Kenai: 10/01/26 Parks and Recreation Meeting

I would move to approve the resolution.

I think we open up for discussion, is that correct? Uh, there'll be a motion and a second, and then it's on the floor. So yeah, so I would, uh, there need to be a second after Commissioner Fisher's.

I second.

So now it is on the floor and now you can call for my report. Call for Tyler Best report.

Alright, just this is something that's coming up on our capital improvement plan and that has kind of been a revolving thing. Topic has been the renovation of Old Town Park. You know, originally we looked at, you know, basically bulldozing it, starting from scratch. That was going to be $1.6 million. I don't know if that's in the realm of possibility of finding that much outside funding and funding from the general fund and different partners and everything.

So we kind of took that plan and whittled through some of the stuff. And I don't want to say we took away the dream because it was like we had community members like, what happens if we go to the nines and we go all out on a park? But we took out like, how can we have all the equipment at this park has passed its useful life? The fencing is, the parking could be upgraded. A lot of things can be upgraded.

So it's like, what can— what if we replace everything there with something new, adaptive, inclusive, with another mission in there, and we contribute to different elements of the community around that park? There's many multi-family homes. Canitesi's investing a lot of infrastructure down there. So we're looking at kind of what we— what can we do for $800,000, which is what you'll see on the upcoming capital project budget. Um, there is going to be divisions on what we can get from outside funding and what comes from the general fund.

This reflects one of the steps on getting some outside funding is going after a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. Um, what we're doing here is we've sought letters of approval from, uh, Knaizzi and Salamatov, and then we're also looking to get approval from the— sorry, a recommendation so we can move forward because we'll get council's approval as well. So Land and Water will have so many funds, as you can read in your memo, that will— it has matching funds requirements. Uh, you know, in our land management plan and in our master plan, we don't have any plans to take away this park. We see it as a park forever, especially in that area in Old Town.

So this is one of those things where we're looking for outside funding to help fund revitalizing that park.

Anybody have any comments?

Um, you said 1.6 is just to tear it down.

Yeah, so, um, not, not 100% in relation to this memo, but yeah, so we did a design, I think, 2 years ago. I like what would happen if we tore down this park and started from scratch and we didn't, you know, we had a, you know, a super nice pavilion built, running water bathrooms, a full basketball court, a full NYO court, a fully inclusive adaptable playground, uniform playground surfacing, a cement path around the entire structure, redo the parking lot, you know, light structures, and really going full out and then really trying to optimize the space. And that was $1.6 million. That doesn't reflect to what we're probably pivoting more to, is saying not taking out the inclusive and the adaptive elements, but saying, hey, let's replace the basketball court where it is, let's replace the playground equipment where it is, and trying to save some of those costs and not completely like shifting everything around and starting from ground zero.

So the number that's getting proposed, which you'll see in more and later in the agenda, is $800,000 now, not $1.6 million.

So just take whatever you were doing and just do half of it for now. Uh, not, not quite half of it, but just changing the angle that we were doing it at. So again, before it was like, hey, what happens if we basically come through with a bulldozer and we had to make it a blank slate? How would we optimize this to the max? How would we get the most use out of this singular area?

And that number was $1.6 million. If you start taking away some of those elements, but still kind of the, one of the big things that we pushed in that idea was to have, make sure we had adaptive and inclusive playground equipment. We can still make that happen without, you know, changing the parking area, changing where the fence is, changing where the playground is created. We can still utilize that space and replace basically all new playground equipment and all new court, maybe in some interpretive signage, and then kind of instead of bulldozing it all and starting from zero. But like, one of the things we removed was what we were like, we're going to have a year-round, you know, running water bathroom.

Cutting that saves some money there too.

I have a clarifying question. I want to make sure I understand this because I, I think I have it turned around in my head in a way that makes us look like we're doing better than we are, maybe. So $800,000 was budgeted for construction, $100,000 for design, so that's $900,000, right? No, $800,000 includes that. Okay, so $800,000.

The grant could provide up to $250,000. Yes. Okay, and would require matching funds, which obviously if we've already budgeted $800,000 for that, we're good. So their $250,000 plus our $800,000 really puts us at like 1.1? Nope.

So in the capital plan, what you'll see when it goes more formally, and if you read through the capital plan the last 5 years, What you'll see is a project total and then a project breakdown. So a lot of times it'll have general fund funding, what we're expecting to take from the general fund, and then grant funding funding. A classic example of this is I brought up before in Parks Commission meeting, our— is relocation of the Parks and Rec shop. Our shop, we have the old shop, it's kind of fallen down. That kind of been just shifting around on the plan, but it's like a $3 million project.

But if you read in the fine details of the capital plan, it was like over $2 million of that is allocated from outside funding. Those outside funding sources have not been found or discovered. So this $250,000 would be reflective of— if you had like 2 buckets, I'm going to say split it down the middle, $400,000 from the general fund. For— I'm not saying that's what the funding is because we're looking for other sources. So that could be a little bit of a live number.

We're saying the total cost of the project's going to be $800,000.

The $250,000 is part of it.

Yep. And part of our process, if we, if we did get this grant and we're going to seek this grant, we would go to council for approval. But we're going through the commission to seek your recommendation to bring to council. And how likely is that to happen? Seems like a lot of stuff gets shut down when it passes us.

Like, no, yeah, I think this is a, this is a pretty good thing where I wouldn't see too much opposition in it. The biggest thing that could happen is that once you take land water conservation funding, and that's if you're approved and everything, we have multiple parcels around here. In theory, it is marked for recreation and outdoor use. Use in perpetuity. You can apply for funding down the line, but it is there, and it should be marked and never used outside for outside, like our golf course is marked in land water conservation funds.

We can't just sell the golf course, 'cause it's marked as land water conservation funds, 'cause we took funding for that. So we report on all our land water conservation funds every 5 years on the standing, There's a word I'm looking for. Yeah, the quality of the current area right now. Like recently, I did one last year where all of our municipal park has land water conservation funds that were given to it in the '80s, so that parcel of land is marked for outdoor recreation use forever.

Out of the $800,000, Is there like a breakdown that we could look at eventually to see what we really need and all that, to— or who makes those decisions, like the playground equipment, stuff like that? Uh, I mean, a little bit of, I guess, myself and Public Works. Uh, and, you know, step one of this is doing that schematic design we did where it kind of started up from scratch, but we kind of took elements of that to build out our current project. So administration does that. So we wouldn't be involved in like the equipment and stuff?

In selecting the playground equipment? No. You know, what we would do is we would write an RFP and then build out like, these are the elements we want, and then put it out. Like when we did Old Town Park, that was part of a project I was on. We built out an RFP and put certain parameters on it that fit just, you know, park standards.

And we had multiple bids and we just selected the best bid.

So we're just trying to move it forward. Is that the plan today? Yeah, if you— yeah, I guess if there was any opposition to anything, I'd, I'd be open to it. But yeah, the idea is that we just recommend it, saying that Parks Commission likes the idea of seeking $250,000, up to $250,000. We're in the process of writing this grant now.

Me and our planning director have been working on it quite a bit. Our Director Butener.

You guys have any questions or want to— someone want to put some wording together to move it forward?

We want to just call a unanimous consent, or what do you— what do we need to do? If someone wants to request it, or we can just do a roll call.

Roll call. Yeah. Huh? Okay.

So I'd like to recommend that the Parks and Recreation Commission recommend approval to City Council to allow participation in this. Oh wait, wait, wait, I just want to say technically the recommendation is kind of on the floor as the action approval, because if we make another recommendation, I think we're doubling down. So it's already on the table as an action approval item.

But no, so the action approval right now is authorizing participation in the current solicitation of land water conservation grant. I think I may— to clarify this, it would be— it is recommended that the Parks and Recreation Commission recommend approval to— yeah, that is— it's recommended that the Parks and Recreation Commission recommend approval of the city council to allow participation One second.

Yeah, I think we're good. We can just vote on it. Yeah, I think that the intent is in, in the memo and everything and in this. So you guys are voting on to recommend this action approval to City Council.

So we'll move forth to a vote. Yep. Can you call for that? I will call for that. Okay.

Wisniewski? Yes. Bernard? Yes.

Fisher? Yes. Carlson? Yes. Okay, motion pass— recommendation passes.

Oh wait, I take this back. Sorry, this script has changed.

Someone just texted me this. All right, the action approval was out there.

Open discussion.

The clerk's texting me.

One second, let me read all this. Not on my watch.

She is fine with what just happened. Okay, that's on the record. Oops.

Uh, I will get clarification on that too, though, on there, uh, just so down the line. But yes, I think the intent was delivered in the memo and to the motion. So what we just did is we recommended, recommended that council approves this resolution that we're going to bring forward to them. It has the Parks and Rec Commission recommendation on it.

Bam! That is what we covered by going, and we put that out on the table, or we put that out on the table, and then we've talked about it, reported on it, and then that is approved.

Uh, so we'll move on.

Recommendation fiscal year 2028 to fiscal year 2032 capital improvement plan priority list.

Uh, motion to recommend the 2028-2032 capital improvement plan priority list.

I'll move. Bernard? I'll second.

Then we'll move on to the staff report. All right, uh, so after our last meeting, uh, we kind of looked over some of the recommendations. We had the pickleball people that came in. I met with the Public Works director. And, uh, one of the— so a couple things that got shifted around was things that we got out there were Old Town playground, uh, equipment replacement.

We have $800,000 on there. Uh, multipurpose, uh, facility roof design is what's coming up in FY28. Our roof at our multipurpose facility is— it's getting on its last leg, so we're looking at replacing that roof. Uh, design is step one of that. You can see further down we have the replacement for the following year.

And then one thing that got shifted around was, uh, in FY28 we had $150,000 to relocation of Parks and Rec to Dobbins Spec Design. That is part of that $3 million you'll see in FY30. There are so many things happening right now, uh, that project has kind of just been moved back and moved back with that $3 million and like the land water that we have identified for Old Town, we don't have any grants identified for that, that $3 million right now. So even going into a design on it, after discussing with the Public Works Director and possibly with, you know, fire and police moving, we don't know what the shuffle could move or open up, uh, we thought we should probably take that $150,000 we were proposing for a design and move it back. What that opened up was in our original plan Was you guys heard the pickleball people?

They want to start trying to look for outside funding for racket courts, and they want to look now. I've done a little more research on the matter. So we were like, if we did concrete courts and we replaced, you know, enough to do a bunch of pickleball courts either at the middle school or high school, that number was $700,000 plus doing concrete courts, which is a lot. Um, in 2022, The tennis courts in Palmer were redone by a local group, and they were done with blacktop, which I know Pickleballer said wasn't long-standing, but it was done with blacktop with like an acrylic finish. So kind of like how they do the tracks, there's that like rubbery acrylic finish.

They've looked— they look really, really nice. Uh, I talked to the group that did it. They don't have— they're independent groups, so their budget's not as lined out as a city. They did it in partnership with the city. But you'll see down at the bottom where originally we had that project pushed out like 3 years.

We think we could redo one of our courts for about $300,000. We would be saying in that split about $150,000 we'd be asking from the general fund and then working with the pickleball club and potentially some tennis members too, and possibly the school district to redo some of those surface courts either at Kenai Middle or the high school. And getting those redone with that blacktop finish, but with that acrylic finish where we could have tennis, some kind of outdoor racket sport, tennis, pickleball, that could be open to the community during the summer, and then that school could utilize during the school season as well, and still open to the community like the fields are, like after-school hours. So that is the direction we're going in right now. We're still actively working with the pickleball group.

Uh, The tennis group that reached out to us originally was actually from the Valley, but they got reached out to by locals here. So I've asked them to get those locals in contact with me. So maybe I can have a sit down with pickleball group, the tennis people, the people at the school. I know Principal Vasco at the school was all on board where they said they had already painted on the blacktop and everything. They've painted pickleball court lines and everything.

Like, it's like, we want it. Let's do it. He was, he was really, really excited. So I think there's a potential to partner with the pickleball group, with the tennis group, with the school district, and then maybe try to find some of those outside fundings and for that other $150,000. So essentially, this, the piece of FY28 we were going to ask for has not changed because so from the general fund, we did have $150,000 for that relocation of Parks and Rec to Parks and Rec to the Dobbin Spec Space design.

We've moved that back and we've moved the outdoor courts there, and it's $300,000. But what we're going to ask from the general fund is $150,000. So kind of the, the piece of the pie we're asking for is the same as it was before. But I think in the last meeting, everything's been kind of getting developed. This started— I think this all started in August, this conversation.

But people, we got a lot of momentum on it right now. So if we were able to get this funding approved, I think it'd be really exciting to work with that group to see what we could do before the start of the next fiscal year. So those are the big changes. Uh, nothing else, um, really, uh, changed. Uh, the only other addition was I missed one thing when I was going through our master plan.

It marked in 5 years to look at the multi-purpose locker room, uh, what we could do for renovating those. Those are get— those just need a little bit of a facelift and everything. Uh, so we put that in FY30 for $50,000 as a, as a design concept.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Anybody have any questions?

The pickleball, redoing the courts, where was that at again? So where we— the discussions have been either at the KCHS where the tennis courts are or KMS in that multi-court surface area. Would you keep the fencing? If we could, the project in Palmer, they kept the old fencing and they were able to keep it and not install new fencing. I'm sure they had to tear down a section because they had to tear out all the old blacktop and everything to get equipment.

Yeah, yeah, it'd be nice to save it. Yeah, yeah, they said they were able to save it in Palmer when they did it though, and that would probably be a cost savings.

But the, the court itself looks really nice, and I think it's kind of hit that middle ground of just, just asphalt, concrete, I think we're kind of finding a happy middle that could be really feasible and have really nice courts.

And it's still at $300,000 with asphalt or concrete? It's with asphalt, but with an acrylic finish that would help the court surface.

So again, kind of like the, the high school tracks, how they have that red and orange coloring, that's like that asphalt with that same style of finish on it. So you got bids for all this and all that? All like from somebody locally, or—. No, we haven't done any bidding yet. Oh.

So what I, uh, we found different projects that redone their courts and then kind of broke it down, and then what it would cost for our court. Like, for the concrete cost, we looked at what it cost to put in Soldotna Creek Park, which was done 10 years ago, and we adjusted for inflation and then matched it per square foot.

So $300 approximately. So if somebody bids it at way less, you would go with that, I'm assuming? Yep. Well, yeah, we, we would do our standard bidding process where I think the, the fee has a certain, you know, a grade on it.

Yeah. So yes, if— but if there was, you know, 10 bids and they all came under, we wouldn't go be like, spend more money.

And I think our— I'll even say our finance director is currently working on that right now. A lot of times there will be projects that will either ask for more money or they will have a little money left over, and then our finance director works on those, and then that gets reallocated to the general fund.

Um, any objections to recommending the capital permit plan priority list?

Are we motioning to approve it, or the recommendation is on the floor? So then we would either have a unanimous consent or we would do a roll call.

And let's just do the unanimous consent. I need one of them. Oh, does anybody want to call for that, or do you want to vote individually?

I like to request unanimous consent.

Do we need a second? Yes. I second.

Concur.

Any objections? Seeing none, um, it's approved.

And moving on, uh, more from Tyler.

All right, uh, attached to my packet, my bid month report. Uh, uh, we talked about— it's in August. Uh, we talked about— this is what I, I sent to council in September, but it talks about how, you know, August 1st we go and comb the beach after dip net fishing. We have a tractor that has a big rake on the back and a magnet. We pick up between 5 and 20 pounds of metal.

Before pallet burning was banned on the beach, we used to pick up a lot more nails, but we still get quite a significant amount of metal off the beach. And then we can kind of get the salmon away from the shoreline, but the tide kind of does what it's going to do with the fish anyways. Once you get that high tide, it cleans it up really good. But as we rake through the beach, we can find any other stuff. But that magnet's really nice.

It picks up a lot of metallic trash. We're always really happy with how quickly we go out there on the first, we're going out there and trying to pick it up and reset the beach like dip net never happened.

Parks and Rec also helps. There's a community group that supports industry days. Parks and Rec, we get invited to those meetings. We kind of do some of the backend stuff. We set up trash cans, set up some tents, make sure the park clean.

Make sure it stays clean afterwards as well. That's always a really fun day, supporting oil, gas, healthcare, and tourism in the economy. If you guys haven't been to Industry Day, I highly recommend you going. It's one of those things where everything's free at it. You know, people are cooking, they cook salmon, they cook hot dogs, they cook burgers.

There's always awards to local businesses. You know, healthcare awards, gas awards. I think PCHS won a healthcare award just for their outstanding service in the community. There's always a— if you know anyone you ever want to recognize or a business in healthcare, oil, or tourism or fishing, that is a great resource to look up. If you look up the Industry Days Facebook page, I think the borough manages it now.

But there's usually 20+ bikes that are given away from Walmart and just a bunch of different games and everything. My kids got their face painted and had a good old time.

Rec Center, as after Labor Day, switched over to winter hours. During, uh, 3 months of the summer, we are not open on Sundays. We are now open Sundays from 11:00 AM to 5:00. Uh, this will be our second winter with these hours. Previously, we were only open, I think, 1 to 4.

Uh, we've expanded those a little bit to try to give more opportunity to people to come in on a Sunday.

Uh, and then we had 2,900 visits at the rec center. And then going over to the exciting thing. Next Saturday, not this Saturday, next Saturday is our Kenai Pumpkin Festival on October 10th from 11 to 3. Everyone should have gotten an email from me if you want to volunteer. I believe I tried to send an email to everyone with a link.

But if you did not, let me know. I tried to send it to the Parks Commission, City Council, and the beautification commission, so. I don't recall getting one, but I would like to. Oh yeah, we'll send you one. We have a bunch.

We tried to break it down really nicely where you could pick a preferred helping shift and multiple if you wanted. And then trying to set it up really good because sometimes someone has shown up and we're like, you can hang out as long as you want. But I'll say like at Kite Festival, Commissioner Fisher volunteered at Kite Festival, and I think we had pretty good shifts. It was a 2-hour shift. We had it broken up, but where someone can come and volunteer, we have, you know, watching the hay maze.

I think serving cider has been filled up, helping out with pumpkin painting. We have a breakdown of responsibilities that is on the link, so I will make sure you get that link.

Let's make sure I have that. Yeah, well, yeah, okay. I thought it was your work email because I used— okay.

Okay, yeah, no problem. Um, and that is my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Um, I, through a friend, we talk to Scott Hammond about the pumpkin thing. He's kind of a go big or go home, you know. If it doesn't go 10 miles, it's— he doesn't want to do it. Okay. But I think he had a time, he's just super busy, and I really didn't talk to him in detail to put something together and 2 weeks, so it was my bad.

But, uh, you never know. We're just putting it out there. Like, it wasn't even on my, like, my plan of plans to have it this year, but it was kind of— we were building up to it. So, and again, I think especially in this state, you never know who's like, I made a trebuchet in high school and my mom and dad saved it in their shed and it's awesome. Or what Alaskan's gonna have a catapult or something like that.

So you just never know. Oh, we'll probably go down different avenues.

Looking down it. But we want to start—. What's the distance, the max distance you're looking at? I can't remember. A softball field.

Oh, that's it? 200 To— probably 200 to 300 feet. Okay. Yeah, because we have a Field 1 and Field 2 that are empty during the festival where we could probably open up one of those fields and then relatively safely launch it too. Into the other field, which would be fenced off.

Imagine that though, just big, like someone could sponsor it, have a big Tim Janitorial sign. Hit it. Parks will clean it up. We won't. But, but no, I think there's a cool thing to add another really cool feature to it.

And that's what people have brought up a number of years. So it's just us kind of getting in that planning phase of And just seeing, you never know when someone says, I have a trebuchet, or I have the plans for a simple one. Or, you know, I think in the past we've had the, we've had, what is the jail's name that I can't, Wildwood. Wildwood has made benches and picnic tables in the past when we've bought materials. I think they have a new vocational instructor I haven't connected with yet, but if I gave them a pumpkin trebuchet design that I found online and bought them the materials, that could also be another route I could go.

But I threw it out to everybody. I think I've talked to everyone I know. So I'm going to see in the next couple of weeks if someone's like, I got a catapult. Next year, we're going to launch it. If not, there's other avenues we can go down to.

We have a year. But I would have been really amiss if someone told me they had a trebuchet in their garage that we couldn't have used.

Anybody else have any other questions?

Now move on to my report.

I do not have one, so we move on to City Council liaison.

Um, I wanted to say two things really quick. That magnetic rake that Parks and Rec uses was designed by a KCHS student as part of his caring for the Kenai competition. It was actually my son's freshman year because my son was in the, in the top 5 of that as well. But, and then the city adopted— it was Riley Graves's idea, and then the city adopted it later. So it's pretty cool that, you know, his idea when they were freshmen— they graduated from high school in 2021— is still being used in our community.

I think that's pretty awesome. And I also wanted to say, maybe KCHS's, um, Voc Tech program that, um, Mr. Hartman, maybe they would put together a trebuchet. They're always down for cool projects. And just an idea. Um, we've only had— we had one meeting since our last Parks and Rec meeting.

It was on the 16th of September. Um, we had several public comments regarding the— regarding concern about the Deep Green Data Center construction that's proposed. Um, and the city manager recommended that it's in the city's best interest to provide comment and taking a position as an intervener in the litigation, the process, um, for this— the application that has been submitted by Deep green, um, deep green data center. Um, it does not denote like support or non-support. It simply preserves our ability to take a position as a party on the issue later.

Um, he'll— he needs to discuss that with City Attorney, and he'll give us more information at a future meeting. Um, we amended Kenai Municipal Code for the library. Essentially, all of the library's policies were part of Kenai Code instead of like their own policies and procedures manual, which is different than any of our other departments. So that made it difficult for the library director to, um, you know, make changes as needed to meet the needs of the public or whatever. It had to go through the whole council process.

So that has now— we changed that, and the library has their own policies outside of city code on par with other departments. Um, we increased appropriations to fix the canopy, uh, roof at the senior center. We authorized the purchase of 2 police interceptors using the city's fleet replacement fund. If you guys aren't familiar with the fleet replacement fund, um, I think it's something super clever that our, um, finance department does. It's— in my mind, I kind of see it as like a Christmas club, you know, where you like stash away a little bit of money every month so then in December you've got cash to spend.

That's what they do, but obviously on a much larger scale and a much longer time period.

So it's not— we're not going to take this huge financial hit when we need to buy cars. And the other great thing is they reuse them first for Parks and Rec vehicles, the old ones, first as Parks and Rec vehicles, then for the Kenai Police Department summer temporary enforcement officer hires. So on average, they're getting like 15 years out of these vehicles when they buy them. And I mean, many, many people aren't— like, private people aren't driving their cars for 15 years. And, you know, police cars get high mileage.

And so I think that's a— I want to point it out because I think it's a really great example of the fiscal responsibility that that our city is exercising.

Um, we had a discussion item regarding the HR process being evaluated by a contractor. We budgeted some money for this, um, in this current budget cycle. The City Council itself actually supervises the city manager, the city attorney, and the city clerk. And, you know, we have to do like employee evaluations annually, and the process hasn't been very well established, and so we have started working on the process to meet with a consultant to help us develop a process that, you know, is in the best interest of those 3 employees but also the city in making sure that the way we're supervising and evaluating is defensible.

Yeah, other than that, the Alaska Fire Conference is occurring here, has been occurring here all week, so there's been lots of folks around for that. And City Council received a letter of appreciation for Tyler that I wanted to share with you. This came from Eddie Castillo, a KCHS baseball coach, and he writes, members of the City Council, I'd like to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to the City Council and Parks and Recreation Department for everything you did to to support our baseball program throughout the past summer season. A successful baseball season takes much more than players and coaches showing up to the field. It takes a community behind it, and we are fortunate to have people who worked hard behind the scenes to make sure our fields were ready and in good condition throughout the season.

I would especially like to recognize and thank Tyler Best, Randy Dodge, and Chuck Finn. These individuals went above and beyond in helping to maintain and prepare the fields. Their work may not always be seen by the players, parents, or fans, but it made a tremendous difference to our program. Having a playable and well-maintained field gave our players a place where they could practice, compete, and continue to grow, not only as baseball players but as young men. As a coach, I truly appreciate the support that our community provides to our youth.

Your investment in our parks and athletic facilities is an investment in the young people of our community, and that should never be taken for granted. Thank you to the City Council for your continued support. And a special thank you to the Parks and Recreation Department and the individuals who work so hard to take care of our fields. Your efforts were noticed, appreciated, and very much valued by our players, coaches, and families. On behalf of our baseball program, thank you for helping make this past season a success and a memorable one.

With sincere appreciation and gratitude, Coach Eddie Castillo. Um, I wanted to just point out that KCHS baseball hosted state here and used Euler Field, and Parks and Rec folks were out there making sure that the field was ready to go. They did work at the— helped out, did work at the Kenai Little League fields. So Parks and Rec is really working hard with other agencies within our community, other entities within our community, to make sure there's a place for, for kids to go and people to go and do things So I wanted to make sure that you guys were aware of the gratitude being expressed by Mr. Castillo.

Thank you. I had no idea that a letter came in, so—. Oh, well, I'm sorry that you didn't know that. I know. I'm actually really happy.

I'm really happy. I don't think my name deserved to be in there as much as Randy and Chuck, because they're really out there, the ones who are running the equipment. And I think Eddie has found their phone numbers. He tries to call me first, and then even Jenna he'll try to call too. But yeah, he is a great coach, and I really appreciate that.

So I'm happy to share that with my team. Yeah, I can— I will forward this to you via email so that you have it to share with your staff directly. Yeah, thank you so much. You're welcome.

Anybody have any questions, comments?

Yeah, that's a cool letter. We don't always hear that stuff or know that it's going on until somebody points it out because I'm not always looking at who's maintaining the baseball field, stuff like that, because just drive by and stuff. So you don't— it's nice to be recognized for good.

So good job.

Um, one thing with the police cars, that is a good idea. It might be something to think about for other stuff that, uh, instead of asking for the money, save it up. They do that for like fire trucks and large pieces of equipment. I think the tractor that you got not too long ago wasn't— was that in the budget or was that one of the replacements? Budget, uh, one of the things we put in for for is our Zamboni, which is slotted for replacement, I think, in FY '28.

But if you look at our, I believe actually during the budget meeting, I think we'll talk, we usually talk about that we put in funds for our Zamboni replacement. We contribute to the fleet replacement fund. Yeah, somebody bought the old Zamboni in Bizam, Sports Lake. Some of it. Oh yeah, someone bought our old Zamboni, I want to say in like 2015, because I had to do like an audit report and we were trying to figure out where that went, when it went.

But no, someone bought our old Zamboni who lives on Sport Lake.

We'll move on to Additional public comment?

Seeing none, we'll move on to, uh, next meeting attendance, November 5th.

Uh, if you guys want to put in your phone, or if anybody's going to be absent, just, uh, let Tyler know eventually. Who's the one that actually texts? Oh, okay.

So I think it goes out, and then when you respond, it— I think it either responds to that system or to them via email.

Uh, Commissioner, comments, questions? Does anybody have any— anything else they'd like to say before we adjourn the meeting?

Alrighty, we will move to adjournment. Thanks for coming.