Parks and Recreation Committee Minutes for 05/17/2017                          Approved 6-7-2017

In attendance: Steve Dell, Jim Gurr, Jan Loveland, Bonnie Robins, & Ruth Smith. Absent: Mike Crawford, & Jeanne Peeples

1. Community Input. None
2. Minutes from the 04/05/2017 meeting were reviewed and approved as presented & will be published online. 3. Information from the May Helena Twp. Meeting There was nothing that directly related to Parks and Recreation.

OLD BUSINESS: 4. Recreational Passport Grant from DNR    The sidewalk repair at tennis Court Park has been completed and approved. Steve will work with Dave Peterson to submit the final grant “billing” to the DNR. 5. Requests for Memorials: A. Ruth took this before the board with the recommendation that if they approve the procedure as presented they should adopt it. Nothing need be done concerning purchasing the memorial board until a memorial donation comes in. The board was favorable to the idea of memorial recognition but did not take any action on this recommendation. B. We have requested a letter from the IRS that confirms the Townships tax exempt status. The availability of this letter will be presented to the HT board. A copy of the letter has been given to Joyce Looman.

6. Volunteer holds harmless form. After reviewing information sent by the Insurance Co. Jim has suggested some changes for the hold harmless form. Steve and Ruth will review these suggestions and try to incorporate them into the existing form. The revised form will be brought back to the committee for review in June
7. GTR Land Conservancy at Coy Mt. Todd Vigland of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC) has presented a draft project agreement for GTRLC and HT to work together at Coy Mountain. This was based on an email sent to GTRLS by Brad Gerlach when he was on the P&R Committee in May of 2016. Todd is to work on a potential budget and the P&R committee is to do an initial project assessment at the next meeting. 8. Proposal from Jack Findlay of Alden Volunteers (AV) that the P&R Committee prioritize the top 3 projects we would like to work on using AV resources to help obtain funding.

The top three projects P&R would like to work on: 1. stopping the erosion at Ball diamond park. 2. Improvements at Coy Mountain. 3. Ad toddler play-ground equipment at Tennis Court Park. Next actions concerning this: A. Ruth will present these items to Jack Findlay / AV. B. Ruth will talk with Rick Teague about HT supporting the projects AV agrees to support. C. Ruth will report to the P&R committee concerning these two conversations. D. P&R to decide what, if anything, to preset to the HT board.

9. Erosion Abatement Project at Ball Park. Elmer’s was contacted concerning an estimate. We are hoping for a June report from Mike on estimates received concerning bids on this project.

10. Review HT Parks Committee Survey – Postcards and newspaper article. Bonnie and Carolyn Nowfel have prepared a postcard for mailing notice of the survey and Bonnie has sorted the mailing labels to get down to one per property owner. Work is still being done to try to prepare for an online survey. We will need to give adequate notice of the availability of the survey which will move the start date later than the previously anticipated June 1^st date. We do want to close the survey by the end of July.
11. Tim Moore tennis lessons – reserve the court time for Tim’s lessons. The committee agreed this should not be done and the policy remains first come first served at the park.
12. Reaching agreement between P&R and Twp. Board on goals for Coy Mtn. is the first step in developing a management plan. The P&R committee feels that the Coy Mtn. preserve should be left as a natural area. Any management will be for the purpose of keeping safe hiking trail(s). Verbiage for an actual management plan still needs to be developed. This is to be added to the Future agenda items with an October review date. 13. Items Ruth took to board dump trailer and harrow & concession stand safety. The board does not plan to purchase equipment at this time. They do not plan to spend money to get rid of the concession stand. Concerns over safety issues because of the condition of the concession stand remain.
    

NEW BUSINESS: 14. Capital Improvement Plan. For each park, inventory all items in the park. Create an estimate for the useful life of each item and establish a schedule for replacing each item. To be moved to Future agenda items with a November review date. 15. Non-smoking policy for township parks with signage to inform the public. There was discussion on this issue and it will continue at June meeting.

The next monthly meeting is scheduled for: Wednesday, June  7th, 2017– 7pm – meeting room at the Community Bldg.

Respectfully submitted by Ruth Smith 05/21/2017.