Bucksport Recreation Committee Backs Removing Ice Rink Boards, Weighs Pool Future

[0:00] Recreation Director: Included in the packet that you have there, I included the intern director report that was sent over from Mr. Montgomery. A few things to take a look at are the chairing numbers are down. We're down about eight kids there. Football is down 23 kids. Soccer is up one child. So we have a net loss of roughly 30 kids and a Bucks board it's a net loss of eight. The football numbers were driven by the fact that there was no fifth sixth grade football because all the sixth graders needed to play middle school so that the middle school could have a football team and that left three fifth graders and they don't have three-man football so two of the three kids were able to latch on with another local program. Matt's notes say in soccer that at the u12 level because they have six eight ten and twelve but at the u12 level they're getting a lot of participation from the high school coaches and the high school players sharing coach lugged in the program will be at the homecoming game this Friday night versus Stearns. Travel basketball registration closes at the end of October. Currently there's one confirmed program with the possibility of two additional. Last year they why I was only able to offer 156 program recreation basketball they're reaching out to potential coaches registration the program begins in late November with registration beginning November 1st. Amanda Wardwell has returned providing softball pitching clinics. She does that in the miles lane gym on Monday nights. After school care currently serving 21 children 18 at full-time and three are part-time. He notes that the program is going well and operations have been smoother with only one after-school program using the facility. So does that mean BB ACC's in their building now or ones in one school ones in another school no they don't have an [2:14] Speaker B (unidentified): after-school program or if they do it's in there in their building but they're [2:19] Speaker C (unidentified): not using any of our facilities this year. Special thank you to the folks who [2:23] Recreation Director: are coaching recreation soccer. Callie McEachin and Monica Goodine are doing the u6. Manuel Sabalos can Lawson and Chelsea Brown and doing the u8. Ryan Jarvis Eric Murphy Victoria Watkins and John Boynton are doing you 10. Sarah Lanford Mike Arsalan John Boynton and Jeff Grenier are doing the u12 along with some high school student athletes. Chairing Lauren lugged in and football second through fourth grade is Larry Chambers. Thank you to all those volunteers and the last page the is a fall program 25 residents and it's broken down six of Verona Island, ten of Orland, for Penobscot, three Stockton Springs, and to Blue Hill. Anybody have any questions about Matt's report? Long-term plan for Bucksport director position. When I last spoke to Matt, when he was taking Nate around to introduce him to the school folks, he mentioned to me that Nate was a temporary director because, like I said, he was gonna have to replace someone in one of the elsewhere facilities, and that they were still looking for someone to take the role on full-time without having a full-time director here. It seems like communication is dropping. According to Matt's note, that communications been a little not as timely, not as clear, not as concise. I think that's impacting the youth programs, but it doesn't seem like it's impacting anything else, so I'll continue to work with him and Jacob on where this is going. Item number five is a recommendation regarding the future of the Bucksport ice rink. I have some photos for you and it's not just the ice rink, it's allowed, it's a lot of all the recreational facilities, but this is the current condition of the boards. Or is it supposed to be there? This is here because the YMCA said it was too big to maintain, so we agreed to shorten it so that it would between the four light posts in the middle. This is a tarp that's still there from the previous winter. All right, so right now when we have our public works director and the town's facilities director as well who are here, Matt has a grandson who plays youth football. I've seen it sometimes as well, but the little kids who aren't participating in the football are participating in the ice rink, and with its current condition and everything there, it's to me it seems to be dangerous, but I just wanted to know what the rest of the committee thought. In the pictures that we had, Matt can provide some updates on his thoughts, but numbers we had what, 23 volunteers, three snowblowers, 20 shovels, and it took us three hours to clear that ice rink that section that you see and then the weather just hasn't been cooperating it's like two or three days it's it's it's not very big when the Recreation Department when the Recreation Department ran it we had people who were there who would maintain it with plows or snow blowers but it's the numbers of dwindled in the YMCA does not staff it so it really depends and requires volunteers to upkeep it but considering its appearance its usage I will say I had a report done some test borings And the underneath is solid. It's in great shape. But Matt, did you want to speak to the or could you speak to us to the [7:12] Speaker D (unidentified): the condition of the rink? Are there any signs out there saying and it's no [7:34] Recreation Director: longer there? Those pictures were taken today. The caution tapes either blown away or someone's taking it down. There's graffiti on the backside, which we can handle graffiti, but it's becoming a liability issue. I don't believe those tiny boards were meant to stay in all year long, and underneath that tarp is the drain, so there's nothing coming in and out. [8:27] Speaker E (unidentified): I think we [8:33] Speaker F (unidentified): have to, even [8:35] Speaker G (unidentified): if we, like, if we need more time to decide what to do, we've got to take it down. [8:44] Recreation Director: Yeah, we need to make a recommendation to the council. So this can't appear on a council agenda until it comes through this committee with a recommendation. Now, they do not have to accept our recommendation by any means, but it just cannot appear willy-nilly on a town council agenda without it being spoken, and this is the appropriate location. [9:03] Speaker H (unidentified): But you said on a good day when it was maintained, there wasn't that many people that used it. Is that true? [9:08] Recreation Director: Not when we maintained it that last time, and I say because Emily was there with me and her kids were there and her family and maybe one or two people. [9:17] Speaker H (unidentified): So even that wouldn't make it worth saving? Maybe do you change it to something else? I'm not sure you can save it. [9:25] Speaker F (unidentified): I mean, I think even if we maintain it to the point where the platform is usable, I think the fencing around it is such a concern that it's beyond. [9:34] Speaker D (unidentified): And our winners are so unpredictable now you can't guarantee you're gonna get a week well recreation [9:45] Speaker G (unidentified): goes through phases of interest. It's just not, it's not what it used to be for interest, but pickleball is. You don't need the fence [9:58] Speaker D (unidentified): for pickleball, minimal cost to paint the courts on the right, a few minutes to [10:04] Speaker B (unidentified): maintain it, just seal it right. Yeah, so I'm sealed up, that's the same type of paper you put on the pool table. Yeah, I was, I mean just from straight liability that the fence asked the boards have to go away. How did my recommendation to [10:19] Speaker F (unidentified): move it to the council to disassemble the fencing and at least secure it for [10:23] Speaker E (unidentified): for safety purposes, we can put it in there a little bit at a time so it doesn't cost an extra amount of money to get rid of it either. So yeah, our plan [10:37] Speaker D (unidentified): was to take it down and we could just store it at the garage and as space allows the demo with the dump we can put something in every week slowly get it out of here the way there's no added cost. Yeah. [10:52] Speaker F (unidentified): There's a complex or two directly behind that with kids, and if somebody's crawling around on that cross [10:59] Speaker E (unidentified): country utilizes that, they go right by, and I mean there's a lot of people that [11:04] Speaker B (unidentified): are made well, the caution tape in some ways becomes a beacon like hey, come play on me because all right supposed to, so let's do it anyways. I think the only [11:15] Speaker D (unidentified): other thing you might have to do is put some sort of gate if you do turn in a pickleball course to stop people parking over there. Maybe if we push no fence around it or when you can drive it to the end of the right now right curving or something, just you don't want to spend all that money making these pickleball courts and have cars driving around with one Jersey bear Jersey or [11:50] Speaker B (unidentified): some curving something just to separate it would be pretty minimal cost. So yeah, I mean my guess is that for what little it would take to turn into a pickleball court, you're going to have way more people using it than you would for a nice skating rink. We already have lights and timers and [12:11] Speaker E (unidentified): everything so that you can set everything up pretty good and you're not going to be out a [12:14] Speaker B (unidentified): whole lot if you doesn't right, like at the end of the day if it doesn't get used as a pickleball court, it's not like you're putting thousands of dollars in into it and the surface is still good and you want to turn into something else down the road, you still have that [12:26] Recreation Director: possibility. Yeah, the key, yeah the key is it has to stay recreation because of [12:32] Speaker C (unidentified): that grant we got forty four years ago, but that was part as recreation changes [12:39] Speaker B (unidentified): making it a pickleball courts not going to make that an unusable surface or something else, whatever the new game is that we don't know anything about right now, that's going to be the new fact that this is going to transition that into almost anything. So you [12:59] Speaker C (unidentified): need an official recommendation. Yeah, someone [13:01] Recreation Director: like to make a motion to send to council. Yes, and I 'm guessing it's to disassemble the boards at the rink and did we want to mention pickleball or did we just want to leave it at that and then I would just say for future [13:16] Speaker F (unidentified): recreational use and purpose not limited to that specifically that [13:27] Recreation Director: Is that you all in favor? Update on the town swimming pool. I guess I'll start the introduction. So as you know, we didn't open the pool this year. We had Mike Zelinski from Mike's Pool Service down. He's the one who's maintained the pool since we switched from recreation to the YMCA. And we tried the things that we could see, the things that we could get at, and trying to keep cost to an absolute minimal to the town as in water. And no matter what we did, it didn't work. So then we gave it a little bit of a break, and then meeting of some business owners, Ward Wells Construction, pause construction, Bishops Auto Body, all got together with the crew, and we dug in. And I'll let Matt explain what happened inside pool. Once we got in there, we thought that might have been the solution, but as you can tell, we never reopened the pool because it still didn't help. But do you want to explain what happened when we uncovered it? Seems [14:47] Speaker D (unidentified): like there's some water that sat under the pool when the frost played some roles. We ended up cutting the hot top out around the drains, and when we did, the cement that holds the drains in actually fell off. So it was like the frost pushed up and broke it. We thought that was our whole issue. It was all dug out, we re-cemented it, re-hot topped it. We lined the drain pipes out through the wall into the new pipes that are in the back from what I'm told years ago when it was repaired. Refilled it and we still have the same problem, and we're still losing water. Whether or not frost on the back side of that wall did something to the pipes, or how they're hooked from older pipes to newer pipes when it was redone. I have no documentation of how it was done, no pictures of how it was done. We think it's in between there. There's a possibility of doing an air test to see if we can isolate it exactly where it is. Either way, it's going to require digging up that back wall, exposing the pipes to find the problem. In saying that, back wall is 75 years old. Concrete that's been in chlorine water for that long is probably not in the best of shape. If we do find a pipe that's broke, do we backfill it, try it again and see what happens? We're kicking a can down the road. I mean, it's old technology. It's really, I don't know how much money you want to spend to try and get a couple more years out of it. There's been a lot spent to get just a few years out of it. It's a decision that a lot of people are going to have to make on what they want to do. And [16:31] Recreation Director: At the current point, my understanding, there is no money in recreation reserves. When the Rec Department ran the recreation, the youth sports, the dances, everything that happened came into an account for the youth sports, for the facilities and whatnot. And the last project was a considerable amount that's been spent, as Matt said, on this pool. Every three years, we seem to be putting additional Band-Aids on. And then the most recent was the playground, and that's drained out the account. So the way that it works with the YMCA right now is they keep the registration fees. So we have, at this point, no means of generating any revenue to fix anything for recreation. So if we do find the problem, what I'm saying is there's no money to fix the problem. So I believe it, believe it might be safe to say that we will not be starting the year with a pool, because there was no money put in the current fiscal year budget, which runs through June 30th, to addressing it is an issue with the pool. With that said, it's possible we might be able to get donations. Those three folks pretty much donated all their, they did donate all their time and resources to try to get this fix. I just don't know how many times we can continue to go to that well. But if they'll continue to offer, we'll continue to take them up on it, because at the end of the day, it's [18:04] Speaker D (unidentified): the only swimming hole in this town for the kids. I'm gonna [18:21] Speaker F (unidentified): guess, Rich, that there's likely no current grant funding available for something of that [18:26] Recreation Director: magnitude, because we're talking, we could look into that federal grant that everything else is under, but we have to come up with 50, and there is not 50 available right now. I [18:41] Speaker B (unidentified): was gonna, I mean, any grant that you did pursue, I'm guessing it's not, it wouldn't be worthwhile for the quick fix that might only last two years or ten years. I mean, you don't know. I mean, if you're gonna go down a grant route, I'm assuming you would want a more substantial replacement of at least just the back wall, right? Is that part of it? Could you replace just that wall? You [19:05] Speaker D (unidentified): could, I'm assuming, but you know, the surface is gonna start doing the same thing. Yeah, frost moves, you know, you don't think about it, but there's a lot of water coming from Central Street, bucket States, the schools, and it all [19:18] Speaker F (unidentified): funnels right towards that is it your opinion but that pool needs to be [19:24] Speaker D (unidentified): rebuilt? Do I [19:36] Recreation Director: Explain what happened when we didn't know about the M. So keep in mind, the town has not handled this pool since Tim Emory left. And when we were losing water and then we decided to drain it the very first time, apparently [19:51] Speaker D (unidentified): Apparently, from what the pool guys told us, they used this perimeter drain underneath this pool, up the shallow end, the deep end, and it catches the groundwater and funnels it out. When they were losing a little bit of water last year, they were using the perimeter drain to slow it down. They actually installed a valve and would cut it back so it would just leak slower. Well, in doing that, when we filled it up, apparently that perimeter drain, it seems like it was closed or partially closed through the winter, so the water must have froze. So when we drained the pool, it actually pushed the surface right up and the water that's underneath of it came up through. It's a primitive design, I think, more than anything, that's worked for years. [20:36] Speaker F (unidentified): And we have no idea really what's underneath there. You had mentioned before that there's no historical data on what happened and where. [20:44] Speaker D (unidentified): I actually found plans from the 90s when it was redone. But in digging it up, the perimeter drains that were in it originally are still in it, and those are metal pipes that are starting to rust through. In the 90s they put plastic over the top, so everything we have is historical, so [21:05] Recreation Director: Originally built, rebuilt completely in the 90s, but in the 20s there was no documentation, no photo, there's no evidence of what was done, only recollection that Bobby Ward well could tell us, and he knows a lot, but the folks with the expertise can't see it, don't know. We've run cameras, we had main water run cameras, we've used our own resources to do it, a lot of time spent there, but that's at some point some type of decision has to be made on this pool because that was probably one of the biggest Gripes the public had this year [21:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Was no pool. Anybody have [22:05] Recreation Director: Any questions or suggestions or anything they like to [22:08] Speaker G (unidentified): Talk about in regards to the pool? We need to pursue the grant, and I don't think like that much of a choice but to come up, but to bring it to a vote to replace it. I think that if we don't go down that route, it's not going to be pretty in town. I think the people have kind of already spoken and that we don't much of a choice and [22:40] Recreation Director: the thing I look at with it 's a ten week investment a year I know we need it but is there some alternative like cordoning off a portion of Silver Lake and allowing people to swim in a portion of it changing going to a splash pad model that only works when it's activated I just that's a lot of money when we went through this before I think I think the quote came back at almost 1.7 million dollars yeah and in the financial situation and having no big no basis on the hook for half of that yes That puts us on the hook for that half, not even including the engineering work that needs to be done, the demolition, and remember anything that new has to now be a DA compliant as well. Yeah, and it should, everyone should have access to the pool, and it's with the citizens, they should all have access. Do we have an idea with this flash pad and model across, we could, we could Knowlton Park in Ellsworth, we could figure out what the city of Ellsworth did with theirs and how they did that? Bangor has one. Theirs is more attached to the, to the Beth Pankow pool, but it's something that we can definitely look at is equal on that grant. It's not, it's not, that's the other thing, it would have to be, because the pool is more than just the pool, so that the property entails the parking lot, the basketball hoops and the pool, and anything that is there is captured. So if there are basketball hoops there today, when we apply for that grant, those basketball hoops have to stay there, and if they need to be replaced. We need to replace them, we can ask for grants to do that, we can always even ask for the whole complex to be done, right? So it's possible we could ask to have the thing paved, have the boards up. The way these grants work is you have to have the state representative come out by December 31st down at Department of Agriculture conservation and forestry, and then you have to have your grant in by, I just did this a couple years ago, I think it's June, and then it's about a year and a half from then, and. Then you can get the money a year after that, so it's about a three-year process before you can get the money. [25:00] Speaker F (unidentified): And then build it. [25:01] Recreation Director: And then build it, yeah. [25:07] Speaker B (unidentified): Rich, what do you need out of this committee in regards to? [25:10] Recreation Director: I just wanted to give updates on this. Because I'm not sure what we can recommend, besides the fact that we can't open it because unless the town council wants to. I mean, if this committee wants to recommend that the town council finds money to reap here what may or may not be found, I mean, we could do that, or we can just provide an update to the council saying it's our belief from the investigative work that we've done that it's gonna require a significant amount of money and we don't believe the pool will be open next summer and if the [25:51] Speaker B (unidentified): council wanted to task this committee with looking at options from that, then that might be the appropriate process to look at. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. Rather than us come up with a bunch of options and then we're not even interested in doing anything, I think it would make more sense for the council to task us with something, whatever that may be. We just provide the report, right? Wait for it to be kicked back. Yeah, that's just my thought anyways. [26:20] Recreation Director: that would make the most sense I would agree with that instead of spinning our wheels anybody else have any questions on the pool any new programs for consideration that anybody would like to see recommend or I do are [26:45] Speaker H (unidentified): there has there been any like golf classes under the Y in the past I don't know not that [26:54] Recreation Director: I know of. Have has the golf coach done anything with classes? I [27:00] Speaker E (unidentified): know that [27:10] Speaker B (unidentified): the Ellsworth Y has an indoor simulator that they do some stuff with for that. I think anybody could go and access, but not here specifically in terms of like you [27:24] Speaker H (unidentified): year-round or during the summer or maybe disc golf, dance, the various dance classes which could also help with Bacchus because they're trying to find ways to utilize the Performing Arts Center, so opera class, different classes and then do like recitals or programs at the Performing Arts Center and charge it, you know, little fee or something to get in just to help with covering costs on [27:56] Speaker G (unidentified): stuff. So more as a long-term thought with the newly purchased land for recreation, disc golf would be a inexpensive option on that land and [28:14] Speaker H (unidentified): maybe have tournaments over at the disc golf place. I went there once in Orrington, can remember what it's called. That's pretty cool. We've [28:25] Recreation Director: looked at the disc golf. I've actually had businesses, two different outfits reach out to me about this golf. They want that land. Everybody wants that land and everybody wants that my given to them. Dr. Rankin, sir, anything you have? No, Emily? All [Speaker D (unidentified): right.] So what we have, public and board comment coming up next. I just want to show you the condition of the rest of our recreational facilities. This is the current condition of the Reggie infield today. The infield is growing in. This is the outdoor basketball court underneath the hoop. This is in cement, the rest of this is asphalt. This is a scene, we got a crack coming and it's gonna start to look like the tennis courts if we don't meet it there. This is the other hoop, the same thing, concrete, asphalt, seam, exposed. [29:37] Speaker F (unidentified): I don't know if there's any injury weight in there. [29:44] Recreation Director: This is the inside of the X-ray. I'm not sure why I didn't include that earlier, but in the wrong direction. Tennis courts, the same thing that we've been dealing with, cracks and grass. Somebody weed whacked it this summer. It's absolutely awful to say that we've had to weed whack an asphalt tennis court and not a grass tennis court. This is the Knights of Columbus Little League field on Central Street. Again, the infield's grown in. It is owned by the Knights of Columbus, and the Little League uses it, but there's an agreement of who maintains what. And this is the high school baseball field. This is still the temporary fix from when the wall collapsed in 2020, and that's everything there. We're going to start tackling some of these, and again, we have no recreational money to tackle any of these, but if that wall of that baseball field does give way, there is no adjustments would have to be made up at the middle school in order to turn that into a high school baseball field. I believe you're required to have a fence, some type of fencing out there. I could be wrong, it could be temporary, doesn't have to be permanent, but I believe you have to have fencing for baseball. Softball is lucky because what we got the Little League grant to rebuild that field, we rebuilt it to the exact dimension of the high school field and we also have the middle school field as well, but the reason why we had bought the land that Emily had mentioned earlier was in happier times, maybe getting a federal grant to relocate the baseball field and potentially softball field up there and having a complex, but we're not at that point right now, but does anybody have any questions about any of these? We can tackle these at our next meeting, but I just want everybody to see what they look like today, and maybe we can get a meeting on the board with yourself, you and Mr. Mahan, and figure out maybe I don't bridge again, we've got, we've got [31:55] Speaker E (unidentified): Some product that we're still in this fall well when they when the original [32:01] Recreation Director: Agreement was put in place on who was going to handle what that was administration's ago none of those people even exist and maybe talking with staff talking with department heads and school in the town working together we can come up with a better plan cuz I know we don't own certain equipment we have more personnel just maybe something to make it so that we don't have fields looking like this yeah they got just talk about it just figure out you know with new staff and new things now that we Have a facilities director and a new public works director and you have a new facility director maybe we can make some changes and concessions and figure out you have with everything else yeah it's a great [33:03] Speaker C (unidentified): Relationship so but again I mean you and Jason should probably be involved. It's a huge footprint so it's just a matter of getting it organized but yeah they've been working together great. [33:17] Recreation Director: Anybody have any questions or anything else that they want to bring up in regards to this or anything you just saw in any of the photos well and that's it and then we had talked about sponsorships and right now it's very hard to put sponsorships on recreational material that's that's we're not using the ice rink so there that's out the window the tennis courts that mean in the condition it is that's pretty much out the window can't use the pool that's out the way it's really sponsorships are Going to be the big thing unless we can figure out other ways of doing this our original thought was or ask was of the YMCA instead of giving Bucksport residents a discount on the sports that everybody pay the same amount but residents from other time did that additional you know they say area it's $50 to run this program for everybody and they say that those other towns I misspoke if it's $50 to play a sport for Bucksport residents and then other towns are 60 that $10 for each kid would come To the town and we could start growing the pot that way but that's not how it was parlayed and instead Bucksport residents got a deeper discount and all the money still goes to the YMCA so are [34:53] Speaker E (unidentified): There current spots for sponsorship that if the ones you named are not viable right now I mean what's [34:58] Recreation Director: Available, it's hard because in with our partnership with the schools, they had this part, they purchased the schools purchased scoreboards for all of those fields. So the school has sponsorships for those scoreboards. Obviously we need those for all of our events, so maybe naming rights of fields. I mean, I don't [35:20] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, even the sponsorships are not, you're not looking at huge amounts of, $1,000 a year is typically what the sponsorships are for. You know, because we're in the same revenue battle, too. I mean, we're looking at trying to monetize it. We've gone to digital sponsorships, like, for online stuff. But, I mean, that certainly would help, but it's not going to be the revenue source that's going to keep these programs afloat for long term. Ultimately you have to look at the programming and how that's generating revenue put down or other sources. I mean, I think again sponsorships certainly is something I'm not saying it's a means, but you're not getting that one, you're not getting ten grand a year for just because it's not worth it for the business to do that. I think the sponsorships handle the gear and the [36:17] Speaker D (unidentified): clothing, right, yes, which [36:26] Speaker B (unidentified): comes to what you were talking about, it's the programming that you're putting out there, and I know that's going to the Y right now, but ultimately that's where the revenue comes in from and [36:40] Recreation Director: it used to be middle school dances when the recreation farmer and I think Nick Tomasco ran a few when he first came to the Y and I think Matt tried to run some and I know they do father Tim and Barb used to run, they used to run those, yeah, once a month. But yeah, we're gonna have to look at some different avenues and work with the YMCA to figure out if they will or if it's gonna have, the town doesn't have any recreation folks, so but if we need to generate revenue we'll [37:09] Speaker C (unidentified): figure it out, anybody [37:14] Recreation Director: else have anything? All right, so we meet quarterly unless something big happens, and now I will let you know I don't see anything changing through the end of the year because fall sports, fall sports are finishing up this month, basketball will be taking over, and then there are no spring sports, so I think we can meet in January if everybody's okay with that. Typically the first Wednesday of the month, does that still work for folks? If it does, that would be January 6th. Thank you, thank you, all right. All those ready to go, thank you, meetings adjourned, do [38:30] Speaker G (unidentified): people want to introduce themselves? I'm sorry.