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Home My WebLink About1995-10-02 - Minutes• • • PRAB REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 2, 1995 The meeting was called to order by Susan Driver at 5:30 pm in room 219 of the City Administration Building. Members Present: Driver, James, Knight, Mackey, Richard, Stone, Savage, Waite Staff Present: Clark, Cox, Dugwyler Media Present: Rusty Garrett, Jennifer Pinkerton Guests Present: Helen Blackwell, William Losey, W am McKinney, I. MOTION:JAMES/KNIGHT The minutes from the September 11 and 27, 1995 PRAB meetings were approved unanimously 7-0. II. PROPOSED POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR NAMING PARKS Richard: Nancy called various cities but since a lot of cities do not have a green space ordinance they do not have the chance to name many parks. We (George, Nancy, and myself) came up with this draft for your review. We think this is important because we are acquiring more parks through the green space ordinance. Driver: Dale, I think of parks that are named after people now. Did these people give land or anything else for these parks? Clark: Not entirely. Bryce Davis gave above and beyond his green space requirement. Gregory was in a number of civic functions, and he was the only one not directly related in giving land. Some people with parks named after them gave us a good price on the land. Waite: Mr. Gregory was helpful in development of Wilson Park. He had direct involvement with parks. He also started the Gregory Trust Fund for the Parks. Driver: Brian, please read these for the benefit of the audience and viewers. See attached guidelines... Mackey: Don't we have a VA park? Clark. That is Gregory Park. The VA at one time owned it. Mackey: Should we include city leader also? I have known some that have made significant contributions. Waite: I don't see how anyone could be a city leader • • • worthy of this without falling under these other guidelines. Richard: We intended to expand a city leader in the first few points. Mackey: I believe we need to honor our veterans. MOTION:MACKEY/KNIGHT The PRAB recommends approval of the policy for naming parks. MOTION APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY 8-0. III. NAMING OF CROSSOVER PARK LAND McKinney: Walt Losey and Helen Blackwell are here. I sent you a letter stating what we hope you will approve. We would like to name Crossover Park after Clarence Craft. I realize my request jogged you into coming up with these guidelines. It seems after the fact to me. Clarence Craft has volunteered at the VA hospital for years. it is my assumption that if this is approved, the veterans will pick up on this and we will raise a sign and a flagpole and veterans will use the land. We could develop a good situation and they will probably adopt the park on their own so to speak. Mackey: How long has Mr. Craft lived in Fayetteville? McKinney: Right after the war. Driver: When you began exploring places to name after Mr. Craft, did you look at any legion locations? McKinney: The American Legion Post already has a name. As far as the field having a name, I don't know. I figure the ballfields are under this name also. Mackey: I think a memorial park would be good with a plaque where we could add names. McKinney: That would be good to have a veteran park. There are only 3 medal of honor recipients living here in Arkansas. We could get in there and help the parks develop it. Losey: I am a veteran. I lived here from 1970 until 1980, retired and came back here in 1987. I think it is hard for you to understand why we are recommending this. Mr. McKinney and I are here to tell you why. Mr. McKinney had his foot shot off. I was shot and captured in the Battle of the Bulge. It took a lot of guts to do what Mr. Craft did. When it comes to the enjoyment that you and I enjoy today it was up to people like him. He certainly deserves to be recognized. Thank you. Helen Blackwell: I was raised by a WW veteran. Clarence Craft has been a very humble person. He belongs to many organizations including American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, etc.. He is a very special man, and has • • • contributed greatly to the community by giving of himself in the service. He decided to make this his home and he works with veterans at the VA hospital. He is always going somewhere and doing something. Let's do something to honor this man in this city that has done so much. I would like to have something on a major road that the veterans can stop by and enjoy. We are representing several here. Richard: Who owns this park land? Driver: The school owns it, but it is a 25 year lease. It is a good point and I am sure the school would like to cooperate with us. Mackey: We need to coordinate with the school. Driver: We have other parks coming in. Dale will visit with Mr. Carr in naming procedures. George Knight will head up the committee to discuss this park naming. Blackwell: Remember there are only four medal of honor recipients. Clark: Do you know of other communities that have done something like this to look out? McKinney: There are highways named after medal of honor recipients. Clark. Is there a format for a memorial park. James: Do you know if the other Arkansas recipients have had anything done for them? Richard: I like the idea of a veteran park. There are many veterans and there are not enough parks to honor them all. This is a good idea. IV. PROPERTY PETITIONED BY NEIGHBORS FOR CITY TO PURCHASE Clark. What is the next move? Driver: Could ask Sweetser what he would take for the property. Clark: They were interested in a play area for children and a walking area. Driver: I would suggest to visit with Mr. Sweetser. Lake Fayetteville South needs a new name V AQUATICS CENTER James: We drove to Siloam Springs last week to visit with the Parks people to see the new aquatics facility. It is next to the elementary school. They have three acres with more room to expand. Any overflow can use school parking. They went to Chicago before construction to visit the facilities there . The superslide is not connected to the main pool. They don't use traditional • gas, they use pellets. The pool is zero depth to four feet then 6 feet for relays etc. Off the side of this is a wading pool in a Mickey mouse shape. A mushroom device is in this. It was around $4,000 and has a whale that pumps out water that kids love. The dressing rooms are very nice with slanted floors. They installed 258 pay lockers with keys that have safety pins so they don't get lost by the patrons. All the money goes to the bottom of the lockers so you don't have to clean out every locker for money. They have a large grassy area. They have shaded area, chairs, etc. There is a 500 person capacity. Their attendance over Labor Day weekend was 500, 750,• and 1000 on the third day. They plan on running 40,000 in a year Dugwyler : Our pool has an attendance a little more than that. Driver: We were talking about sand volleyball and how to keep the sand out of pool. In Las Vegas there is a zero depth pool with a sand beach going into it, so they must have come up with something to filter it out. James: They are thinking about a video arcade. Driver: Siloam Springs sell their own electricity and they dedicated the money to this facility. Dugwyler: The major intent is to break even, not pay back for construction. • George: Do we break even? Clark: No. • VI. REQUEST FROM METHODIST CHURCH TO PURCHASE LAND See letter Driver: That is our only site for Babe Ruth expansion. Clark. We have met with Babe Ruth and let them know our plans to expand there. This would be an excellent site for a church but we need this. We have made a commitment to start within 5 years. MOTION:WAITE/SAVAGE The PRAB recommends to retain ownership of the Lake Fayetteville land east of Highway 265 for a new Babe Ruth complex MOTION APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY 8-0. VII. HMR REPORT Waite: We need help with booth at Autumnfest. Driver: The kickoff went well. We had Mayor Hanna's support. Waite: If anyone needs leaflets, we have plenty. Mackey: Baseball coaches are going to call each parent on each team a few weeks before election and again right • before the election. • VIII. ARPA CONFERENCE REPORT Dugwyler: Five of us attended the ARPA conference in Ft. Smith. It is really worthwhile for networking. I wrote up two presentations. I wish you could hear these people. They are top people in their profession. Chuck Fink, who is working with Hot Spring's trails, gave a speech on green ways and trails. Most of these are along floodways. I would like him to come talk to us sometime. He has backup to show that greenways have the lowest rate of crime of urban land use. The biggest problem is not crime but multi use and trying to get the multi users to coexist on these trails. The trails in Hot Springs are 14 feet wide for multi use, bicycles, pedestrians, joggers, roller bladers, baby strollers. The other presentation was on the economic impact of tournaments. Harrison hired parks director to solely put on tournaments. They put on 15 by the parks dept. The economic impact on Harrison was a million and 900 for all 15 tournaments. Driver: Do they have one huge facility? Mackey: Baseball and soccer yes. Knight: We need to know how many we put on. Dugwyler: Connie kept these studies and they are available. OTHER BUSINESS WALKER PARK Clark: We need to complete the Walker Park Fence and backstop replacement on field #4. It will cost approximately $9,000 and we would like to use green space funds. Mackey: This issue is very pressing for safety. There is wire that has come loose and is dangerous. It has been there since before 1970. Savage: Could we look into extending the fence on field #4? Clark. We will extend as far as we can. MOTION:MACKEY/SAVAGE The PRAB recommends to use southeast green space fund to replace the Walker Park field #4 fence. APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY 8-0 • SWEETSER PROPERTY Clark: Mr Butt would like to have a special meeting. • • • Driver: I told him both times, he needed to bring it to us before the City Council. He did not. They referred it back to us and he had a day to get it to us. I am not inclined to have a special meeting. Clark: He did call after the agenda went out. I told him how to get on the agenda. George: Is this a real issue between the neighbors and Sweetser? Are we involved in this? Stone: We made no compromises about ownership we just said we would take the land. Driver: We said we would take the land but if there was any question on ownership it would be up to Sweetser. James: They haven't even surveyed this. I would prefer to wait until the next meeting to discuss this. Waite: There is a question on how much land would be transferred. We have had ideas of screening etc. Stone: We are planning to use some of that land to beautify and add a border to that trail. Savage: I though that we agreed to make these transfers before it was deeded to us. Driver: It seems to be the consensus that we have very little to go on but that will wait until the next meeting. ENGINEERING Driver: We were going to check on expediting engineering designs by securing one engineer to do all projects for one year. Clark: Airport does this, so it is feasible. We need support of the PRAB for Administration to approve this. We have 10 or 15 projects this year. It would be nice to go to one firm at beginning of year and tell them when we want everything done. This will stop many of the delays we have now. MOTION:KNIGHT/SAVAGE The PRAB recommends to the Mayor and Public Works Director to allow the Parks Staff to select one engineer for all 1996 park projects per city guidelines and to have a selection committee to select the engineer. MOTION APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY 8-0 George: How is the parking lot at Walker coming along? Clark: Slowly. Dugwyler: We do not have an engineer yet. Clark: We bid the pavilion at Lake Fayetteville South and Asbell concession. Bids came in too high. We have to see what drove the cost up Soccer fields at Lewis • • • Street complex have been graded. I have had complaints of parking in Washington Plaza area. We had $1500 water bill in August. We are trying to make more efficient Clark: Facilities Committee needs to look at map of Vandergriff to determine facilities that can be jointly built with school. I met with school board regarding utilization of school area for softball and soccer parking. A sign has been ordered for the girl's softball complex. The meeting adjourned at 7:10. Minutes Approved: