Kenai: 9/03/2026 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Uh, if we can have the roll call.

Fisher. Bernard. Here. Wisniewski. Here.

Carlson. Here.

Spiegler. Here you have a quorum.

Uh, moving on to agenda approval. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?

I'll move. I'll second.

Are there any revisions to the agenda?

Uh, hearing none, I— we approve the agenda.

Now moving on to scheduled public comment.

Uh, we have none, so we'll move on to unscheduled public comment. Are there anybody in the members in the public would like to speak?

That's good. So if that turns out, we'll let you know too. Okay. Hi, this is sort of spur of the moment. My name is Andrea Mallard and I actually live in Sterling.

Alaska. I am a pickleball player and I am on the board of directors for the Kenai Peninsula Pickleball Club, which is a 501 that was organized last September, September of 2025. Prior to that, we've been playing for quite some time at the Kenai Rec Center and also the field house once it was started. But we also play— there's also a group that plays at the Sterling Community Center.

What I'd like to tell you about is today we recognize that Kenai provides us a place to have outdoor pickleball, which we don't on the peninsula. We just don't.

And those places are provided by facilities that have either been neglected over the past several years simply because the kids don't play much tennis anymore at the schools, or they don't play hockey in the outdoor hockey rinks very much anymore. They're just not, um, they're not kept up. And so as a club, we've been looking for outdoor places to play like everybody else When it's the summertime, we want to be outside. We love playing at the rec center here in Kenai. We love playing at the field house.

However, if it's really sunny outside, it's hard to come in, as we all know. So what we drove around— 2 or 3 of us have been driving around Kenai and Soldotna, both, to try and find places that are viable for us to do some cleanup, either tape or paint lines for courts that would still allow the public to utilize those arenas either during the summer months, or today is a fine example. What we did this afternoon, after actually just a few conversations with Principal Doskoe at Kenai Middle School. He encouraged us to come because their PE teacher at the middle school really wants to start teaching pickleball to the students there. They've ordered their nets, they have paddles, they have one court taped inside.

And he said to me, "If you in fact are really serious about coming and doing that, we would love it. We will have our leadership group, our student leadership group, come and help you. And that's what we did. At 1:30, we had 7 people, 7 adults there from our club, and we had 6 student leaders from their leadership club come outside, and we pulled weeds, we filled cracks, and we painted two pickleball courts. We cleared off the area, made it a viable place, and at the end we set up a net and we played some pickleball just to make sure that it was a viable place to play, especially for the students.

That's what we're looking for. We are looking for some dedicated outdoor courts that will allow the public to come and utilize the space. We have over 100 members in our club, and we've been in existence since last September. We are a nonprofit. The money that we use today, we did not ask the school to pay anything.

We brought our own equipment, and the— and what we needed, we needed cracked seal, we needed paint, all those things we paid for with a grant from the Kenai Peninsula Community Association— Foundation, sorry. So we used a portion of that money to upgrade the basketball area, what's considered the basketball area at the middle school, which it's my understanding was supposed to originally be a pool, and I'm kind of glad it's not.

And we have more money that we need to spend with this grant, and we will do so at other, um, either community locations or at other school locations. So I just wanted to let you know that our club, although there's 100 people, we service Sterling, Kenai, Nakiski, Kasilov, Soldotna, people come from all over to play. This summer, at the end of July, we had a tournament, our very first tournament, and we had people from 3 states outside who just happened to realize that there was a tournament going on while they were gonna be here fishing. And they signed up to play in our tournament. We had people from Fairbanks, we had people from Mat-Su, we had people from Homer, we had everywhere in between.

And unfortunately, the people from Valdez got caught in that whole fire thing, and so they couldn't come over. But we know that this is a growing sport. We know that it's a healthy sport. We know that we can keep kids occupied. Every Thursday we do free classes, Learn to Play, at the field house.

When the field house closes down, we're gonna ask Keen Eye Rec if they'll provide us space so we can continue with Learn to Play classes. So our club is here to try and get the community involved, It's a sport everyone can play no matter your age. I'll be 75 in a couple of months, and I play with young kids all the time. So it's a fun thing to do. And we know that Keenai has a— they have a fairly— what am I trying to say?

You're a central location. You're a central location for our club, and anything that you can do to help provide dedicated outdoor courts will really help us. It really will. Do you have any questions of me? Okay, thank you.

Oh yes. Hi, thank you for coming. Um, could you tell me the name of the grant that you received again, who that came from? It came from the Kenai Peninsula Community Foundation. Okay, and then my other question was, have you identified other, um, spaces in Kenai that you guys are interested in either fixing up or having access to?

The high school. The high school tennis courts are in pretty serious condition right now. I've spoken to the principal at the high school. I've also spoken to Jennifer Johnson, who's the head of the student council there— she's the liaison for the student council— and she told me that the student council was looking at that area maybe as a project to at least get new nets or something, and that they had actually talked about pickleball there. We think that that's a viable option, but it's going to take some money, and it's money that we don't have for a brand new club.

It would have to to come from the borough, from the city, to get the net poles removed and filled in to make it a flat surface to be able to put in more than 1 or 2 pickleball courts. She was thinking half pickleball, half tennis, although she said that it probably hasn't been used for tennis in more than 2 years.

So the other— oh, thank you. And then I would just have it on your radar if you're already in communication with Kenai Central. Um, I know you need money, but on— if you need labor or somebody to sort of help with that process, um, the seniors all have to do a senior project and it has to be community service oriented, and that would be a a great thing if you're making the school aware that that's an option. A senior or a couple of seniors working together could pick that up as their senior project. Okay, thank you.

I have a question. Other than the places you already have and the Kenai High School, how many other locations are you looking to find that you think would actually be used fairly continuously? Um, at the Sterling Community Center.

Sorry. Um. They have 3 courts there right now that are taped off that they use pretty consistently when the weather is nice. That's a 501 community center, that is. And so we try and work with them.

What we do there actually comes out of our own pockets as a group because we use that. We also looked at Skyview. We looked at Suldatna Elementary. Both of those places, although they're fairly centrally located, they need significant work, much more than what the high school needs, much more than Central High, much more. I mean, we're talking six figures to get those two places in shape, and that's beyond us.

Didn't really fully answer my question. Oh, I'm sorry, and maybe I didn't phrase it well. I'm wondering how many different places you would like to see in addition to what you already have to— that would be likely be used. I would say based upon the number of pickleball player active daily pickleball players that you— that we have in this area, I would say you could probably look at 3 different— a minimum of 3 different outdoor dedicated locations that would get used. Mm-hmm.

Um, so you have the middle school, high school. Is that hockey rink still at the high school, the outdoor one?

The high school, the Kenai High School? Oh, we did not see that. We have not looked at that. I believe the, um, I think the boards are torn down. Yes.

Oh, that may be why we didn't, because we, you know, we scope out the boards and say, hey, let's go look at the inside of that. But so with the Kenai and the middle school, Kenai High School, Kenai Middle School, how many courts can you get in each one? We put 2 in at the middle at the middle school today, uh, we can easily put in another 3, um, at the middle school. And at the high school, if you took 2 tennis courts away, kept 2 tennis courts, you could put in 3 or 4 pickleball courts in the other 2 where the other 2 tennis courts were, but the poles would have to be removed and the and the holes filled because just because of the way that they would have to be laid out. And that estimated cost of to fix the high school side, is there a ballpark on that?

No, I'm sorry, I don't have a ballpark on that. Okay, here later in the meeting I have some stuff we can discuss, but it's all pretty preliminary. I know I actually asked, I met with the club earlier this week, and we're kind of running and putting the cart before the horse in a little bit, but just trying to get all the details out and everything. And I'll come reflecting later in our discussion as well. Oh, another thing, uh, the park in Old Town Kenai, I thought you talked about maybe pickleball over there.

Nope, it's a— it was a different topic, but that wasn't part of our our scope for that park. Okay. And there is one other place that she wanted me to mention, and that is the multi-use facility at the high school. I think that's what it's called now, the multi-use—. The multi-purpose facility, which is right, right.

Tyler's been kind enough to tell us that especially because we can— because we're a 501 now, we can actually rent that. We have our own insurance. We can tape some courts in there for use, which would be really great because then we can play outside even though it's raining. We don't have to go inside, and it doesn't take up space for basketball and stuff like that. Have you approached the, uh, Nokiski, uh, rec people?

We have not yet. Okay, that's on our list though.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

So I will say in just a minute this topic will probably come up again. And I will have a little more to say about it, but we should probably get through the next part on the agenda. Okay, um, moving on to approval of minutes, June 4th, 2026. I have a motion to approve April 2nd, 2026 minutes. Fisher moves to approve.

I second to approve the minutes. Um, any revisions to the minutes? Any objections? Seeing none, well, minutes are approved.

Moving on to unfinished business, we do not have any, so we'll move on.

Um, new business.

Call for, uh, discussion of the fiscal year 2027 and 2032 capital project review.

Call staff report. Yes.

All right, everybody, so capital project time. Uh, this project is a— this is a recommendation list that every commission goes through and recommends a 5-year plan to council to adopt. That usually comes up in the winter meetings for city council, but they have to go through every commission to be discussed and then recommended. That's why we are here now to discuss it, and recommendation could come in our October meeting or even later if need be, but usually October is when we bring it forth to this commission. As seen in my memo, capital projects usually exceed— oh, they do exceed $35,000.

The Parks and Recreation Master Plan is an example of a capital project the administration is working on and has finished. The current general fund for FY28 through FY32 plan is attached, uh, that's for Parks and Rec. Every department submits this. Approved items from FY27, such as a tractor replacement, uh, are complete or ongoing. So those are plans you would have, say, if you go back last year and you see approved plans, or you look up our current full, uh, capital improvement plan.

It's a very long document that's on the city website, but it goes over the airport fund, the general fund, the senior housing fund, every department, enterprise fund, PU, fishery. We are just focused on one little piece of the puzzle. So we usually seek all the commission's recommendations, and then administration meets, and we have to put the puzzle together because there's only so much money. And when you dive into the details of the plan, you'll see things such as Relocation of the Parks and Rec to Dobbins Spec. That project is spelled out as relocation of the Parks and Rec shop, $3 million.

Like, over $2 million of that is allocated from grants, so that potentially get moved back a year. All these projects were on here last year except 3 of them. Um, so we have Kenai Rec Center interior renovation and reconfiguration design. Uh, if per our master plan that we recently adopted, uh, looking at the rec center and doing a bunch of renovations is something we want to do and promote that. And that includes a locker room renovation, which there's money right now, but there's also like soundboards and things that some money may not cover.

And then the weight room, we have a front entrance area that a lot of you have seen during a tour that is just kind of an empty space. There is issues we need to fix in there. Some of those are code-related, like there's no drywall, and I think you could use to maximize that space. I think there's some other opportunities too. You know, a big renovation that happened in 2010 roughly was they took out a racquetball court and they extended our weight and cardio area to make that more available to the public.

Um, but, and then another one of these things is a $700,000 for outdoor racquet sport court. So this plan that I'm bringing forth to beautification next week, I just put an asterisk there. What I did was a couple weeks ago, a tennis player reached out to the city manager and he brought me in. I still need to reach out to that individual and brought up renovating the courts. And then through another conversation, it said pickleball was out in the community saying, hey, we want to raise funds and we want to, you know, we're going to start applying for grants and we're looking for a place to do it.

And we just adopted a master plan that said our one deficiency was we don't have any outdoor pickleball courts. And there are currently none on the Kenai Peninsula. So there was kind of a cool idea of, man, what if we could do this? What if we could be the first place with good outdoor pickleball courts? Now that is a lot of questions.

That $700,000 number comes from looking at what basically Soldotna Creek Park, when they put in a basketball court, taking that project which was done you know, a number of years ago, and then accounting for inflation and rises in cost, and then looking at the square footage of 4 tennis courts. So it's $700,000 plus if you were going to do that with a concrete slab. Now currently it is asphalt. A lot of tennis players play on that. It doesn't last as long.

And then also, I am starting to work with the pickleball club, and I'm going to reach out to this tennis person and see what the demand is and what the need is and see what those other opportunities are. This number could move, this project could move around on this project list before we recommend it. But I really wanted to bring that up as a discussion with the commission, because there are things like, you know, Kenai Peninsula Soccer Club got a grant from the state lottery for $40,000 to $50,000, and they built a pavilion on our soccer fields. They had like a year to do that. So they had to go like, oh, we got money, let's go, go, go.

So I want to work with these clubs over the next couple of weeks But that's one of those items where I would be curious. We want to find out like, oh, if we did do blacktop, like brand new, would they come and play on it? Is it only 300,000? I don't know a number on that. This is if we did a concrete and kind of went to the nines.

Um, but I think it'd be— it's a really cool opportunity for Kenai to promote health and wellness in the community and to partner with the school districts, which is also identified in our master plan to utilize facilities we already have and partner with organizations like the borough. So this kind of checks all the boxes on the master plan we just adopted. But that is a big number. Uh, and then our other, other one that got plugged in there was the outdoor sports complex design for FY32. Uh, that is a big part of trying to relocate all of our fields.

That's 5 years out, but that's pretty heavily been heavily supported by the commission. The original funds that were voted on by the commission to what was a design for the outdoor sports complex, and then administration made the recommendation to change that to let's adopt a master plan so we can get community feedback on it, and there was support for it. So now we're kind of moving forward in that direction. So every item added has been in support of our master plan.

All right, and then on that, that is my report.

Does anybody have any questions?

I don't really have any questions, just more of like a comment, because I was honestly, after you had mentioned about the outdoor pickleball court idea, I was just like just thinking about that just the other day because I've been seeing how nice it is. And I actually live fairly by the Keaney High School, middle school, and I see that back spot where, like, the tennis courts, and I could see that they're in such a rough shape. And, but I see the people in, like, the neighborhood, and I do see the community utilizing it, but it's always for a short period of time because of how rough of condition it is. And I see families, I see friends, I see groups that are always trying to go out there, and I feel like seeing classes, seeing people that are engaged in utilizing that court will help influence because of the fact that that is such a very densely populated neighborhood. I feel like that would help influence the health and wellness that you are wanting to bring out for, especially for the Kenai community.

So I think that would be such an ideal location. And besides, it's literally right by the school, and it's a great idea for like if they are like during the spring or during the fall when they're just having like a gym session, they can, or like PE, they can encourage the students to go outside and utilize that. So maybe like when they're off of school, they can use that as well. So I think that would be such a great location, and I just wanted to bring that out as a comment. And I knew that we were meant— and I know you were mentioning about wanting to do an outdoor pickleball court, so I fully support this idea.

I really think it'd be such a great idea, but that's just my two cents. I just more so just wanted to comment more than a question. And to just to follow up with that, I know I said a lot of work, but it's so— we're very preliminary right now, but the exciting thing was just when these conversations started, it just it checked every box on the plan that was just adopted. Um, it involves multiple groups, and if we could partner with a 501, that opens up funding opportunities, and I mean, and fundraiser possibilities where if we can go forth this, and I think it could be a really cool thing for the community. As they said, you know, they just did a tournament.

I believe that was at the field house, but they had people from all over there. So it opened us up the door for having the first outdoor courts on the Kenai Peninsula could be a really cool thing. And I think, I don't wanna say this without looking at the plan, I don't have the whole thing memorized yet. I think it said a community our size is expected to have, it's an estimate, like a, it was a squiggly line, whatever that means. There's a key in the master plan, 4.

So 4 outdoor pickleball courts. And then also in turn, if people are playing tennis, 4 short-term supporting pickleball, but I put racket sport court.

How cool would it be if there was nice— a nice tennis court too? Like, you know, if you had a tennis court or 2 and 4 pickleball courts and you could support that and then turn, you know, have another recreation activity that I never saw growing up here, really. Oh, I just want to point out one more suggestion for funds, and that's the Rural Health Transformation Program. Alaska is looking at receiving $272 million of that this year, but $1.36 billion over the life of that grant process. And that's being overseen by the Department of Health, State of Alaska Department of Health.

And they have been doing a lot of really creative— they've really been funding a lot of really creative ideas. If you look at what has been granted so far, they just put pushed out the first group of payments last month. They kind of check all your boxes, like grassroots, direct service to people, health and wellness oriented. I think it might be worth your time to look into that. The Rural Health Transformation Program, and it's on the State of Alaska Department of Health website.

Where are these new pickleball courts? Were you thinking of putting them—. That, that, that again, this is all just very preliminary conversation, but per identified, we didn't have one marked on our master plan where to put them. Um, we were— what was identified in our master plan was that we had a deficit And we've talked about trying to, you know, I think in previous conversations we've talked about some of our old basketball courts and everything, but that's really kind of sometimes I think with the size of our courts, trying to put the square peg in the round hole, trying to make it work. But there's some things there where you could build it and maybe get some players there.

But I think if we build it and we build it right, I'm going to make the comment on at our rec center, we used to have taped on floors. And then we, I think, made some nice lines. And now we see people from Sterling quite often coming to play pickleball at the rec center. I think we did it right. So when we redid our floor, we made sure to add permanent pickleball lines and we got really good feedback on it.

So I think we could tape, possibly tape some courts up at some of our other locations. But I think having a dedicated racket, racket sport place could be really cool. And it would be, it's one of those things too where there's outdoor courts. Don't require a lot of maintenance, especially when there's a good amount of traffic. I think it helps.

And, you know, one of the things we could look at doing there, which is pretty low cost, would be like, you know, adding a restroom facility, whether that be like a porta-potty. Like, where we've gotten really good feedback from that would be at the disc golf course. You know, we added one ADA unit, and the only bad comments we get are if you go to online disc golf course websites, it will say there's a restroom. So for like a couple months when they play, there's not a restroom because it's still freezing. Uh, people were like, where's the restroom?

And, but it does show up and people do appreciate it. And I do think it helps stop people from using the restroom in the woods.

But, uh, no, I think that's a great location and I think it's super supportive of our, our plan. So that's why I just wanted to see what the commission thought on it. I, I, it's, it's a big number, but I think there's also potential for myself at direction of the city manager to work with some of these local groups like the pickleball club and that the tennis player who reached out and see what are our options. Could we do a smaller footprint? Could we do a different surfacing?

If we do propose a big, you know, let's just do it all, uh, is that going to take a, you know, maybe at our next meeting of this commission supportive, we'll see something in FY28 where it's like, you know, $35,000 to get a design done. Like if it's really $700,000 or something along that where we could get a really good ballpark at what this would cost from like an architect or an engineering firm. And then seeing it phased out for maybe 2 years, like, hey, year 1 we're gonna tear all this stuff out and we're gonna set it up, and then year 3 we're gonna paint it all. Yeah, I was looking at $700,000. You could tear that asphalt up at the high school and repave it for $35,000.

Grand. It seems like a lot. But if we did that, my only concern with— and again, this is me working with the clubs— if we did tear it all up, and we did asphalt, what does that cost? And then, okay, we did it, we made pickleball courts on asphalt. Oh, no one's playing on it.

So like, where is that investment? And they haven't said no to asphalt, by the way, I just want to point that out. But I was just saying there is that question of like, what are our options? So that's something I can definitely explore in that.

Yeah, I guess just spending $35,000 on asphalt or $700,000 and nobody's playing. Well, it won't matter. I could tell you that if you spent the $35,000 on asphalt, people would come. They would come for the first year. The difference between cement and asphalt is the way it's prepared.

Underneath. Asphalt is much more porous than concrete and has a tendency to heave in the first 2 years and crack. And those— even when, I should say, even when asphalt is used consistently and we go and pick the weeds before we play and things like that, You're still, after 4 or 5 years, an asphalt surface is going to look like an asphalt surface with cracks, heaves, weeds. It's always going to look that way. With a cement surface, you have the ability to seal it every year and keep the cracks way down and much smaller, and it will last longer.

It will last longer. That's all.

But I think I wanted to put that $700,000 to put a realistic number of like, this is— I mean, I think I could have took it. This is why me and the Public Works director got together and was like, what could it— what's a number for its concrete? Like, if the tennis person's like, no, we don't want to do asphalt again, or we don't want to do this, I would hate to see a spend $35,000. I'm gonna say to 100, 'cause COVID numbers, $1,000 on something and then it not get used. But that's where I wanna meet with these groups and work with these groups.

And before our next meeting, maybe have this a little better digested, but I wanted to show it to the commission. So this is probably the fastest I've ever added something in here. So last week, these were discussions. I went to a pickleball meeting yesterday. Yeah, yesterday.

And it was just a phone call. I'm like, hey, we're meeting. I'm like, I'm coming over there. We're trying to develop this as quick as we can so we can make a plan to work with these partners and everything. So yeah, I think at the next meeting when we vote on this plan, I would say expect to see maybe this number different or broken down a little different.

But I did just want to have it out there as a discussion item. One last question. When you put these nets up, are they— can they be taken down? And so they're not permanent? So that makes— okay.

I was gonna say, yeah, there's a— so there are courts in the lower 48 that have permanent nets. But there are places that just have the courts and people bring their own nets, which I've heard is common practice. I have not asked these people behind me. I've talked to other pickleballers about that. So people having their own nets, but there's also a chance of the nets really aren't that expensive to, to where if you know, if you don't have a pickleball net, we could still have a pickleball net out there.

So other people could come and play. The school has pickleball nets, and— but we could put an outdoor court there and probably affix it or have it somewhere where anybody could come play anytime. Not between midnight and 5 AM. That's our park closure times that we post everywhere.

Mm-hmm. Not even— that's our time. It mostly helps us prevent camping in non-camping areas. It's really— is really the intent of that. In the spirit of that.

Any other questions? Yes, I have a question about the Old Town playground replacement. Um, we discussed it a while back and making it, uh, an accessible space, uh, or an accessible playground, and what that means. Uh, they tend to be a little bit more expensive, right? I'm wondering and hoping that the surfacing area is not what, uh, is, uh, um, I'm hoping we can spend the right amount of money on the surfacing because if we don't have the right surfacing then people can't even get onto the playground.

Uh, rocks are really bad for folks in wheelchairs or folks with mobility issues, but it is cheapest option, and it is the most popular option. Um, and so I'm wondering how it also— is it too late to fundraise for more money for that, specifically for surfacing? Because also surfacing needs to be done at the Soldotna Creek playground. They know they need to resurface that one, and they have already mentioned that they would love to work with Kenai if Kenai was also going to be doing that. Things like resurfacing and fencing are things we can buy in larger amount.

Um, anyway, what— do we already have plans for that playground? Are we— is that how— yeah, tell me more. We did a schematic design for that playground and for a complete teardown and a complete redesign, and we paid for a really nice plan, and the bill at the end of it was $1.6 million. And that's just been kind of floating around on the plan for a few years, and it's kind of been under the understanding after discussions is that may not be an achievable goal to spend $1.6 million. Now, what could be achievable, taking that design, taking out some elements— like, we were going to bulldoze it, like, let's scratch the earth and start from scratch.

Like, what's the perfect thing we could build here? We're going to put in running water bathrooms. If you take out some of those components, we met with members of Kenaitsi and Salamatov, and we had people from the art center there. We talked about putting an NYO court in there, and with Kenaitsi building a bunch of new buildings around there, that would be a cool way to promote our Dena'ina population. But that's still on the board.

We've also talked to both councilmen— both councils, and they've shown interest in supporting it. Through grant writing and even direct— not anything has been promised, but just been discussions of possibly partnering in some funding aspects. I don't know the full scope of that, but currently we are— I'm currently working on a grant application with our planner, and what we did is we took the list and we kind of cut out some stuff, and it's more like, hey, if we put a playground structure where the playground structure is now and just tear that one out, what does it look like? And then the new standard in playground surfacing is uniform playground surfacing, which is ADA accessible. The lowest standard of ADA accessible is the rubber mulch.

Is the rubber mulch that you'll see. And it's— Yep. It's still mulchy. No, no, it is still mulchy, but also surface impact is very important and everything there too. Now, more and more places have done tiles, and they've done the uniform, and they've done combinations.

That is what we got quoted on it. So that's what we would look like at adding that, with hopefully ADA-accessible pathways that would also go to that equipment. But keeping, currently we were gonna rip out all the fencing, we were gonna rip out all the playgrounds, we were gonna move the basketball court, we were gonna do this, we were gonna do that, we were gonna add lighting, running water bathrooms, So we kind of took the list our schematic design had and started cutting stuff out of it. And now we're kind of starting from, okay, what if we replace everything we have with nice stuff, not cheap stuff, and still do the intent? Because we—.

The original intent was right before I started, was like, what happens if we start from scratch? And it was $1.6 million. But it's like, we have grass there, we have locations there. We have a bunch of multifamily homes. We have a bunch more activity is happening there thanks to Kenaitze upgrading their buildings, building new buildings.

There's a lot more activity in Old Town, and it's a really cool spot. It's right next to our Kenai Art Center. So I think there's a lot of good potential there. So that $800,000 reflects what if we yanked out all this stuff and then made some pathways and made it accessible. So accessibility is still a big part of that plan.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, that being said, there's a level of accessibility I want to say that is, hey, if say you bought— the common conversation we always have is for a wheelchair. And I will say it's funny. I attended a really fun seminar on accessibility.

And there was someone teaching it. Who was a champion Olympian in a wheelchair, and they were like, hey, I don't need the 500-foot playground to get to, but if I can get up on a part of it and play and get in there, don't put a little shovel thing off to the side in the corner of the park for me. So, and then accessibility has a lot of questions, and there's stuff that can hit all those boxes, but making sure it's good and functional would be a really big goal of ours. Absolutely. Universal design is always, always the goal, for sure.

And if you need any help, I did a ton of research back when I presented. I spent lots of time. Anyway, and there's a whole movement. And if we got in on that movement, we could be a part with Anchorage. Anchorage is having a big accessible playground movement, and we could also get in on it and be the destination accessible playground.

I just wanted to add that that playground is still on the radar of council. It—. When we had our annual meetings with both tribal organizations this winter, like February, January, that, that playground specifically came up in conversation, and, and both groups were committed to participating in contributing to making it, to redoing it, in whatever that might mean. I mean, there was some offers, as Tyler indicated, grant writing, funding. Salamatoff offered labor, said they had all kinds of kids who need something to do.

So I mean, I don't know how much unskilled labor we could— or slave labor, or whatever it might be. We could put to use. But those conversations are still occurring and it's still in the forefront of conversation.

And I don't know off the top of my head, but usually when we bring this forth for the discussion too, we'll have a more, for the vote, we'll have a more, it's like if you go online, you'll see that split too. Like what we think the grant will be, what we think our funding will be.

Oh no, my screen turned off.

Uh, move on to reports. Oh wait, wait, sorry, I just want to make sure everything— I mean, everything else on here we have talked about. The only other thing I'd like to mention is On our master plan, we do have it in 5 years to address our multi-purpose locker rooms to see if they could get refurbished. So that might be something maybe in the next year you'll see added on here, but they'll get into this mix. But I didn't add it in there to this year because I wanted to focus on the racket sport and then kind of the rec center interior to support that.

But did no one had any other questions on any of the other topics? Yeah, and I, again, I know that pickleball came in here. I wanted to come in and speak because I think it was really informative of us before we go into our meeting. And it's kind of, when we vote on a recommendation, there's usually a place where someone's like, does anybody from the public want to talk about it? But they were so excited to be like, yeah, can we come tomorrow?

I'm like, come to the meeting. So following that order, it was kind of disjointed, but I think it's really cool to see community support for having a really unique thing possibly in the city of Kenai.

Now we'll have another report from Tyler.

Okay, so typically in my director report, uh, I think I've said this before, I want to make it more of a formal memo to just kind of touch base with you guys, but I have just been adding my mid-month reports in there, uh, things that kind of happen throughout the summer. You know, we had our annual kite festival. I think since I've been here, we finally had a good amount of wind. We've usually had it on the least windy day of summer in Kenai, and this year we actually had a lot of wind. You can look at historic photos on Google Earth, but they finally updated their aerial photo of the square.

For about 3 years, you could see all the kites and everything, and it was really neat. I have screenshotted it 1,000 times. I love it a lot. There's a giant spaceman laying out in the field that you can see from a satellite, which is terrifying and cool. But we had a great attendance.

I think we gave away over 400 kites that we got from Walmart. So that means a bunch of kids are just out there running around I'm not going to say it's this festival. It's probably the Alaska Kite-ers, who's the club that brings in like over $100,000 of kites. Kenai, I don't know if you've noticed, there's been kites flying more in Kenai. There is an official chapter of the AK Alaska Kite-ers program.

They— it got so popular they have started their own chapter in Kenai. We have found out when there's events at the Green Strip, we cannot fly kites there because it's so close to the runway. They have asked, and it's just super cool. They—. That person there sells kites.

They've been selling kites to kids and everything. So just, just another recreation activity getting out there in the community. So it's really cool to see that growing in this town. So I think that's really neat. Someone we didn't see a few years ago.

Also, you can see a picture in my memo. Alex Dothett donated a tree called a fat Albert. And we've been watering it and watering it and hoping it survives. But you can see a picture of us transferring it in front of the chamber. It needs to get established and grow.

A fat Albert is a species of blue Colorado spruce, which is spruce bark beetle resistant, not impervious. But these trees tend to get really thick and really bushy. So the hope, I think, would be to eventually add really nice Christmas lights to this tree. And have it look right next to the side of the highway. And yes, it is straight.

Depending on what angles when you come in there, it doesn't always look straight. But I promise it is. Me and Mr. Douthit stared at it quite a bit. You can see him in the picture.

He called me and said, you go look at that. Does it look crooked? I'm like, no. No, there's— I don't know. I'm always— but anyway, really cool thing.

He hopes to eventually do it in memoriam of his grandfather. But he wanted— A tree got cut down at the chamber that had lights in it. I think they paid HEA to light it, but they used to light it up every year. So they wanted to start replacing that so they can light it up during Christmas Comes to Kenai and have another cool— we always get complimented on our strip on the spur, all the Christmas lights we put up throughout Lee Hanson, at the chamber, all through town. We get so many compliments on what we do there.

And then going on to July, There's a picture of South Beach on there where we had our PU fishery, what takes up a lot of our time in July. That is a group called the Salmon Frenzy. They set up a giant tent down at the end of South Beach and on North Beach. That's actually Sunday morning and they were singing worship music on the beach. Not disturbing, they were just being great and then they gave out hundreds of hot dogs on South Beach.

They were cooking hot dogs and giving coffee out. And they are also on North Beach and they come every year. They help direct traffic. They help pick up litter. So this group brings up just church members from the lower 48 and they're like, yep, we'll just sell hot dogs.

We want to have a crazy Alaska experience and it's dip netting on the beach. But they always do a bunch to help us out down there. So, but they don't always set up on South Beach because it's such a hard location. You usually have to have a 4x4 vehicle to get down there. So the fact that they set up a 40 by 20 tent and some grills really impressed me.

So I took a picture. I went down there on the very last Sunday just to go take some photos of the beach and do some inventory. And if you look off to your left too in the picture in my memo, yes, that is a bounce house that they brought for kids to enjoy. So they had a generator and a bounce house, and it was a grand old time. So Other things that happened in July, Kenai Softball Association always does a really fun firecracker tournament.

They get so many teams from all over the state. You can probably see them camping at the softball fields. It just gets wild. And then our local rugby club does their dip net tournament. They really embrace the dip net thing and they play with dip nets in rugby uprights.

And there's like a rule where if you kick it in the dip net, you get a point. I don't know rugby, but it's unique to that tournament. They've had teams from out of state. They've had 15 teams from state. My nephew came down and played.

And, you know, public record, I'll share. I told the president of the Kenai Club, you'll see my nephew, he looks like a goober. And then I showed him a picture and he walked up to him and they needed a sub and he was like, Hey, your uncle said you were a goober, come and play with us. So he played on two different teams, but it's such a cool event. And that club picks up and does such an amazing job at taking care of that field.

They always organize cleanup days. So that's my mid-month report. And then up and coming stuff. Pretty soon every commission member is going to get an email that says the Pumpkin Festival is up and coming on October 10th. If you want to volunteer, we might have some fun shifts available, but that's a great day between 11:00 and 4:00 at the green strip, or 11:00 and 3:00.

11:00 To 4:00 is Industry Day. 11:00 To 3:00. We don't need the extra hour. No, but we all, we, we, we really enjoyed that event. I think we're pretty stuck at 1,000+ people that come to that.

It's probably one of our most successful ones we have, and it's just so much fun. You know, we opened up our field and made it a pumpkin patch. We don't have a pumpkin patch in Kenai, but it becomes our pumpkin patch. Moving it to the green strip was a blast last year. We were able to close down a section of the road.

Fire department drops a pumpkin from 60 to 90 feet. I've heard people say different things. I know Alex Dothit, when he was on council, he subbed in for the mayor one year because we always ask the mayor if he wants to drop the pumpkin. If it's not the mayor, it's the vice mayor, and then if they can't, the mayor can appoint someone on council. And there's a whole list of rules with that, but I think Alex had a blast with it.

Um, and they try to hit a target, and then we ask McDonald's to support us where if they hit the target, we give everyone ice cream cones. Since we have not done a trash can, they've always hit the target, and it's been a blasty blast. Uh, we do a pumpkin painting contest, but we will send out an email to the— to the Parks Commission and the Beautification Commission and council. We had some council members volunteer last year So just seeking some volunteers serving cider, helping out with the competition. We'll have a couple different options in there.

But we work with the library. People can pick up pumpkins at the library to do the no-carving pumpkin decorating contest. That's usually done in the first 2 hours of the event. There's always a blast of pumpkins there. So, and then other than that, we're going into our winter hours next week at the rec.

We will be open on Sundays again. Between 11 and I want to say 4. This was new last year. We kind of talked about opening up the hours on Sunday a little bit, but Monday through Saturday will be open from 6:30 to 9:30, and then I think it's 11 to 4 on Sunday. So we'll be switching over after Labor Day, and I'm happy to ask any questions if anyone has any questions about our summer activities or anything like that.

Any questions before we move on?

Did you say that was October 26th?

10Th. Saturday, October 10th.

Thank you. I'm glad. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I said October 10th, but yeah, Saturday, October 10th, 11 AM to 4— 3 PM. 3 PM. We don't need that extra hour.

We need the extra hour to pick up.

But I'm from the town with the Guinness Book of World Records of most lit jack-o'-lanterns at one time until Boston came and did it. And like, they can keep theirs. We started it. But so I'm so excited. You have no idea.

Very excitedly from New England. And this means a lot. Did you come last year? Huh? Did you come to the event last year?

I don't think I did. I don't think I knew it was a thing until afterwards. Oh yeah, well, one thing, one thing we added last year was like a 40-foot tall inflatable pumpkin. So depending on the rain and wind, that may not go up. We blew it up in the gym and it took up the whole gym as a test.

It takes like 30 minutes to inflate, but if it's too windy or too rainy, I don't know if it'll make it. But we have another thing we've gotten continuous feedback on is they'd love to see a pumpkin chunkin. Or a trebuchet or catapult. We're playing around with that. So if anybody knows anyone who has a trebuchet, please let us know.

Because what we do have now is we utilize Field 3, where we actually have a panel that we take out so you can snow blow it for high school. We take out that panel and put an archway in. That's our pumpkin patch. We have 2 softball fields that are fenced in. So if we had a not too aggressive because I've shot a pumpkin cannon at a pumpkin patch in Oregon, and those things were going like 200 yards at old cars they parked out in the field.

Maybe not that aggressive, but if we could safely land it in the middle of Field 1 from Field 2, I think there's an opportunity there. So if anybody knows who has a pumpkin catapult or a pumpkin trebuchet, please let us know. Um, I think we need to get with the engineering teams at Saldana and Kenai and ask them to build one, and that's the competition, and whoever's catapult throws it further. I—. Yeah, that's the only dynamite idea.

For safety, I want to make sure we have a simple target that we aren't going to overshoot and everything. But with moving it at this field, I think we open up some doors there, and I would be open to that. Also, like, someone who's done the hayrides in the past, they weren't able to last year, is Maddie's Farms. Everything at this event, you know, there's, there's some paid stuff like the food, but Maddie's Farms is a nonprofit from Diamond M Ranch. They promote, you know, growing your own food and everything.

They ask for a donation before they do the hayrides. I think this could be a really cool opportunity for like a local booster club or something to be like, hey, yeah, we'll do that, and maybe have a set price. Because the other thing we always run out of is pumpkins, and we keep on buying more. I think we gave away almost 1,000 pumpkins last year. Like, we're And it's like, we're starting to hit points where like the suppliers are like, yeah, we're running out.

So bring your own pumpkin to shoot. I don't know the answer to that or what the other options are, but I think there, it could be a really cool partnership with maybe with a booster club or something.

In my town, we did not provide any pumpkins. Uh, that was not a thing. So you, because it was, because mostly it was a competition for your carved jack-o'-lantern, right? And then it was the most jack-o'-lanterns lit at one time. So then they were just up and down Main Street.

Anyway, yeah, no, we didn't provide— I'm sure they did provide some things, activities. It's been a long time since I tried to go to that event. But yeah, we didn't provide them because it was a BYO. You had to, because otherwise You were in the competition.

Yeah, I am throwing it out there just in case someone has a garage trebuchet or a catapult that we might be able to test before we brought out there. But I do think there's potential of being like, hey, you know, like, I think I paid $20 to shoot 4 tiny little pumpkins out of a canyon. I don't regret it. I didn't hit the van, but it felt cool. Well, that's what I was gonna say, like the, like, my husband built a potato gun.

Years ago when my kids were little, and I think you could do the same sort of thing with the little pumpkins, you know, instead of, you know, instead of a big pumpkin. But so Bridget's got it covered. No, no, my husband does because I'm just, I was just along for the ride. I don't know how to do that. I wanted to throw out there, I just bought all the potatoes.

You never know what we hear, and that could be if someone's like, hey, I've built one of those, I could build another one. Have them call me because I'd be like, yeah, well, I mean, we'll buy the wood or something like that. Like, I would love to work with someone and then even find a club to run the station because also, you know, I think the ski team picks up the, the beach and the key—. The—. I think it's marked as a grant, but it's not.

They're coming and picking up the beach 2 times a week during the fishery, and then they do a sweep and they get $2,000 for doing that. So that's super big for those booster clubs. We have an agreement with the local hockey team to sell board space on our boards at the ice rink. You know, I think we get reached out from random boosters and everything. So we were always excited to work with them because you can always have such a boon to that.

And I'll even say like the Brown Bears came one year and helped us set up the hay maze. And they're like, can we set up a tent and just hang out? And like they sold tickets, but they also gave away tickets, they gave away some swag. And so it's always really cool to see a local group come out and there's some potential to raise funds there. Well, and that's a really good opportunity for teams that don't have admission— they don't have gate fees at their events, like cross-country skiing, cross-country running, cheerleading, track.

Those teams that don't have the ability to earn funds through selling tickets to go to their events, things like that are the only— I mean, besides selling things, are their only options for fundraising.

So I think there's, I think there's a cool potential. Again, partnering with the booster clubs and everything there too. Our nonprofit actually just partnered— the Alaska Recreation Park Association, again, the conference is in 2 weeks here— partnered with the local hockey club. They're going to help them do a social where they're going to play cornhole after their conference as a social event. They're going to do like a 2-hour like quick modified thing to do it.

In Wrangell, someone put on a pickleball tournament. They had to modify the rules so it'd get over in time, but it's just a social event for them. But they always have money budgeted, and actually the social fell through. And through me just knowing they're always looking for funding and talking to the president, I was like, would you guys be interested in this? And they were like, yep, we'll do it.

So that's for me, not from my director standpoint, but from my nonprofit standpoint because I'm on the board for that. But it was a cool opportunity. And again, the ski team is another really good example. So I think when there's booster clubs out there and they're involved, they're like, "Let's do it. Let's raise some money." And also, "Let's get out in the community." Even if they have gate fees, like, "Yeah, let's get out in the community and get more people to our—" But yeah, it's just always a phone call and making those connections in the community.

So if anybody knows anybody or has a trebuchet or a catapult that looks relatively safe and not too powerful, let me know. We're also working on what our other options are. It may not be this year, but it's something we would love to do. We started with our new layout where we are, we're like, wow, we have two fenced fields that are empty during this event. Could be some potential here.

Yes, I'd reach out to maybe Scott Hammond with Metal Magic. He's If you can imagine it, he can make it happen. Or he's already— Or he might already have. He might already have one. He might have one, yeah.

No, and this is what I wanted to— I was bummed Jenna couldn't make it tonight because she was like, talk to the commission about this. I want the commission, both. So our beautification commission's next Tuesday. They're like, talk to the commissions. I want them to know we're looking, we want to do something else because we love our pumpkin drop.

We love our, our pumpkin decorating contest, but she's like, so many people come watch that pumpkin explode. And she's like, imagine if we could launch some pumpkins. I'm like, that is something. And that's feedback we get every year. And I'm like, wow, we have two empty fields that no one is on.

So we're relatively safe if it's not too strong, or we might hit flyboys.

Um, well, Scott would probably want to launch it. Into like the river? Well, but we're at the green strip now. Oh, the green strip. Yeah, that's where we had the event for the first time last year.

And that's where— I don't know, with the river and other things like that, it was kind of away from the ground. So, so there might be a potential to shoot it from like field 2 to field 1 and then maybe like put up a scarecrow. You'd like baby lockers though? Yes.

As in suggest maybe instead of having one large pumpkin launcher, you have competition maybe for smaller pumpkin launchers and get folks involved in that. Like the show, like Punkin' Chunkin'. Did you ever watch that show on Discovery? It's like a big national competition. It used to come on every year right after Thanksgiving.

And that's exactly what it was. People came from all over the country with their creations to compete.

You just have to prove to Tyler it won't go too far.

No, but one of those things, that is something we're looking at. And I think that was one of the bonuses of when we moved it. It was like, oh, there's, again, relatively safety of two fenced fields that are emptied where you could have some potential.

Maybe build a scarecrow. Of, I don't know what, a Sultana High School scarecrow and a Kenai High School scarecrow. Encourage the high schools to compete at each other.

But no, I think there's a lot of good potential there. But you never know when someone's just like, "I have a trebuchet that I built for my engineering project, high school project in my shed." Because I know a lot of people don't throw stuff like that away.

So if you guys hear of anything, but I will gladly follow up with Scott and some of these other organizations. Again, I don't know if it will happen this year, but Jenna was getting so jazzed on Monday about this, so I had to mention it since I'm not up there and I have to also represent. I always miss things and she fills me in, so.

Get a hold of Scott, I know him. A little bit, so maybe stop out there, see what he has. Yeah, ask him if he has a catapult. Yeah, okay. Any other questions before we move on to the exciting report of Grant?

Don't really have anything other than going to the Beaver Creek Park, that little zipline needs a new inner only goes about halfway and then stops, so I don't know.

At the Beaver— yeah. And when you order one, order two, so when the other one goes out, you'll have that backup.

Um, that's about all I have. We'll move on to, uh—. I have a comment about the chair's report. Oh, I was trying to move on before you could comment. I know, but I had to.

Actually, something that is exciting and relates to our capital plan is the construction of a true pavilion. Right now it's like a piece of metal over that leaks when it rains with one picnic table. But Beaver Creek, it started today, and at Municipal Park they laid— they started laying the foundation for a 16 by 16 gazebo. So we'll have like a true gazebo there. Yeah, Beaver Creek is going to get like a real pavilion and concrete pad, and we'll have— where you can have multiple picnic tables.

You could actually probably reserve it. And they laid it today? They started it today. Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, so Crave Construction won the bid, and they're building one at Beaver Creek and one at Municipal.

Oh nice. That's all I have. Uh, we'll move on to liaison. Liaison, Council Member Grimey.

Grimmie. Close, that's okay. 50/50. Grimmy. Grimmy.

Um, last two meetings for City Council, um, have been a little shorter than previous, just the time of year. Um, two meetings ago we enacted without objection an ordinance amending, uh, municipal code to allow the city manager to appropriate appropriate donations and grants under $10,000. Used to be any grants or donations of any amount had to come before council for approval. This ordinance changed it so that the city manager has the authority to accept anything under $10,000. City council still has the— we're still notified and have the ability to call it to question, or if we do want to hear more about it.

And of course, it's still all information available to the public.

We accepted a bunch of grants and appropriations from a myriad of different sources. There's one from the Federal Aviation Administration for some more airport work. That one in particular is just over $3 million.

The city's portion of that work is only $150,000. So that I mean, that's a huge boon for us. We accepted grant money from Meals on Wheels.

And— sorry, I just want to look back through my notes because they're— accepted police department grant money for overtime and drug enforcement. The big one last night was We adopted, or we agreed to send to voters in November to ask for their approval on a $75,000 property tax exemption for primary residences for homeowners within the city limits of Kenai. So you'll see that on the ballot in November. And a reminder that our last election we voted to align our elections with state and federal elections now, so it's all one day to vote, all one, all one process, all one place. And there are two city council seats up for election, and there, as of yesterday, three people had filed.

The deadline to keep your, your application in or not, I believe, is the end of I believe the end of this week. So there will be, at this point, 3 people on the ballot.

Um, I think that's about it.

I have a question. Yeah, I don't know if I've missed it yet or not, but has the council figured out what they're going to do with the Challenge Center? No, no, okay, nope, that has not been brought back before us. I don't know, it's been a couple months since I've heard anything about that. There's been lots of vastly different things suggested.

I mean, everything from the Connections Program through the school district, you know, making that their office space, to revamping it to be a public safety center for fire and police, or fire or police.

There's been suggestion about it being the South Central Campus for AVTEC. So there's been, there's been a lot of options and conversation out there, but we have not heard anything from the administration in a couple of months about asking us to accept a plan or move forward with anything yet. Oh, okay, perfect. I just had a bunch of my coworkers were mentioning that I haven't heard an update yet, so I wasn't sure. Nope, unfortunately I don't have a, I don't have a good update to tell you except, uh, in my opinion, you know, we don't have to hurry.

It's not costing us a lot of money, so we have the luxury of being picky about what we choose to do there and to make sure that it fits in with the rest of the milieu that's already there, you know, with the high school, the middle school the construction and technical skills training, the multipurpose center. Like, there's, you know, we can choose, we can pick and choose. We don't have to hurry and just go with the first suggestion. Exactly, exactly. It's like a prime location for a lot of different options.

So I was just kind of curious to see what the top picks would be. Yeah.

Any other questions before we move on?

Thanks for the report. Um, moving on to additional public comment. Anybody online? Seeing none, we will have the next meeting October 1st, 2026.

Anybody planning on being gone?

Um, any other questions or comments? Anybody else?