Kenai: Parks & Recreation Commission

Here. Spiegel. Here. Student Representative Tanner, you have a quorum.

Okay, we're going to work on. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?

Yes. Seconded.

Is there a second? I second.

Are there any revisions to the agenda?

Are there any objections to approving the agenda as presented?

Hearing None. The agenda is approved.

Okay. Moving on to scheduled public comments. There are no scheduled. Are there any members from the public who would like to speak on any item not appearing on the agenda?

If you'd go up there and turn that on. And state.

Angie Kramer. My address is 1514 Toyon Way in Kenai, Alaska.

Good evening. I am a resident of City of Kenai and have been for over 30 years. I have also been actively involved with park and recreation over the years, including serving as part of the committee group that helped design the municipal park. I continue to use our parks and recreation facilities on a daily basis and care deeply about their role in our community. I'm writing to respectfully request the commission consider the current weight room policy at the recreational center.

At present, the policy allows independent access beginning at the age of 17 and parental supervision 12 to 16 years of age. Specifically, I am requesting that the weight room policy to allow use ages 4 14, which is high school age and older, to access the weight room independently without parental supervision. In our community, where gym and training facilities options are very limited with restrictions has even greater impact on youth who are trying to stay active, train for sports and develop healthy habits. In comparison, many surrounding community facilities allow younger athletes to train independently with parental consent beginning at age 13. For example, Nikiski Rec center is 14 plus, Black River Fitness is 13 plus.

Fitness Place is 14 plus. All American Training is 13 plus. Aligning our policy more closely with these standards would better support youth development, encourage healthy lifestyles and increase access for student athletes who rely on strength training for their sport.

I respectfully asked the commission to review this matter and consider solutions or policy adjustments that could safely allow expanded access for responsible youth participants ages 14 plus without parental supervision. I'm frustrated that I have to send my family to neighboring communities to access opportunities that are unavailable here due to restrictive policies. Many other Kenai residents are doing the same. Let's encourage participants and make the most of our facilities, not push young adults elsewhere because policy change quote, would create additional operation challenges and potential barriers to the facility access. Let's not discriminate based on age and use logic thinking a 16 year old is able to drive a motor vehicle by themselves on our highways, but they can't access our weight rooms.

14 To 16 year olds are able to work in our community but they're not able to access our weight room independently. There is solutions that allow our youth to utilize the weight room facilities just as they were able to under the previous policy. Any person doing unsafe lifting or irresponsible activity, regardless of age should be removed immediately. No different than the gym. Thank you for your time.

Just like to put a little background to it. My son who's 16 years old went to had used the facility at a time or two and was turned away because he didn't have parental consent with him. As you see tonight, there was three people utilizing the gym. When he was turned away to use the weight room, there was zero people in the facility using it. I've had spoken to Tyler and had email communications previously with him and they said that in the years past when they took it over, there was a group of kids that were misbehaving.

They changed it from 17 because of Patreon's complaining. They changed it and had seen a decrease. And at the time that you guys took over the rec center there probably was a lot of mismanagement and kids misbehaving. But instead of eliminating an entire age group, let's find a happy ground. Have parents sign parental consents.

If there's a time frame, Maybe it's after 5 o' clock when the school age kids are gone. But to turn kids away in a weight room that is completely empty and parental consent signature. Nikiskee Rec center has found a way to manage 14 year olds to show up at their weight room. I just think that pushing kids away who are trying to stay active and healthy is unreasonable and many gyms in the area are 14 plus. And I think there's a way that you can keep kids in your gym when it's empty.

We like we saw tonight. So that's why I'm here. My son would be here. He's at basketball and very active and out of camp right now. So you know, and if you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to.

I know Tyler said he'll put it on the previous agenda but I wanted to come in here because when you guys make your decision regarding your meetings, if we have to wait another four to five months to make a decision because you guys don't have meetings, would be super unfortunate to go an entire summer for kids not to being able to be active and be able to use the weight room at the gym. So yeah, and like I said at one point, I think Tyler will put it on your guys previous agenda and the correspondence that I've had with him to try to get this resolved prior to me coming here tonight.

If you guys have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

I don't think this is you question but my first, my first question is where does our liability insurance stand on this? And I don't know who knows the answer about that. But that would be one of the things I can see getting in our way. No, actually previously it was just all policy mandated. We don't have super clear direction.

Actually, I'll say the city of Soldotna is going through some of those things with the same insurer with the field house. It's kind of a totally different topic. I know, but when they built the field house we used the same insurer and they're kind of trying to figure out what the standard will be for a lot of municipalities. So they're kind of going through those hoops right now. But currently there it wasn't a current liability standard.

It was. Yep,.

Thank you very much. And then yeah, I do want to note again just so we touch base on it. So there me and Angie have a lot of correspondence and she has a letter that she's written out specifically for the commission that will be included. And it was, she gave it to me. Was it today or yesterday?

I'm joking.

Yes. We have a couple weeks of conversation, but an official correspondence doing this request that I'll include in the next packet with a, like, with a motion that you guys can consider. So and that motion will be. And you. I'll try to remember to reach back out.

But that motion will be in like advisory to the administration. So myself and like the city manager to review.

So I want to make sure. Was that all the questions for Angie? Oh, Angie, not necessarily a question, but thank you so much for presenting. Angie. I was just kind of more question for you, Tyler, just because you're probably a little bit more aware of what's going on.

Was there any other protocol or anything that we should be aware of that would have inhibit anything regarding this? I understand that there are a lot of gyms that are opening up access to youth and I think your idea is great. Considering the fact that we do have a teen center that's associated and tied in with that rec center. So it'd be convenient for our youth and I feel like that would be really appreciative for our teens and our young ones. And we do want to utilize that facility to the best of our ability.

But I just want to make sure that we're not stepping on anyone else's toes or want to make sure that we're not crossing any legal barriers or anything like that. No. And honestly, I don't think there's a major legal barrier to go forward with that. And I think I can better spell that out. And in our next meeting, where you'll see Angie's letter and our correspondence on it, where I can have that all written down for you guys and have that well spelled out on it.

But on some of it, I think there's just a level of simple disagreement between myself and Angie. And it's been a very cordial correspondence too, which I appreciate on just on our. On our operationals. But I would like to present that in a nice layout and everything where everyone can look at it.

And when you guys did take over the rec center, this magic number of 16, I would just like to know how many actually 16 year olds. And were you guys ID checking then that they were in fact 16 year olds? Because I do believe that in the past that there were younger kids accessing the weight room that were maybe causing problems. I just. That could have been causing problems.

It's been, you know, four years that you guys have done a lot of great work at the recreational center and cracking down and organizing it and doing that. But moving forward, I think a parental consent that says yes, they can access the weight room like other gyms in our surrounding areas. And we're not pushing kids away. And any misbehaving kids are kicked out. And you guys manage it like you do the gym.

Any misbehaving and anybody causing problems, they're kicked out. And I think that's an easy solution to keep kids active and in the weight room. And 16 year olds are able to drive on our highways, so. And have that responsibility. So.

And we don't have a lot of weight rooms in our area at all to be able to utilize. And there's three people, so. Thank you, Tyler. Request. Would it be okay in that packet that you put together if we can see the previous policy that allowed the younger youth.

Yeah, it was actually in. So I'll say on that. It was actually in the fee schedule that I think. No, it wasn't in. Sorry.

Yeah, it is actually. Yeah, it is just a rule list that was there and where it stemmed from. Originally it was 6, I think it was 16 and up. Could use the weight room for free, or 16 to 17 could use the weight room for free. And then it was 14 to 16.

Had to be supervised and Then just I don't even think we had a 10 rule list when I started. And we created that 10 rule list and we changed stuff just, you know, tweak it to see how it affected everything. And then since then like the official fee policy has changed to actually as of July 1, 18 year olds and younger will be able to you use the facility for free because the verification of high school was getting wishy washy. So we just made it a hard 18. But so that it just kind of came off from the fee schedule and then standard of practices as we moved in.

But we didn't even have a rule list when I moved in there. So it was us developing our rule list and seeing what worked for us. But I can include. Yes.

Yeah, we do have one attendant on. And then sometimes we do have two depending on what's going on in the weight room. When we can have two, we have limited hours that we shuffle around. But.

So at our next meeting I'll have a memo with Angie's letter in there. Yeah. And then I'll happily provide the rule thing. So I'll reach out to chair Wisniewski and if I don't get ahold of him, also reach out to Shannon. That's actually how we set the agenda and we'll build out that agenda and everything will get compiled in there and then we will have it forwarded for your guys consideration.

Not through this body. There wouldn't be because that's our next regular meeting where that would get addressed at.

But.

The other public meeting options would be we have city council meeting on July 17th and then we have one city council meeting in July and then there's two in August as well. But they may kick it back to the advisory of this body as well. But I don't know how that would go. I can't speak for the council on it.

All right, thank you. Angie. Did you wish to speak as well? Okay. All right.

Are there any remote attendees wishing to speak? There are none.

Okay, then I guess we will proceed as best we can hearing about it in June and see what we can do about it. But we will follow through on it and see how it goes. Thank you for coming in and telling.

Okay, we're going to move on now to approval of minutes. This regards the May 7, 2026 regular meeting minutes. May I have a motion to approve the April 2, 2020 six minutes? I motion to approve. Thank you.

Is there a second?

I will second. Okay. Are there any revisions to the minutes?

Good question. Is this May 7th? Yeah, I sorry, I was reading from the script. Okay. Realized that didn't make sense.

So we're dealing with the April 2nd minutes now or the May 7th.

May 7. And then this is the April 2.

Yeah, this is a. Because we approved. Wait, we have. So we approved the. Yeah, we.

We approved. Yeah. No, no, no. So, yeah, we know we approved. So, yeah, May 7th.

That was our last meeting. I know. I'm just going by this. It says April 2nd. That is a typo.

Okay. I thought we had approved them already. So just to make it clear, Just to make it clear to everybody, we are talking about approving the May 7th minutes. Okay. So now would you.

I don't know what you said in your motion. Can you restate it? Well, Autumn approved it. I approved it under the interpretation because I heard May, and then it changed it to April as I was about. I just want to be clear.

Okay. I didn't state May or April, but just for on board clarification, I am approving May 7th. Eight minutes. Thank you. And I'm assuming your second goes along, and I'm.

Yes. Okay. Seconding that motion for May 7. Are there any revisions to the minutes of May 7 hearing? None.

Are there any objections to approving the minutes of May 7th hearing? No objections. The minutes are approved.

Now, moving on the next item, unfinished business, and it appears we have none. Unless somebody has something that they want to bring up.

Okay, then let's move on to new business. The first item is a recommendation. Council amendment to city council policy 20.020 standing commissions and other advisory body procedures to remove the August meeting date.

Do you want me to proceed or do you want to talk about that? So here you do a motion, and then someone seconds it and it puts the motion item on the floor. Then there will be a vote on it or. Sorry, not a vote, a discussion, and then there can be a vote on it. So if you.

Right here. If you move and second, it's. You're not voting on anything. You're putting it on the floor to discuss it. Well, before we do that, I want some clarification.

There's no date or year. Are we doing this for all August in future? Let's. But that's. To get a second.

We got to move it and put it up out here before we talk about it. Is there a second or second that's not affirming or denying anything. It's just putting it out there so we can talk about it? That is the item we're talking about. Okay.

May I have a motion? Oh, yeah. Motion to recommend the council member of City Council 2.0.020.

Is there a second? Okay. I second the motion to discuss. Okay, thank you. It is now on the floor and then there'll be a staff report and then we can have all the discussion on it.

All right. Let me pull up my packet. Sorry. What was the answer to your question? I don't think it has been answered.

Nope. Because it's now. It's on the floor. So now we can discuss it. Yep.

But let me pull up the memo.

During the May Parks and Recreation. May Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, there was a commission discussion in support of no longer have a regular Parks and Rec Commission meeting in August. If that is the wish of the Commission, the following motion is in order. So that would be the motion that we would make. But that is my staff report.

But now would be a great time for commission discussion or questions for staff.

I will reiterate, I'm wondering, are we doing it only for 2026 or are we doing it for all future August meetings? And Sharon, just give me one second because I'm going to write that down in my notes as I'm notetaking and talking.

Yes. So there's a. And why it says August in there is. There's a regularly planned out meetings for the Parks and Recreation Commission.

I don't know if it's in your packet or not, but it's spelled out in the commission policy that the Parks and Recreation Commission will meet the first Thursday of, you know, August, October, November, December, January. And then there's always been a break in July. But since the last five August meetings have been canceled, they were just like, hey, maybe we should just cancel this meeting. We don't ever seem to have items to talk about tonight by being an example where something would come up in August. But.

And then. So yeah, it would be canceling all future regular August meetings. Now, that would not affect if we did a tour or something beforehand. We can always schedule a work session in there. But as far as a regularly scheduled meeting, anyone in the public could go up and see the commission policy and be like, oh, Parks and Rec on Thursday on these months they meet.

So this would be canceling that meeting in perpetuity. You could always come back if there was a need, but it would not be a regularly scheduled meeting.

Sorry, did that answer your question? It does. Okay.

And this is also a time where you get there can be discussion. So please turn on your mics if you have a topic.

Honestly, it feels, especially with a presenter today, thinking about how long that's going to have to be. It's a little uncomfortable just because I know the time elapsed. However, I do live here and do remember what August, the beginning of August is still high fishing season and it's still really busy around here. And so I would understand if we canceled it as well.

And yet we just had somebody put something on the agenda for our next meeting.

I agree with her. I have the same concern. Not having any meetings for three months and knowing that people will oftentimes bring stuff to us the very last minute.

How much trouble is it to cancel a scheduled meeting if there is no business?

I think it's a lot of trouble. I just think it's public perception of it. Since it's a regularly scheduled meeting, we would normally try to hold it, but for the most part there's nothing on the agenda items and we have no business. We'll usually do that about a week in advance. So I guess then the question too is to put it back on the commissioners of, you know, if there's items, do you guys have volunteered in this board?

But to be if there is an item presented that we'll do our best to have a quorum because where it would be bad would be potentially like if someone wanted an item on the agenda and then there wasn't a quorum because there weren't enough members present and we had to cancel the meeting, that would be the worst case scenario. So it'd just be this body committing to showing up at that meeting because if not everyone could make it. And if that is a hard time, that's where it would kind of throw off public perception of, oh, there's supposed to be a meeting. I had this item, like if that item got in tonight and I want to discuss it and then we had to cancel the meeting. So it had to get delayed another month.

My personal opinion is I would actually like to keep the August meeting. Reasons being is again, we're not going to have a meeting for three months, is going to delay community care and it's hard to predict when we don't know what the public is thinking. We don't know when they're going to need a topic to be addressed. And now that we do have a motion for a reason to attend the August meeting, I know beforehand it was on the agenda due to lack of attendance because August is a very busy month for a lot of individuals. I'm thinking we could put on the board if now that we are in June and now everyone's putting things on their schedules to see if anyone's available for August to see if that's something that we can do or to make.

So we could put that up there and discuss availability between each other. So that way we can see if we're even going to meet that quorum and then we can discuss further if we can even make that.

I do want to just to come back to the motion on the floor. Yeah, on the floor. I think that's proper terminology. The motion on the floor right now is to cancel the meetings in perpetuity. In perpetuity.

I say that. But. Is to. Sorry. Is to.

I'm going to read it just so I don't throw myself off. No, the clerk. Yeah. I don't want to say the wrong thing.

Well, so it's a. So council sets the policy. So this would be a recommendation to council to change the policy. Policy, I believe.

Recommend to the city council amend Council Policy 20.020, Section C1 meeting schedule to eliminate the regularly scheduled parks and recreation meeting during the month of August. So that is the motion on the floor because at the previous meeting I think you're referencing, you guys moved to cancel the August meeting. That was the motion made then. That was just a one time cancellation. So this motion would change that all up.

Michael, do you have any comments?

Honestly don't really have opinion either way. I'm. I made a commitment to. To be here monthly anyways. So I'm.

I'm fine with keeping it, but it's pretty much whatever suits the commission.

This is going to come up a minute in a minute. Regarding June. And I can't separate out how I feel about it, but I really think several months in a row is not going to be productive. I don't like the idea of canceling them permanently.

Just my feeling. And I sort of get the feeling I hear that from the rest of the people who are here tonight.

So I'd kind of like to table this for a while and actually maybe have just a roundtable discussion at some point so we maybe understand a little bit better of what the possibilities are of calling a special meeting if business came up. I don't feel like I know enough to be really comfortable right now with the idea of canceling several months in a row.

So I guess we're gonna call for a vote on the main motion right now.

So.

Yeah, I'll. I'll call out the roll call. Okay.

You called for a vote? I called for a vote. All right. Oh, sorry. Bernard.

No. Fisher? No Carlson. No Spiegel. No.

Motion fails.

Then I move to Item F2, Recommendation to the Council Amendment to City Council Policy 2.0.020 Standing Commissions and other advisory body procedures to remove the June meeting date. May I have a motion?

I'll make a motion to recommendation the council amendment to city council policy 20.020. All right. Is there a second? I second. And I'm calling now for a staff report.

During the May Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, during the discussion regarding removing the August from the regular monthly meeting schedule, there was also mention of removing June from the regular monthly meeting schedule. If that is the wish of the commission, the following motion is in order and the motion is presented as in just like the last motion, but it's also available in your packets.

Does any of the commissioners wish to say anything about this?

Honestly, Yeah. I feel feel differently about this one than I do the other one. I don't want it. I didn't want to cancel both of them. However, June, June and July feel like the more summer months where we could go without having a meeting.

I was not comfortable with three months off, but two months. Okay, I can see it.

And I will say I'm bummed. We have been corresponding the last couple weeks, so there wasn't time to get it in the packet here. As I kind of mentioned, we weren't in support of the rule change. We like our rules, but that will be brought up at the next meeting with some stuff there as well.

So we were corresponding back and forth about that through just our level. The requests came into our level at our policy and we said no. But then this is like the next step in kind of questioning that. So coming in there with June, say if they're like, hey, can you add it in today's packet today? No.

Especially with emotion and everything. But if August was still on the table and someone emailed me and be like, hey, I can't put it. We don't have a meeting until August. It could be added into the August packet. So sorry if that.

Well, that was a really long way of saying that. Autumn, do you have a question? No.

Okay. I didn't say that. The most clear. I do worse when I'm taking notes and talking. So.

And I'll go ahead and. Oh, can I ask a question really quick? So because I'm taking notes, I'm saying you're in favor of maybe canceling June, but not, not three months in a row. Okay. And I'll say that when I mentioned this at the last meeting, I was under kind of the thought Too that June, if any of the months between June and August would be more busy for us, would be probably June versus August.

But again, like I say, kind of indifferent to this.

I'd be fine coming to a June meeting. Right.

Did you want to say anything?

I'm just trying to recall our last meeting because I believe this became a discussion topic because I think we were in reference to today's meeting. I don't think this was a permanent decision. I, I could be completely wrong. That's why I've been sitting here trying to think. You could see my thought process right now.

But I thought that this was only regarding today's meeting. Only I could be wrong, though. Okay, but we're here. So we're here today. So how I interpreted it during the meeting and how I brought it forth to the clerk, I think in the minutes was that we were talking about canceling August.

We. We moved to cancel this year's August meeting meeting, and then there was interest in doing it in future meetings as well. So taking it off the schedule and then June kind of got thrown out there as a discussion item, and now we're here discussing August and June as that topic. So nothing currently has been canceled besides this year through you guys, except for the August meeting this year, but it's not a regular. So like, if, no, if this was denied, next year our schedule would show a June meeting and an August meeting.

Well, sorry. And if this was approved, it would go to council to revise the policy and then remove the August meeting off.

I mean June. I mean the June meeting. Yep. I definitely mean June.

Okay. My, My comments, I guess, are exactly the way I felt about August. I don't like the idea of having, as we had tonight, people who have something to say, have something to ask, have something to inquire about. I don't particularly like the idea of canceling permanently these meetings. I would rather see them canceled because there is no business to be taken up.

But I think we serve as commissioners to be here to serve people of this community. And I think canceling meetings doesn't really do that. And I know that people have plans. I know that people are busy. I know that people take vacations and those sorts of things.

And it may come up that we don't have enough people prior to. To have the meeting. They've been canceled in advance of the actual meeting before.

I just really don't think that commissions are serving the community if they permanently cancel several months in advance. Now I can't speak to July right now if that ever came up, I probably would still have the same feelings about it.

So I object to it. I guess.

As an Alaskan, I really want to be outside right now. And I bet, I bet. And I know that there are ways that we could serve our community better than sitting in this room. And even though Roberts rules of orders go out the window when we leave, I wonder if the kite festival or if hosting a day in the community garden or being part of the planting day could be ways that we involve ourselves instead of just sitting in the room and doing the work. I wonder if there are opportunities that we need to take advantage of as a crew and as a commission because there's so much happening on our community right now.

I guarantee you there's an event that we could be talking to somebody about the changes that they want to see in the community. I bet we could be getting ourselves out there if we were outside right now. And that's only self serving because I would rather be gardening, honestly, just because that's it's the time to do those outdoor things. And there's so much happening in our town and from Parks and Rec that we should be involving ourselves in that. I wonder if we could involve ourselves in the months of June, July and August at one of those events with a table or doing something similar where we were taking, getting soliciting community feedback.

I don't disagree with what you're saying.

I just worry that if there are people that want to come and bring something to our attention, we should be available to do that.

Otherwise it sort of negates the need for a commission. Mm.

My opinion would be to, I guess I would say to keep the meeting simply because we do want to keep ourselves available to our community, to be able to motion their ideas and put them in. And I do agree we should still prioritize our work sessions. And I feel like we can certainly utilize these meetings to create more ideas for our work sessions. So that way we can do a little bit more outreach and communicate and talk to our community. But I feel as though I do agree with you, Sharon.

I do believe we should still utilize these meetings and still be available to our public.

And I'm just going to make an additional comment.

None of us except Michael have been on this commission for very long, but I think if we don't have any business to take up, we could certainly cancel the meeting in advance or we could come here and cancel it. And I wonder if then we could have discussions to understand things a little bit more. Like I think we're probably going to want to have some sort of a discussion about what these people were here talking about tonight. I have probably a lot of questions and no answers. And I think if I listen to commission members sort of just talking and bringing up points and that sort of thing, we would probably get a lot further in our meetings when we bring those things to a vote.

So I'm just not in favor of canceling monthly meetings.

So what I'm hearing is, are we moving to a motion at this point? No. So, yeah, the motion's on the floor. That's where I was meeting. So she'll call for a roll call when discussion's over.

Okay,.

Question. Since it's already June and this doesn't even impact us this year, can we table this until February?

Specifically February, because February, March, and April are the times we can discuss.

Are we allowed to do that? Is that case? Table 1 second. This is an interesting one. I think so.

But since it's not. I feel like when I've done this before with resolutions and ordinances, there's a long thing. So, sorry, since we already decided about August, this doesn't even necessarily.

Well,.

I'm on the opinion that we're here to be here for our community. We chose to be here for a reason. And I'm just. And I do agree, if we end up having no topics to discuss, we can certainly cancel the meeting in advance. So we can choose to have that, if we choose to do so.

So that's kind of where I'm thinking. So if you did want to try to move it, it would have to get. You'd have to make the motion to table it to, like, the next meeting, I believe, and then that have to get seconded and then voted on. So that could still get denied, and then we would come back and then it would either get tabled or if it got denied, then we would vote on the motion.

I'd personally like to ask this group that we make this decision tonight and just be done with it,.

Keeping the meeting not in favor.

Okay, I'm gonna call for a vote at this point and kind of see where we stand. All right. Just one second and I will do the call. Motion.

It.

No,.

No, no,.

Fisher. No. Motion fails.

Okay, moving on to F3 about a fall parks tour. Can I have a staff report, please?

All right. The Parks and Recreation Commission approved work plan includes a goal to conduct two tours of parks and facilities in support of this goal. This memo initiates the discussion of potential locations for scheduling. I said the two tours, but we did Do a tour tonight of a facility. And I know at the last meeting we also discussed this a little bit.

So I tried to kind of recap. It sounded like the parks and rec. So this is my recommendation off of our discussion from the last meeting of the Parks and Recreation recommends touring Easton Eagle Disc Golf Course, Old Town park, and then the Kenai Sports Complex. So it sounded like there wanted to be a sampling of what we have out there. Easton Trails provides a disc golf, a multi use trail system that also butts up against the golf course.

And then the Old Town park provides a playground. And then there's also the historic cabin next to it. And then the Kenai Sports Complex kind of adds that new topic that kind of brought up a lot of questions during our master plan. This is a recommendation off of your guys last discussion. It does not have to be that open to the feedback.

And then we can also talk about dates as well.

Thank you. Is there any discussion by the commission?

What do we consider fall is my first question. I usually do this in August. Yep. Because at the. Oh, wait, sorry, one second.

No. So the idea is that usually we meet, we'll do the tour in August and then in September we'll do some kind of review of the capital improvement plan. So you can kind of go out and see all the stuff before we do the review. So it's kind of fresh in your mind. So it's always kind of been, I think the thought process of hey, we'll do a tour.

You used to do one tour. Then it's like, hey, I want to see this. And then we, you know, we toured all 33 locations. And that just driving by them takes two and a half hours. So then it was like, okay, maybe we can break it up and every few years still do a full on tour.

But the master plan also gives us a really nice snapshot in inventory. And developing the inventory we had last year I think was appreciated. So kind of seeing like, oh, hey, this isn't our capital improvement plan from last year. I want to go look at that. And then when we go and vote on the capital improvement plan, you're like, okay, why do you want this tractor?

That was a conversation. A few years ago I pitched getting a new tractor, which we now have one, we'll soon have two. And I'm very excited about it. So did that answer your question though? You were kind of asking why we do it in fall and when we do it in fall.

So typically it's in August before the meeting. It could be in September. Right? Before the meeting. But I would recommend that we do it before the September meeting.

And it doesn't have to be on any, you know, if there's a recommendation I'll have to look at. You know, beautification usually keeps it like they do a. They do a garden tour. Beautification does. And they typically keep that on a Tuesday, which is their regular time to meet.

And I usually say, hey, recommend that so we don't conflict with like beautification doing their fall garden tour or anything. But it could be the first Thursday, it could be the second Thursday, it could be the third Thursday. If there's even possibility of a fifth Thursday. I don't know. Well, are we touring all of these facilities?

Because it sounds like it might be an all day or half day thing. Yeah, I would see touring these three facilities because we wouldn't have to walk the entire trail system because that could take some time. But we could do a significant loop. And I think that would probably take between 30 and 45 minutes. And then we would drive to old.

So I think this tour would take about two and a half hours.

Yeah, two and a half. Two to two and a half, because we'd walk that. But the sports complex is an open sports complex that's a handful of acres. Old Town park is about one acre. So there's not a lot to those facilities.

Would be more like a 15 minute walkthrough and then maybe discussing items like in the capital improvement plan. I mean, we can't discuss business during work sessions. So I take that back. But as you look at those things, the longest walk would probably be in the Easton Trails where we have our disc golf. We'd walk by the golf course.

I could talk about the ski trails too, because those connect up to that.

Now if you guys want to shoot for a target of, hey, I don't want to take a tour that's more than two hours. That's something I could probably devote. You know, I could be like, oh, we're gonna park right here, we're gonna walk in here, walk out, and then we're gonna drive to Old Town, do a quick walk through Old Town, and we'll end at the sports complex.

So looking at the calendar. So just for everyone's reference, so for August, our next meeting would be on the. Looks like the 6th. So that Thursday. So if we're looking at date wise, if you guys want, we could do like looking at time frame wise, because I get off of work at 5, 5:30, so I wouldn't.

It would not Be plausible for me to do it during the weekday. It would have to be on a weekend. If we want to have discussion topics like let's say we bring up good comments or if we send Tyler some emails regarding improvement plans for any of these areas. I feel like it would be best to do it on like the 1st or 2nd of August so that first weekend. So that way we can compile our thoughts, ideas and Tyler has enough time to compile it into our meeting for August.

That's my idea. The meeting in August has.

Well, you guys decided to cancel the meeting in August so there is no meeting in August right now. Sorry, that hasn't been updated since our last meeting. Those sheets live up there. They get put out there when there goes there. But at the last meeting there was a vote to cancel the meeting in August one time.

So we can meet. Okay, but to your point, I hear that you need a weekend for this to work. Yeah. Yes. Okay heard.

And we can do it any weekend. Are there any weekends that don't work or is that. Do weekends work for the rest of everybody.

Other than dip knitting?

I would probably make myself available for a weekend and just not plan something else. I have nothing planned at this point and I'd rather have the longer amount of time and visit several areas so I get a better understanding. Yes, I guess we can all go out and individually look at them. But I have a lot of questions about some areas and I'd rather have a longer session on a weekend.

I might also go to. What does that do for staff? Yeah,.

So typically our staff like assistant director Brown who hourly would. She probably wouldn't be in attendance because there's 40 hours in the week and that would take away staff resources on that.

But my. Myself I could, I guess I would just request not the first two weekends in August, my kids birthdays. But I mean if you guys want to move for that, that that is fine though. So typically we've always done them on the weekdays between like at that 6 o' clock time. We can do accommodate a 6 o' clock time time.

I know that pushes it later in there as well. So yeah, I would just suggest doing that. Personally I'm kind of stingy about my weekends but I. I think you know these recommended parks in August and if we had to do it a little bit later in the evening. Sounds, sounds.

I guess there's nothing. Excuse me. I guess there's nothing preventing us for just going out as a group and maybe going around and looking at a couple of things and then when we actually had a meeting that included staff, we might have a better idea of questions that we had, ideas that we have. There may be public meeting acts, rules. That.

That would come into play there. But yes. So just for my clarification, so if say three of the commissioners decided to go walk one of the trails, think that might be a violation of. I don't know the number, but yes, if there was any business discussed. Because you can't.

Yeah. You can't discuss shenanigans outside of the space and. Because then you don't have a quorum. Shenanigans. I just went through my orientation.

I'll remember that.

Since we all still like meetings in August, could we meet on August 5th or 6th, which was supposed to be our meeting date and time? Can we do our. Can we do a two hour tour, five to seven?

Well, I think we had a conflict. Commissioner, you said do you work till 5:30? Yeah, I work from like 5 to 5:30. And with my new position, it's difficult to leave early sometimes. Such a long tour.

What if we. I'm also open for this. This is on the discussion though too, where I, I know it's not seeing everything, but like if. Because I know there was. The big highlight I got from the last meeting was you wanted to see things that we had out there.

If, say we say, you know what, Tyler? We want to see a trail, a park and a sports complex. We could do municipal park. There's a trail, there's a playground. And then we could go right to the sports complex.

There's a trail system. Michael is a certified tour guide on that system. Well, we went on that tour together. You learned all the same fun facts I did.

I found a lot of value in going out together and seeing all the parks at one time. But it was a pretty long tour. Yeah, but I think the idea was to get a, like a snapshot of a park and a trail and you really wanted to see the sports complex. And I think also reviewing the master plan and you'll. You'll see a soccer field and a parking lot and there's a lot of trees.

But it's kind of like this is kind of. And we don't have a plan yet. There's kind of. The plan is to kind of have a plan because in order to turn that into what the master plan is saying, you would have to do a schematic design. And that's going to be a lot of money to even just build the design of where would we put a baseball field?

Where Would we put a softball field? Where would we add additional parking?

The questions I was thinking of about that sports complex was, so, are you going to have a separate field for soccer? Are you going to have a separate field for baseball, A separate field for. Or whatever. And then we're going to talk, you know, about how much parking that might involve. We're going to talk about concessions and all of those things that I don't know enough about right now to make any kind of informed decisions.

Well, no. And so probably one of the decisions in that process is. Would be going through me as a, you know, as a. As a park professional and as a municipal professional. Of how we would handle that is we would, you know, I'm going to make stuff up, okay?

I'm just going to say X. The sports complex, we think is going to cost X amount of dollars in order to properly do that. I'm not an engineer, I'm not an architect. What we do know is we do have some community feedback of, hey, we want to see sports fields out there. We don't want to see a reduction in sports fields.

There may be another push for community feedback, but it's like, it's going to cost X amount of dollars. So we're going to go do probably in addition to. Or separately one year, we would probably go out and do a design that would be a capital project in itself. We redesigned Old Town Park. Remember when we reviewed that, that was about a $25,000 design.

So doing a schematic design where you can get a layout and get a conceptual thing so the public can feedback on it. And I think that's where we wanted to do this master plan, because before there were some designs that weren't to scale, it seemed like. Or they were conceptual. So to get a real design that can show the layout and then that can be voted on as like, yes, that's what we want. Like, that's what we want to see.

That's what we want to spend money on. So I think the first step is to go out and get a professional design done, and then we could see what it would look like, because with the feedback we've gotten is we don't want to see a reduction in fields. We want to see a consolidation of all of our fields out there. That's all we know right now. We don't know what it would look like until we would get a professional designer.

I guess let's get back to what do we want to see on our fall tour? And then they can start planning, planning, it and giving us an agenda. So I'm hearing about six to eight, nothing bigger than six to eight. Kind of shoot for two hours and then maybe after this season, because we're going to do that tour. Discuss the logistics of doing a full parks tour, either in two parts or planning that out where we could do.

And even if it was in the, in the fall or in the spring, because what we don't have is we used to have the use of a van, but that became weird with public and everything where we could do a more comprehensive tour and see all the locations. Because I know that that was a big bite of time and I think that was the one feedback we got was like, hey, I would like to spend more time at parks and I would like to go out. So even if we made it into two bites, it's like, hey, we're gonna do these two, three hour tours and we're going to do it, I don't know, April 2nd when it's pouring rain or so I mean, and I'm being, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to be disingenuous to this, but not trying to throw out summer plans right now when typical. Our tours are in the summer. And you know, there's pros and cons to that.

Like, I think when we did the full parks tour, one cool thing, it was a Thursday night, so our softball field was popping off, it was full, our rugby field was full, our soccer complex was full. It was cool to see that on a Thursday night during the summer. But if it's going to come out to seeing it and fitting with everyone's schedule, maybe the shoulder season would be a good time to do it in the future of like, hey, we're going to break it off and we're going to see the first 15 properties and we're going to bust it out like X, Y and Z. And Tyler is going to stay on top of us and be like 10 minutes here, then we're moving. 10 Minutes here and then we're moving.

Or do you guys. Is there anything specific that I'm missing? I'm. I'm kind of filling in the gaps here and.

I'm just not sure where we're at right now. So it doesn't look like we're. The last thing I said was municipal park, where we have a playground, a trail, and then go to the sports complex. So you can at least get a good snapshot of what we have out there. And for that question, I can give ideas of what I see out there, but it's not.

There's such a process. Like I could say I've seen this X, Y. Like I'll give you an example. If you ever go to Skyview High School, there's a big pull off off the highway where you pull off into their parking lot. Like the Skyview High School is a sports complex unto itself.

I would envision something like that happening after the soccer fields that would go into a main entrance and the soccer fields keeping their parking lot. But just for safety, you're going to need some kind of more pull off, big pull off. Because I think like the sports center in Soldotna runs into this where it's a 90 and it causes some backs up on traffic. So I really like the idea of having something like Skyview High School has. But that's also a state highway.

So I don't know how a light system would work. But a pull off exit so everyone can get in there safely and not too fast into another parking lot I think would be a great idea. I don't know where the baseball fields would go, I don't know where the softball fields will go. But that is one thing that I envision that I've seen at other complexes. But we would pay an architect who is, who would go look at other architect designs and probably other complexes.

And what I would build out would be the, you know, their request for a proposal for a design. Be like, I want to see, make sure they're safe exiting off the highway. I want to make sure there's at least there's no reduction in fields, there's no reduction in parking. Maybe there's a request for a camping area. So those are the things I would build out a proposal for a professional to bid on and be like, hey, for this much money, I will build you a design.

So there's things that I would take into consideration.

But we could go out there and look at it and be like,.

I guess I'm kind of level that I'm not going to understand that big design unless I go out there early on and just kind of look at what the possibilities are. And that's just my own feeling about it. So I would love to see the disc golf course for sure. I think it could be a really big draw. But I honestly never seen it before.

Or the fact that there are apparently two disc golf areas.

Okay, so we could skip the playground. We could do Eagle Crest, see a trail system, see the disc golf course trail system. And then we could go out to the sports complex.

And I think that would keep us in a happy two hour range and we could public. And this is the other hard thing is we publicly notice this. So it's also. And we publicly notice this work session. So we would say, hey, you know what, at 6pm we're gonna meet at Eagle Crest Disc Golf Course.

Not Eagle Crest. Eagle Disc Golf Course. Eagle Disc Golf Course. Not the. Or we could meet at the east end trailhead.

There's. There's two trailheads. Fun fact. But we're gonna meet at that location and park there. And we're gonna spend about 45 minutes there.

And then at 7 o' clock we're going to meet at the Kenai Sports Complex. And then I would prefer that because that allows us actual time to be in each of those facilities and they're highly used and encouraged through our community. And I noticed that few of us have discussed wanting to look at those primarily. And I know there are other locations we can travel to on our own time. We can discuss at another meeting.

Just because summer's coming up, summer's now so we can utilize and see the ones that are closer in town too. Because now that we do have that packet of what the trails are, where they are, our current parks. But I think those are the two that I primarily wanted to discuss and walk with our commission and see what everyone's opinions were regarding that. Those were my top two priority, my personal preference.

I think we're pretty much in agreement that we want to do it and probably do it that way.

And I suppose if we put out a schedule for people, they can join us. If they can't come to part of it, then they would know to meet us at such and such. So. I like that idea. All right,.

I just wrote your. I just, I'm doing your initials and then I wrote your name out after it. So.

All right, I think I got a plan.

Oh, and so what I'm hearing is on the original scheduled August meeting, which was canceled, is when you guys would like to hold that work session. And we'll hold that from 6 to 8 o', clock, August 6th. That works for me.

I'm fine with it. I'm gonna make myself available. So.

If you can get off work early, you could play 18 holes of disc golf. Just meet us there. So I think it's about a mile after you do it. All right, so.

Okay, are we ready to move on? We've got a plan now. All right, go on to reports. Director Best, do you have a report for us? I got something in Here.

Oh, I'm trying to write a memo in my report and I was going to make it more formal for you guys where I have. Because I used to just attack to informational items. I ran out of time. We've been hiring all of our seasonals and onboarding but I made a memo that says see all this stuff attached? But in here is a flyer for a kite festival this Saturday.

It's 11 to 4. Sharon's going to be handing out popsicles I think from 11 to 1.

Or are you on the afternoon shift?

Am I available from 11 to 1? No, you signed up to hand out popsicles. Oh, oh yes I am. Is that when you're on the first shift? I think it's actually 12:30 to 3.

Okay. I, I forgot what the time. Yeah, Trans will be handing out popsicles in the afternoon for the kite festival. We reached out. A couple people from the senior center are going to come over and hand out.

We have a bunch of otter pops or Otter pop. Like popsicles? Yes.

And then again I've been trying to attach these. I also see myself changing these in the future. We have our mid month reports that I'll be working on this tomorrow and on Monday to go into the next council meeting. At the second council meeting, all department heads provide this mid month report. I usually try to do a snapshot of what we're doing.

You know, in here it says parks and rec begin preparing fields for the spring sports season. So kind of what we're doing outside. And then in the winter I'll attack trails more because we have, we do our ski trails that get heavily used. And then I, then I talk about our events and then I usually talk about the rec center. And then we have our Kenai rec center visits which if you look at our numbers since opening the field house annually I think took a little bit of a dip.

But one thing we've been starting to track is we have a sign in system there. But it doesn't always catch, you know, the mom watching her kid play basketball or toddler time. A mom and dad go in with their toddler. That's three people actually using our facility. And on the sign in that's just one people sneaking in and not paying.

The door counter gets them. And that does happen as we do have one staff there and they're the janitor, they're the facility monitor there. From the top down. They do everything in that facility. Again, occasionally we have some extra hours where we can sometimes get a double flex there where say if it's City league basketball.

The gym's packed, but most the time there's just one staff member there. So we do miss things. And then there's. So we started adding, you can see here, so number of unique sign ins. So that's like weight room, cardio room, racquetball court, shower, sauna, gymnasium, gym, gym rental participation.

We've been trying to track that a little more where if you rent it, like I'm going to play pickleball and rent the gym. We'll try to count how many people are in your party. The door counter gets all of that. So our unique sign INS got 3433. Our door counter counted 5512 people.

So we're seeing more traffic than those numbers were all showing. So this is one of those numbers. We started tracking a few, I think in January and we just wanted to start reporting on that because we felt like, you know, you add, you multiply that by 12 and then pretty quickly we're. Oh wow. I think like there was probably 10 to 20,000 more people in this building than we're actually showing.

And it does count exits too, but we usually just count ends. Yes, sorry. The door counter is a live person or like a. It is a. So it's a machine.

It is a machine that looks like a camera. It can be turned into a camera, but right now it's set up to just be a door counter. Yes. And it is a very sophisticated door counter. Like you can, it doesn't record, but you can watch the, like there's line breakers, like where you can just have a beam and two people can walk in.

And it counts one. This one actually has video technology. It capabilizes where it can differentiate if like three people walk in together.

Yep. Cool.

And then I have a picture. Volunteers and park staff picking up trash along the Keen Esper Highway. Sharon, I did not take your picture. But.

And then we have a flyer for our planting day where that was just a blast we had. I just, I don't have the number. It's right around 25 people came to the event. And then before it we had four people. Four people from Kaitsi who came.

And then we just had five or six from a new life church that did a bunch of planting as well.

And then I am happy. Besides, we. I think on Monday our last seasonal starts for parts and wreck maintenance. Come July we'll have 15 or 16 PU fishery seasonal start. And they'll work for just over three weeks and they'll work almost every day for three weeks until the fishery is over, and they'll get lots of overtime.

But other words than that. We're kind of kicking off our summer operations. We're getting our seasonal strains. We're starting to mow grass, as you guys saw in our tour earlier. We're starting to do pathway maintenance.

We, you know, before we get on our regular MOW routine, the cold winter has really slowed down the grass mowing. We've mowed in April. We just started mowing. And be honest, it was kind of nice. We were able to do a lot.

A little bit of landscape stuff that you saw out there and do some projects that. And you think. You talk about pulling out grass and you're like, oh, this will just take a few hours. But then it's like, oh, that took four people, eight hours. That is 32 working hours that.

That got attacked. And then I think I always use Eric Hansen. I mean, that. That was such a big lift. Last year, we had a community group come to Eric Hansen Park.

Eric Hansen, Scout park, that Memorial Park. And it was crazy how much we got done, but then also what the dreams were. So I met with this group, and they were like, hey, we're gonna have 30 people. And it was right around there. I have official numbers and a report, and we're gonna do this, this, and this.

So I made a list. I was like, hey, this is what we want to get done. And they're like, well. And I made a schedule for the day. And they're like, oh, well, we're only going to be there from 8 to noon.

I'm like, okay, we're going to do this and this. And they're like, we want to do more. I'm like, let's start with this and this. And I feel like I spent those four hours making sure we weren't digging a hole that wasn't going to get filled in. No, they were great.

They bought a bunch of supplies. They worked with the Hanson family, which donated that land so that park could be there in memoriam of their son. And to honor the Scouts, they got a place plaque donated to talk about it, because there's a Boy Scout. Boy Scout statue there. That's not Eric Hansen.

It's just a Boy Scout. But it's like one of eight statues in the country that honors the Scouts. And they actually added a plaque to it with permissions from the Scouts in there. And then the Scouts came in and redid the garden beds a little bit, but the primary one was just digging up gravel that had grass growing in it and getting all the organic material out and putting down new gravel. And then we also had a 600 foot piece of rope line.

It's by the ocean. It's line, not rope. We ain't cowboys here. Fishermen. Sorry.

I used to commercial fish and that got strung out on the park and made a pretty fence. The line was getting really dilapidated so they got that donated and we worked with, I think it was cold Coldstream Financial Group worked with the Hanson family and got a lot of that work done. But sorry, 30 people times four. A lot of working man hours. We also had all 10 of our seasonals there all day.

So it was just a huge, significant amount of time. And I think some people will see that and be like, oh, that looks great. That was probably a couple hours and I'm like, it was so much more. But it was really nice to get out before the grass is mowing and do a lot of maintenance and do a lot of that work on some of that stuff. I mean, I think if you go look for it, you can find it.

But I am really proud of our team and they're always moving and always working and always trying to make the parks better and safer. So.

Sorry, I'm going back to my workbook here.

Okay. That's my report.

Okay. Thank you for your report.

Commission chair has no report and our city council liaison. There's no one here, so there will not be a report from them. I guess I'll move on to any additional public comments. I don't see see anyone here.

And are there any remote attendees wishing to speak? There are no remote attendees. Okay, then the next item would be the next meeting. Attendance notification. Scheduled meeting for September 3, 2026.

Is anyone at this point planning to be absent or attending remotely?

Okay.

And.

Lastly, do the commissioners have any further comments or questions?

Comment and thank you. The page numbering is so much easier treat. I don't know if it's brand new, but the little boxes certainly helped me out a lot. So if it's new, thank you. If it's not, thank you.

I second that actually. But I really, I've been. Can we move the August date closer to our September meeting? I was just thinking about it and that's a long time between the tour and the actual meeting where we're going to talk about it. I know it's late in the game, but how long, Tyler, how long do you need?

And are you guys okay with that?

A month is a long time.

I guess. My only thought, and it may be more of a question.

What sort of notice needs to be given to the public if you were going to change that first Thursday? Well, that first Thursday, Yeah. So yeah, it could be any, any, any date. We would just follow it up with a, hey, this is when the meeting is going to happen. This is when the work session will happen.

Technically offered that date in the original discussion. I think so. So I mean, if you guys wanted to do. And I'm throwing out dates here, like the 27th, the week before the meeting. I know that's back to back.

That's something we could do. So it was close to it and memory was good.

I was also looking at August 27th just because it is a week ahead of our other, our other meeting. My only question is, does that put you on a crunchy timeline or are you cool with that? Oh, that's a really good point because then I'd have to prepare the cip. Well, no, no, no, no, that's fine. Yeah, you're good with that?

No, because we won't approve the cip. It'll just be a discussion. Okay. If you guys bring stuff to discuss at it, that'll get compiled and we can talk about it. Got it.

Okay. Okay. So it's good for you. Yep. And not to not try to over meeting you guys because it would all still be one meeting if we had topics there too.

Because, because this was a request of a former Commissioner Graham at one point was, hey, we talk about all these great ideas and then say we have an official motion on that item. We have to have a meeting right after that meeting. They say that takes 10, 15, 30 minutes. Or right before that meeting we could fall into a work session of saying like we could just have a roundtable like this and discuss all the ideas and then at the October meeting we could vote on everything. So it would be two meetings, but it would all be in like one meeting time where if there was an official motion, it'd be like immediately following the meeting we're going to have a work session.

We could powwow down here. I think that was a former Commissioner Graham used to ask for. It was more of an informal pow wow where we, and I know some of you have been here when we've set up tables down here before. So.

So any, any answers to that question? That works for me as long as we keep it at the 6 o' clock start time because once school starts, my hours will go back to working later. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. As long as it's in the evening, then I should be fairly comfortable.

So you're suggesting we have a regular meeting? No, restate. Restate that a little bit. Yes. The park tour that we have just scheduled on August 6th.

I would love to reschedule it for August 27th. It's a week before our September meeting where we're going to discuss all of the things that we learn on this tour. That was my original thought also. Yeah. Month between meetings is great for us on regular, but this is a discussion.

And Tyler said it was fine if we. If it was just a week ahead. It's not going to put him in a crunchy timeline because it's just a discussion in September anyway. And then in August. Nope.

October is when we would actually vote on anything. Okay. I'm fine with that. I'm okay with the date. Okay.

So, yeah. Yeah, I think there's no official motion. So it's just me over the next whenever, basically making there's adequate public notice that we're gonna have a work session on that date, I believe. Okay.

Okay. I'm going to say I see no further business before this body. Does anybody else have anything? Then we are adjourned.