05/07/26 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting

You're on the record. Yeah, I would like to call the May 7th, 2026 Parks and Recreation Commission regular meeting to order. We will start. If you're able, please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. 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.

Okay, thank you. Moving on, can we have roll call, please?

Chair Wisniewski.

Vice Chair Fischer. Present. Bernard. Present. Pepper.

Carlson. Here. Spiegler. Here. Student Representative Tanner.

You have a quorum.

Can I have a motion to approve the agenda? I motion. Thank you. Second. Second.

Second. All right, it looks like it's been approved. So actually, uh, so we'll go into— are there any revisions? Okay, are there any revisions to the agenda?

So you can say, are there any objections? Are there any objections to approving the agenda as presented? Hearing none, the agenda is approved.

And then, um, uh, are there— is there anyone present for scheduled public comments?

We have none. I see none. Um, how about any unscheduled public comments? And again, I see none.

Are there any members from the public who would like to speak on any item not appearing on the agenda?

I see none. Uh, is there anyone remote that you're aware of?

All right, and then do I have a mo— a motion to approve the minutes of this meeting? Um, I need a motion to approve the minutes of the April 2nd, 2026 meeting. I motion the minutes.

Any— and I need a second.

I second. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Are there any revisions to the minutes?

All right, hearing none, are there any objections to approving the minutes?

Hearing none, the minutes are approved.

Now moving on to unfinished business, we have none. Is that true? Okay.

And then this brings us to new business, and the first item is a recommendation for the approval of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan.

And I need a motion.

I motion. Second.

I can second. Okay, and now I will call for a staff report. All right, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read through the memo, uh, but then I'll talk about it a little bit. On April 2nd, the draft City of Kenai Parks and Rec Master Plan was presented to the Parks and Rec Commission for review and discussion. No changes or recommendations were provided by the commissions or members of the public in attendance.

The commission is therefore being asked to formally forward the plan to the City Council, uh, with a recommendation for approval. The City Council will review the plan at an upcoming meeting. Last night, City Council approved to do a work session before their next meeting to go through a similar presentation that you guys went up. So what this would be doing, it's, um, it's a recommend— a recommendation to council to approve the plan, saying you guys liked it, and then they would take it under consideration as they look over the plan as well.

Okay, uh, is there any commission discussion? I know you mentioned that we were doing like a work study session. Do you have like a preferable like date range that you're looking at by any chance? Because I know summer's coming up.

So what's, what's the question on that? I'm sorry, you were mentioning about a date Regarding the work session, I was just inquiring if you were looking into preferable dates. Yes, the, the, the work session is going to be at 5 PM with council on May 20th. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Okay, is there any other discussion?

So I guess now we will call for a vote on the main motion.

So it has been motioned to recommend, so that motion is on the floor. I did my staff report, we discussed it, and now it is, uh, we would have a roll call to go through the vote. Unless someone requested unanimous consent.

You got to hit your mic. I'd like to request a vote of unanimous consent. I'm sorry, you requested unanimous— unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objec— and then you can say unanimous consent is requested, ask if there's—. Okay, unanimous consent has been requested.

Are there any objections? I do want to say unanimous consent may need seconded. It isn't comfortable. So is there a second on that? I will second.

Okay. All right, now are there any objections?

Hearing none, I guess we have unanimous consent.

Okay, the next item on our agenda is, um, a discussion and recommendation on the removal of the August meeting of Parks and Recreation.

Is there a motion to that effect?

I motion to remove the August Parks and Rec Commission meeting. Is there a second? I will second.

Okay, and then I call for a staff report.

All right, so in the memo it goes over— over the past 5 years, the Parks and Recreation Commission regularly scheduled August meeting has been canceled due to lack of agenda items. This pattern has been identified, a lack of effectiveness in holding a meeting at this time. Uh, the purpose of this is to just discuss this. I mean, we can still have the meeting if that's what the body wishes. However, it usually seems like that, uh, that early time in August everyone's still busy enjoying summer.

And then another discussion we'd have down here is doing tour dates. So we'd most likely probably have a work session performing a tour in that month. Anyways, so we would still meet during that month. We just wouldn't have a formal regular meeting. Uh, and then we can do—.

Okay, um, is there any discussion on this motion? I just maybe recommend considering also the month of June, even though that's given us 3 months without a meeting. June's pretty busy, I think, for everybody too. I'll just throw that out there.

Um, so what I, what I can do with that is add a— if that's the wish of any commission member, is always welcome to reach out to me about putting items on the agenda. Uh, that's something I could probably put on the next agenda and then compile. So what I did with this one is I looked at the last time we had a meeting, and it was 6 years ago in August. So the last 5 years it's been canceled. So I could kind of review what our August agendas look like— or sorry, our June agendas— and what what they looked like and kind of— and looked at that and, and look at that and provide information like I did here.

Like, hey, in June we have typically done X, Y, and Z.

All right, is there any other discussion?

Then I will call for a vote on the motion to remove the August Parks and Recreation meeting.

I motion to remove the August meeting. Well, so we've already motioned it. Yeah, yeah. So, yep, so we do the motion and it's seconded, and then it's on the floor, it's on the table, it's the item we're talking about. And then I do a report on it, and then we discuss it.

So it's on there. Um, so all we have to do is either do a roll call vote, or someone could request unanimous consent, and that could be seconded, and we could Sorry, I didn't phrase that very well. We can call for a vote or unanimous consent.

Then I will request the unanimous consent.

Sure, I can second that. Okay, then are there any objections? Hearing no objections, uh, unanimous consent. Is approved to remove the August Parks and Recreation meeting. I just want to raise this too.

It's a recommendation to remove it because Council oversees, I think, the dates and everything. So this may be a motion that goes forth to— that me and the clerk put together and put forth to either Councilor or the Mayor.

Is that for—. Yes, there's no meeting in July currently, correct? Yep. And then August, and then at the next, at the next meeting in June, this could be a discussion item where I'll compile some information on the memo and everything. But we're still doing the, uh, work sessions during that, those time frames, possibly?

That is a, I think, a discussion item coming up right next. Awesome.

Okay, uh, now we move on to the discussion of a suggestion of tour dates and location, and I'm calling for a staff report.

All right, so, so in the support of Parks and Recreation, uh, the Parks and Recreation approved work plan includes a goal to conduct 2 tours of parks and facilities. In support of this goal, this memo is initiating a discussion of potential locations and the scheduling for 2 tours. The Parks and Recreation Department recommends holding 1 tour in June, which could also be immediately after following our meeting in June, and a 2nd tour in September, both in advance of regular— both in— oh, sorry, or it could be before, both in advance of regular scheduled Commission meetings. So we could do it at 5:00 PM. There could also be a post-tour as well.

That's what we've done traditionally. We've either come in before the meeting and toured a location, or we've come in after the meeting and toured a location. Several years ago, we did a full parks tour. I will say that is a lot. Just driving by everything and being like, that's that, is like 2.5 hours.

But we've kind of— like, I think it would be really cool to get the commission and review the rec center, you know, It's a facility, but it's also probably, you know, if you were gonna call it a park, our most visited park. So that's a really cool facility that has a lot of service to the community. And then I would also be open if there's any areas people wanna go to, you know, Municipal Park, there's also access down to the beach, but in any park that is in our plans and inventory and everything that you guys would be interested in.

Moving on to commission discussion. Does anybody have any comments about it?

Just because you stated earlier that we were looking at maybe in June for our work session, I'm going to be— my schedule is pretty packed in June. I'll be having like a 2-week vacation and closer to the end, and then work is going to have me on a tight schedule. So if we are going to do, I would prefer to be earlier in the month. I know it could be, um, around the time frame of when we usually have our meetings, so that would be my preference if we were to do it in June. Our meeting in June is on the 4th, so we could tour a park.

We could meet at 5 o'clock at the rec center and tour it and then do our meeting at 6 here.

That is something we've done before, and so that could be a good opportunity there. And then in August, currently our meeting is scheduled on the 6th, so that's something too. We could probably pick like one park and we could tour it.

Does any— have anybody have a park or facility they would like to tour?

I was honestly really looking forward to checking out the recreation center just because we have been doing a lot of improvements. It's been on our main agenda too, especially on our work plan, to do some more improvements on it. So I think that would be a really good spot for us to view and see how our work plan can really affect it, just seeing it with our eyes, being able to kind of review it and be close-knit with our plan. I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear what you said right at first. What area were you talking about?

The recreation center. Oh. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm probably the only one here right now that went to that last session. We went through it and looked at some stuff, so I think with new people, I think that would be a good idea.

I had— anybody else before I say I had some comments?

Okay, I was kind of interested because I had seen the rec center. I was kind of interested in maybe getting a feel for the various and assorted things that are part of Parks and Recreation. So I was thinking of maybe walking part of a trail. I'd like to see one of the disc golf courses. And, um, I'd like to go out to the soccer field, look at the pavilion that is now under our control, and discuss for the future what they're thinking in terms of expansion.

If they're going to talk about moving, um, the baseball and other things out there, I'd like to just go out and look at it and kind of start to understand a little bit what that's going to take. I know it's a ways down the road, but I think for us it would be helpful to kind of have an idea of what they're thinking about doing. So those were my thoughts. I can agree with you there. That's one of the things I was thinking about looking into, especially like our disc golf courses.

I know that once Since I started the Parks and Recreation meeting, I have a lot of friends and family that really do utilize those parks, and they have been giving me comments about like, hey, we should look into beautifying it a little bit more, doing a little bit more maintenance, and being able to really have a close-knit connection with our committee and our community and being able to see that firsthand would be really beneficial, I think.

Yeah, uh, I, I Um, so again, open for discussion on this, but I think the, I think the disc golf course trails would be great. Uh, it's the Eagle, Eagle Disc Golf Course. Um, for the longest time I thought it was Eagle Crest. It might be mentioned in a couple articles and then some stuff online, but I think we fixed it all. Uh, it is the Eagle Disc Golf Course, and Eagle Crest is in Juneau, but it's also on a trail system called the East End Trail System.

I think that could be a really fun one. Like, I met— I spoke with some disc golf members today, and they're actually doing a pickup day this Saturday. And then we talked about how we could install some pro tees, which, if you're not familiar with disc golf, you can have multiple points to throw the disc from. So there's a main pad where you can throw from, and then some pro tees too.

Yeah, I was talking with someone who plays disc golf, and he was— because I know nothing about it— and he was explaining a little a little bit like they have— once a year they have an actual tournament and they travel around to the various ones and he was sort of characterizing for me the really great ones and the ones that are not very great. And I guess they travel all over the peninsula to do this. And so anyway, I thought it'd be nice to learn a little bit about it. They actually told me they're going to be doing a tournament I think May 16th on the trails. But they can't—.

They—. I think their biggest turn— not their biggest tournament, but one tournament they advertise a lot for, and one reason we leave— it's our last porta-potty we leave out there. They do a Chili Chains tournament during the end of October every year too, where I think they serve chili and there can be snow on the ground and they still go out there and play.

But anyway, I thought if we characterized a tour to just get a feel for the various things, so I'd like to go to maybe a couple of playgrounds, maybe a couple of trails, the disc golf thing, and just a sampling of what, what we're working on. I thought would be a good idea. So, so just making sure I understand, are you looking at maybe like the most popular locations just because that's more used, or are you looking at more like the least visited and see how we can improve it to make it more pleasurable. And if we did several in each category, maybe both ends a little bit. Look at the really good ones and look at the ones that are struggling for whatever reason and see what the problems are.

I like it.

Oh, there's, there's, there's no formal motion on this. This was just in support of the work plan to do two tours. That was a That was approved by council at 2 meetings ago. That was a work plan to do 2 tours. So I can work on getting these planned in there.

And then also follow up about the August meeting, if that's going to happen. And if not, that could easily be replaced with a meeting. And then the meeting doesn't have to be on our typical meeting day either. It can also be another day with a work session. But I think we like trying to coincide with the public— our regular scheduled meetings, just for transparency.

It's like, oh, we meet on the— on the first or the second Tuesday, but yes, of the months as we go through. So, um, that's something I can work together, and I'll work with the chair to get those dates put together.

Okay, is there any other discussion, any amendments, anything you want to bring up before we either vote or ask for you to Unanimous. There won't be any. I don't think there's any official. Oh, there's no motion. Just put in there.

Yeah, it's just a discussion. Okay, okay, okay. Then if there's nothing else on any of that, I will move on to having Director Best. May we have your report on Parks and Recreation? Right, uh, so the last month, we, you know, April and May, we really start getting our sports fields ready.

It was a hard year. We had some of the high school games had to be canceled or moved because the fields were so wet. And the high school fields get snowblowed off by our streets department and our parks department to try to help speed up this effect. But with how cold it was in March, that melting factor did not happen that late. The ground wasn't unfrozen, so when it rained, the water pooled up really bad.

They are playing a high school game right now. At least there was one going on right before this meeting, so they are able to get out in the field. Little League's opening day is next week. I think soccer is gonna really kick off this, this Saturday. So the fields are unthawing and moving forward.

And then in the last month, myself and the Assistant Director Brown have done more interviews than I think we can count as we've been hiring for our PU fishery, which I think we hired just over 15 staff. And then the police also hire positions for that. And then we've been hiring our summer maintenance positions. That's 10 positions. So we've been doing lots of interviews, and then we're starting to get offers out to get our team, to get our team put together for the summer.

And then just so you guys know, the fishery is something Parks does oversee. It goes from July 10th to July 31st, and we hire temporary staff, and they work all 21 days every day. So, you know, we have a— it's a short season, but it's a long season, but they really put in a lot of effort, as does our summer maintenance crew. And then upcoming events, Plant Day, the Saturday after Memorial Day, which it's a wonky one this year with how May is falling, the 30th. A lot of times Plant Day will be in the first, how Memorial Day falls.

So it'll be on the 30th. We're going to do Plant Day. We do a cookout afterwards too and do a lunch. If you can't do Plant Day, I just got notified of a church that wants to volunteer to do a couple places they've done every year, but they can't do it till June 3rd. So before or immediately after, if there's a place like, oh, I would love to come, you know, adopt a bed or plant a bed, we can do that a few days before too and set that up as well if you're not able to make it.

But we love having volunteers that day. It's a super fun time. We usually like plant from like 10 to noon, and then we eat with the firefighters, and it's always sunny, unless it's not.

And I'm happy to answer any questions and then also ask Jenna if I'm missing anything big there. There we go. Kite festival. We have Alaska Kite-ers.

There was one year they gave me a metric of how much money all the kites were, and all I can say is it was a lot. And then, I don't think we've had it for a few years. One year we had Alaska's biggest kite. It was over 1,200 square feet. You know, it's a home.

Uh, it only got up for like 5 minutes. Traditionally, I don't know why Kite Day has been on the least windy day of Kenai, I feel like, every year. But we get kites up. Uh, we've gotten— we have hundreds of kites from Walmart right now in our room, and Walmart's going to come and give out more kites and help them build kites. And we do it at Millennium Square, and it's just really fun.

Again, I encourage you, if I think I've added photos in the past. Currently, if you go on Google Earth and look over Millennium Square, it is kite day. So you can see a spaceman, like you see the astronaut in really good detail. And then, but you'll see other large kites. And then you'll see in the other field, you'll see the little parachute that people play with in gym class.

We had that out in the field. And then you'll see kids running around with kites. It's a really cool aerial photo. I have it saved in my phone multiple times because I know Google Earth will update one day. But I think it really shows just how cool that is that you can— I was looking at something for work.

And I'm like, why is there a man in the field that's huge? And that will be 11:00 to 3:00. We added an hour on the 6th. And we'll have food vendors and some other activity vendors there. And it's just, again, it's a really fun day.

Yes.

So even if you don't want to fly a kite, come and check it out. It's a pretty cool day seeing— a bunch of kids running around and hopefully not into each other. And then some of these kiters do this. They fly all over the country and they fly kites at festivals and everything. So you see some really, really cool kites.

They get so high up there, we have to put up a NOTAM for the airport. Any questions about any ongoing events at parks?

Not question, or I guess, how did the cleanup day go? I was planning to go, but I didn't get to come. I had like last-minute stuff coming up. Yeah, I know we had 25 people show up at the event, and then we even had a couple people comment on our Facebook because we'll always give out bags and grabbers. Like I said, the, the disc golf group people asked, they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna do a pickup day, we're gonna pile up sticks.

I'm like, oh, you can grab those. I'm like, I have trash grabbers too. They're like, well, come by and get them. But we filled up an entire dumpster. And then we had a— yeah, there was a couple who was like, "Hey, we decided to go out and pick up trash in our neighborhood too for a couple hours." And we're like, "Oh, we can pick it up." And they're like, "Oh, we did that." So it inspired people to go pick up around their neighborhood too.

So yeah, it was a super fun day. It didn't rain on us. So that was a pretty nice spring day for the weather we've been having.

Yeah, someone picked up a— Jenna put together some like go bags and somebody stopped by today and got one.

Yeah. So we kind of knocked over the first domino and that's always what we like— we like to tell people that, you know, we have yellow bags, we have grabbers, we have gloves. We will lend them out if you want to go pick up trash in the city. I was wondering about that because I saw a few of the bags up on the highway by beach access too, so I was kind of curious. And then I saw some that were by bridge access as well, so I was kind of curious.

And if you guys ever see bags that for more than one day, please let me know, because sometimes people will have those bags and they're like, we picked up trash, and they'll leave them on the side of the road and we won't get told, and they'll be there for a couple days. But we will happily, like, and within the city will definitely go pick up those bags. So far I've seen that the community has been really good about it. I was going to contact you because I had that thought in mind, but by the time I turned around, I saw that they were cleaned up already. Awesome.

So those bags are available at the rec center, which is open from 6:30 in the morning to 9:30 at night. So at any point when it's convenient, you can always run by there at any point all summer, uh, that we have those bags, and they stay there pretty much year-round. So that the public can grab them when, when they see fit and be able to go pick up public spaces. So, um, and if you've never seen the inside of the rec center, uh, there's staff there anytime that it's open. Um, they would happily walk you through the facility.

So, Jenna, would you mind those at the rec center and what time frames could people pick up those little go bags? So the rec center is open Monday to Saturday, 6:30 AM to 9:30 PM. At any point in our open window, we have yellow bags and some grab-and-go bags, and those just have some safety guidelines with contact information. You know, you find certain things that— sharps, other things— who to call. If you have the yellow bags, it has the parks contact.

So that you can be like, hey, we left them on XYZ Street, and that way you can notify us. That's about it.

I made— I ride around every day with my job all over the Central Peninsula, actually. And there are whole sections outside of the cities that didn't get picked up. And I think it was a combination of there was still quite a bit of snow left and trash is emerging. And I think the weather was a big factor in that. It was not, you know, it hasn't been great weather.

And I got to thinking, and I'm glad to hear more about the bags and where to pick them up. I was thinking of maybe going to some of the businesses or organizations that I might know somebody in and suggest that perhaps they put together a cleanup crew just in their area, that's all they'd have to do, just go pick up in their area a little bit along the road, and maybe we could get it all picked up. But I drive a vast amount of road and there's still quite a bit of trash out there. So I would encourage you to maybe talk to organizations or businesses and see if you could talk them into doing it. So anyway.

That was my thought.

I love that idea. And I know that there are some companies and organizations around here locally that already do that because I know like PCHS, they already have like an Adopt a Highway. I know Harley-Davidson does as well. Trying to think if there was a few others I've seen. I know some photography businesses do as well.

So probably double check with Highway. But I do agree with you. I think that would be helping. And I know a lot of families are taking a lot more initiatives lately and I've been seeing a lot of people coming up like making their own like bird boxes and things like that. So I know a lot of people have been trying to be more aware of our community and our environment right now.

Comments? Just one quick comment if you don't mind, through the chair. Please. Taylor, what was the— when was Plant Day scheduled, time and date? And location.

Thank you. May 30th, we pick up at between 10:00 AM and noon. It will be posted up right in front of City Hall here. So, uh, 210 Saldalgo.

Yes. Thank you.

I was going to say, I participated in Plant Day last year. That was one of my first activities after joining this commission, and it's a lot of fun. And I will say, I felt compelled to go back and look to see how my plants did, so it was a little parental.

And I'll try to add a flyer in my, uh, at the next upcoming council meeting on my mid-month report too.

If you want to shout it out. Oh, I intend to shout out all of these things. Yeah.

Okay, the next item on our agenda then would be that we will hear from Councilmember Kusina. Oh, thank you.

Um, well, it's— I, I don't think I've been here as a council liaison before. I can't think. So I'm just going to summarize the last meeting we had as quickly as possible in case you're interested in all the things that happened. And then, should I ever come back, you can let me know what you don't want to hear the next time. Um, that seemed to work well on the normal commission that I, that I am the liaison for.

So public hearings, uh, we, we enacted and approved many things, such as, uh, amending Kenai Municipal Code to remove the requirements to publish things in the newspaper. Uh, just, we used to have to publish them in the newspaper, uh, for like contracts and things like that, and we just don't have a regular scheduled newspaper anymore. Uh, enacted an ordinance awarding a contract for the purchase of firefighting foam, an ordinance to transfer balance from a completed project back to its funding source, enacted an ordinance for the fire department for excess overtime.

Consultation agreement for natural gas storage on Kenai Airport lands, and, um, and authorize the purchase of a new Ventrac tractor and attachments. That one pertains, uh, and then authorize a new fire system testing, inspection, and monitoring schedule, authorize the city manager to enter into an airline operating agreement and terminal lease. So this is for Fox Air. They are the, the new third airline that will be in the airport, um, for local flights. Not to get excited for the direct flights out of here, but, um, and then a contract extension for water and wastewater chemicals, a contract for refueling services for city fuel tanks, and affirming city support for nondiscrimination policies in Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act, known as the Federal Fair Housing Act.

And this is to comply with some grants that we are putting in for. Other than that, there was some unfinished business. We postponed an ordinance amending the official zoning map for some land behind Walmart. Um, for the conservation, or changing it from conservation to suburban residential zoning. And so we pushed that to the May 20th meeting for additional discussion.

And then, uh, new business for the meeting yesterday: we approved the 2026 Council on Aging Commission's work plans, much like we did for Parks and Rec, and scheduled a work session, I believe, also for the Parks and Rec master plan on the 20th at 5:00. So, um, and that is with Corvus Design, I believe, will be there to present the Kenai Master Plan or the Parks and Rec Master Plan and answer any questions. So if you're interested in, in being there for that, that's at 5 PM on May 20th here. So other than that, the next City Council meeting is actually scheduled for immediately after that. On May 20th at 6 PM.

Other than that, we reviewed all the budgets for every department last Saturday all day, and you can watch that video online or on YouTube on the city's, uh, YouTube channel if you're interested. So also available for any questions you have about this report or anything else. So Okay then, um, are there any members from the public who would like to address the commission at this time? I see no one present. Is there anyone remote?

Okay, there is no one. I guess we will move on to the next meeting. Attendance notification.

The next scheduled meeting is June 4th, 2026. Is anyone knowingly planning to be absent or attending remotely at this time?

All right, hearing nothing, I guess we will plan on going forward with that meeting unless we decide something otherwise.

And now I do this.

And then you'd say, uh, Commissioner comments and questions, and then you would call on every commissioner here. Okay, Commissioner comments and questions. Uh, I will start down at the far end with Michael. Do you have any comments? I do not.

Autumn, do you have any comments? No comments.

I actually do. What did we decide for tour dates? I heard— are we doing something in June for touring? Anything or no? So I think I was going to aim to do a meeting before the meet, uh, do a 5 PM meeting at the rec center.

Okay. Okay, perfect. That's what I thought. That's what I was hoping. And then only the rec center in that time, right?

Yes.

Uh, no further questions then. Thank you. And I have no comments. So, um, I guess we are at the point of Seeing no further business, we are adjourned.

Yeah.