City Council - Parks and Recreation Committee

right we're ready to begin okay great so let's go ahead and proceed to our next uh committee meeting and the next committee meeting this morning is Parks and Recreation and that is chaired by council member skip Williams thank you very much president Hamill we have two items on our agenda today and uh uh before I go into them um I'll just mention that I am joined by uh council person Huffman and council person cotton here so uh the first item on our agenda is agenda Bill 2452 and uh that is the introduction of a of House of a house of healing lease agreement and and amended interlocal cooperation agreement for seom Hill Arbor redom uh between Western Washington University and the City of Bellingham Western Washington University and the City of Bellingham with funding from the state of Washington are partnering to create the construction of a Coast Salish louse House of healing building the project in includes parking and outdoor facilities on approximately a 2 acre portion of city-owned parcel within the wa within the Western Washington University arborita Parks and Recreation staff will provide an overview of the proposed lease agreement and amendments to the existing interlocal agreement in advance of the public hearing for this project scheduled for April 8th 2024 uh we have not taken any previous action by the Council on this the fiscal impact is over the top $1 a year for 75 years so with all that being said I'm going to turn this over to Nicole Oliver Parks and

Recreation director thank you council member Williams um I'm pleased to be here this morning uh we are um we are poised uh and ready to um present and I wanted to introduce in advance of the public hearing the lease agreement and the interlocal changes that have been in the works for quite a few years now when I uh put together I have some materials that Western gave me that isn't in your packet but I'll make sure it gets added to the electronic version online um the this started in 2016 with a letter from the students at Western who said you know we don't have a place to meet and congregate and um and then in the Deborah lenoff of the legislature helped build support at the state and in 2021 the state uh awarded 4.5 million for the construction of this long housee back in 2022 2023 you heard about it very briefly in mayor's reports from mayor Seth Fleetwood and so in advance of the public hearing where you will be taking action on the lease agreement and the interlocal we wanted to make sure to give you an overview and have any opportunity for questions so that's why I'm here so quickly um and I apologize theis you could see in the in your packet the colorful nature of that inter local the one that will be coming to you will be a clean version on the eth but the section that's the most important that's actually the new section is section seven on page 54 of your packet but before we get into that um the house of healing so the vision originated from the Native American

student union and they had core goals that um it was the top priority of Western in their legislative asks of the state in the 2021 to 2023 budget uh the core goals are to P pursue Justice and equity in its policies practices and impacts for advancing a deeper understanding and appreciation for the sense of place pursuing the academic personal and professional success of its indigenous students faculty and staff and building a sustainable beneficial working relationships with the co- Salish people people and expanding Western strength in Academia to serve the current and future needs of tribal communities this is the only um university on I5 Corridor that does not have a long housee and it will be the first long house in Bellingham so here is a rendition an artistic rendition from the um Architects that have been working on this project this project is currently in permitting at the city we've been working very closely um to ensure that the the ter terms of the lease agreement and the interlocal um ensure continued Public Access we're rerouting the trail around the building and we are um the the language in the leases was very carefully crafted to ensure there was a balance of public use but the focus being on tribal activities it is um a city-owned part of the Arboretum that will be leased and and will include the management of the adjacent parking that's currently just a free-for-all for students so the parking we're going to improve it and it it made less parking have to

be built within the Arboretum to serve this new this new building so I'm kind of going to go through some just a couple of site plans to give you a bigger idea of the project um it's located off of Bill McDonald on 25th Street the project as a development will require Street and pedestrian improvements up to the site and the City Public Works uh Street fund is is transportation fund is going to be contributing $600,000 to help with those costs and that is also reflected in the interlocal agreement the parks department is paying to rebuild the trail around the North End of the new building as you get in closer you can see that site is utilizing an existing graded Meadow in the Arboretum um that used to have a Trail come right through the middle of it and then the the actual rented site extends uh 2 acres to allow for a food Forest um over time with no trees to be removed over 12 in in diameter um it's has that large Circle there is for ceremonies um it's going to be available the the core purpose and you'll see that in the lease agreement language is for tribal activities education ceremony it's going to be the offices of the tribal Lea zone for Western and it will have student areas as well as um kind of a Central Central area for meetings and ceremonies and classes and uh the like oh I forgot Joyce Lopes from Western the vice president of Financial and business Affairs is here from Western if you have any questions for her so getting a little closer into the floor plan um

there'll be a kitchen they're anticipating um doing doing classes on Native um food preparation and um then having that Gathering Circle and then there's some uh views of the building um again this is in currently in permitting that's all I have for presentation so um the lease agreement uh is a is a ground lease it's for 75 years so this is a very um unique situation where we're allowing we're the city's contribution is the property as well as the funding from transportation to help with those improvements um that's the partnership is is enabling this building to be built on this site in the Arboretum adjacent to Western campus um we think that it's a uh our our SE Arboretum Board of Governors has been working on this project and there are there's one member who's on the steering committee of the project so we've been meeting regularly with them and they became kind of the reviewer of the permitting and the interlocal and they both uh they they voted to recommend approval of the lease and the interlocal and the building design over the last about six months and just last week they got this lease and recommended approval we have had robust discussions um to make sure that the protections and the things that have been kind of really sacred as far as the seahome hill hill Arboretum are are going to be continued as we embark on this pretty new thing for the Arboretum so I'm here to answer your questions and just make sure that everyone understands where we're at we realized that

we hadn't really talked to you about this we're having a public hearing on the 8th uh there is you should have already been invited to a ground turning ceremony and blessing on April 11th look in your inbox for that from um president of Western thank you questions thank you very much for this uh presentation are are there any discussion points or questions from the other committee members I'll just say thank you for all the work I remember when um the Native American Student Union put out that letter 2016 and just to say it's really exciting to see um yearing um ground being broken so yeah thank you for all the work and excited to vote um to approve today and I said okay this was just for in oh I'm sorry council member Huffman did you have something to say okay this was for information and a discussion only so no further action is necessary by the committee so we'll move on to the next item yes oh I'm sorry yeah sorry my eyes were going that way for good reason I'm not I'm not on the committee so I appreciate it um is the make up of the arum board Governor being changed by this document because it's heavily edited that portion there is um what the the and it was edited Again by the board on Thursday when they reviewed it the the thought was since this building is going to be in the Arboretum that um having someone of the western um appointees to the board have some affiliation with this Coast Salish long housee but the discuss was by limiting it to a faculty member who did

have an association that may have been a very few people so the language was changed to the preferred um it was preferred that someone had an an affiliation with the long housee we also are going to be creating um operating guidelines that we hope to get some regular reports to the SE home Arboretum board as far as the activities that are happening um what how it's going um and and have a more regular conversation and communication between the Arbor Board and um the folks that are working on in and and with the house of healing thank you that makes sense um I might also want to talk about the grammar of subsection two about the city appointees because it seems to imply that there it says non- City staff I know it's which sounds like it's staff do we just mean community members who aren't employees yes and we talked say that because I read that three times and I think the grammar implies they have to be staff but not City staff staff and I don't know what that is it's I think the intention um and we kind of went back in time cuz this is the original interlocal was that um they wanted to make sure that because City staff were already official official members they wanted to make sure it was non- City staff that were the additional community members but we did talk about that maybe we should just call them community members community members thank you very much yes also member Anderson thank you um I do have two questions um but first I know I'm I'm probably getting picky um I

do want to say I completely support this I'm excited to see it go through I remember when the students proposed it and I have a really good um friend who is indigenous who was a student at the time and so I really got to see this at the ground level the excitement um at the possibility so um anyway I on page 53 um in the agreement it has under Section B it's States um except as provided in section 7 for the house of healing long house any new Capital Construction cost exceeding 2,000 will be shared by WW and the city on an equal basis and then it states that the university would be responsible for that implementation I'm just wondering if we need to provide some level of clarity that there has to be a pre-agreement to that type of capital project Improvement um cuz it doesn't explain any kind of process my first concern was if the university decided we're going to put on a new roof or we're going to we're going to increase parking and because it's going to be more than 2,000 we're on the hook for 50% I'm just wondering and I looked through this several places for some kind of indication of approval process for um additional funding from the city having a process to pre-approve and I couldn't find it and I'm wondering how do we have non we don't have unintended consequences 10 years from now when somebody goes back and looks at this and says the intent wasn't clear but my assumption is the intent the city would agree to the cost because they said they would cover 50% but

there's no process that's been outlined well and this is actually the existing language in the inter local that's been guiding um any improvements and so far um what happens is the Sehome Arboretum board is the ones that kind of prioritize projects that are in the master plan and as they've moved forward if there's something that's less than $2,000 which nowadays there's nothing um then uh as long as it's more we agree to split it but it comes through the um the two members that are on the board that kind of guide this are the parks department and Steve janeski who's also here is my design on this board and then the um the other key person is the facilities director at at Western and so they bring things forward like when the tunnel collapsed and we had to fix it we went through extensive analysis and discussion of the solutions and the costs and this is just the guidance for um how we're going to split these these costs but the process is all done within the board itself okay so the um in another document it would spell out what the process is it's just not in this one okay I would say it's more practice than written process okay sometimes that makes me nervous yeah um because we're all not going to be here at some point and we've realized that in other situations um it may be something that staff might want to look at to make sure even in the other document if there's an update needed that process is we might want to do something about that when we write these um operating

guidelines because that's going to be a much more specific document that can be updated over time about how they operate the house of healing we we have a good relationship do and but again you know this is 75 years and we're all not going to be here I want to make sure we have good ground Foundation um and this might be the opportune time to make sure we have that and I do have one more question go ahead um it's just clarification in several areas in here uh it refers refers to the city as being the landlord and then designating approval for things like should the university decide to suas um the property to another entity that um the tenant will obtain landlord's approval for the change that's just one example there are several throughout here and um some of it I think like if they decide to sublease for an extended period of time or change um some of the the function of the facility who exactly is the landlord to make that decision that that could be a substantial change would be authorized is that going to be the mayor is that the city council um who's going to have is that the parks director um who's going to have that overall oversight because I I see this layer of some of it I'm not concerned about and I could see that being administ ative but other aspects I feel the the higher aspect of landlord is a higher level of Authority for that decision making and it's not very defined I think Alan go ahead looks like you want Alan Mariner City attorney those major decisions

would come back to council so the city is the council council is going to be approving this lease and and how would that be interpreted in here um because landlord again if we're all not here we go back to what is the intent and scope of this and um I would like some of the major changes to come back to city council but I don't see where I would decipher that um interpreting this with a different agenda then well the landlord is the city and the city with regards to per our code and Charter is the city council okay are there any further points that need to be discussed seeing none this this was basically for information and discussion thank you very much and no further action is necessary by the uh committee so we'll move on to our next item which is agenda Bill 2451 and uh this agenda item is the annual group Greenways report for 2023 in accordance with the Bellingham Municipal Bellingham Municipal Code 22.041 revenue and expenditures and on goinging and pending projects the report has been reviewed by the Greenways advisory committee and presented to and reviewed by The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and it will be posted with the previous year's reports on the city website previous Council action is that we approve the 2023 24 budget and the fiscal impact is the expenditures from last year at 5,619 N7 correct and uh so at this point I'm going to turn it over to Peter Gil our parks and planning and development coordinator and accompanying him is Lane parter uh our our

Park design and development manager and Neil Shaner the chair of the Greenways committee so good morning Council mayor and members of the public uh my name is Peter Gil uh thank you for taking the time to hear about the Greenways program uh every year we provide this annual report uh 2023 was a great year for Greenways um and we are going to highlight some of those most significant accomplishments uh today as representative Williams mentioned um we have Neil Shaner the chair of the Greenways advisory committee he is going to um go through the committee accomplishments in 2023 I will come back and talk about some of the budget items and some of the projects that were completed and lay will wrap us up with um the 2024 uh projects thank you thank you Peter and good morning Council mayor and everyone in the public as Peter said I'm Neil Shaner I'm the chair of the Greenways advisory committee this is my third and final year for our bylaws to be the chair and I'm excited to see what 2024 brings to us listed above are all the members of the GAC all volunteer they've been on the committee for a while and they're very much enjoying it it's great to see how much fun they have with Greenway and also their longevity on the committee is giving us some some good experience throughout the years and it's leading I think to some exciting results in general the GAC is about giving guidance to the city on how to spend Greenways Levy funds 2023 was a pretty big and exciting year for us uh we

went through many exciting projects internally and saw some Great accomplishments I would just like to highlight a few of these so uh previously there was a Greenway Bible that was essentially a three- ring binder that had all the notes from all the Decades of all the Greenways levies and it listed out which properties of Interest the Greenways committee was interested in potentially pursuing should they become available that being in a paper format it did not really Fe fit into the 2020s so we worked on creating a properties of Interest map that is all online that highlights under the curtain of executive uh privilege which properties are of interest to Greenways to accomplish its goals that are all listed out in the Strategic plan that this Council passed in December of 22 so that strategic plan is The Guiding Light for everything we do but this is enabling us this properties images map to move more quickly in a real estate market that needs more speed so particularly highin uh properties have uh kind of given the green flag already to start the due diligence process although there's still the the checks and balances through every committee and then eventually to this Council we also worked on updating the Pro Plan uh through an amendment to highlight Trails so as development has increased throughout Bellingham and certain areas have changed maybe as some alignments of trails we wanted to make sure that we were capturing the best possible connections for the future so that

when a developer comes to a property that has a designated Trail per the Pro Plan they know that they need to accommodate that need in particular we worked with the sish neighborhood association who went out and mapped the sish crest completely on their own and presented to us a lot of uh trails that were there some that they recommended for decommissioning so some kind of small social trails to kind of realign which ones on the crest are the best for the public and that little snippet up there on the left is kind of highlighting which trails from The Old Pro Plan were removed and then updated throughout that process we also worked on a Greenway story map although Peter Gill can take a lot of credit for this to better informed the public about Greenways there's been a lot of population increase in Bellingham but also that you know just more people in general and that also means they've been here for a less amount of time so Greenways might not ring a bell for people who have been here for less than seven years which is a lot of us including me we updated our bylaws so that they actually align with the Bellingham Municipal Code they hadn't for about 10 years that was pretty quick uh we assisted in interviews for the new parks Greenways project manager and we switched to hybrid meetings which was kind of surprising to me that that happened just 12 months ago but that in addition to just allowing us to be in person and the greater conversation you can have when you're in person

it also has opened us up to another Avenue for Public Access which in the past few months is we were becoming very much more popular I should say it's great can't talk about 2023 especially I can't talk about 2023 for Greenways without mentioning the passage of the Greenways 5 Levy very exciting passage uh in the dut chart uh there's a general breakdown of the anticipated Greenways by Revenue which would be begin to come in this year year we'll be going through more details of all the revenue and budgetary items I also want to highlight so we're continuing the program for Greenways but the Greenways 5 Levy particularly highlighted Equity Urban trees and climate resiliency as we look into 2024 committee is looking to be less reactive to what comes in the door which particularly happens with property Acquisitions and more proactive so we've formed a number of subcommittees to work on specific projects and better Define things particularly in regards to Greenways 5 so we're looking at specifically at Trail connections and wave finding the Pro Plan kind of list kind of shows with a fat cray where we want some Trails but to sharpen that cray or turn it into a pencil we want to make sure that we're really choosing which connections are most appropriate and looking at it a little more detail there's also a number of neighborhood connections smaller ones may be an unimproved rways that the community wants that might be missed or something so we're we're seeking out those connections

and we're making sure people know about them by updating maps and maybe putting together a sign package outside defining climate resiliency so what does that mean for Greenways and the parks department certainly there is a lens of climate resiliency throughout the decisions that this Council makes and that the city makes but what can Greenways do for the city and for our communities in regards to climate change so just defining that and coming up with solid actions we've also been talking with obviously the climate folk within the city similarly defining equity in terms of Greenways all decisions within the city have an equity lens but what does that mean for Greenways the Pro Plan generally lists it out in terms of number of people in distance to an asset so how many minutes it takes you to walk to a trail or a park but there are probably other metrics we can use so we're researching that these probably don't have to be a groundbreaking ideas other communities throughout the United States have already determined these kind of things but we're beginning to research that so that eventually when the prop plan is updated after the comp plan is updated all those metrics can be captured Community Gardens King Mountain neighborhood association has worked with us and they they're going to have a community garden opening up in just a few months or so maybe uh within Van Wick Park and so we wanted to determine do other communities want Community Gard other neighborhoods and usually

with that you need to have a good champion and good sense of ownership so we're going to better Define where we could put Community Gardens and maybe survey uh neighborhood associations to determine if there is any interest and last in alignment with the urban forestry management plan that is forthcoming we are looking at Street tree needs in general so how to to go about determining where trees could be uh placed we're focusing on the public RightWay right now but what are the metrics for determining what location is good or bad for a tree because we see Greenways as a primary Avenue for implementing the goals of the urban forestry management with that I will hand it back to Peter thank you Neil I can't say how fortunate we are to have such a committed committee members um that work on Greenways they do a lot for us um so so now I want to break into uh the different projects uh for 2023 um as usual under uh the levy 4 we had four buckets of spending one on Acquisitions property Acquisitions another one on development projects and a third on maintenance and so I'll go through kind of what we did last year based on those three um categories so in 2023 we bought six different uh properties throughout the city uh totaling 38 acres so starting on the north side of town uh you've got Meridian Street going basically right through the middle of the screen there uh in Orange next to Cordata Park we have the horn property is about 12 acres and that'll help us connect uh the people uh

near cordada all the way to Meridian by foot work is underway on that trail and um the second property we about 5 Acres uh down south on East Baker view uh Road uh near the corner of James and Baker view help with the trail as well and then going south um this is Lake padon at the bottom of the screen there's four properties in this area uh there's a 3 2 acre property um near the top of samish Crest there is the 16.5 Acres that will be um helping us fill the gap between the North samish Crest open space and the South samish Crest open space and one day get the trail connect all the way down to Lake padon and then uh we bought a couple of small properties uh near padon Gorge kind of in between the other Park ownership down there so this is the spending summary for Acquisitions on the left side of the screen is just what we spent in 2023 on the right hand side is the life of the levy for Levy 4 what we've spent on Acquisitions so in 2023 we budgeted 2.5 million and I'm going to round all these numbers so you don't have to hear me do a bunch of numbers but 2.5 million is what we budgeted and we spent uh almost 2.5 million so we have a balance of 21,000 in 2023 so shifting now to development it's the second category of Greenway spending we had um the bridge at a Royal Park was was built in 2023 you'll see that picture right under the green W development title had the work a lot of planning or um design work uh on Boulevard Park um we have a beach enhancement project in between

the current um overwater walkway and woods coffee and so a lot of work is being done to get that ready to go um bottom leftand corner is sunset Pond we have a project to connect and create a trail all the way around Sunset Pond um and so that is in permitting now top left is is 100 Acre Wood and we have been working on developing the trails in there improving those trails and doing restoration work and decommissioning trails and that work is already underway there's already some new signage up um and then at the very top is the the pier at little Squalicum Park hope to get more uh into that this Summer that was development spending we budgeted 2.7 million we spent 1.3 million we have a pretty significant balance in the development side but all of that is budgeted and you'll see that on a couple slides here coming up and the third pot of money goes towards maintenance um and last year most of most of the maintenance stuff goes towards Staffing people to get the trails and the grounds and the facilities maintained so we had 12 people funded through Greenways on Trails grounds and Facilities we had a fully staffed forestry group uh so four people on forestry we had four in the stewardship group and then we had two americore staff uh and the stewardship program the first year of the stewardship program was 2023 so we had all of the first time that all of these uh duties were uh grouped under stewardship so we maintained the three Community Gardens that we have uh Wetland

mitigation about five acres dispersed all throughout the count or city is um is doing Wetland mitigation we had Park ambassadors out walking the trails and managing the parks and then of course the volunteer program and the volunteer program many people don't know but this started with Greenways in 1990 um and it is a very successful program our community uh is amazing they come out for all these work parties last year we had 5,500 members of the public that participated in our community work parties so on the maintenance spending side last year we had about 1.7 million that we that we budgeted for maintenance and we spent 1 6 million then pulling it all together this is over the life of uh Levy 4 and this is the spending so if you take the total revenue of 45 million that includes the 37 million that was bought brought in under the levy 4 Tax Plus $8 million from Levy 3 that rolled over a balance we get 45 million um that doesn't include approximately $3 million that was brought in uh that was leveraged with Greenways funds from Grants from state grants as well so that that's not included in this $45 Million number but that's kind of the total that we were working with um since 2017 and if you look at the line chart um we've got the three different categor Acquisitions maintenance and development so Acquisitions is the green line kind of see how that is opportunistic in 2018 we acquired the uh galberth easement as well as um be Creek open space um 2020 we acquired nearly 30

Acres on East Baker view that's Baker viiew park and then 2022 we purchased about eight properties and then last year uh the six properties that I that I went through so a total of $1.3 million on Acquisitions under Levy 4 uh under maintenance uh that is fairly um consistent um but it ranges from about 1.5 million a year to 1.2 million and so we've spent 9.1 million or 27% of the full Levi for on that then on development uh 2018 we built the Waypoint park down on the waterfront with Greenways funds 2019 and 20 we're funding cordada phase one and then uh as development increased in Bellingham we got additional Park impact fees and we shifted much of the development to the park impact fees and so that uh went down over time so total on development spent was 12.9 million or 39% total uh under Levy 4 is 33.3 million okay that was a lot of numbers and I got just a few more um so existing balance under Levy 4 is 12.5 million uh we're projected revenue for next year under Levy 5 which will be the first year for that is 9.3 million and that will be divided up according to the pie chart that Neil showed earlier um but one additional category addition to what was under Levy 4 is climate resiliency where 15% of uh the Project funding will go towards climate actions um and we have 12.9 million budgeted for next year so with that I will turn it over to this year and Beyond Lane thank you so I'm going to talk a little bit about our current work plan for 2024 what's in our adopted budget

and work plan um looking again at those three categories acquisition development and maintenance so we have some exciting acquisition projects in the work I'm not going to cover them here um in this session But continuing to purchase properties that protect contiguous um Trail corridors habitat corridors um canopy cover in line with the adopted Greenways strategic plan and Pro Plan goals and objectives um looking at projects that are in our current work plan in that development piece of the pie um we have a lot of projects that were started in either 2022 23 that rolled over and we're still um finishing up design or going to bid or construction and then we also have additional projects that were in the budget to begin in 2024 so I'm going to highlight just a few of these Greenways funded projects um we are finishing up design to get the pier at little squal Park open to the public getting new decking railing solar lighting um out there so that we can have the public accessing this exciting new um Waterfront amenity we're working on restoring hydrologic connections at the 100 Acre Wood I'm really getting Trails out of Highly um impacted critical areas uh directing folks to more appropriate places so that the Ecology of the 100 Acre Wood can be preserved and protected We are continuing the Boulevard Park Shoreline uh Improvement project that Peter touched on um doing some beach enhancement habitat enhancement uh pulling the trail back to plan for sea level rise and impacts

continuing to work uh closely with the cleanup on Phase One Design of the new Waterfront uh 17 acre Park Salish Landing um your you're seeing a nice aerial photo of a new community garden that's coming online this spring at uh Van Wick Park so this will be the I think we decided on King Mountain King Mountain community garden um so that's almost ready to open we have Greenways funding committed towards continuing that expansion and Improvement of our existing Community Gardens whether that's supplies materials fencing uh new garden plots we'll be doing some Sport Court repair at Frey Haren Park um and then we have some exciting projects happening at Woodstock Farm to really make sure that we are doing uh a good job of protecting our cultural resources at Woodstock farm so getting some fencing in and working on a comprehensive uh cultural resources management plan for Woodstock Farm we have another small foot Bridge we'll be replacing at a royal park in addition to the larger bridge that you saw we're splitting uh some work at the blell Donovan Community Building between green wise funding and reate funding so working on Energy Efficiency upgrades as well as a new roof on the community building we'll be doing some work at Maritime Heritage Park to um pull some Trails out that are eroding into the creek uh rehabilitate the boardwalk along the creek and then an exciting new project that kicked off recently um is the at the be Creek open space it's 100 acres of beautiful open

space we own um up off Northwest road so looking at getting some access points in so people can use um some trails that are existing that we're going to be resurfacing out there so overall Peter mentioned we have that um almost s or 8 million in the development bucket that's left over but um as he noted there's 7.1 of that that's budgeted so that's where all that development budget comes from and I do just want to highlight we have also been um really fortunate to Levy these green wise funds for additional Grant resources so with the State Recreation and conservation off office we have a $500,000 grant for Boulevard Park a million doll grant for Sunset Pond loop trail as well as around 360,000 to help with that the acquisition in 2020 of Baker view neighborhood park um looking at maintenance for the current work plan and um forward we're continuing to fund staff for Trails grounds facilities uh and Parks so we can take care of our existing resources as population grows as we see use increase looking at that Equitable maintenance throughout the city and then we're also looking at how we can use Greenways for additional staff to really address some of the um backlog of facilities maintenance um growing need to respond to Graffiti and vandalism doing a good job of managing our Urban forests um working lock step with the upcoming urban forestry management plan recommendations a lot of that um will be implemented through Parks so looking at how how Greenways can be used to help

implement the recommendations from that plan and then really looking at doing a better job of um bringing some of the uh some more supervision into our maintenance and Operations Division they have pretty um large amounts of staff that are being supervised by a few people so really doing a better job of making those more manageable ratios of supervision to staff um so this is something we added after our presentation to greenway's advisory committee and parkboard um we got some feedback that it was really nice to be able to picture how Greenways fits into the larger parks department budget so what you're seeing here is our entire Parks and Recreation Department budget for the current um adopted budget so we're just right around 77 million for the whole department so you're seeing that Greenways piece of the parks department um that's what's in the adopted budget so that's just about 29% of the current parks department budget is being funed through Greenways right now um I wanted to wrap up with just a couple other projects we're working on that are not funded through Greenways but just want to make sure you're where they're in our work plan um so some of these exciting projects we are almost ready to open phase two of Cordata Park working through some final punch list items it's going to be really exciting a brand new Pavilion that is beautiful new pickle ball courts basketball courts and some more trails and connect ctions to neighborhoods to the South uh we're going to be

replacing two playgrounds in the next year to two years one at blell Donovan community park and then Rock Hill Park in the York neighborhood so excited um to work with both those neighborhoods to uh improve those playgrounds activate the park um you're seeing on the bottom left we're in the last phase of design for the new 7 acre Park in the Birchwood neighborhood uh story Brook Park phase one development which will be really exciting it's a beautiful site on the corner of maplehood and McLoud so we'll be starting construction in 2025 um along with that we have some refunded projects um I mentioned the electrical and storm water upgrades at blell Donovan we're working on electrical and mechanical upgrades to the Sports plex some improvements to the lake pad and bath house sewer and shower Renovations a new um AIS cleaning station some changing room work at Ary Hannah um and then we'll continue to work on a feasibility report at the 30 acre Baker viiew neighborhood park to figure out how to um combine affordable housing with a new park uh Park design so really excited to be working with a consultant team and um the planning and Community Development Department to figure out how we can both uh develop that site so those are some of the exciting other projects with Park impact fees real estate excise tax uh general fund um and as Peter mentioned this entire presentation gets posted to the green wise program website online so if you ever want to go back and reference this or

years past um this will be posted there but with that I will wrap up and we're happy to answer any questions that you all may have thank you all right thank you very much everybody um are there any questions or comments from the committee members Jason how about the other council members that here seeing none I I want want to extend my thanks and gratitude to the presenters here today because as I've served on this committee on these committees with them it that it's been a very Dynamic process getting to where we are right now and it's something that I see as very unique and very um very reflective of the values of our community so thank you very much everybody and seeing no further comments um this was for end affirmation and discussion only so thank you very much and the meeting is adjourned the C the committee meeting thank you council member Williams uh our next meeting scheduled is for this afternoon at 1: p.m.