting tonight in February before we really need to start to get a good handle on this in March for the following year. This one is, this one in place? Yeah, okay. And the places you see for 27, 28, 29, 30 are our best estimates at the time we put that together. Right, Ryan's question earlier about lights and fans for the prime example, that number has changed because we were including that, and this is basically a schedule of cost over and above our normal operating procedure. Yes, operating budget. This is capital request. Every department will have it. You're going to really enjoy the process, that'll be great. [1:10:50] Suzette Holly Furrow: I have a question on the short-term baking pool. So the splash pad, that's been done, is that right? [1:10:56] Tracy Willett: No, so it's a good question for clarification. So remember in this plan that was done in 21, they identified the possibility of bringing a splash pad over here. There. Since that time, we have met with the friends of Dakin, the funding that they have available and after talking with them a little bit, we're not structured right now to really and Dakin, the space of Dakin really doesn't allow for a grid slash pad like you can see on Davis Road. So what we're going with there is perhaps a water feature, maybe adding a play feature in the green space over there. [1:11:28] Suzette Holly Furrow: And that would be funded by the Dakin Board? [1:11:31] Tracy Willett: Okay so they are disbanded going to disband going to going to I think they did some fundraising at least a year ago the county matched what they 've had with some ARPA funding, as I understand it. So they got a timeline for that. We've met with them a couple of times, what's left of the group, giving them some amenity ideas. Again, adding perhaps some shade, a small water feature, a play feature over there, and trying to fit within what they have for funding left. And if it needs a water feature does that easily incorporate it to our current plumbing etc [1:12:35] Suzette Holly Furrow: Anything else I have a question yeah I noticed on some of these which is not surprising domestic trail we added the lighting at some issues you mentioned some misuse in that area second street park some long-term loitering interviews obviously we've had a lot of conversations on the council related to the unsheltered population how much of that how much of an issue is that on these parks and how much has that added to your kind of workflow [1:13:11] Tracy Willett: So I recall council approved our park ranger program during the FY 24. I mentioned that because that has helped. It's given us an opportunity to dedicate staff to patrolling all of our city parks. So to answer your question about trails specifically, that's part of their regular routine. The lighting, I feel like has helped. In addition to the lighting on the trail, we add a light to the bridge itself. We repurposed lights from the ore bridge between Penobscot Emergency Plaza and Camden National, and that's what's on the pedestrian bridge now. So certainly not as much of a challenge along the Condescending Stream Trail as it once was. Certainly the rangers dedicated a fair amount of time to that, and you all talked about that at your council. So the feedback that we have had received, and I will use the rotary feedback specifically, seems to be that the improvements we have made down there thus far has indeed improved the conditions down there. Do we have issues from time to time? We do. By having the park ranger program, we're able to dispatch the rangers and deal with that as we need to. Additionally, we will change up the ranger's schedule to be later at night so they can go down along the trail later in the evening to ensure that park hours are being observed. That answer, yeah, okay, so many rangers out there. We have one permanent year-round lead ranger and funding for up to two season rangers. So currently the only day we don't have ranger coverage right now, our seasonal ranger has been staying on. You don't see a ranger every day, but Saturday it's [1:15:21] Suzette Holly Furrow: not, it's not 24 hours. No, it's primarily [1:15:25] Tracy Willett: during the day right now, but as I said, we'll adjust schedule. In addition to that, the rangers help us or help with event coverage. We have events on the waterfront or downtown, so that's been helpful as well. In addition to that, they'll make regular rounds amongst trail holding spaces to monitor some of the activity that you asked about. They were just at Essex Woods today as a matter of fact, and then made a trip to the city forest as well. Anything else? Anything else? You're in charge. If I may, just a couple of things we'd like to discuss with you next month. We can pick up any loose ends from this if there is. We'd like to chat with you about annual fees for the seasonal food trucks as well as our docking fees. We're starting to get into a renewal period for the food trucks. We'd like to discuss those fees with you next month. That went really well last year, right? Yeah, I know the food trucks for those around the table made unknown. We manage the food truck seasonal food vendors on the waterfront. We are making some slight improvements down there with electrical connections. We set them up on the large parking lot along the waterfront, and we had five. We had an opportunity for up to eight down there if we ever had food trucks for the base. Not for a number of years. Years ago, there used to be food trucks set up at Neskate Plaza, where most of our takeout now is down behind the Sea Dog. We really haven't had food trucks look in your eyes for a number of years. If there's anything else we should have next month, let me know. But I do want to at least chat, we do want to chat with you about the fees for the food trucks and just the whole concept of that, and just review with you what we do down there. We think we're on the right track, but sometimes another set of advice here doesn't help, it doesn't hurt, because it doesn't help at all. I know the first one's always long, once we've run over, but any update on the rec center stuff in terms of like what's the next step? So we alluded to a little earlier on the next steps, come back to council to discuss again the ballot question, and that's a discussion to see if it gets on the ballot. Council has to approve it going to that's my ordinance of my statute, so to kind of thumbnail that back for you, this, there are two timelines that we have to adhere to. There's a state timeline to improve the language and the and the question, and then there's a city timeline to complete the state timeline and get it back, and then the number of days to get notifications out. When we tried to do this in the fall, admittedly it was a tight timeline. The special report continues, I had copies here, somebody wants to take them with you, hasn't changed. We had some discussion with council of time about different conditions and doing different things, but we're going to come back to council and have the discussion again and try and get it on June bell. So when is that deadline? I don't know, I don't know a number of days. I know we are against a pretty tight timeline to get it done in the fall between the completion of the submittal of the report council and then trying to navigate the timelines. Will you be revising that discussion? Will that be with you all? Let me discussion and I say you will with council, yeah. That special report was the committee presented to council back at the time in July, was accepted. In the meantime there was discussion, we had it during workshop, so all of that will come back, all of that will come back like private [1:20:02] Suzette Holly Furrow: donors to a facility like that, is that something you pursue after it's been [1:20:07] Tracy Willett: Approved, you know, you think you did you as best I can tell. I said I think that would be the time to pursue that once it gets on the plan. What are we looking for? I think there's an opportunity for all of that, yeah. It also gives staff some time to revise any sort of bonding commitments say we need to make and to think about how that would work. So we've got some work to do still before we come to the council at the discussion again, and all of that can be on the table. All that can be on the table, I guess I'm a little confused now. Would the ballot question be on a specific on a bond, or would it just be okay, would the citizens approve bonding up to you know, getting too deep in the weeds about what an actual thing. So well, ultimately that's going to be up to council. I can't, that's going to be up to council how that's all. So like up to a certain amount, but you would still go for still be an opportunity to go for that kind of fun, and then the citizens still need to get moving. As I said, the need is still there, and that we as staff will keep pushing the initiative. In all candid, we're on borrowed time. We're on borrowed time. So it's amazing you've been able to do what you've done with the facility that you currently have, to be truthful. Pretty amazing, it's pretty amazing. It'd be cool to have a tour of either one, yeah. I would, if you want, absolutely, if you want to come down, let us know. I have to take you around if you haven't been in either place, just an individual thing, yeah, not necessarily all committee, yes, we've had, there is a desire to have these meetings years, we can do this, but yeah, anybody wants to come down, let us know on either place. It's interesting because [1:22:03] Suzette Holly Furrow: it's very much needed. The best case scenario, like this moves forward, this on the valley, this is all that, like best case scenario, like how quickly would a new facility happen? Like I, like rock lake, like do you think so without putting a definitive [1:22:22] Tracy Willett: three years, two years, five years. Once that, if you need the ballot question is approved by the voters, the first step is to finalize engineering design costs. Recall we've identified to identify different road at that location, so we're going to keep with that location and don't say a little differently maybe to start with earthwork and construction and all of that process [1:22:52] Suzette Holly Furrow: three years, four years, let's say, I mean, it's still a wave out and it's like that building is [1:22:59] Tracy Willett: it's troubling as we speak right, there's only so much bubble gum and duct tape [1:23:06] Suzette Holly Furrow: Yeah, I recently visited, I haven't been to Sawyer Arena in a while, but I visited the rec building a few months ago, and yes, you do make the best of what we've got. It's eye popping. [1:23:20] Tracy Willett: When you see the condition of some of these ones here, right, we don't have anything else.